Politics

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

Monday

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Will Starmer be a part-time PM?

‘Sir Sleepy’, it seems, is back. On the eve of taking up the most important job in the country, Keir Starmer has revealed that he will refuse to work around the clock should his party win Thursday’s election. Speaking to Virgin Radio this afternoon, the Labour leader contrasted himself with the current premier, well known for keeping long work hours. Starmer, who has two teenage children, said that he ‘will not do a work-related thing after 6pm [on a Friday] pretty well come what may.’ He claimed that spending time with his kids ‘takes me away from the pressure [and] relaxes me’, adding that the time away from work made

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Proportional representation won’t save the Tories

Members and supporters of the Conservative party do not generally speak in favour of proportional representation (PR) – which is hardly surprising given that the current system has given them 49 out of the past 79 years in power. There are exceptions: Ferdinand Mount, head of the No. 10 Policy Unit under Mrs Thatcher, briefly advocated it during the Conservatives’ long period out of office in the 2010s before changing his mind after the Conservatives returned to power. In a debate in 2019, Conservative MPs Dan Poulter (who defected to Labour earlier this year) and Derek Thomas spoke in favour. Whatever the iniquities of this week’s result, Conservatives should plot

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JK Rowling slams Swinney over gender stance

Another day, another drama. This time Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney is in the spotlight, after he conducted a rather odd radio interview with BBC Five Live on the trans debate. With three days to go until the general election and some polls predicting Swinney’s nationalists could lose more than half of their Westminster seats, the FM is under pressure to persuade more voters to back the SNP on the big day. The Nats are no strangers to being out of touch with the general public and one issue that exemplifies this rather well is the party’s stance on self-identification. Swinney’s former boss Nicola Sturgeon was determined to pass the

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Rory Stewart’s centrist squirm

With three days to go until 4 July, who else would you want to hear from but Rory Stewart? Cometh the hour, cometh the king of the centrist dads as the ex-cabinet minister today temporarily swapped his podcast for Times Radio. Appearing on Andrew Neil’s show this afternoon, Stewart was asked to give his thoughts on how to fix the world’s woes. With apathy and cynicism on the rise, the former Tory leadership contender suggested that one way of tackling the issue would be that age-old favourite, constitutional reform. Asked by Neil to name a single ‘distinctive policy or position’ espoused by the One Nation Tory tribe to which Stewart

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Fear and loathing (and door-knocking) with the SNP

The SNP is having a very normal election: its first really normal one in a long time. It’s just short of a decade since the party nearly swept away all traces of other political parties in the 2015 election, leaving just three non-nationalist MPs in place. Many of the candidates who won back then are now in the fight of their lives to hold on.  In Scotland’s Central Belt, most seats are on what the candidates themselves describe as a ‘knife edge’. The various MRP polls are predicting Labour wins in many SNP constituencies, including my local ones of Livingston, currently held by Hannah Bardell, and Linlithgow and Bathgate, where

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Jill Biden revealed as Vogue magazine cover star

Oh dear. Vogue magazine’s August cover dropped this morning and it transpires that its editorial team has decided on a rather curious cover star in the form of, er, Jill Biden. The First Lady has been revealed as the central focus of the summer cover a mere four days after her husband gave a pitiful performance at the presidential candidate debate on Thursday. Talk about bad timing… President Biden stumbled and mumbled his way through his disastrous debate with Donald Trump last week – so much so that media outlets across the world questioned just how the President could remain the Democratic party’s choice for the 2024 US election. Yet

Andrew Lilico

Should voters punish Labour for its lockdown stance?

One perfectly valid reason for voting is to reward past success and punish past failures. We have no guarantees about what politicians will do in future, whatever they promise. We know what they did in the past. For millions of right-wingers, this punish-reward perspective is central to their decision about how to vote in 2024. They may differ a bit on what it is that they want to punish the Tory party for – whether it’s for partygate; ousting Liz Truss; net zero; inflation; Brexit; not making enough of Brexit; high public spending and taxes; too much wokery; too much immigration; or too many lockdowns. Whatever the precise reason for

Matthew Lynn

What the markets have wrong about the French election results 

The Paris stock market is soaring. French bonds are rising once again, and the banks are suddenly looking a lot healthier. As the results of the French elections came through overnight, and it looked less likely that Marine Le Pen’s National Rally would have enough votes to form a government by itself, investors started to buy into France. Sure, the result might be messy, but chaos is a lot better than the shambolic mix of protectionism and welfare spending that passes for an economic plan for the NR. But hold on. In reality, the crisis has just been postponed – and the crash when it comes will be far worse.

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Are the Scottish Tories facing a civil war?

Uh oh. All is not well within the Scottish Conservative party and just days before polling day, senior figures have dubbed the election campaign ‘the most inept [and] shambolic’ in the party’s history – called for a clear-out of the party hierarchy. Good heavens. Senior party figures have told the Times that Scottish Tory candidates have been ‘badly let down’ by ‘disastrous errors from the top’. One MSP blasting campaigning efforts said that ‘no one involved in the leadership of the campaign should ever be allowed near one again’. Another party insider echoed the sentiment, saying: The main focus for now is getting as many candidates over the line as

Monica Porter

How Viktor Orbán plans to ‘Make Europe Great Again’

Hungary has just begun its presidency of the Council of the EU, as part of the member states’ six-monthly rotation process. Unsurprisingly, prime minister Viktor Orbán is all keyed up for the challenge. For years the bureaucrats of Brussels have tried to force the stubbornly contrary PM to change his ways, withholding billions of euros as punishment for his administration’s ‘democratic backsliding’. But sticking to his guns, Orbán has declared that, on the contrary, it is he who will ‘take over Brussels’ and change the EU. Hubris indeed. After all, David Cameron with his emollient charms was unable to get the EU to alter its entrenched culture, which ultimately led to

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Nigel Farage turns on Marine Le Pen

Ooh la la! After a tricky few weeks for Reform UK, leader Nigel Farage has aimed his sights towards the old enemy. Reform’s polling figures first dipped following that Nick Robinson interview and in recent days Farage has faced serious questions over the behaviour of both candidates and activists. The party’s former candidate in Erewash, Liam Booth-Isherwood, yesterday disowned the outfit and backed his Tory rival instead. Now, as he battles to keep momentum up ahead of 4 July, Farage has distanced himself from fellow Eurosceptic Marine Le Pen. Following yesterday’s Reform rally – with 4,500 attendees in tow – the leader used an interview with Unherd to distance himself

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France’s political upheaval is bad news for Ukraine

It has been a bad few days for Volodymyr Zelensky. The president of Ukraine must have covered his face with his hands as he watched Joe Biden’s rambling performance against Donald Trump in last week’s televised debate. Trump’s view on Ukraine’s war with Russia are well-known: he wants an end to the conflict Then came the results from the first round of the parliamentary elections in France. There is still a second round to play but one thing is certain: the next government will not be one of Emmanuel Macron’s choice. His political project – what he described as ‘neither left nor right’ – is dead, and so to all

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Why is Putin really trying to interfere in the UK election?

Who says Britain is no longer a Great Power? To those of a declinist cast of mind, it must stand as a rebuke that, even with everything else on his plate, Vladimir Putin still regards our elections as worth interfering in. And, what’s more, those elections are so important that the Aussies are taking enough of an interest in them to consider that Russian interference newsworthy.   Russia may be trying to influence our elections, which as I say is flattering and all, but they aren’t trying very hard At the same time as it’s heartening that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation considers this a big deal it’s also, I suppose,

Ilya Somin

The (selfish) case for immigration

The 2024 general election ‘should be the immigration election’, Nigel Farage has said. The Reform leader’s wish has been granted: the topic of immigration is a major focus of debate. It’s also a big issue in the United States’ presidential election. Much of the debate in both countries depicts immigrants as a burden that receiving countries should accept (if at all) only out of altruism or a sense of obligation. But this is misleading, and ignores the many benefits of migration to Britain and other receiving countries. Open migration is not just charity for migrants Accepting migrants is the right thing to do, in part because it saves many thousands of

John Keiger John Keiger

National Rally brings a political earthquake to France

There is one big winner from the first round of the French legislative elections – and several big losers. The winner is the Rassemblement National (National Rally) with 33 per cent of voters backing its candidates or their allies – on a turnout of 67 per cent, the highest in decades. The RN now has a fighting chance of forming a working government from 7 July.  Marine Le Pen has called on voters to give her party an ‘absolute majority’ in the National Assembly in the next round of elections on Sunday. ‘We need an absolute majority for Jordan Bardella to be named prime minister by Emmanuel Macron in eight

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Harington endorses Labour – after in-law backed Brexit party

With the general election just three days away, the celebrity endorsements have started to roll in. Now Dragon’s Den judge Deborah Meaden, singer-songwriter Elton John and comedian Jason Manford have come out for Labour – all with snappy video messages gushing praise on the party. Steerpike has spotted one rather interesting addition to the celeb lineup however, in the form of one Kit Harington of hit TV series Game of Thrones. The Jon Snow actor was seen in a Twitter video shared by the party on Sunday telling viewers to back Sir Keir’s lefty lot. In his endorsement of Starmer’s army, a dressed-down Harington told the camera: One issue that

Sunday

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is on course to take power

Emmanuel Macron suffered the biggest humiliation of his presidency on Sunday evening as his Renaissance party was beaten into third place in the first round of the parliamentary elections. Exit polls confirmed what the opinion polls predicted last week: that Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is now the dominant force in French politics. It surpassed the 31 per cent score in the European elections on June 9 – a victory that prompted Macron to call a snap election – winning 34 per cent of the vote. The left-wing Popular Front coalition was second with 29 per cent, and Macron’s centrist Renaissance party trailed in third on 22 per cent. The

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Reform candidate ditches party over ‘racism and sexism’

Another day, another election campaign drama. Now it’s Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party in the limelight with more candidate controversy. Only this time it’s not the party defending contentious comments. Instead, one of the party’s candidates has turned on Reform. Oo er. Liam Booth-Isherwood, formerly a Reform candidate for Erewash, has today disowned the party over allegations of racism. The former Farage man has instead decided to endorse the Conservative party, backing the Tory contender – Maggie Throup – in the election. ‘Over the past few weeks, I have been increasingly disillusioned with the behaviour and conduct of Reform,’ Booth-Isherwood claimed in a statement, adding: Whilst I have campaigned alongside

Lucy Dunn

Sunday shows round-up: Farage insists racism row canvasser an ‘actor’

Nigel Farage: racism row canvasser is an ‘actor’ It’s been a tricky few days for Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage after one of his party’s canvassers was caught using a racial slur against the Prime Minister. Rishi Sunak hit back at the Reform man’s words, saying it ‘hurts and it makes me angry’. Yet today, Farage insisted that he was not linked to controversial members, saying to Sky’s Trevor Phillips that in this case he ‘knows it is’ a set up, calling the member in question an ‘actor’. He went on: If you want to support us, why not come as the person you really are. Why come using your

Jonathan Spyer

Will Hezbollah declare war on Israel?

In Israel currently, people are waiting for a possible escalation in the north. The United States, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Russia and the Netherlands have called on their citizens in Lebanon to leave the country. Western embassies in Lebanon are exploring the coastal area to locate possible points from where an evacuation by sea could be carried out. The German foreign ministry, in a message on its website, drily notes: ‘A further escalation could also lead to a complete suspension of air traffic from Rafiq Hariri Airport. Leaving Lebanon by air would then no longer be possible.’   The USS Wasp amphibious assault ship has arrived via the Strait of Gibraltar to the