Election

Read the latest General Election news, views and analysis.

Friday

7 Jun 2024

Nigel Farage’s biggest gift to the Labour party

Labour has a lot of reasons to be thankful for Nigel Farage. Reform was already creeping up on the Tories in the polls, even before the party’s honorary president announced this week that he would take up the role of leader and stand in Clacton. Now the polls are nearly neck-and-neck. The most recent YouGov survey – published on Wednesday, accounting for Farage’s announcement but not Tuesday night’s debate – showed Reform on 17 per cent, a mere two points behind the Conservatives. As Katy Balls notes in this week’s magazine, Farage likes to insist that Reform tends to take more votes from Labour than the Tories, but the main bloc up for

Steerpike

Watch: Sunak grovels over D-day 'mistake'

Oh dear. The story of the day may well become the story of the election campaign as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak struggles to explain why he missed part of Thursday’s D-day commemorations in Normandy to film a pre-recorded ITV interview. On Friday morning, Suank apologised on Twitter for snubbing aspects of the 80th anniversary events — which were attended by a number of international leaders including France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Olaf Scholz and President Biden — and at lunchtime the PM eventually faced the cameras. A solemn Sunak told journalists: I’ve participated in a number of events, in Portsmouth and France, to honour those who risked their lives to defend

Patrick O’Flynn

Rishi Sunak is bad at politics. Who knew?

Everyone is finally noticing that Rishi Sunak is rubbish at politics. Given the scale of his faux pas in bailing out of D-Day commemorations early to get back on the campaign trail, it is hard not to. As a longstanding member of the ‘Rishi is Rubbish’ club, I find it difficult not to feel the kind of proprietorial irritation that fans of cult rock bands suffer when their heroes become mainstream. In fairness, this theory of Sunak’s ineptitude – now so validated by evidence it could almost be referred to as ‘the science’ – was first aired not by me but in a New Statesman blog before Sunak even became

Eliot Wilson

Sunak’s D-Day departure was extraordinarily disrespectful

Rishi Sunak’s decision to leave Thursday’s 80th anniversary commemoration of D-Day in Normandy was extraordinary, stupid and disrespectful. He accompanied the King to a British ceremony at Ver-sur-Mer in the morning, at which Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition, was also present. But Sunak returned to the UK before the afternoon’s international event at Omaha Beach. It transpired that he spent the rest of the day recording an election campaign interview with ITV. Failing to attend a major commemoration of one of the most important events in recent history, during which 1,500 British service personnel were killed, is staggeringly disrespectful Downing Street sources have since told the BBC

Katy Balls

Backlash grows over Sunak’s D-Day mistake

When Rishi Sunak’s team were mapping out this week, Wednesday and Thursday were viewed to be non-political days as the Prime Minister and most UK political leaders would be focusing on the D-Day commemorations. Yet somehow Sunak has found himself facing the biggest backlash of his campaign to date over his attendance at the anniversary. His decision to leave Normandy in the afternoon and therefore miss a ceremony on Omaha beach that world leaders – including Joe Biden – attended has been met with bafflement and anger by his own side. As Isabel reports here, Sunak has this morning issued an apology for leaving early – ‘on reflection, it was

Steerpike

Greens investigate 'antisemitic' candidate posts

As the general election date creeps ever closer, the Green party has found itself in hot water. It transpires that the eco-zealots are currently investigating almost 20 candidates over ‘antisemitic’ insults and conspiracy theories — and party officials have a dossier of dirt on the parliamentary hopefuls. Oh dear… In the latest election scandal, it turns out that the Green party is looking into candidates who have suggested the 7 October attack by Hamas was planned by Israel and compared Zionism to cancer. The revelations follow a councillor controversy, in which Leeds city council politician Mothin Ali was found to have labelled a rabbi a ‘creep’ and a ‘kind of

Annabel Denham

The Green party is terrifying

Is the Green party the most controversial force in British politics? It’s certainly giving Reform a run for its money. In the past few months, the Greens have suspended a former London Assembly member and two-time London mayoral candidate after he lamented that colleagues had denounced the Cass Review. After the local elections, one councillor sparked outrage by shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ to celebrate his victory. At the weekend, it was reported that three candidates for the party were no longer standing amid suggestions they made racist comments. What do traditional Green voters – those primarily driven by environmental concerns – make of these developments? Now there’s the backlash to their scandalous maternity policy. In

Matthew Scott

The Tories don’t have a plan for the criminal justice system

The Conservative party fought the 2019 general election with a manifesto commitment to establish a Royal Commission on Criminal Justice. The promise was welcomed by almost everyone involved in criminal justice. But despite repeated attempts over the last four years to hold the government to its word, notably by the former Prisons Inspector Lord Ramsbotham, the promise was simply broken. There has never been any government apology or explanation; just vague mutterings about the pandemic making things rather difficult. On the bright side, the government did lend parliamentary time to a law that now makes it easier to prosecute, and if necessary imprison, those who feed other people’s cats Meanwhile the

Stephen Daisley

Why is Douglas Ross standing for parliament again?

Not content with being a referee and leader of the Tories in Scotland, Douglas Ross seems bent on making himself even more unpopular with the punters. In doing so, he has alighted upon David Duguid, the Conservative MP for Banff and Buchan since 2017, who wrestled that once true-blue redoubt back from the SNP after 30 years of Nationalist incumbency. Duguid, who served as a minister under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, was preparing to stand again, under his seat’s new name of Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, when he was struck by illness and spent four weeks in intensive care. He says he’s on the road to recovery and

Thursday

6 Jun 2024

Lara Prendergast

The Farage factor

45 min listen

This week: The Farage factor. Our cover piece looks at the biggest news from this week of the general election campaign, Nigel Farage’s decision to stand again for Parliament. Farage appealed to voters in the seaside town of Clacton to send him to Westminster to be a ‘nuisance’. Indeed, how much of a nuisance will he be to Rishi Sunak in this campaign? Will this boost Reform’s ratings across Britain? And could it be eighth time lucky for Nigel? The Spectator‘s political editor Katy Balls joins the podcast to discuss, alongside former Clacton and UKIP MP, Douglas Carswell (2:32). Then: Gavin Mortimer reports from France ahead of the European and local

Isabel Hardman

Alex Salmond: We are not splitting the SNP vote

Is Alex Salmond feasting on the misery of an SNP that, having hit its high watermark, is now having to work hard to hold onto its Westminster seats? Not at all, according to the Alba leader, who told Andrew Neil on Times Radio today that he was in fact trying to help the cause of his former party by going after pro-independence voters who would otherwise have stayed at home. In so doing, of course, he was not-so-subtly suggesting that the SNP aren’t giving voters a reason to turn out at all. There’s 20 per cent of people who are either going to stay at home or going to vote

Steerpike

Could Labour change its tune on Trident?

As election day looms closer, parliamentary candidates continue to wreak havoc on party campaigns. This time Labour is in the spotlight over the issue of national security, defence and, specifically, its position on Trident — one of the issues on which the public rate the Tories over Starmer’s army. Sir Keir Starmer promised his party would ensure a ‘nuclear triple lock’ — which would maintain Britain’s continuous at-sea deterrent (CASD). The Labour leader is keen to hammer home how his party’s stance on nuclear weapons has changed since the Corbyn era, after Jezza caused controversy with his unwavering opposition to nukes. But one potential future cabinet minister, candidate for Sheffield Heeley

Iain Macwhirter

What could explain Douglas Ross's Westminster U-turn?

Scottish Tory Leader Douglas Ross has a side hustle as an assistant referee for the Scottish Football Association. Now, Scotland’s opposition parties are showing him the red card for his last minute decision to stand as parliamentary candidate for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East constituency. It’s a ‘stitch up,’ says the SNP. Ross is being cast as ‘shameful’, ‘nasty’ and the leader of a ‘morally bankrupt’ party for apparently elbowing aside former Tory minister, David Duguid, who’d said he was expecting to stand in the seat. Duguid has been in hospital with a spinal illness. But last night the Scottish Conservative Party Management Board announced that his ‘recovery would be put at

Andrew Tettenborn

Sunak's crime crackdown won't pay off for the Tories

The Tories are pledging to reshape our homicide laws if they win re-election. There could, as in many US states, be first-degree murder for intentional killing, second-degree murder for manslaughter because of diminished responsibility or death arising from a deliberate wrong. Rishi Sunak is also promising to get tough on domestic abuse, with a minimum tariff for murder in the home. The crackdown will form a key part of the Conservative manifesto. The plan is far from foolproof You can understand Sunak’s thinking. The hospital order imposed on Nottingham triple killer Valdo Colocane earlier this year after he admitted manslaughter owing to diminished responsibility raised eyebrows among those who looked

Ross Clark

The trouble with the Tories' 'Family Home Tax Guarantee'

There is a very big problem with Jeremy Hunt’s Family Home Tax Guarantee, though which he promises a Conservative government would not increase the number of council tax bands, carry out a council tax revaluation, cut council tax discounts, impose capital gains tax on sales of main homes or increase the level of stamp duty. It reminds voters of all the times that the Conservatives have jacked up property taxes in the past 14 years. No-one paid more than 4 per cent on any sale. George Osborne soon changed that When David Cameron become Prime Minister in 2010, stamp duty was levied at 1 per cent on homes sold for between

Ian Acheson

Tougher sentences won’t stop women being killed

Manifestos come and go but women continue to be murdered by men they know in grotesquely high numbers. According to the Times, the Conservatives are set to crack down on femicide in their manifesto, with the minimum sentence for murders that take place in the home raised from 15 to 25 years. Will this make any difference? Of the 590 recorded homicides in England and Wales alone in 2022-23, 174 of these were women – with a significant proportion murdered by their partners in their homes. There is something undeniably horrifying about these deaths. The women, often killed by knives, die in a familiar surrounding where they should expect to be safest, at

Steerpike

Scottish Tory leader ousts unwell colleague as candidate

Back to Scotland, where some rather strange events are unfolding. The leader of the Scottish Conservatives Douglas Ross — who most recently was the MP for Moray, alongside being MSP for the Highlands and Islands — this morning brought media from across the country together for an emergency announcement. After months of pledging to step down as a Tory MP, Ross has revealed he will now stand in the new seat of Aberdeenshire North and Moray East. But Ross’s announcement has been met with a rather large backlash — not least because his party has effectively deselected his colleague David Duguid, who is currently in hospital with a spinal illness.

Steerpike

Tories take £5 million from racism row donor

Oh dear. As election campaigns ramp up, the Tories have found themselves in another spot of trouble. It transpires today that the Conservatives accepted another £5 million donation from donor Frank Hester — the Yorkshire businessman who back in March was condemned by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for his ‘wrong’ and ‘racist’ remarks about Labour politician Diane Abbott. Talk about a lack of contrition… Hester faced intense criticism after it emerged he had told colleagues at work that looking at Abbott makes ‘you just want to hate all black women because she’s there’ and that ‘she should be shot’. The Tories were hesitant to condemn the remarks at first — and, it

Isabel Hardman

Labour is breaking one of the last taboos in politics

Labour has decided to lean into the £2,000 tax hike claim by the Tories, and turn it into a row about lying. Keir Starmer yesterday accused Rishi Sunak of ‘lying’, saying: ‘That’s why the choice at the next election is starker now than it was yesterday. It’s a choice between chaos and confusion, the sort of thing we’ve seen now for 14 years, and now lies on top of it. Or turn the page and rebuilding with Labour.’ The problem is that this £2,000 tax claim is not out of the ordinary It is not a strategy without risk: it allows the £2,000 claim to be repeated. But given that was going

Eliot Wilson

Have the Tories done enough for veterans?

The Conservative party is returning to defence and security for another election pitch and has unveiled a series of measures to support armed forces veterans. The proposals include a Veterans’ Bill enshrining rights, cheaper railcards for former service personnel and tax allowances for those who employ them. Taken with a plan to introduce a form of national service and Labour’s performative commitment to renewing the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent, it is making the election campaign more defence focused than anything we have seen since the 1980s. The challenges facing veterans as a result of their service are real and substantial A few weeks after the general election, the Office for