Katy Balls is The Spectator’s political editor.
On Wednesday night, Rishi Sunak urged his party to ‘dig deep and fight’ in the face of difficult polling. The Prime Minister will be hoping this morning that the message landed as another damaging poll has been released. The latest from YouGov/Times puts the Labour lead at 25 points. But the part that will worry
There’s an old Russian joke about the difference between an optimist and a pessimist in Moscow. The pessimist believes that things cannot get any worse. The optimist replies: ‘Of course they could!’ These days the same joke could be made about the Tory party. As it slumps to its worst polling result since the dying
After a bruising few weeks for Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister this evening appeared before the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers to make his case. As MPs prepare to go into the Easter recess, Sunak tried to encourage his party to unite rather than descend further into plotting. He told MPs: This battle will define
The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is to step down as Ireland’s prime minister and as the leader of his party, Fine Gael. In an announcement this lunchtime in Dublin, Varadkar said he would quit as party leader with immediate effect, but stay in the role of Taoiseach until his successor is appointed. Explaining his decision, Varadkar
Rishi Sunak goes into the week hoping it will be better than the one that came before. Last week, the Prime Minister suffered one of his worst weeks since entering 10 Downing Street with Lee Anderson defecting to Reform, a racism row over a donor, and MPs on the right discussing whether they ought to
Could Penny Mordaunt lead the Tories into the election? This is the talk this weekend after several papers splashed on a push by Conservative MPs on the right of the party to oust Sunak and replace him with his former leadership rival. The Daily Mail reports that these MPs met with supporters of Mordaunt this
Rishi Sunak has finally confirmed what most MPs already knew: there won’t be a May general election. Speaking to ITV News West Country on Thursday night, the Prime Minister was asked if there would be a general election at the same time as the local elections on 2 May. He replied: ‘There won’t be a
Michael Gove’s extremism crackdown has been the talk of the Tory party for weeks now, with three former Conservative home secretaries warning ahead of today’s official announcement not to use the issue to score political points. Gove, the Levelling Up secretary, has drawn up a new definition of non-violent extremism which, he told the Commons
On Monday night Tories gathered on the Terrace Pavilion at parliament for the 1922 Committee’s spring reception, to which every backbencher was invited. The crowd was small, largely made up of Rishi Sunak loyalists eating steak and chips and drinking sparkling wine. The Prime Minister chose not to give opening remarks and instead chatted to
Tory MP Lee Anderson has defected to Reform UK. Speaking at an impromptu press conference this morning, the former deputy Tory party chairman – who lost the Conservative whip last month over his comments on Islamists controlling London – said that he was switching to Richard Tice’s party as the current ‘parliament doesn’t seem to
The tributes are pouring in for Theresa May after the former prime minister announced that she will be stepping down at the next election. In a statement in the Maidenhead Advertiser, her local paper, May reiterated her support for Rishi Sunak and said she was leaving to spend more time on ‘causes close to my
Ahead of the Budget, Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt met MPs for drinks in the Prime Minister’s parliamentary office to try to temper expectations. The Chancellor informed those present that, while he is a low-tax Conservative, he is not a magician. Yes, lots of MPs want him to slash taxes to revive the Tories’ standing
Another day, another damning poll for the Tory party. This time it’s a survey by Ipsos for the Evening Standard that finds the Conservatives have hit their lowest level for 40 years. The poll puts the Tories on 20-points, falling from 27-points back in January. It means Rishi Sunak’s party is 27-points behind Labour and
Budget day is approaching and what was once seen as a window of opportunity is now being talked up as a moment of dread. Jeremy Hunt has gone from comparing himself in January to the former tax-slashing chancellor Nigel Lawson to telling the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday that, in reality, fiscal constraints mean on
Rishi Sunak has just appeared on the steps of Downing Street to give a speech on the need to take action after ‘a shocking increase in extremist disruption and criminality’ in recent weeks. On the day former Labour MP George Galloway was announced as the new MP for Rochdale, the Prime Minister said ‘this situation
George Galloway is back. The former Labour MP has triumphed in the Rochdale by-election, taking the seat from Starmer’s party with a majority of 5,697. Galloway – standing for the Workers Party of Britain – won comfortably with nearly 40 per cent of the vote at 12,335 votes. The independent candidate David Tully came in
Anthony Scaramucci, Donald Trump’s former director of communications, has a phrase that sums up his old boss’s effect on political debate: ‘the universe bends towards him’. In the US, discussion about this year’s election is all about Trump. But he is exerting the same gravitational pull in Britain, both on the Tories as they face
In a week’s time, Jeremy Hunt will stand up at the despatch box and unveil the Spring Budget. This event has long been seen by Tory MPs as a key marker ahead of the general election. It is the last big set piece event in the calendar between now and the short campaign. Ministers, too,
It’s day five of the Lee Anderson debacle and the row shows no signs of abating. Rishi Sunak is having to defend from both sides his decision to withdraw the whip from the red wall MP – who represents the marginal seat of Ashfield – after Anderson used a GB News appearance to say that ‘Islamists
Rishi Sunak withdrew the whip from Lee Anderson on Saturday over his claim that Sadiq Khan had ‘given our capital away’ to Islamists, who he referred to as Khan’s ‘mates’. Two days on, the row is still dominating the media, with the BBC running a live blog on the issue. This morning, the Prime Minister
