Eliot Wilson was a House of Commons clerk, including on the Defence Committee and Counter-Terrorism Sub-Committee. He is contributing editor at Defence On The Brink and senior fellow for national security at the Coalition for Global Prosperity
The Conservative party is returning to defence and security for another election pitch and has unveiled a series of measures to support armed forces veterans. The proposals include a Veterans’ Bill enshrining rights, cheaper railcards for former service personnel and tax allowances for those who employ them. Taken with a plan to introduce a form
Still haunted by the memory of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Keir Starmer has devoted today to reassuring the electorate that he is committed to maintaining nuclear weapons. The Labour leader is determined not to be seen as unreliable on defence and national security, so has announced that HIS government will introduce a ‘triple lock’ on the nuclear deterrent. A ‘triple
Most observers would agree that Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, is a serious person. One newspaper profile last year spoke of her ‘steely determination’. Sir Keir Starmer knew what he was doing when he appointed her to the Home Office brief, the toughest and most unforgiving in Westminster. On Wednesday, while the party leadership was mired
It used to be axiomatic of British politics that the Conservative party held a reputational advantage when it came to defence and security, and that Labour always had to make a greater effort to reassure the electorate. Opinion polls suggest that’s no longer true, but atavistic political instincts are resilient, and even now Sir Keir
It would be hard to argue that the Conservatives have had a flawless start to the 2024 general election campaign. Rishi Sunak’s rain-drenched Downing Street announcement, the removal of a Sky News journalist from a media event, the symbolism of an inexplicable prime ministerial visit to Belfast’s Titanic Quarter – almost every move so far
When Rishi Sunak stood in the rain in Downing Street to announce a general election on 4 July, he made a speech which was unusually personal. Looking back on his steep rise to power – five years ago he was not even a cabinet minister – he spoke of the challenges the country has faced and
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky’s five-year term is up, but he’s staying put. Unsurprisingly, some of Zelensky’s critics – and the Kremlin – have questioned his legitimacy. But Zelensky, who marked five years in office on 20 May, is right not to step down. The idea that, as a result, there has been some unprecedented outrage
Sometimes life comes at you fast. Barely 18 months ago, Sir Keir Starmer, beginning to scent general election victory in his future, pledged to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected chamber as part of a project to ‘restore trust in politics’. By Tuesday this week, the Labour leader in the
Even on the most optimistic reading, Rishi Sunak is drinking in the last-chance saloon. Today the Prime Minister is delivering a speech which is supposed to kick-start the general election campaign. Sunak wants to demonstrate that the Conservative party has the vision and policies to guide the country through a dangerous and uncertain future. But
David Lammy has never been much of a diplomat. The veteran Labour MP is fond of lashing out at his critics, but now, as shadow foreign secretary, he has travelled to the United States to lay the groundwork for a future Labour government’s foreign policy. He may find that some of his earlier oratorical fury
Andy Street was a political outsider when he was chosen as the Conservative party’s candidate for mayor of the new West Midlands Combined Authority in 2016. He was 53 and had enjoyed a successful career in retail, latterly as managing director of John Lewis and Partners. This weekend, after seven years as mayor, he was
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
Britain is putting its defence industry on a ‘war-footing’, the Prime Minister has said, as he vowed to boost spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030. It was only a matter of time that Rishi Sunak made such an announcement. After all, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine illustrated a simple truth: that the world
How should the English celebrate St George’s Day? England is a country with plenty to boast about, but doing so is somehow not particularly English. The result is that 23 April is usually a day that passes most of us by. It’s a pity. The centuries-old flag of St George was for too long the
‘You are quite openly Jewish, this is a pro-Palestinian march, I’m not accusing you of anything but I’m worried about the reaction to your presence.’ These were the words of a police officer to Gideon Falter last week as he walked along Aldwych after attending synagogue. The chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism was
When Nicola Sturgeon unveiled the SNP’s climate change pledge in 2019, the First Minister boasted that Scotland had the ‘most stretching targets in the world’. The problem was that they were too stretching: five years on, the flagship goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 has been binned. The decision
Three weeks after the Prime Minister visited Barrow-in-Furness to pose with models of submarines, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has made his way to BAE Systems in Cumbria to emphasise his support for the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent. He penned an accompanying manifesto for the Daily Mail, in which he said his party’s commitment
Only a few days ago, President Biden was framing remarks about Israel in tones which were astoundingly critical for an American leader. For decades it has been axiomatic that there is barely a cigarette paper between Washington and Jerusalem, but Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza has threatened to push them apart. Biden condemned
James Heappey, who will soon step down as Conservative MP for Wells after nearly a decade, may have won more column inches in the last fortnight than the rest of his career combined. In March, he resigned as minister for the armed forces, a post he had held since 2020, and now that he is
Everyone makes mistakes, but they are seldom as monumental as William Wragg’s. The Tory MP has admitted handing over the phone numbers of colleagues to a man he met on Grindr, a gay dating app. The vice-chairman of the 1922 Committee said he offered up the details after sending intimate pictures of himself. Wragg deserves
