Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Thursday

The Spectator

ID cards are Labour’s alibi for its failure

Questions of identity permeate our politics. What is it to be English, to be British? The Prime Minister sought to reclaim patriotism for the left in his conference speech, but his invocation of football stadium flag-waving and Oasis swagger was a remix of Britpop themes which were tinnily jarring two decades ago and beyond tired today. It was karaoke Cool Britannia. A much more thoughtful consideration of what modern patriotism requires, and where the dangers in an exclusively ethnic approach to national loyalty lie, came from the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood. In both her conference speech and her comments at a fringe meeting with The Spectator, Mahmood navigated questions of

Wednesday

Lucy Dunn

PPE firm linked to Baroness Mone ordered to pay £122 million

Today the High Court ordered a company linked to ex-Tory peer Baroness Mone to pay £122 million to the Department of Health for breaching an NHS contract during the pandemic. The company – PPE Medpro – was set up by a group led by the peer’s husband Doug Barrowman. During the pandemic, Mone recommended the company to the government through the ‘VIP lane’ on the same day it was incorporated – fast-tracking it to the top of a priority list for personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts. While the then-Conservative government had flagged concerns with the company at the time – namely over its recent incorporation in 2020 and the conflict

Patrick Gibbons

Labour's deputy divisions: insider vs outsider?

14 min listen

Tim Shipman and Claire Ainsley from the Progressive Policy Institute join Patrick Gibbons to reflect on Labour’s party conference as it draws to a close in Liverpool. This conference has been received positively for Labour but, on the final day, a hustings for the deputy leadership demonstrated that divides remain under the surface. Is Lucy Powell versus Bridget Phillipson a case of left versus right in the party, or is it more about the outsider versus the insider? And, as a leading political commentator declares Labour to now be the ‘party of the professional middle class’, what does the contest tell us about who Labour needs to appeal to? Produced

The Spectator

Speaker Series: An evening with Jeffrey Archer

Watch Spectator editor Michael Gove in conversation with international bestselling author Jeffrey Archer, in a livestream exclusively for Spectator subscribers. From politics to a publishing career in which he has sold more than 300 million books worldwide, Lord Archer will reflect on the stories that have captivated millions. We will also celebrate the launch of his latest thriller, End Game, and offer audiences an exclusive glimpse into the gripping finale of the William Warwick series. *Please note this is a subscriber-only exclusive. If you would like to sign up and get your first 3 months for just £3, subscribe today.

Sam Richards

Ed Miliband is condemning us to high energy prices

Ed Miliband is wrong. The greatest threat to climate action is not right wing billionaires buying up TV stations, as he said ahead of his conference speech today. It is expensive electricity.  Instead of tackling Britain’s world beating energy costs, Miliband used his speech to announce a ban on fracking – an empty gesture to block himself from something he had no intention of doing in the first place. Britain does need more clean energy, but not at any price The unfortunate reality is that Miliband’s sprint to get fossil fuels off the grid by 2030 will lock us into higher electricity prices and make it harder to decarbonise. Underpinning our future

Matthew Lynn

Ed Miliband can't ban fracking forever

He wasn’t able to announce the £300 off household energy bills that was promised during the election campaign. Nor could he unveil any massive new solar farms or wind turbines. Still, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband did have one message to cheer the party faithful in his conference speech today: he is going to ban shale oil and gas for all time. ‘Let’s ban fracking and send the frackers packing,’ he thundered. But can Miliband really do that and outlaw fracking forever? Only a fool would pretend that he can. Right now, there is a moratorium on extracting shale oil and gas in the UK, which could,

Stephen Pollard

Is Keir Starmer calling Reform voters racist?

Back in the day – in 1992 – the think tank I worked for commissioned a series of focus groups of swing voters in marginal seats. They had all voted Conservative in that year’s election, having toyed with and then deciding not to vote Labour. I thought of those voters yesterday, when the Prime Minister decided to tell potential Reform voters that they’re a bunch of racists. (I know he didn’t put it like that, and that he says he doesn’t think that, but bear with me.) One constant of those 1992 focus groups was the popularity of the Lib Dems’ manifesto idea of ‘a penny on income tax for

Steerpike

Every time Farage was brought up at Labour conference

Whisper it, but there’s a name on everyone’s lips at Labour conference. A man who clearly seems to be going places – if we look at the sheer number of times he’s been cited in Liverpool. Who is this whippersnapper? A young socialist exciting the grassroots? A rising cabinet star? Errr, not exactly: it’s Nigel Farage, aged 61 and a half. The Reform leader may not be in Liverpool but it’s been impossible to escape his name in recent days, with Starmer setting the hares running by labelling Farage’s polices ‘racist’ and questioning his patriotism. Which is why Mr S was so surprised to hear David Lammy explain yesterday that he

Steerpike

Reform's hypocrisy over Labour rhetoric

All is not well in Reform HQ. On Tuesday, Nigel Farage broadcast a statement where he claimed that Sir Keir Starmer’s rhetoric – dubbing Reform’s plans to scrap indefinite leave to remain ‘racist’ – risked inciting violence against his party’s activists and candidates. This morning, the party’s head of policy Zia Yusuf took to the airwaves to fume: By all means take issue with the policy… But using language like ‘battle’… ‘enemy’… ‘threat’… in a world of social media… we’re all for free speech but no matter how much you want to uphold free speech, incitement of violence… there is nothing to excuse that. The party has used the recent

Gavin Mortimer

When will David Lammy learn that Nazi smears don’t work?

Is the Third Reich living rent-free in David Lammy’s head? Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister has accused Donald Trump of being a ‘neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath’, likened the Tory European Research Group to Hitler’s National Socialists – and now he has claimed that Reform leader Nigel Farage ‘flirted’ with the Hitler Youth as a youngster. ‘I will leave it for the public to come to their own judgements about someone who once flirted with Hitler Youth when he was younger,’ Lammy said of Farage. Who knew Reform’s leader – born in 1964 – had been around in 1930s Germany? In response to Lammy’s latest Nazi sighting, a Reform source told the BBC: ‘It’s disgusting

Ross Clark

Why has Starmer dropped Blair's university target?

Last week, Keir Starner swallowed Tony Blair’s argument for ID cards and announced that all we going to be forced to have them if we want a job, just as the former prime minister has been advocating for years. This week, however, the current PM has poured scorn on one of his predecessor’s cherished policies, and ditched Blair’s target for getting 50 per cent of young adults into higher education. Instead, Starmer yet again invoked his tool-making dad to argue that the target was wrong. It is to be replaced, he said, with a target of getting 75 per cent of young people into either university or on to a

Chas Newkey-Burden

The thought of Lucy Letby's innocence is too appalling to bear

Lucy Letby’s barrister says she has ‘new hope’, as he prepares to submit 1,000 pages of fresh evidence that he believes will ‘clear her name’. In an ideal justice system, evidence that proves an inmate’s innocence would of course lead to their release, but we don’t have an ideal justice system, as I learned as a student. During my late teens and early twenties, I spent a lot of time in maximum security prisons – thankfully, only as a visitor. My secondary school was run by a secretive cult which made me feel sad and trapped. Months before I left, I read Error of Judgement, Chris Mullin’s book about the case

Gareth Roberts

Labour conference is more deluded than a Doctor Who convention

The Labour conference, given the government’s current levels of popularity – somewhere about the same rung occupied by, say, galloping dysentery or Huw Edwards – was always going to be a macabre spectacle. But there’s an aspect to this Grand Guignol that I wasn’t expecting; the unpleasant sight of various members of the cabinet vying, in their addresses, to show who can wave the flag with the greatest gusto. We’ve had Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper railing against Reform, describing them as ‘plastic patriots’ We’ve had Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper railing against Reform, describing them as ‘plastic patriots’. Housing Secretary Steve Reed is trying to reinvent himself as a likely lad,

Elvira Bary

Putin's dads' and lags' army is struggling

The news that Vladimir Putin is pushing for 135,000 new young recruits in ‘the biggest autumn conscription’ for nearly ten years comes as no surprise. Recently, the Russian leader’s war-machine has been scraping the bottom of the barrel: convicts freed from prison, men in their sixties, debt-ridden farmers, factory workers pulled straight off the line…and foreigners who don’t even speak Russian. The Russian leader’s war-machine has been scraping the bottom of the barrel When Putin began his ‘special military operation’ in February 2022, he expected the entire nation to rally in support of his war. But reality hit hard: plunging approval ratings, economic collapse, and a mass exodus. When partial

Michael Gove

Is Labour ‘racist’ too? Plus Trump’s Gaza gamble & Rowling vs Watson

48 min listen

This week, Michael and Maddie report from the Labour party conference in Liverpool and unpick Keir Starmer’s big speech. Was his attempt to reclaim patriotism for Labour a genuine statement of values – or a clumsy exercise in stereotypes about steelworkers, chip shops and football nostalgia? And why does Labour’s attack line on Nigel Farage risk sounding like political ‘nuclear warfare’ that could backfire outside the conference hall? And what about the Tories? With Labour bringing the fight to the Reform party, where does this leave Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives ahead of their conference later this week? They then turn to Donald Trump’s extraordinary new Middle East peace initiative.

Tuesday

Tim Shipman

Keir Starmer gave the speech of his life at Labour conference

The consensus before Keir Starmer’s speech to the Labour party conference was that he needed to make ‘the speech of his life’. He did so. It was not the greatest conference speech I’ve seen, far from it, but it was the best Starmer has made and not because it was shot through with content. However, it had an argument, it laid out a narrative and some dividing lines for British politics over the next four years and it went much further than before to tell us both what Starmer is for and what he is against. In that sense it was an unlikely triumph, popular in the hall and one

Madeline Grant

Starmer's big speech was nothing but stale, reheated guff

‘Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel’. So wrote Dr Johnson. Sadly for the good Doctor he was an avowed Tory and so, according to the rules of Labour conference, a de facto evil and probably racist monster. Alas, if only the Labour party had heeded the great moralist’s words, we might have avoided the clatteringly embarrassing display that was the Prime Minister’s speech today. As delegates arrived they were handed British, Welsh and Scottish flags. Even a few St George’s flags were fluttering – look away now, Emily Thornberry! Alas, no Northern Irish ones; presumably Lord Hermer thinks they’re against international law. No. 10 had been briefing the press

Stephen Daisley

Do Palestinians want Hamas gone?

Discussion of Donald Trump’s peace proposal for Gaza revolves around one question: who is for it and who is against it? Israel is for it, though mostly because it is backed into a corner and has no choice. The Arab states are for it, which is to be expected since they wrote it. The European Union is for it, which is to be expected since the Arabs are for it. Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthis are against it, and Hamas is expected to be too. I don’t know what the UK government has said and, in concert with the rest of the world, I don’t really care. This is

Isabel Hardman

What does Reeves want from businesses?

Is Labour serious about welfare reform? It hasn’t given that impression over the past year, given the flagship welfare reform bill ended up being gutted, largely because the Treasury had decided to use it as a vehicle for a load of blunt cuts, rather than the real – and very costly – business of wholesale benefits and back-to-work reforms. But the huge benefits bill and high levels of economic inactivity means the problem can’t be ignored, and so Rachel Reeves had another go at the back-to-work bit this week at Labour conference. The problem with the Chancellor’s plans, as we discussed at a Spectator/IPPR fringe meeting today, is that they

Oscar Edmondson

Starmer delivers 'the speech of his life'

20 min listen

We have just heard the Prime Minister’s headline speech at Labour Party Conference and – whisper it quietly – that might have been Keir Starmer’s best yet. As briefed out beforehand it was a patriotic address, with lots of flag waving in the room as he presented his version of patriotism in contrast to a Nigel Farage who is guilty of talking Britain down. It was miles better than the dreariness of last year and instead struck a chord of hope against the broken Britain narrative. Even though there was little of actual substance on the economy and more platitudes about ‘smashing the gangs’, this did seem like a landmark