Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Druin Burch

The yearly flu crisis is entirely avoidable

Each winter our NHS is struck by an ‘unprecedented’ number of cases of seasonal illness. Politicians talk gravely of the hard work done by our doctors and nurses, and ask the public to do what they can to help. Newspapers and scientists describe the influx of cases in meteorological terms – a ‘surge’, a ‘wave’, perhaps a ‘viral maelstrom’ – and the bugs themselves, which are biologically ordinary, are given glamorous names. This year, influenza A strain H3N2 became ‘superflu’. We’re told the strain on the NHS this winter is unparalleled, but it’s really only slightly worse than last year. For the three decades I’ve worked in British hospitals, each

Ross Clark

Did Britain need to rejoin Erasmus?

Is the government engaged in a campaign by stealth to return the UK to membership of the EU? It couldn’t make a better job of it if it was trying. This morning comes the news that Britain is to rejoin the Erasmus scheme, which offers students the opportunity to engage in an exchange with other European universities. The scheme was discontinued when Britain left the EU, but it will now be reintroduced for the 2027/28 academic year, when the government says that 100,000 students could benefit. It is easy to make a case for a scheme that gives students chance to study abroad – the ‘travel broadens the mind’ argument.

James Heale

Keir Starmer's union woes just got worse

During the dying days of Rishi Sunak’s regime, Labour politicians liked to encourage the idea that a change of government would improve industrial relations. Surely, their argument went, a party of labour is better placed to understand, negotiate and resolve questions of labour? But 18 months on, that notion is being tested to breaking point. Currently, it is the British Medical Association (BMA) which seems stubbornly determined to heap humiliation on Wes Streeting, with the Health Secretary unable to resolve the 33-month stand off over pay for resident doctors. Yet such are the government’s woes that the BMA’s intransigence is not the biggest union-related story currently troubling Downing Street. This

Andrew Tettenborn

The Church of England's gay marriage row will rumble on

The Church of England’s House of Bishops met to discuss the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) project yesterday: that is, the project to change the rules about blessings of single-sex relationships so as to allow stand-alone services (such blessings being currently permitted only as an incidental part of some other service) and, additionally, to eventually open the door to priests being able to enter into single-sex civil unions.  At yesterday’s meeting the bishops, as expected – although much to the fury of LGBT campaigners – confirmed their decision made in October to mothball the project. Though their precise formal statement has been left until after Christmas, it is now

Stephen Daisley

Why is the Scottish government so afraid of a grooming gangs inquiry?

The Scottish parliament has voted in favour of allowing government ministers to mislead it. That is the effect of a vote at Holyrood yesterday afternoon. The Scottish parliament is a failed institution that lurches between national irrelevance and terrible law-making The background is this: the SNP-run Scottish government is doing everything in its power to avoid holding a Scotland-wide inquiry into child grooming gangs, both by pivoting to the pre-existing but scope-limited Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry and by running a strategic review group to coordinate a re-examination by several institutions (Police Scotland, the NHS, etc) of their handling of past allegations. Keen to force the Scottish government’s hand, in September

Ben Miller

Can Rachel Reeves take credit for falling inflation?

For the second month in a row, inflation has fallen. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that last month the Consumer Price Index fell to 3.2 per cent from 3.6 per cent in October. November’s reduction is the largest since September 2024. For the government, this is very good news. High inflation over the past six months has intensified pressure on Labour to tackle the cost-of-living crisis. This was clearly reflected in last month’s Autumn Budget, with Rachel Reeves announcing freezes to rail fares and fuel duty, as well as measures to lower household energy bills. If inflation continues to decline at this rate, the Chancellor will

Rory Hanrahan

It's no surprise that the Bondi Beach attackers are related

The sun had barely set over Sydney’s Bondi Beach, when horror unfolded at the Hanukkah celebration. A father and son, armed with licensed firearms, opened fire on a crowd of hundreds gathered for the Jewish holiday, killing at least 15 people and injuring more than 40 others. The perpetrators have been identified as Sajid Akram, 50, who was killed by police at the scene, and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram, who remains in a critical condition in hospital after being shot by police. The father-son dynamic here is no coincidence; it speaks to how hatred is often inherited The attack is Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in nearly three decades, a stark

Alexander Larman

The Brompton bicycle has had its day

Anyone who has had the misfortune to be in central London at rush hour will be familiar with an unlovely spectacle: that of a middle-aged man solemnly making a fool out of himself on an ungainly-looking bicycle that seems slightly too small for him. This mode of transportation is none other than the Brompton bicycle, once a status symbol for any upwardly mobile professional but now, increasingly and unsurprisingly, regarded as an object of ridicule. The recent news that the company’s sales are declining, for the third year in a row, will come as a surprise to few; it is more of a shock to realise that this strange, overpriced

Michael Gove

Bondi attack: understanding Islamism & the causes of anti-Semitism

50 min listen

Michael Gove and Madeline Grant confront the horror of the Bondi Beach massacre and ask why anti-Semitic violence now provokes despair rather than shock. As Jewish communities are once again targeted on holy days, they examine the roots of Islamist ideology and the failure of political leaders to name it. Why has anti-Semitism metastasised across the radical left, the Islamist world, and the far right – and why does the West seem so reluctant to grapple with its causes? Then, on the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, Michael and Maddie ask why Austen is endlessly repurposed, politicised and rewritten by modern adaptors? Was she an abolitionist, a moralist, or

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Ministers mull overhauling public inquiries

Do you have an issue you care about? You should probably be calling for a public inquiry into it, then. Public inquiries have become so popular in British politics that there are currently 25 running at the moment, and barely a week goes by without an MP calling for a new one at Prime Minister’s Questions. Last week MPs on the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee announced an inquiry into inquiries, which follows another inquiry into inquiries by the House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee last year. That inquiry was in part looking at whether the previous inquiry, held ten years before, had managed to have any lasting impact

Rory Sutherland

Why religious societies succeed – with Rory Sutherland

35 min listen

Advertising guru – and the Spectator’s Wiki Man columnist – Rory Sutherland joins Damian Thompson for this episode of Holy Smoke. In a wide ranging discussion, from Sigmund Freud and Max Weber to Quakers and Mormons, they discuss how some religious communities seem to be predisposed to success by virtue of their beliefs. How do spiritual choices affect consumer choices? Between Android and Apple, which is more Protestant and which is more Catholic? And what can modern Churches learn from Capitalism? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Benedict Rogers

Keir Starmer must not forget Jimmy Lai

The conviction of 78 year-old British citizen, Hong Kong entrepreneur and pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai yesterday on two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign powers and one charge of conspiracy to publish seditious publications is one of the great travesties of our time. It was yet another dark day for Hong Kong and a direct assault on the values of freedom, human rights and the rule of law. It was not, however, a surprise. Ever since Lai was arrested and jailed five years ago on multiple other trumped-up charges, and ever since his trial under Hong Kong’s draconian national security law began two years ago, the verdict has been

Paul Goodman

Why Britain needs to wake up to extremism

16 min listen

As the world reacts to the attacks on Bondi Beach in Australia, Conservative peer Paul Goodman joins Tim Shipman and James Heale to discuss the failure of successive British governments to properly tackle extremism – especially Islamist extremism – over the past two decades. In the post ‘War On Terror’ era, there was a reluctance by some to discuss the problem openly as it got tied up in other polarising topics like immigration. Though that reluctance appears to be fading, Paul argues that there is a ‘communalist air of voting’ in British politics now, and he warns of the dangers that face British politics if fragmentation becomes entrenched in party

Mark Galeotti

Are we really preparing for war with Russia?

Are we really on the cusp of a real, shooting war with Russia? If you believe some of the rhetoric, it would seem so – but does anyone really think it? The war drums are certainly beating. Last night, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, called for ‘our defence and resilience [to be] a higher national priority for all of us. An “all-in” mentality’ because ‘the situation is more dangerous than I have known during my career’. Armed Forces minister Al Carns warned more picturesquely that ‘the shadow of war is knocking on Europe’s door once more’. Meanwhile, Mark Rutte, the reliably alarmist secretary-general

Mick Davis

Diaspora Jews are no longer free

Jews had gathered on Bondi Beach to celebrate the first night of Chanukah, the festival of light and freedom. Uniquely among Jewish festivals, Chanukah is celebrated in public. Generations of families came to light candles on Sydney’s famous coastline and say: we belong here too. And then two gunmen opened fire: 15 people murdered; 40 wounded. The victims include London born Rabbi Eli Schlanger and Alex Kleytman, who survived the Holocaust but, 80 years later was murdered for being a Jew. On Bondi Beach, Jews celebrating that freedom were attacked and murdered. This was not ‘senseless violence’ – the very phrase stupefies us into passivity, unable to name, identify and

Michael Simmons

Rachel Reeves can’t escape blame for rising unemployment

Unemployment has risen again. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the UK’s unemployment rate rose to 5.1 per cent in October – the highest joblessness rate since 2021. Payrolled employment fell too by 38,000 in a single month, meaning 187,000 jobs have now been lost since last November, in a blow to Rachel Reeves’s bizarre claim that her tax-raising measures are not harming employment.  Vacancies fell too after having crept up slightly in the previous month’s figures – suggesting we may not be at the bottom of this jobs slump yet. Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics at the ONS said, ‘the fall in payroll numbers

Liz Walsh

Ireland's Jews have never felt lonelier

The massacre of Jews on Bondi Beach was the tragic, yet inevitable, result of rising Jew hatred throughout the western world, including in Ireland. Ireland’s Chief Rabbi, Yoni Weider, spoke of the festering anti-Semitism targeted at Ireland’s Jewish community, as the Taoiseach Micheál Martin and senior ministers fell over themselves to proclaim support for Irish Jews. Their support in the wake of the Bondi Beach atrocity rings somewhat hollow. For two years, they effectively acted as spectators as, week after week, protesters took over Dublin’s streets expressing support for the Intifada. This hatred has spilled over into acts of violence and abuse against Ireland’s Jews, as a yet unpublished report shows. Just imagine

Lawrence Goldman

The Reith lectures are a new low in BBC history

This year’s Reith lecturer is the historian and activist Rutger Bregman. Given the way things work in the BBC, it comes as no surprise that a Dutchman, however charismatic, has been chosen to lecture us on modern British history. There are dozens of extremely well-qualified historians in British universities who could have spoken rather more insightfully. Given the way things work in the BBC, it comes as no surprise that a Dutchman has been chosen to lecture us on modern British history It isn’t surprising either that in Bregman’s first lecture on ‘Moral Revolution’ he should have declared himself to be a social democrat. The BBC simply cannot understand real

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Where is the violence against women and girls strategy?

There was a revealing moment in today’s Liaison Committee session with Keir Starmer where the Prime Minister was asked about violence against women and girls. The government’s VAWG strategy is ‘due’ this week – in fact, it has been ‘due’ since the summer – and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood did the Sunday morning broadcast round heralding it yesterday. But when Home Affairs Committee chair Karen Bradley asked Starmer about the strategy itself, he still couldn’t say when it would actually be published. All he would say was that it would come out ‘as soon as possible’, adding: ‘I was in Downing Street when we brought together all the various bodies

James Heale

Starmer's liaison committee grilling revealed three things

Today’s liaison committee meeting was not one for the history books. It was a fairly lacklustre affair, with some of the questions asked being so technical that they bordered on the soporific. The likes of Helen Hayes and Bill Esterson sounded more like attendees at a conference panel than the respective chairs of the Education and Energy Security select committees. ‘In Demark, people grow up to be told that a “good Dane is a green Dane” – do we need something similar here?’ was one such lowlight from Esterson. Yet despite such underarm bowling, today’s session did teach us three things. The first is the gap between Starmer’s stated and revealed