Labour party

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Grenfell report: why did it take so long?

16 min listen

Seven years after the tragedy, the inquiry into the Grenfell fire has published its report. What did we learn from it and who bears responsibility? And, with thousands of buildings still believed to contain flammable cladding, what should happen next? With such important lessons to be learnt, why do British inquiries take so long? Also on the podcast, a look at the first PMQs following summer recess and the Tory leadership election. James Heale speaks to Isabel Hardman and Liam Halligan, Telegraph columnist and author of Home Truths. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Toby Young Toby Young

Labour’s U-turn is the real hate crime

Free speech advocates like me need to stop talking about the meagre gains we made under the last government because the present one seems to be listening carefully, taking notes, then gleefully reversing each one. First it torpedoed the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. Then it threatened to put the ‘legal but harmful’ stuff back into the Online Safety Act. Now, Yvette Cooper has said trying to get the police to record fewer ‘non-crime hate incidents’ (NCHIs) was a dreadful mistake. A non-crime hate incident was recorded against a man for whistling the Bob the Builder tune To grasp just how potty this is, you need to understand what

James Heale James Heale

Making plans for Nigel

Few people had heard of Zia Yusuf before he spoke at Reform’s final campaign rally in Birmingham. But after a stirring speech to 4,000 supporters, he became one of the election’s overnight stars. ‘This boy’s got real talent,’ admitted Nigel Farage afterwards. He is now emerging as one of the more intriguing figures in the landscape of the right: a self-described ‘British Muslim patriot’, a 37-year-old multimillionaire, who says his mission in politics is to take Farage to No. 10. Farage is clearly Yusuf’s political lodestar: his name features dozens of times in our hour-long exchange When we meet at The Spectator office (his £100,000 Range Rover parked outside), Yusuf

The Spectator

Letters

Pensioners at risk Sir: Douglas Murray wonders what would have happened if a Conservative chancellor had announced the removal of the winter fuel payment (‘Labour’s age of miracles’, 31 August) and speculates about the reaction. No such speculation is needed: the Conservative manifesto of 2017 stated that it would means test this benefit, as Labour is now doing. The Labour party’s reaction was to publish research stating that up to 4,000 pensioners’ lives would be at risk and add that ‘pensioners in our country will struggle to heat their homes’ (the then shadow chancellor John McDonnell, as widely quoted in the press). No journalist has yet put this to the government.

Tuesday

Katy Balls

Is the UK still a ‘staunch ally’ of Israel?

16 min listen

The fallout continues from the UK’s decision to suspend some arms sale licenses to Israel. Defence Secretary John Healey insists the UK remains a ‘staunch ally’ of Israel, yet the decision has been criticised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as ‘shameful’. What has the domestic reaction been to the government’s decision, and who is it designed to please?  Patrick Gibbons speaks to Katy Balls and Michael Stephens, associate fellow at RUSI.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Saturday

Katy Balls

Which Conservative leader could be a problem for Keir Starmer?

14 min listen

The Tory leadership contest is still rumbling on, and we’re lucky enough to still have weeks to go! In this Saturday episode, we assess which of the candidates would create the biggest problem for Keir Starmer. Who would be most frustrating at the dispatch box, and whose politics would be the most difficult for him? Who might be a slightly easier opponent? Megan McElroy speaks to Katy Balls and John McTernan, political strategist and former political secretary to Tony Blair. 

Friday

Katy Balls

Why has Starmer taken down a portrait of Thatcher?

14 min listen

Keir Starmer’s biographer Tom Baldwin has revealed that the PM has removed a portrait of Margaret Thatcher from No 10. The portrait was originally commissioned by Gordon Brown. Why has he bothered to get rid of it? Elsewhere, the government has more plans for health, and select committees have some surprising new candidates. Megan McElroy speaks to Isabel Hardman and Katy Balls.

Thursday

Katy Balls

How far will Starmer’s smoking ban go?

19 min listen

Keir Starmer has confirmed that the government is looking at plans to revive Sunak’s smoking ban legislation. They may go even further – reports suggest they will seek to extend the current indoor ban for hospitality venues, to outdoor places such as pub gardens. What’s the rationale behind this, and where could it lead? How popular is the measure with the public? And, following Starmer’s speech on Tuesday about the economic problems the nation faces, is this another thing for business to worry about? Patrick Gibbons speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.

Douglas Murray

Labour’s age of miracles

I am not yet eligible for the winter fuel allowance. Nor am I especially in favour of it, regarding it as one of those times when the government bribes the public with the public’s own money and expects gratitude for doing so. Like anyone who pays taxes, I rather resent a government of any stripe using my earnings to make themselves look good. I’d go so far as to say it irks me. Still, I have watched Labour’s abolition of the scheme with something like awe. I know pensioners who appreciate the couple of hundred quid that the government lobs their way each winter. But last month the Chancellor of

The Spectator

Is this Rachel Reeves’s idea of a programme for growth?

It is certainly true that the Labour party has been more than a little devious over the tax rises that are to come. After an election campaign in which it insisted it had no plans – and no need – to increase taxes beyond a few measures such as extending VAT on school fees, mysterious holes started appearing in the public finances as soon as the party achieved office. So acute, apparently, is the lack of funds that Sir Keir Starmer felt the need to warn us this week that October’s Budget will be ‘painful’. It is an old trick, which David Cameron and George Osborne also tried to pull

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The death of free speech in Britain

In Michel Houellebecq’s satirical novel Soumission, the French elite submits to Islamic rule rather than accept a National Front government. Nine years after its publication, submission seems more imminent on this side of the English Channel. My American friends are surprised to learn there’s no equivalent to the First Amendment in Britain. They have forgotten a free press was one of the things their ancestors rebelled to establish in the US. Free speech is a much more recent thing in the UK. If it was born in the 1960s, it seems to be dying in the 2020s. If free speech in the UK was born in the 1960s, it seems

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Sir Keir’s tax warning, Russian air attacks and another prisons crisis

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, speaking in the garden of 10 Downing Street, warned that the Budget in October is ‘going to be painful’, and that ‘things will get worse before they get better’. ‘I didn’t want to means-test the winter fuel payment, but it was a choice we had to make,’ he said. ‘A garden and a building that were once used for lockdown parties are now back in your service.’ Meanwhile, it was discovered, a pass to Downing Street had been given to Lord Alli, the Labour peer and party fundraiser, who gave £10,000 to the Beckenham and Penge constituency party; the seat was won by

Wednesday

Katy Balls

What’s behind Starmer’s ‘reset’ with Europe?

16 min listen

Keir Starmer has been in Germany today visiting Chancellor Olaf Scholz, before heading to Paris to meet President Macron. This is part of his plan to ‘reset’ relations with Europe – but how close does he want to get to the EU? And, given Brexit wounds are still raw, what’s achievable?  James Heale is joined by Katy Balls and Sophia Gaston, head of the foreign policy unit at Policy Exchange to discuss. Produced by Megan McElroy and Patrick Gibbons. 

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

Just how ‘painful’ will Starmer’s October Budget be?

15 min listen

Winter is coming. That’s the message from Keir Starmer’s set-piece speech this morning from the No. 10 rose garden. After a tricky few weeks for the new Prime Minister on cronyism claims and anxiety about cuts to the winter fuel allowance, Starmer and his team attempted seize the agenda with a speech looking ahead to the months to come. However, anyone hoping for optimism will be disappointed, with Starmer warning things can only get worse. How bad can they be? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson. 

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

Are Labour about to u-turn on the winter fuel payment?

Could Labour be about to water down its removal of the winter fuel payment for pensioners? The chorus of muttering is getting louder in the party about restricting it to those on pension credit or other means-tested benefits, with backbenchers saying they have been shocked by the volume of letters from pensioners about it. This week, Rachael Maskell called on the government to think again about the policy after the new energy price cap went up, and now Harriet Harman has intervened with her own suggestion. Baroness Harman politely offered a compromise in which ‘they decide to make a different cut-off point’. Harman doesn’t tend to criticise her party in

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Things can only get worse for Keir Starmer

When Rishi Sunak announced a July election during a torrential downpour, one leftist wag played ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ at high volume in adjacent Whitehall. The audible strains of the D-Ream hit – which served as Tony Blair’s election anthem – added to the impression of a drowning PM and conveyed the notion that a heavy Tory defeat was inevitable. And so it proved. Yet the parallels with 1997 are already done and dusted. Because while Blair had a political honeymoon which lasted all the way to the subsequent election, Keir Starmer’s ended almost as soon as it began. It is today reported that Starmer will acknowledge this in

Saturday

James Heale

What could a Kamala Harris presidency mean for the UK?

16 min listen

As the Democratic National Convention draws to a close in Chicago this week, Patrick Gibbons is joined by James Heale and Gerry Baker, editor at large of the Wall Street Journal to try to make sense of what a Harris presidency could mean for the UK. Is she continuity Biden? Do we really know what she stands for?  Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Cindy Yu. 

Friday

James Heale

Is the energy price cap hike bad news for Labour?

17 min listen

Ofgem, the energy regulator, has announced that the price cap will rise by 10% in October. Is this bad news for Labour, or will they be successful in framing it as part of their economic inheritance from the Conservatives? And could this strengthen opposition to the proposed change to winter fuel allowance? Patrick Gibbons speaks to James Heale and John McTernan, former political secretary to Tony Blair.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Cindy Yu.

Thursday

Freddy Gray

All hail Harris! Can Kamala bluff her way to the top?

36 min listen

This week: All hail Harris! As the Democratic National Convention approaches its climax, The Spectator’s deputy editor Freddy Gray explores vice president Kamala Harris’s remarkable rise to the top of the democratic ticket in his cover article this week. Freddy joins the podcast from Chicago (1:30). Next: live from the DNC. Freddy and Natasha Feroze, The Spectator’s deputy broadcast editor, have been out and about at the convention talking to delegates – and detractors – of the Democratic Party. What do these Americans think? And does Kamala Harris have ‘good vibes’? (7:56). Then: should misogyny really be classified under anti-terrorism laws? In the magazine this week The Spectator’s economics editor Kate Andrews argues that the

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Can Labour crack apprenticeships?

11 min listen

Today’s GCSE results show an exams system that has largely returned to pre-Covid norms. It has also given the government a chance to talk about skills and apprenticeships – something that Bridget Phillipson’s predecessor as education secretary was also keen on. Cindy Yu talks to James Heale and Amanda Spielman, former chair of Ofqual and Ofsted, about the state of the British education system. Produced by Cindy Yu.