Politics

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

Saturday

22 Oct 2022

John Oxley

Rishi Sunak and the triumph of managerialism

A few short months ago, Liz Truss dismissed Rishi Sunak’s business-as-usual managerialism on the economy. The former chancellor responded by constantly reiterating that her homage to Thatcherism, led by cuts to personal and corporation taxes, would unleash chaos rather than growth. She peddled belief while he dealt in realism. The grassroots preferred the former. Seven weeks after the result and Sunak looks vindicated. Trussonomics collided with the reality of the markets. Interest rates surged and the Bank of England was forced into a massive gilt-buying operation. The pound slumped against the dollar and (even after a few rallies) sits down slightly on when Truss came to power – and is

Niall Gooch

Boris is no conservative

The current Tory breakdown is all the more remarkable given how quickly it has happened. As recently as last September they led comfortably in the polls. Keir Starmer was widely derided as an ineffectual centrist bumbler with no charisma. At the start of this parliament, in early 2020, the Tories looked invincible, holding an 80-seat majority having won 43.6 per cent of voters. And now, at the peak moment of crisis, there is serious talk of bringing back Boris. Well-informed commentators seem to think he could still garner the support of more than 100 MPs, and perhaps even be back in Downing Street in time for Guy Fawkes Night. The

Lawrence Freedman

The US knows the main threat is China

China’s President Xi Jinping opened the CCP’s 20th party congress by doubling down on four key issues: no let up on zero-Covid; no renunciation of force when it comes to Taiwan; a promise to build up China’s military strength; and no tolerance of any opposition to his rule. As he enters his third term, the most important new challenge he has to address are the export controls announced by the US on the eve of the congress that threaten to undercut China’s ability to develop semiconductors and supercomputers. Xi remains defiant: he promised to ‘resolutely win the battle in key core technologies.’ Yet Xi must be worried that the US

Max Jeffery

Africa’s zone of anarchy is getting worse

In the most violent region in the world, the West is realising that it messed up. Protestors in Burkina Faso throw Molotovs at the French, American-trained soldiers overthrow their governments, and Malians wave Russian flags. After a two-decade American deployment in the Sahel in Africa, the Pentagon has finally admitted that the area is getting worse. A paper quietly published last month, and reported on this week, described a ‘deterioration of the security environment’, and said that violence this year had ‘expanded in intensity and geographic reach’. It predicted 2,800 ‘violent events’ in the Sahel in 2022, more than double last year’s number. Some aren’t surprised that the West has failed. Aneliese Bernard,

Norman Davies

What does Russia really want?

The question of ‘why’ Russia invaded Ukraine has been forgotten amid war’s fog. Greed and malice partially explains it. History, geopolitics and culture reveals more. A country which has more land than anyone else on Earth is not grabbing territory for territory’s sake. Logically, Russia should be giving away land to anyone who might manage it better. But that’s not how Putin thinks. He is pursuing a dogged policy of annexations – first in Georgia, then in the Crimea, and now of four further Ukrainian districts. Logically, Russia’s neighbours have more to fear than Russia has. But that’s not how Putin feels Equally, a country which owns the world’s biggest stockpile of

Friday

21 Oct 2022

Sam Ashworth-Hayes

The decomposing of the Conservative mind

The Chicxulub meteor did for the dinosaurs; Netflix saw off Blockbuster. When the time comes to write the history of the Conservative party, the period from 2016 to today might be termed the ‘Whatsappocalypse’. If the Online Safety Bill genuinely wants to make Britain a better place to live, it should start by banning MPs from using social media. Politics is not meant to be conducted over each of the day’s 24 hours, with every minor event demanding an instant response. Everyone reading this piece can think of a moment where their snap response to something – their gut instinct, or initial emotional flare-up – differed from what they actually

Kate Andrews

Could Boris Johnson’s cakeism survive the markets?

In the brief time Sajid Javid was chancellor to Boris Johnson, he spelled out to The Spectator his ‘low for long’ theory about rates: a theory which would enable the new prime minister’s ambitious spending agenda. Speaking to Fraser Nelson in December 2019, Javid was confident that the era of ultra-low interest rates and extremely favourable borrowing costs was here to stay. ‘It just felt quite ludicrous seeing that a government could borrow at negative real interest rates and not take advantage of that,’ the then-chancellor told the magazine. Convinced these circumstances would remain for ‘at least a decade’ he was willing to borrow tens of billions of pounds for

Nigel Jones

Don’t bank on a better Boris

In the past century, only four British prime ministers have returned to 10 Downing Street after being ejected from office. As Boris Johnson attempts such a second coming only weeks after being ousted by his own MPs, the historical record suggests that if he returns from the political grave the resurrection won’t produce a miracle. The first returnee from the ranks of the political undead was the Tory statesman Stanley Baldwin, a stolid and unflappable Worcestershire iron master. Indeed Baldwin got not only a second coming but a third too. Like Boris Johnson with Theresa May, Baldwin was primarily responsible for ousting a sitting Prime Minister when he denounced David

James Heale

Will Penny do better than last time?

This afternoon Penny Mordaunt became the first candidate to publicly declare themselves for the leadership of the Conservative party. Much of the talk in this contest has been about the ‘death match’ between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, both of whom are a known quantity in Westminster circles. Mordaunt’s confirmed entry into the race changes the dynamics of the contest and offers her colleagues a different choice. She is something of an outsider – having only held a senior cabinet post for less than three months in 2019 – and was never someone in the inner counsels of the Cameron, May, Johnson or Truss premierships. The threshold of 100 nominations

James Forsyth

Penny Mordaunt launches leadership bid

We have the first declared candidate of this Tory leadership contest. Penny Mordaunt has just taken to Twitter to announce she is running. Given that Mordaunt got more than 100 votes in the final parliamentary round, she has a pretty good chance of making the 100 nominations threshold. Now we wait to see if there is now a big push from her team to get more supporters to go public (you can keep tabs on those numbers here). The biggest question at the moment is over whether Boris Johnson runs or not. As a former prime minister, he has the most to lose by saying he’s running – and there

Steerpike

Liz Truss’s resignation honours list: runners and riders

And so the Liz Truss regime ends after a glorious 45 days in power. And, appropriately, in a government where humour and tragedy were so often intwined, the Daily Telegraph is now reporting that Truss intends to draw up her own resignation honours’ list after a mere six weeks in office. Below is a list of Steerpike’s own suggestions mixed up with the predictions of the paper of record. Try to separate the fact from fiction in this list… Mark Fullbrook – Truss’s gaffe-prone chief of staff who became a weekly feature in the Sunday Times. Truss was the third candidate Fullbrook backed in the summer leadership race after the

James Heale

Will Boris get the numbers he needs?

15 min listen

Whilst no candidate has officially declared their candidacy for the Tory leadership race, speculation is rife about a possible Boris Johnson return. Could he get the 100 supporters he needs? Will he extend an olive branch to Rishi Sunak? James Heale speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls. Produced by Max Jeffery and Oscar Edmondson.

Katy Balls

Chaos with Boris Johnson?

The chance of a Boris Johnson comeback has risen dramatically since Liz Truss’s resignation. Over 40 MPs have so far come out to publicly back him while today’s papers are filled with briefings about how the former prime minister would be best placed to save the party from electoral doom. Now it’s no great secret that plenty of Johnson loyalists backed Liz Truss in the last leadership election primarily to stop Rishi Sunak. There were some MPs who always said Johnson should return. Now as MPs consider recent dire polling, factoring it into their own electoral calculus to see whether they would lose their seat, more are beginning to ask whether

Ross Clark

Is Penny Mordaunt the Stop Boris candidate?

Here’s a little mystery: whatever happened to that nice, sensible foursome whom all week we were led to believe were ready to seize the reins of power from Liz Truss: Rishi Sunak, Jeremy Hunt, Penny Mordaunt and Ben Wallace? If Truss resigned, we were told, the Tory party would behave in the same grown-up fashion that it did when it elected Michael Howard as leader unopposed in 2003. Yet come Truss’s resignation the fab four was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Penny Mordaunt quickly made it plain that she didn’t want to play second fiddle to Sunak and believed that she could run in her own right. There are two

Matthew Goodwin

Boris won’t save the Tory party

In the aftermath of Trussfall, amid the victory of the lettuce, the Conservative party has today crashed to just 14 per cent in the polls. This is the party’s lowest level of support in British polling history. The previous low, 17 per cent, was recorded during the Brexit meltdown in the spring of 2019, amid Theresa May’s resignation and the Brexit party insurgency. Today’s new low comes amid the resignation of Truss, the complete failure of her project and a governing party that has gone from being one of the most successful parties in the Western world to where it is today – on life support. Here’s what I think happens

Nick Tyrone

Why the Lib Dems want Boris back

Suddenly, out of the blue, comes a saviour. The Lib Dems have failed to capitalise on the downfall of Liz Truss. As the Tories’ polling hits record lows, all of the gains are going to Labour. This weekend, Ed Davey and his colleagues will be praying for the return of Boris Johnson. Boris was gold dust for the Lib Dems. In Ed Davey’s coveted Blue Wall seats across southern England, Boris was their greatest asset near the end of his premiership. These seats are traditionally Tory but lean Remain and socially liberal. They are also filled with the type of voters who would respond most warmly to Rishi Sunak’s ‘sensible’

Joanna Williams

Liz Truss was a conviction politician

As an erstwhile Brexit-voting academic, I’m used to being at odds with those around me. But in feeling troubled at the news of Liz Truss’s resignation yesterday, it seems I’m now in a minority of one. Truss had to go, of course. Her failings have been so well documented they hardly need repeating. Her lack of political acumen was perhaps most shocking: Truss utterly failed to read the mood of the Conservative party, the nation and the financial markets on every single one of her 44 days in office. But still, I have a pang of regret that she is on her way out. Truss’s stilted performances failed to inspire

Steerpike

Labour MP quits over misconduct claims

Life is pretty good right now for Sir Keir Starmer: his authority is unchallenged, his shadow cabinet is serene and his party is leading by 35 points in the polls. But this morning has seen a (temporary) disruption to all that, following the news that one of his lesser-known backbenches will be quitting parliament after the sleaze watchdog said he should be suspended for ‘serious sexual misconduct.’ The independent panel on MPs’ conduct recommended Christian Matheson be suspended for four weeks following a report into his behaviour. Two allegations of sexual misconduct were upheld by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards against Matheson by a former member of his staff. The

Fraser Nelson

Penny reign: how Mordaunt could be kingmaker

Tory MPs will likely have three candidates to vote for in Monday’s leadership race: Boris Johnson, Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak. If Johnson runs, gets to the final two and it goes to the Tory membership, then he’s probably be back in No. 10 within days. Polls of Tory members put Boris ahead by a three-to-two margin in a multi-candidate scenario. To stop Johnson getting in the final two, Tory MPs would need to cast their votes tactically to engineer a Sunak-Mordaunt playoff amongst members, in which Sunak would likely win. Why would she be Sunak’s lobby fodder? But all this assumes Penny Mordaunt plays ball. Why would she be Sunak’s

James Kirkup

‘Bring Back Boris’ means the Conservatives are unleadable

Boris Johnson was finally thrown out of Downing Street because of his handling of sexual misconduct allegations by a political ally. Dozens of ministers quit his government over his lack of integrity. He remains subject to an investigation that could see him suspended from parliament for dishonesty. Dozens of Conservative MPs believe he is the best person to lead their party and Britain. The Bring Back Boris movement confirms that the Conservative party is now unleadable. Whoever ends up as prime minister next week will be unable to command a reliable majority of the party’s MPs. This puts a major question mark over any Conservative government’s ability to deliver the