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Articles by William Clouston
Rod had one great regret
In 2019 I had to explain to Iain Dale – live on LBC – that Rod Liddle’s suggestion in his Spectator column that elections should be held on Islamic holy days to deter Muslims from voting was not a serious proposal. Neither was his idea that students be drugged by their parents to the same end. It was humour, and they were jokes. When he was in hospital a few weeks ago, I visited Rod with some cake. While he munched away, he expressed a sense of regret that he could have been a great writer.
From an entitlement state to an investment state
About 50 years ago, Britain stopped investing in its future. The consequences have been stagnant incomes, runaway entitlement spending, and the squandering of future growth. Since 1955, the level of government spending has remained very consistent. It has consistently averaged around 40 per cent of GDP per annum.
How to fix Britain’s energy crisis
High power costs are to blame for our productivity malaise In the second half of the 20th century, the British government maintained a constant flow of cheap, affordable grid electricity. In the year 2000, Britain’s electricity was among the cheapest in the world. But then things began to go badly wrong.
Labour is incapable of fixing the migrant crisis
The news that over 50,000 migrants have arrived on small boats since Labour took office last year is of no surprise. If things don’t change soon another 50,000 are sure to follow and then another. The causes of the Channel migrant crisis are quite clear. Yet public frustration is at fever pitch partly because none of our political elites – red, blue or turquoise – have any idea how to solve the problem.
Trump has put Britain’s Brexit negotiators to shame
The UK’s political class is unwilling and incapable of asserting the national interest. Share Topics Brexit Politics UK USA Want to read spiked ad-free? Become a spiked supporter. Donald Trump has bagged an extraordinary trade deal. From now on, most EU exports to the US will be subject to a 15 per cent tariff, which will raise tens of billions of dollars in revenue for the US Treasury.
Trump has put Britain’s Brexit negotiators to shame
The UK’s political class is unwilling and incapable of asserting the national interest. Share Topics Brexit Politics UK USA Want to read spiked ad-free? Become a spiked supporter. Donald Trump has bagged an extraordinary trade deal. From now on, most EU exports to the US will be subject to a 15 per cent tariff, which will raise tens of billions of dollars in revenue for the US Treasury.
Remembering Patrick O’Flynn
The unanticipated and deeply sad news of Patrick O’Flynn’s death is a blow to so many – not just to his close family but also to those in the world of politics and journalism and for many throughout the country. I first met Patrick in a pub with David Goodhart in 2018 and got to know him well in the following eight years throughout our – sometimes forlorn – efforts to revive the Social Democratic party.
Why tariffs work
To travel by train through America’s rustbelt is to witness the real reason for Trump’s tariff revolution. Miles upon miles of derelict factories and decaying industrial architecture stand as monuments to trade policies which have gutted America’s manufacturing heartland and undermined the families – and the towns – which depended on it. Delivery of the weekly magazine Unlimited access to spectator.com.au and app Spectator podcasts and newsletters Full access to spectator.co.uk Or
The UK-US relationship has been rocky in the past, but the most dangerous era is coming
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Will we learn anything from the Harehills riot?
Britain is long overdue a reckoning with multiculturalism. Share Topics Politics UK Want to read spiked ad-free? Become a spiked supporter. Can anything be learned from last week’s riot in Harehills, Leeds? It seems that not much has changed since the full-scale rioting of the 1980s in Handsworth, Birmingham, where I lived at the time. As in Harehills, the spark was a hostile interaction between public authorities and a particular ethnic group.
The case for Orkney nationalism Original
When John Maynard Keynes visited Orkney for two months in the summer of 1908, he wrote, enchanted, to a friend from Stromness, claiming “the view from this town is the Bay of Naples and the Island of Capri”. This stunningly beautiful archipelago off the north-easternmost tip of Scotland is also supposed to be the “happiest place in Britain”. And yet all is not well.
Starmer’s sound bites won’t solve the housing crisis
To much fanfare Keir Starmer has unveiled Labour’s plans to tackle Britain’s housing crisis in a speech at the British Chambers of Commerce Global Annual Conference. Using the slogan ‘We choose the builders, not the blockers’ Starmer expressed an interest on building on the Greenbelt and prioritised reforming the planning system as a route to success. This is an intriguing approach for a Labour leader. Why?
Why the Tories' post-Brexit vision has crumbled
A few days after the momentous 2016 vote to leave the EU I found myself in a pub having a pint with a government minister. Never mind he said, ’We’ll get a deal, stay inside the single market and things will be fine’. At that point I realised we were in deep trouble. This minister of the crown had profoundly misunderstood what was going on. The public hadn’t voted for for continuity – they wanted change. Like every other major party in Britain, the Tory party didn’t want Brexit.
Students are running scared from debate
This is why I have written to the York University vice chancellor, Professor Charlie Jeffery, requesting that he secures a retraction and formal apology from the York LGBTQ+ Network for its baseless defamation. Failure to reprimand the LGBTQ+ Network could represent a breach by the university of the Education Act 1986, which imposes a duty to do everything practicable to uphold free speech on campus. Because it is obvious that this sets a precedent.
DEBATE: Is it time for another Scottish referendum?
Andy Mayer, Chief Operating Officer and energy analyst at the Institute of Economic Affairs, argues YES The Scottish people have a right to self-determination, and the consistent election of Scottish Nationalists as the government since 2007, with parliamentary majorities for independence since 2011 creates popular consent to raise the question. The counter argument that the question was settled for the Union in 2014, with a 10 per cent margin, is reasonable but not decisive.
DEBATE: Should the UK remain a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights?
Phoebe Arslanagic-Wakefield, Senior Research Fellow at Bright Blue and Chair of the Women in Think Tanks Forum, argues YES Drafted in World War II’s dreadful shadow and championed by Winston Churchill, the UK was one of the original twelve signatories to the ECHR. Rather than an alien piece of legislation, we were heavily involved in its drafting, becoming the first nation to ratify it in 1951.
Social Democratic Party (SDP) makes election breakthrough in Leeds - A victory for sensible, mainstream politics
The SDP’s Wayne Dixon has won a dramatic victory in the Middleton Park ward in Leeds in Thursday’s local elections, pushing Labour to second place. Councillor Dixon called it “a victory for sensible, mainstream politics that local people can understand.” SDP leader William Clouston said:- “The Leeds result is built on growing interest in the SDP. We’re Britain’s fastest growing political party and we’ve seen a steady increase in votes in local and national elections in recent years.
P&O: why ownership must come home
Share Topics Politics UK Last week, in a spectacular act of corporate cowardice, P&O Ferries sacked some 800 British workers – gracelessly via a five-minute Zoom call. The seafarers, many of whom had given the company decades of service, were largely replaced with cheaper overseas contract labour.
The cost-of-living crisis was years in the making
The cost-of-living crisis and the inflationary surge which has accompanied it came as a surprise only to professional economists who – almost universally – failed to predict it. Having been unable to anticipate the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, we shouldn’t be surprised that most economists repeated their performance this year. Yet basic economics can tell us much about why people are facing rising prices and crushing costs, and what can be done about it.
The north-east has been abandoned
Share Topics Politics UK Last Friday and into the early hours of Saturday morning, Storm Arwen wreaked havoc throughout north-east England. Easily the most severe weather event to hit the UK since Storm Desmond in 2015, 100 miles-per-hour winds uprooted trees, overturned lorries and destroyed power lines. It resulted in the loss of electrical power to over 200,000 homes – including, for a few hours, my own. Three people lost their lives. It should have been a newsworthy event.
The NHS: overwhelmed by identity politics
Share Topics Politics UK A friend shattered his tibia and fibula while playing football a few weeks ago. It happened at 6pm at a large sports centre in one of Britain’s biggest cities. When his teammates called an ambulance, they were told it would take seven hours to arrive. Rather than watch their friend writhe in pain for seven hours, his teammates ran to a nearby swimming pool, grabbed a stretcher and put him in the back of a transit van to take him directly to A&E.
SDP Talks with Liam Halligan
In this episode of SDP Talks, William Clouston is joined by the economist and journalist Liam Halligan to discuss Britain’s mounting housing crisis. Liam and William discuss how Britain’s housing shortage has come about, the effects of poor housing supply on families and society, and how the country can build more homes.
Shirley Williams and the SDP that could have been
Share Topics Politics UK Shirley Williams, who has died at the age of 90, possessed in abundance the qualities required for a career in public life. A passionate and decent person, her major strengths lay in her ability to debate, communicate and connect with people. Few within today’s Labour Party, which she left in 1981, have a comparable depth of talent or level of decency.
1828 DEBATE: Do we need a global treaty to protect us from future pandemics?
Martin McKee, Prof. of European Public Health at LSHTM and Director of Research Policy at the European Observatory argues YES It is a cliché that microorganisms do not respect borders. In the past 12 months, a lethal virus has spread across the world, killing millions and doing untold economic damage. Yet although this is a global threat, the responses have mostly taken place within national borders. We already do have International Health Regulations, but it is now clear that they are not enough.
1828 DEBATE: Does the Suez blockage show the dangers of ‘excessive globalisation’?
William Clouston, leader of the Social Democratic Party argues YES A gust of wind and a possible power failure on a container ship blocked the Suez Canal – a commercial artery through which an estimated 12 per cent of global trade passes. This is just the latest example of the increasing fragility globalisation has caused.
Batley school protests: If we want a free and tolerant society, we must stop pandering to the mob
Being a lazy and feckless boy, I didn’t enjoy school, and have found myself unable to empathise with the nation’s children so desperate to get back into the classroom these past months. But having struggled through years of being force fed things I had no interest in, I am happy to hear that times have changed for my feckless brethren.
The Waning of the Common Life
The common life in Britain has been on the wane for over half a century and may, if we’re not careful, be finally killed off by the pandemic. British people used to live, work, worship, drink, eat, and travel together, but now they increasingly do so alone. This development underpins the phenomenon of modern alienation and isolation, which has led to an increasingly unhappy and unharmonious nation.
We need to smash the two-party system
Forty years since the Limehouse Declaration founded the SDP, we still need to overturn the Labour / Tory duopoly. Share Topics Politics UK Forty years ago today, four leading Labour Party figures published the Limehouse Declaration, the founding document of the Social Democratic Party. It heralded one of the biggest challenges to the two-party system in British political history.
SDP Talks with Calvin Robinson
Educationalist, commentator, and writer Calvin Robinson joins William Clouston, the leader of the Social Democrats, to discuss the educational, social, and political climate. William and Calvin talk about the role of rigour in education, the danger of identity politics sneaking into schools and the inflation of the university sector. Outside of education, Calvin and William discuss Calvin’s work in the Defund the BBC campaign and how Britain should better respond to the pandemic.
Why communitarians should oppose the lockdown
The devastation caused to lives and livelihoods outweighs any impact on the virus. Share Topics Politics UK The debate over the Covid restrictions is often framed as a divide between ‘lockdowners’ and ‘libertarians’. A recent article in the Observer, though balanced, uses these terms to describe the two camps. Names matter, and for the Observer to label anti-lockdowners as ‘libertarians’ is to associate those opposed to restrictions with a certain ideology.
Where’s the opposition?
THE British people are facing the prospect of economic and social disintegration. By the end of the year, the nation is set to lose upwards of a million jobs. Within the next several years, thousands – possibly tens of thousands – of cancer patients will have been condemned to preventable deaths. And within the coming decade, many families may have to confront their loved ones succumbing to addiction, mental illness and suicide.
Britain is turning into the Eastern Bloc
On TV, on social media and in the workplace, Britons feel they cannot openly speak the truth. Share Topics Free Speech Politics UK Something dawned on me the other day – public debate in Britain is eerily like what I experienced behind the Iron Curtain in the 1980s. I went to Warsaw in 1987. A friend had decided, after graduating in Britain, to study urban design at the city’s university. Given the brutality of Warsaw’s Soviet-style architecture, this might have seemed a curious choice.
The BLM movement could not be more wrong
Its key claims don’t stand up to scrutiny and its proposals would be a disaster for black and white people alike. Share Topics Politics UK USA One of the most dispiriting aspects of recent events has been the uncritical acceptance by large sections of society, government and our institutions of the political programme of the Black Lives Matter movement. A wave of emotion has washed over our culture which seems to have robbed people of sound judgement.
We need to talk about toleration
A single atrocity in Minneapolis started a causal chain which has led to mass demonstrations, an orgy of rioting and looting across US cities and the vandalism of civic monuments across the world. As the revolutionary agenda of Black Lives Matter (BLM) sweeps uncritically across our institutions it’s time to defend a vital, old-fashioned and neglected idea – civilised toleration.
The End of Indifference?
The lockdown will gradually recede, the empty pavements will refill and the task of rebuilding will begin. National crises, while painful, often herald a cultural shift. And so it could be here. For years our leaders have been indifferent to things that matter. Now these things are impossible to ignore. Like naked bathers exposed when the tide ebbs, the Covid-19 crisis has brutally unmasked a series of liberal ideas whose time has passed.
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