James Heale is The Spectator’s deputy political editor.
Market choice has long been an article of faith in the Conservative party. But the Tories are less keen on competition when it comes to their own fate. Traditionally, the party’s historic market share ensured that, after some time in opposition, the pendulum eventually swung back their way. That rule no longer holds true. This
This morning, the Home Office is publishing its long-awaited white paper on legal migration. The Home Secretary has already been out on the airwaves, billing it as a ‘crackdown’ on low-skilled visas. This morning it was the turn of the Prime Minister. Keir Starmer deployed the Downing Street bully pulpit to hail the package as
On Monday night, a hundred Reform staff and donors met at a Marylebone pub to toast the local election results. A jubilant Nigel Farage addressed his troops, who ran up a five-figure bill. They had good reason to celebrate. With 30 per cent of the vote, Reform crushed Labour (20 per cent) and the Tories
A new YouGov poll published this morning makes for grim reading for Kemi Badenoch’s team. It finds that, in the wake of the local elections, Reform are now on 29 points compared to Labour on 22 and the Tories on just 17, with the Liberal Democrats on 16. That is the joint-lowest ever Conservative poll
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
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
Less than 10 per cent of council seats have declared thus far. But there already looks to be a clear early winner from these local elections: Nigel Farage. His party triumphed in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election this morning after a long night of drama. Only four votes separated Labour and Reform in the initial
At the start of February, trade union chiefs assembled in No. 10 with their agenda for government. Top of the list was the Employment Rights Bill, which makes it easier to strike, picket and join a union. It will shortly pass into law: proof, Labour MPs say, of a Prime Minister willing to ignore squeals
All politics is local – and no more so than this week. With various voters set to head to the polls across England tomorrow, the different party leaders were hoping to land their last-minute messages at today’s session of Prime Ministers’ Questions. For Kemi Badenoch, the approach seems to have been ‘if it ain’t broke,
‘Just what is Tony up to?’ That was what one Labour MP asked, quizzically, when I bumped into them in Westminster this morning. Blair has made quite the splash with his latest political intervention, writing an introduction to a pamphlet that criticises net zero. The former prime minister warns that the debate on climate change
Results are still flooding in from Canada – but Mark Carney looks to have done the impossible. The Liberal leader will return to office as Prime Minister, after his Conservative rival Pierre Poilievre formally conceded. The key question is whether Carney will win a majority of 172 seats of Canada’s 343 electoral districts in the
Who is the most powerful woman in government? For some, it is the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper. Next month, her department will publish a new White Paper, outlining its plans to curb legal migration. It is expected to make it harder for foreign students who come to the UK on graduate visas to stay here
The final week of the local election campaign begins today. Much of the weekend discourse was dominated by the fall-out from Robert Jenrick’s comments about a potential ‘coalition’ with Reform. Strikingly, Ben Houchen – the most senior Conservative left in elected office – used his appearance on Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC show to suggest that if
Machinery of government is not the sexiest of subjects – but it is a useful way of signalling a politician’s priorities. Rishi Sunak used his first reshuffle to rebrand the ‘Department for Energy Security’ and create a new ministry for science. Boris Johnson invented the Department for Levelling Up; Jeremy Corbyn proposed a ‘Minister for
It is an irony of Brexit that, since we left the EU, British politics has become more European. The local elections on Thursday will put another nail in the coffin of the two-party system that has dominated the UK for 100 years. Labour and the Conservatives now poll a combined 45 per cent of the
Robert Jenrick just cannot stay out of the headlines. Today, the shadow justice secretary is under-fire for comments made to UCL students last month in which critics claim he endorsed a potential Tory-Reform ‘coalition’. In remarks first reported by Sky News, Jenrick said that: [Reform UK] continues to do well in the polls. And my
Official league tables displaying nationalities of migrants with the highest rates of crime are set to be published for the first time in Britain. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has reportedly ordered officials to publish the detailed breakdown of offences committed by foreign criminals living in the UK while awaiting deportation. Unofficial tables have previously been
It is the eternal question for UK policymakers: America or Europe? For the past nine months, Keir Starmer has sought to follow his 17 post-war predecessors in maintaining an uneasy balancing act between the two. But the Prime Minister’s tricky task has been made even more difficult by Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
In truth, there was little that was new in Nigel Farage’s speech today. For more than a decade, he has positioned himself as commander of the ‘people’s army’, fearlessly ‘parking our tanks on Labour’s lawn.’ First, it was Ukip, then it was the Brexit party. Now, his chosen vehicle to crush the establishment is Reform.
Much of the commentary on the local elections has focused thus far on the Tories’ southern discontent. But today, Nigel Farage will turn his guns on the north of England, as he seeks to position his party as the real challenger to Labour across swathes of the so-called Red Wall. Key voters in these northern