Politics

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

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories abandon fiscal conservatism at their peril

And then there were two. Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss now go to the membership. There’s much talk today about how brutal this contest will be. Penny Mordaunt’s supporters were arguing this morning that people should vote for her to avoid pitting these two against each other. But that would be false comfort. The argument between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak is one that the Tory party needs to have. Fiscal responsibility has been the Tories’ anchor for years On one side stands Sunak, who I have known for many years. He cleaves to the old Thatcherite position that the first thing to do is to get inflation under control. He believes

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Liz Truss presents a serious challenge to Rishi Sunak

After all that, Sunak entered the final members’ round to be Tory leader and UK PM with a comfortable 24 vote margin of advantage over the runner-up Liz Truss. But her 113 votes are enough of a mandate from MPs to present Sunak with a serious challenge during the summer contest. What is striking is that the next Tory leader will represent continuity with the Johnson years Tory members, who according to surveys seemingly prefer Truss to Sunak, can’t be swayed by the idea that Truss would not be able to lead MPs because too few support her – which would have been a credible argument if Sunak had been

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Liz Truss vs Rishi Sunak: will the next phase be less rancorous?

11 min listen

Conservative MPs have chosen the final two candidates to be presented to the Tory membership in the final round of this leadership contest. Over the rest of the summer, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak will be travelling around the country to attend dozens of hustings with Tory members. Will this phase be less rancorous? Or will the divides between the two candidates only become more apparent? Isabel Hardman talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The economic battle between Sunak and Truss

The Tory grassroots have got themselves a real economic debate this summer: Rishi Sunak’s ‘Thatcherite’ economic philosophy vs Liz Truss’s ‘Reaganite’ plans to boost growth. It’s not the most obvious distinction, given the former prime minister and president were great free-market allies. Both also cut tax. But it’s about the order of priorities: like the Thatcher years, Sunak believes that the most important task is getting inflation under control, which was reporting this morning to have hit a 40-year-high, rising by 9.4 per cent on the year in June. This is how he justifies the tax hikes he ushered in as chancellor, comparing them to what Nigel Lawson did in

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Fact check: Is Sadiq Khan right about fires?

Will global warming condemn Britain to more fires? Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, has been widely quoted this morning comparing recent fires around the capital to the Blitz. ‘Yesterday was the busiest day for the fire service in London since the second world war,’ he said – climate change caused the heatwave which ‘led to the fires’. He added that he was dismayed that the Tory leadership contenders were not discussing this ‘elephant in the room.’ So is this right – or misleading? As so often, it’s a mixture. Khan is correct to say that the number of calls to London fire brigade was a record high: it received more

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

The unedifying spectacle of Boris’s last PMQs

Today Boris gave his last performance at Prime Minister’s Questions. But was it his last? He left the House hanging at the end. Speaker Hoyle began the historic session with a soggy little homily praising Boris for seeing us through ‘dark times during the pandemic’. Then, laughably, he told MPs to adopt a ‘respectful manner’ and to stick to ‘issues not personalities’. And he wasn’t finished there. He quoted Erskine May’s advice that ‘good temper and moderation’ are the hallmark of a distinguished parliamentarian. Do we really need this micromanager filing the chamber with his lugubrious dronings? Hoyle sounds like a control-freak park keeper who deflates the bouncy castle ‘due

The Spectator

The heatwave shows the lockdown instinct is still alive

Trains were running even more slowly than usual. Schools were closed again. Offices were empty. No one would deny that Monday and Tuesday were on the warm side, at least by British standards. Even so, there was something more alarming than the temperature: how quickly the authorities started to close down society – and showed that the lockdown instinct is still very much alive. The Met Office, a body that has turned from fairly comical to slightly sinister in recent times, started advising everyone to stay at home. The unions asked for schools, offices and transport systems to be closed down. There were no trains north out of King’s Cross

Coffee House

Sunak and Truss make final two – as it happened

Britain’s next Prime Minister will be either Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss. Refresh this page for the latest developments. 4.45 p.m. – Truss vs Sunak will be a philosophical war Kate Andrews writes… The Tory grassroots have got themselves a real economic debate this summer: Rishi Sunak’s ‘Thatcherite’ economic philosophy vs Liz Truss’s ‘Reaganite’ plans to boost growth. Both will have questions to answer. While Sunak’s line that ‘nothing comes for free’ is bound to resonate with Tory members, the tax burden has risen to a 72-year-high under his watch, as well as the introduction of a windfall tax on oil and gas companies that is very hard to explain

Boris Johnson

Advice to my successor

Boris Johnson has vacated the office of Prime Minister for Liz Truss. Spectator readers may recall his handover notes from the last time he stepped down from one of the best jobs in the world. Read his final piece as The Spectator’s editor here (published 17 December 2005). It is an eternal and reassuring fact of human nature that when an editor announces that he is stepping down from a great publication, there is not the slightest interest in what he plans to do with his life, or even who he was. I have received many phone calls from friends and colleagues since announcing last Friday that this would be my last edition, and

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cold War: Is Germany caving to Putin’s gas blackmail?

After a summit in Tehran yesterday, Putin spoke about the massive Russia to Germany Nord Stream 1 pipeline – currently closed for its annual maintenance period and due to reopen tomorrow. There’s a big question as to whether it will and at what capacity, given that Germany is at Russia’s mercy. Putin said that everything depends on western sanctions. He wants a turbine for the NordStream1 pipeline repaired in Canada – which would break sanctions – and the Germans are all for giving in. One turbine has just been repaired in Montreal, and Berlin begged the Canadians to send it back to give Putin what he wants. But Putin now

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Penny Mordaunt doesn’t understand the internet

Penny Mordaunt’s flip-flopping over gender self-ID makes it difficult to know where she stands. But on another issue she has made things abundantly clear: Mordaunt doesn’t understand how the internet works. If she makes it to the final round of the leadership contest this afternoon – and indeed to No. 10 – Mordaunt has vowed to make the likes of Facebook and Google pay when news content appears on their sites. This half-baked plan makes a fundamental misunderstanding. Mordaunt says: ‘We will create a news bargaining code, similar to the law that has been passed by the Australian government. This will mean that major online platforms like Google and Facebook will

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson’s final PMQs was a let down

Boris Johnson’s farewell Prime Minister’s Questions was rather like his premiership: full of the unexpected, rather chaotic and a bit of a let down. Westminster has already visibly moved on from Johnson, even though he remains in office until early September, and so Keir Starmer devoted his questions to asking Johnson about the candidates to be his successor. Johnson claimed that he wasn’t following the contest particularly closely, but that any one of the candidates would, ‘like some household detergent, wipe the floor with him’. Starmer, however, was enjoying the many insults that have been thrown between the camps in this race to be leader, and quoted a number of

Steerpike Steerpike

Another Mordaunt Twitter blunder

Oh dear. It seems that the Mordaunt camp has done it again. Just hours after suggesting that Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss would ‘murder’ the Tory party if they were elected, another suspect #PM4PM tweet has been doing the rounds. It’s about the Trade minister’s ability to win a general election, citing a YouGov poll of 18-19 July of Tory party members. Team Mordaunt has released a graphic which shows Penny on 28 points compared to Sunak and Truss on 17 and 15 respectively. Separately, screenshots of a document are also being shared among MPs by Mordaunt’s supporters, again referring to the YouGov poll labelled 18-19 July. Unfortunately, that poll

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Boris signs off at PMQs

It was Boris Johnson’s final time at the despatch box today but there was little sign of it from some of the contributions. Scratchy, verbose, partisan: and that was just the Labour MPs. Still, that didn’t faze the outgoing PM who, to rapturous applause and cheers from his benches, told the House about ‘some words of advice to his successor.’ He told either Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt or Liz Truss to ‘stay close to the Americans’ (an obvious reference to Churchill) and to do the same for the Ukrainians, plus cut taxes and deregulate ‘to make this the greatest place to live and invest in.’ He ended with a pointed

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The impossibility of separating Scotland from Britain

Most histories of the United Kingdom fail to account for, or even acknowledge, just how unusual a country it is. One of the strengths of a history of Scotland within the United Kingdom is that it cannot avoid emphasising the sheer strangeness of Britain. It is a country quite unlike other European nations for it is, at heart, a composite state: a Union of four other nations creating a fifth which exists alongside – and sometimes above – its constituent parts. The tensions and interplay between these identities form part of Murray Pittock’s handsome new history. Although titled a ‘global history’ of Scotland, it is also, inescapably, a history of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The next PM must be ready for Putin

Westminster is understandably obsessed with the question of who makes the final two of the Tory leadership race, but today has also brought a reminder of the crises that the new Prime Minister will have to deal with from day one.  The European Commission is calling on all EU member states to cut gas use by 15 per cent to prepare for supply cuts from Russia through Nord Stream 1, which reopens tomorrow. With the pipeline only flowing at limited levels, and the heatwave leading to higher energy use than usual, Germany will not be able to lay in stores for the winter. This means that Vladimir Putin will constantly try

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Will it be a Truss vs Sunak final?

The last stage of the parliamentary rounds of the leadership contest is here. This afternoon, MPs will vote to decide which two out of Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak progresses to the final round, in which they are whittled down to one by the party membership. The new leader will be announced at the beginning of September. Although Mordaunt came out in second place in yesterday’s ballot, there is a growing consensus among MPs that the most likely result today is a Truss vs Sunak final. The fact that Kemi Badenoch was knocked out in the fourth ballot means that the right of the party ought to be

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Kemi Badenoch will be the new Tory leader’s secret weapon

There was an unmistakable whiff of an Addams Family portrait about the cabinet photocall that marked the final gathering of Boris Johnson’s top team. Surrounding the departing Prime Minister were many ministers who will have suspected that they are not going to be in the same ministerial positions, or perhaps any ministerial position, when 10 Downing Street is under new management. To what extent, for example, can Nadhim Zahawi put together any kind of economic agenda, given his disastrous first fortnight as chancellor? His first few days in office saw him pledge an arbitrary tax-cutting timetable before his leadership hopes promptly collapsed amid reports that his own tax affairs were under

Douglas Murray

The ruthless inefficiency of the Tory party

It is hard to love the Conservative party. But one reason it has at least always commanded a certain amount of respect is thanks to its reputation for ruthless efficiency. Personally I have found that reputation to be only half true. It is true that the party can be ruthless, but only in being ruthlessly inefficient. Look at the mechanism by which it removed the Prime Minister who brought it its largest majority since Margaret Thatcher. True, Boris Johnson had his faults. But did the party not know these in advance? Why was it not able to add the stabilisers so obviously needed to keep a rickety, not to mention rackety,

Steerpike Steerpike

Mordaunt: Truss or Sunak will ‘murder’ us

Throughout the leadership race, Penny Mordaunt has sought to portray herself as the cleanest candidate of them all. She has bemoaned the ‘toxic politics’ and ‘smears’ of others and bewailed how ‘this contest is in danger of slipping into something else’. She, by contrast, has pledged to run a ‘truly clean campaign’ and ‘committed to a clean start for our party’ – away from all from the attacks, lies and backstabbing of the past. Mordaunt even told Steerpike’s colleague Isabel Hardman on The Spectator podcast just yesterday that: I have conducted my campaign in a way that I think is needed and has been the right thing to do. Now