Politics

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

Tuesday

28 May 2024

Steerpike

Diane Abbott banned from standing for Labour

The drama in Westminster never seems to end – and tonight is certainly no exception to that rule. In one of the biggest developments of the week, it transpires that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party will not allow veteran MP Diane Abbott to represent the party at the upcoming general election. However, Abbott has reportedly been given the Labour whip back as a middle way. The Hackney North & Stoke Newington MP was the first black woman elected to parliament, serving continually since 1987 and achieving a majority of over 33,000 in 2019 – but Labour’s decision this evening is likely to bring her 37-year political career to end. The

Steerpike

Poll slashes Labour lead to just 12 points

They think it’s all over – but is that actually the case? After a difficult start to the campaign for the Conservatives, many of their own MPs had privately written off their chances at this election. However a new poll out tonight could force the skeptics to think again, with Labour’s lead down to just 12 points. The survey for JL Partners revealed that the Starmer army still retain some 40 per cent of the vote but suggested Sunak and the Tories are coming up on the rails with 28 per cent. The fieldwork for this poll was done on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 May, shortly after the Prime

Steerpike

BBC presenter grovels after Farage jibe

It seems these days that the BBC is doing a better job of creating the news than presenting it. Today’s row is about one of the broadcaster’s stars entering into a spat with Reform’s Nigel Farage — and losing rather spectacularly… The I’m a Celeb finalist was out today helping promote Richard Tice’s party in Dover as he made his first big speech of the election campaign. At a gathering of party supporters and journalists, Farage spoke of immigration problems seen in Europe. Quoting remarks made by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the Reform founder pointed to ‘the wave of — and I’m using his words not mine — “aggressive, young males” that

James Heale

Police drop investigation into Rayner housing claims

Labour’s election campaign continues to get off to a good start. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has today confirmed that it will take no further action against Angela Rayner after accusations surrounding her living arrangements. Officers from the force launched an investigation into the party’s deputy leader in April after Tory MP James Daly registered a complaint. It followed reports in the Mail which suggested that Rayner might have lived primarily at her then-husband’s address in Stockport, despite registering to vote under her own – a potential breach of electoral rules. But this afternoon GMP released a 121-word statement which says that after ‘a thorough, carefully considered and proportionate investigation’ they

Katy Balls

Who’s winning the TikTok election battle?

12 min listen

Days into the election campaign and parties are scrambling to get their message out on social media. With both Labour and the Conservatives joining TikTok, who has a stronger message? Katy Balls speaks to Sean Topham, co-founder of Topham Guerin who ran the Conservative’s 2019 social media campaign.

Steerpike

Reeves reprises her Wikipedia tribute act

Once we had New Labour: now we have Changed Labour. As part of Sir Keir Starmer’s bid to prove that his party is different (honest!) since the far-off Corbyn days of, er, April 2020, Labour has been out today banging the drum for business. The Opposition is terribly proud of itself for stitching together a letter of support for its economic policies, signed, no less, by some of the country’s leading business experts. What a coup! But Mr S could not help but wonder about some of the names signing the letter that Rachel Reeves touted today in her big speech in Derby. For one thing, there were no FTSE 100

Limor Simhony Philpott

Israel may have to stop its offensive in Rafah

The devastating fire that, according to Hamas, killed dozens of displaced civilians in Rafah and that reportedly started because of an Israeli attack on Hamas terrorists, has come at the worse possible time for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Four days ago, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel must immediately halt activities in Rafah. Although the language used by the court could imply that Israel may carry out some activities in the city as long as it conforms to its obligations under the Genocide Convention, there were international calls on Israel to cease all activities, and warnings of a disaster have sadly come true. Israel’s ability to carry on in

James Heale

Farage speaks of ‘six-year plan’ as he launches campaign

The Royal Cinque Ports Yachts Club was an appropriate place for Nigel Farage to make his first big speech of the election campaign today. Set on the Dover seafront, it offered the perfect setting for Farage – Reform’s honorary president and spiritual figurehead – to lambast the Tory record on small boats. The Conservatives, he said, had betrayed their 2019 voters by allowing an ‘invasion’ of migrants: ‘If 3,800 boats and 125,000 people isn’t a sort of slow motion D-Day in reverse, I don’t know what is.’ It was the kind of stump speech that we have seen honed in endless GB News monologues, with the familiar cast of villains:

Steerpike

Watch: Ed Davey struggles to stay afloat during campaign tour

It’s a gaffe a day in British politics, as poorly-planned campaign visits are fast turning party leaders into laughing stocks. The latest victim is none other than Sir Ed Davey, who is currently on a UK tour to spread the word that the Liberal Democrats are putting the issue of sewage dumping at the top of their manifesto. This morning, Davey joined local MP Tim Farron on a constituency visit to Windermere in the Lake District to campaign on water cleanliness. For that reason alone — never mind the fact that the Lib Dem leader is not exactly an, um, experienced paddleboarder — it’s certainly rather brave of Sir Ed

Kate Andrews

Did Rachel Reeves just rule out more tax hikes?

Speaking to business leaders in the East Midlands this morning, Rachel Reeves delivered a fairly uncontroversial speech. In her first major address since the election was called last week, the shadow chancellor insisted that Labour is the ‘natural party of British business’ (a point bolstered by today’s letter signed by over 100 business chiefs endorsing Labour). She said she wanted ‘to lead the most pro-growth, pro-business Treasury our country has ever seen’ – who could argue with that? She then went on to restate her commitment to fiscal discipline and a promise to make the numbers add up. While the dig at free markets won’t have been everyone’s cup of tea, it was

Iain Macwhirter

The SNP has finally given up on Greta Thunberg

It is less than three years since Nicola Sturgeon was taking selfies with Greta Thunberg at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow. Now in this election the climate, if you’ll excuse the pun, has changed beyond all recognition. Gone is the moral posturing and climate alarmism of recent years as the Scottish parties desperately roll back on their climate rhetoric in the face of huge job losses in Scotland’s energy sector. Black is the new green. Oil and gas companies are no longer climate pariahs. It was of course Nicola Sturgeon back in 2021 who made Scotland the first country in the world to declare a ‘climate emergency’. We cannot

Ross Clark

The truth about pensioners and tax

The Tories’ ‘Triple Lock Plus’ is a pretty blatant attempt to secure the votes of a demographic group which is more inclined to vote Conservative than any other. That much is clear. The party’s proposal would give pensioners a high personal tax allowance to spare them from having to pay income tax as the state pension rises faster than either inflation or average earnings. If the government wants to spare pensioners from having to pay income tax it could, of course, raise the income tax threshold for everyone. But instead, while pensioners are spared tax, the personal tax allowance for working-age people is due to be frozen for another four

Steerpike

Labour takes down Tory attack TikTok video

Another day, another gaffe. Only this time it’s the Labour party in the firing line, not so long after the launch of its brand new TikTok account. It has been live for all of four days and Starmer’s army has been busy getting to work on their latest form of social media self-promotion — posting 30 videos, gathering 75,900 followers and amassing 1.5 million likes. But it’s not all been plain sailing for the Sir Keir’s lefty lot. Labour’s comms team seems to have gotten a little ahead of itself in its rush to take the platform by storm and there are concerns the party may have, er, broken some

Debbie Hayton

Why the Tories’ national service idea is unworkable

When the Tories start talking about national service they really are grasping at straws. The concept might possibly appeal to some older voters nostalgic for an earlier time, but Rishi Sunak’s ideas are quite different from the military conscription of young men that lasted from 1949 to 1963. Let’s put aside the 30,000 or so ‘selective’ military placements for the ‘brightest and the best’. Yes, young people can offer much to the nation’s approach to cyber security and the defence of our IT infrastructure against external threats. Fresh minds see solutions that others may not. But if that isn’t happening already, what has the government been doing for the past

Rakib Ehsan

What Nigel Farage gets wrong about British Muslims

Once again, Nigel Farage – arguably the most influential politician in recent British political history – has sparked a furious debate. What I take issue with is the grand-sweeping generalisations of British Muslims On Sky News and interviewed by Sir Trevor Phillips, Farage said there are a growing number of Muslims who refuse to subscribe to so-called ‘British values’. He took aim in particular at young Muslims at pro-Palestine demonstrations, appearing to suggest that they could in no way be considered British patriots. Perhaps in an attempt to reduce the chances of being accused of racism, Farage went on to celebrate the West Indian experience of integration in the UK

Kate Andrews

The Tory ‘tax-cutting’ agenda is fooling no one

Something has to go badly wrong for anyone to become nostalgic for 2020. But the Tory’s latest election announcement – to create the ‘Triple Lock Plus’ – is just the thing to do it. The first autumn after the pandemic hit, then-chancellor Rishi Sunak was looking at the public finances in dismay, wondering how he might even try to account for the heavy spending that he, his party and Labour had rushed through parliament earlier in the year. But the strange circumstances of the pandemic – including the mandate for young and low-risk people to ‘stay home’ – also created an opportunity to address some outstanding and unfair public policy: the triple

James Price

The Conservatives must offer something to young people

Another day, another controversial new announcement from a Conservative campaign keen to show that it has new ideas. Today, it is the so-called ‘Triple Lock Plus’, which will mean that, should the Tories get back in, pensioners’ tax-free allowance will automatically increase in line with the highest of wages, earnings, or 2.5 per cent. The state pension will never be taxed. They claim it would give pensioners a tax cut of almost £300 per year by the end of the next parliament. Younger people expect a quid pro quo from the government, and from older people who have had it pretty good. This follows the national service announcement, and both in conjunction

John Oxley

The Tories have become the party of the pensioner

In several countries across Europe, ‘pensioners parties’ sit in parliament expressly to reflect the interests of older voters. The most successful is perhaps Slovenia, where the Democratic Party of Pensioners had a parliamentary presence from 1992 to 2022, and often made up part of the governing coalition. In the UK, attempts to create pensioners parties have faltered. Now, in a desperate grasp for survival, the Conservatives are attempting to become one. Rishi Sunak has kicked off the first full week of the campaign with a policy to further entrench the Tory support of better-off older people. Where once the triple lock was enough, now he has unveiled the ‘Triple Lock

James Kanagasooriam

The Dunkirk Strategy

13 min listen

The Conservatives have unveiled a new pensions policy: the ‘Triple Lock Plus’. What does it mean and what’s the thinking behind it? Will it help shore up the Tories’ core vote? Katy Balls and Focaldata’s James Kanagasooriam join Natasha Feroze to discuss. Produced by Natasha Feroze and Patrick Gibbons.

Katy Balls

Rachel Reeves avoids the Miliband trap

Rachel Reeves is out once on the campaign trail once again today as she gives her first major speech since Rishi Sunak called a July election. Addressing business leaders in the East Midlands, Reeves will vow to ‘lead the most pro-growth Treasury in our country’s history’. So far, no surprises – the shadow chancellor has made similar promises before. However, what Reeves and her team will be patting themselves on the back for pulling off is a letter in today’s Times. Over one hundred business chiefs have signed a letter endorsing Labour’s economic plans and saying it is time for change. They include Iceland supermarket founder Malcolm Walker, the TV