Politics

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

Monday

Bruce Anderson

The ghost of Thatcher is haunting the Tory leadership race

At least one groundless anxiety has surfaced during the Tory leadership contest. It concerns Boris Johnson’s future and the fear that he will try to undermine his successor, in the way Margaret Thatcher treated John Major. But that ought to be the least of the party’s anxieties. It is true that Boris will not display any loyalty to the new leader, or to the party – or indeed to the country. If he were to give an honest response, it would be a simple one: ‘What’s in it for me?’ He needs money. Freed from the constraints of Downing Street, he will want to have fun (watch him, Carrie). But

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Trevelyan attacks Mordaunt

In for a Penny, in for a pound(ing). Poor old Penny Mordaunt has endured a torrid few days in the leadership race. Since becoming the bookies’ favourite on Wednesday, the Portsmouth MP has faced a barrage of criticism from rival ministers about her record in government and views on past issues. Much of this has focused on her advocacy for trans rights but now there are questions about her work ethic in government too. On Thursday, it was Lord Frost, who worked alongside Mordaunt on the Brexit negotiations. He claimed ‘she wasn’t always visible’ and ‘sometimes I didn’t even know where she was.’ Then on Friday, it was Lord Moylan,

Steerpike Steerpike

Truss and Sunak’s debate stitch-up

Fights! Drama! Blue-on-blue attacks and not-so-subtle jibes! Last night’s Conservative leadership debate had it all. But perhaps it was the sheer level of exposure on Channel 4 and ITV which has convinced two of the Tory candidates not to repeat the experience. For this morning, both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have pulled out of the final leadership debate on Sky which was scheduled for tomorrow evening. The broadcaster has now cancelled the debate as a result. Both rivals were thought to have concerns about the prospect of knocking yet more lumps out of each other on national television. One source on Team Truss told the Huffington Post that: It

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

What a tale of two political ‘scandals’ says about the French elite

Two of Emmanuel Macron’s ministers were rebuked last week for words they had spoken in the past, but only one is fighting for their job: Caroline Cayeux, who is responsible for ‘territorial cohesion’. Last Tuesday, she was asked by the public senate if she regretted saying in 2013 that gay marriage ‘goes against nature’. Cayeux, a Catholic, said she stood by her words, though she was keen to stress that she had ‘a lot of friends among these people’. Uproar ensued and two of her fellow ministers, Clément Beaune and Olivier Véran condemned her ‘anachronistic remarks’. On Thursday, a contrite Cayeux offered her sincere apologies if her ‘stupid and clumsy’ use of

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

‘Taking back control’ will end up biting the Tories

Unfriendly commentators can recite insults against the Conservative party in our sleep. It is a rolling shambles, populated by backstabbing fantasists and fanatics. Conservatives are so irredeemably split they removed Boris Johnson only to find they could not unite behind a replacement. Good government is impossible when the ruling elite is composed of shifting factions whose complex hatreds would baffle a historian of the Lebanese civil war. But a paradox of this government is that there are never splits about the concentration of power in the hands of the executive. Whatever else Conservatives revolt against, they support the Tory state as it continues relentlessly to centralise. And this from a

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The heatwave green hysteria is out of control

If you find yourself wondering over the next few days why it is so swelteringly hot, I have an answer for you. It’s because of rich people. It’s because of those wealthy elites with all their gas-guzzling vehicles and reckless holidaymaking. It’s their fault you’re sweating on the Tube. This infantile claim really is being made, and by supposedly serious politicians. Labour’s Richard Burgon, over on his Instagram account, is wringing his no doubt sweaty hands over the filthy rich folk who apparently landed us in this weather apocalypse. ‘As we face 40C temperatures and the first ever Red Extreme Heat Warning, remember this climate crisis is driven by the

Sam Leith Sam Leith

The latest Tory leadership debate was a grim spectacle

The eyes had it, in last night’s leadership debate. Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak took turns directing to the camera a puppy-eyed gaze. Tom Tugendhat blinked manfully, as if overcome from time to time with a sense of his humble desire to serve. Kemi Badenoch blinked, too – but more in the way of someone regretting the decision to switch her specs out for contact lenses. And if Liz Truss – an apprentice of Mrs Thatcher’s gimlet-eyed stare – blinked at all, I confess I didn’t notice it. I was distracted by the fact that she seemed to have four eyebrows rather than the usual human ration of two. I

Sunday

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Labour won the Tory leadership debate

That was quite a debate. I’ve never seen senior Tory ministers and MPs lay into each other so publicly.  Rishi Sunak accused Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt of being socialists – not a compliment in the Tory lexicon – for being reckless with the public finances. Truss attacked Sunak for raising taxes to record levels. Kemi Badenoch called for unity while attacking more or less everyone for everything. Mordaunt seethed at what she saw as the cheap personal attacks she’s faced in recent days, especially over the trans debate. Tom Tugendhat attacked everyone else for being current or recent members of Boris Johnson’s government. This debate – and this contest – is a disaster

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The verdict: the second Tory leadership debate

‘If you’re still watching this debate, well done,’ said Mordaunt, bizarrely, in her closing statement. ‘I wish tonight had been less about us and more about you.’ She obviously scripted that comment before she had any idea how the evening was going to pan out and her own contributions were certainly forgettable. But the others made for an interesting night. Tom Tugendhat quite rightly said the whole evening’s discussion – tax, defence etc. – was about the country. ‘We need to restore confidence in our government and in ourselves,’ he said. I’m not sure Britain needs its self-confidence restored: it’s the Tories who are having a collective breakdown. Rishi Sunak

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

Steerpike Steerpike

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