Politics

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

Tuesday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Donald Trump’s ‘counter-cultural’ gamble

23 min listen

Last night, Donald Trump appeared for what will be his last-ever presidential campaign rally, for a crowd of about 12,000 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He stuck with tradition and ran through many of his greatest hits – dishing out insults, talking about his scrape with death, and dancing to ‘YMCA’. But he did also hammer home his pitch as ‘Trump the fixer’, and the one who can undo four years of Biden–Harris. In the crowd was Spectator World’s Washington editor, Amber Duke, who joins Kate Andrews from Michigan to discuss what she’s seeing on the ground as Americans go to the polls in this key swing state. Which issue will be

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The Trump-Harris election has broken America

‘Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all,’ said Balfour. Tell that to the American political class on the day of the 2024 presidential election. After months of the Trump–Biden–Harris drama – the criminal indictments, the disaster debates, the President dropping out, the assassination attempts – the nation is in a state of nervous exhaustion. Team Harris and Team Trump have both been clear: 2024 is existential ‘I just want this to be over,’ America’s politicos almost all say, as they tell you in the same breath that their country could, in fact, be on the brink of a long and possibly violent civil conflict. Team Harris and

Steerpike Steerpike

Five of Labour’s worst Trump attacks

The countdown is on, with just days left until the result of the US presidential election is announced. With pollsters across the world undecided about the likely outcome, Sir Keir’s Starmer’s government is trying to hedge its bets. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has insisted on the airwaves today that ‘there will be a really good working relationship’ between the Labour lot and Donald Trump if the former president emerges victorious – despite hordes of Labour volunteers travelling stateside to canvas for Kamala. But is there too much water under the bridge to repair relations? Reform leader and Trump ally Nigel Farage said last month it was ‘ludicrous’ for Starmer’s army

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The sheer joylessness of Kamala Harris

Whatever happened to Kamala Harris’s promise of ‘joy’? Joy was in catastrophically short supply among her supporters I met in the United States last week. I’ve never encountered a more glee-less crew. It was all Nazi this, Nazi that, ‘The world is burning’, ‘We don’t want a rapist in the White House’. If this really is the ‘vibes’ election, then the only vibe I got from these folk was clinical depression. It is almost entirely negative: Vote Kamala or the world gets it I saw them amassed on the streets outside Madison Square Garden in New York City last weekend where they had gathered to protest Donald Trump’s big rally.

Oscar Edmondson

Has Kemi Badenoch formed a unity cabinet?

14 min listen

Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet continues to take shape: Chris Philp has been appointed shadow Home Secretary, with the biggest news being Robert Jenrick’s decision to accept the position of shadow Justice Secretary. Jenrick’s proposal to leave the ECHR was one policy disagreement with Badenoch, could this cause the Conservatives problems in the future? And what do her appointments say more broadly about her programme: has she put party unity above policy? Oscar Edmondson speaks to Katy Balls and the FT’s Stephen Bush. Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.

Sam McPhail

How accurate are the US election polls?

Is Donald Trump going to lose Iowa? That’s the conclusion many US pundits came to after a bombshell poll over the weekend. That poll, conducted by the psephologist Ann Selzer, put Kamala Harris three points ahead of Trump in Iowa, despite Trump having comfortably won the state by almost ten points in the past two presidential elections. So Iowa could tonight return to swing state status. In past elections voters in the state have backed Reagan, Clinton, Obama, and Trump: now they might turn to Harris. However, at the same time as the Selzer poll was published, a contradictory but less-covered poll indicated another strong Trump victory. This poll from Emerson College concluded that

Stephen Webb

Has the police watchdog learnt nothing from the Chris Kaba debacle?

The uproar following the acquittal of Police Sergeant Martyn Blake over the death of Chris Kaba exposes a deep unease with the police complaints process. Even without knowing about Kaba’s past criminal record, the jury spent barely three hours before acquitting Blake. Yet last night’s BBC Panorama documentary suggests that those in the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) – who took the original decision to refer the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) – remain convinced they were right to do so. This apparent failure to learn lessons raises worrying concerns about the IOPC’s approach. An IOPC probe led to misconduct hearings for officers who shot and injured a robber

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Has Kemi Badenoch formed a unity cabinet?

In approximately 12 hours, all UK news will take a back seat as the world looks to the United States and the election of a new American president. Until then, the new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is trying to drum up as much momentum as possible following her election on Saturday. This morning, Badenoch met with her shadow cabinet, after spending Monday making appointments to her top team. It wouldn’t really be a shadow cabinet reshuffle without something going not to plan. In that vein, there was some confusion last night when Jenrick allies announced that he was the new shadow justice secretary – only for the Badenoch camp to

Steerpike Steerpike

Farage: Reform membership has surged since Badenoch win

At long last, the Tory leadership race concluded at the weekend after Kemi Badenoch was crowned victor on Saturday. But while the Conservatives finally have some semblance of stability with their newly-appointed leader and shadow cabinet, it’s not all good news for the blues. Nigel Farage has now claimed that since Badenoch’s weekend win, his party have seen a surge in membership figures. How very curious… Quizzed on LBC today about whether Reform has seen a boost in sign-ups, Farage insisted: Seeing it already. We’ve gone through 95,000 members this morning. So we’ve gone up 1,500 in the last three or four days. And these are Conservatives who are hanging

Steerpike Steerpike

Gamblers are putting their money on a Trump triumph

It’s polling day across the pond and Steerpike is keen to have a flutter. Opinion polling in the US election suggests the safe money is on Kamala Harris, but his fellow gamblers seem to be telling a different story. Data analysed by Mr S’s friends in the Speccies’ data dungeon shows money is pouring in behind The Donald. Trump has a nearly two thirds chance of returning to the White House in January, according to an analysis of implied probabilities. Do the punters know something the pundits don’t?  Mr S will be tracking the betting markets every five minutes and updating the graph below…

Daniel McCarthy

A ripple, not a wave, will decide the US election

What can the 2020 and 2016 elections, the previous votes in which Donald Trump was the Republican nominee, tell us about today’s race for the White House? There are three layers to a presidential election, only two of which really matter. The overall ‘popular’ vote only counts for bragging rights. Trump has never won it. The popular vote in individual states, however, is the critical second layer of the election. Trump won the 2016 election because he eked out slender popular pluralities in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona – four states that are battlegrounds this year as well – and in Florida, which since 2000 had been the biggest prize

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

The trouble with Guy Fawkes night

My reaction to fireworks is a bit eccentric. Lovely, I think, but can’t they be more meaningful? To be more precise, this is my view of Bonfire Night, formerly known as Guy Fawkes night. It would be nice, I think, if we could revive the annual event as a celebration of our shared values. To be fair, it retains a faint gunpowdery whiff of this. Most Britons are aware that we are celebrating a historic victory over terrorism. But the awareness is fading. Ideally, Guy Fawkes would have belonged to some obscure sect that is now safely defunct The main problem with trying to revive the meaningfulness of this festival

Daniel DePetris

Why a Trump win may not rock the boat as much as you think

If you didn’t know any better, you might think the 2024 US presidential election was a make-or-break moment for America and the world. Allies and adversaries alike will be watching the election results like the rest of us: on the edge of our seats. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are at the centre of the universe right now. So goes the result in those three states, so goes the fate of the international system as we know it. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are at the centre of the universe right now It’s all a bit dramatic. Sure, certain countries have their favourites. South Korea, for example, is petrified that a second

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France’s drugs war is spiralling out of control

Even by the bloody standards of what France has become under Emmanuel Macron, the carnage last week was horrific. In Poitiers, a shootout left five youths seriously wounded, one of whom died of his injuries at the weekend. In Rennes, a 5-year-old remains in a serious state after being hit in the head by a stray bullet. In Valence, a 22-year-old man was shot dead and two others wounded as they queued outside a nightclub for a Halloween party on Thursday night; the following day an 18-year-old was gunned down and killed in a suburb of the same town. In Villeurbanne, a suburb of Lyon, a man was shot dead,

Jack Symes

The ‘joy’ of fireworks isn’t worth the misery they inflict on animals

The crowd gathers, wrapped in thick coats and scarves, the crisp air mingling with the scent of hot chocolate and warm smoke from the bonfire. Children sit on their parents’ shoulders, eyes wide with anticipation, as the first crackle in the sky is met with an appreciative cheer. As more fireworks light up the sky, the excitement begins to wane. Each pop and bang elicit fewer reactions, and the comfort of shared laughter and idle chit-chat begins to take hold. Soon enough, the fireworks become little more than a backdrop to the real joy of the evening – familiar faces and easy conversation. Sheltered in our homes, a very different

Monday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Can Trump ‘Get Out the Vote’?

35 min listen

Freddy keeps up Americano tradition by speaking to Daniel McCarthy ahead of the election. On the podcast they discuss how Trump’s get-out-the-vote project is working and the impact low-propensity voters could have on the result, whether this election will be plagued by inefficiencies in the American electoral system and if J.D. Vance is actually the heir apparent to the MAGA title.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Laura Trott’s Commons debut gives a clue to Kemi’s tactics

What difference has Kemi Badenoch’s victory made to the way the party talks about education? Badenoch doesn’t want to make policy straight away, having stood on a platform promising a fundamental rethink of what the Conservatives stand for. Today’s Education Questions in the Commons suggested that in the meantime, she wants her frontbenchers to put their efforts into defending the party’s legacy. Laura Trott had been appointed to the shadow education secretary brief just hours before the question session, along with Neil O’Brien in the shadow minister of state role. Her first contribution was to ask about early years funding and whether it would increase in line with the hike

Andrew Tettenborn

Raising university tuition fees will only delay the inevitable

Universities in the UK desperately needed Bridget Phillipson’s announcement this afternoon of a rise in tuition fees. The Education Secretary has said they will rise from £9,250, to £9,535 next year and £10,500 by 2029. This was necessary if only to offset the effect of last week’s Budget announcement of a 1.2 per cent rise in employers’ NI and the reduction in the threshold at which it becomes payable; that alone will saddle them with extra costs of just under £400 million a year.  What is unsustainable is the number of students the state chooses to support All this aside, the institutions are already in deep trouble. Fees for domestic

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Is the last minute momentum really with Kamala Harris?

36 min listen

As the 2024 US election goes into the final day, a poll giving Kamala Harris a lead in the historically Republican state of Iowa has bolstered the Democrats. Is momentum really with her? And what appears to be the most important issue to voters – the economy, or abortion rights? Guest host Kate Andrews speaks to John Rick MacArthur, president and publisher of Harper’s Magazine, about his views on America’s election process from postal voting, trust in the system, and whether the electoral college needs reform. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Could ADHD bankrupt English councils?

Every time a chancellor sits down after delivering their budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) releases their ‘economic and fiscal outlook’. What seems a boringly-named Whitehall document is actually a treasure trove of information about the state of the country. It reveals more about how we live our lives – and what lies ahead, than perhaps any other document apart from the decennial census. Buried within its pages are harbingers of the problems future governments will face. Page 129 of the nearly 200-page document carries one such alarming warning: a huge surge in the amount local authorities are likely to have to provide to fund children with special educational