Election

Read the latest General Election news, views and analysis.

Monday

Catriona Stewart

The Scottish Tories need a better election strategy

It is no surprise that the Scottish Conservative manifesto launch was centred on independence. While Scotland’s Tories talk about the SNP’s obsession with the subject, they are a little less happy to mention their own preoccupation with separatism. It’s rather more awkward for the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party to admit that, without independence on the table, their role in Scotland becomes a little less clear. While they may rail against the topic, the Scottish Tories need the SNP – so they can put independence front and centre of their campaign to give them a bogeyman to pretend to fight Opening his party’s manifesto launch in Edinburgh with some light

James Heale James Heale

Sunak and Starmer slug out a stalemate

Tonight saw the penultimate TV exchange involving Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer. Both men took part in live-streamed interviews with the Sun’s political editor Harry Cole and a live studio audience, ten days prior to polling day. Sunak was up first and had a difficult balancing act in the 30-minute exchange, seeking to embrace the Tory successes of the past 14 years while distancing himself from its failures. ‘This election is about the future,’ he insisted at one point – moments after praising the coalition’s education reforms. Three times he repeated his seven-word defence that: ‘I’ve been Prime Minister for 18 months.’ It was a line which sounded plausible on

James Heale James Heale

Farage goes on the attack after Ukraine criticism

Foreign policy hasn’t featured much in this election – until now. Over the weekend, Nigel Farage’s suggestion that the West was partially to blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine produced an avalanche of cross-party criticism. Both Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak labelled his comments ‘disgraceful’, while the Mail on Sunday claimed a member of president Zelensky’s staff had suggested Farage was infected with the ‘virus of Putinism’. Rather than back down, the Reform leader has opted to reprise the pugilists’ playbook and counterpunch with fire. Speaking to supporters at Maidstone this lunchtime, he told them he would ‘never, ever defend’ Vladimir Putin before insisting he would take ‘no lectures’ from either the Tories

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The Greens’ heat pump plan won’t work

‘I’m literally in the process of getting quotes’ may well make it into the pantheon of feeble political excuses alongside ‘I did not inhale’ or ‘I was just watching badgers’. They were the words uttered by Green party co-leader Carla Denyer to explain why her home is still heated with a gas boiler rather than a heat pump – something her party advocates for others. She went on to say that she has some quotes for heat pumps in her email inbox but that she has had to put the project ‘on pause’ during the general election campaign. When Denyer does get around to opening those emails – which I

Steerpike Steerpike

Voting Reform will strengthen the Nats, Sunak warns Scots

Back to Scotland, where Rishi Sunak is attending the Scottish Conservatives’ manifesto launch in Edinburgh. Leaving the ongoing betting scandal in London, the Prime Minister walked into another controversy – about the football. Before Sunak launched into his speech he made a point of agreeing with Scottish Tory leader and linesman Douglas Ross that Scotland should have been awarded a penalty in last night’s Euros match. It’s certainly one way to get the Scots on side… The issue of oil and gas a key dividing line for the Scottish Tories, Sunak highlighted how the positions of other parties on new licences could cost jobs. Slamming Sir Keir’s Labour lot, the PM

Iain Macwhirter

Scotland's women face a choice on self-ID in this election

Women in Scotland have a difficult choice to make in this election. Those whoomen, that is, who are concerned about a return of any version of the infamous Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill and the policy of allowing transgender people to self-identify as another sex. It looks very much as if only the Conservative party is serious about abandoning self-ID, protecting women’s rights and asserting the primacy of biological sex, not least in what is taught in schools. Yet, very few Scottish women, and even fewer feminists, are natural Tory voters. Indeed, Scots of all genders tend to shun the party.  But women across the UK have a particular interest

Steerpike Steerpike

Badenoch blasts Alastair Campbell over Brexit

Uh oh. In the latest election drama, Tory candidate for North West Essex and business secretary Kemi Badenoch has taken aim at Labour’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell. The lefty spinner has a well-documented history of Brexit-bashing and Badenoch, it seems, has had enough. Urging readers of the Daily Mail to ignore Brexit sceptics and vote for the Conservatives ‘to stop us going back to square one’, the minister writes in the newspaper today that voting Labour means ‘enabling a strengthened Starmer to unpick Brexit’. Slamming Tony Blair’s former spokesman, Badenoch tore into Campbell’s claims about what leaving the EU means for Britain. From securing private investment to growing the

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Michael Gove is right to compare the betting scandal to partygate 

Poor old Rishi Sunak. You would have to have the proverbial heart of stone not to feel, at least, a bat-squeak of pity for the man at this stage. First there was that poignant press conference in the rain, then the D-day kerfuffle, the flock of sheep in Devon who snubbed him when he tried to feed them, the series of ill-advised visits to chocolate teapot factories and pubs called things like ‘The Last Chance Saloon’, and now this…   It’s not a huge amount to take in exchange for humiliating your colleagues and trashing your party’s chance of winning an election You can imagine his bewilderment, his despairing incredulity,

Debbie Hayton

Labour’s dreadful gender recognition reforms

Is Keir Starmer trying to snatch an unlikely defeat from the jaws of victory, or is he so confident of winning that he thinks he can ignore sense and reason – certainly on the issue of sex and gender? When the Labour party manifesto dropped a couple of weeks ago, it included a pledge to ‘modernise, simplify, and reform the intrusive and outdated gender recognition law to a new process’. This morning we learned some of the details. This might not trouble privileged men like Starmer but it is an issue for vulnerable women reliant on publicly funded services According to reports, Labour will remove any need for someone to ‘live in their

Steerpike Steerpike

Green leader's heat pump hypocrisy

Oh dear. In the latest election campaign blip, it’s the Green Party in the spotlight. It has now transpired that despite the Greens long urging voters to swap out gas guzzling boilers for heat pumps, the co-leader of Green Party herself has, er, a gas boiler. Rules for thee but not for me… Carla Denyer’s party has long harped on about its goal to reach net zero by 2040 — yet its eco-zealot-in-chief admitted to ITV’s The Leader Interviews that ‘at the moment I have a gas boiler’. Blaming the election for forcing her to ‘pause’ her plans to replace the contraption, Denyer told the broadcaster during the interview that:

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The betting scandal spells trouble for Sunak

Is the Tory campaign cursed? After Rishi Sunak battled through the pouring rain when he called the election, suffered the return of Nigel Farage and then walked into a major D-Day gaffe, the party is under pressure once again. This time, the Tories are under fire over bets placed on the date of the election by Conservative aides and candidates. Nick Mason, the party’s chief data officer, is the fourth Tory (so far) to be investigated by the gambling commission (he denies any wrongdoing). It means Tory candidates on the media round are once again being asked about bets on the election – and why Sunak has not sacked all

Sunday

Robert Ford

Why Nigel Farage is becoming Ed Davey's secret weapon

Ed Davey will be very happy about Nigel Farage’s political comeback. This might seem odd – Davey leads a socially liberal and vocally pro-EU party beloved by the latte sipping metropolitan professionals who loom large in Reform UK demonology. Yet it is the Liberal Democrats who stand to gain most from a Farage surge. A little political history and a dash of political geography explains why. The Lib Dems had their own overlooked electoral surge last time, slashing Tory majorities in seats the length and breadth of the Home Counties. While they didn’t score any wins, they built a solid platform for this campaign, with dozens of strong second places

Saturday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

How has Farage fallen for the idea that the West provoked Russia?

Nigel Farage enjoyed a combative exchange with Nick Robinson in his BBC Panorama interview this evening, and acquitted himself well on many issues. True, the tax cuts and spending rises in his manifesto don’t add up – they rely on a rather over-hopeful expectation of the economy, as indeed do Labour’s. But then Farage is honest that he is not really selling us a programme for government, only giving an indication of the issues on which Reform UK will be pressing if succeeds in gaining a Commons presence. Therefore, his party can get away with some loose budgeting. But at the same time Farage made his first big error –

Debbie Hayton

JK Rowling’s accusations will hurt Starmer

Perhaps JK Rowling should be the leader of the opposition. She describes herself as ‘left leaning’, she has a huge following, and she also knows what a woman is. Writing in the Times this morning, Rowling defends her friend Rosie Duffield – the Labour candidate for Canterbury – following the appalling abuse she has suffered both in the past and during the current election campaign: Last month, a man received a suspended prison sentence for sending both of us death threats. Rosie was to be taken out with a gun; I was to be beaten to death with a hammer. The level of threats Rosie has received is such that

Agnès Poirier

Matt Ridley, William Cook, Owen Matthews and Agnes Poirier

28 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Matt Ridley argues that whoever you vote for, the blob wins (1:02); William Cook reads his Euros notebook from Germany (12:35); Owen Matthews reports on President Zelensky’s peace summit (16:21); and, reviewing Michael Peel’s new book ‘What everyone knows about Britain’, Agnes Poirier ponders if only Britain knew how it was viewed abroad (22:28).  Presented by Patrick Gibbons.  

Steerpike Steerpike

Six Corbynites switching to other parties

There’s been a lot of focus on splits on the right during the election campaign – but what about splits on the left? With less than two weeks to go until polling day, Mr S has been keeping tabs on those Corbynites who are deserting their former party for greener pastures. Quite literally, as many of them have jumped ship to the Green party – or are urging voters to consider non-Labour, independent candidates instead. So who are the lefties that have turned on Labour? Owen Jones Owen Jones, former Guardian columnist, led the exodus after announcing in March that he was abandoning Starmer’s Labour lot for ‘We Deserve Better’

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

The Green party’s women problem

In an excellent essay I wrote for this magazine at the start of the year – ‘Sir’ Ed Davey’s Lib Dems are the real nasty party’ – I touched on my adolescent crush on the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe: ‘I felt confusion watching Thorpe speak – he sounded so kind, yet looked so cruel – but dismissed this as a paradox of sex appeal, which he certainly had, having outraged his classmates at Eton by announcing that he planned to marry Princess Margaret, at that time second in line to the throne. It wasn’t until I read Jamaica Inn and shared Mary Yellan’s horror on discovering exactly how the vicar saw his flock that

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

The boring truth about Keir Starmer

How would you define ‘working people’? You’d think that ‘people who work’ would be a pretty safe bet. But Keir Starmer seems to have a different definition, telling LBC earlier this week that working people are ‘people who earn their living, rely on our services and don’t really have the ability to write a cheque when they get into trouble’. Is this a tacit admission that those who have managed to save could be a target for Labour when it wins power? ‘Working people’ is one of Starmer’s most repeated phrases; he’s made it his own. It is usually said in an appropriately reverent way, with the same head-slightly-bowed tone

Steerpike Steerpike

JK Rowling's blistering attack on Sir Keir

It’s not just the Conservatives who are facing difficulties this election season. Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party has found itself in hot water with one rather influential women’s rights campaigner. Renowned author of the bestselling Harry Potter series, JK Rowling, has now come out against Starmer’s army, blasting Sir Keir for ‘abandoning women’ concerned with the trans debate. Writing for the Times, Rowling slams the Labour leader for his ‘dismissive and often offensive’ approach to worries raised by gender-critical feminists, adding that despite once being a paid-up member, she would now struggle to vote for the party. Describing a book launch she recently attended – the ‘post-publication party’ for The

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Bet probe Tory was previously married to his wife's opponent

Dear oh dear. With less than two weeks to go until polling day, Rishi Sunak’s campaign has been hit with more bad news. Over the last 24 hours, it has emerged that now two Tory candidates – Laura Saunders in addition to Craig Williams – are under investigation by the Gambling Commission after placing bets on the general election date. It gets murkier: Saunders is married to the Conservative party’s campaign director Tony Lee – who has been forced to go on leave after also coming under investigation for election gambling. And now Mr S can reveal another mind-boggling piece of the puzzle: Lee’s ex-wife, Mary Page, is the Green candidate in Bristol North West