Politics

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

Tuesday

Iain Macwhirter

In praise of Nigel Farage’s war on banks

Why did it take Nigel Farage to suggest clawing back some of the super profits pocketed recently by British banks? Why hasn’t Labour thought of stopping the Bank of England paying interest on the deposits of commercial banks? There is, after all, plenty of money for the taking. In 2023, HSBC reported a record net profit of over $30 billion (£24 billion). Lloyds made around £5.5 billion and Barclays trousered £6 billion. The UK banks have never had it so good. They have been coining it because of high interest rates which acts like a reverse ATM machine. The Reform election manifesto, sorry ‘contract’, proposes accessing some of this by getting

John Oxley

Labour shouldn’t squander the chance to fix council tax

In the final election push, the Tories are trying to drag the Labour party into a game of taxation whack-a-mole. The Conservatives seem to think that the threat of tax rises is the one lifeline they have. After bungling their £2,000 per-family line with a row about where the numbers come from, they are now teasing out denials about specific raises from the left. First, it was over Capital Gains Tax, and then council tax, forcing Labour to deny they would re-band, as Welsh Labour have done. A tax levied according to what your property was worth (or, indeed, hypothetically worth) in 1991 feels a bit baffling Starmer and his

Zewditu Gebreyohanes

In defence of hereditary peers

‘Hereditary peers remain indefensible,’ says Labour’s manifesto. The party plans to rectify this issue by ‘introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords’. If it follows through on its promise, Keir Starmer’s party will be making a big mistake. Labour suggests that its reform will make the Lords a fairer and more ‘modern’ place. But what Starmer is essentially advocating is a chamber that is Prime Minister-appointed (save for the Bishops who it seems would, at least for now, remain). The hereditary peers provide a necessary counterbalance to a patronage-based system; their existence is one of the checks and balances

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

We’ll never find the heir to Blair

The ghost of 1997 haunts the 2024 election. The defining image of this year’s contest, barring any major upsets over the next fortnight, is already clear: Rishi Sunak drenched like a drowned chipmunk outside 10 Downing Street as he called the snap election. ‘Things Can Only Get Better’, Labour’s ’97 campaign anthem, was blasted out in the background. It was a pitiable sight: Sunak looked hapless, luckless and friendless. A John Major for the 21st century. The first term of Blair – pre-9/11, pre-Iraq, the time of Gordon Brown being prudent and restrained (or so we thought) – exists as a nostalgic golden age Like many people of a conservative

Monday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

What a pleasure to see Belgium blow it again

Ok, so I’m partisan, granted. This was a game between my favourite mainland European country and the continent’s noisome, jihadi-replete, sewer. Sure, the VAR decisions against that grand old stager Romalu Lukaku– especially the latter one – were utter absurdities. There are microscopic infractions whenever a player has the ball and it is neither in the spirit of the game nor, I would suggest, the laws, to punish them all.  That’s VAR for you. But whatever, that game cheered me up more than I can adequately express. The biggest upset in this tournament in more than 30 years, apparently. And yet the victory was truly deserved: it was no fluke. Belgium

Steerpike Steerpike

Humza Yousaf attacks Farage and Braverman

Humza Yousaf is back with a bang. Now the embattled politician has taken to the Grauniad’s opinion pages to write a fiery piece on ‘anti-Muslim hatred’. In an explosive entry, the ex-SNP leader claims that Muslims across the continent are ‘fearful’ due to ‘growing popularity and mainstreaming of the far right’. ‘It is increasingly difficult to persuade fellow Muslims that Europe does not have a problem with our very existence,’ he notes. In 2024, almost half the world’s population will take part in elections. Many countries have already gone to the polls, and in a number of countries, particularly across Europe, the biggest gains have been made by those who

Steerpike Steerpike

Reform candidate defends Hitler remarks

Since the return of Nigel Farage, Reform UK has been going from strength to strength. Last week a YouGov survey for the Times saw the Farage-founded group overtake the Tories in the polls for the first time. Today JL Partners’s research has found that since the arch-Brexiteer’s comeback, Rishi Sunak’s popularity has dropped to pre-election lows. But it’s not all been plain sailing for Reform UK. Now the party’s Welwyn Hatfield candidate has come under fire for comments he made in relation to a pseudoscientific theory about multiple personality types – in which he described Adolf Hitler as ‘brilliant’ and ‘able to inspire people to action’. Oh dear… And there’s

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Does Nigel Farage have the cure for Britain?

10 min listen

Nigel Farage has unveiled Reform UK’s manifesto. Except, it’s not a manifesto, because he says the word is synonymous in voters’ minds with ‘lies’. It promises a freeze on non-essential immigration, a patriotic curriculum, leaving the European Court on Human Rights, and cutting taxes by £88 billion.  Is this contract more of a wish list? How much damage can Nigel Farage do to the Conservatives? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Heale. 

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Are the Tories about to fall into Farage’s trap – again?

Nigel Farage’s tail is up. The Reform party election campaign has gone better than he dared hope and its poll rating is up by several percentage points since he re-entered the fray. Today he went to South Wales to launch what he insisted was not a manifesto, but a ‘contract’ with the electorate over its campaigning priorities for the next five years. He also tacitly acknowledged that its contents were not quite as honed as he might have wanted, owing to the election happening in early July rather than the autumn. Farage has admitted that Reform can’t win this election, but is mainly expecting to secure a Commons bridgehead to

James Heale James Heale

Farage’s ‘contract’ is all about hurting the Tories

Nigel Farage has launched his party’s manifesto, which he’s termed ‘Our contract with you’. The Reform leader dropped the word ‘manifesto’, claiming the word is synonymous in voters’ minds with ‘lies’. Farage told attendees he’d chosen Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales for today’s launch to highlight Labour’s record there, yet the document’s contents indicate that it’s the Tories he’s really targeting. The 24-page contract promises to freeze non-essential immigration, introduce a new tax on employers who hire foreign workers, cut taxes by £88 billion and leave the European Court on Human Rights. It promises a ‘patriotic curriculum’ and 30,000 more full-time members of the Armed Forces. All job seekers would

Andrew Tettenborn

Reform’s radical manifesto would do wonders for democracy

In this election, neither Labour nor the Tories are particularly interested in serious constitutional reform. By contrast, there’s one smaller opposition party that makes it quite clear in its manifesto that it does believe in serious democratic change to make government radically responsive to what voters want. That party is Reform. True, there’s a lot in its manifesto, launched today, to make you cautious: its elements of rehashed free-market Thatcherism, for instance, not to mention its fairly sketchy funding projections. But a number of its constitutional proposals make for interesting reading. Some ideas are predictable, such as replacing the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) with a British Bill of Rights,

Alexander Horne

Remainers are going to be disappointed in Labour

Labour’s election manifesto has been criticised by many commentators for being too vague; like a ‘choose your own adventure’ book which would allow the party to do almost whatever it likes in government. This was highlighted today by Rachel Reeve’s remarks on Brexit. In an interview with the Financial Times, the shadow chancellor pointed out the need to improve elements of the UK’s trade deal with the EU and ‘reset’ Britain’s global image. This is said to mark a shift in tone (if not substance) from a party which previously did not want to focus on these issues.  On Brexit, the manifesto is plain that there will be ‘no return to the single market, the customs union, or freedom

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour peer suspended over Duffield tweets

Another day, another drama. This time it involves a run-in between Labour peer Lord Cashman and the party’s candidate for Canterbury, Rosie Duffield – which has resulted in the Labour peer losing the whip over some rather controversial comments… Duffield, a vocal women’s rights campaigner who has received death threats over her stance on gender issues, announced on Friday that she will withdraw from election hustings events due to safety concerns. Blasting ‘constant trolling, spite and misrepresentation’, she revealed she was ‘being pursued with a new vigour during this election’, before concluding that ‘sadly the actions of a few fixated people has made my attendance impossible’. Instead the Canterbury candidate

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Can Rishi Sunak reduce the Tories’ losses?

Every morning in Conservative Campaign Headquarters, Tory aides kickstart the day by blasting out Elvis Presley’s ‘a little less conversation’ on the speakers. The song – which includes the lyrics ‘A little more bite and a little less bark / A little less fight and a little more spark’ – has quickly become the anthem of the Tory campaign. ‘I know the lyrics off by heart,’ says one sleep deprived staffer. Yet more than halfway into the election, there is little sign that the campaign is cutting through in the way strategists had hoped. The most optimistic one aide working on the campaign can be is ‘it has to get

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why the Tories’ tax black hole attack on Labour will backfire

The Conservatives love trying to reduce their estimates for the cost of a Labour government down to a neat per-household figure, which makes it easy for voters to appreciate but comes with the danger that the figure will fall apart on closer examination. That is what happened with Rishi’s Sunak’s claim, made in his ITV two-way debate with Keir Starmer, that Labour is planning tax rises of £2,000 per household. That turned out to be over four years rather than one, as many people might have assumed, and turned out to rely on all kind of assumptions which were made by Conservative party researchers rather than the Treasury officials to

Steerpike Steerpike

iPad scandal MSP accepts £12,000 ‘golden goodbye’

Dear oh dear. Back to Scotland and the chaos of the SNP. Former health secretary Michael Matheson was suspended for 27 days and received a 54-day salary ban last month after he tried to use the public purse to cover his £11,000 iPad data roaming bill. Now it transpires that the Nat has accepted a £12,000 ‘golden goodbye’ despite his suspension. Talk about shameless… Although the former minister was hit with one of the harshest punishments that Holyrood’s standards committee has ever dished out, it turns out that Matheson has still accepted £12,712.25 of resettlement grant money. Holyrood’s rules allow for cabinet ministers to receive 90 days’ pay when they

Matthew Lynn

France could pay a heavy price for Macron’s Liz Truss-attack on Le Pen

As Emmanuel Macron heads into a fraught election, France’s president is repeatedly warning voters of the calamitous consequences of electing Marine Le Pen’s National Rally into government. In doing so, he is effectively weaponising the bond market. His allies point to what unfolded under Liz Truss’s government. The message to voters is clear: don’t even think about. The debt crisis is largely of Macron’s own making Throwing a ‘grenade’ at those considering backing National Rally might be smart politics, but it is very dangerous economics – and the consequences may be catastrophic for the country he leads. You can hardly blame Macron for panicking: his decision to call a snap

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Tory party’s sums don’t add up

There is, to put it mildly, a lack of candour in this election campaign when it comes to tax rises and spending cuts. The Conservatives are trying to force Labour into a game of Whac-a-mole over which taxes it would put up and which rises the party is happy to rule out. Whoever is in power will have to find the money from somewhere, whether that’s through hiking tax or slashing spending. Neither party is being very open about that, though. Perhaps the power is draining away so rapidly from the Tories that their own assertions about spending aren’t getting the scrutiny they deserve Perhaps the power is draining away

David Cohen

Labour should learn from Jacinda Ardern’s calamitous oil and gas ban

In the UK, the Labour party has pledged to halt any new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, which the Tories today suggest could cost billions in tax revenue over the next ten years.  When it comes to energy policy, Labour could really benefit from looking at what happened when New Zealand’s Labour party tried the same thing in the South Sea.  Six years ago, the Jacinda Ardern government enacted a similar policy in New Zealand. Today, gas-dependent industrial sectors find themselves with something of a python around their necks. Politicians here in this nation of 5.5 million have even begun to openly fret about the country’s ability to keep

Sam Leith Sam Leith

The terrible consequences of the Hay Festival grandstanding

Just three weeks ago, I wrote about Hay Festival sacking their main sponsor Baillie Gifford after pressure from the campaign group Fossil Free Books, which claimed the investment fund was profiting from the destruction of the planet and ‘genocide’ in Gaza. Whatever their merits of these charges (not much, as it happens), I argued, the sacking of a literary festival’s sponsor would do great harm to the festival and make no impact whatsoever on the fossil fuel industry or the lives of people in Gaza. Worse, I worried, would be if the campaigners scented blood and others followed suit. This could be a disaster for the arts in this country. In