Politics

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

Yesterday

17 Sep 2025

Andy Burnham’s ‘fantasy politics’

23 min listen

Donald Trump might be in the UK for the state visit, but it’s Labour pains that are dominating the headlines and, predictably, there is a typical northern lad who thinks he could be just what the party needs. Despite having made two previous (failed) attempts at the leadership, Andy Burnham is on manoeuvres. He does seem to have the key thing that Starmer lacks – i.e. the ability to communicate – but he does unfortunately come with his own history of flip-flopping. What does this say about the state of the left wing? ‘They clearly hate it!’ says Tim Shipman on today’s podcast about Labour’s experience of government, but is

Yossi Melman

Israel is waging war for war’s sake

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has begun the most senseless battle in the history of Israel. Two conscript divisions with Merkava tanks, APCs and artillery, supported in the skies by the Israeli Air Force, are now engaged in a battle to conquer Gaza City. As they go, they are seizing what remains of the asphalt roads in Gaza. Artillery and air force planes are bombing and destroying more houses – about 70 per cent of the buildings in Gaza have already been destroyed by the IDF. This is now the most political war in Israel’s history. The country fought three wars against regular armies out of necessity: the War of

Sam Olsen

Sucking up to Trump is not in Britain’s interest

Donald Trump’s second state visit to Britain this week is a spectacle, but the real significance lies away from the pageantry and protests. Instead, it forces a harder question: what does Britain want from America, and what does America want from us? The visit is a reminder that Britain’s relationship with Washington is not just a sentimental bond, but a strategic choice made in a world defined by geopolitical rivalry. That rivalry is sharpening. The 1990s dream of a unipolar, American-led order has long gone. We are drifting into a world shaped by competition between two great powers, the United States and China. The logic of that contest is already

Mark Galeotti

Why Putin’s military drills are good news for the West

Another Russian military exercise is over, and some Western commentators would have us believe that we ought to be heaving a collective sigh of relief that Putin’s legions didn’t use this as an excuse for another invasion. Of course, that was very overblown hype. Instead, what we saw was a Russian military still clinging to outmoded ways of war, as if its armoured columns had not been blocked and burnt when they rolled into Ukraine in 2022. The Zapad-2025 (West-2025) exercises, which concluded on Tuesday, involved perhaps 30,000 Russian and Belarusian soldiers in a wargame stretching from the Arctic Circle to Belarus. This was the latest iteration of a biennial

Druin Burch

How I came to (reluctantly) like Trump

The Donald is in Britain. As a holidaymaker used to budget flights, I associate Stansted airport, where Trump landed last night, with precisely the amount of glamour it currently offers, but I also know it was where planes in distress are directed to on their return – its long runway giving them the best chance of survival. Stansted is where imperilled dreams go in the hope of rescue. As Trump arrived, I realised its tarmac had not done for me what it once did for others. For them, that blessedly long runway was salvation. For me, it’s where my resistance crashed and burned. As I peered at the pictures of

Steerpike

Khan: Trump has fanned flames of far right

Sadiq Khan has taken to the august pages of the Guardian today to vent about the US President, just hours after Donald Trump touched down in Britain. London’s Mayor fumed about Trump’s tariffs and the US president’s criticism of the capital, before launching into a rant on how ‘President Donald Trump and his coterie have perhaps done the most to fan the flames of divisive, far-right politics around the world’. Crikey! Khan continues: Six years later, the tactics we see from today’s White House seem no different. Scapegoating minorities, illegally deporting US citizens, deploying the military to the streets of diverse cities. These actions aren’t just inconsistent with western values

Mark Nayler

Pedro Sanchez’s pro-Palestine obsession is damaging Spain

‘Today Spain shines as an example and as a source of pride. It’s [giving] an example to the international community by taking a step forward in defence of human rights.’ So said Spain’s Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez on Sunday, in praise of the pro-Palestine mob that brought the Vuelta a España cycle race to a premature end in Madrid. Sanchez’s support for these disruptive protests came a week after his promise to ‘consolidate in law’ a ban on Spain purchasing Israeli military equipment, in reaction to what he calls Israel’s ‘genocide’ in Gaza. Cyclists on the Vuelta still had several circuits of the Spanish capital to complete that afternoon,

Steerpike

Ex-Labour councillor charged over Westminster honeytrap scandal

Well, well, well. This morning news has come that 28-year-old Oliver Steadman, a former Labour councillor, has been charged with offences including blackmail over the honeytrap scandal in Westminster. The former local politician has received charges of communication offences relating to five victims – including MPs – according to the Crown Prosecution Service and Scotland Yard. Oh dear… Last year, a selection of politicians and journalists admitted they had been messaged by a person on WhatsApp, calling themselves ‘Charlie’ or ‘Abi’ depending on who the target was. William Wragg, a former senior Conservative, confessed that he had started speaking to the person behind the scam. He sent explicit images of

Joanna Williams

Will we face the truth about Britain’s bogus mental health crisis?

Is it really the case that a majority of Gen Z have experienced mental health problems? Researchers from University College London certainly seem to think so. A YouGov survey they commissioned finds that almost two-thirds (64 per cent) of people aged 16 to 25 have either experienced or are currently experiencing mental health difficulties. Women seem to suffer most: 72 per cent said they had mental health difficulties compared to 56 per cent of young men. Rates are highest among 20 to 21-year-olds: 40 per cent of this age group are currently experiencing difficulties, while 31 per cent have had problems in the past. Women seem to suffer most: 72

Matthew Lynn

Trump’s steel tariffs will hurt Britain

Over the course of President Trump’s state visit, we can expect lots of investments by the giants of American industry to be unveiled. Microsoft will announce $30 billion (£22 billion) of investment in new artificial intelligence hubs and tech infrastructure. Google will pump £5 billion into AI in Britain, which presumably means getting some robots to sit in the British Library reading room for a few months until all the content has been scraped. Perhaps by the end of the week, even McDonald’s will have announced plans for a new food court on the A30. But for all the celebration, there will be no progress on the only deal that

Debbie Hayton

Should teachers be allowed to work from home?

Teacher recruitment and retention have been associated with the word ‘crisis’ since I joined the profession thirty years ago. But Daniel Kebede’s idea to give teachers a day each week to work and ‘mark from home’ is not the answer. Kebede is the general secretary of the National Education Union. His job is to speak up for his members – many of whom, like me, work very long hours. According to the Department for Education, full-time teachers put in an average of 52.4 hours per week during term time. The work might be rewarding but it is also gruelling and often challenging. Yes, the holidays and the pension are nice

Gus Carter

Welcome to the age of reluctant socialism

There are no revolutionaries in Europe’s streets. No communists marching on parliament buildings. If anything, the continent has seen a rightward shift over the past decade. And yet Europe is becoming the home of a reluctant, greying socialism. In France, the new Sébastien Lecornu regime is considering a wealth tax on entrepreneurs and the rich rather than slash its gargantuan social security bill. ‘France has not known a balanced budget for 51 years,’ said the former prime minister François Bayrou last week as he was voted into political oblivion. He, like many of his predecessors, had failed to reform the pension system. ‘You can get rid of the government, but

Michael Simmons

Britain is in a fresh cost-of-living crisis

Prices are continuing to rise. Consumer inflation stayed at 3.8 per cent last month – matching the figure recorded in July and nearly double the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target. This morning’s figures on CPI, released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), were in line with the expectations of markets and pundits. Air fares, which spiked in July due to the summer holidays, were significantly down compared with last year, which offset a rise in fuel, meaning the pace of inflation did not pick up. There is a tendency in economic reporting to say that because a reading has come in line with forecasts, then it is good

Ross Clark

Rachel Reeves’s legacy is going to be dismal

For some time, the Budget on 26 November has been looking as if it might be Rachel Reeves’ final fling before she is pulled away from the levers of the UK economy. But if so, it appears she may be preparing to go out in style. According to a report in the Financial Times, she is planning, yet again, to raise taxes while using as an excuse a supposed black hole left behind by the Tories. The Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) has warned the Chancellor that the productivity estimates it has been using for its economic forecasts have been too optimistic. Rather than growing at 1.1 per cent in

Alexander Larman

Donald Trump will be on his best behaviour for King Charles

The Donald has touched down in Britain for his unprecedented second state visit. It makes sense in a way that this most unconventional of American presidents is being granted a privilege that has never been offered to any other US leader, namely a repeat performance of pageantry and pomp that will flatter this Anglophile’s ego to its considerable core. That the event is happening against King Charles’s wishes might bother any other prime minister, but such was Keir Starmer’s desire to curry favour with Trump that he even waved the King’s handwritten invitation on camera. And with that he ensured favourable treatment for the country he is (barely) governing. The

Patrick West

Britain is becoming a nation of hermits

The malign effects of the Covid lockdowns continue to reveal themselves. The latest confirmation of the baleful legacy of that policy is a new survey which suggests that we are turning into a nation of hermits. According to a fresh study, reported by the Daily Telegraph, many people in Britain are still imposing lockdowns on themselves, four years after the last government-decreed lockdown. The survey of 2,000 British adults discloses that two thirds of Gen Z – and more than half of millennials – said that there are times when they do not go outside for days. This isn’t something that only afflicts the youth. Across all generations, the study

Michael Gove

Why Danny Kruger’s defection changes everything & could Boris Johnson be next?

54 min listen

This week Michael and Madeline unpick the shock defection of Danny Kruger to Reform UK’s ‘pirate ship’ – as described by Michael – and ask whether this coup could mark the beginning of the end for the Conservative party. They also dive into Westminster’s most charged moral debates: the assisted dying bill in the Lords and the quiet decriminalisation of abortion up to birth. What do these changes say about parliament’s ‘intoxicated liberal hubris’ – and the protections given to the vulnerable? Also, Donald Trump lands in Britain this week – but why is it that the Prime Minister acts ‘like Carson the butler’ in his presence, and who exactly

Tuesday

16 Sep 2025

Madeline Grant

Only the boot-lickers will defend Mandelson now

Despite the Prime Minister presumably going to bed each night, trotters crossed, eyes screwed up and wishing hard as if trying to reanimate Tinkerbell, the Mandelson scandal is not magically going to go away. Indeed, today MPs were granted an extensive chunk of parliamentary time to discuss it. Unsurprisingly, the PM swerved this particular treat. Given how things are going he really ought to be ringing round publishers to see if any of them want his memoirs. I wonder where the serialisation will be? It’s a good job the Beano is still publishing. There was no sign of the Foreign Secretary either. Today the boy who stood on the burning

James Heale

Will Trump’s state visit save Starmer?

12 min listen

Keir Starmer has lost another aide, MPs are debating what the Prime Minister knew about Mandelson’s links to Epstein and a new poll has Lucy Powell as the favourite to win Labour’s deputy leadership race against education secretary Bridget Phillipson. Could things be any worse for Starmer? With US President Donald Trump touching down at London Stansted tonight, the PM will be hoping the state visit provides an opportunity to draw a line under the past few weeks. But Trump is anything but predictable, and he likes a winner – will ‘The Donald’ sour on Starmer? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Matthew Lynn

Elon Musk’s Tesla investment is a big gamble

Tesla does not look like a great investment right now. The competition from better and cheaper Chinese electric vehicles is savage and Elon Musk’s outspoken political views have tarnished the brand, at least among the eco-conscious liberals who first adopted it. And yet, Musk has just spent $1 billion (£733 million) of his own money on its shares. His investment only makes sense as a bet on its robotics unit – but that is still very high risk for the company’s pugnacious CEO. No one could ever accuse Musk of not putting his money where his mouth is. While Tesla may be under more pressure than ever, yesterday he sank