Madeline Grant

Madeline Grant

Madeline Grant is The Spectator’s assistant editor and parliamentary sketch writer.

Jenrick is Reform’s most coveted debutante

From our UK edition

Westminster has its faults, but if you’re looking for a good old-fashioned day of mistakes, backbiting, and last-minute drama, there really is nowhere like it. Today it was there in spades: Titus Andronicus by the cast of Rainbow. The Jenrick sacking had everything – apparent incompetence by a junior aide, wild conspiratorial accusations and a

What does Jenrick’s defection mean for the right?

From our UK edition

Robert Jenrick arrived late to his own defection. ‘It’s time for the truth,’ he said, before launching into a speech that he would have no doubt preferred to deliver at a more opportune moment. In Nigel Farage’s opening remarks, which he had to pad out as Jenrick failed to arrive at the lectern, he implied

Starmer’s ‘jokes’ make him sound like a creepy uncle

From our UK edition

Another week, another U-turn! This time the PM had chosen to make Prime Minister’s Questions even more torturous for himself by beating an ignominious retreat on the issue of compulsory digital ID. The climb-down was inevitable. The government has totalitarian aspirations that would make Brezhnev blush, but is sadly fated to be run by people

The tragedy of Keir Starmer

From our UK edition

For someone who likes to present the general public with the idea that he doesn’t have a personality, Sir Keir ‘I don’t dream’ Starmer has actually provided plenty of insight into who he really is. From his occasional flashes of fury when thwarted in the Commons to his chronic lack of authenticity when out bothering

Why Nadhim Zahawi (and Reform) are making a mistake

From our UK edition

50 min listen

This week on Quite right!, Michael and Maddie examine Nadhim Zahawi’s dramatic defection to Reform UK and ask whether it strengthens the party’s insurgent credentials or exposes a deeper strategic mistake. Is Reform becoming a genuine outsider movement, or simply a refuge for disaffected Tories? And what does the pattern of Boris-era defections reveal about

Q&A: A Labour rebellion is coming – can Starmer survive?

From our UK edition

30 min listen

This week: Michael and Maddie look ahead to a turbulent political year, asking who will rise, who will fall – and whether Keir Starmer can survive the mounting unrest within his own parliamentary party. With Labour backbenchers showing an increasing willingness to defy the leadership, is a full-blown rebellion inevitable? They also discuss the government’s

Starmer brings the spirit of Dry January to PMQs

From our UK edition

‘New year, new you’. One can imagine the Prime Minister repeating this most hollow of secular mantras in front of a full length mirror in Downing Street. As the embodiment of vapid and valueless 21st century Britain, the PM probably loves New Year’s resolutions. He is the walking embodiment of Dry January after all. Yet,

The Maccabi mess has exposed Britain’s babbling bobbies

From our UK edition

You may recall the cancellation of the Maccabi Tel Aviv-Aston Villa game back in November. What has happened since is that, due to constant scrutiny by Nick Timothy MP, Lord Austin and a small number of journalists, the narrative that West Midlands police spun at the time – that the Israeli fans were too dangerous

There’s a lesson for Britain in the fall of Venice

From our UK edition

I’ve just come back from a short holiday in Venice. The city is an unsurpassable monument to the glories of the Renaissance, but its streets and waterways also bear witness to the absolute non-existence of ‘international rules’. When confronted by Bonaparte’s expansionist aims in 1797, the millennium-old Venetian republic responded as it had always done,

‘Boris didn’t care!’: Dominic Cummings on lawfare, lockdowns & the broken British state | part one

From our UK edition

47 min listen

In this special two-part interview, Michael and Maddie are joined by Dominic Cummings. After starting his political career at the Department of Education, Dominic is best known as the campaign director of Vote Leave, the chief adviser in Downing Street during Boris Johnson’s premiership, and one of the most influential strategists of modern times. Whether

Year in Review 2025 – Live

From our UK edition

32 min listen

From scandals and cabinet chaos to Trumpian antics and the ‘special’ relationship that some say is anything but, The Spectator presents The Year in Review – a look back at the funniest and most tragic political moments of 2025. Join The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove, deputy editor Freddy Gray, political editor Tim Shipman, deputy political editor James Heale

Q&A: How has being adopted impacted your politics?

From our UK edition

27 min listen

Submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie at spectator.co.uk/quiteright. This week on Quite right! Q&A: is demography destiny? With Britain’s birth rate falling, Michael Maddie Grant discuss whether the country is quietly drifting towards decline – and whether immigration, pro-natal policy or something more radical is the answer. Is importing labour a short-term fix

An unhappy Christmas PMQs for Keir Starmer

From our UK edition

Thank God! Today was the last Prime Minister’s Questions before Christmas and so Sir Keir and Mrs Badenoch began their speeches with seasonal greetings. Was a Christmas truce about to break out? Unlikely; Sir Keir couldn’t resist a poke at Reform’s Russian problems. ‘If wise men from the East come bearing gifts, this time report it

Bondi attack: understanding Islamism & the causes of anti-Semitism

From our UK edition

50 min listen

Michael Gove and Madeline Grant confront the horror of the Bondi Beach massacre and ask why anti-Semitic violence now provokes despair rather than shock. As Jewish communities are once again targeted on holy days, they examine the roots of Islamist ideology and the failure of political leaders to name it. Why has anti-Semitism metastasised across

There are bin liners with more empathy than Keir Starmer

From our UK edition

The liaison committee is always a laugh. It’s sort of like a year in review for the government’s litany of failures. Like an advent calendar but behind each door there’s a little puddle of cat sick. The specific aim of this particular roundup was ‘the work of the Prime Minister’, and so as a festive

Q&A: Should Ukraine join the Commonwealth?

From our UK edition

31 min listen

Submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie at spectator.co.uk/quiteright. This week on Quite right! Q&A: should Britain reinvent the Commonwealth – and should Ukraine be invited to join? Is the Commonwealth an embarrassing relic… or an untapped strategic asset? Then: what if Jeremy Corbyn had actually won in 2019? Maddie and Michael sketch the

Keir Starmer is not waving but drowning at PMQs

From our UK edition

Benjamin Disraeli once observed that the difference between a misfortune and a calamity was that if Mr Gladstone fell in the Thames it would be a misfortune, but if someone pulled him out it would be a calamity. As the government moves indisputably from being victims of misfortune to being agents of calamity, so we

Has Reform peaked? – racism allegations & Farage’s toughest week yet

From our UK edition

45 min listen

After a summer in which Nigel Farage seemed to bend the news cycle to his will, Michael and Maddie ask whether the party’s momentum is slipping. Do the allegations dredged up from Farage’s schooldays mark a decisive turning point – or, perversely, strengthen his outsider appeal? And with questions over Reform’s election spending, defections from