Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Wednesday

James Heale James Heale

Badenoch attacks Starmer over rape gangs

All politics is local – and no more so than this week. With various voters set to head to the polls across England tomorrow, the different party leaders were hoping to land their last-minute messages at today’s session of Prime Ministers’ Questions. For Kemi Badenoch, the approach seems to have been ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Labour’s stubborn refusal to hold a national inquiry into rape gangs is clearly making their front bench uncomfortable, months after the subject was first raised. So Badenoch chose to spend all six questions on the theme, winning today’s session comfortably. Badenoch’s peppy performance will cheer the Tories For the first half of

James Heale James Heale

What is Tony Blair up to?

‘Just what is Tony up to?’ That was what one Labour MP asked, quizzically, when I bumped into them in Westminster this morning. Blair has made quite the splash with his latest political intervention, writing an introduction to a pamphlet that criticises net zero. The former prime minister warns that the debate on climate change had become ‘irrational’, with people in rich countries no longer willing to make financial sacrifices ‘when they know that their impact on global emissions is minimal’. Attempts to phase out fossil fuels are – in the short term – ‘doomed to fail’. Blair’s argument is that a backlash against climate change policies is threatening to ‘derail the

Steerpike Steerpike

Listen: Environment minister backs Blair’s net zero takedown

It’s not a typical culprit that has ruffled Labour party feathers this week but instead the party’s former leader. In a notable intervention, Sir Tony Blair insisted on Tuesday that the current ‘irrational’ approach to hitting the net zero carbon emissions target by 2050 was ‘doomed to fail’, before pointing out that the ‘inconvenient facts’ of supply and demand for fossil fuels are rising. Yet despite the hit to Sir Keir Starmer, it transpires that one of the Prime Minister’s own cabinet secretaries agrees with Blair’s assessment. How very curious… Speaking on Times Radio this morning, Environment Secretary Steve Reed remarked that he did, in fact, agree with ‘much of

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The tariff climbdown that defined Trump’s first 100 days

Donald Trump’s first 100 days back in the Oval Office have upended all universal understanding. The global trade order has been turned on its head. Due process has morphed from a right to a vibe. Capital letters have been torn out of style guides and set loose in the wild west of social media. ‘We don’t have a Free and Fair “Press” in this Country anymore’, the President shared on his Truth Social account, setting the tone for this week of reflection and analysis. Why are so many of those words capitalised? Why bother asking. It’s not supposed to make all that much sense. That is the President’s preferred political climate:

Lucy Dunn

Your guide to the 2025 election results

Tomorrow, voters will go to the polls in Sir Keir Starmer’s first big electoral test as Prime Minister. Across England, there are 1,641 wards, 14 county councils, eight unitary authorities, six mayors and one parliamentary constituency up for grabs. Nine months after coming to power, Labour’s honeymoon period has worn off – and voters turning out tomorrow could make their feelings known. It is the smaller parties which are widely expected to benefit in this set of local polls: namely the Lib Dems and Reform UK. Below are ten races to keep an eye on: West of England mayoral election – expected 2 a.m. The West of England mayoral role received unexpected

James Heale James Heale

What is Tony Blair up to?

15 min listen

Tony Blair is making waves in Westminster today after his institute published a report on net zero that appears to undermine Ed Miliband and Labour’s green agenda. In his foreword – while not directly critical of the UK government – he encouraged governments around the world to reconsider the cost of net zero. Many have compared Blair’s comments to those made by Kemi Badenoch several weeks ago and questioned the timing – just 48 hours before the local elections. What is Blair up to? Should Labour listen to Tony? Also on the podcast, with the local elections tomorrow, we take one final look at the polling. With Labour expecting big

Francis Pike

Was Nixon solely to blame for the fall of Saigon?

At 7.53 a.m. on Tuesday 30 April 1975, 50 years ago today, Sergeant Juan Valdez boarded a Sea Knight helicopter sent from aircraft carrier USS Midway that had landed a few minutes earlier on the roof of the US embassy in Saigon. He was the last US soldier to be evacuated from Vietnam. As he scurried to the rooftop, he was aware that some 420 Vietnamese, who had been promised evacuation, were left in the courtyard below. They faced an uncertain fate. The day before it had been reported to Washington that Saigon Airport was under persistent rocket attack. Escape by airplane became impossible. President Gerald Ford explained: ‘The military

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Putin is terrified Ukraine will sabotage Russia’s Victory Day

Even by the elevated standards of Kremlin cynicism, Vladimir Putin’s invocation of a three-day ceasefire across the span of the Victory Day celebrations commemorating the end of the second world war in Europe takes some beating. Putin is well aware of Kyiv’s capacity to embarrass him on this of all days He has announced that ‘all military actions’ in Ukraine would be suspended between midnight on 8 May to midnight on 11 May, to cover the celebrations on 9 May (Russia celebrates a day later than the rest of Europe) which, because of the span of time zones across this huge country, lasts longer than 24 hours.  Putin claims this

William Atkinson

Where might Reform and the Lib Dems hurt the Tories at the local elections?

Kemi Badenoch faces her first big electoral test in this week’s local elections. The Conservative party has much to lose. Of the 1,642 council seats up for grabs, 940, accounting for boundary changes, were won by the Tories back in 2021. For Badenoch, the only path on Thursday is down. Four years ago, Boris Johnson was at the peak of his ‘vaccine bounce’. Those were halcyon days, pre-Partygate, Trussonomics, and Toryism’s worst defeat since James II’s exile. In May 2021, the Conservatives poll ratings were at 45 per cent. Today, they barely top 20 per cent, falling back from last summer’s defeat. Amongst party members, Badenoch’s leadership is increasingly unpopular. Nigel

Matthew Lynn

Have the markets stopped caring about Trump’s tariffs?

President Trump’s imposition of huge tariffs on everything America imports on ‘Liberation Day’ at the start of this month has been widely condemned as one of the worst economic policy blunders of all time. There were fears the stock market would collapse. Investors are abandoning the United States for Europe. And the country is about to be plunged into stagflation. But something odd has happened. If you look at a stock market chart, basically nothing happened in April. Could it be that the markets have already decided that Trump’s tariffs don’t matter very much after all? The stock market has got over their shock at the tariffs As April comes

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The hypocrisy of Pakistan’s migrant expulsion plan

This month Pakistan has expelled more than 80,000 Afghans in what the government has labelled its Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan. In total, since September 2023 the United Nations estimates that approximately 910,000 Afghans have reluctantly returned to their country. Many of these are holders of Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC), which were given to them when they arrived. The Pakistan government has given Afghans until today to leave. After this, they will be forcibly deported. The Interior Ministry has warned landlords that ‘strict action’ will be taken against them henceforth if they provide accommodation to undocumented Afghans. Pakistan justifies the mass expulsion on security grounds, alleging that many Afghans ‘contribute to

Steerpike Steerpike

How many crooks are in the Commons?

As politicians complain about a Britain in decline, perhaps they should look closer to home. Mr S can reveal that, over the last five years, a total of nine Commons staff have been probed for criminal activity allegations – and yet fewer than half were dismissed. Talk about falling standards, eh? A total of nine Commons staff have been probed for criminal activity allegations A Freedom of Information request revealed that, since April 2020, nine people employed by either the Commons or the joint departments of parliament have been investigated for criminal offences ‘which would call into question their ability or suitability to work in their current post’. You don’t

Charlotte Henry

Why the Lib Dems are confident about their election prospects

The Lib Dems are on to a vote winner with their plan to crack down on yobs who blare out music on public transport. The party wants to change the law to explicitly ban playing music and videos out loud on trains and buses in England. As an almost daily user of London’s public transport network, there is little that enrages me more than those who decide we all need to hear the music they’re listening to, the video they’re watching or the phone conversation they’re having. Ed Davey’s party says it will hit these headphone dodgers with a £1,000 fine. It’s the perfect attention-grabbing Lib Dem gimmick – one

Eliot Wilson

Why Starmer’s ‘coalition of the willing’ was doomed to fail

Ever since the beginning of March, when Sir Keir Starmer chaired what was called the ‘leaders meeting on Ukraine’, I have felt as if I have been occupying some kind of parallel universe. The summit was the genesis of what has become known as the ‘coalition of the willing’, a loose alliance of 31 countries pledged to provide a peacekeeping or ‘reassurance’ force in Ukraine, with the United Kingdom and France making most of the running. Now, disaster! The Times reports that Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the Defence Staff, asked his European counterparts whether collectively they could generate a force of 64,000 to deploy to Ukraine in

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Tony Blair attacks Ed Miliband over net zero

Ouch! Tony Blair had only recently left office when Ed Miliband, a protégé of Gordon Brown, drove the Climate Change Act through the Commons, committing the UK government to cutting carbon emissions by 80 per cent, compared with 1990 levels, by 2050. That target was upgraded to a net zero target – with minimal debate and no Commons vote – during Theresa May’s final days in office in 2019. Miliband, back in his old job after a 14-year hiatus, has stuck doggedly to the target. This is starting to look like the beginning of the end for Britain’s self-sacrificial net zero target But now Blair says that policy – yes,

Tuesday

Iain Macwhirter

The closure of Grangemouth’s refinery sums up Labour’s Net Zero muddle

Another grim milestone in Britain’s elective deindustrialisation was reached today: Scotland’s only remaining petrochemical plant, Grangemouth in Fife, ceased refining crude oil after more than half a century of processing output from the Forties field in the North Sea. It was hardly a surprise. PetroIneos, the part-Chinese-owned company, announced last year that Grangemouth was to become a terminal for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) imported from abroad. But today’s news is significant because nothing better exposes the contradictory state of British energy policy. Nothing could better expose the contradictory state of British energy policy Despite Britain having substantial reserves of hydrocarbons in the North Sea – approximately 24 billion barrels – the

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Could Torsten Bell be the next chancellor?

Rachel Reeves may have helped run up a £151 billion deficit in the past 12 months (with a little help from Jeremy Hunt), but for some people it is not nearly enough. A snapshot into Reeves’s world is provided by the Resolution Foundation today, which has claimed that Reeves’s plan for £100 billion of additional capital spending over the course of this parliament will not nearly be enough, and that most of it will simply be swallowed up reversing ‘Tory cuts’. In a report entitled Capital Gains, it says that Reeves won’t really have an extra £100 billion to spend in her spending review; when cuts to budgets are taken

James Heale James Heale

Revenge of the centrists: Carney wins in Canada

13 min listen

Mark Carney has won the Canadian election, leading the Liberal Party to a fourth term. Having only been Prime Minister for 6 weeks, succeeding Justin Trudeau, this is an impressive achievement when you consider that Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives were over 20 percentage points ahead in the polls earlier this year. Trump’s rhetoric against Canada – engaging in a trade war and calling for the country to become the 51st state – is credited as turning around the fortunes of the Liberals. Are there lessons for conservatives across the anglosphere, including Kemi Badenoch? Patrick Gibbons speaks to James Heale and Michael Martins. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Michael Taube

How will Mark Carney govern?

Canada went to the polls on Monday. The election campaign only ran for 37 days, but it was a wild ride with shifts in political momentum that few could have predicted.   Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney, who replaced Justin Trudeau on March 14, won last night. It’s the fourth consecutive Liberal win, but it will be its third straight minority government. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre had the best result for the Conservatives since 1988 but ended up losing his seat. Left-leaning parties like the Bloc Quebecois (BQ), Greens and New Democrats (NDP) all lost seats and popular support, too. This could lead to an unusual series of political scenarios

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Labour MP attacks Ed Miliband

Ding ding ding! The gloves are coming off, as Scottish Labour backbencher Brian Leishman today took aim at Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband in the Commons over Grangemouth. First bashing both the SNP and previous Tory governments, Leishman turned the guns on his own government minister. Today marks the day that all oil refining in Scotland has come to an end, after the company that runs the refinery, Petroineos, notified staff that operations had ceased and the first group of redundant workers will be leaving the plant, with 200 to lose their jobs by the end of June. Hitting out at Labour pre-election promises on the future of Scotland’s oil