Politics

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

Thursday

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Is the great worker shortage finally coming to an end?

British workers have just experienced their highest pay rises for two years. With inflation remaining at the Bank of England’s target, the average worker has now seen their real term pay increase between March and May this year by just over 2 per cent – a level not seen since 2022. However, in cash terms there are clear signs that the heat has firmly left the labour market with pay growth beginning to slow. This is good news for the new government and rate setters at the Bank of England who will need to decide next month whether it’s time for the first interest rate cuts. Doubts about a cut

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Joe Biden has caught covid at the worst possible time

Talk about timing. Joe Biden has caught covid, the White House has announced. The president, who was touring Las Vegas, ‘is experiencing mild symptoms,’ press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. ‘(Biden) will be returning to Delaware where he will self-isolate and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time.’ Biden has been vaccinated and boosted against covid, Jean-Pierre added.  Will Donald Trump call Joe Biden to wish him well? In the 21 days since the now infamous debate with Donald Trump, Biden has kept a busy schedule. He has tried and largely failed to allay public concerns about his health. This latest news will not

Jacob Heilbrunn

Top Democrat Adam Schiff urges Joe Biden to quit

The blows keep coming. California congressman Adam Schiff, who was an impeachment manager during Donald Trump’s first Senate trial in 2020, is now targeting another president for destruction. Schiff has called upon Joe Biden to exit the presidential race, the twenty-third legislator to do so and definitely the most significant of the lot. Schiff, who is running for the Senate, was a protégé of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi. For several weeks, Pelosi, who knows that a continued Biden candidacy would likely lead to the downfall of the Democratic party this November, has been waging a quiet but determined campaign to persuade Biden to surrender. Not surprisingly, the Pelosi camp

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

It’s obvious who to blame for the mess France is in

Marine Le Pen appeared on television on Wednesday morning in her first major interview since last Sunday’s election. The leader of the National Rally cast a critical eye over the chaos of the last week and described the cross-party squabbling as ‘parliamentary cretinism’. Even some within the New Popular Front, which won the most seats in the parliamentary elections, have expressed their despair. France has been afflicted by cretinous leadership for most of this century ‘I’m angry, I’m disgusted, I’m tired, I’m fed up,’ said Marine Tondelier, the head of the Greens. ‘I’m sorry about the performance we’re putting on for the French people.’ Sandrine Rousseau, another Green MP, apologised

James Heale James Heale

Meet the MAGA megafans

Milwaukee, Wisconsin If you want to see how Donald Trump has changed his party, look at what attendees wore to this week’s convention in Milwaukee. Gone are the days when Republicans plumped for preppy blazers and demure khakis; now the fashion is for ostentatious displays of red, white and blue. Even the red ‘MAGA’ baseball caps of 2016 have been eclipsed, replaced by this year’s must-have accessory of the cowboy hat – a classic symbol of rugged individualism. It’s a sartorial revolution, as well as a political one. ‘Everyone loves having their photo taken,’ says one press photographer. ‘It’s like Halloween’ Brash, flash and full of flair, Trump’s supporters wear

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The new divide in Labour

Labour MPs ought to have been jubilant when they gathered for their weekly all-party parliamentary meeting on Monday. Most were still riding high after their party won a landslide majority. Yet there was a frisson of unease as some of the new flock took the opportunity to raise a grievance: the two-child benefit cap. ‘It’s the first week and they’re already complaining,’ sighed one MP this week. The unhappiness has been brewing since last summer when Keir Starmer and his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said they were in no rush to lift the ‘nasty’ two-child benefit cap, introduced by Theresa May’s government in 2017. The policy, which restricts welfare payments to

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is Donald Trump now unstoppable?

‘You’re gonna be so blessed,’ said Pastor James Roemke, doing a pretty good Donald Trump impersonation in the warm-up to his Benediction of the Republican National Convention on Monday. ‘You’re gonna be tired of being blessed, I guarantee it, believe me.’ Sitting in the stands with a bandage on his ear, Trump enjoyed the joke – a riff on his famous line from 2016 about ‘winning’. He smiled almost beatifically for the cameras. In the wake of the shooting, Trump has begun to sound, believe it or not, graceful and magnanimous It was poignant, too, because in his case it seemed so true: God, or some supernatural force beyond our understanding,

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Why Trump forgave J.D. Vance

It shows a remarkable level of confidence from Donald Trump that he’s chosen for his running-mate the man who once called him ‘America’s Hitler’. J.D. Vance, the 39-year-old junior senator from Ohio, made the private comment in 2016, as he rose to fame off the back of his autobiography Hillbilly Elegy. The book recounts what it was like to grow up in a deprived rust-belt town, where his family and neighbours had ‘no college degree’ and ‘poverty’s the family tradition’. Vance escaped by joining the US Marine Corps, which included a tour in Iraq. Once home, his degrees from Ohio State University and Yale took him to California, where he

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Rishi Sunak looks much happier in opposition

When Rishi Sunak was prime minister, he often appeared merely to be commentating on events, rather than in charge of them. Perhaps that is why he looks so comfortable as leader of the opposition now. He has been giving very good speeches since losing the election, and both he and his party look rather relieved to be out of government. They are currently in the opposition honeymoon period, before the reality of no-one being interested in what you have to say really hits. Sunak’s response to the King’s Speech today was generous and thoughtful. It included some amusing jokes, including his advice to the rising stars on the opposite benches:

Oscar Edmondson

What was missing from the King’s Speech?

16 min listen

Labour has set out its ambitious missions in the King’s Speech to open a new parliament today. On the podcast, Oscar Edmondson speaks to Katy Balls and former Labour advisor John McTernan about what was expected – and what was missing – from the legislative agenda. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Cindy Yu.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Starmer announces child poverty taskforce to stave off revolt

Keir Starmer has tried to stave off a revolt on the two-child benefit cap by announcing a child poverty taskforce. The Prime Minister told the Commons that the taskforce would ‘devise a strategy to drive the numbers down’, and that it would not just focus on one policy area. He was responding to an intervention on his King’s Speech address to the Commons from one of his own backbenchers, Sarah Owen, who asked him for assurances that he ‘personally takes this issue very seriously’. It was the first intervention on Starmer’s speech, and underlined the strength of feeling on the Labour benches, let alone across the House of Commons, about

Steerpike Steerpike

Truss attacks civil service over King’s Speech document

Today’s King’s Speech was filled to the brim with bills – the most jam-packed since 2005. While Sir Keir can’t be accused of submitting a lightweight list of announcements, some of his political opponents have been quick to criticise. One of these is former prime minister Liz Truss, who is particularly displeased about how much her own name came up in Labour’s legislative agenda. Within half an hour of the announcement, Truss took to Twitter with a scathing post about Starmer’s plans. Slamming the Prime Minister for having ‘no idea about the change Britain needs’, the former Conservative leader blasted today’s speech for expanding ‘the power of the unelected state’

Lucy Dunn

Every bill announced in Labour’s King’s Speech

King Charles has now finished taking part in the state opening of parliament for the first time as monarch. The purpose of today’s King’s Speech was to set out the government’s legislative agenda for the upcoming parliamentary session, the first since the general election. Sir Keir Starmer has put forward a big government programme that promises to ‘always put the country first’. It will be based upon ‘security, fairness and opportunity for all’, with a heavy emphasis on economic stability and the need for decisions to be ‘consistent with its fiscal rules’. In a lengthy statement by the King, the new Labour government announced the highest number of bills since

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The Tories must share the blame for Labour’s illiberal smoking ban

When Rishi Sunak called a summer election, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill didn’t make the pile of ‘wash up’ legislation to be rushed through Parliament. His plans for a generational smoking ban, and a crackdown on vapes, were paused. But this was never going to be more than a brief delay. Labour has used the King’s Speech today to confirm that it will see Sunak’s smoking ban through. Or rather, the party might argue that it’s reclaiming the idea. It was Labour, after all, that floated the policy before the Tories adopted it at their party conference last year.  One day, a 63-year-old will be able to purchase a tobacco

Gavin Haynes

JD Vance has some weird influences

JD Vance, at 39, would be the first millennial vice president. But not only is he a new generation, he might also be the first American vice president to take his intellectual armoury from the extremely online world of the New Right.  Vance says he is ‘plugged into a lot of weird, right-wing subcultures’. He draws from a whole new political lexicon, one that would seem baffling to his more starched colleagues in the Congress. Even someone like Alexandra Ocasio Cortez – 34 years old – is taking her cues from a more orthodox political tradition.  The New Right is a tag that has been worn by many radically different

Matthew Lynn

Labour will regret making the OBR all powerful

It might seem like smart politics. And it will reassure the markets. The legislation in the King’s Speech today to ensure all Budgets are assessed by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) no doubt seems like a good idea right now. And yet, there is a catch. The incoming Labour government has now completed the job started by Gordon Brown as chancellor back in 1997, and completely outsourced economic policy to ‘independent experts’. At some point, it is going to regret that decision. It is not hard to understand why the powers of the OBR have been increased in the King’s Speech unveiled today. It will allow Labour to keep

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Europe should prepare for president Vance

Foreign policy will have been low on Donald Trump’s list of considerations when deciding to anoint JD Vance as his running mate. The Ohio senator, a former detractor turned loyalist of the Republican nominee, is now close with Team Trump, and Team Trump rewards loyalty above all else. Vance is also a populist and speaks to the very voters (white, non-graduate, rust belt) Trump must attract if he is to return to the Oval Office. Vance’s relationship with Trumpism has been a complicated one but his selection can be seen as a legacy pick that consolidates the Maga agenda’s hold on the Republican party for several more election cycles. The

Alexander Horne

Labour’s plan for the Lords looks unwise

Labour’s plans for Lords reform, announced during the King’s Speech this morning, do not come as a great surprise. It promised measures to ‘modernise the constitution’ and ‘remove the right of hereditary peers’ to sit and vote in the Lords via a House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill. These plans were heralded in the Labour party manifesto, which pledged ‘immediate reform of the House of Lords’. They are, nonetheless, both unambitious and in some respects unwise. These changes will not bring Labour much credit The reforms proposed in the manifesto included the removal of the remaining 92 hereditary peers; the introduction of a compulsory retirement age; a revised participation requirement

Alexander Larman

What did Charles make of his King’s Speech?

The protesters were out, as usual, but nobody was paying them a lot of attention. For all the angry bellowing and sign-waving of ‘Not my King!’ and ‘Down with the Crown’, most observers were not focusing on a small, disaffected rabble outside parliament, but instead on the constitutional and historical significance of the occasion. The first monarch’s speech setting out the agenda of a Labour government for nearly 15 years; the first King’s Speech in eight decades; the first time that a king had delivered a speech for a new – and, allegedly, transformative – Labour administration since 1945. It was an occasion rich in ceremonial and political symbolism alike,

Steerpike Steerpike

Green leader opposes green pylon plan

Good heavens. Now it seems that Green co-leader Adrian Ramsay has forgotten his own party’s raison d’être. Today the MP for Waveney Valley has confirmed he will oppose new electricity pylons in his East Anglian constituency – pylons that would be used to transport, er, green energy from offshore wind farms to the grid. How interesting… Ramsay first hinted that he was planning to oppose the 100-mile corridor of pylons at the start of the month in a conversation with the Beeb – and today his justification for his decision is that the route is unpopular locally and he’s a ‘constituency MP’ first. It’s certainly not the first time that the