Iain Macwhirter
Verified
Columnist,Times. Spectator. Author: "Disunited Kingdom". BBC TV/ radio presenter for over 25 years. Former Rector Edinburgh University.
Articles by Iain Macwhirter
As Burnham Gains Support, Britain Keeps Going Backwards
Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Britain is not just getting poorer, it’s going backwards: back to the politics of the 1970s, to state controls, high taxes, and big public spending. According to YouGov polls, voters want nationalization of utilities, wealth taxes, rent controls, even a return to the European Union. And Labour is eager to oblige.
Britain wants to return to the 1970s
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts
Burnham’s first target is pensioners - seriously?
The UK state pension is half the National Living Wage. Labour want it to stay that way. Many of the younger Labour MPs who entered Parliament in 2024 possessed a burning ambition to address what they call “intergenerational inequality”. Or, crudely, to bash the Boomers.
Andy Burnham ignites the pan-Celtic uprising
They’re coming for you, Andy The United Kingdom is a famously a multinational state - Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England - and has been, essentially, since the Act of Union in 1707. However, the ties that bind these nations together have been loosening. In the May 2026 Scottish parliament elections, the separatist Scottish National Party secured its fifth consecutive election victory, under First Minister, John Swinney.
Swinney’s food price cap is futile
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts
Reform's opening to Restore is a fatal error
Lowe: “If Tommy Robinson wants to join that’s up to him” Nigel Farage marginally increased his vote share in the Clacton-on-Sea by-election and the turn out, of 44% was respectable. But since the other main parties weren’t playing, this hasn’t been an electoral triumph.
Jason Arday is OK
Jason Arday, the Cambridge sociology professor who resigned on Wednesday over plagiarism claims, will no doubt bounce back. As he said himself in a Times interview: “We’re talking about academia here. I didn’t murder somebody.” The academic prodigy, appointed Professor of Sociology of Education and Fellow of Jesus College at the age of 37, is now a national celebrity.
It’s open season on Nicola Sturgeon for the SNP
There have been mutterings in SNP ranks about Nicola Sturgeon’s failure to notice her former husband, Peter Murrell’s, embezzlement of party funds when she was leader. Her stature is not what it was. However, no one expected Ms Sturgon to positively invite hostility by launching an attack on First Minister John Swinney, who was conspicuously loyal to her throughout the Murrell affair.
Enjoy The Burnham Bounce While It Lasts
It’s a bird it’s a plane it’s Northman! I know, I know. It’s mostly political theatre. But I can’t help warming to Andy Burnham’s style of government. I almost cheered out loud when he said he was going to make “the hard hat as valued as the graduation cap”. Far too many young people are being propelled into indifferent universities where they take on life-changing debt in exchange for degrees in whatever-ology that are of little value in the jobs market of today.
Sarwar's "Scoot for the Ermine" Fuels Demand for Labour "Independence"
Reactions Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar’s, elevation to the House of Lords as business minister are mostly unprintable. “Shameles”s, “hypocrite”, “liar” even. And that’s just from the Labour Party. After all didn’t he say the unelected Lords was a democratic abomination and should be scrapped? How dare he make this dash for ermine.
The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round
There has been a flurry of announcement from the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham since he took office on Monday. He has hit the ground running, say Number 10 aides; others say he’s just hit the ground. Some nugatory measures on the cost of living have been introduced like a £2 cap on bus fares and we have had lots and lots of “vibes”. He also shocked Washington by installing Ed Miliband as Foreign Secretary (oh to be a fly on the wall when “Red Ed” meets The Donald).
Burnham Starts Premiership Short on Cash, Ideas
UK Special Coverage Burnham Starts Premiership Short on Cash, Ideas The new prime minister has yet to show much cause for hope amid the UK’s fiscal spiral. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Britain’s latest prime minister, the seventh in 10 years, registered his first policy failure even before he took office. Andy Burnham’s only concrete pledge on the doorstep of Number 10 this morning was to end rough sleeping in Britain.
Andy Burnham is a Sphinx without a riddle.
Andy Burnham is in a dither. He has promised to end factionalism in the Labour Party, but the mother of all faction fights has already broken out over his choice of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Or rather his lack of one. Meanwhile, he has insulated himself from scrutiny by issuing a fog of clichés and generalities. It won’t do.
Nigel's on his First Farewell Tour
Could this be B Day for Binface? If Nigel Farage has indeed been the target of an Establishment stitch-up, it has to be said that he’s done his level best for it to succeed. First of all, he failed to declare a humongous bung from a crypto billionaire, the Thailand-based Christopher Harborne. How did he think this would have remained secret? We learned from the Guardian that his bank notified the National Crime Agency about the £5 million gift.
The Right Divided Is The Right Defeated
The recent opinion polls make sobering reading for the left. Not only is Nigel Farage’s Reform UK leading the pack, Kemi Badenoch is single handedly reviving the Conservative brand - even in Scotland where “Tory” has been a four letter word for four decades. On a range of issues - oil and gas, immigration, transgenderism, welfare and spending - the Right has been carving out a distinctive populist agenda and dispelling the “nasty party” image. Well, some of them have.
And so farewell then Keir Starmer…
It was perhaps the least surprising prime ministerial resignation in modern political history . We had been told for weeks that Keir Starmer was on what Scots call “ a shoogly peg”. That his time in Number Ten was drawing to an ignominious close. This morning to the deafening sounds of the Beethoven’s Ode to Joy blasted out by the anti-Brexit campaigners Starmer finally fell off the eponymous peg. Bathos is hardly the right word for it.
Electoral Ataxia - How British Voters Lost It
“I realise the demand for change in Makerfield. The need for real change. Hope. And change. And more money in people’s pockets and in businesses. That’s what I have delivered in Manchester. Big glass towers of change. And I know that change is possible in the way we do politics in this country - and if that means yet more change, then so be it…” And so continues the Prime Minister-in-waiting, Andy Burnham, winner of the Makerfield by-election.
Healey Sticks the Knife In
To lose one defence minister in one day is bad; losing two looks like carelessness. In fact, to depart from Wildean tropes, it is catastrophic. The Defence Secretary, John Healey, who resigned yesterday, plunging the Starmer Cabinet into yet another crisis, was thought to be doggedly loyal. But he plunged the knife into his boss’s authority by storming out declaring that the Prime Minister was making Britain “less safe”.
So Do White Lives Matter?
The murder of Henry Nowak is like a morality play for our times — one where no one comes out with their moral integrity intact. Except perhaps Henry’s father, Mark, who gave an extraordinarily level-headed and articulate speech outside the court last week where his son’s murderer, Vickrum Singh Digwa, was sentenced to 21 years’ imprisonment.
Tears for Fears as Sturgeon Plays Blames Misogyny
Nicola Sturgeon’s emotional car crash interview on Kuenssberg will go down as the defining moment in the worst financial scandal in the history of the Scottish Parliament. Her lawyer, Aamer Anwar, who was observed creepily standing slightly off stage during her interview, should have used a shepherd’s crook to drag her off camera as soon as she started claiming that she was “serving a sentence for a crime I didn’t commit”.
Tony’s Tory Lite is Anathema to Labour
Blair’s bombshell has pushed the party even further into its “comfort zone” He’s back. Share The extraordinary thing about Tony Blair’s five-thousand-word j’accuse, published by his Institute for Global Change, is how conspicuously conservative it is, with both a big and a small “c”.
The Scottish Greens want everything to be free
The Scottish Green party can usually be relied upon to provide some light relief at election time. But this year, in their manifesto for the Scottish Parliament elections on 7 May, they have outdone themselves in fantasy policy-making. The Greens want to ban everything from horse racing to homework; from nuclear power to wood-burning stoves.
The UK’s Fiscal Apocalypse
UK Special Coverage The UK’s Fiscal Apocalypse Public spending is ballooning even as Labour degrades the British economy. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... This week I came across a truly jaw-dropping statistic. Britain now spends more on benefits than it raises in income tax: £334 billion against £306 billion respectively. The UK, it seems, now taxes working people in order to pay other people not to work.
Labour’s Doomed Pivot Toward Europe
UK Special Coverage Labour’s Doomed Pivot Toward Europe The British government is wistfully hoping to relitigate Brexit, but it won’t work. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player...
How Scotland turned against assisted dying
When the Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP, Liam McArthur, first tabled his Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill two years ago, the result seemed almost a foregone conclusion. Nearly all of the party leaders supported it, at least in principle, along with a clear majority their elected members. Around 80 per cent of Scottish voters approved the principle of ‘dignity in dying’. They still do.
Starmer’s Latest Political Snafu: The Iran War
UK Special Coverage Starmer’s Latest Political Snafu: The Iran War The Labour prime minister’s indecision and the abject state of the British military have created an embarrassing display. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Forty-four years ago, Margaret Thatcher sent a British task force 8,000 miles to liberate the Falkland Islands. They had been invaded by Argentina.
Shabana Mahmood Takes On the Rubber Boats
UK Special Coverage Shabana Mahmood Takes On the Rubber Boats Will Labour’s latest effort to tackle the immigration crisis run aground, as all the others have? Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player...
The British Populist Left Secures Its First Victory
UK Special Coverage The British Populist Left Secures Its First Victory The Greens dominated the Gorton and Denton by-election with a combination of social leftism and pandering to immigrants. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... It is 10 years since the French author Michel Houellebecq published his satirical novel, Submission, about an electoral alliance between the metropolitan left and Islamism.
Can the UK Populists Remain Popular?
UK Special Coverage Can the UK Populists Remain Popular? The Reform juggernaut could run aground on fiscal policy. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... The paramount aim of populist nationalist parties like the Rassemblement National (RN) in France, the Scottish National Party (SNP), or Reform UK is to be, well, popular.
Is the Nationalist Revolution in Britain Real?
UK Special Coverage Is the Nationalist Revolution in Britain Real? Reform is facing some of its first tests of broad electoral viability. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Nigel Farage’s insurgent Reform UK has now been dominating the British opinion polls since June 2025. Quite an achievement for a party led by one of the political world’s classic outsiders—or losers, according to his critics—Nigel Farage.
The Former Prince Andrew’s Arrest Shakes the Monarchy
UK Special Coverage The Former Prince Andrew’s Arrest Shakes the Monarchy Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest on allegations of improper conduct with the late Jeffrey Epstein threatens the beleaguered institution. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... It is hard to overstate the shock in the British Establishment at the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, today on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
‘Nothing to Fear but Keir Himself’
UK Special Coverage ‘Nothing to Fear but Keir Himself’ Labour’s electoral fundamentals remain dire, despite Starmer’s survival of a party putsch. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Following his near-death experience last week, the Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has, we are told, been reborn.
Starmer Survives a Palace Coup, But for How Long?
Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... It is an old adage in war and politics that, if you’re going to take out your leader, you’d better not miss. You also need to be sure that the politicians who’ve said they’ll support you in a palace coup are serious people. Unfortunately, the Scottish Labour grandee, Anas Sarwar, failed on both counts.
British Energy Policy’s Suicidal Empathy
UK Special Coverage British Energy Policy’s Suicidal Empathy The UK could be an energy superpower. Why isn’t it? Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Great Britain should be a virtual energy superpower. It is an island with prodigious reserves of energy, both carbon-based and renewable. The North Sea oil and gas fields may be in decline, but there are still around 14 billion barrels of the black stuff lurking under the waves, and new discoveries are being made every year.
The Epstein Scandal Could Bury Starmer
UK Special Coverage The Epstein Scandal Could Bury Starmer Dirty financial dealings between the deceased sex trafficker and Labour’s “Prince of Darkness” have thrown the party into turmoil. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... The disgraced former spin doctor, Lord Peter Mandelson, has been a one-man wrecking ball demolishing the integrity of successive UK Labour governments for over 30 years.
The Great Fragmentation of UK Politics
Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... The British are a famously phlegmatic nation, not given to revolutionary fervor or radical politics. The UK is the oldest parliamentary democracy in the world and has had a remarkably stable political system dominated by two class-based parties, Labour and Conservative, for the last century. Brits have a healthy disrespect for politicians and love to laugh at the antics of the pompous elites who tell them how to live their lives.
Are Badenoch’s Tories Showing Signs of Life?
UK Special Coverage Are Badenoch’s Tories Showing Signs of Life? The opposition leader is giving Reform a run for its money in the race to be Britain’s preeminent party of the right. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Prime Minister’s Question Time in the Westminster House of Commons is the most raucous bear pit in any Western legislature. Viewers used to America’s relatively restrained exchanges in Congress often find it astonishing at first sight.
The American Conservative
Subscribe Today Become a member and enjoy the very best from The American Conservative in print & digital. Become a Member
Benefits Britain Is on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Foreign Affairs Benefits Britain Is on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... When I first heard the term “neurodivergence” about fifteen years ago, I thought it might be the latest sci-fi dystopia from the author William Gibson. It actually means, well, whatever you want it to mean.
The Canada of the United Kingdom Turns Right
UK Special Coverage The Canada of the United Kingdom Turns Right Woke social policies and environmentalist deindustrialization have pushed Scotland too far. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Scotland has long had a reputation for being a bastion of the left—the Canada of the United Kingdom.
The Trans Debate Still Rages in the UK
UK Special Coverage The Trans Debate Still Rages in the UK A Scottish employment tribunal and the British Supreme Court are on a collision course. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Late on Christmas Eve 2023, a 50-year-old nurse, Sandie Peggie, had an altercation in the women’s changing rooms of Victoria Hospital Fife with a transgender doctor, Beth Upton. She was dealing with a heavy period and objected to undressing before a male-bodied trans woman.
The Great British Brain-Drain
UK Special Coverage The Great British Brain-Drain Economic and social headwinds are pushing talent out of the UK. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... I am friends with a billionaire property developer who left Britain for good this year. He went to live in a European tax haven because he objects to this country’s 40 percent inheritance tax—one of the most punitive rates in the world.
The Brits Can’t Seem to Move On From Brexit
UK Special Coverage The Brits Can’t Seem to Move On From Brexit Keir Starmer is looking to reopen the referendum’s wounds to shore up his own political prospects. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... It will soon be 10 years since the referendum on British membership of the European Union. But Brits just can’t seem to let Brexit go. The Labour prime minister Keir Starmer has, in a lengthy interview in the Observer newspaper, renewed speculation about the UK rejoining the EU.
Did Britain’s Chancellor Lie About Her Monster Budget?
Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... British politicians rarely lie. Even Boris Johnson’s notorious claim on the red Brexit bus in 2016 that Britain sends £350 million a week to the European Union was not actually a lie. That was the official level of Britain’s contribution to the Brussels budget. What the advert didn’t say was that around half comes back in the form of rebates and investment subsidies.
The BBC’s Left Turn Has Endangered Its Own Existence
Foreign Affairs The BBC’s Left Turn Has Endangered Its Own Existence The venerable British outlet is facing a serious libel suit just as its financing is being called into question. Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... The British Broadcasting Corporation is a century-old anachronism—as many in the BBC freely admit. It is unique in being financed by a poll tax of £175 a year served on every household with a TV, whether they watch its output or not.
Iain Macwhirter's Substack
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts
The BBC: My Part In Its Downfall – The Daily Sceptic
The BBC has always been very Left-wing. But it didn’t used to be biased. I should know because I was one of those identikit Left-wingers who worked at the BBC for 25 years. Everyone thought the same: Thatcher was mad, the poll tax was evil, immigration was a good thing, the rich should be taxed and nuclear weapons were immoral. These liberal-Left attitudes were shared by the vast majority of the people I worked with in the British Broadcasting Corporation. With a few exceptions.
The BBC: My Part In Its Downfall
The BBC has always been very left-wing. But it didn’t used to be biased. I should know because I was one of those identikit left-wingers who worked at the BBC for 25 years. Everyone thought the same: Thatcher was mad, the poll tax was evil, immigration was a good thing, the rich should be taxed, and nuclear weapons were immoral. These liberal-left attitudes were shared by the vast majority of the people I worked with in the British Broadcasting Corporation. With a few exceptions.
So what did Trump actually say at the Capitol Rally?
The resignation of the BBC Director General, Tim Davie, and the CEO of News, Deborah Turness, is the worst crisis the BBC has faced in over two decades. That is, since the morning in May 2003 when the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan, told the Today programme that Alistair Campbell’s dossier on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction had been “sexed up”. It had been of course.
Arguing with AI
A Green Party commentator recently accused me of being a “pound shop Matt Goodwin”, whatever that is. So, I thought I should look up Mr Goodwin’s Twitter feed to find out why association with him, even at a reduced currency, is apparently so egregious. Goodwin is a former academic turned Substack star who supports Reform UK and writes extensively about immigration. He believes that migrants are disproportionately responsible for sex crimes and violent attacks. This is questionable to say the least.
Show More
loading
Actions
Get in touch with Iain
Contact Iain, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack