Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Thursday

Kate Andrews

What wasn’t included in Labour’s manifesto

Keir Starmer has been promising ‘no surprises’ on tax in the Labour manifesto. At first glance, he has – technically – delivered on that. There is nothing new on tax in today’s manifesto: the hikes already announced were included, and the pledge not to raise income tax, National Insurance, VAT or corporation tax were there too. The surprise, then, is what isn’t included. There is lots of commentary on tax (attacks on Tory ‘unfunded tax cuts’, getting better ‘return for taxpayers’). But there is no comment on any other specific tax. In other words: a few tax hikes have been ruled out, and all the others are being left on the table

Katy Balls

‘Change’: Starmer unveils manifesto

What would Labour do in power? This is the question Sir Keir Starmer tried to answer this morning as he appeared in Manchester for the launch of his party’s manifesto. Given Labour is currently over 20 points ahead in the polls and on course for a super-majority, this 136-page document (with no less than 33 photos of Starmer) is by far the most important of the manifestos to be published this week. Ahead of Starmer’s entrance, a song by Dua Lipa (the pop star is a Labour supporter) played in the background while a string of speakers, from Iceland boss Richard Walker to Nathaniel Dye, who has terminal cancer and

Steerpike

Watch: Sir Keir heckled at Labour manifesto launch

Oh dear. It’s not been the smoothest of starts this morning for Sir Keir Starmer, who is in Manchester launching the Labour manifesto. As the Labour leader was introducing his party’s official election manifesto to swathes of supporters and reporters, he was rather rudely interrupted. A rather young protestor holding a banner emblazoned with the words: ‘Youth Deserves Better’ was the culprit. Slamming Starmer’s ‘change’ agenda, she raged: We have been let down by the Labour Party and this manifesto. You say that you’re offering change but it’s the same old Tory policies. We need better. Ouch… Sir Keir retorted that ‘we gave up being a party of protest five

Isabel Hardman

How will Labour fix a struggling NHS?

The latest NHS waiting figures are without question a problem for Rishi Sunak: they’re going up again for the first time in seven months. The performance data for NHS England shows that 6.33 million patients were waiting for 7.6 million treatments at the end of April, up from 6.29 people and 7.54 million treatments in March. But given where the Tories are in this election campaign, the figures also represent a problem for Labour. Voters already know that the NHS is struggling seriously, and they seem to be using that knowledge to turn to Labour in droves. Keir Starmer is launching his party’s manifesto today, and it will include pledges

Steerpike

Salmond wages war on STV

Uh oh. Back to Scotland where, for once, the chaos doesn’t concern the country’s biggest nationalist party. This time Alex Salmond’s pro-independence group, Alba, is in the spotlight over a rather public debacle with Scottish broadcasters STV. Salmond has taken issue with STV’s decision to move his party’s election broadcast slot from this Friday – the same day Scotland will play Germany in the Euros – to next week. The broadcaster changed the timings over concerns that the party would have an ‘unfair advantage’ if the screening went out before or after the game – to which Alba have responded by sending out a number of fiery press releases that

Steerpike

Watch: Farage’s plans to reunite the right

There may only be three weeks of election season left but there’s still a new development every day. Now Nigel Farage has made waves on the airwaves this morning in conversation with LBC’s Nick Ferrari. Quizzed about what the future if the opposition could look like, the Reform party leader hinted he was open to a new kind of cross-party working… ‘I’ve intervened,’ he told Ferrari, ‘because we need a coherent voice of opposition in parliament and in the country. Do you know what, Nick? I believe I can do that better than the current Conservative party.’ His interviewer pressed him again: Ferrari: Can you tell me that one day

Gareth Roberts

The staggering dullness of Sunak and Starmer

We’re now about halfway through the election campaign. I don’t know how we’re going to keep our excitement from bubbling over if this level of stimulation keeps up in the second half. The staggering mediocrity and dullness of Sunak and Starmer has lent this contest – despite its inevitably very different final outcome – the air of a no-score draw played between non-league Tier 11 teams. What terrible cosmic sin did the British public commit that we are lumbered with this pair of tailors’ dummies? This was made even more apparent by last night’s Sky interviews. Sunak and Starmer shied from confronting one another head-on – perhaps mindful of anaesthetising

Daniel DePetris

Expect tension and clashes at Italy’s G7 summit

Another year, another G7 Leaders’ summit. The confab between the world’s wealthiest democracies has long since become one of those boring events etched into the global diplomatic landscape, a more intimate and picturesque version of the UN General Assembly meetings held every September. Speeches are given. Private dinners are arranged. Handshakes and hugs proliferate. And group photos are taken, where the well-dressed leaders smile as if they’re at a family reunion. But this year’s session, which begins today, will entail a significant amount of weighty business. It comes at a particularly fraught moment for Europe’s centrist politicians, who were dealt an embarrassing blow by far-right political parties during the European

Ross Clark

Starmer wants to go for growth – but will he end up like Liz Truss?

Keir Starmer, it turns out, was a secret Liz Truss fan all along. Launching his party’s manifesto this morning he is going to tell us that growth will be the overriding preoccupation of his government. That, if you remember, is what the Truss premiership was going to be all about: ‘growth, growth, growth.’ How is he going to generate growth, and in a way that doesn’t have him landing flat on his face like Truss herself? Starmer has decided that he is going to take the levellers and the greens head-on. ‘Some people say that how you grow the economy is not a central question – that it’s not about

Rana Mitter

China’s ‘soft siege’ of Taiwan

‘There is only one China in the world,’ Wang Wenbin, the spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, declared at a press conference late last month. ‘Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory.’ The previous day, on 23 May, Beijing carried out major military exercises around the island under the title ‘Joint-Sword 2024A.’ The Chinese Communist party (CCP) said it wanted to practise how to ‘seize power’ in Taiwan, and to ‘punish’ its new leader, Lai Ching-te, and his supporters in the US. J-16 aircraft and Type 052D destroyers – some of China’s best military assets – led the exercises, surrounding Taiwan and practising bombing runs. In recent months, as China’s

Katy Balls

The return of Douglas Alexander

It’s a sunny Friday afternoon in Gullane, an affluent seaside town on the Firth of Forth. For political campaigners, golden hour is the perfect time to speak to middle-class locals working from home at the end of the week. A huddle of Labour campaigners go door to door, ticking off names on a clipboard and shouting numbers to one another. ‘Eight,’ says one canvasser, smiling. She’s reporting back an undecided voter’s answer to the question ‘From one to ten, how likely are you to vote Labour on July 4?’ ‘We are getting a lot of“I have always voted SNP but am now voting for you”’ The candidate is Douglas Alexander,

Jonathan Miller

Can Macron still outplay Le Pen?

Petulance, panic and performance. President Macron’s broadcast following the evisceration of his party in last weekend’s elections for the European parliament had elements of all three. Wearing a black tie as if in mourning, he looked shocked, exhausted and angry. ‘The rise of the nationalists and demagogues,’ he said, ‘is a threat not only to our nation but also to our Europe and to France’s place in Europe and in the world… The extreme right is both the impoverishment of the French people and the downfall of our country. So at the end of this day, I can’t pretend that nothing has happened. I decided to give you the choice.

George Osborne

How the Tories lost their way

Do you pack up the flat or not? That’s the question that everyone who lives in Downing Street faces as an election approaches. In 1997 my job was to brief John Major each morning on the newspapers. We’d pick up the first editions from Charing Cross at midnight and young researchers would beaver away in the early hours working out how to respond. At 6 a.m. I’d then go to the flat above No. 10 and brief the bleary-eyed premier. I remember the chintzy sofas, the family photos and the awkward moments: ‘Prime Minister, your sister has told the Sun newspaper you can’t win.’ The day before polling, I crept

Wednesday

Kate Andrews

Keir Starmer needs a better answer to the Jeremy Corbyn question

Keir Starmer looked baffled by tonight’s questions. Rishi Sunak looked resigned. Separating the two candidates – having them face Beth Rigby and the audience, rather than each other – led to far more defensive performances: Starmer on tax, and Sunak on the Tory record. Both spent the majority of the time looking deeply uncomfortable.  Sunak did not have an easy ride. The audience, all warmed up by the Labour leader’s interview, was more likely to jump in and heckle. Asked questions about his ‘five promises’ made in January 2023 – only one of which he has made good on – Sunak tried to move the goalposts, insisting that those promises

Steerpike

Sunak’s aide under investigation after betting on election date

Oh dear. Now it has transpired that the Prime Minister’s closest parliamentary aide, Craig Williams, placed a £100 bet on there being a July election — just three days before a rain-drenched Rishi Sunak announced the date to the public. The Guardian has tonight revealed that the Gambling Commission has launched an inquiry into the PM’s private secretary after Williams placed a bet with Ladbrokes on Sunday 19 May. With odds of 5/1, Williams was set to receive £500. After the bet was placed, it is understood that a red flag was raised by the gambling company, as Williams’ was flagged as a ‘politically exposed person’ and the bookmaker was

Damian Reilly

The wonderful guilelessness of Rishi Sunak 

Could Rishi Sunak’s emergence as this nation’s greatest gaffe machine since Prince Philip come in time to endear him to the electorate? At this point in his campaign, you’d have to say it’s a tactic he might as well lean into. After all, one of the best things about being British is the manner in which virtually everything becomes a funny and heart-warming story if you give it enough time. Another day, another gaffe. This morning ITV began trailing the interview our increasingly hilarious prime minister so famously abandoned the D-Day commemorations in Normandy for by releasing a clip in which he seems to claim that despite now being a

Steerpike

Listen: Andrew Neil schools Green co-leader on wealth tax

Another day, another campaign disaster. Now it’s the turn of the Green party’s co-leader Adrian Ramsay, who was this lunchtime interviewed by Andrew Neil for Times Radio. Ramsay’s first mistake was to turn up late to the interview — while his next was to, er, not fully answer his interviewer’s questions. Introducing the Greens as an ‘anti-growth or no growth party’, Neil first asked Ramsay whether he was in that case ‘pretty pleased with this government’, given the UK has had almost no economic growth since Covid. Next, Ramsay was quizzed on the Green party’s ‘wealth tax’ — which would involve introducing a new tax of 1 per cent on

Andrew Liddle

The SNP shouldn’t celebrate being tied with Labour

It is a measure of the extent of the SNP’s decline that nationalist activists have seized on a new Ipsos poll that shows the party is now neck and neck with Scottish Labour. After all, it was only 18 months ago that the same company suggested the SNP enjoyed the support of more than half of people in Scotland, with Anas Sarwar’s party languishing on 25 per cent. Two resignations, a campervan and several unpopular policies later, however, and the SNP is now regularly recorded as being behind Scottish Labour, in one recent poll by as much as 10 points. Hence the excitement in otherwise weary nationalist circles that they may