Politics

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

Thursday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Kamala Harris and the audacity of desperation

Barack Obama wrote The Audacity of Hope. The Kamala Harris story of 2024 could be called The Audacity of Desperation. Her brief candidacy has been an awesome display of chutzpah. With just weeks to go before the election, a panicked Democratic party pushed aside their failing Commander-in-Chief and replaced him with Harris, the distinctly unpopular vice-president. She was then shamelessly presented to America and the world as an agent of change, even though she has no clear vision or agenda of her own. Twelve days have passed since Kamala Harris accepted the nomination and still her campaign website offers no clues as to what she might do as president. She has made

Wednesday

Oscar Edmondson

Tory leadership race latest: Priti out

14 min listen

The first round of the Conservative leadership race has seen Dame Priti Patel eliminated with the fewest votes. Robert Jenrick came out on top but, with a second vote taking place on Tuesday, where could Patel’s supporters go? Who could get eliminated next? Will ‘Melmentum’ build? Oscar Edmondson speaks to Katy Balls and James Heale. Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Risk-takers, US election & the power of luck in politics – with Nate Silver

34 min listen

Labor Day is a critical mile-marker on the road to the general election. Now just two months away, pollsters are busy processing data and making predictions, but nobody really knows whether it will be Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the White House. Nate Silver is one of America’s most well-respected pollsters. The former poker player set up FiveThirtyEight, a polling company and now writes The Silver Bullet Substack. Nate Silver’s latest book On the Edge: the Art of Risking Everything takes a look at two mindsets: the River and the Village.  Nate joins Freddy Gray on the Americano show to discuss probability in sport and politics, how luck is

Euan McColm

No one wants to help the SNP

Humiliation really does concentrate the political mind, doesn’t it? Over the years when the SNP dominated the Scottish parliamentary chamber, ministers spent little time reaching across party lines. Indeed, by the time Nicola Sturgeon was first minister in 2014, for every SNP MSP missing the point in Holyrood, there was another pointing and jeering at anyone who disagreed with them. In July, the SNP lost 39 of its 48 Westminster seats. Suddenly, cooperation and collaboration became the order of the day. Opposition politicians smell SNP blood First Minister John Swinney was the very model of the reasonable man as he announced the SNP’s ‘Programme for Government’ on Wednesday afternoon. To

Laurie Wastell

The real reason Keir Starmer keeps forgetting he’s prime minister

When Sir Keir Starmer faced off against Rishi Sunak at the despatch box today, in the first Prime Minister’s Questions after the parliamentary recess, he seemed to be rather unsure what his role was. Over the course of their exchanges, the ostensible leader of the country referred to his opposite number not once, not twice, but five times as ‘the prime minister’. It was bad enough when Starmer made this mistake back in July, though after four years in opposition and just weeks into the new role, we might perhaps understand it having become a habit. But to do it again? After he’s been in office for two months, attended a Nato Summit,

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Nothing gives Keir Starmer joy like banning things

Power hasn’t altered Sir Keir Starmer. His frosty and unamused demeanour remains. No hint of warmth or joy has penetrated his defensive outer rind. He still looks like a mourner-for-hire at an oligarch’s funeral.  Today at PMQs he was faced by a quick-witted and forceful Rishi Sunak who clearly relishes the role of battering ram. The Tories may start to question the wisdom of replacing him. Which of their leadership candidates could match this masterclass in how to grill an incumbent PM? Rishi selected a single issue and hammered away at it until he got a useless reply. Then, having described how useless it was, he moved onto a new

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The two winners from the first Tory leadership round

Priti Patel is out of the race to be the next Tory leader. In the first knockout round of the contest, the former Home Secretary received the lowest number of votes at 14, behind Mel Stride who was in fifth place with 16 votes. It is Robert Jenrick who has the most to celebrate – after coming out on top in the ballot with 28 votes. His supporters have said this week that they believe he is ‘nailed on’ to make the final two, who are then picked by the membership. While he still needs to gain more support, this result will add to the sense that Jenrick is a

Graham Watts

The vital lesson that must be learnt from the Grenfell inquiry

Today’s long-awaited publication of the final report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry provides a forensic account of the ‘root causes’ of the tragedy that led to the loss of 72 lives. More than seven years since those awful early morning hours of 14 June 2017, Sir Martin Moore Bick’s 1,694 page report represents another traumatic reference point for the victims and their relatives. First and foremost, it is important to recognise their continued suffering and to extend heartfelt sympathy to all those impacted by the tragedy.  Six weeks after the fire, I assisted the choreographer Arlene Phillips in arranging the Gala for Grenfell at the Adelphi Theatre in the West

Steerpike Steerpike

SNP health secretary slammed over Oasis ticket fiasco

To Scotland, where the SNP’s newest health secretary has found himself in a rather large, Oasis-sized mess. At the weekend, Neil Gray was called out by the Sunday Mail for taking his eye off his day job and attempting to buy tickets to see the newly-reformed band during a conference event on Alzheimer’s disease. Mr S is rather unsurprised to learn Gray knows a thing or two about the Importance of Being Idle… The initial story reported how, after Glasgow University’s Terry Quinn had finished a heartfelt speech on dementia, Scotland’s health secretary looked up from his phone to confess: ‘I’m in the queue to buy Oasis tickets on multiple

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Grenfell report: why did it take so long?

16 min listen

Seven years after the tragedy, the inquiry into the Grenfell fire has published its report. What did we learn from it and who bears responsibility? And, with thousands of buildings still believed to contain flammable cladding, what should happen next? With such important lessons to be learnt, why do British inquiries take so long? Also on the podcast, a look at the first PMQs following summer recess and the Tory leadership election. James Heale speaks to Isabel Hardman and Liam Halligan, Telegraph columnist and author of Home Truths. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Keir Starmer is acting like he’s still in opposition

Keir Starmer made a couple of verbal slips at Prime Minister’s Questions. Both were quite telling. The first was that he repeatedly referred to Rishi Sunak as the ‘Prime Minister’. An easy mistake to make, perhaps, when both are still getting used to the job swap they performed after the election. But the reason it was an appropriate slip was that Starmer was still largely in opposition mode, complaining about mistakes that the Conservatives had made.  The pair started by sparring on the winter fuel allowance, with Starmer making the argument that he and Rachel Reeves have made repeatedly since the Chancellor announced she was restricting this universal benefit to

Sam Meadows

Why is Javier Milei spending more on Argentina’s army?

Bitter austerity is biting in Argentina as the new president enacts the brutal cuts he promised in a bid to reign in one of the world’s worst inflation rates. Entire government departments – including the Culture Ministry – have been canned and consumer spending has slumped across the board as Argentines find their stacks of pesos aren’t going as far as they once did. In a stark sign of the times, consumption of beef – reared by the country’s rural gauchos – slumped in the first quarter of 2024 by the biggest margin seen in 30 years. Milei is still attempting to hold things together in Congress However, one area

Matthew Lynn

Why London must get back to work

The commute is often unreliable, expensive and crowded. It is easy enough to understand why so many of London’s 5 million strong workforce are so reluctant to go back to the office. There is a catch, however. Working from home is costing the British economy a huge amount of lost output. In reality, the UK can’t afford for Londoners to carry on WFH for much longer.  According to a study just published by the Centre for Cities, London is one of the slowest major cities in the world to go back to the office full-time. Of the six cities it studied, London had the second lowest attendance rate, with full-time

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The ‘path to disaster’ that led to Grenfell

There are very few people who emerge from the Grenfell Inquiry’s final report with much credit today. Certainly very few who had a formal responsibility to ensure that those living in Grenfell Tower were safe. The local community stepped up in the aftermath of the disaster, but even then the institutions set up to ensure victims would be cared for failed them. Institutions including local and central government failed to act on warnings which could have prevented the fire from spreading, meaning the 72 people who lost their lives could still have been with us today. It wasn’t just institutions though, of course: it was construction firms, the architects and

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Starmer defers to ‘prime minister’ Sunak at PMQs

They say old habits die hard, and Sir Keir Starmer is finding that out for himself today. It’s the first PMQs back after recess and it seems as though some in the Commons are rather struggling to adjust to the change of guard. Mr S notes that the Labour leader has today referred to his opposite number Rishi Sunak multiple times as, er, ‘prime minister’. The Speaker of the House, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has also been caught making the same rather impertinent mistake. Talk about a slip of the tongue… And it hasn’t taken long for the Tories to use the PM’s blunder to their advantage. Just minutes after Sir

Catherine Ellis

The US is turning the screws on Nicolas Maduro

Actions often speak louder than words. In the case of the United States seizing Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s multi-million dollar luxury aircraft this week, that perhaps rings true. The international tip-toeing around how best to respond to Venezuela’s election result – considered fraudulent by many – and the turbulent repression that has ensued, has had global leaders scratching their heads for over a month. But the seizure of the airplane could hit Maduro where it hurts. Strongly-worded statements condemning the lack of transparency around the election and the antiquated measure of throwing dissenters in jail have fallen on deaf ears. So the taking of the Dassault Falcon 900EX from the Dominican Republic,

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why did the Grenfell Inquiry take so long to tell us what we know already?

Predictably enough, and not unreasonably, the 1700-page final report into the Grenfell disaster apportions the bulk of the blame with the companies who manufactured and sold the flammable cladding and insulation.  The report doesn’t spare the London Fire Brigade What has emerged from this inquiry is astonishing: you hardly need a degree in engineering to work out that it is not a good idea to wrap a tower block in combustible material. That manufacturers seem to have ‘deliberately concealed’ the risk that their products posed is something which is almost inevitably going to be picked over further in the courts. Why it has taken seven years to produce this report

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

There’s no shame in being ‘weird’

Are Conservative politicians ‘weird’? A series of focus groups carried out by More in Common suggests that voters – particularly in seats won by the Lib Dems – find elected Tories increasingly strange. It’s hard to disagree, but this isn’t the party’s only problem. Who cares if a politician is weird? As the Tories battle it out to elect their new leader, the reality is that hardly anybody out there recognises any of the candidates. The one that rings the most bells is Priti Patel. This is because, as anybody who has ever worked in marketing will tell you, she possesses an alliterative name. Tom Tugendhat also scores here, but

Steerpike Steerpike

SNP government finally accepts Cass review findings

Well, well, well. After all of the SNP’s sniping at Dr Hilary Cass’s review into UK gender clinics, it transpires that the Scottish government has – finally – accepted the findings of a gender clinic report in full. The revelation comes months after Cass found ‘remarkably weak evidence’ to support gender treatments for children and concluded that the ‘toxicity’ of the gender debate meant professionals were ‘afraid’ to openly discuss their views. Oh dear… After much ado, the SNP government has now said it will implement a gender treatment review’s recommendations, with public health minister Jenni Minto confirming that a second report – entitled ‘The Cass Review: Implications for Scotland’

Jonathan Spyer

Netanyahu faces an unenviable dilemma on Gaza

The murder of six Israeli hostages by Hamas in Gaza earlier this week led to an outpouring of grief and fury in Israel. For a considerable and vocal section of the public, the anger was directed – in a way perhaps surprising to outsiders – not against the Islamist group responsible for the murders, but against the Israeli government. Large and stormy demonstrations took place in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Histadrut, Israel’s trade union federation, organised a (partially observed) one-day general strike. The demonstrators’ demand was a simple one: a deal to release the 97 remaining hostages now. At least 33, by the way, and possibly more of the