Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

Tom Slater

Who can blame the Greens’ co-leader for not getting a heat pump?

Far be it from me to give advice to the Green Party. From their insistence that ordinary people put up with being poorer and colder to ‘save the planet’ to the alarmingly high number of Israelophobic, 7 October-denying cranks on their candidates list, I’m really not a fan. Still, I’d gently suggest that the golden rule for any Green vying for election is to practise what you preach on climate. If you are standing on a manifesto of national immiseration, you’d better be willing to go without the fossil-fuelled comforts you want to rip away from everyone else. The Greens co–leader has been caught out as an eco-hypocrite Not so for Carla

Steerpike

Voting Reform will strengthen the Nats, Sunak warns Scots

Back to Scotland, where Rishi Sunak is attending the Scottish Conservatives’ manifesto launch in Edinburgh. Leaving the ongoing betting scandal in London, the Prime Minister walked into another controversy – about the football. Before Sunak launched into his speech he made a point of agreeing with Scottish Tory leader and linesman Douglas Ross that Scotland should have been awarded a penalty in last night’s Euros match. It’s certainly one way to get the Scots on side… The issue of oil and gas a key dividing line for the Scottish Tories, Sunak highlighted how the positions of other parties on new licences could cost jobs. Slamming Sir Keir’s Labour lot, the PM

Matthew Lynn

Marine Le Pen’s plan for France is a recipe for stagnation

Big business will be brought onside. The bond markets will be mollified. And there will be plenty of reassuring words about dealing with the budget deficit. With the first round of voting in France’s parliamentary elections set for this week, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National is preparing for government. This week it has set out a programme designed to keep investors, if not exactly happy, at least under control. There is just one catch. It is also a programme for stagnation – and that means France’s out-of-control debts are going to grow and grow.  Nothing that Bardella is proposing will do anything to lift France out of its rut With

Iain Macwhirter

Scotland’s women face a choice on self-ID in this election

Women in Scotland have a difficult choice to make in this election. Those whoomen, that is, who are concerned about a return of any version of the infamous Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill and the policy of allowing transgender people to self-identify as another sex. It looks very much as if only the Conservative party is serious about abandoning self-ID, protecting women’s rights and asserting the primacy of biological sex, not least in what is taught in schools. Yet, very few Scottish women, and even fewer feminists, are natural Tory voters. Indeed, Scots of all genders tend to shun the party.  But women across the UK have a particular interest

Steerpike

Badenoch blasts Alastair Campbell over Brexit

Uh oh. In the latest election drama, Tory candidate for North West Essex and business secretary Kemi Badenoch has taken aim at Labour’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell. The lefty spinner has a well-documented history of Brexit-bashing and Badenoch, it seems, has had enough. Urging readers of the Daily Mail to ignore Brexit sceptics and vote for the Conservatives ‘to stop us going back to square one’, the minister writes in the newspaper today that voting Labour means ‘enabling a strengthened Starmer to unpick Brexit’. Slamming Tony Blair’s former spokesman, Badenoch tore into Campbell’s claims about what leaving the EU means for Britain. From securing private investment to growing the

Patrick West

Let’s take no lectures from Emma Thompson on the climate

The actors are out in force again, speaking politics. Only days after Brian Cox appeared on the BBC bemoaning that Brexit is reducing our GDP by 4 per cent, this weekend Dame Emma Thompson led thousands at a Restore Nature Now march in London. The protest was designed to draw attention to the plight of nature and the climate, and was attended by charities, businesses and direct action groups. Actors at their worst are a notoriously shallow and vain lot During the march, the national treasure, millionaire and jet-setter Thompson was asked if she supported Just Stop Oil, days after the group had vandalised Stonehenge. ‘I think I support anyone

Sam Leith

Michael Gove is right to compare the betting scandal to partygate 

Poor old Rishi Sunak. You would have to have the proverbial heart of stone not to feel, at least, a bat-squeak of pity for the man at this stage. First there was that poignant press conference in the rain, then the D-day kerfuffle, the flock of sheep in Devon who snubbed him when he tried to feed them, the series of ill-advised visits to chocolate teapot factories and pubs called things like ‘The Last Chance Saloon’, and now this…   It’s not a huge amount to take in exchange for humiliating your colleagues and trashing your party’s chance of winning an election You can imagine his bewilderment, his despairing incredulity,

Debbie Hayton

Labour’s dreadful gender recognition reforms

Is Keir Starmer trying to snatch an unlikely defeat from the jaws of victory, or is he so confident of winning that he thinks he can ignore sense and reason – certainly on the issue of sex and gender? When the Labour party manifesto dropped a couple of weeks ago, it included a pledge to ‘modernise, simplify, and reform the intrusive and outdated gender recognition law to a new process’. This morning we learned some of the details. This might not trouble privileged men like Starmer but it is an issue for vulnerable women reliant on publicly funded services According to reports, Labour will remove any need for someone to ‘live in their

Jonathan Spyer

Benjamin Netanyahu must decide what to do about Hezbollah

Tensions on Israel’s northern border are currently at their highest point since the outbreak of hostilities in October last year. On Friday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: ‘One rash move – one miscalculation – could trigger a catastrophe that goes far beyond the border, and frankly, beyond imagination.’ The latest reports indicate that the US has declared it will give Israel its ‘full support’ in the event of war with Hezbollah. This appears to go hand in hand, however, with an American determination to prevent any Israeli action which might precipitate such a war. So what is the current situation? And where are things heading? The decision for escalation now lies with Israel After a

Steerpike

Green leader’s heat pump hypocrisy

Oh dear. In the latest election campaign blip, it’s the Green Party in the spotlight. It has now transpired that despite the Greens long urging voters to swap out gas guzzling boilers for heat pumps, the co-leader of Green Party herself has, er, a gas boiler. Rules for thee but not for me… Carla Denyer’s party has long harped on about its goal to reach net zero by 2040 — yet its eco-zealot-in-chief admitted to ITV’s The Leader Interviews that ‘at the moment I have a gas boiler’. Blaming the election for forcing her to ‘pause’ her plans to replace the contraption, Denyer told the broadcaster during the interview that:

Steerpike

Jeremy Clarkson turns his guns on the Starmer army

With ten days to go until polling day, all signs point to a Conservative wipeout. In such tough times, celebrity support counts for all the more. And while few stars are lining up to snap selfies with Rishi Sunak, at least one is willing to take the fight to Labour. Step forward Jeremy Clarkson, perhaps the nation’s most famous petrolhead, now reborn as the face of the farming community. The former Top Gear presenter has distinguished himself this campaign with several pointed interventions at the expense of the Starmer army. First there was his response to Labour’s manifesto. After Sunak released a Twitter/X video last week decrying how it had

Katy Balls

The betting scandal spells trouble for Sunak

Is the Tory campaign cursed? After Rishi Sunak battled through the pouring rain when he called the election, suffered the return of Nigel Farage and then walked into a major D-Day gaffe, the party is under pressure once again. This time, the Tories are under fire over bets placed on the date of the election by Conservative aides and candidates. Nick Mason, the party’s chief data officer, is the fourth Tory (so far) to be investigated by the gambling commission (he denies any wrongdoing). It means Tory candidates on the media round are once again being asked about bets on the election – and why Sunak has not sacked all

Sunday

Steerpike

Now Swinney is dragged into SNP expenses row

Oh dear. It seems that ‘honest John’ Swinney is embroiled in another fine mess, this time about taxpayer-funded election expenses at Holyrood. Strict rules state that MSPs are entitled to claim up to £5,500 per year for stationery, but it must be used only for parliamentary duties. Yet now one of the Scottish First Minister’s staffers has been caught joking about the ‘stamp fairy’ helping with campaigning. Probably not the best quip to make when Operation Branchform is still ongoing… According to the Scottish parliament’s rules, stamps and other items bought with the allowance must explicitly not be deployed for any ‘party political purposes’. However the Times has this week

Steerpike

Boris savages Farage over Zelensky spat

What is Nigel Farage up to? The Reform leader has doubled down over the weekend on his claim that the west helped provoke Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Following his comments to the BBC on Friday, he then wrote a piece in the Telegraph on Saturday arguing that ‘What I have been saying for the past ten years is that the west has played into Putin’s hands, giving him the excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway.’ It prompted a torrent of cross-party criticism, with both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer calling his remarks ‘disgraceful.’ Such was the storm unleashed by Farage that even Kyiv’s leaders now seem to

Fraser Nelson

Whose income rose fastest under the Tories?

‘Handouts from the state do not nurture the same sense of self-reliant dignity as a fair wage,’ says Keir Starmer in an article for the Sunday Telegraph. He’s right. Being in work is the most effective bulwark against poverty. Yet time and time again, government fairness is judged in terms of how it tweaks benefits rather than what was done to get more people into work. It’s a common belief that under the Tories, the lowest-paid were hammered and the best-paid walked away with the most.  When Tories cut benefits, it’s usually to incentivise people to move from welfare into work – and make not just them but society better off overall.

Joe Bedell-Brill

Sunday shows round-up: Cleverly says cabinet not involved in gambling controversy

A betting scandal surrounding the election date has led to more controversy for Rishi Sunak this week, with multiple Conservatives being investigated by the Gambling Commission following unusual betting patterns. This morning it is reported that the Tories’ chief data officer, Nick Mason, is part of the inquiry. On Sky News, Trevor Phillips asked Home Secretary James Cleverly if this was an example of his party’s ‘moral decay’. Cleverly said he would ‘not in any way defend people who placed bets on that’, but that he could not discuss details while the investigation was ongoing. He added he ‘had no reason to believe,’ any of his cabinet colleagues were involved.

Michael Evans

Is Israel ready for war with Hezbollah?

Whenever the great Shakespearean actor Sir Donald Wolfit had to exit the stage during a performance, he would always take a step back, showing the audience that he was reluctant to leave, before moving forward and departing into the wings on his left or right. The policy of the United States towards Israel and the war in Gaza has followed a similar series of forward and backward steps, with the Biden administration not leaving the stage, but eternally frustrated by the cuts and thrusts of Middle Eastern politics. Netanyahu believes that Israel’s survival, and his own political future, depend on winning in Gaza Another week has gone and little has

Steerpike

Fourth Tory embroiled in betting probe

Is there anyone in CCHQ currently not under investigation? The Sunday Times today reports that Nick Mason, the chief data officer of the Conservative Party, is now being probed by the Gambling Commission over allegations he placed ‘dozens of bets’ in the run up to the election being announced. With just 11 days to go until polling day, he has been forced to take a leave of absence – hardly the best look in the middle of the election campaign… Mason becomes the fourth Tory to be probed by the commission. Both Tony Lee, the party’s director of campaigns, and his wife, Laura Saunders, the candidate for Bristol North West, are

Robert Ford

Why Nigel Farage is becoming Ed Davey’s secret weapon

Ed Davey will be very happy about Nigel Farage’s political comeback. This might seem odd – Davey leads a socially liberal and vocally pro-EU party beloved by the latte sipping metropolitan professionals who loom large in Reform UK demonology. Yet it is the Liberal Democrats who stand to gain most from a Farage surge. A little political history and a dash of political geography explains why. The Lib Dems had their own overlooked electoral surge last time, slashing Tory majorities in seats the length and breadth of the Home Counties. While they didn’t score any wins, they built a solid platform for this campaign, with dozens of strong second places

Gavin Mortimer

Is Jean-Luc Melenchon the most dangerous man in France?

The figurehead of the far left and the man who dreams of becoming Prime Minister of France declared this week: ‘Macron is finished, and his supporters and the right are going to have to choose between us and the National Rally.’ Jean-Luc Melenchon’s boast is borne out by the latest polls. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is currently top, followed by the left-wing Popular Front coalition, with Macron’s centrists a distant third. Le Pen could even win enough seats to form an absolute majority in the 577-seat National Assembly given the radicalism of many within the left-wing coalition. Strange as it may seem for a far-left figure like Melenchon, but