Politics

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

Tuesday

6 Sep 2022

The issue that will win or lose the election for Liz Truss

Nobody knows what they think about Liz Truss. Not literally nobody – those of us with a wholly unusual level of interest in politics of course have our pet theories – but nobody in the sense of the broad sweep of the general public. As Tony Blair noted in his memoirs: ‘For most normal people, politics is a distant, occasionally irritating fog.’ That is, in fact, a pretty good description of the last month of a Conservative leadership race that tested the appetite for politics of even the nerdiest among us. Not since John Major’s rapid rise-without-trace to succeed Margaret Thatcher has a new arrival in 10 Downing Street been

Alexander Larman

The Harry ‘n’ Meghan circus shows no sign of coming to an end

It seemed fitting that, for her return to Britain, Meghan Markle was joined at the One Young World summit in Manchester by none other than Sir Bob Geldof. The presence – on a Monday, no less – of the Boomtown Rats hitmaker-turned-all-purpose humanitarian was designed to show the worthy company that the Duchess of Sussex keeps these days. But it also ran the risk of suggesting that she, too, is in danger of repeating her single greatest hit all too often. Does Meghan still have a loyal audience, or is her schtick in danger of wearing thin? She decided to be emollient. Although recent press interviews with her have trotted

Freddy Gray

Get ready for Liz mania

Here she is, then. Liz Truss is Britain’s third woman Prime Minister and she’s already suffering from the not-so-soft bigotry of low expectations. Almost everyone is looking at this woman the Tory membership has chosen to lead us all and feeling glum. She is someone widely seen in political and media circles as a lightweight and an embarrassment. The overly drawn-out and stale leadership battle between her and Rishi Sunak hasn’t helped either. Can Liz Truss ever hope to win a general election? But most new leaders enjoy a popularity bounce upon entering high office. Remember May mania? She experienced a five per cent surge in the polls in her

Monday

5 Sep 2022

Isabel Hardman

Revealed: Labour’s tactics to deal with Truss

Keir Starmer tonight told the weekly parliamentary Labour party meeting that ‘we will never underestimate Liz Truss’. The Labour leader added that ‘she is a talented politician who has got to the top through hard work and determination’ and that ‘she will do whatever it takes to keep them in power’. He warned that ‘the polls might tighten and her plans might create some buzz’. It was a reminder to the party, which often struggles to accept female Tory leaders, not to fall into the trap of mocking Truss or feasting too much on the Tory civil war. How will Labour approach the new PM? Starmer will be asking her

Isabel Hardman

Priti Patel resigns. Will she cause trouble for Liz Truss?

Priti Patel has announced she is standing down as Home Secretary and returning to the backbenches ahead of an expected reshuffle tomorrow. Patel had made her pitch during the leadership campaign to stay in government, saying ‘my record in that time speaks volumes’. But it had become very clear in briefings about Liz Truss’s planned reshuffle that the new Prime Minister didn’t agree, with Suella Braverman expected to take over at the Home Office. Patel is leaving on her own terms. In her resignation letter to Boris Johnson, she writes: It has been the honour of my life to serve our country as Home Secretary for the last three years

Cindy Yu

Will Truss declare a genocide in Xinjiang?

24 min listen

After a long summer of hustings, Liz Truss has finally been confirmed today as the next leader of the Conservative party. As she gets the keys to Downing Street, she’ll finally be able to carry out her vision of Sino-British relations. But what is that vision? On the latest Chinese Whispers, I speak to Sam Hogg, editor of the must-read Beijing to Britain newsletter, about what we know about Truss’s views on China so far. Will she declare a genocide in Xinjiang? What is an acceptable level of trade with Beijing? The difficulty for Truss is that she has never had to balance her opinions on China with the wider

James Forsyth

The problems of mid-term PMs

Any Prime Minister who takes over mid-term has to contend with a certain set of problems. Liz Truss will wish she had been propelled through the front door of No. 10 by the momentum of a general election victory. The first difficulty is that you have no personal mandate. This doesn’t just affect your relationship with the electorate, but your own MPs too. Boris Johnson benefitted from a sense that he was a winner, which made MPs more prepared to trust his judgment. Liz Truss will have to go that much further to persuade MPs of her political calculations. It also means MPs will be more jumpy if the polls are bad.

Steerpike

The New York Times blunders on Britain (again)

Quick, nurse! Those boss-eyed Brit-bashers at the New York Times are at it again! The antics of America’s least reliable news source continue to amuse and irritate in equal measure, with the NYT concocting an image of Britain for its readers that seems strikingly at odds with reality. In the fevered imaginations of the average NYT reader, the UK is a quasi-dictatorial kingdom, where locals huddle round bin fires on the streets of London, gnawing on legs of mutton and cavorting in swamps. That is thanks to a series of bizarre editorial choices by the NYT, including the continued employment of former Russia Today star Tom Walker, better known as fictitious news reporter

Isabel Hardman

Can Liz Truss deliver, deliver, deliver?

What does deliver, deliver, deliver mean? Liz Truss had it as her payoff on accepting the leadership of the Conservative party this afternoon, so clearly it means something to her. She told the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre: My friends, we need to show that we will deliver over the next two years. I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy. I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills, but also dealing with the long term issues we have on energy supply. And I will deliver on the National Health Service. But we will all deliver for our country, and I will

Stephen Daisley

The case against a snap election

Unless Her Majesty throws us all a curveball, Liz Truss will be the next prime minister. So let’s knock something on the head here and now: she is under no obligation to call an election before January 2025. The replacement of one prime minister with another in the middle of a parliamentary term is not a democratic deficiency. It is parliamentary democracy in action. The prime minister and their cabinet colleagues are the Queen’s ministers and when one ministry replaces another, power does not transfer directly but through the sovereign. It is the Queen who issues an invitation to form a government in her name and she does so on

Ross Clark

Are the markets scared of Liz Truss?

Look at the chart for interest rate expectations in isolation, and you might come to the conclusion that Rishi Sunak is right about Liz Truss’s fiscal policies. In June, markets were expecting rates to peak at around 3.5 per cent next year; now they are expecting them to reach close to 4.5 per cent. Moreover, as Truss’s victory came to be seen as inevitable, the FTSE 100 plunged from 7,550 on 19 August to 7,230 this morning – a fall of 4.2 per cent. The pound has fallen from $1.22 on 10 August to $1.15 now. Markets could be forgiven some apprehension But hang on a minute. Markets have been

Katy Balls

Liz Truss wins. What next?

17 min listen

Liz Truss has won the Conservative leadership race, and will become Britain’s prime minister tomorrow. In a speech in Westminster this morning, after finding out the result, Truss paid tribute to Boris Johnson, promised to ‘govern as a conservative’ and said she would ‘deliver, deliver, deliver’. What should we expect from the first days of the Truss premiership? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth. Produced by Max Jeffery.

Katy Balls

This week will define Liz Truss’s premiership

This lunchtime Liz Truss has been announced as the new leader of the Conservative party. After a contest that spanned the summer, the chair of the 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady announced the result, with Truss winning 81,326 votes to Rishi Sunak’s 60,339. Some 654 votes were rejected, suggesting spoiled ballots. This means Truss won with 57 per cent of the vote – a narrower margin of victory than her predecessor Boris Johnson who beat Jeremy Hunt with 66 per cent of the vote in 2019. This means her lead over Sunak was smaller than several of the membership polls suggested – and the contest was tighter than expected. Unlike Theresa

Brendan O’Neill

Joe Lycett isn’t funny – or brave

Can we all take a moment to marvel at the courage of Joe Lycett? Imagine the cojones it must take to go on the BBC and make fun of the Tories. How truly stunning and brave. Roll over Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks – there’s a new comedy insurgent in town. I’m being sarcastic, clearly. And sarcasm, as we know, is the lowest form of wit. Apart, perhaps, from going on the BBC to make fun of the Tories. I honestly cannot think of anything more pedestrian and less amusing than that. Witness the way Lycett kept looking over at Emily Thornberry, the doyenne of bourgeois London leftism Lycett is

Kate Andrews

Ten graphs that Liz Truss can’t ignore

The new Prime Minister’s honeymoon starts and ends today. Once Liz Truss formally enters Downing Street tomorrow she will be under pressure to tackle the enormous economic crises facing the country, with very little time to announce her policy plans. Truss herself has pledged to reveal her plan for rising energy bills within the first week of her premiership, and her plans to slash tax within the first month. While at the forefront of political discussion, these are but a few of the emergencies that the government must grapple with in the weeks and months ahead. Below are ten graphs that the Truss administration can’t ignore if she and her government

James Forsyth

Liz Truss wins. What next?

Liz Truss’s victory in the Tory leadership race was based on her ability to portray herself as the candidate for both continuity and change. She stressed her loyalty to Boris Johnson; and emphasised that her administration would continue his policies in various key areas. Yet she also depicted herself as a change candidate on the economy, promising to reverse the National Insurance increase and cancel the corporation tax increase. Truss will need much more of the political adroitness that she demonstrated in this contest if she is to handle the problems of the coming months. The fact her team is now openly considering a freeze in energy prices for at least some

Tom Goodenough

Liz Truss triumphs in Tory leadership race

Liz Truss has won the race to become Tory leader and Britain’s new Prime Minister. Truss, who was the runaway favourite to win, defeated her rival Rishi Sunak by 81,326 votes to 60,399 – a margin of 57 per cent to 43 per cent. She will take over from Boris Johnson tomorrow, after flying to Balmoral to see the Queen. Her new cabinet is expected to be in place by tomorrow night, with Kwasi Kwarteng the firm favourite to be appointed chancellor. Truss is likely to appoint James Cleverly as foreign secretary and Suella Braverman, the current attorney-general and former leadership contender, as home secretary. During her acceptance speech, Truss paid tribute to Rishi Sunak

Nick Cohen

Liz Truss doesn’t frighten Labour

Labour will attack the new prime minister from the left and the right. From Liz Truss’ exposed left flank, Labour and the majority of the electorate will hammer her for not extending the windfall tax to cover the estimated £170 billion in profits Vladimir Putin has gifted gas and electricity generators. Do not imagine for a moment that it won’t be effective. The attack from the right is less obvious but gets to the heart of the risk Liz Truss is running with the UK economy. ‘We need to paint her as fiscally irresponsible,’ one adviser to Labour’s Treasury team told me. ‘That’s as important as showing she has the wrong

Frank Young

As children go back to school it’s parents who need lessons

Britain’s children go back to school this week. But after months of chatter about grade inflation and the harmful effects of lockdown on learning, is it parenting, rather than schooling, that actually needs attention? New polling reveals that one in ten younger parents think it’s down to someone else to teach their pre-school children to speak. Dig a little deeper and this number doubles to almost a fifth for the very poorest parents. Getting the basics right is seen as someone else’s job. Too many children fall behind before they have even started school. Many never catch up. By the time they leave school, children from the poorest backgrounds are

Isabel Hardman

Will Liz Truss kill levelling up?

Levelling up is probably not even in the top tier of Liz Truss’s intray for this week, given the pressure to do something big on energy bills, and then to address the multiple other crises including the NHS, the Northern Ireland Protocol and Ukraine. But what she does with her predecessor’s flagship policy is a matter of great anxiety for MPs and activists in Red Wall seats. I spent some time over the weekend with Conservative councillors, MPs and Tory members in Greater Manchester. Unsurprisingly, most of them had supported Truss as be party leader. But most of them were also anxious about the future of levelling up, or whatever