Politics

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

Thursday

David Shipley

What our prisons get wrong

‘Purposeful activity’ is a phrase often heard in discussions about our prisons. It describes work, training, therapeutic courses and other meaningful activities which improve prisoners’ mental health and make them less likely to behave antisocially in prison or offend after release. In theory our prisons should make sure that most prisoners are spending a significant amount of time out of their cells participating in this purposeful activity. Unfortunately, a report published last Friday by His Majesty’s Inspector of Prisons reveals that the reality falls far short of that. Of 32 closed prisons inspected in 2023-24, 30 of them were rated ‘poor or not sufficiently good’. In practice this means that

Matt Ridley

How Ed Miliband plans to conjure electricity out of nothing

Electricity is magical stuff. From a couple of tiny holes in a wall comes an apparently endless supply of invisible, weightless, silent ether that turns instantly into light, heat, motion or information at your command. It is a metaphor for the modern economy: we use pure energy to create useful outcomes in the real world. We found out last week that Britain has now for the first time achieved top spot, among 25 nations, in terms of the price we pay for this supernatural ichor, for both domestic and industrial use. This is a disaster. Electricity prices have doubled in Britain since 2019. They are 46 per cent above the

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Tories’ Greek tragedy has reached its catharsis

I write this as I leave the Tory conference in Birmingham. I have covered most of these events (and many Labour ones too) since the beginning of the 1980s. They do not lift the heart, but it is always interesting to watch the activity of the tribe. I attended the 1997 conference at Blackpool after the Tories had been broken by Tony Blair. William Hague had just become leader. The tribe was in a state of tongue-tied mourning. The party faithful were perplexed that the Conservatives had bequeathed extremely favourable economic conditions and public finances and yet had been utterly rejected. The trappings of power still hung about the agenda

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Keir Starmer’s dysfunctional Downing Street 

By rights, the Conservative party conference in Birmingham ought to have been a funereal affair. It was the first time the party had gathered after its worst-ever election defeat and the number of former MPs rivalled the number of current ones. And yet the mood was surprisingly upbeat. ‘Opposition is so freeing,’ said one MP at the bar in the early hours. ‘It’s like being drunk at the wake after the funeral,’ remarked one Tory strategist. It’s not that the party conference revealed a breakout star in the leadership contest (‘We’ll be doing this again in two years,’ predicts one unimpressed MP). Instead, Tories are looking at Labour’s misfortunes. Three

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Lord Alli under investigation for donations

Dear oh dear. It now transpires that Lord Alli is under investigation by the Lords Commissioner – with the millionaire businessman being looked into over ‘alleged non-registration of interests’ with concerns the Labour donor may have breached the Lords code of conduct. How curious… The donor – who funded workwear for the Prime Minister and his wife, paid for expensive glasses for Sir Keir Starmer and even provided luxury accommodation worth over £20,000 to the Labour leader – is being investigated over ‘alleged non-registration of interests leading to potential breaches of paragraphs 14(a) and 17 of the thirteenth edition of the Code of Conduct for Members of the House of

Steerpike Steerpike

London’s failed night czar resigns

At long last, and not a day too soon, it transpires that London’s ‘night czar’ is standing down. Amy Lamé will leave her City Hall role at the end of the month after, er, eight years in the job on a six-figure annual salary – despite receiving a 40 per cent pay hike part way through. Sadiq Khan’s nightlife guru – who presided over the closure of almost half of the cities nightclubs – has said she felt it was the ‘right time’ to ‘move on’, but added it had been a ‘real privilege to serve Londoners’. Mr S can’t imagine the feeling is mutual… Lamé announced her resignation today,

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is JD Vance the next Republican presidential nominee?

18 min listen

Last night the Vice Presidential nominees JD Vance and Tim Walz went head to head in a televised debate. It began with the war erupting in the Middle East, followed by a clash over abortion and immigration. Freddy Gray speaks to Sarah Eliot from Republicans Overseas about why Vance came out on top, and whether he could be in the running as the next Republican presidential nominee. 

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The winners (and losers) from Tory conference

Who was the winner from today’s Tory leadership speeches? The final day of the party conference saw all four candidates take to the stage in a bid to have a David Cameron moment. Back in 2005, Cameron managed to gain momentum at the party conference with an assured speech (no notes) and get one over on his main rival – the then frontrunner – David Davis. So, has anyone managed a similar feat in Birmingham? It was Tom Tugendhat who was up first to speak. The leadership hopeful – viewed to be on the left of the party – spoke about restoring trust and the path back to power. He

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Badenoch is the best the Tories have got

What an ordeal. If there is one thing more trying than watching a leader’s speech at a party conference, it is watching four of them in a row – four doses of platitudes, jokes that miss the mark, personal anecdotes about their childhood and parents which are supposed to build up a sense of character but instead make you groan because you have heard them a dozen times before. She speaks with words, not phrases Tom Tugendhat came across as a middle manager on a public speaking course. Never mind where he wanted to take the country – he didn’t seem sure how and in which direction he was supposed

James Heale James Heale

Who was the winner from today’s Tory leadership speeches?

17 min listen

The final day of the party conference saw all four candidates take to the stage in a bid to have a David Cameron moment. Back in 2005, Cameron managed to gain momentum at the party conference with an assured speech (no notes) and get one over on his main rival – the then frontrunner – David Davis. So, did anyone managed a similar feat in Birmingham? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman.  Produced by Oscar Edmondson. 

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

The demise of the Tory party has been greatly exaggerated

Something happened at the Conservative party conference today which suggested it is too soon to write off the democratic world’s most successful party: there were three brilliant speeches in a row. Given that this political era is not known for its great orators, this was a most unusual and very welcome occurrence. It is too soon to write off the democratic world’s most successful party Of the four Conservative leadership contenders, only Tom Tugendhat – perhaps hampered by being first on and having to warm-up the audience – failed to truly connect beyond his enthusiastic gaggle of camp followers. His workmanlike address was perfectly competent but lacked a transcendent moment. James

James Heale James Heale

Robert Jenrick promises a ‘new Conservative party’

The Tory front runner was third up in Birmingham. Throughout this race, Robert Jenrick has sought to position himself as someone with the polish of David Cameron and the politics of Nigel Farage. His speech today was very much in that vein: a staunchly right-wing message centred around delivering a ‘new Conservative party’. Like Cameron in 2005, he talks of change: but change, he would argue, of a very different nature to hug-a-hoodie modernisation.  Jenrick’s pitch was much more critical about the state of modern Britain Jenrick’s speech began with a neat bridging exercise: talking of his father’s work in a metal foundry as a way of referencing the Iron

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Badenoch pitches herself as the great disruptor

Kemi Badenoch’s opening video before her speech had a series of politicians and normal people talking at odd angles into their phones about the need for a new politician. She was pictured smiling, charming people in person, and vowing ‘let’s renew’, before she walked onto the stage for another no-notes speech.  It was, as you would expect, a speech that embraced the idea of tearing everything up and starting again, with Badenoch as the disruptor. She promised to ‘Rewire, reboot and reprogramme’, adding that: ‘Nothing is more exciting to me. I am an engineer, and engineers don’t hide from the truth.’ Her overhaul would involve the Conservatives rewriting ‘the rules

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour under scrutiny over gambling gifts

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot have had a tough time of it lately with the freebie fiasco – and it’s only getting worse. Now it transpires that Labour figures received gifts from the gambling sector worth, er, over £1 million. Talk about a bad bet, eh? Starmer’s army accepted a range of items from the industry – including tickets to musicals and football matches – with key Cabinet figures implicated. It has emerged that his winter fuel payment-cutting Chancellor Rachel Reeves took three tickets for a show in 2023 from the Betting Gaming Council, alongside £20,000 of donations from gambling organisations for her private office prior to the election. Business

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

James Cleverly thinks the Tories need to be more ‘normal’

James Cleverly’s speech did a much better job than Tom Tugendhat’s of explaining what sort of person he is, and what he wants to do with the party. It was very characteristic of Cleverly: there were lots of mentions of ‘optimism’, which is probably his guiding philosophy in life, and some well-delivered jokes, including one about his time in the Reserves when he got a call telling him he had been mobilised. ‘I thought I was going to Basra, or Baghdad. And I was sent… to Luton,’ he told the hall, to genuine laughter. But he also focused heavily on his experience in government, trying to differentiate himself from Tugendhat

James Heale James Heale

Tom Tugendhat fails to rouse the Tories

It is the final day of Tory conference and the event for which we have all been waiting: the four leadership candidates are each delivering their 20-minute speeches, setting out their vision for the country. Tom Tugendhat had the mixed blessing of going first. The benefit of this was that it allowed him to deliver a series of gags about Labour donor Lord Alli which still sounded somewhat fresh. But it meant too that his speech was something of a warm-up act, delivering feel-good lines to an audience that was still filtering in throughout the first few minutes. The first half of Tugendhat’s speech was pedestrian The first half of

Jonathan Spyer

Israel is likely to hit back hard against Iran

Iran’s decision to launch 181 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday night followed a similar pattern to the attacks of 14 April. Israeli and allied air defences appear to have performed extremely effectively. The damage to the military and civilian sites targeted is minor to non-existent. One Palestinian Arab man was killed in a village near Jericho, not from the Iranian missiles, it appears, but from interceptor debris.   I live in a Jerusalem neighbourhood on what’s called the ‘Seam Line’ between the Jewish and Arab populations. We generally have cordial relations with our Arabic-speaking neighbours, and as I stood outside my front door last night trying to get some pictures of the missiles flying over

Steerpike Steerpike

Why hasn’t Trump congratulated J.D. Vance?

Even the most ardent Trump-loathers are admitting that, last night, the Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance easily won his debate against his opposite number, Tim Walz. ‘Vance is going home with Walz’s wallet,’ said the veteran Never Trumper David Frum.  It’s curious, then, that – at time of writing at least – Donald Trump still hasn’t congratulated his running mate over his resounding victory, at least not publicly. Last night, on his Truth Social media account, Trump posted a rude meme about how stupid Tim Walz is, but no applause for JD.  Even more mysteriously, as the debate finished, Trump posted on Twitter/X a tribute not to Vance but to ‘one

Fabian Hoffmann

What we know so far about Iran’s massive missile attack

Last night, Iran launched a large-scale missile strike against Israel, dubbed ‘Operation True Promise II’. According to the latest reports, the attack involved approximately 180 ballistic missiles, making it one of the largest missile assaults in history. Iranian officials stated that the attack was in retaliation for the assassination of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran in late July, the killing of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon last week, and Israel’s broader conduct in the region in recent months. Details about the attack, including its targets and the damage caused, remain murky at this time. But it seems that Iran targeted Nevatim airbase, Tel Nof airbase, and the headquarters

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

J.D. Vance dominated the VP debate

To manage expectations in the run-up to last night’s debate, Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, let it be known through anonymous sources that he was nervous. He didn’t want to let Kamala Harris down.  Well, he was tense and it showed. The first question was, inevitably, about the big story of the moment, the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Walz, speaking first, fumbled. He said ‘Iran’ when he meant ‘Israel’, twice, which hardly suggested a mastery of international affairs. He then rambled through various points about the ‘fickleness’ of Donald Trump in foreign affairs. The Republican came over as straightforwardly intelligent and perceptive – the Democrat, less