All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Tory supporters went to bed on Friday night believing that their man Andy Street would hold on handily in the West Midlands Metro Mayor contest, while also daring to dream that Susan Hall might just pull off a sensational win over Sadiq Khan in London. It has not played out like that. Not only did
Thursday’s local elections almost inevitably produced a cacophony of information. That presented the parties with plenty of opportunity to cherry pick results that appeared to present their performance in a better light – thereby potentially distracting attention from less convincing performances. If Reform had fought these local elections more widely, the picture might have looked
Andy Street was a political outsider when he was chosen as the Conservative party’s candidate for mayor of the new West Midlands Combined Authority in 2016. He was 53 and had enjoyed a successful career in retail, latterly as managing director of John Lewis and Partners. This weekend, after seven years as mayor, he was
The fall-out from the local elections continue. In the West Midlands, Labour pulled off a shock upset to unseat Andy Street by 1,500 votes. The Starmer army’s triumph there was all the more impressive when one considers that the pro-Palestine independent Akhmed Yakoob finished third on 11 per cent. Yakoob, who won the votes of
While Labour has gained councillors across England, and won bellwether councils such as Nuneaton and Bedworth and Milton Keynes, it has also lost some of its traditional Muslim support to George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain (WPB) and pro-Palestine Muslim independent candidates. From the industrial Lancastrian town of Blackburn to inner-city Bradford in West Yorkshire, the ‘Palestine’
So, it didn’t take long for the recriminations to begin. After Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives were subject to a massive drubbing in this week’s council elections, and were hit with the loss of the West Midlands mayoralty last night, the blame game is well underway. Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman certainly wasted no time in giving
Earlier this week, Ireland’s newly installed Taoiseach, Simon Harris, made an outrageous proposal to deploy 100 policemen to control immigration along the border with Northern Ireland. Harris is trying to prevent an influx of immigrants crossing the border before Rishi Sunak’s plan to deport immigrants to Rwanda is implemented. It doesn’t feel like that long
It’s not a pleasant feeling to know there are colleagues in your workplace who think you should be summarily dismissed and marched out of the building, flanked by security. Yet I learned this week that this is my predicament. As reported by GB News, unidentified BBC employees have been trying to identify me and have me fired
Is Ramzan Kadyrov dying? The independent Russian-language publication Novaya Gazeta recently published an investigation in which it claimed Kadyrov was terminally ill, suffering from pancreatic necrosis. Putin’s ally, it claimed, may not have long to live and it cited a long list of evidence to back up its claim. Throughout his rule, Kadyrov and his cronies have committed many crimes to
Aficionados of zombie films will know that some ghouls just won’t stay dead. In 2013, the economist Paul Krugman came up with the concept ‘zombie ideas’ – propositions that have been refuted, and should be no more, but keep returning because they serve a political purpose, or appeal to people’s prejudices. In the run up
While the West obsesses about whether or not China’s supreme leader, Xi Jinping, is going to invade Taiwan, the Taiwanese seemingly have other concerns. Today the hot issue is statues. To be precise, statues of Chiang Kai-shek, the post-war founder-dictator of independent modern Taiwan. In an inventory taken in 2000 it was estimated that there
Andy Street has been defeated as mayor of West Midlands by Labour’s Richard Parker in a knife-edge contest. The result was due at 3 p.m this afternoon but was delayed by almost six hours following a recount of all the ballots cast in Coventry. Parker ended up with 225,590 or 37.8 per cent of votes
Back to London for the city’s mayoral elections – and the verdict is in. In a win for Labour, Sadiq Khan has been hailed as victor for an unprecedented third term with an increased vote share of 44 per cent, while the Conservative’s Susan Hall has been relegated to second place with a 33 per
Sadiq Khan has won the London mayoral race with 43.8 per cent of the vote to the Tory candidate Susan Hall on 32.7 per cent. Despite widespread speculation on Friday from Tory and Labour sources that the vote was closer than the pollster anticipated, Khan won comfortably. This makes him the first London mayor to
So what was that all about? Rumours that Susan Hall was close to toppling Sadiq Khan have proved to be wide of the mark. In the event, Hall is failing to match Shaun Bailey’s performance in 2021. There is a swing against the Conservatives in London, and Hall is failing to win in places which
‘Consolidation’ is the word on Lib Dem lips today, as the party mulls its solid, if not spectacular, progress in Thursday’s local elections. Ed Davey’s troops gained more than 100 council seats and added two more authorities to their existing tally of ten. Sir John Curtice, the elections expert, suggests they ‘had only a modest
The real victor of these local elections? Boris Johnson. According to Oscar Wilde, the only thing in life worse than being talked about, is not being talked about. It’s a sign of Boris Johnson’s skill in attracting headlines that even as the Conservatives suffer a shellacking at the local elections, his being turned away from
Like drowning men clutching at straws, Giorgia Meloni’s opponents are trying ever more hopelessly to justify their claim that she is a far-right threat to democracy. It’s not that Meloni has stopped being far right since she became Italy’s first female prime minister 18 months ago. It is just that – despite all the apocalyptic warnings about her – she wasn’t
Is Labour on course to be the largest party at the next election but miss out on a majority? Despite recent opinion polls suggesting Keir Starmer’s party is on course for a huge majority, this is the projection this evening from the respected Sky election analyst Michael Thrasher. Using the latest figures from the local
The fighting talk continues over at Reform HQ as local election results continue to drip out. The Farage-founded party’s right-wing campaign has seen leader Richard Tice proclaim Reform UK is ‘rapidly becoming the real opposition to the Labour party in the North of England’. Tory defector Lee Anderson has even gone so far as to
The election for the first North East of England mayor should have been a gift to the Labour party. Its candidate Kim McGuinness has duly won the role, but her tally of 41 per cent is superficially modest. This region is one of the Labour movement’s heartlands, steeped in coal-mining, shipbuilding and steel-making. It gave
Labour people are used to defeat. Before every election they wonder if the Tories will defy expectations. Real votes are not the same as opinion polls, after all, they say. And yet ever since Boris Johnson broke his own lockdown rules, disastrous performances for the Tories in opinion polls have been replicated by disastrous results in
Rishi Sunak can breathe a sigh of relief. Ben Houchen, the so-called ‘patron saint of the red wall’, has won a third term as Tees Valley mayor. Houchen secured 53.6 per cent of the vote with Labour in second place with 41.3 per cent and the Liberal Democrats in third place on five per cent.
It’s not been a good night for the Tories – but Labour has not emerged unscathed either. Sir Keir Starmer’s party suffered the surprise loss of Oldham council, after a flurry of independent pro-Palestine candidates cost Labour overall control there. Amid briefings that the ‘Gaza factor’ has now handed the West Midlands mayoralty to Andy Street
America’s National Public Radio (NPR) this week likened the 2024 student protests in campuses across the USA to those of 1968. Similar comparisons have also been made in France where last week students staged sit-ins at the prestigious Sciences-Po in Paris and claimed that ‘Gaza = Vietnam’. NPR quoted a history professor at Manhattan’s Columbia
Any insurgent political party needs a breakthrough moment. For the SNP, it was Winnie Ewing’s victory in the 1967 Hamilton by-election. For the SDP, it was Glasgow Hillhead in 1982. For Ukip, their success in the 2004 European Parliament elections was the moment the mainstream parties sat up and took notice. For Reform UK, such
Unsurprisingly, the overnight results from the local elections have been very bruising for the Conservatives. Local election results day is often quite formulaic, though, given there are always predictions of a ‘bloodbath’ for one party or the other for months ahead of polling day. This means that the losses can be priced in to the
Election results are coming in thick and fast – and the bad news is piling up for Rishi Sunak. Labour beat the Tories in the Blackpool by-election and Sunak’s party lost 130 seats in councils around England. Although Sunak allies like transport secretary Mark Harper insist that it’s too early to make judgement calls, the
From Hartlepool in the red wall to true blue Rushmoor, Labour has made gains across the country. But as Keir Stramer chalks up the wins, he also confronts some setbacks. Oldham council has fallen to no overall control due to the election of seven new independents – and the conflict in the Middle East is