Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Sunday

David Patrikarakos

Iran and Russia are probing Biden’s weaknesses

The world seems to have got a lot more dangerous since Joe Biden took office last January. It wasn’t long after his inauguration that Russian President Vladimir Putin started massing troops on Ukraine’s border. The Kremlin believes that its American opponent is old and weak, and began testing him as soon as he took office. Now war has come to the European continent once again. Last night it was the turn of the Iranians to test Washington. According to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) at around 1:30 a.m., 12 missiles struck near a new US consulate under construction in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Matthew Taylor

Starmer: refugee numbers should be ‘uncapped’

Sir Keir Starmer – Refugees numbers should be ‘uncapped’ The Leader of the Opposition Sir Keir Starmer returned to the hot seat this week, this time with Sophy Ridge. Starmer echoed the Prime Minister’s description of Putin as a ‘war criminal’, and derided the government’s efforts to accommodate refugees as ‘too slow, too narrow, too mean’. Ridge asked for his blueprint for what a Labour government would do in this situation: https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1502936355910955011?

Steerpike

Will Gove host a refugee?

Whoops! Cripes! The government is in another mess. The cry goes out: send for Gove. Like the elegant Jeeves to Boris's Bertie Wooster, he answers his master's desperate call, ready to extricate him from another self-inflicted mess. Now the PM's latest troubles are not aunts but Ukrainians and the many thousands now fleeing their country.  The Home Office are predictably ineffective so it's once more unto the breach for the oleaginous Aberdonian, the man with more jobs than George Osborne. Levelling up, saving the Union, intergovernmental relations and now processing refugees: is there anything the Gover can't do?

Debbie Hayton

Keir Starmer’s gender identity muddle

If you needed any sign that the Labour party is still deeply confused about gender identity and sex, look no further than the Labour leader Keir Starmer’s comments this week. Asked by the Times to define a woman, Starmer replied that: A woman is a female adult, and in addition to that trans women are women, and that is not just my view — that is actually the law. It has been the law through the combined effects of the 2004 [Gender Recognition] Act and the 2010 [Equality] Act. So that’s my view. It also happens to be the law in the United Kingdom. If Keir Starmer thinks that I am a woman, I am delighted to tell him the truth. Transwomen (like me) are male, while women (like my wife) are female.

Casey Michel

Who is Ihor Kolomoisky?

The city of Cleveland, Ohio, is hardly considered the most cosmopolitan or globalised city in the U.S. If anything, the Rust Belt city – whose population is less than half of what it was a century ago – is a symbol of industrial decline across America’s heartland, for a region whose best days are clearly behind it. Which is why, as other major American cities like New York or Miami opened their doors to all kinds of oligarchic money out of places like Russia or Ukraine, Cleveland hardly got any attention as a destination for the kinds of illicit wealth spilling out of the former Soviet Union. Investigators searched out ill-gotten gains in Manhattan and Malibu.

Fraser Nelson

Michael Gove’s new deal for Ukrainian refugees

After last week's shambles over the handling of Ukrainian refugees, Michael Gove has announced a big shift in UK policy with his version of the so-called 'Air-Refugee' schemes that have sprung up on the continent. It's an Airbnb-style set up where hosts register online saying they're willing to sponsor guests. Germany's version (website here) has so far led to 350,000 offers.  But the UK system is designed with more friction. Hosts will not be paired with refugees but will have to name someone - when they do, both parties will then have to be vetted by the government.

Mark Hollingsworth

Why did it take so long to sanction Roman Abramovich?

On 28 October 2016, I received an email from a well-connected former senior MI6 officer who asked me if I had any material about properties in London owned by wealthy Russians. I was a natural person to ask because I had written a book about the Russian oligarchs and had become an expert on the ownership of expensive houses and luxury apartments in central London. I then discovered that the discreet inquiry was on behalf of the National Security Council who were reviewing the activities and assets of the oligarchs in the UK, including Roman Abramovich. And so I was expecting legislative action soon.

David Cohen

Could New Zealand’s property bubble bring down Jacinda Ardern?

The news this week that the price of an average UK home has hit £260,000 came as a bit of a jolt for New Zealanders. Kiwis who obsessively follow such matters were left wondering how even property in London can be cheaper than buying a house over here. The average home in New Zealand costs £520,000, and significantly more again in either of our two major cities, Auckland and Wellington. When Jacinda Ardern became prime minister she promised to address our unsustainable property market which has locked out all but the most privileged youngsters from getting on the ladder. The continued spike in prices shows how little Ardern has delivered.

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

Why isn’t the UK doing more to help Ukrainian refugees?

18 min listen

‘Watch this space,’ the armed force minister James Heappey said when asked whether Britain would make it easier for Ukrainian refugees to come to the country. Still, though, refugees – even those with family connections to the UK – are stuck in Calais and Paris trying to make to our shores. What more should we be doing? Would a Polish model, where refugees are welcomed first and registered later, work? The Spectator’s editor Fraser Nelson speaks to our economics editor Kate Andrews.

Douglas Murray

Douglas Murray, Mary Wakefield and Nicola Shulman

29 min listen

On this episode of Spectator Out Loud, Douglas Murray starts by explaining why C. S. Lewis was right about war. (00:56) Mary Wakefield is up next, looking at the founding myth that Russia and Ukraine are fighting over. (10:18) Nicola Shulman finishes the podcast, reading her piece about Philip Larkin's big problem.

Friday

James Forsyth

Can Boris get the Saudis to pump more oil?

The oil price is up by more than 40 per cent since the start of the year. It is being driven up by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the lack of investment in oil and turning the world economy on and off again: US production is still not back to pre-pandemic levels. In the immediate term, as I say in the Times today, pretty much the only way to bring the price down is to get Saudi Arabia – which has 1.5 to 2 million barrels a day of spare capacity – to pump more. The West’s relationship with Saudi Arabia has always been morally problematic.

Gavin Mortimer

Why are British soldiers deserting to fight in Ukraine?

When my brother was an infantry officer in the early 1990s the soldiers under his command were hard men. Most hailed from the north-east of England; in an earlier era they might have mined coal for a living. They smoked and drank and swore, and they were superb soldiers, as they proved in South Armagh and in Bosnia. It’s safe to assume these men would have struggled as infantrymen in today’s British army.  Even the word ‘infantrymen’ would cause problems today. Last year, the Ministry of Defence recruited for a director of diversity and inclusion (salary £110,000 per annum, compared to the £20,000 an infantryman is paid). Meanwhile, in November, it was disclosed that the RAF had dropped 'airmen' and 'airwomen' in favour of 'aviator'.

Fraser Nelson

Boris Johnson rejects Europe’s open approach to Ukrainian refugees

One of the most extraordinary (and moving) videos to have emerged since the invasion of Ukraine shows scenes at Berlin Central Station where refugees are paired upon arrival with locals offering accommodation. An unprecedented crisis has been met with an unprecedented public response – some 350,000 beds have been offered in Germany now. Over a million in Poland. People’s generosity has risen to the challenge – without government getting in the way to slow things down. Could it happen here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DHi92_xBLs We risk ending up doing more than any European country to arm the Ukrainians but less than any other to help refugees Michael Gove is set to launch a British equivalent – but with a difference.

Steerpike

John Bercow’s unlikely rehabilitation

It's been a tough week for poor John Bercow. The release of the report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards into his Speakership on Tuesday saw 21 counts of bullying being upheld against him. Since then there have been calls for universities to strip him of his academic posts, while Commons bosses have delivered the ultimate insult: removing his name from the parliamentary gym spin room. Talk about purging the last remnants of a hated former regime. And Steerpike can reveal that Bercow has also now quit as a trustee of Holland Park school, known as 'the socialist Eton'. His term was due to end in November 2024.

Katy Balls

What’s the point of the latest sanctions?

11 min listen

While the world is hearing mummers that Vladimir Putin is considering using chemical weapons in Ukraine, the UK government has imposed sanctions on hundreds of Russian Parliamentarians. But will this latest move make the Kremlin pause or is it a largely symbolic gesture? Katy Balls talks with Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.

Michael Simmons

Covid is rising again. Should we worry?

For some time now, Covid has been rising in Scotland - there are now more Scots in hospital with Covid than at any time throughout the winter. A freak, or a sign of what’s to come nationally? The ONS survey answers that question today, confirming that Covid cases are rising nationally: some 4 per cent of England’s population, it says, would test positive. In Northern Ireland it’s closer to 8 per cent and in Scotland 5.7 per cent. Have waning vaccines created space for another wave - and do we need to worry? Just as Gauteng and South Africa then Lambeth and London were the early warning signs for Omicron’s rise and speedy peak, so seems to be Scotland now. The ONS survey have shown cases rising there for weeks and it’s been puzzling scientists.

Kate Andrews

Rishi Sunak’s energy bill dilemma

This morning’s revelation that the UK economy grew 0.8 per cent in January, the fastest growth since April last year, is welcome news after a Christmas plagued by Omicron – but it’s news that’s out of date, too. As Capital Economics warns: ‘This is as good as it gets for the year'. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the commodity price jump and the cost-of-living crisis will soon show in the figures. Today’s ONS release warns that even in January, businesses were already reporting significant rises in the cost of energy and staff wages. The week after next, Rishi Sunak will present a mini-Budget. The Chancellor faces a conundrum: how to explain the inflation and energy bill hikes that are still to come?

Brendan O’Neill

The double standards of Facebook’s ‘death to Russians’ policy

So, Facebook and Instagram users are now allowed to call for people to be killed. But only if the people they’re wishing death upon are Russian. If it’s Ruskies you hate so much that you feel the urge to go on social media and plead with someone to kill them, then Facebook and Instagram’s normally censorious moderators won’t bat an eyelid. Knock yourself out. Kill the Russians! This is the news that Meta – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram – has made a temporary change to its hate-speech policy. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it will allow its users in certain countries to make violent comments about Russian forces.

Katy Balls

The Suella Braverman Edition

37 min listen

Suella Braverman is the Conservative MP for Fareham and became the first female elected Attorney General in 2020. Formerly known as one of the Brexit Spartans, she talks on the podcast, about growing up surrounded by politics where she first lay the foundations for a career as a Conservative politician. As a young woman, she studied law in Cambridge, the US and in Europe where she could excel as a linguist. Since taking her role as Attorney General, she made history by rewriting the law to become the first female Cabinet Minister to take maternity leave - named Gabriella's Law after her daughter who is now one year old.

Thursday

Paul Wood

Chernobyl Two?

The electricity supply to the ruined nuclear plant at Chernobyl in Ukraine has been cut off. According to one knowledgeable source I spoke to, this is a serious problem as power is needed to pump water around spent nuclear fuel rods stored there. There is a back-up diesel generator, but it has just one day’s supply of fuel left and once that runs out, the temperature could start to climb. If the water evaporates, the zirconium metal ‘fuel assemblies’ could start to melt – with radioactive material released into the atmosphere. This would not be anywhere near as bad as the original Chernobyl disaster, in 1986, when a reactor had a power surge and exploded – but still bad enough.