Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
The local elections results are in, and the Conservatives have lost more than 450 council seats. After a full recount, Labour’s Richard Parker beat Andy Street to become West Midlands mayor, with only around 1500 votes in it. What does his loss mean for Rishi Sunak, and where do the overall results leave him? Katy Balls and James Heale speak to Megan McElroy. Produced by Megan McElroy.
Thursday’s local elections almost inevitably produced a cacophony of information. That presented the parties with plenty of opportunity to cherry pick results that appeared to present their performance in a better light – thereby potentially distracting attention from less convincing performances. If Reform had fought these local elections more widely, the picture might have looked even bleaker for the Conservatives As the results gradually flowed in, the Conservatives pursued this strategy with vigour. They trumpeted their successful defence of the Tees Valley mayoralty. And they pointed out that Labour had failed to gain overall control of one of their target councils, Harlow. Unfortunately, that strategy came rather unstuck on Saturday
Andy Street was a political outsider when he was chosen as the Conservative party’s candidate for mayor of the new West Midlands Combined Authority in 2016. He was 53 and had enjoyed a successful career in retail, latterly as managing director of John Lewis and Partners. This weekend, after seven years as mayor, he was narrowly defeated by Labour’s Richard Parker, the margin just 1,508 votes out of a total of 600,000. Street has become a considerable figure in Conservative politics Street has become a considerable figure in Conservative politics, seen as straightforward and practical, an effective champion for his region. Partly this has been a result of his status
The fall-out from the local elections continue. In the West Midlands, Labour pulled off a shock upset to unseat Andy Street by 1,500 votes. The Starmer army’s triumph there was all the more impressive when one considers that the pro-Palestine independent Akhmed Yakoob finished third on 11 per cent. Yakoob, who won the votes of many traditional Labour voters in the Muslim community, was backed by George Galloway, whose Workers’ Party of Britain is trying to cause Labour headaches across the UK. Invited on to LBC to speak about the result, Galloway clearly thought he would be on something of a victory lap. But his mood quickly turned sour after
While Labour has gained councillors across England, and won bellwether councils such as Nuneaton and Bedworth and Milton Keynes, it has also lost some of its traditional Muslim support to George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain (WPB) and pro-Palestine Muslim independent candidates. From the industrial Lancastrian town of Blackburn to inner-city Bradford in West Yorkshire, the ‘Palestine’ effect has seen a surge of independent Muslim councillors elected – largely at the expense of Labour. But arguably the independent pro-Gaza challenger who has landed the fiercest uppercut to Labour’s chin is one who was not even elected: the West Midlands mayoral candidate Akhmed Yakoob. While Labour won the mayoralty from Andy Street, Yakoob managed to
So, it didn’t take long for the recriminations to begin. After Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives were subject to a massive drubbing in this week’s council elections, and were hit with the loss of the West Midlands mayoralty last night, the blame game is well underway. Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman certainly wasted no time in giving Sunak both barrels. Appearing on Sunday with Lura Kuenssberg, the MP laid into the PM for the disastrous results, and predicted that the party was heading for a wipe-out in the next election, saying: ‘The plan is not working … at this rate we will be lucky to have any Conservative MPs at the next
Earlier this week, Ireland’s newly installed Taoiseach, Simon Harris, made an outrageous proposal to deploy 100 policemen to control immigration along the border with Northern Ireland. Harris is trying to prevent an influx of immigrants crossing the border before Rishi Sunak’s plan to deport immigrants to Rwanda is implemented. It doesn’t feel like that long ago that his predecessor Leo Varadkar was stressing to European Union leaders how important it was to avoid a hard border. To make his point Varadkar even went as far as highlighting an old news story about an IRA bomb which went off at a customs post in the 70s, killing nine people. Yet for
While the West obsesses about whether or not China’s supreme leader, Xi Jinping, is going to invade Taiwan, the Taiwanese seemingly have other concerns. Today the hot issue is statues. To be precise, statues of Chiang Kai-shek, the post-war founder-dictator of independent modern Taiwan. In an inventory taken in 2000 it was estimated that there were over 43,000 statues of Chiang in Taiwan. A removal process, albeit limited in scale, was begun shortly after. Some 150 statues were removed and taken to the sculpture garden that surrounds the mausoleums of Chiang and his son Chiang Ching-kuo – a place often referred to as the ‘Garden of the Generalissimos’. So why
Is Ramzan Kadyrov dying? The independent Russian-language publication Novaya Gazeta recently published an investigation in which it claimed Kadyrov was terminally ill, suffering from pancreatic necrosis. Putin’s ally, it claimed, may not have long to live and it cited a long list of evidence to back up its claim. Throughout his rule, Kadyrov and his cronies have committed many crimes to shore up their power, and have enjoyed the Kremlin’s protection throughout. But even Putin’s patronage cannot protect Kadyrov from his own mortality. Kadyrov appears to be doing his best to ensure that his family is well placed after his death The Chechen ruler’s health, judging just from his appearance, is clearly failing. Recent videos published
Aficionados of zombie films will know that some ghouls just won’t stay dead. In 2013, the economist Paul Krugman came up with the concept ‘zombie ideas’ – propositions that have been refuted, and should be no more, but keep returning because they serve a political purpose, or appeal to people’s prejudices. In the run up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I experienced some of the symptoms associated with Havana Syndrome myself In March this year, US officials will have hoped that a well-known zombie idea, Havana Syndrome, had finally been killed off. Havana Syndrome is the name for a group of unexplained medical symptoms which have been reported by hundreds
Tory supporters went to bed on Friday night believing that their man Andy Street would hold on handily in the West Midlands Metro Mayor contest, while also daring to dream that Susan Hall might just pull off a sensational win over Sadiq Khan in London. It has not played out like that. Not only did Labour handsomely win this year’s round of May elections, but it also won the expectations management battle. There really are no reasons to be cheerful for Conservative MPs In the West Midlands contest, a wafer-thin triumph for Labour’s Richard Parker over Street probably doesn’t tell us much about the general election results to come later
Andy Street has been defeated as mayor of West Midlands by Labour’s Richard Parker in a knife-edge contest. The result was due at 3 p.m this afternoon but was delayed by almost six hours following a recount of all the ballots cast in Coventry. Parker ended up with 225,590 or 37.8 per cent of votes to Street’s 224,082 or 37.5 per cent – so just 1,508 votes separated them. It means that Labour has now won 10 of the 11 mayor elections. Ben Houchen, clinging on in Tees Valley, is the only Tory mayor left. Street had done all he could to distance himself from what he regarded as a
Back to London for the city’s mayoral elections – and the verdict is in. In a win for Labour, Sadiq Khan has been hailed as victor for an unprecedented third term with an increased vote share of 44 per cent, while the Conservative’s Susan Hall has been relegated to second place with a 33 per cent vote share. While Tory MP and former aspiring mayoral candidate Paul Scully criticises his party for running an ‘incredibly underwhelming’ and ‘anti-Khan’ campaign, the Labour mayor will be feeling rather smug today with a swing from the Conservatives to Labour of 3.2 per cent. Will Khan’s third win mark the beginning of a new
Sadiq Khan has won the London mayoral race with 43.8 per cent of the vote to the Tory candidate Susan Hall on 32.7 per cent. Despite widespread speculation on Friday from Tory and Labour sources that the vote was closer than the pollster anticipated, Khan won comfortably. This makes him the first London mayor to win a third term. This all, despite new rules changing the contest to a first-past-the-post system and bringing in Voter ID. Labour were increasingly confident they would win from early in the count. The ward results showed that Hall was underperforming her predecessor Shaun Bailey in many seats. In West Central (Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington
So what was that all about? Rumours that Susan Hall was close to toppling Sadiq Khan have proved to be wide of the mark. In the event, Hall is failing to match Shaun Bailey’s performance in 2021. There is a swing against the Conservatives in London, and Hall is failing to win in places which Bailey won three years ago. None of this should really be a surprise. There has been a strong swing against the Tories everywhere, Tees Valley included. It would be truly extraordinary if Khan failed to win. But the rumours that Hall was doing a lot better than expected have served to aid Labour with expectation
‘Consolidation’ is the word on Lib Dem lips today, as the party mulls its solid, if not spectacular, progress in Thursday’s local elections. Ed Davey’s troops gained more than 100 council seats and added two more authorities to their existing tally of ten. Sir John Curtice, the elections expert, suggests they ‘had only a modest night’. He puts the party’s ‘disappointing’ projected national share of the vote at 17 per cent– three percentage points down on 2023. This, some Lib Dems counter, is unfair. In 2023, there were more than 8,000 council seats up for grabs; this time there were just 2,600. This week’s elections tended to be in more
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Freddy speaks to Norman Ornstein, political scientist and emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. They discuss the possibility of Donald Trump becoming a dictator, his ongoing court cases, and if there’s a double standard in the treatment of Trump vs Biden.
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On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Sean Thomas worries that Paris has lost some of its charm (1:21); Kara Kennedy reports on US-style opioids arriving in Britain (8:43); Philip Hensher describes how an affair which ruined one woman would be the making of another (15:32); Damian Thompson reflects on his sobriety and his battle with British chemists (23:58); and, Toby Young argues a proposed law in Wales amounts to an assault on parliamentary sovereignty (29:26). Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.
The real victor of these local elections? Boris Johnson. According to Oscar Wilde, the only thing in life worse than being talked about, is not being talked about. It’s a sign of Boris Johnson’s skill in attracting headlines that even as the Conservatives suffer a shellacking at the local elections, his being turned away from a polling station for failing to bring ID – a new requirement under a law he introduced – is still a leading news story. Angry Tories are staying at home – and swing voters are devoting in droves In a career pockmarked by marital imbroglios, cake ambushes, and faulty zipwires, this doesn’t reach the top
Like drowning men clutching at straws, Giorgia Meloni’s opponents are trying ever more hopelessly to justify their claim that she is a far-right threat to democracy. It’s not that Meloni has stopped being far right since she became Italy’s first female prime minister 18 months ago. It is just that – despite all the apocalyptic warnings about her – she wasn’t far right to begin with. The new law is not an assault on the 1978 law that made abortion legal in Italy. Meloni as a premier has proved to be much more like a Mediterranean version of Margaret Thatcher than the heir to Benito Mussolini – which many of her opponents still call her. As a result,
Is Labour on course to be the largest party at the next election but miss out on a majority? Despite recent opinion polls suggesting Keir Starmer’s party is on course for a huge majority, this is the projection this evening from the respected Sky election analyst Michael Thrasher. Using the latest figures from the local elections, Sky News has projected that Labour is on course to be the largest party in parliament – but to fall short of a Commons majority by 32 seats. The findings come as BBC News puts its projected national share as Labour on 34 per cent – nine points up on the Tories, but one
The fighting talk continues over at Reform HQ as local election results continue to drip out. The Farage-founded party’s right-wing campaign has seen leader Richard Tice proclaim Reform UK is ‘rapidly becoming the real opposition to the Labour party in the North of England’. Tory defector Lee Anderson has even gone so far as to suggest he has a better chance of keeping his seat as a Reform MP than a Tory. But is the red wall Rottweiler all bark and no bite? The results of the East Midlands mayoral election would suggest so… Six local candidates stood for the mayoralty, with the vote taking place in Anderson’s own Ashfield
The election for the first North East of England mayor should have been a gift to the Labour party. Its candidate Kim McGuinness has duly won the role, but her tally of 41 per cent is superficially modest. This region is one of the Labour movement’s heartlands, steeped in coal-mining, shipbuilding and steel-making. It gave birth to the Jarrow March and the Durham Miners’ Gala. Ramsay MacDonald, Hugh Dalton and Manny Shinwell all represented Durham seats. The culture of the region is steeped in working-class pride and struggle. But, last year, something odd happened. For weeks there have been anxieties in the Labour leadership that Driscoll might win Labour began
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Rishi Sunak can breathe a (small) sigh of relief. Ben Houchen, the so-called ‘patron saint of the red wall’, has won a third term as Tees Valley mayor. Houchen secured 53.6 per cent of the vote with Labour in second place with 41.3 per cent, despite some polls in advance suggesting it was neck-and-neck between the Tories and Labour. The Conservatives have undeniably had one of their worst nights for a generation, but are there some silver linings? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson. Produced by Natasha Feroze and Oscar Edmondson.
