Politics

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

Saturday

Steerpike Steerpike

Sadiq Khan’s five worst moments as London mayor

Back to London for the city’s mayoral elections – and the verdict is in. In a win for Labour, Sadiq Khan has been hailed as victor for an unprecedented third term with an increased vote share of 44 per cent, while the Conservative’s Susan Hall has been relegated to second place with a 33 per cent vote share. While Tory MP and former aspiring mayoral candidate Paul Scully criticises his party for running an ‘incredibly underwhelming’ and ‘anti-Khan’ campaign, the Labour mayor will be feeling rather smug today with a swing from the Conservatives to Labour of 3.2 per cent. Will Khan’s third win mark the beginning of a new

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Sadiq Khan wins a third term as London mayor

Sadiq Khan has won the London mayoral race with 43.8 per cent of the vote to the Tory candidate Susan Hall on 32.7 per cent. Despite widespread speculation on Friday from Tory and Labour sources that the vote was closer than the pollster anticipated, Khan won comfortably. This makes him the first London mayor to win a third term. This all, despite new rules changing the contest to a first-past-the-post system and bringing in Voter ID. Labour were increasingly confident they would win from early in the count. The ward results showed that Hall was underperforming her predecessor Shaun Bailey in many seats. In West Central (Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Khan may have won, but he should still reverse on Ulez

So what was that all about? Rumours that Susan Hall was close to toppling Sadiq Khan have proved to be wide of the mark. In the event, Hall is failing to match Shaun Bailey’s performance in 2021. There is a swing against the Conservatives in London, and Hall is failing to win in places which Bailey won three years ago. None of this should really be a surprise. There has been a strong swing against the Tories everywhere, Tees Valley included. It would be truly extraordinary if Khan failed to win. But the rumours that Hall was doing a lot better than expected have served to aid Labour with expectation

James Heale James Heale

The Lib Dems are ready for a general election

‘Consolidation’ is the word on Lib Dem lips today, as the party mulls its solid, if not spectacular, progress in Thursday’s local elections. Ed Davey’s troops gained more than 100 council seats and added two more authorities to their existing tally of ten. Sir John Curtice, the elections expert, suggests they ‘had only a modest night’. He puts the party’s ‘disappointing’ projected national share of the vote at 17 per cent– three percentage points down on 2023. This, some Lib Dems counter, is unfair. In 2023, there were more than 8,000 council seats up for grabs; this time there were just 2,600. This week’s elections tended to be in more

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is Donald Trump really going to be a dictator?

23 min listen

Freddy speaks to Norman Ornstein, political scientist and emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. They discuss the possibility of Donald Trump becoming a dictator, his ongoing court cases, and if there’s a double standard in the treatment of Trump vs Biden.

Sean Thomas

Sean Thomas, Kara Kennedy, Philip Hensher, Damian Thompson and Toby Young

35 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Sean Thomas worries that Paris has lost some of its charm (1:21); Kara Kennedy reports on US-style opioids arriving in Britain (8:43); Philip Hensher describes how an affair which ruined one woman would be the making of another (15:32); Damian Thompson reflects on his sobriety and his battle with British chemists (23:58); and, Toby Young argues a proposed law in Wales amounts to an assault on parliamentary sovereignty (29:26). Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

William Atkinson

Who can blame Boris Johnson for feeling smug?

The real victor of these local elections? Boris Johnson. According to Oscar Wilde, the only thing in life worse than being talked about, is not being talked about. It’s a sign of Boris Johnson’s skill in attracting headlines that even as the Conservatives suffer a shellacking at the local elections, his being turned away from a polling station for failing to bring ID – a new requirement under a law he introduced – is still a leading news story. Angry Tories are staying at home – and swing voters are devoting in droves In a career pockmarked by marital imbroglios, cake ambushes, and faulty zipwires, this doesn’t reach the top

Nicholas Farrell

What’s behind Giorgia Meloni’s abortion position?

Like drowning men clutching at straws, Giorgia Meloni’s opponents are trying ever more hopelessly to justify their claim that she is a far-right threat to democracy. It’s not that Meloni has stopped being far right since she became Italy’s first female prime minister 18 months ago. It is just that – despite all the apocalyptic warnings about her – she wasn’t far right to begin with. The new law is not an assault on the 1978 law that made abortion legal in Italy. Meloni as a premier has proved to be much more like a Mediterranean version of Margaret Thatcher than the heir to Benito Mussolini – which many of her opponents still call her. As a result,

Friday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Has Labour done enough?

Is Labour on course to be the largest party at the next election but miss out on a majority? Despite recent opinion polls suggesting Keir Starmer’s party is on course for a huge majority, this is the projection this evening from the respected Sky election analyst Michael Thrasher. Using the latest figures from the local elections, Sky News has projected that Labour is on course to be the largest party in parliament – but to fall short of a Commons majority by 32 seats. The findings come as BBC News puts its projected national share as Labour on 34 per cent – nine points up on the Tories, but one

Steerpike Steerpike

Reform comes fourth in Anderson’s backyard

The fighting talk continues over at Reform HQ as local election results continue to drip out. The Farage-founded party’s right-wing campaign has seen leader Richard Tice proclaim Reform UK is ‘rapidly becoming the real opposition to the Labour party in the North of England’. Tory defector Lee Anderson has even gone so far as to suggest he has a better chance of keeping his seat as a Reform MP than a Tory. But is the red wall Rottweiler all bark and no bite? The results of the East Midlands mayoral election would suggest so… Six local candidates stood for the mayoralty, with the vote taking place in Anderson’s own Ashfield

Eliot Wilson

Labour had a lucky escape in the North East

The election for the first North East of England mayor should have been a gift to the Labour party. Its candidate Kim McGuinness has duly won the role, but her tally of 41 per cent is superficially modest. This region is one of the Labour movement’s heartlands, steeped in coal-mining, shipbuilding and steel-making. It gave birth to the Jarrow March and the Durham Miners’ Gala. Ramsay MacDonald, Hugh Dalton and Manny Shinwell all represented Durham seats. The culture of the region is steeped in working-class pride and struggle. But, last year, something odd happened. For weeks there have been anxieties in the Labour leadership that Driscoll might win Labour began

James Heale James Heale

Have the Tories avoided a local election catastrophe?

10 min listen

Rishi Sunak can breathe a (small) sigh of relief. Ben Houchen, the so-called ‘patron saint of the red wall’, has won a third term as Tees Valley mayor. Houchen secured 53.6 per cent of the vote with Labour in second place with 41.3 per cent, despite some polls in advance suggesting it was neck-and-neck between the Tories and Labour. The Conservatives have undeniably had one of their worst nights for a generation, but are there some silver linings?  James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson.  Produced by Natasha Feroze and Oscar Edmondson. 

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Labour will swing left as it heads for power

Labour people are used to defeat. Before every election they wonder if the Tories will defy expectations. Real votes are not the same as opinion polls, after all, they say. And yet ever since Boris Johnson broke his own lockdown rules, disastrous performances for the Tories in opinion polls have been replicated by disastrous results in real elections. We are only beginning to grasp the consequences of an inevitable Tory defeat. Barring divine intervention by a Tory god, Labour will win the next election Not all the results of the 2024 local elections are in by any means, but come on now. At the time of writing, Labour has taken the

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Should the Tories take comfort from Houchen’s victory?

Rishi Sunak can breathe a sigh of relief. Ben Houchen, the so-called ‘patron saint of the red wall’, has won a third term as Tees Valley mayor. Houchen secured 53.6 per cent of the vote with Labour in second place with 41.3 per cent and the Liberal Democrats in third place on five per cent. Now given that Houchen won over 70 per cent of the vote the last time it was contested in 2021 – making him for a time the most popular politician in the country – this is a sizeable reduction in his vote. However, he has still won comfortably, despite some polls in advance suggesting it

Steerpike Steerpike

Could George Galloway topple Angela Rayner?

It’s not been a good night for the Tories – but Labour has not emerged unscathed either. Sir Keir Starmer’s party suffered the surprise loss of Oldham council, after a flurry of independent pro-Palestine candidates cost Labour overall control there. Amid briefings that the ‘Gaza factor’ has now handed the West Midlands mayoralty to Andy Street again, Steerpike wonders whether Starmer’s high command has failed to heed George Galloway’s warning that the next election ‘will be about Muslims’. In Oldham, a number of independents made gains by running on an overtly pro-Gaza platform, incorporating Palestinian flags into TikTok campaigns as part of their efforts to entice disaffected Labour voters. And some

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

No, the war in Gaza is not like Vietnam

America’s National Public Radio (NPR) this week likened the 2024 student protests in campuses across the USA to those of 1968. Similar comparisons have also been made in France where last week students staged sit-ins at the prestigious Sciences-Po in Paris and claimed that ‘Gaza = Vietnam’. NPR quoted a history professor at Manhattan’s Columbia University, the focal point for America’s pro-Palestine student protests. ‘It is an uncanny resemblance to what transpired in the late sixties in this country, where US students and other people in this country were inspired to speak out and mobilise against what they saw as an unjust war in Vietnam,’ said Frank Guridy. Decades later,

James Hanson

Reform is a busted flush without Nigel Farage

Any insurgent political party needs a breakthrough moment. For the SNP, it was Winnie Ewing’s victory in the 1967 Hamilton by-election. For the SDP, it was Glasgow Hillhead in 1982. For Ukip, their success in the 2004 European Parliament elections was the moment the mainstream parties sat up and took notice. For Reform UK, such a moment should have occurred in the small hours of this morning. Except it didn’t. In truth, many voters remain unaware of Reform The Blackpool South by-election was seemingly tailor-made for Richard Tice’s party. The town is classic Red Wall territory. The previous incumbent, Conservative Scott Benton, had resigned in disgrace, and you’d think Keir

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tories aren’t panicking – they expected a drubbing

Unsurprisingly, the overnight results from the local elections have been very bruising for the Conservatives. Local election results day is often quite formulaic, though, given there are always predictions of a ‘bloodbath’ for one party or the other for months ahead of polling day. This means that the losses can be priced in to the political narrative, and the spinners for the most damaged party can highlight surprising results. This morning, the Tories are putting great store by holding onto Harlow, which Keir Starmer visited twice during the campaign. They are also relieved to have only come second, rather than third, in Blackpool South, given how hard Reform campaigned in

Steerpike Steerpike

Tory MP calls for Boris to return amid election losses

Election results are coming in thick and fast – and the bad news is piling up for Rishi Sunak. Labour beat the Tories in the Blackpool by-election and Sunak’s party lost 130 seats in councils around England. Although Sunak allies like transport secretary Mark Harper insist that it’s too early to make judgement calls, the picture is undeniably bleak. Inevitably, some Tories are turning on the Prime Minister. A rather frustrated Tim Montgomerie, veteran Tory commentator and founder of ConservativeHome, told the BBC this morning the ‘results are so bad’ that Sunak ‘should go’. He then took to Twitter to vent that ‘things are getting worse rather than better under

James Heale James Heale

How big is Labour’s Gaza backlash?

From Hartlepool in the red wall to true blue Rushmoor, Labour has made gains across the country. But as Keir Stramer chalks up the wins, he also confronts some setbacks. Oldham council has fallen to no overall control due to the election of seven new independents – and the conflict in the Middle East is emerging as a theme. One in four Oldham residents is Muslim, with many protesting against Labour’s support for Israel since October. ‘In some parts of the borough, it’s the Gaza issue that may lose them the seat,’ one outgoing Labour councillor told local journalists. The Manchester Evening News is also citing it as a reason