Politics

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

Wednesday

Iain Macwhirter

Why is Scottish Labour giving Farage free publicity?

If the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar is sincere in wishing to deprive Nigel Farage of the ‘oxygen of publicity’, he’s got a funny way of going about it. In a vituperative interview on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland today, he gave the Reform leader another blast of oxygen by offering a public debate on the eve of his visit to next week’s Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election. This is publicity Reform couldn’t buy with any of the money it has so far devoted to a blitz on social media. Sarwar is incensed at a mischievous attack ad last week in which Reform doctored a quote to suggest that the Scottish Labour leader

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour poll share slumps to lowest since 2019

Another day, another bad poll for Sir Keir Starmer’s party. Now YouGov has revealed that Labour has recorded its lowest poll rating since before the 2019 general election, with just over a fifth of Brits saying they would vote for the reds tomorrow, while Nigel Farage’s Reform UK sees its largest lead to date on the party of government. How very interesting… The latest data from the polling giant, collected between 26-27 May, shows that a little under a third of British adults would back Farage’s crowd if there was a national poll tomorrow – a figure that remains consistent on the week before. Meanwhile Starmer’s army has dropped a

Matthew Lynn

What’s the point of fining Thames Water?

That should teach it a lesson. The utility giant Thames Water has today been hit with a massive £122.7 million fine for failing to deal with sewage properly, and for paying out excessive dividends. No doubt the regulator Ofwat thinks that will focus the minds of the company’s management and force it to sharpen up its act. There is just one snag. Thames Water is already close to going bust. In reality, it needs new management and a restructuring of its massive debts – and a fine won’t help that.  After what it described as the sector’s ‘biggest and most complex investigation’, Ofwat imposed a fine of £104.5 million for

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Don’t pay the junior doctor Danegeld

Who would have guessed that caving into union militancy and paying a whacking above-inflation pay rise, with no strings attached, would lead to even bigger pay demands? In one of its first acts after coming to power last July the Starmer government awarded junior doctors a 22 per cent pay rise, which they accepted and ended their run of strikes. Is anyone really surprised the BMA has come back this year demanding 30 per cent, threatening yet more strikes? It is not hard to guess what would happen were the government to cave in again: next year’s demand would come in at 50 per cent. Who would have guessed that

Stephen Pollard

Badenoch needs to be brutally honest with voters

If you think the Tories’ problems would be solved if they ditched Kemi Badenoch and turned to any of the mooted replacements – or indeed to anyone else – then I have a bridge to sell you. When you’re booted out of office less than a year ago because the public despise you – because they think you stand for nothing, are disastrously useless, and are incapable of telling the truth about anything – then the idea that you just need to be a bit better at social media memes and appear on a few more TV interviews is risible. Imagine how refreshing it would be to have a leader

Tuesday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Is Reform trying to race-bait Scottish Labour’s leader?

Nigel Farage’s party is taking heat for a Meta ad it has run as part of the Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse by-election. (The incumbent MSP, the SNP’s Christina McKelvie, died from breast cancer in March.) Reform is pushing its candidate, local councillor Ross Lambie, and claims it stands a chance of capturing the seat, which would have been ludicrous not so long ago and is still hard to fathom today. A Reform victory here in Lanarkshire would be a historic upset and would give credence to a series of polls which suggest the party is on course to make gains in next year’s Holyrood elections.  The disputed ad, which ran on Facebook and

Steerpike Steerpike

Will Rupert Lowe join the Tories?

Ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe is no stranger to the spotlight. Nigel Farage’s former colleague has made headlines in recent months after he was suspended from the party following a rather unflattering interview he gave to the Daily Mail about Reform’s leadership. It quickly emerged that chairman Zia Yusuf and chief whip Lee Anderson had referred their former colleague to the police over ‘threats of physical violence’, with the Met Police launching an investigation into the parliamentarian. Earlier this month, news came that the Greater Yarmouth politician will not face criminal charges over the allegations – and Lowe was fast to tweet out a furious statement that branded his former party leader

Steerpike Steerpike

Scottish Labour leader accuses Farage of poisoning politics

To Scotland, where in just over a week’s time, the first Holyrood by-election for six years will take place. It’s set to a be a tight race in the constituency of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse and tensions between the political parties in the running are rising. Now Nigel Farage has hit out at Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, rather bizarrely accusing the Glasgow politician of introducing ‘sectarianism into Scottish politics’ as the spat between the pair continues. Dear oh dear… Farage’s remarks follow the feud over Reform UK’s attack ad, which has selectively clipped one of Sarwar’s speeches from 2022 to claim that the Scottish Labour leader will ‘prioritise the

Michael Taube

King Charles’s trip to Canada will go down in history

King Charles III and Queen Camilla are in Canada for a two-day visit. It’s their first trip to my country since the coronation. They’ve enjoyed touring parts of the nation’s capital, Ottawa. They’ve met with dignitaries and political leaders, and been greeted by large crowds that, in the words of the Ottawa Citizen, would be described as ‘exuberant.’ The main reason for King Charles’s visit is of historical importance and relevance to both Britain and Canada. His Majesty was invited by Prime Minister Mark Carney to deliver the throne speech for his Liberal government. It’s only the third time in Canadian history this has ever occurred, and the first time in decades. Charles is also the

Matthew Lynn

Britain’s America deal is paying off

Exports would be impossible. The supply chains would be snarled up. And trade restrictions would destroy the economics of the industry. We have been lectured endlessly on how our departure from the EU would destroy the British car industry. But hold on. It is now finding a new niche as an offshore manufacturing hub for the American market – and that is only possible because of Brexit. The Japanese auto giant Toyota has today announced a major new investment in the UK. It’s a plant in Derbyshire will start making GR Corolla’s, a popular high performance model in America. The reason is simple. Right now, Japanese cars shipped across the

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

What Alasdair MacIntyre got right – and wrong

Alasdair MacIntyre, who died last week, was one of the most influential thinkers of the past 50 years. It is hard to think of any other philosopher writing in the late 20th-century who has had such an impact. He might be less famous than Foucault or Derrida, but it is his conservative brand of postmodernism that launched a fairly coherent intellectual movement. For a few decades its adherents were mostly academics; now it has become politically influential too. Like those aforementioned Frenchmen, he was a powerful critic of the rational Enlightenment. And like them, his thought was strongly shaped by Marxism, and its critique of liberal political assumptions. But unlike

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Is the welfare state about to expand?

18 min listen

James Heale and Michael Simmons join Patrick Gibbons to discuss the speculation that Labour could scrap the two-child benefit cap. Is this just red meat for the left of the party or is it a sign that public opinion around welfare has shifted? And, with mixed messages on the economy, can the country afford to scrap it? This comes just a week after Labour’s partial U-turn over the winter fuel allowance so, with pressure also increasing from Reform, is the welfare state about to expand? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

James Heale James Heale

The welfare state is Nigel Farage’s new battleground

What, if anything, can stop Nigel Farage? That’s the question many in Westminster are asking as they try to reconcile themselves to the rise of Reform UK. The party has soared to 30 per cent in the polls – and is now seeking further gains. Farage’s speech this morning was his attempt to make hay from Labour’s woes on welfare. Reform, he pledged, would scrap both the winter fuel cut and the two-child benefit cap, while introducing a new tax allowance to reward married couples. It was all part of Farage’s pitch to frame himself as the defender of the welfare state, besieged by cuts at home and invaders from

Steerpike Steerpike

Farage sides with Lowe over Lucy Connolly

Nigel Farage has not seen eye-to-eye with his former colleague Rupert Lowe about much lately, but the outrage sparked by the imprisonment of Lucy Connolly has them both on the same page. The wife of a Conservative councillor was jailed last year over an offensive tweet about the riots of last summer – and last week, her appeal against her sentence was quashed. Now, in a London speech, the Reform UK leader has condemned Connolly’s incarceration, with the Clacton MP telling reporters: ‘I want to make it absolutely clear: Lucy Connolly should not be in prison.’ The 42-year-old mother was sentenced to 31 months imprisonment in October after posting on

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Is a mood shift on Ukraine underway in Europe?

Following years of requests, pleas and false starts, Ukraine has, it appears, definitively been given permission to fire missiles deep into Russian territory. Since the start of Moscow’s invasion in 2022, Kyiv had been banned from attacking military targets on Russian soil with western-made weapons. Now, after three years of war, it appears Ukraine’s allies have indeed decided to allow it to retaliate as it sees fit. The news of the change of tack by Ukraine’s allies came yesterday from Friedrich Merz, Germany’s new chancellor. Speaking at an event in Berlin, the Chancellor revealed that ‘there are no longer any range restrictions on weapons delivered to Ukraine. Neither by the

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

IMF: Britain will need to raise taxes if it wants to keep spending

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned Britain faces ‘difficult fiscal choices’ if it is to meet ever increasing spending pressures. The fund predicted a surge in public spending, driven largely by commitments to welfare, health, and pensions. According to the IMF, these policies will push public spending as a share of GDP up by 8 per cent by 2050. The message is clear: unless revenue is increased – i.e even more tax rises  – the UK will need to confront ‘tough policy decisions’ about the future role of the state and the scale of public services it can afford to deliver. Crucially, the IMF noted that the government’s ability to

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

The police have questions to answer after the Liverpool car incident

Could the carnage and horror that played out on the streets of Liverpool city centre yesterday have been averted? We now know that 24 people were hospitalised, four with very serious injuries, when a car drove into crowds attending Liverpool’s Premier League championship victory parade. Merseyside constabulary, undoubtedly stung by their mishandling of the Southport attack details, which contributed to a week of national rioting last year, were commendably quick off the mark. We knew very quickly that the individual believed to be the driver of the vehicle was a 53-year-old white British man from the city. While the motive remains unknown, terrorism has been firmly ruled out.  A liberal democracy

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is Rachel Reeves prepared to raise taxes?

Some of the most infamous words in politics are ‘read my lips, no new taxes’ – uttered by George H.W. Bush as he accepted the nomination as the Republican candidate for the 1988 US presidential election. It helped him win that year but contributed to his downfall in 1992 as he failed to stick to his promise. We can argue how much of Bush’s defeat by Bill Clinton had to do with the broken tax promise and how much was to do with recession, but ‘read my lips, no new taxes’ should certainly have been on Rachel Reeves’s mind in recent months. The tragedy of Starmer’s Labour is that it

Monday

James Heale James Heale

Man arrested after Liverpool parade car crash

A 53-year-old man was arrested on Monday after a car ploughed into a crowd of Liverpool supporters during their Premier League trophy parade. Thousands were out on the streets to celebrate when the car drove through the crowds and collided with pedestrians, shortly after 6 p.m. The incident occurred in the heart of Liverpool city centre, with emergency services quick to arrive on the scene. Witnesses described a scene of panic as fans left the parade area, telling local media that the driver went past a police van before mounting the kerb. At a press conference at 11 p.m on Monday night, Merseyside emergency services provided an update on the victims affected

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Macron’s wife caught shoving him in face

Oh dear. It seems there’s trouble in one couple’s Parisian paradise after French president Emmanuel Macron was caught on camera being shoved in the face by his wife Brigitte as the pair landed in Vietnam. The footage spread furiously across social media – with the Elysée Palace initially denying the images were real before eventually admitting that they were indeed authentic. Talk about a tête-a-tête, eh? The video, captured by the Associated Press news agency in Hanoi on Sunday evening, revealed the president standing at the door of the plane as it opened. Out of nowhere, his wife’s arms flew at him as Brigitte pushed her husband in the face