Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

Dalibor Rohac

Nato membership for Ukraine would guarantee peace in Europe

Although Western support to Ukraine’s defence effort continues unabated, the honeymoon between Kyiv and even its staunchest allies is decidedly over. In a recent interview, President Zelensky’s advisor Mykhailo Podolyak, said that Ukraine sees Poland as its close friend ‘until the end of the war.’ Then, he added, ‘competition between the countries will begin.’ The quote, which was immediately seized upon by Russian propaganda as evidence of a fracture in Ukraine’s key relationship, came off the back of a spat between Warsaw and Kyiv over the ban on imports of Ukrainian grain to Poland. The policy is due to remain in place until at least mid-September, even as Ukraine’s maritime export infrastructure is

Philip Patrick

Is Alex Salmond dreaming of a comeback?

Alex Salmond is hosting a show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this week. It’s called ‘The Ayes Have It’ and features special guests such as old mucker David Davis, trusty lieutenant Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh and former Commons sparring partner John Bercow. SNP notables Kate Forbes and Fergus Ewing are popping up and there will be a guest appearance from former first minister Henry McLeish. Salmond, some suspect, might be dreaming of a political comeback – but is a return realistic? Salmond is probably the only independence supporting politician in Scotland who could mount a show like this without fear of outright ridicule. By contrast, former first minister and festival regular Nicola

Matthew Lynn

Sunak can’t blame landlords for not stopping illegal immigration

Small companies will face massive fines for not checking the papers of everyone they hire. Landlords will be put out of business for renting rooms to anyone without permission to be in the UK. With its Rwanda policy stalled, and with the numbers of illegal immigrants still at record highs, the government has a big new idea for trying to stem the numbers of people coming into the country. It will get small businesses to police the system. The only trouble is, that will damage the economy, and we will all suffer from that.  The government’s latest big idea for controlling immigration is to make it a lot harder for

Patrick O’Flynn

Suella’s Ascension Island plan doesn’t go far enough

There is nothing new under the sun. The idea of opening an asylum processing centre on the British overseas territory of Ascension Island has been knocking around for 20 years, but reports in today’s papers suggest it is suddenly all the rage again. Ministers are scrambling to find a ‘plan B’ in case the Supreme Court confirms the Appeal Court’s controversial view that the long-delayed Rwanda policy is unlawful. Way back in 2005, the Conservatives made a commitment in their manifesto that ‘asylum seekers’ applications will be processed outside Britain’. In the run up to that year’s election, Mark Reckless, then a researcher at Conservative Central Office, conducted a scoping

Steerpike

Could Corbyn derail Sadiq’s mayoral campaign?

Since the election date for next year’s London mayoral election was announced, Sadiq Khan has been putting on a show of confidence that his re-election is in the bag with his supporters pointing to polling that suggests Labour enjoy a 40-point lead in the capital. However, the Ulez expansion – which Keir Starmer blamed on his failure to take Uxbridge in last month’s by-election – has certainly put a spring in the step of his Tory mayoral opponent Susan Hall. Now could a fresh nightmare be heading his way? It appears the incumbent Mayor of London might have an unwelcome challenger at next year’s election in the shape of none

Steerpike

Inside the tussle over the Truss gongs

Another month, another resignation honours list. It was a row over Boris Johnson’s peerages that led to Rishi Sunak facing multiple by-elections last month – with one still to follow, should Nadine Dorries ever get round to quitting. But when it comes to Liz Truss’s honours list, the row is not so much about the vetting process that saw Dorries and others knocked off as who would want to be on it in the first place. Truss’s rumoured list of 14 appointees (an honour for every three and a half days of her 49-day premiership) is currently thought to be going through vetting. However, some in her team wanted their names

Robin Ashenden

Navalny exposes the truth about Putin’s ‘strong man’ image

The 19-year extended prison sentence handed out to Putin opponent Alexei Navalny on Friday may seem, to many, meaningless and the stuff of Kremlin fantasy. Putin himself is unlikely to be with us in 2042, and his regime will be history long before that. Nor do we know whether his successor will issue an amnesty to those Putin has singled out for persecution or take an even harder line with them. Rarely has the Russian future seemed so elastic – yet the conditions under which Navalny will be incarcerated now are anything but. Navalny’s ongoing, astonishing self-sacrifice is once again front page news and will continue to be so Sentenced

Sunday

Lisa Haseldine

Russian military chief lets slip the cost of invasion

When it comes to disclosing the true cost of the war in Ukraine for Russia, the Kremlin has rarely, if ever, chosen to be honest. But occasionally, things slip out. Last Wednesday, Mikhail Teplinsky, commander-in-chief of the Russian Airborne Forces, congratulated his troops on the anniversary of the division’s founding. He said how proud he was of the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine and reeled off the number of soldiers honoured as ‘Heroes of Russia’, as well as the 30,000 who had received other honours from the state. A video of his speech, below, was posted to the Russian ministry of defence’s social media channels and website. But the video

Steerpike

Five of the worst Gary Neville moments

Having previously been known simply as ‘that footy pundit off the telly’, over the past year Gary Neville seems to have been trying to manoeuvre his way into politics. The former Man Utd captain signed up as a Labour member, conducted a cringeworthy Q&A with Keir Starmer at last year’s party conference, and has consistently called for the Tories to be removed from office. But is Neville a true comrade of the workers’ movement? Mr S thought he’d do some digging into the right back’s past… Qatari hypocrisy Having been a consistent critic of the Qatari government, their human rights’ abuses and stance on gay rights, Neville then, er, became

Saturday

Steerpike

Rishi Sunak, the ‘Swiftie’

Taylor Swift mania has hit Los Angeles this weekend as the best-selling songstress takes her sold out Eras tour to the Sunny State. It means local residents are on high alert that there is a chance they cross paths with Swift. So spare a thought for the young woman who headed to an early morning Taylor Swift-themed spin class only to see security everywhere. In a video on TikTok, she explains that she had the ‘biggest heart attack of my life’: ‘my mind immediately goes “holy sh– Taylor Swift is about to be riding in my 7am Soul Cycle class”‘. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Rather than Swift, the ‘VIP’

Cindy Yu

Do chess players make for better politicians?

11 min listen

Rishi Sunak is apparently looking to expand the teaching of chess in schools, and to install chess sets in public parks, and will unveil the policy alongside a giant chessboard in the No. 10 garden. What is the Prime Minister thinking? And what does it say about Sunak’s idea of education?  Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, a former special adviser and Westminster chess hustler.

Euan McColm

Will this Scottish by-election bring down the SNP?

The first by-election in Scotland since the SNP’s change of leadership is a huge test for First Minister Humza Yousaf. If the nationalists lose the seat of Rutherglen and Hamilton West, made vacant when constituents recalled their MP Margaret Ferrier after she broke Covid rules, Yousaf will face difficult questions about his party’s direction of travel. As one nationalist activist puts it: ‘The last SNP MP got chucked out in disgrace and Humza’s ratings are still in the minuses, so who’d bet against us losing?’ Unlike his predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon — who dominated her party and enjoyed the support of the vast majority of its members — the current First

Leon Mangasarian

Wolves and the Greens: why Germans are flocking to the AfD

‘Ku Klux Klan Brandenburg’ was emblazoned across the black T-shirt on a guy in line behind me at the Total petrol station in Peitz, 90 minutes south of Berlin. I considered asking why he liked the KKK but thought better of it after noting his girth and the grimace he gave me. Popularity of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and neo-Nazi groups is surging in eastern Germany. The AfD is now the second strongest party in nationwide opinion polls after the opposition Christian Democrats and ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats. It is anti-immigrant, pro-Russian, anti-American and demands Germany quit the euro. The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence

Patrick O’Flynn

Rishi Sunak won’t regret giving up on liberal Conservatism

It will not come as much of a shock to learn that people who voted Conservative in 2019 generally think their chosen party is fairly useless these days. A new poll this week from YouGov has broken this down issue by issue – the results make chastening reading for any Tory MP who thinks the party has done a decent job in government over the past four years. The Tories have lost the approval of an outright majority of their 2019 voters on nearly every big political issue. Only 46 per cent of them now say the Conservatives are the best party on law and order, 44 per cent for

Steerpike

Why won’t Keir Mather apologise to Germaine Greer?

Labour’s newest and youngest MP, Keir Mather, is fresh out of Oxford – and on a path to the very top of his party. But the 25-year-old, who overturned a 20,000-vote Tory majority to win the Selby and Ainsty by-election last month, shares more than his first name with his party leader and boss, Keir Starmer. Starmer has spent some time getting himself into a muddle on a simple question: what is a woman? Now, it seems, ‘baby’ of the house of Commons Mather is determined to follow in Starmer’s footsteps. In an interview with the Times, Mather was cagey on that question – and his response to whether he

Friday

Ben Noble

Alexei Navalny’s ‘Stalinist’ jail sentence is no surprise

Alexei Navalny – the most high-profile figure of Russia’s political opposition – has just been sentenced to 19 years in a ‘special regime prison colony’. This was no surprise. Navalny himself predicted the ‘Stalinist’ sentence for a variety of criminal charges, some relating to ‘extremism’, in a blog post the day before the sentence was handed down: ‘The formula for calculating it is simple: the prosecution’s request minus 10–15 per cent. They asked for 20 years, so I’ll get 18 or something.’ This latest verdict adds prison time to the sentence he is already serving in the Melekhovo prison colony – around five hours east by car from Moscow – which also served as the location

Freddy Gray

UFOs – is the truth out there?

18 min listen

The US government is apparently hiding a programme to capture and reverse-engineer UFOs. At a congressional hearing last week, David Grusch, a former intelligence official who worked with a Pentagon team looking into UFOs, said ‘non-human’ objects had been recovered by the government. Are they finding aliens, or Chinese and Russian drones? What’s behind the American obsession with extraterrestrials? And is the government making up sightings to justify higher defence spending? Freddy Gray is joined by Spectator contributor Sean Thomas.

Debbie Hayton

Are the Greens more interested in trans rights than saving the planet?

July 2023 could soon be declared as the hottest month on record. Few doubt that climate change is real and that it is in our interest to do something about it. So, of all the parties competing for votes next year, you might imagine that the Green party of England and Wales would be single-minded in the goal of championing planet-saving research and promoting ways in which we can all do our bit. This is a golden chance for the party to welcome anyone who shares those objectives. Alas not. The Greens have swallowed transgender ideology, and purged dissenters with enthusiasm. Deputy leader Zack Polanski has suggested that anyone who

Lucy Dunn

The private sector won’t save the NHS

NHS waiting lists are at record levels, with the number of people in the queue for treatment at 7.5 million. Patients referred to specialists are waiting longer than ever for hospital appointments and vital health investigations. The government’s announcement today that it will use the private sector to help tackle the backlog is surely logical — but it’s not a long-term solution to the crisis facing the NHS. Health secretary Steve Barclay has announced the creation of 13 new community diagnostic centres (CDCs) that will help provide 750,000 more medical investigations a year to waiting patients. Eight of these will be run by the private sector as part of a

Steerpike

Eddie Izzard tries again to become a Labour MP

As the earth orbits the sun and leopards avoid changing their spots, so Eddie Izzard is again attempting to become a Labour MP.  This time the comedian and actor, who also goes by the name Suzy, is standing to become the Labour candidate to replace Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion. In 2022, Izzard tried unsuccessfully to become the candidate for Sheffield Central; and in 2016 and 2018, Izzard ran to be on the Labour National Executive Committee, failing on both occasions.  An all-too-slick Twitter video announced Izzard’s candidacy, and Mr S wonders at the cost and production value, considering Izzard has not even been selected as Labour’s candidate. A timetable