Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

9 February 2026

Scottish Labour leader calls for Starmer to quit

Oh dear. It really does seem like the end of days for Keir Starmer now. The Prime Minister has lost both his chief of staff and his director of communications in less than 24 hours. And while he continues to insist he is in control, others are preparing to take matters into their own hands. Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour, has this afternoon called for the Prime Minister to quit his role, just 18 months after Labour’s landslide triumph. Sarwar told a news conference that Starmer’s leadership is becoming a ‘huge distraction’ from Labour’s positive work across the country. ‘The distraction needs to end and the leadership in

Benedict Rogers

Britain cannot leave Jimmy Lai to die in jail

The decision to sentence Jimmy Lai to 20 years in jail in Hong Kong is no surprise, but it is no less shocking or heartbreaking. For his family, especially his courageous wife Teresa, son Sebastien and daughter Claire, who have advocated so tirelessly for their father over the past five years, one can only imagine the pain and grief they feel. Sebastien and Claire have walked the corridors of power in Washington, DC, Westminster, Ottawa, Brussels, Paris and beyond, and sat in television studios for hour after hour, seemingly to no avail. For Hong Kong, this is yet another dark day, yet another nail in the coffin of the city’s

Tim Shipman

McSweeney resigns – is Starmer next?

25 min listen

Morgan McSweeney resigned yesterday as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff and – while it was not a surprise, given his role in appointing Peter Mandelson – the news that the Prime Minister has now lost his closest aide and political fire blanket is a huge shock. The repercussions are numerous: Starmer loses the man widely regarded to have won him his large majority and someone who was popular in No. 10; he has recruited two new deputies to fulfil a role considered insurmountable for one person; and it sets a precedent that anyone who allowed Mandelson to become US ambassador is liable for the chop. For a Prime Minister without

Gavin Mortimer

Epstein has brought down France’s Peter Mandelson

The news in France over the weekend was dominated by the resignation of Jack Lang as head of the prestigious Arab World Institute in Paris. In more ways than one, Lang is France’s answer to Peter Mandelson, a figurehead for the bourgeois left and a figure of loathing for those on the other side of the political spectrum. The fall of Jack Lang raises some uncomfortable questions for the Elysee Lang resigned after his name appeared 673 times in the Epstein files in correspondence between 2012 and 2019. Also made public was a video of Lang and Epstein in front of the Louvre pyramid in March 2019, more than a

Charlie Walker

Why Big Tech keeps hiring Britain’s former politicians

In recent years, a trend for a particular kind of career move has begun to crop up in British public life. A small but revealing cluster of senior political figures has reappeared not just on the after-dinner circuit or in the House of Lords, but inside America’s most powerful technology companies. Rishi Sunak now advises Microsoft and Anthropic. George Osborne has joined OpenAI. Even seasoned political operators like the former No. 10 advisors Liam Booth-Smith and Cass Horowitz have swapped British electioneering for American Big Tech. It is tempting to see this as just another spin of the revolving door. Politics drains into money, Silicon Valley has deep pockets, and

James Heale

Starmer’s director of communications resigns

Keir Starmer has this morning lost a second key aide in less than 24 hours. Tim Allan, No. 10’s communications director, has quit his post after barely five months in the role. In a short statement, Allan said: ‘I have decided to stand down to allow a new No. 10 team to be built. I wish the PM and his team every success.’ It means Downing Street is now missing both a permanent chief of staff and is looking for its fifth communications chief in 12 months. Allan was a New Labour veteran, brought back to add some gravitas to Starmer’s struggling No. 10 team. He only entered government in

Isabel Hardman

What could a Starmer government possibly achieve now?

What is the point of Keir Starmer’s government now? Morgan McSweeney’s departure may have been an attempt by the Prime Minister to buy some extra time, like a patient bargaining for expensive life-extending drugs, but it doesn’t change the diagnosis: this is a government that no longer works. Ministers who had previously been very loyal to Keir Starmer had been privately saying it was only a matter of time that he went a couple of months before the latest revelations about Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. But even before that scandal first blew up in the autumn, MPs and some ministers had started to lose hope, having already stopped

Elliot Keck

Cancelling council elections means taxation without representation

For 350 years it has been established in the British constitution that taxes can only be levied for the crown with the consent of parliament. Ever since the Bill of Rights this principle – articulated most famously by the American revolutionaries in their call for no taxation without representation – has been core to our understanding of what it means to be a democracy. Delaying elections, unless as a result of a national emergency, should be considered an extraordinary act That principle is clearly being breached with the delay of local elections in 29 local authorities across England. These councils, many of them delaying elections for the second time, from

Paul Burke

The truth about Peter Mandelson’s strategic genius

So Peter Mandelson, arch manipulator and shadowy Svengali has finally run out of road. This time his political career really has ended in disgrace. Throughout his decades in, and out, of politics, Mandelson was a divisive figure, but there was one part of his character that friends and foes agreed on: Mandy was a strategic genius. I beg to differ. Mandelson was more like a dull and unimpressive civil servant who was almost laughably overrated In 1997, I was working in a big ad agency and on Labour’s election campaign. I wrote a few of their ads and some of their party political broadcasts and had occasional dealings with Mandelson. What struck me most

Sam Leith

Are podcasts killing off nonfiction books?

There is (isn’t there always?) a crisis in nonfiction publishing. But this time it really is a crisis, or at least, it seems more of a crisis than the previous ones. The problem is: not enough people are buying the stuff anymore. Last year’s nonfiction sales were down fully six per cent on the 2024 figures, and the long-term graph gives a picture of consistent, rapid, decline. Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, who host the superb podcast The Rest Is History, are part of the problem as well as part of the solution Woe to the world. As someone who has skin in the game – not a lot of skin, admittedly; more like one of those sore bits you

David Shipley

Why are so many female prison guards having sex with inmates?

There’s so much bad news about our prisons that it’s easy to become fatigued by it. Another failing jail, another prison awash with drugs, another inmate released in error. As a result, often it’s only the most extreme or shocking examples which hit the headlines. But there is one particular kind of prison news story which is guaranteed coverage: a female member of staff caught having an intimate relationship with a prisoner. In many cases they’ve had sex with the prisoner inside the jail, or even in a cell. The Wandsworth officer had sex with one prisoner inside his cell while being filmed on a contraband mobile The most high-profile

Melanie McDonagh

Do we need another Gruffalo book?

Oh Lordy. Here we go. The Gruffalo is back – or rather, the Gruffalo Granny – a new take on the most famous children’s character of the last 30 years other than Harry Potter. So, we’re going multi-generational with the monster; the last one, published over 20 years ago, was The Gruffalo’s Child…now it’s the oldie coming on the scene like Grendel’s mother, except not. Julia Donaldson really does churn ‘em out The publisher, Macmillan, for whom Julia Donaldson must have seemed like their very own JK Rowling – 18.2 million copies of the two titles and counting – announced that Granny Gruffalo would drop on 10 September, and crucially,

Theo Hobson

The trouble with post-liberalism

For quite a while now, intellectual movements have been nebulous things. This started with postmodernism, which everyone was talking about in the 1980s, but no one could quite define. Or maybe it started a bit earlier, with the New Left, a mix of Marxism and any other trendy shiny thing. But at least that was decidedly left. You might suppose sensible mainstream theologians have been calmly refuting such reactionary posturing. If only In our day, it is ‘post-liberalism’. For about fifteen years now, the term has attracted academics and pundits who want to sound edgy. At first, it was the iconoclastic banner of a few theologians and philosophers; then a

Sunday

8 February 2026

Ross Clark

Will the Mandelson affair make loyalty a crime?

Nothing excuses the manner of Peter Mandelson’s communications with Jeffrey Epstein both before and after the latter’s conviction for sex offences. Nor are the lies which Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor told about breaking off relations with Epstein defensible. Nevertheless, there is something disturbing about what looks like being the inevitable fallout of the Epstein scandal: that no one in public life will ever again risk remaining friends with anyone who has been jailed or disgraced in any other way. It may well extend to people outside public life, too. The principle seems to have been established: that if one of your friends commits a serious offence and you do not instantly cut

Jonathan Hinder

Jonathan Hinder: ‘I don’t know if Starmer should fight the next election’

On this special edition of Coffee House Shots, Tim Shipman is joined by Jonathan Hinder – a rising star of the back benches and a blue Labour acolyte – for a candid discussion about the state of the Labour party and the security of its leader. They discuss the Peter Mandelson scandal and the impact it has had on backbench support for the Prime Minister, as well as the implications it may have regarding decision-making at the top of government. Are Labour MPs considering moving against Keir Starmer? Should he fight the next election? This is set within the context of local elections, which Jonathan forecasts will be ‘bad’ for

Tim Shipman

Morgan McSweeney’s resignation won’t save Starmer

Morgan McSweeney has resigned, which felt inevitable but is still a shock to the government and to SW1 in general. His closeness to Peter Mandelson and his role in promoting him for the ambassadorship in Washington has been exposed as a grave error – though not, I think, one which was as predictable as everyone now claims. In his dignified resignation statement, McSweeney writes: ‘When asked, I advised the Prime Minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice. In public life responsibility must be owned when it matters most, not just when it is most convenient. In the circumstances, the only honourable course is to

Stephen Daisley

The lanyard class is not ready for Reform in Scotland

The most reliable sign that Reform is doing well in Scotland is the refusal of the lanyard class to engage with the subject. In the latest poll, Reform has cut the SNP’s lead to five points on the regional list, the second, more proportional ballot that offers smaller and newer parties their best chance of winning seats. For the past six months or so, Reform has been jostling with Labour for second place; if its Scottish leader, Malcolm Offord, can sustain this momentum through to May, there is a good chance that Reform will leap from a solitary ex-Tory MSP to the main opposition party. An extraordinary feat for a

Joe Bedell-Brill

Sunday shows round-up: Pat McFadden defends Keir Starmer

Pat McFadden: ‘I don’t think it’s good for the country to change prime minister every 18 months’ Keir Starmer’s government is reeling as pressure continues to grow around the prime minister’s appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, despite knowledge of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Starmer has issued an apology to Epstein’s victims for having ‘believed Mandelson’s lies’, and has acknowledged the ‘anger and frustration of Labour MPs’. On the BBC this morning, Laura Kuenssberg asked Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden if Starmer’s leadership is under threat. McFadden said it shouldn’t be, because Starmer has a ‘five year mandate’, and is focused on fixing the cost of living

Steerpike

Mandelson got five-figure sacking payoff

It’s a tough time for the nation’s finances – but don’t worry, one man is doing ok. Lord Mandelson received a taxpayer-funded payoff worth tens of thousands of pounds – despite being sacked as US ambassador over his links to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The Sunday Times reports today that Mandy secured an exit payment equivalent to three months’ salary from the Foreign Office after he was forced out in September last year, just seven months into the role. Not bad, eh? His salary has not yet been published by the government but the post of ambassador to the US reportedly commands the highest in the diplomatic service. This is

James Graham

There’s untapped gold in Northern Ireland

As anyone familiar with Irish folklore knows, it’s a fool’s errand to look for Leprechaun gold at the end of the rainbow. Luckily, in Ulster there is a pot of gold which is far more attainable. Curraghinalt, in Northern Ireland’s Sperrin mountains, is currently sitting on top of the largest gold deposit ever discovered in the United Kingdom – some 3.5 million ounces. With gold prices at an all-time high, it is worth an estimated £11.5 billion. Alongside the gold in them hills, there are 1.7 million ounces of silver and 15,000 tonnes of copper. Both metals are in huge demand because of green technologies. Silver is used in solar and