All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
To Scotland, where the Scottish Conservatives are facing problems of their own. North of the border, a leadership contest is looming after outgoing leader Douglas Ross announced his resignation mid-campaign. Since then there have been animated discussions about who his successor will be. And while contenders for the UK party are already making their mark,
Keir Starmer is at Blenheim Palace today for the gathering of the European Political Community, the forum created by Emmanuel Macron in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While the new Prime Minister met with many world leaders last week in Washington for the Nato summit, this is his first time he has
‘We cannot let the challenges of the recent past define our relationships of the future,’ declared the Prime Minister ahead of today’s meeting of the European Political Union at Blenheim Palace. The meeting, he added, ‘will fire the starting gun on this government’s new approach to Europe’. The subtext to this is: the grown-ups are back
David Lammy is in the firing line over comments he made in the past about Donald Trump. The Foreign Secretary was quizzed this morning on BBC Breakfast about his past attacks on the presidential candidate – particularly when Lammy called Trump a ‘neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath’. What a charmer… Instead of showing contrition, the Foreign Secretary
British workers have just experienced their highest pay rises for two years. With inflation remaining at the Bank of England’s target, the average worker has now seen their real term pay increase between March and May this year by just over 2 per cent – a level not seen since 2022. However, in cash terms
Talk about timing. Joe Biden has caught covid, the White House has announced. The president, who was touring Las Vegas, ‘is experiencing mild symptoms,’ press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. ‘(Biden) will be returning to Delaware where he will self-isolate and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that
The blows keep coming. California congressman Adam Schiff, who was an impeachment manager during Donald Trump’s first Senate trial in 2020, is now targeting another president for destruction. Schiff has called upon Joe Biden to exit the presidential race, the twenty-third legislator to do so and definitely the most significant of the lot. Schiff, who
Marine Le Pen appeared on television on Wednesday morning in her first major interview since last Sunday’s election. The leader of the National Rally cast a critical eye over the chaos of the last week and described the cross-party squabbling as ‘parliamentary cretinism’. Even some within the New Popular Front, which won the most seats
When Rishi Sunak was prime minister, he often appeared merely to be commentating on events, rather than in charge of them. Perhaps that is why he looks so comfortable as leader of the opposition now. He has been giving very good speeches since losing the election, and both he and his party look rather relieved
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Labour has set out its ambitious missions in the King’s Speech to open a new parliament today. On the podcast, Oscar Edmondson speaks to Katy Balls and former Labour advisor John McTernan about what was expected – and what was missing – from the legislative agenda. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Cindy Yu.
Keir Starmer has tried to stave off a revolt on the two-child benefit cap by announcing a child poverty taskforce. The Prime Minister told the Commons that the taskforce would ‘devise a strategy to drive the numbers down’, and that it would not just focus on one policy area. He was responding to an intervention
Today’s King’s Speech was filled to the brim with bills – the most jam-packed since 2005. While Sir Keir can’t be accused of submitting a lightweight list of announcements, some of his political opponents have been quick to criticise. One of these is former prime minister Liz Truss, who is particularly displeased about how much
King Charles has now finished taking part in the state opening of parliament for the first time as monarch. The purpose of today’s King’s Speech was to set out the government’s legislative agenda for the upcoming parliamentary session, the first since the general election. Sir Keir Starmer has put forward a big government programme that
When Rishi Sunak called a summer election, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill didn’t make the pile of ‘wash up’ legislation to be rushed through Parliament. His plans for a generational smoking ban, and a crackdown on vapes, were paused. But this was never going to be more than a brief delay. Labour has used the
JD Vance, at 39, would be the first millennial vice president. But not only is he a new generation, he might also be the first American vice president to take his intellectual armoury from the extremely online world of the New Right. Vance says he is ‘plugged into a lot of weird, right-wing subcultures’. He
It might seem like smart politics. And it will reassure the markets. The legislation in the King’s Speech today to ensure all Budgets are assessed by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) no doubt seems like a good idea right now. And yet, there is a catch. The incoming Labour government has now completed the
Foreign policy will have been low on Donald Trump’s list of considerations when deciding to anoint JD Vance as his running mate. The Ohio senator, a former detractor turned loyalist of the Republican nominee, is now close with Team Trump, and Team Trump rewards loyalty above all else. Vance is also a populist and speaks
Labour’s plans for Lords reform, announced during the King’s Speech this morning, do not come as a great surprise. It promised measures to ‘modernise the constitution’ and ‘remove the right of hereditary peers’ to sit and vote in the Lords via a House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill. These plans were heralded in the Labour
The protesters were out, as usual, but nobody was paying them a lot of attention. For all the angry bellowing and sign-waving of ‘Not my King!’ and ‘Down with the Crown’, most observers were not focusing on a small, disaffected rabble outside parliament, but instead on the constitutional and historical significance of the occasion. The
Good heavens. Now it seems that Green co-leader Adrian Ramsay has forgotten his own party’s raison d’être. Today the MP for Waveney Valley has confirmed he will oppose new electricity pylons in his East Anglian constituency – pylons that would be used to transport, er, green energy from offshore wind farms to the grid. How
The big theme of today’s King’s Speech is ‘mission-led’ government, with economic growth, house building, workers’ rights and devolution the key elements. King Charles told the House of Lords that ‘taken together these policies will enhance Britain’s position as a leading industrial nation and enable the country to take advantage of new opportunities that can
France’s Gabriel Attal has resigned as prime minister. President Emmanuel Macron even made a ceremony out of it. And yet, here we are: still with Attal as prime minister in a caretaker role. They say this is likely to continue until September, or perhaps even longer. No government proposal has emerged since the elections. The
Who will lead the Conservative party in opposition? By Tory party conference, we should have the answer. After much debate about the rules and timing of the contest to succeed Rishi Sunak, a timetable is expected to be announced later this week when the party board meets. There are two options being discussed at present:
While this new government’s approach to many issues – the NHS, prisons, China policy – seems to start with a ‘review’, a re-examination of defence policy seems reasonable. New Labour launched a Strategic Defence Review shortly after taking office in 1997. The coalition did a defence review in 2010, and David Cameron’s Conservative government undertook
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has promised the ‘most ambitious programme of devolution this country has ever seen’, with new powers for local councils and more directly-elected mayors. But this will not apply, it seems, when it comes to planning. On the contrary, the centrepiece of the King’s speech today will be planning reforms aimed
The UK’s inflation rate is comfortably back to target: inflation held at 2 per cent in the 12 months leading up to June, the Office for National Statistics confirmed this morning. This rate is unchanged from last month. Yet this morning’s news is stirring up doubts that the Bank of England will go for its
The botched assassination attempt on Donald Trump could well generate a wave of sympathy that helps waft him into the White House in November. Another indirect result of those same events may contribute further to this effect. Until the Republican National Convention opened in Milwaukee this week, the GOP had a potentially awkward problem over
Labour’s first King’s Speech in almost 15 years is expected to be quite meaty. According to reports, His Majesty’s new government will propose 35 parliamentary bills for the coming year. Labour is proposing dozens of red tape measures that will put the breaks on businesses To be entirely realistic, many of these will fall by
Since its launch in Scotland in 2014, the National newspaper has made a name for itself for several reasons, none of them particularly good. It is not merely partisan in the way many British newspapers are, strongly supportive of one party and editorialising thunderously from the front page through to the opinion pages. At the
What is it with Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Brits? First, she advised the-then Foreign Secretary David Cameron to ‘kiss my ass.’ Then, she told ex-BBC star Emily Maitlis to ‘go f**k off’. And now she has pinned the blame for the Trump assassination attempt on, er, British broadcasters at Times Radio. Clearly the spirit
The great and the not-so-good of the international conservative movement have descended on Wisconsin this week. Liz Truss and Nigel Farage are among the Brits jetting in to toast President Trump’s formal nomination at the Republican National Convention. But what of the man they once called ‘Britain’s Trump?’ Boris Johnson yesterday made a rather low-key
Another day, another small piece of good economic news. Today the International Monetary Fund has produced its World Outlook report for July, which revises UK growth for 2024 upwards, from 0.5 per cent to 0.7 per cent. This news follows on from last week’s monthly GDP update, which showed growth in May at 0.4 per
I’m meant to maintain some air of objectivity at Trump’s selection of JD Vance for vice president, but I can’t be bothered. It’s just excellent. By appointing him, Trump guarantees that the Republican party will never go back to being neo-con warmongers run by Wall Street. To channel Kamala Harris, I believe Vance shows us