James Heale is The Spectator’s deputy political editor.
Machinery of government is not the sexiest of subjects – but it is a useful way of signalling a politician’s priorities. Rishi Sunak used his first reshuffle to rebrand the ‘Department for Energy Security’ and create a new ministry for science. Boris Johnson invented the Department for Levelling Up; Jeremy Corbyn proposed a ‘Minister for
It is an irony of Brexit that, since we left the EU, British politics has become more European. The local elections on Thursday will put another nail in the coffin of the two-party system that has dominated the UK for 100 years. Labour and the Conservatives now poll a combined 45 per cent of the
Robert Jenrick just cannot stay out of the headlines. Today, the shadow justice secretary is under-fire for comments made to UCL students last month in which critics claim he endorsed a potential Tory-Reform ‘coalition’. In remarks first reported by Sky News, Jenrick said that: [Reform UK] continues to do well in the polls. And my
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Happy St George’s Day! To celebrate, we thought we would discuss who is the most patriotic political leader — and why some struggle to communicate their love of country. Keir Starmer declared in an interview with the Mirror this morning that Labour is ‘the patriotic party’. This follows a more concerted effort from those within the party
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Parliament is back after the Easter holiday and the Supreme Court ruling over what is a woman continues to dominate talk in Westminster. The Prime Minister has changed his tune on trans, declaring he does not think that trans women are women. This has caused some disquiet in the party, with a number of senior
Official league tables displaying nationalities of migrants with the highest rates of crime are set to be published for the first time in Britain. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has reportedly ordered officials to publish the detailed breakdown of offences committed by foreign criminals living in the UK while awaiting deportation. Unofficial tables have previously been
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The Liberal Democrats’ foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller, elected as the new MP for Bicester and Woodstock last year, joins James Heale to talk about the ambitions of the party that became the largest third party in Parliament in 100 years at the 2024 general election. They want to overtake the Conservatives to be the
It is the eternal question for UK policymakers: America or Europe? For the past nine months, Keir Starmer has sought to follow his 17 post-war predecessors in maintaining an uneasy balancing act between the two. But the Prime Minister’s tricky task has been made even more difficult by Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
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Michael Gove and Katy Balls join James Heale to discuss their interview with the Health Secretary Wes Streeting included in this week’s special Easter edition of The Spectator. Michael identifies three key reasons why Streeting’s fate is key to the success of the government: immigration, the cost-of-living crisis and faith in the NHS. Seen as the
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With just over two weeks to go until the May elections, the latest national polling suggests an almost three-way split between Reform, Labour and the Conservatives. But will this translate to the locals? And, given these particular seats were last contested in 2021 amidst the ‘Boris wave’, how will the parties judge success? The Spectator’s
In truth, there was little that was new in Nigel Farage’s speech today. For more than a decade, he has positioned himself as commander of the ‘people’s army’, fearlessly ‘parking our tanks on Labour’s lawn.’ First, it was Ukip, then it was the Brexit party. Now, his chosen vehicle to crush the establishment is Reform.
Much of the commentary on the local elections has focused thus far on the Tories’ southern discontent. But today, Nigel Farage will turn his guns on the north of England, as he seeks to position his party as the real challenger to Labour across swathes of the so-called Red Wall. Key voters in these northern
It is a tough life these days being a member of the Welsh Conservatives. The party lost every Westminster seat in July and now have barely a hundred councillors across the country. In December, the fractious parliamentary party voted by nine votes to seven to retain leader Andrew RT Davies; he quit regardless, prompting his
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Parliament was recalled from Easter recess for a rare Saturday sitting of Parliament yesterday, to debate the future of British Steel. Legislation was passed to allow the government to take control of the Chinese-owned company – Conservative MP David Davis called this ‘nationalisation in all but name’. Though, with broad support across the House including
In the end, it was David Davis who said it best. Today’s emergency debate on how to save British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant amounted to a ‘nationalisation in all but name Bill’, with new measures amounting to a ‘reprieve, not a rescue’. Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, did a decent job of affecting reluctance at the
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Marine Le Pen, president of Rassemblement National (National Rally) was found guilty this week of embezzling EU funds to boost her party’s finances. The guilty verdict was widely expected, however her sentence was far harsher than even her strongest critics expected – part of which saw her banned from standing for office for five years, with immediate
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Today marks five years since Keir Starmer became leader of the Labour party. In that time, he has gradually purged Labour of its leftist wing and wrestled the party back to the centre, winning a historic majority in 2024. But, five years on, the question remains: what does Keir Starmer stand for? He came in
Donald Trump has sown the wind – and now America must reap the whirlwind. Beijing has today announced plans to slap an additional 34 per cent tax on all US imported goods from next Thursday. China had already applied tariffs – ranging from 10 to 15 per cent – to a range of American agricultural
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It’s World Tariff Day – or Liberation Day, depending on what you prefer to call it – but we won’t know for certain what levies Donald Trump will impose on the world until around 9 p.m. this evening. Sources are speculating that Trump still isn’t 100 per cent sure himself. But as the UK awaits
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Britain’s real economic pain starts today. Overnight, the cost of living has jumped once again: energy, water, broadband, public transport, TV licences – all up. So too are council tax bills, capital gains, and vehicle taxes. And that’s before we even get to the slow stealth march of fiscal drag and the impact of World
