Politics

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

Saturday

3 May 2025

Do Green voters know what they’ve done?

The Green party has done well at the local elections, making dozens of gains across England. But do those who voted Green, perhaps for the first time, realise what they have done? If not, they will spend the next four years regretting their vote. Perhaps the party’s name led them to naively conclude that the Greens are an organisation focused solely on caring for the environment. They thought their vote was about protecting England’s green and pleasant land. But they have been deceived. This so-called ‘nice’ party can be rather nasty The truth is that the Greens sometimes appear more eager to talk about a trans person’s ‘right’ to use

Terry Barnes

Will Australia’s angry voters punish Labor at the polls?

Australia goes to the polls today, pitting the first-term Labor government of prime minister Anthony Albanese against the Liberal-National party coalition headed by Liberal leader Peter Dutton. As the election campaign for the federal election entered its final week, the agenda-setting Newspoll in the Australian newspaper asked voters whether Albanese’s government deserves re-election. Damningly, less than two-fifths said yes; well over half said it deserves throwing out. It’s no wonder voters feel angry about Labor Yet Newspoll, and all other opinion polls, have Labor on track to win today, either in a narrow majority in the 150-seat House of Representatives, or in minority supported by a left-leaning crossbench. It’s no

Martin Narey

What the Auschwitz memorial gets wrong

In 1982, to the shock of almost everyone who knew me, I began a two-year training programme designed to turn me into a competent prison governor. It was a largely unmemorable experience but with a singular exception. I read an article about the commandants of the Nazi death camps called ‘A curious absence of monsters.’ It was and remains the most troubling thing about the Holocaust I’ve read, and it encouraged me to read a great deal more about the individuals who industrialised barbarism. Auschwitz as it is currently presented fails in one important respect In all the 23 years I worked in and around prisons in England and Wales,

Charlotte Henry

Ed Davey’s quiet victory

There’s no doubt that Friday’s local election results belonged to Reform. Nigel Farage’s party has picked up hordes of councils, councillors and mayoralties at the expense of the two major parties. However, it won’t only be Farage and co. who are heading into the bank holiday on a high. The Lib Dems have made meaningful gains, and these should worry the Tories as much as anything Reform have done. They hint at an almost total collapse of the moderate, “one-nation” voter base that used to be so crucial Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, whose elections day stunt was to hand out ice creams in Shrewsbury (his party is hoping

Friday

2 May 2025

Steerpike

Watch: Prince Harry says he wants to ‘reconcile’ with the King

Prince Harry has said he ‘would love a reconciliation’ with the Royals after losing a legal challenge over his security in Britain. The Duke of Sussex told the BBC that King Charles ‘won’t speak to me because of this security stuff’, but insisted he would love to get back on speaking terms with his family: ‘It would be nice to reconcile,’ he said. ‘There’s no point continuing to fight any more, life is precious,’ said Prince Harry ‘There’s no point continuing to fight any more, life is precious,’ said Prince Harry. Asked whether his wife Meghan and children would come to Britain, Harry said: ‘I can’t see a world in

Isabel Hardman

Local elections: who had it worse?

In normal political times, local election and by-election results would show a bad night for the government and a good night for the official opposition. Not so with this set of results in English councils and the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, where both Labour and the Conservatives have been given bloody noses and Nigel Farage is celebrating the best set of results for Reform in both its history and that of its predecessor party, Ukip. There are a number of councils yet to declare, but what we know so far is that Reform beat Labour in Runcorn by just six votes (confirmed by a recount) and has picked up more

James Heale

Local elections live: is Reform unstoppable?

15 min listen

The word ‘unprecedented’ is often overused in politics, but these local elections have proved to be just that. The headline is: sweeping success for Reform. Nigel Farage’s ‘teal tsunami’ comes at the expense of the main parties – turning the two-party consensus on its head. The recriminations for Labour and the Tories have already begun. On the left, a number of MPs have broken cover and urged the government to shift its position on high-salience issues such as winter fuel. On the right, Kemi Badenoch’s leadership is looking increasingly shaky, with Tory MPs and staff warning that a step change is needed. Where do the main parties go from here?

Henry Hill

Is there any hope for the Tories?

It was widely expected that Reform were going to do well in yesterday’s elections – but perhaps not this well. So far, its performance has been at the very top of pollsters’ expectations, a fact made all the more remarkable by the fact that several of its most promising races have been postponed to next year. If you think the major parties are panicking now, imagine how much worse it would be if Nigel Farage’s party had also just swept to victory in the Welsh Senedd, or posted a stupendous result in the Greater Lincolnshire mayoral race. Even allowing for that, these results are extraordinary. When I spoke to pollsters yesterday, they

Steerpike

Suspended Labour candidate wins in Lancashire

Some real characters being elected today. Remember Azhar Ali? He was dropped as Labour’s candidate in the Rochdale by-election last year after he was recorded claiming that Israel ‘allowed’ the 7 October massacre, and making dark insinuations about ‘Jewish quarters’ of the media… Well, Mr Ali (these days an independent) has just been re-elected by the clement people of Lancashire in the ward of Nelson East. He was voted in, too, with a very healthy majority of 874. Result! And then there’s Maheen Kamran. She’s an 18-year-old aspiring medical student who has just been elected by the good men and women of Burnley Central East with a majority of 268

Jawad Iqbal

When will Labour and the Tories wake up?

What will it take for Labour and the Tories to realise how bad their situation is? Reform’s by-election victory in Runcorn and Helsby is symbolic of a much wider success, with support for Westminster’s two traditional parties falling through the floor. Britain’s traditional two-party electoral system has morphed into a multi-party system because voters are angry and disillusioned with what is on offer from the establishment. Yet even now, neither Labour nor the Tories appear to have the political wits to grasp the scale of the challenge posed to their duopoly. Take Keir Starmer. He reacted to the setback in the polls with the observation that the results were ‘disappointing’.

Alexander Larman

Is this Prince Harry’s most humiliating court defeat yet?

Well, what did Prince Harry expect? The Duke of Sussex has been involved in plenty of hubristic and pointless things since he decided to step down as a member of the royal family in 2020. But taking the government to court on the grounds that they were refusing to provide security to the levels that he and his family would expect, was perhaps his most pig-headed and idiotic publicity blunder. Harry has made his living over the past few years as a professional martyr Today’s verdict by Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice in Great Britain, that Harry is not entitled to appeal against

James Heale

The Tories are doing worse than feared

These local elections – last fought at the height of the vaccine bounce of 2021 – were always going to be tough for the Conservatives. But the evidence thus far suggests the party has done worse than most initially feared. At 1:30 p.m, Tory losses were running at 44 per cent of total contests, according to YouGov’s Dylan Difford. That’s worse than the equivalent 38 per cent figure for the Tories in 1971, the most dire set of local election results for a party on record. For Kemi Badenoch, who became leader six months ago today, it could spell trouble. There are precious few rays of light for the Tories

Nigel Jones

Labelling the AfD ‘extremists’ will backfire

By officially classing the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party as ‘right-wing extremists’, the German establishment may have scored an own goal – or even shot itself in the foot. The domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), announced its decision today after keeping the insurgent party under close observation – including by state spies – for years. But the AfD is no tiny sect of secretive neo-Nazis. It is a legal and open party, founded in 2013, that no fewer than 20.8 per cent of Germans voted for in this year’s general election. Now that the centre-right CDU/CSU and the centre-left SPD are forming a

Steerpike

Darren Grimes wins Durham council seat for Reform

To Durham, the mining heartland of the UK and a traditional working class county. Yet despite its rich history with the reds, being the first of England’s county councils to be controlled by Labour – with the party retaining that control for over a century – Nigel Farage’s Reform party is making gains. Now it transpires that ex-GB News presenter Darren Grimes has won a council seat in Durham – receiving a staggering 49.7 per cent of the vote. Talk about a decisive victory! Grimes won the Annfield Plain ward in County Durham this afternoon as Farage’s party continues to pick up council seats across the country. Reform’s campaign claimed

Lisa Haseldine

The AfD’s ‘extremist’ label is a long time coming

The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party has been classified as ‘confirmed right-wing extremist’ by Germany’s domestic intelligence service. Until now, the party – which came second in federal elections in February – had been considered ‘suspected right-wing extremist’. After this upgrade, in the eyes of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (known by its German acronym BfV), the AfD and the values it holds stand in violation of Germany’s constitution. The BfV had been investigating the party for many months, finally submitting a lengthy report to the Ministry of the Interior this week. They had reportedly wanted to submit their findings to the government at the

Steerpike

Watch: Starmer admits Runcorn loss ‘disappointing’

It’s been an eventful day – and there are still many more local election results to go. After a long night in Runcorn, and a full recount, Nigel Farage’s Reform party clinched the win in what had been a Labour safe seat by just six votes – securing a fifth parliamentarian and their first female MP. While the Reform lot could hardly contain their glee, the Labour team struggled to disguise their dejection. Now Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made his first statement on the result, admitting to reporters that ‘the results are disappointing’ for the reds. Talk about an understatement… Going on the PM insisted: I could stand here

Matthew Lynn

Will falling interest rates save Rachel Reeves?

There is not much that Chancellor Rachel Reeves can look forward to right now. The Labour party has just been hammered in the local elections. The economy has stagnated, and government borrowing has started to spiral out of control. There is, however, this: the City now expects interest rates to start falling at the fastest pace since the financial crisis a decade and a half ago. There is just one catch: it probably won’t be enough to save Reeves’s failing chancellorship. The Bank of England is widely expected to cut interest rates from 4.5 per cent to 4.25 per cent next week. Even better, the consensus among City forecasters is

James Kirkup

Nigel Farage’s left-wing turn looks like a triumph

Nigel Farage declared earlier this year that ‘economics might be bigger than immigration for us at the next election’. Most people at Westminster didn’t take him particularly seriously. After all, Reform UK is all about immigration, right? Westminster didn’t take Farage seriously. After all, Reform UK is all about immigration, right? When Farage based his local election campaign on an overt pitch to working-class Labour voters by talking about trade unions and reindustrialisation, some parts of the political village were still dismissive. How could a Thatcherite public schoolboy and former City trader ever sell left-wing economics to the electorate? The results of those elections, and the by-election in Runcorn, mean that Reform’s economic

James Heale

The Labour left turns on Starmer

After defeat, comes the recriminations. The bulk of council seats are still yet to declare but already the blame game within Labour has started after the loss of their Runcorn safe seat. A handful of MPs on the left of the party have started publicly demanding a change of direction by the government. Richard Burgon says ministers ‘must urgently change course’ by ditching disability benefit cuts and introducing a wealth tax. Diane Abbott remarks it has been a ‘disastrous night’ for Keir Starmer; Kim Johnson claims that only ‘bold hopeful policies’ can defeat ‘the far right.’ It is a sentiment echoed by Brian Leishman who reflects that ‘the first ten

John O’Neill and Michael Simmons

Who won the local elections? The election results in maps and charts

There’s been a teal tsunami. Of the 23 councils up for election, Reform took 10 while the Tories lost 15. Reform also gained an MP in Runcorn and two mayoralties, in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Yorkshire. Reform won the Runcorn by-election by just six votes after a recount requested by Labour. It’s the first by-election of this parliament and came about after Mike Amesbury received a suspended prison sentence for punching a man outside a pub. Reform’s candidate, Sarah Pochin, is the new MP – she won 12,645 votes compared with Labour’s 12,639. Here’s the national picture for councils: One Labour campaigner says what she heard on the doorstep