Politics

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

Saturday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Are the Tories ready for a real contest?

Will this leadership contest provide a debate? The Tories got into this mess because have spent years asking who can bring them power, rather than what they stand for or who has the best ideas for the country. The leadership contest should come in two stages: first discussing what has gone wrong and then next who best to remedy. So far, this is my test for the candidates. Have they said anything that moves beyond platitude and cliche? Do they show any signs of being thoughtful? Do they recognise that there is a fight ahead, and that they are prepared for that fight? I fervently hope the Tory party abstain

Steerpike Steerpike

Jolyon makes a mess of it (again)

Oh dear. It seems that Britain’s favourite kimono-wearing, fox-murdering, bat-wielding loudmouth lawyer has done it again. The Conservative party is shaping up for a leadership contest between the most diverse range of candidates ever, including five MPs from ethnic minority backgrounds (Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch, Rishi Sunak, Nadhim Zahawi and Sajid Javid). There are also four women (Braverman, Badenoch, Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt) –  more than the prospective number of straight white men (Tom Tugendhat, Ben Wallace and Jeremy Hunt). But that’s not enough for Jolyon Maugham, the right-on Remainiac best known for losing cases and killing foxes. The one-man pest control unit – known as the ‘Babe Ruth

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Russia is militarising its economy

The ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine isn’t a war – there’s a law and a possible maximum sentence (though no one seems to have faced it yet) of 15 years in prison to stop you claiming it is in Russia. Yet Russia does seem to be inching towards a wartime economy, for all Vladimir Putin’s recent bullishness. At the recent (if rather sparsely-attended) St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin struck a triumphalist note, crowing that ‘the economic blitzkrieg against Russia never had any chances of success,’ and ‘gloomy predictions about the Russian economy’s future didn’t come true.’ That’s both true and not true. There has been no meltdown, not least

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

Can the next Tory leader save Boris’s broken Britain?

Whatever else will be said about him in the days and years to come, Boris Johnson will leave No. 10 having achieved the full extent of his policy ambitions: become Prime Minister. After a little under three years in office, Johnson has been reduced to the status of squatter in Downing Street, pottering about with a cabinet consisting of Nadine Dorries and pocket lint, grumbling about leakers and betrayers. Having successfully weaned itself off foxhunting, the Conservative party meanwhile is preparing for another bout of its favourite triennial bloodsport. The latest leadership contest promises to be as pleasingly brutal as the last few, and the candidates are already engaged in

Danny Shaw

‘They call him the tunneller’: meet the new head of the Met police

Dressed in full uniform and clutching a clipboard, Mark Rowley walked out of the Royal Courts of Justice in London, down the steps and towards a row of microphones. It was January 2014. An inquest into the fatal police shooting in Tottenham of Mark Duggan had just concluded with a verdict of ‘lawful killing’ and the Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner had a statement to make. As he began to speak, there were shouts from a group of Duggan’s supporters nearby. ‘Murderers, liars, racists, scum!’ they screamed, drowning out the officer’s words. One man came up to him, just inches from his face, and hurled abuse, but Rowley carried on. That

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Will Sunak’s polished campaign harm his chances?

Rishi Sunak has launched a slick, well organised leadership campaign very early. It is impossible to escape the conclusion that he has been preparing his leadership pitch quietly for weeks and months. Will this hurt or harm him? There may be some Boris Johnson loyalists who will accuse him of disloyalty – although Johnson did not manifest much fealty to Theresa May when she was PM and he foreign secretary. Per contra, Johnson’s many critics may want to reward Sunak for quitting as chancellor last Tuesday and triggering the crisis that led on Thursday to Johnson announcing he was stepping down. So it is not clear to me whether Sunak

Andrew Lilico

What the Tories should look for in their next leader

The Conservatives are selecting a new leader, who will become Prime Minister. What sort of a person should that be? It needs to be someone with the spark or edge of a leader, able to carry others with them – not just a clubbable ‘Yes Man’ type. It needs to be someone able to press a vision and policy agenda across a range of issues, not just something narrow like finance, defence, international relations or legal issues. It needs to be someone able to convey an optimistic message, but have a serious mode that can be turned on when necessary. Someone who is willing to be unpopular, taking tough decisions

Andrew Willshire

How the Tories can avoid a leadership election stitch-up

Boris Johnson’s resignation has fired the starting gun on yet another Conservative leadership election. The race to succeed Boris is the fifth to have been fought under the rules introduced by William Hague in 1998. But there’s a problem with the way the contest is run: it forces MPs to second-guess the Tory membership – who ultimately pick the winner – rather than simply back the best candidate. Should he stand, Jeremy Hunt is quite likely to make the final cut again this year. Why? Because Hunt would lose to every other major contender among the 200,000 or so strong membership, according to the latest polling. That is a clear

Friday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Ready for Rishi? Sunak launches leadership bid

Rishi Sunak has this afternoon confirmed that he is running to be the next leader of the Conservative party. In a launch video published on social media, the former chancellor begins by telling the story of his grandmother coming to the UK from East Africa and starting a life here as he declares that ‘family is everything’ to him. Sunak is associated with high taxes rather than tax cuts and will be arguing for patience Sunak – who has also launched a leadership website under the name Ready for Rishi – has adopted the slogan: ‘restore trust, rebuild the economy and reunite the country’. In a taster of what to

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Who wants to replace Boris?

11 min listen

The Tory leadership race has begun. Some candidates, like Steve Baker and Suella Braverman, have already declared that they will be running. Others, like Nadhim Zahawi, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, are expected to announce their candidacy in the coming days. What are their platforms? How many MPs will hopefuls need to have supporting them to make it onto the ballot? What should the party look for in a new leader? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth. Produced by Max Jeffery.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tory leadership race is wide open

Westminster is strangely quiet today. Most MPs are back in their constituencies. But the place will feel very different next week when there’ll probably be two rounds of voting in a Tory leadership contest. The speed of the contest – the 1922 executive is likely to propose having the parliamentary rounds wrapped up by 21 July – will mean that momentum is all important. Whoever is seen to outperform in round one will get a big boost. Another key factor will be transferability, how able are candidates to pick up support from others as the contest goes on. No one is going to be close to 120 votes, what you need to guarantee

Sean Thomas

How Boris Johnson changed my life

Over the coming weeks we will be regaled with dozens of personal recollections, from around the world, of the man who has dominated British politics this last half decade. Some of them will paint him as a foolish clown, others as a flawed genius, others will see him as Leaver saint or Brexiteering Satan, but my Boris Johnson story might be the only one involving medically dangerous levels of masturbation. So it needs to be told. About eighteen years ago I got horribly addicted to internet porn – free online porn then being an innovation – to an extent that I went days without sleep, became perilously run down, and

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The Tory leadership candidates’ tax cuts promises won’t be enough

What does Boris Johnson’s resignation mean for the economy? The pound started its rebound yesterday from a two-year low against the US dollar after Johnson resigned. A few economists were quick to point out though that it had dropped so much, there was only one place it could really go: up.  It’s very likely this leadership race turns into a competition over who would cut taxes hardest and fastest, which is no bad thing Had Johnson managed a few more months in the role, we would have almost certainly seen some deficit-financed tax cuts, led by the new Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi. ‘We were 24 hours away from reversing the corporation tax

Nigel Jones

Boris’s Tory assassins have learnt nothing from Thatcher’s downfall

John Stuart Mill once dismissed the Tories as ‘the stupid party’. When a reader queried the insult, Mill qualified it, but not by much. ‘I never meant to say that Conservatives are generally stupid,’ he wrote. ‘I meant that stupid people are generally Conservatives’. More than a century and a half later as the party implodes once again, today’s Tory MPs are still living up to Mill’s derogatory description. Sitting securely with their huge parliamentary majority, and with at least two years to go before they need to face the voters again, the Tories are going all out to make sure that they lose. In doing so, they are not only condemning the

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Starmer cleared over beergate

Keir Starmer is in the clear over beergate. This lunchtime, Durham Police announced that both the Labour leader and his deputy Angela Rayner have been cleared of breaking lockdown rules at an event involving curry and beer. When it comes to the event in April 2021, the police said there was ‘no case to answer’ as there was an exemption at the time for ‘reasonably necessary work’. Responding to the news, a Labour spokesperson said: ‘Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner have always been clear that no rules were broken in Durham.’ What does this mean for Labour? It means that Starmer’s gamble – of promising to resign if fined and

Steerpike Steerpike

Has Jeremy Hunt been left in the lurch?

Boris’s decision to quit yesterday fired the starting gun on the greatest game of them all: the Tory leadership race. Suella Braverman was first out the blocks on Thursday night before, er, Johnson had even gone. But it’s the launch of the second official candidate, Tom Tugendhat, which has attracted more interest. In traditional Tory style he began his campaign with an article in the Telegraph, emphasising his own personal values and the need to tackle Britain’s economic problems – a conscious effort to broaden his appeal beyond being pigeonholed as solely interested in matters of defence and foreign policy. If Tugendhat is to reach the later stages of a leadership contest,

Steerpike Steerpike

Will Blackford and Sturgeon now resign too?

The SNP likes to portray itself as the moral guardians of Scotland. But does such sanctimony extend to Westminster, where the Tories have just ousted a leader accused of ignoring allegations of sexual harassment. Amid the chaos in the Commons, Steerpike was intrigued by the silence earlier this week coming from the SNP press office. Perhaps though, that was unsurprising, given the party’s own track record on responding to such issues.  This seems a particular affliction for the nationalist party’s leaders in London. First we had Angus Robertson, who led the party’s Westminster contingent until he lost his seat in 2017. Robertson was one of the first nats to be

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Shinzo Abe’s killing has horrified Japan

Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe has died after he was shot twice while campaigning on the streets of the city of Nara, ahead of Sunday’s upper house elections. The incident took place at 11:30 this morning. A witness told NHK (Japan’s national broadcaster) that: ‘He (Abe) was giving a speech and a man came from behind. The first shot sounded like a toy. He didn’t fall and there was a large bang. The second shot was more visible, you could see the spark and smoke. After the second shot, people surrounded him and gave him cardiac massage.’ Security attending to the former Japanese leader apprehended the suspected gunman, a 41-year-old, believed

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The problem with Tom Tugendhat’s ‘clean start’ manifesto

Tom Tugendhat has become the first of the Tory MPs depicted on our cover this week to confirm that he is running for Prime Minister. His strength: his military record and his consistency in opposing Boris Johnson which saw him left out in the cold for the last two years. His weakness: that he has never served in government in any role and critics say that he is therefore unfamiliar with the tough choices of government. Also, that prime minister is not an entry-level government job. But at this stage the candidates ought to be judged more in what they have to say in whether they’d be better than Johnson