Some sore heads on Coffee House Shots this morning, after last night’s Spectator summer party. But while we were having fun, a drama was brewing in the Labour party after it was finally confirmed that Jeremy Corbyn is starting a new left-wing party... or is he? The news was broken last night by another MP: Zarah Sultana, a long-time admirer of Corbyn. Elected as a Labour MP in 2019, she lost the whip last July for voting to lift the two-child-benefit cap. However, after discussions with figures ...
Jul 04, 2025•13 min
Today Wes Streeting – with the help of Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves – announced his 10 year plan for curing the NHS. It’s all about creating a ‘Neighbourhood Health Service’, but what does actually mean in practice? Much of the plan was leaked in advance: first, focusing on preventing disease before it becomes too late; second, improving community healthcare services to help reduce pressure on hospitals; and third, embracing the tech revolution to bring the NHS into the ‘digital age’. One of t...
Jul 03, 2025•14 min
There were extraordinary scenes in PMQs today. Rachel Reeves appeared distraught as the Prime Minister failed to guarantee her security when asked by leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch. It was brutal to watch, as the iron chancellor’s lip quivered and a tear rolled down her cheek. In many ways, you can’t blame her – with her headroom narrowing, she will be forced to find a further £5 billion worth of savings to allow for the government’s botched welfare bill. No. 10 has since clarified that ...
Jul 02, 2025•12 min
It’s D-Day for Labour’s welfare reforms. MPs will vote tonight on the party’s watered-down benefits cuts. Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall formally announced Labour’s climbdown yesterday, telling MPs that the government had ‘listened carefully’ and was bringing in ‘positive changes’. Well, that’s one way of putting it. Even so, Labour is braced for a rebellion from dozens of MPs. We’ll know the full number at around 7pm, but it is not expected that there will be the 83 required to overtur...
Jul 01, 2025•14 min
There have been a number of navel-gazing interviews with the Prime Minister over the weekend. Across thousands and thousands of words, he seems to be saying – if you read between the lines – that he doesn't particularly enjoy being PM. In better news, Labour seems to have quelled the welfare rebellion. Liz Kendall is making a statement in the Commons this afternoon, in which she will outline the concessions that Labour has made on its controversial welfare bill. All in, the cost has spiralled by...
Jun 30, 2025•13 min
As Labour rebels appear to have forced concessions from Keir Starmer over welfare this week, former Conservative MP Steve Baker joins James Heale to reflect on his own time as a rebel, and to provide some advice to Labour MPs. Steve, an MP for 14 years and a minister under Theresa May, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, tells James about the different rebellions he was a part of (from Brexit to Covid), explains how to organise a successful one and reveals how he has lost close friends when he has made t...
Jun 28, 2025•24 min
Keir Starmer has performed a screeching about-turn on his flagship welfare reforms, all in the hope of quelling the rebellion from more than 120 MPs who have been promised ‘massive concessions’ over concerns about disability benefits. These include moderating the bill to make it easier for people with multiple impairments to claim disability benefits, and offering to protect Personal Independence Payments (PIP) for all existing claimants for ever – to ensure there would be no detriment from the ...
Jun 27, 2025•16 min
It’s bad news all round for Labour and the Tories. An MRP poll out today forecasts that if an election were held tomorrow, Labour would not only lose its majority, but fall behind Reform to become the second-largest party. The Conservatives would be reduced to a mere 46 seats, placing them fourth behind the Lib Dems. But that’s just the beginning of their collective woes. On the Labour side – despite Keir Starmer’s charm offensive and ongoing talks with Labour MPs about potential changes to welf...
Jun 26, 2025•19 min
Keir Starmer is facing war on both fronts. He is in the Netherlands to talk about defence and announce a major change in the UK's nuclear posture in response to rising challenges in the Middle East. But everyone in Westminster wants to talk about a different kind of warfare: the warfare over welfare. MPs will vote on the government’s controversial welfare bill, after more than 120 MPs signed a reasoned amendment that would effectively stop the bill in its tracks. What has been most concerning fo...
Jun 25, 2025•17 min
It is rare to see the President so visibly frustrated (see The Apprentice , circa 2004), but after Iran and Israel seemingly ignored his ceasefire announcement – and his plea on Truth Social, ‘PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!’ – Donald Trump has come down hard on both sides. In a clip taken this afternoon he exclaimed: ‘These are countries who have been fighting so long and so hard, that they don't know what the f*** they're doing.’ Succinctly put by the President. The exchange of fire could be the exp...
Jun 24, 2025•13 min
The weekend saw the US launch airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, with Tehran warning of ‘everlasting consequences’. Despite an emergency Cobra meeting and Luke Pollard’s morning media round, we are still waiting for an answer on whether the government supports Trump’s action. Keir Starmer’s assured and confident position on the world stage now looks to be in peril, as he is pulled between Trump, his attorney general and the court of public opinion. Can he de-escalate? Also on the podcast...
Jun 23, 2025•13 min
On this week’s special Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots , James Heale sits down with Jeremy Hunt to discuss his new book, Can We Be Great Again? . The former chancellor and foreign secretary argues that Britain remains one of the world’s most influential nations – but is in danger of losing its nerve. He reflects on working in the Foreign Office during Donald Trump’s first term, makes the case for the BBC as a tool of soft power, and admits he wanted to be the first chancellor since 1997 t...
Jun 21, 2025•17 min
MPs have voted – by a narrow 23-vote margin – in favour of legalising assisted dying. Bizarrely, the 51.9 to 48.1 per cent breakdown is the exact same as the 2016 referendum result, although hopefully this issue doesn't divide the Labour party in the same way that Brexit did for the Tories. The whole process is far from ‘Parliament at its best’, as it has often been claimed. Despite hours of passionate and emotional debate, key concerns about the drafting of the bill forced some who would natura...
Jun 20, 2025•14 min
It’s a historic day in Westminster, where MPs will vote on the assisted dying bill – the outcome of which could have huge repercussions for healthcare, politics and the courts. It’s such a significant day, in fact, that we’ll be recording another podcast just after the result is announced at around 2.30 p.m. Kim Leadbeater’s camp remains confident that the bill will pass, although many anticipate a much closer vote than at the second reading. This is in no small part due to high-profile members ...
Jun 20, 2025•13 min
This week, our new political editor Tim Shipman takes the helm and, in his cover piece, gives us the inside track on how Labour is dealing with Iran, Donald Trump and the prospect of escalating war in the Middle East. He writes that this could be the moment when all of Keir Starmer’s chickens come home to roost: his well-curated international image is at risk of crumbling as global crises present greater challenges; his hands are tied by legal advice from the controversial Lord Hermer; the Chago...
Jun 19, 2025•16 min
Westminster waits with bated breath to discover whether Donald Trump will ally with Israel in striking Iranian nuclear sites. The President called for ‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!’ from Tehran overnight. The day to day of domestic politics appears diminished by comparison with the ever-looming threat of an escalated conflict… But the show must go on: today’s PMQs saw Chris Philp (why not Robert Jenrick?) and Angela Rayner deputising for their absent leaders; Liz Kendall introduced legislation to en...
Jun 18, 2025•14 min
Yesterday Yvette Cooper announced a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal after the Casey Review found that a disproportionate number of Asian men were responsible and that governments and authorities had failed to step in over fears of racism. Anxious to press Labour on their U-turn – memorably, Starmer accused the Tories of ‘jumping on the far-right bandwagon’ – Kemi Badenoch held a press conference, joined by victims of the gangs. ‘I’m not doing politics now, when I’m in the Houses...
Jun 17, 2025•13 min
Following Keir Starmer's decision to call for a national inquiry into grooming gangs, the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper spoke in the Commons today about the 'collective failure' to address questions about groomings gangs' ethnicity in the Casey report. Elsewhere this week, Welfare reform legislation is being tabled, with a vote expected before the end of the month. Sir Keir Starmer has signalled his willingness to confront dissent within his own ranks. Meanwhile, the assisted dying debate is once...
Jun 16, 2025•11 min
Isabel Hardman presents highlights from Sunday morning's politics shows. The conflict in the Middle-East has entered a dangerous new phase, with Israel and Iran engaging in open warfare. We hear from Chancellor Reeves about potential UK military involvement, as the Israeli ambassador to the UK says the nuclear threat from Iran was 'imminent'. Starmer has also announced a statutory national inquiry into grooming gangs, but the Conservatives say the government is simply caving in to public pressur...
Jun 15, 2025•12 min
The Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons is joined by the outgoing boss of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Paul Johnson and the CEO of the Resolution Foundation Ruth Curtice to understand why Britain’s economy is in such a bad place. Given it feels like we are often in a doom loop of discussion about tax rises, does this point to a structural problem with the British economy? And why are the public’s expectations so out of line with the state’s capabilities? Michael, Paul and Ruth talk ...
Jun 14, 2025•20 min
Israel struck military and nuclear targets in Iran overnight in a major escalation of hostilities in the Middle East has begun further strikes on Friday. Iran has vowed retaliation though President Trump has warned Iran and encouraged the Iranians to continue negotiations over their nuclear programme. Further talks had been due to take place this weekend. What’s Israel’s objective? And does this underline the unpredictability of geopolitics, at a time when the UK has pledged significantly more m...
Jun 13, 2025•13 min
There were clear winners and losers in Rachel Reeves’s spending review yesterday but some of her announcements around capital spending and investment saw her dubbed the ‘Klarna Chancellor’ by LBC’s Nick Ferrari for her ‘buy now, pay later’ approach. Clearly trying to shake off the accusations of being ‘austerity-lite’, Labour point to longer term decisions made yesterday, such as over energy policy and infrastructure. But will voters see much benefit in the short-term? And, with the news today t...
Jun 12, 2025•13 min
There were few surprises in Rachel Reeves’s spending review today. Health was the big winner, with a £29bn increase in day-to-day spending and £39bn was announced to build social and affordable housing. The main eyebrow-raiser was the announcement that the Home Office will end the use of hotels for asylum seekers within this parliament; this could save £1bn or it could become Labour’s ‘stop the boats’ moment. The bigger picture was confusing – with increases measured against levels three years a...
Jun 11, 2025•10 min
Rachel Reeves has pledged a ‘new era of nuclear power’ as the government confirms a £14.2 billion investment in the Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk. This comes on the eve of Labour’s spending review, with the government expected to highlight spending pledges designed to give a positive impression of Labour’s handling of the economy. However, as Michael Simmons tells James Heale and Lucy Dunn, there are signs that the government’s National Insurance hike is starting to bite. Plus – Nigel Fara...
Jun 10, 2025•17 min
James Nation, formerly a special adviser to Rishi Sunak and now an MD at Forefront Advisers, joins the Spectator’s deputy political editor James Heale and economics editor Michael Simmons, to talk through the latest on the government’s spending review, which is due to be announced on Wednesday. The last holdout appears to be Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, pushing for more police funding. But, against a tough fiscal landscape, what can we expect? And how much does it matter with the wider public? ...
Jun 09, 2025•13 min
The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove and assistant editor Madeline Grant interview Rupert Lowe, MP for Great Yarmouth and notorious Westminster provocateur. Earlier this year, Lowe was suspended from the Reform party amid claims of threats towards the party’s then-chairman Zia Yusuf, and a souring relationship with Nigel Farage. Following his political ‘assassination’, he now sits as an independent MP and continues to be one of the most energetic parliamentarians in challenging the Westminster or...
Jun 07, 2025•49 min
Scottish Labour have a new MSP today as Davy Russell won the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, taking the seat from the SNP. Labour won with 31.6% of the vote with the SNP second on 29.4%, Reform close behind on 26.1% and the Conservatives a distance fourth with just 6% of the vote; this marks rare good news for both Keir Starmer and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. Both SNP and Reform will be disappointed not to have won, but Reform have been quick to highlight how close they ca...
Jun 06, 2025•14 min
Zia Yusuf resigned this evening from his position as chairman of Reform UK, saying: ‘I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time.’ This comes after he tweeted yesterday that it was ‘dumb’ for Sarah Pochin, Reform’s newest MP, to urge the Prime Minister to ban the burka during PMQs. Did he jump before he was pushed? And can Reform UK really claim to have ‘professionalised’ when this is the second high profile departure this year? Oscar Edmondson speaks ...
Jun 05, 2025•9 min
Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride delivered a speech today where he attempted to banish the ghost of Liz Truss and improve the Conservatives' reputation over fiscal credibility. And he compared leader Kemi Badenoch to Thatcher, saying she too struggled at first and will 'get better' at the dispatch box. LBC broadcaster Iain Dale and the Spectator's economics editor Michael Simmons join deputy political editor James Heale to unpack Stride's speech, talk about Labour's latest policy announcement over f...
Jun 05, 2025•19 min
Rachel Reeves unveiled billions of pounds of investment today for transport and infrastructure projects, as Labour attempts to demonstrate that next week’s spending review is not just about departmental cuts. However, most of the political noise today has centred on her announcement that the winter fuel cut will be reversed by the end of the year. But what does this all mean for the average voter, for the Chancellor’s fiscal headroom – and why is the government still blaming its own ‘fiscal rule...
Jun 04, 2025•16 min
