Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Matthew Lynn

This Indian trade deal could be a disaster for Labour

It should have been a triumph. We might not have managed to get a trade with the United States over the line, and we are still waiting for the long-promised ‘reset’ with the European Union. But the Labour government has managed to complete a major trade deal with India, and that should prove a significant boost for the British economy. There is just one catch. By clumsily exempting temporary Indian workers from National Insurance contributions Sir Keir Starmer has blown it – and the deal will be permanently tarnished.  By clumsily exempting temporary Indian workers from National Insurance contributions Sir Keir Starmer has blown it The US may remain the

William Atkinson

Are the Tories mad enough to bring back Boris Johnson?

The Conservative Party is not an imaginative organisation. The clue is in the name. In response to an electoral disaster – like last week’s local election Götterdämmerung – its established method is to work through three familiar stages: pretend, Comical Ali-style, that everything is fine; begin plotting to oust the leader; and then smash the glass marked ‘bring back Boris Johnson’. Having ticked off one and two, yesterday saw the unhappy launch of stage three. Politico have suggested a growing number of Tories, including MPs, are pining for the party’s ex-leader-but-two. No MP has gone public with a call to ‘Bring Back Boris’ quite yet. But there is an awareness

Michael Evans

Are India and Pakistan heading for war?

Last night, India launched missile attacks on ‘militant’ sites in Pakistan and in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir in retaliation for the terrorist attacks two weeks ago which killed more than two dozen Indian tourists. The military action, named ‘Operation Sindoor’, raises already heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, both of whom are nuclear weapon states. India said in a statement that it had attacked nine locations. Pakistan countered by claiming three sites had been hit and that eight civilians were killed, including a child. It has described the attacks as ‘an act of war’. India says it restricted its missile strikes to infrastructure used by militants in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in eastern

Eliot Wilson

Should Canada join the Joint Expeditionary Force?

The narrow victory of Mark Carney’s Liberal party in last month’s federal elections in Canada was an extraordinary reversal of fortune. Before the former governor of the Bank of England became Canada’s 24th prime minister, the opposition Conservative party had regularly enjoyed double-digit leads in the opinion polls. Carney, by placing a defiant and punchy anti-Trump message at the heart of his campaign, turned the election on its head and will remain in office. The prime minister of Canada is suddenly a folk hero around the world for standing up to the playground bully, playing a slick, globalist David to Trump’s angry, nativist Goliath. There are now suggestions that this

Ross Clark

Why are the Tories now against free trade?

Wasn’t a trade deal with India supposed to be one of the big gains from Brexit – an example of how Britain, once free from the protectionist grip of the EU, could go ‘out into the world’ and free up trade with fast-growing economies, rather than be stuck trading with Europe’s stagnant ones? Markets certainly like the Anglo-India trade deal announced by the government on Tuesday. Sterling is up sharply against the euro and the dollar, signalling that investors are feeling positive about the prospects for a freer-trade Britain. Car manufacturers and the Scotch Whisky Association are pretty pleased, too, given that it means the end of punitive – indeed,

Thomas Edwards

Catholics are praying for a speedy conclave

The Conclave, which meets in the Vatican today to elect a new pope, is likely to be brief. For the past hundred years, no conclave has exceeded four days, with two days being the most common. It seems unlikely that this one will be an exception. Many Catholics, at least, hope as much. The cardinals will not wish to expose the divisions within the Church to the world through a prolonged and fractious conclave. Taking their time would suggest a Church paralysed by competing factions. Convening quickly would project unity and resolve. The cardinals – mindful of both history and optics – will not wish to let ideological divisions harden

Tuesday

Jawad Iqbal

India and Pakistan could spiral out of control

India and Pakistan – two nuclear armed states – have a history of fighting wars. Tensions have been growing between the two nations after last month’s deadly terror attack in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir, with the drum beat of a deadly military confrontation growing louder by the day.  On Tuesday night, India an attack on nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The Indian government said its forces launched ‘Operation Sindoor’, hitting ‘terrorist infrastructure’ in locations ‘from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed’. India said its actions ‘have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature’. It pointedly said that no Pakistani military facilities have been targeted

Stephen Daisley

The real bravery behind the India trade deal

The UK and India have finally inked a trade deal. This is, in principle, a good thing. Free trade can generate wealth, raise wages, and widen the skills market available to the signatories’ respective economies. As well as winners, however, free trade also creates losers.  An obvious loser from this deal is the British worker. Fresh from having his employer’s national insurance contributions (NICs) hiked, and perhaps out of a job as a result, he will now have to compete in the labour market with Indians who will be exempted from personal and employer NICs for three years. If Candidate A, a UK national, and Candidate B, an Indian migrant, go

Damian Thompson

The knives are out for the conclave front-runner Parolin

The 133 cardinal electors who will process into the Sistine Chapel tomorrow are feeling battered and confused by the prospect of choosing a new pope in a ruthless digital age. Many of them show it in the faces, flinching at the sight of the press. The cardinal-electors must elect a man of shining moral integrity. It doesn’t take a cynic to work out which of the candidates don’t fit that description But the journalists are struggling, too. For centuries, the interregnum between a pope’s death and the vote has been a season of mud-slinging – an opportunity for supporters of various cardinals to kick their rivals. But nothing in recent

Lucy Dunn

What was new in John Swinney’s Programme for Government?

The countdown is on, with only a year to go until Scottish voters cast their ballots in the 2026 Holyrood election. This is why SNP First Minister John Swinney has decided to bring forward his Programme for Government – usually held in September – to today, allowing him a full twelve months to deliver on his latest set of commitments before his party’s popularity is put to the test in next year’s poll. Having taken on the top job only a year ago, Swinney has had limited time to turn his vision for Scotland, organised across four clearly-defined priorities, into a reality. The First Minister acknowledged at the beginning of

James Heale

Why Reform’s rise isn’t a surprise

13 min listen

It’s day five of recriminations after the local elections, with politicians, pollsters and journalists alike still trying to make sense of what just happened. On today’s podcast, Rachel Wolf gives her verdict: we should not be shocked by Reform’s surge. She argues that Nigel Farage’s success should have been predicted – that it’s the same, distinctly anti-political silent majority who ‘surprised’ us during Brexit, ‘surprised’ us in 2019 and are ‘surprising’ us now.  How will Labour respond? Will they U-turn on winter fuel? And is Boris Johnson the only one who can win back these disillusioned voters for the Tories? Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Rachel Wolf, CEO

Jawad Iqbal

The India trade deal is a triumph for Keir Starmer

Britain and India have struck a landmark free trade deal, the biggest agreement of its kind since Brexit. It will see tariffs slashed on cosmetics and medical devices and could potentially boost growth by up to £5 billion a year. This deal has been three years in the making and follows intensive negotiations in recent days between Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, and Piyush Goyal, India’s trade minister. The agreement was formally signed off during a call between the leaders of both countries today. The two sides were keen to get the negotiations over the line in the wake of President Trump’s ‘liberation day’ tariffs that imposed 26 per cent

Michael Simmons

Starmer can’t afford a winter fuel U-turn

Keir Starmer has ruled out a U-turn on the government’s decision to cut the winter fuel payment, with the Prime Minister’s spokesman insisting there ‘will not be a change to the government’s policy’. This came after a report in the Guardian suggesting No.10 was considering softening the £1.4 billion cut, possibly by raising the threshold that defines who qualifies as poor enough to receive it. We can’t keep living in a state totally consumed by propping up its welfare system That a U-turn was even floated reflects two pressures: disquiet among Labour’s backbenchers, and the electoral warning shot fired by Reform UK in last Thursday’s local elections and by-election. In Runcorn, where

Ido Vock

Merz’s chaotic election is a win for the AfD

Friedrich Merz has been elected German chancellor at the second time of trying – the first time someone in his position has failed to be elected on the first attempt. The centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader received 325 votes, nine more than the 316 that constitute an absolute majority in the Bundestag. In the first vote this morning, Merz received just 310 votes. That was despite his coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) holding some 328 seats in parliament. Like many recent political developments in Germany, it was a first for the Federal Republic. Merz already faces one of the toughest intrays of any recent chancellor Because the

Steerpike

Watch: Reform MP gets sworn in

It’s been a whirlwind few days for Sarah Pochin who has become Reform’s newest MP after winning the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by just six votes. It was only on Friday morning that Pochin discovered she had clinched the victory in the Labour safe seat – and today, Runcorn’s new representative has been sworn in as a Member of Parliament in the Commons. In an excruciatingly close contest, Pochin overturned a 15,000 Labour majority to beat Sir Keir Starmer’s candidate to the Cheshire seat. The count took a dramatic turn after ‘doubtful’ votes led to a recount that saw Nigel Farage’s party swoop to victory early on Friday morning. Pochin

Eliot Wilson

Why Britain must prepare for war with Russia

I’m old enough to remember the last years of the Cold War. There were definite signs of a thaw by the time of my childhood – there were weary sighs when I wrote about the Reykjavík Summit for my prep school magazine – but the threat of genuine conflict still hovered over West and East, and we all understood that such a conflict could be existential. If nothing else, it currently provides a tinge of nostalgia to the strategic frostiness with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The Telegraph reports that officials have been instructed to update contingency plans for a direct attack on the United Kingdom by a foreign power. Given that

Steerpike

Watch: Sturgeon refuses to apologise to women over gender ruling

Well, well, well. Nicola Sturgeon has finally broken her silence over the Supreme Court judgment that backed the biological definition of a woman. Speaking to journalists in Holyrood today, Sturgeon insisted that while she accepts the ruling from the highest court in the land, she remains concerned about the impact on the lives of transgender people. And when she was asked whether she would now apologise to women’s rights campaigners – who she has previously criticised while pushing through her gender reforms – Scotland’s former first minister declined. How curious… Former SNP MP Joanna Cherry previously called for an apology from the party’s former Dear Leader in the Spectator, writing

Lisa Haseldine

Merz’s bungled bid to become chancellor plunges Germany into crisis

Just when he thought he was home and dry, Friedrich Merz has fallen at the final hurdle to become Germany’s next chancellor. At a vote in the Bundestag this morning that many thought would be a formality, the CDU leader fell short of the votes needed to confirm him as the country’s new leader by six ballots, plunging Berlin into fresh political crisis. Never before in Germany’s post-war history has a chancellor-in-waiting failed to get through the first round of Bundestag voting to elect a new leader. While 310 MPs voted in favour of Merz becoming chancellor, 307 voted against him. Damningly, this means that of the 328 MPs who form the ‘grand coalition’ Merz

Steerpike

Reform councillor attacks Farage as she quits party

Reform UK enjoyed success in last week’s local elections, but it hasn’t all been plain sailing for Nigel Farage’s party. It transpires that one of his new councillors Donna Edmunds has quit the party just days after winning her Shropshire seat – following her suspension from the group for posting on Twitter that she had plans to defect from Reform after the local elections. Good heavens! Edmunds, who was elected in Hodnet in Shropshire, had taken to Twitter on Sunday to announce she had been suspended from Farage’s party ‘pending an investigation’ – after she had made previous posts about waiting for ex-Reform man Rupert Lowe to set up a

Benedict Rogers

The new pope must stop bending the knee to Beijing

As 133 cardinal electors gather in the Sistine Chapel tomorrow to begin the process of choosing a new Pope, there will be many considerations in their minds. They will be weighing up whether to build on or reject Francis’ legacy of progressive reform, whether to move in a more liberal or conservative direction, and whether to return the papacy to its Italian roots, opt for another European, or build on the precedent of the Latin American Francis and branch out to the wider world. Could this be the moment for an Asian or African pope? Persecution of Catholics – and Christians more broadly – has intensified in China over the