Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

Kate Andrews

Is British farming fit for the future?

27 min listen

It’s estimated that the average age of a British farmer is 59. This raises questions about the future of British farming. Are young people just not interested?On this episode, The Spectator’s economics editor, Kate Andrews takes a look at the next few decades for British farming. Young farmers are part of the picture, but we’ll also be discussing the role played by immigration especially post Brexit. The agricultural pressures and questions around self-sufficiency given the war in Ukraine. And how to balance all of this with greater concern for climate change.

Steerpike

Boris Johnson’s warning from history

After a long period in office, it's natural for any political party to lose their zeal for governing. As problems mount up, loyalties fray as the stench of sleaze begins to reek. In hushed whispers, MPs begin to talk of a 'spell in the wilderness' as opposition looks increasingly attractive compared to the burdens of statesmanship. Some Tories in Westminster appear to be flirting with such sentiments now, judging from the lackluster enthusiasm which the current contest seems to inspire. After a dozen years in office, the thinking goes, could now be the time for a 'reset'? A brief respite on the other side of the Commons, time for a Lab-led cabal to tear itself apart before a renewed, rejuvenated and above all, SOUND, Tory government takes power once more.

Steerpike

Yet another Scottish Unionist politician assaulted

Among the many superstitions of the SNP is that the reorienting of Scottish politics around the constitution has been a ‘joyous’ and ‘civic’ affair. Far from pumping bitter political and national sectarianism into the public square, dividing the population into nationalists and Unionists has facilitated a great intellectual contest in the very best spirit of democracy. Kevin Lang might have to disagree with that. Lang is the leader of the Liberal Democrats on Edinburgh City Council. Yesterday, he was delivering his newsletters in South Queensferry when he was assaulted by someone described as a ‘nationalist’.

Katy Balls

Truss and Sunak go to battle on economic ‘handouts’

The dire economic warnings from the Bank of England of a 15-month recession with inflation hitting more than 13 per cent look set to dominate the Tory leadership contest. With four weeks left of the campaign (but with ballots already out), the focus has returned to the differences between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss's approaches to the economy. It's the territory that Sunak feels the most confident on and where his campaign hope to make up lost ground.

Christopher Booth

Do ‘ordinary Russians’ support the war?

There was a whiteboard in the BBC Baghdad bureau for noting down phrases we hoped to ban from the airwaves. It had nothing to do with political correctness or self-censorship. This was all about self-improvement. The list of words was titled ‘Not Martha Gellhorn’, in honour of the veteran war reporter who wrote so well – especially when compared with us. We were perfectly aware of our shortcomings, though, and strove to do better, with the whiteboard serving as an aide memoire. It helped keep the prose fresh when deadlines were hectic, and when the temptation was to reach for the cliché closest to hand.

Sam Leith

Does the Met have a racism problem?

Back in the winter of 2012, a postal worker named Zac Sharif-Ali was taking a lunchtime stroll with his dog on Chiswick Common when he was stopped by a police officer named Duncan Bullock. PC Bullock was out for a lunchtime sandwich run himself, and apparently thought this might be a good opportunity to get his numbers up. Two birds with one stone, and all that. According to colleagues testifying to an Independent Office for Police Conduct investigation, he was enterprising in that way. ‘I remember that day PC Bullock had gone out for his sandwich, so I knew he would bring back a stop and search record form,’ the duty sergeant told the inquiry. ‘He always conducted a stop and search when he went to get his lunch.

Sunday

Steerpike

Truss is ‘misinterpreted’, again

With four weeks left in the leadership race, how many more times is Liz Truss going to be 'misinterpreted'? First, there was the U-turn over regional pay boards for public sector workers, which would see them get lower pay in line with local wages outside of London and the South East. A press release from the Truss camp suggested £8.8 billions worth of savings could be made this way 'if the system were to be adopted for all public sector workers in the long term.' After an outcry, Truss insisted the policy had been 'misinterpreted' as 'it was never intended to apply to doctors, nurses and teachers'. Which begs the question as to why her press release suggested it could adopted for 'all' workers and trumpeted the 'billions' being saved...

Steerpike

SNP ferries fiasco prompts rationing warnings

In the fevered imaginations of some Remainiacs, Britain's supermarkets are permanently bare, as Brexit-related supply shortages prompt an absence of the bountiful goods we once enjoyed in the EU. But there is one place in the UK where such dystopian fantasies have now indeed become a reality. Unfortunately for the more boss-eyed of Boris's critics, it's nowhere in Leave-voting England. Rather such shortages are now happening on certain windswept Scots islands, where the long-suffering local residents are enduring the effects of the SNP government's woeful incompetence. Today's The Herald on Sunday splashes on the news that shops on certain islands in the Hebrides have been forced to ration essential items owing to widespread ferry cancellations due to a broken down vessel.

John Ferry

The key flaw in the SNP’s indyref ruse

This week we've had the bizarre occurrence of the SNP formally submitting a request to intervene in the Indyref2 Supreme Court case, even though Scotland's top law officer, the Lord Advocate, has already put forward the Scottish Government's written case. To recap, the Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain has referred a prospective bill on a referendum to the UK Supreme Court so that judges can rule on whether Holyrood has the power to unilaterally hold a vote. In a 51-page written submission to the court, Bain argues a referendum, which Nicola Sturgeon wants to see take place in October 2023, would merely demonstrate the views of the Scottish people regarding secession from the UK and would not have the legal outcome of ending the union.

Nick Cohen

Truss and Sunak are blind to the coming crisis

In times of crisis in the 20th century, voters called for politicians from opposing parties to put aside their differences and unite in a national government. Such is the collapse of the Conservative party we now must beg Tory politicians to stop fighting and unite in a Tory government. Martin Lewis has said that Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson should be able to agree on a package to cover the expected 70 per cent rise in the domestic energy cap in the autumn (with more to come in January).  ‘You're all in the same party,’ he cried. ‘You should be able to work out some unifying policy, something for heaven's sake.’  Conservative leaders do not share his urgency.

Saturday

Sam Ashworth-Hayes

How Truss plans to bring the Bank of England to heel

Liz Truss believes the Bank of England has lost control of inflation. If chosen as the country’s next prime minister, she plans to bring it back to heel: 'I want to change the Bank of England’s mandate to make sure in the future it matches some of the most effective central banks in the world at controlling inflation', singling out the Bank of Japan as one model to follow. In the rarified world of monetary policy discussion, this was a bit like chucking a live grenade into a ball pit. Michael Saunders, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee responsible for setting interest rates, noted 'the foundations of the UK monetary policy framework, I think, are really important and best left untouched'.

Fraser Nelson

Why Liz Truss is right to say ‘forecasts are not destiny’

‘Forecasts are not destiny,’ said Liz Truss in last night’s debate: a remark that has drawn alarm in some quarters. If she genuinely believes that, says Robert Peston, she needs to say what her understanding is of the status and point of economics and economic forecasting. ‘Are we back to Gove’s “experts are discredited”?’ he asks. ‘This stuff matters.’ It certainly does. I’d go further and say that the approach to economic forecasts is one of the biggest differences between the candidates. Rishi Sunak’s campaign is rather fatalistic: he seems to think we cannot really avoid a big-state, high-tax, low-growth future described by these forecasts.

Katy Balls

Katy Balls, Rachel Johnson and Neil Clark

21 min listen

On this week's episode: Katy Balls has written about what foreign policy would look like under a Liz Truss government (0:34). Rachel Johnson young boys and men can learn from the Lioness’s victory (06:50) and Neil Clark writes about Jim Corbett’s tiger hunting stories (12.34). Presented and produced by Natasha Feroze.

Stephen Daisley

Britain should follow Trump’s lead over Jerusalem

Liz Truss has signalled a historic shift in British foreign policy by saying she would review the location of the UK’s embassy in Israel in order to strengthen ties with the Jewish state. The announcement came in a letter sent by the Tory leadership candidate to Conservative Friends of Israel. The Foreign Secretary writes: ‘I understand the importance and sensitivity of the location of the British Embassy in Israel. I’ve had many conversations with my good friend Prime Minister Lapid on this topic. Acknowledging that, I will review a move to ensure we are operating on the strongest footing within Israel.’ The British Embassy is currently situated in Tel Aviv, despite Israel’s capital being Jerusalem.

Patrick O’Flynn

How ‘taking the knee’ spoiled football

Premier League footballers 'taking a knee' came in at the tail end of the 2019-20 season, when stadiums were empty because of the first Covid lockdown. Thus were the game’s moneyed elite spared having to initiate the fad in front of full houses. By the time supporters returned it was a fait accompli, normalised by endless self-righteous newspaper columns and political speeches on air by TV football pundits. Only one view of the matter was permitted. Any supporter who expressed dissent about the gesture of support for the Black Lives Matter campaign risked being branded a knuckle-scraping racist.

Sam Ashworth-Hayes

Ukraine’s fate may rest on a mild winter

Russia is once again relying on ‘General Winter’. Instead of freezing German advances on Moscow, the plan today is to freeze German pensioners in Berlin. Western sanctions are crippling the Russian economy, driving up inflation and unemployment. In turn, Russian restrictions on gas are driving energy prices in Europe through the roof. Putin’s gamble is that Russia’s willingness to bear economic hardship is higher than the West’s. By winter, Europe could find itself in a literal cold war. Russia is currently throttling gas flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which is operating at just 20 per cent capacity.

Friday

Steerpike

Watch: protesters crash Tory hustings

Liz Truss has often been accused of 'dressing up' or 'cosplaying' as Margaret Thatcher. And her team has done little to dispel that impression this campaign, releasing images this afternoon of Truss standing in front of the world's largest Union Jack, just as the Iron Lady once did. But it was tonight's Tory hustings in Eastbourne that offered the Foreign Secretary the chance to channel her political heroine after protesters disrupted her opening remarks. The unwelcome guests were there to protest Truss's previous employment at Shell and received a predictably hostile reaction from the disgruntled Tory audience after yelling 'Shame on you!'.

Ross Clark

Rishi Sunak is not stealing from the poor to give to the rich

Until this morning this had been Rishi Sunak’s week. While Liz Truss found herself trying to talk her way out of her rapidly-abandoned policy for regional pay boards – which she accused others of misrepresenting but couldn’t seem to explain herself – Rishi Sunak emerged the surprise winner from a show of hands among Sky’s hand-picked audience last night. But no sooner had Sunak started his comeback than he was knocked down with an embarrassment of his own: the New Statesman obtained footage of him boasting to an audience in Tunbridge Wells last Friday that: I managed to start changing the funding formulas to make sure that areas like this receive the funding they deserve.

Steerpike

Backbenchers embrace blue on blue

It's been a pretty bad-tempered leadership race thus far but at least most of the scrapping has been done by high profile 'outriders' of the two main candidates. Now though it seems that this penchant for 'blue-on-blue' attacks has spread to the backbenches too as Tory MPs take to Twitter to attack each other's campaigns. First up this morning was Michael 'Fabbers' Fabricant launching one of his by-now routine attacks on Rishi Sunak, suggesting that everything about his campaign is 'stage managed, preplanned, and never authentic.' It prompted Simon Hoare, the standbearer of the Tory left, to fire off a terse response that seemingly poked fun at Fabricant's infamous blonde hair: 'Keep your hair on and your hypocrisy to yourself.' https://twitter.