Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

Why the ‘ThickLizzie’ slur is so stupid

There's a funny thing about humans: when we want to help people, we often end up hurting them — and vice-versa. Take the ‘ThickLizzie’ hashtag that has been trending on social media. The new Prime Minister is, according to large numbers of Tory-loathers, a moron. There is an undercurrent of sexism here, yes. There’s also an overcurrent of stupidity. It’s just clearly not true. Truss may not be the most dynamic public speaker. She can be awkward. She may have poor judgment. She may turn out to be a disaster as Prime Minister. How many of the people calling her stupid on Twitter today got into Oxford to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics? But thick?

Mateusz Morawiecki

Why Germany must pay war reparations to Poland

There are crimes that can never be fully forgiven, and can never be forgotten. Time does not absolve the perpetrator of his obligation to make amends to the victim. Even if the crimes seem difficult to quantify. Not all western European countries understand the full scale of the tragedy for Poland that was wrought by World War II. From a western perspective, the conflict can be seen as a series of battles, troop movements and political decisions. For us, it was primarily a set of crimes, atrocities and destruction, as well as opportunities for development that have been lost forever. From the very beginning, World War II was a cold-blooded crime planned with the goal of the physical elimination of entire nations and destruction of entire countries.

Steerpike

Watch: Dr Dre interrupts Coffey’s first interview

Therese Coffey is a well-known music lover. When she's not reciting prayers for Queen and country, she's enlivening the corridors of parliament with her karaoke singing. But this morning the newly appointed Health Secretary suffered a moment of slight embarrassment after her ring tone went off in her first broadcast interview on LBC. Interviewer Nick Ferrari is used to his guests practicing all kinds of trick to evade questioning when they enter his studios but even he can't have been prepared for the lyrical offerings of Dr Dre at 8:00 a.m. Coffey explained it was her ring tone for an alarm that she had forgot to switch off. He shot back 'Dr Dre with Dr Coffey, the Health Secretary, it just gets better and better!

Katy Balls

Could Liz Truss’s cabinet cull come back to haunt her?

Liz Truss's new cabinet will meet this morning for the first time, hours after the new Prime Minister rattled through all her key appointments last night. Following heavy briefing and speculation in recent weeks as to who would make the cut, there were few surprises. The most senior positions were won by Kwasi Kwarteng as the new Chancellor, Therese Coffey as deputy prime minister and Health Secretary, James Cleverly as Foreign Secretary and Suella Braverman as Home Secretary. The vast majority of Sunak backers were culled from cabinet by Truss When it came to the other candidates, there was continuity – Ben Wallace stays on as Defence Secretary and Robert Buckland, who switched his allegiance halfway through the contest from Sunak to Truss, will continue as Welsh Secretary.

Daisy Dunn

Emily Maitlis tries too hard not to be teachery on her new podcast

The competition between news-led podcasts is nearing boiling point. If you tuned in to The Media Show on Radio 4 last Wednesday, you’d have felt the tension between the podcasters leading the guard: Alastair Campbell of The Rest Is Politics, Jon Sopel of The News Agents, plus his executive producer, Dino Sofos, Nosheen Iqbal of the Guardian’s Today in Focus, and Adam Boulton, who has just launched a politics show with Kate McCann on Times Radio. Kiran Moodley and Minnie Stephenson might reasonably have joined this line-up as they launch a new series of their news pod with Channel 4 this week.

Boris Johnson

Bush is leading us to tragedy (2002)

It's 20 years since the clamour for the invasion of Iraq was at its loudest. Boris Johnson, The Spectator's then editor, spoke to the Saudi ambassador to the UK, Ghazi Algosaibi. You can read more on our fully digitised archive. 'No, no,' says the Saudi ambassador. 'This is how you do it. You cannot lift your arm above the shoulder, and you must do it sideways.' He moves alongside, a big man with a faint resemblance to Leon Brittan, and makes a thwacking motion. Meet Ghazi Algosaibi, 62, a poet and author, the Arab world's leading envoy to London, who has recently earned not just a personal rebuke from Jack Straw, but the demands of the Jewish Board of Deputies that he be expelled from the country.

James Heale

What does Truss’s cabinet tell us about her?

'Loyalty' remarked Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe is 'the Tory party's secret weapon.' The near constant blue-on-blue attacks of the last six years have made a mockery of this aphorism. But Liz Truss's first cabinet has demonstrated the importance which she places on loyalty when it comes to selecting her top team. Some 31 names are now attending cabinet; of those just one (Michael Ellis) backed Rishi Sunak. New leaders are entitled to select who they want –⁠ Boris Johnson fired half the ministers upon taking office in 2019 and ruthlessly purged Jeremy Hunt's supporters from his top team.

Steerpike

Tory big beasts battle for Tugendhat’s job

The great ministerial merry go round continues at pace. Liz Truss's triumph in the leadership race has seen a number of ambitious MPs enter government for the first time; among them is Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. His new frontbench role as security minister means he has to surrender his post as head of the backbench committee, triggering something of a bun fight over who gets to replace him. Select committee chairmanships are highly valued prizes, bestowing the incumbent with prestige, profile and an extra £15,000 salary bonus. And it's no surprise then that two of the biggest beasts in the backbench Tory jungle are set to battle it out to replace Tugendhat.

Tuesday

Katy Balls

Truss’s cabinet: Who’s in? Who’s out?

11 min listen

Liz Truss has appointed her cabinet. Allies of Rishi Sunak are out, and the former foreign secretary's closest allies are in. What does this mean for her government? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman. Britain after Boris: Coffee House Shots Live, with Andrew Neil, Fraser Nelson, Katy Balls, James Forsyth and Kate Andrews takes place on 13 September.

Steerpike

Johnny Mercer’s wife turns her guns on Truss

Tory wives: where would we be without them? Among the casualties of today's reshuffle was Johnny Mercer, the veterans' minister who duly published a farewell letter on Commons headed paper, defending his record in post. The former soldier wrote how 'disappointed' he was 'to leave a role I established' adding, acidly, that 'any Prime Minister is entitled to reward her supporters.' But now his wife Felicity has revealed the truth behind the lengthy statement, with a pithy tweet featuring a blonde Beaker of the Muppets. Felicity Cornelius-Mercer declared on Twitter this evening that Mercer, the 'best person I know' had been 'sacked by an imbecile.' According to her, Truss was unable to give a justification for the Plymouth MP's dismissal.

Melanie McDonagh

The problem with Liz Truss

Was it just me or was Liz Truss actually smirking during her statement outside Downing Street, the one littered with cliches about spades in the ground and wince-making turns of phrase like ‘aspiration nation’? Another two years of this PM talking about being ‘determined to deliver’ (deliver what, Liz?) is going to be really hard going.  Just listen to her. Look at her. Is this really the best that we can get from a country of 67 million people? Liz Truss?

Liz Truss

Full text: The PM’s first speech on the steps of No. 10

Good afternoon. I have just accepted Her Majesty the Queen's kind invitation to form a new government.  Let me pay tribute to my predecessor. Boris Johnson delivered Brexit, the Covid vaccine and stood up to Russian aggression. History will see him as a hugely consequential prime minister. I'm honoured to take on this responsibility at a vital time for our country. What makes the United Kingdom great is our fundamental belief in freedom, in enterprise and in fair play. Our people have shown grit, courage and determination time and time again. We now face severe global headwinds caused by Russia's appalling war in Ukraine and the aftermath of Covid. Now is the time to tackle the issues that are holding Britain back. We need to build roads, homes and broadband faster.

Coffee House

As it happened: Liz Truss appoints her cabinet

Liz Truss, Britain's new Prime Minister, has appointed her new cabinet. You can find a full list of the comings and goings here. Here's how all the developments unfolded on an historic day in SW1: 11.44pm – Truss completes her cabinet Isabel Hardman writes... That’s the reshuffle over for tonight, with a full cabinet list published here. The official line is: ‘The Prime Minister has appointed a cabinet which represents the depth and breadth of talent in the Conservative party. Containing no fewer than five other candidates from the recent leadership election, this is a cabinet which will unify the party, get our economy growing and deliver for the British people.’ 11.04pm – Tugendhat in government Isabel Hardman writes...

Nick Cohen

Boris Johnson was a terrible strongman

The ejection of Boris Johnson from Downing Street today proves that the UK has not gone the way of Donald Trump’s United States, Viktor Orbán’s Hungary or Narendra Modi’s India. For all our faults, the strongman model of leader ends in farce rather than fascism here. Liberal critics ought to be big enough to concede that Conservative MPs – more than any opposition party, movement or institution – saved us from populist authoritarianism. No doubt they did so for impure and self-interested reasons, but this is politics and it is deeds – not motives – that matter most. Johnson’s failure to impose his will on his parliamentary party was his greatest mistake.

Isabel Hardman

Was it a fond farewell for Boris Johnson?

10 min listen

Boris Johnson finally departed Downing Street early this morning, but left the door slightly ajar on the prospect of a comeback. What will this mean for Liz Truss? Also on the podcast, as Truss makes her way to Balmoral to meet with the Queen, what will the rest of the day look like for the new prime minister? Isabel Hardman speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls. Produced by Max Jeffery and Oscar Edmondson.

Sam Ashworth-Hayes

The madness of Truss’s energy price cap

While Boris Johnson used his farewell speech to praise the ‘vital symmetry between government action and free market capitalist private sector enterprise’, the formerly free market Liz Truss was busy briefing out price caps on energy. There are only three possible explanations for this sudden change of heart: No. 10 is haunted by the malign ghost of Clement Attlee, the building is riddled with lead piping, or the electoral incentives facing the Conservative party are so perverse that when push comes to shove, even free marketeers are willing to abandon the free market in the race to expropriate from the young to pay for the old. Given that Truss has yet to officially enter her new residence, my money is on the last option.

Coffee House

Who’s in and who’s out of Truss’s cabinet?

Liz Truss will kiss hands with the Queen today and become Britain's 56th Prime Minister, with a number of Boris Johnson's ministers not expected to serve in her new government. Already the Home Secretary Priti Patel has signalled she will return to the backbenches, with Nadine Dorries also standing down as Culture Secretary. Below is The Spectator's list of confirmed names who are either in or out of Truss's new cabinet.

Ross Clark

Liz Truss’s energy price freeze would be a mistake

It is not unusual for promises made during an election campaign to fail to survive a headlong impact with reality, but if, as expected Liz Truss, announces an energy price freeze tomorrow, it will leave many Conservative party members who voted for her feeling somewhat cheated. For most of the leadership campaign Truss denounced the idea of government help with energy bills and insisted she would tackle the problem with tax cuts instead. Taxing people and then giving them some of their money back in handouts, she said, was ‘Gordon Brown economics’. Yet it now seems that not only will she spend large amounts of money to bail out householders’ energy bills, but she will seek to outdo Keir Starmer.

Isabel Hardman

Is Coffey good for health?

Even though Liz Truss won't start forming her government until after she has seen the Queen at Balmoral, many of the top roles are already nailed down. The latest dead cert is Thérèse Coffey, who will be Health Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister. The seniority of this role tells us a number of things. One is that Truss wants her strongest supporters close to her. Not only was Coffey pro-Truss from the outset, she is also one of her closest friends in politics. Linking the deputy and health jobs also signals that the new Prime Minister is taking the NHS backlog seriously. It would be a bizarre choice for a government to embark on yet another NHS reorganisation just 18 months before an election That backlog will consume Coffey's attention.

Joanna Williams

Meghan’s youth speech was all about her

The Duchess of Sussex has been busy. In the past fortnight Meghan has treated us to two new episodes of her podcast as well as a lengthy spill-all interview in the Cut magazine. And now here she is in Britain, making her first speech since leaving the Royal Family. Battles over security apparently resolved, Meghan addressed the One Young World Summit in Manchester. As far as public appearances go, they do not come much easier than this. One Young World combines the slickness of lavishly funded corporate events with feel good vibes about making the world a better place. Meghan’s association with the NGO stretches back almost a decade. Last night, she was clearly among friends or, perhaps more precisely, fans.