Politics

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

Sunday

Coffee House

The second Tory leadership debate – as it happened

Good evening. The second Conservative leadership debate between Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Penny Mordaunt, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat has just finished. Below is the full live analysis (please reload the page to get updates): 10.00 p.m. Coffee House Shots 9.00 p.m. Snap poll: the verdict Katy Balls writes… The snap poll verdict is in – and this time it is Rishi Sunak out on top, with Tom Tugendhat in second place. This will help Sunak’s team with the second stage of their campaign which is to convince MPs he is best placed to win an election. As for the others, the poll is good news for Liz Truss. She is

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Revealed: Penny Mordaunt’s hidden equalities agenda

The bookies’ favourite to win the Tory leadership race, Penny Mordaunt, has had a difficult few days. She’s facing questions not just about her views on trans rights, but about how honest she is about them. Suella Braverman has come pretty close to saying that, like Boris Johnson, Mordaunt has a habit of rewriting history to a version that suits her better and she does not offer the candour straight-talking needed after the Chris Pincher debacle. ‘Smears’, says Penny. She is the candidate of candour and straight-talking. But Mr S has obtained a recording of a speech Mordaunt gave to LGBT+ Tory activists in June 2018, in which she did

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The volatility of the Tory leadership race

In just a few days, the Conservative leadership race will be down to the final two candidates. But what happens after that is unclear. This afternoon, the ConservativeHome website released another round of polling. This time it is on how the candidates would fare against one another in the run-offs if they made it to the final round. They published a version of this poll earlier this week – which put Penny Mordaunt out in front. This added to the momentum behind Mordaunt which saw her named the bookies’ favourite. However, it seems a combination of blue-on-blue attacks and a mediocre performance in the first televised debate on Friday night means that she

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Penny Mordaunt’s worst trait

Right-wingers appear not to be terribly keen on Penny Mordaunt. Toby Young read her book Greater: Britain After the Storm and didn’t like what he found. Nor did Will Lloyd, over at UnHerd, who wrote that: ‘Mordaunt tacks to the centre, but ends up on the managerial left. What she writes sounds like it was dredged from a particularly poor speech given at Davos five years ago.’ Sam Ashworth-Hayes even goes so far as to suggest she would be better suited to leading the Labour party. Here we must draw the line. The Labour party is more than capable of anointing its own ideologically unsuited leaders, thank you very much.

Robin Ashenden

Boris Johnson will be a hard act to follow in Ukraine

‘Every human life has many aspects,’ said the novelist Milan Kundera. ‘The past of each can just as easily arranged into the biography of a beloved statesman as into that of a criminal.’ Of no one has this been truer in recent days than our departing Prime Minister Boris Johnson. To read some of the political obituaries of him – Andrew Rawnsley’s in the Observer was typical (‘disgraced the office… wild mayhem… pathologically brazen… serial debaucheries… lord of misrule’) or the round-up of panellists’ views in the Guardian (‘The stain of Johnsonism will remain for decades’) – you might think the country had until last week been governed by the

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Penny under the spotlight

Penny Mordaunt – I’m being smeared over self-ID claims No Conservative party leadership race is ever without drama. With the first TV debate now under their belt, the five candidates are fending off scrutiny not just from the opposition and the media, but from each other. One of the biggest rifts from Friday’s debate was when Penny Mordaunt denied that she had ever been in favour of self-identification for transgender people while she was equalities minister. Her rivals, Kemi Badenoch and Liz Truss, suggested this was not true, and leaked documents reported in the Sunday Times today appear to back this up. Speaking to the BBC’s Sophie Raworth, Mordaunt sought to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Penny Mordaunt complains of ‘smears’

Tom Tugendhat and Penny Mordaunt both took to the BBC Sunday Show this morning. Tugendhat’s appearance came straight after the chief of the defence staff Tony Radakin and Tugendhat immediately went on foreign policy his strongest suit. His answers in this area are crisper than his ones on domestic issues.  Tugendhat made much, as he always does, of the ‘clean start’ he would offer. He did, though, credit Boris Johnson with breaking the Brexit deadlock and levelling up, though said he would take it further. He reiterated his call for a further cut in fuel duty, he wants 10p off. But on energy more broadly he talked about the need

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Is Labour changing its mind on trans issues?

Amid the noise of the Tory leadership fight, some significant comments in the papers could be missed today. Here’s the quote, from a Sunday Times interview with an intelligent, ambitious female politician in her forties: Biology is important. A woman is somebody with a biology that is different from a man’s biology. We’re seeing in sport sensible decisions being made about who cannot compete in certain cases. Could it reflect a new approach to trans issues from the Labour leadership? She says she would ‘have a problem’ with someone with male genitals identifying as a woman and using a female changing space, and isn’t entirely sold on the use of gender

Lee Cohen

Pity poor America: at least Brits can change their leader

Watching the Conservative leadership race from across the sea in America has left me both hopeful and envious. Hopeful that the Tories will select a leader who will steer Britain to a better, stronger place, and exhibit responsible global leadership to offset the void left and damage done by our catastrophe-in chief, Joe Biden. In the same breath I am envious that Britain, unlike America, has this chance to correct its course. Whether Boris’s fall was deserved has been beaten to death in the British press, so this Yank won’t presume to intrude other than to say he had me at ‘I will deliver Brexit, unite the country and defeat

Mary Dejevsky

Liz Truss is right to look at family taxation

Launching her campaign for party leader and prime minister, Liz Truss said something that barely registered amid the big tax-cutting promises, but made me prick up my ears in a very positive way. She talked about trying to make sure that parents and other carers were not penalised by taking time out of paid work. ‘To ensure people aren’t penalised for taking time out to care for their children or elderly relatives,’ she said, ‘we will review the taxation of families’, describing families as ‘a vital part of our lives and the crucial building block for a stable society’. Now many will see this as a typical sop to those

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Truss struggles with surging Kemi

It’s been a mixed performance thus far for the ‘Liz for leader’ brigade. A flawless campaign launch, strong cabinet support and enthusiastic media backing have all been positives but the failure to lock up the votes of the Tory right have left the Foreign Secretary in a less confident situation than she might otherwise have liked. Truss’s efforts have not been helped in this respected by Kemi Badenoch, the surprise package of the leadership campaign. On the second round of voting, Truss came third with 64 MPs, ahead of Badenoch on 49. While the latter is still regarded as a long-shot candidate, there are whispers about whether the junior minister

Ian Williams Ian Williams

China’s economy is grinding to a halt

Economic growth in China is grinding to a halt. The days of soaring double-digit growth are over, and the malaise facing the country’s spluttering economy goes far deeper than the hit from Covid-19 lockdowns. Gross domestic product in the April to June quarter grew by a paltry 0.4 per cent from a year earlier, according to figures released on Friday, well below the forecasts of analysts. On a quarter by quarter basis, the economy shrank, down 2.6 per cent compared with January to March. It was sobering reading for China’s communist leaders, who derive much of their legitimacy from their management of a fast-growing economy. It is easy to blame

Steven Fielding

Which Tory leader does Labour fear the most?

Ask any Labour politician which of the Conservative leadership candidates they fear most and they will most likely say: none of them. That is largely hubris, because Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, the likeliest candidates to become Britain’s next Prime Minister, pose different threats to Labour’s opinion poll lead. Ideally, Labour would like Boris Johnson to remain caretaker Prime Minister for as long as possible – recent weeks have seen Labour’s polling rise and rise with the messy demise of the Prime Minister. When Keir Starmer said his party had an electoral mountain to climb after the 2019 election, he likely did not figure on Boris Johnson acting

Stian Westlake

Why does Kemi Badenoch want to break up the Treasury?

Conservative leadership elections aren’t usually associated with big policy ideas. But last week Kemi Badenoch put forward a proposal that could revolutionise the way the British state works. She suggested we should break up the most powerful government department, the Treasury. Others also think there’s a problem; Penny Mordaunt’s book Greater: Britain After The Storm suggests ‘decentralising’ and ‘localising’ Britain’s finance ministry. What’s behind the sudden interest in the fate of the goings-on in one building in Whitehall? At the heart of the issue is the fact that Her Majesty’s Treasury is rather unusual, and very powerful. The Treasury is unusual because it combines three government functions that in many

Saturday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Penny drops, Kemi soars in Tory activist poll

While Tom Tugendhat won the public opinion poll after last night’s debate, this is a race that will be decided by Tory members – and they seem to have a new winner (for now at least). A new ConservativeHome poll has seen Penny Mordaunt knocked off the top spot by Kemi Badenoch – who now has a double-digit lead. In a rapidly-moving contest, it’s quite significant. ‘Mordaunt’s ship is becalmed,’ says Paul Goodman in the ConHome analysis. She led Badenoch by 46 per cent to 40 per cent in an either/or poll last Tuesday. But in this different poll (with all five candidates) she’s on just 18 per cent, with Liz

Damian Reilly Damian Reilly

Ditching Boris was a terrible mistake

Watching the Channel 4 leadership debate last night was thoroughly depressing. If only Boris Johnson’s premiership hadn’t ended in the way it did – a surreal version of the famous butterfly effect where one man gropes another in the Carlton Club and the leader of a nuclear power gets the boot. Without Boris there seems so little to differentiate the Conservatives from Labour The Tory party has made a terrible mistake, one they will regret bitterly when they are soundly beaten at the next election. Naturally, they will blame it on him. Without Boris there seems so little to differentiate the Conservatives from Labour. Both parties claim to want to

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Tories parade their military attire

As the reputation of Westminster sinks ever lower and our elected masters seem able to do even less, candidates for political office seek outside areas by which they can bolster their credentials. Once it might have been the Church: now it’s often business. But one evergreen way of commanding instant respect in Tory circles is a connection, however tenuous, with the Armed Forces. Unsurprisingly therefore, those leadership candidates with such a connection have been doing their upmost to mention their service at every available opportunity. Take Tom Tugendhat, the man who’s quipped that his ‘biggest weakness’ is ‘talking about the army too much.’ He proudly sported the tie of his

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

The real winner from last night’s debate

Last night Channel 4 held a 90-minute live event starring Rishi, Liz, Tom, Penny and Kemi. Not a manufactured pop-band but the candidates for the Tory leadership. The first question was easy-peasy. ‘Is Boris Johnson honest?’ ‘No,’ the obvious answer, was beyond them. They ducked and weaved and dodged and fudged. Except for Tom Tugendhat. ‘Honest?’ He bowed his head and shook it gravely. Massive applause. Major Tom is known as a bit of a heartthrob among ladies of a certain age (over 90) and his manner is to bark out terse and meaningless soundbites, parade-ground style. ‘Clean break!… Ready to lead!… Government only works when it works for you!…

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Glyndebourne goes gender neutral

Angela Rayner caused a bit of a stir a few weeks ago when she rocked up at the Glyndebourne opera festival. The stiletto-sporting socialist made much capital out of her trip after Dominic Raab mocked her for picking a Mozart opera over the RMT picket line, enabling her to pose as a victim of Tory sneers and classist smears. But it seems that Glyndebourne made the right-on Rayner and others feel right at home, judging by the latest innovation at the Grade II listed manor house. Now gender-neutral toilets have been introduced at the venue in question, replete with the requisite sign that left some older attendees baffled. Along with

Rupert Darwall

The next Tory leader should commit to ditching net zero

‘We’re all Keynesians now,’ Richard Nixon reportedly said in 1971 before ushering in a decade of high inflation. In the twilight of his premiership, Boris Johnson’s chief political legacy to the Conservative party is likely to be cakeism – the political philosophy that denies the existence of trade-offs and asserts you can have it all. And nowhere does that apply more than his embrace of net zero, which has been embraced by virtually all the Tory leadership candidates. Cakeism is the antithesis of Thatcherism, which was about the politics of making hard choices. Cakeism also represents the negation of strategy. In his famous 1996 paper ‘What is strategy?’ the management guru