By John Power
Good morning. Iran is widening the war, with Saudi Arabia threatening military action after strikes on Riyadh and its oil sites, while Trump insists he is ‘not putting troops anywhere’. At home, Labour faces unrest over aid cuts and migration as Rayner manoeuvres, Badenoch talks tough on shoplifters and a row over Islam flares. Abroad, Ukraine delays elections, Putin targets childlessness, markets wobble and James Comey is dragged back into the fray. You’re reading Spectator Daily, here is everything you need to know today.
THE HOUSE OF SAUD THREATENS IRAN
Saudi Arabia has threatened military action against Iran, in response to Iranian drones and missiles striking Riyadh. Iran has also hit Saudi Arabian oil refineries. Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, the foreign minister, said his country ‘reserved the right to take military action if deemed necessary’. Iran has increased strikes on its Arab neighbours, crippling Ras Laffan, Qatar’s liquefied natural gas processing facility, on Wednesday. In the last few hours, the Saudis, UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain have all reported more missile and drone attacks.
Chatham House has done an interesting write-up on what impact Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states could have if they joined the war at this stage, pointing out that Saudi Arabia has a more technologically advanced airforce than Iran, and that the UAE also has considerable forces in the region.
With that said, the military records of these countries have been mixed in recent years. Despite being the largest spender on defence in the region, Saudi Arabia has struggled to operate effectively in its ongoing conflict with the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Iran also has around double the number of active military personnel that Saudi Arabia has.
Most fetching co-ordination.
That may become increasingly relevant, in light of Netanyahu’s comment that you ‘can’t do revolutions from the air’ (sounding oddly like Starmer’s comment that he did not believe in regime change from the skies). The Israeli Prime Minister went on to say that ‘there has to be a ground component’. Trump has kept the option of a ground commitment in Iran open since the conflict began but told a reporter yesterday that he was ‘not putting troops anywhere’.
Meanwhile, Trump’s director of intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been testifying that there was no nuclear threat from Iran requiring the US to join this war. Gabbard said that Operation Midnight Hammer, the bombing raid that Trump launched against Iran last year, had been sufficient to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability. Laura Loomer, the conspiracy theorist who is popular with President Trump, has accused Gabbard and others like Joe Kent of seeking to undermine Trump for anti-Semitic
purposes, an allegation Gabbard would no doubt deny.
The man himself was playing host to Sanae Takaichi, the Japanese prime minister, last night in the White House, when he made a Pearl Harbor joke. Reporters had asked Trump why he had not informed allies before deciding to launch an attack on Iran, to which he responded ‘because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan?’ before finishing with ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbour?’ He’s still got the delivery.
Oh, and former FBI chief James Comey has been subpoenaed in the ‘Grand Conspiracy’ case against those who prosecuted Trump in the first term of his Presidency. Never a dull moment.
‘And on that bombshell we’ll find out what happens to the oil price tomorrow.’
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WHILST AT HOME
The head of the Unite union, Sharon Graham, has forecast that the Labour party will be ‘decimated’ in the May local elections, and that the Prime Minister will face a leadership challenge in the aftermath. Perhaps not the most original analysis, mind you, but it is somewhat novel to hear it from the mouth of the woman who leads one of the Labour party’s biggest donors. Graham said that the Labour party ought to tack to the left, and regretted that Keir Starmer had to be dragged ‘kicking and screaming’ into the sort of moves the union wants, such as a wealth tax.
The left will also be unhappy with Yvette Cooper’s decision to cut international aid to 0.3 per cent, a reduction of around two-fifths, next year. Money spent on supporting African countries will be effectively cut in half. The government has ringfenced spending on countries like Ukraine and Palestine, whilst the BBC World Service will also be saved from the cuts. Labour MPs are already coming out to criticise this change, with Dr Beccy Cooper MP saying: ‘We are a soft power superpower and we should be proud of that.’ Time to update the firmware, as Cummings would say.
But the left may still yet find its champion in Angela Rayner. There was talk on Wednesday of the migration rules being watered down in response to her criticism. Patrick Maguire of the Times has a good write-up on the prospect of a Rayner leadership, saying it ‘would simply be more of the same’.
Cometh the hour, cometh the woman.
Meanwhile on the right, Kemi Badenoch told Times Radio that she would take on a shoplifter physically, on the proviso that said shoplifter was not too physically large. As an ambition it is at least relatable. Yesterday had another warmly amusing mild embarrassment in store for her – when James Cleverly attempted to show a video of her ‘best bits’ at the Tories local election launch and the video would not play. Tomorrow is another day.
Now onto more tricky terrain: the other story on the right is a developing narrative around Islam. It began when Nick Timothy posted images of Muslims praying together in Trafalgar Square during Ramadan, and described it as an ‘act of domination’, leading to lots of criticism and calls for Badenoch to sack him. So far the Tories are standing resolutely behind their shadow justice secretary. Farage, not to be left out, took the opportunity of his Holyrood announcement to beat a similar
drum on the issue, saying that what had happened earlier this week was a wake-up call and that such displays would be coming to Scotland too. You can read Nick Timothy’s article in the Telegraph setting out his position here.
Coming up today
It’s the spring equinox, so enjoy watching the would-be druids meet up at Stonehenge.
The monthly data on public sector finances, including government net borrowing, have just been released, showing the public sector borrowed £14.3 billion last month. That’s £2.2 billion more than in February 2025 and £6.9 billion more than had been forecast by the OBR in November.
For those of a charitable disposition, today is Comic Relief’s annual Red Nose Day, with the usual TV festivities kicking off at 7 p.m. on BBC One.
UKRAINE: NO ELECTIONS THIS YEAR
Ukraine has defied pressure from the White House by effectively ruling out presidential elections this year. The decision came from the Ukrainian electoral commission, which believes that elections will only be legitimate six months after a ceasefire has been established, meaning they will almost certainly not take place this year. Both Trump and Putin have been pressing Zelensky to hold presidential elections as part of a peace arrangement. Eleven Ukrainian MPs have died since the war began.
In Russia, Putin is ramping up a different but not unrelated war, his war against childlessness. Russian women who do not want to have children will now be referred to the psychologist. The demographic crisis which is impacting countries across the western world is particularly severe in Russia, not least because so many young men are dying in the conflict against Ukraine. Whether or not treating women for mental illness when they do not want to have children is an effective tool for addressing this problem remains to be seen.
Another mewling infant, Jeremy Corbyn, is off to join an aid convoy to Cuba. Corbyn (as well as the band Kneecap) will be travelling from Mexico to Havana this weekend with supplies, in response to the US blockade of the country. It’s like university all over again.
Talking of old struggles, Cyprus wants to have a ‘frank discussion’ about our military bases on the island, which have had attention drawn to them by the conflict in Iran. Cypriot protestors believe that the presence of our bases are turning them into targets for drone strikes and other attacks. Hardly the blitz spirit. The Cypriot president has also referred to the bases as ‘colonial’, which seems a bit hackneyed.
Watch and listen
Tim Shipman and John Bew – academic, author and former No. 10 foreign policy supremo – discuss how to reverse Britain’s decline in the latest Coffee House Shots.
Freddie Sayers and Helen Thompson question whether closing the Strait of Hormuz was always part of Trump’s plan in the latest UnHerd podcast.
If that’s all a bit highbrow, then glory in Piers Morgan’s very conclusive interview with HSTikkyTokky – a ‘manosphere influencer’.
ECONOMIC TURMOIL
The non-stop stream of bad news about the economy thanks to the Iran conflict shows no sign of stemming, particularly now that LNG infrastructure is being targeted. Natural gas prices in the UK surged by 25 per cent after strikes on Ras Laffan Industrial City in Qatar yesterday, and the Gulf country’s energy minister said its export capacity will be reduced by 17 per cent over the next five years as a result of the damage. Scott Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary, has indicated that sanctions may be lifted on Iranian oil which is already on tankers (about 140 million barrels) in order to increase supply.
Bessent’s move seems an odd thing to do to an adversary while you are bombing them, but the British government may see this as a silver lining in the war against Iran. The cost of our government borrowing is rising fast (three times faster than than other major economies in Europe), and the market expectation is that the Bank of England will be forced into repeated rate rises this year; its governor Andrew Bailey had indicated rates will go up if there is a persistent price shock. The FTSE 100 fell by 2 per cent yesterday to reach its lowest point since January.
How long until we end up out here again?
Outside of the war, you should blame parents for struggling graduates, apparently. It is the view of Lord Agnew of Oulton that we have a crisis in student loan finance because parents with a poor grasp of money matters are advising their children badly in encouraging them to take out student loans. He said further that the ‘misselling’ of student loans more broadly is far greater scandal than the PPI controversy.
What we’re reading
Killing babies is fine now? – Neil O’Brien
The UK must accept it is no longer a global power – Financial Times
The art of sleep – Englesberg Ideas
Rayner would simply be more of the same – Patrick Maguire
The new infidelity – The Atlantic
And another thing…
Boldly going where, erm, a few spacecraft have gone before, Nasa is rolling its Artemis 2 moon rocket onto the launch pad at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. Ahead of a planned lift-off on April 1, the Artemis 2 stack has left the gigantic Vehicle Assembly Building and headed for Launch Pad 39B, a journey expected to take a full 12 hours. Artemis 2 aims to take three Americans and one Canadian on a 10-day flight around the moon. They would be the first astronauts to go beyond low Earth orbit since the final Apollo mission in 1972.
How many astronauts wanted to be journalists growing up?
The birds and the bees! Those attending the Chelsea Flower Show this year may be in for a shock, as the Royal Horticultural Society is unveiling a sex-themed garden sponsored by a company selling vibrators. Lovehoney – purveyors of marital aids – are putting themselves behind an Aphrodite-themed ‘pleasure garden’ full of flowers and plants associated with the naughty time. The garden will be designed by James Whiting, an award-winning designer, and entitled Aphrodite’s Hothouse. Whiting hopes the garden will ‘break taboos’.
Good news for wine drinkers. Opting for grown-up Ribena rather than beer or spirits might help you live longer. A new study following more than 340,000 British adults has determined that alcohol-related health risks depend not only on how much people drink, but what. Wine enthusiasts were found to be significantly less likely to perish from heart-related issues than those opting for pints, cider or spirits, even when the amount of booze quaffed by both two groups was similar. Those involved had had their health tracked for an average of 13 years.
With thanks to Lara Brown for additional reporting.
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