Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

Ross Clark

Rishi Sunak faces an impossible job

Well, good luck, Rishi. You’ll need it – and not just because, as backbench Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope put it this morning, the Conservative party has become ‘ungovernable’. The whole job of prime minister has become impossible. There are too many demands on the person who holds that position, and too much blame placed on them when people’s lives fail to live up to expectation. Liz Truss made a huge error in announcing a huge £100 billion welfare programme (the energy price guarantee) in conjunction with £45 billion of tax cuts, all uncosted. But would her premiership have proved much more successful had she been a bit more careful with her fiscal policy? Hardly.

Cindy Yu

Xi Jinping has zombified the Chinese Communist party

In the run up to China’s National Party Congress, there were whispers that a high level official in state security had been wiretapping the President. After all, why else would Sun Lijun, previously the vice-minister of public security, have been sentenced to death for taking bribes that others got much lighter sentences for?  But if Sun was wiretapping Xi Jinping, who was behind him? Wishful speculation abounded, often from overseas observers. Had Xi pushed the country too far with his zero Covid policy? Are there secret daggers drawn from rivals who lament the days of double-digit growth? But with the Party Congress now finished, it’s clear that Xi no longer needs to worry about organised opposition to him, if indeed he ever faced any.

Penny Mordaunt

Why Rishi Sunak has my support

Penny Mordaunt has conceded defeat in the Tory leadership race. Here is the full text of her statement: Our party is our membership. Whether we are elected representatives, activists, fundraisers or supporters. We all have a stake in who our leader is.  These are unprecedented times. Despite the compressed timetable for the leadership contest it is clear that colleagues feel we need certainty today. They have taken this decision in good faith for the good of the country.  Members should know that this proposition has been fairly and thoroughly tested by the agreed 1922 process.  As a result, we have now chosen our next prime minister. This decision is an historic one and shows, once again, the diversity and talent of our party. Rishi has my full support.

James Forsyth

Penny drops, Rishi wins

Rishi Sunak has been elected leader of the Tory party and will be the next prime minister after Penny Mordaunt pulled out of the race. By the 2 m. deadline, 197 Tory MPs – half of the party – had come out for him. Just 27 had gone public for Mordaunt: her team said that anonymous endorsements took this to 97. Given that only Sunak qualified, the final numbers will never be known. He speaks to Tory MPs at 2.30 m.in private. It is a remarkable turnaround for Sunak It is a remarkable turnaround for Sunak. Last month, he lost the Tory leadership election to Liz Truss. But the vindication of his economic warnings has changed the political landscape.

Coffee House

Latest: More than half of Tory MPs back Sunak

More than half of Tory MPs now back Rishi Sunak in the race to become prime minister. Penny Mordaunt remains in the contest, but she has until 2 p.m. to persuade 100 Tory MPs to support her leadership bid. Here is who is backing whom: Rishi Sunak (197) 1. Crispin Blunt 2. Julie Marson 3. Richard Holden 4. Angela Richardson 5. Steve Double 6. Kevin Hollinrake 7. Jo Gideon 8. Paul Maynard 9. John Glen 10. Andrew Bowie 11. Anthony Mangnall 12. Simon Hart 13. Craig Williams 14. John Stevenson 15. Gary Streeter 16. Andrew Murrison 17. Dominic Raab 18. Simon Jupp 19. Bim Afolami 20. Nick Gibb 21. James Cartlidge 22. Fay Jones 23. Alan Mak 24. Laura Trott 25. Maggie Throup 26. Simon Hoare 27. Edward Timpson 28. Laura Farris 29. Huw Merriman 30.

Kate Andrews

Ready for Rishi?

12 min listen

After Boris pulled out of the leadership race last night, all eyes are on Rishi Sunak who could be Prime Minister by lunchtime. Can Rishi rescue the Conservatives?Kate Andrews speaks to Katy Balls, James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson.Produced by Natasha Feroze.

Patrick O’Flynn

Can Rishi Sunak rescue the Tories from electoral wipeout?

'At least I’ve been prime minister' – those were the reported words of Liz Truss on realising that she had presided over so much chaos that she’d have to step down after just six weeks in office. It is most unlikely that our next prime minister would react to catastrophic failure in such a manner. Because Rishi Sunak – and it will surely be him – is cut from a different cloth. Projecting himself as a success would appear to be his sustaining life force. And yet catastrophic failure – on the electoral front at least – is by far the most likely outcome of his premiership. If it lasts two years he will have done well but it is perfectly possible to envisage it coming to a grisly end at a general election in early May next year, just six months in.

Fraser Nelson

Six reasons to be optimistic about a Rishi Sunak premiership

For the last few days and weeks, the political news from Britain has been unremittingly grim. But Rishi Sunak in No10 represents a new start - but before he starts, it is worth considering the case for optimism for his premiership. Here goes:- At a time when market-literacy is at a premium, we’ll have the most market-literate PM in history. Sunak has a clearer grasp of finance than anyone to sit in No. 10 or No. 11. Gordon Brown was regarded as a details man because he read original academic papers. Sunak, a Goldman Sachs alumni, had a Bloomberg terminal on his desk to follow the metrics from which such papers are drawn. Treasury officials make the same joke about him: no matter how detailed the briefing, he was more on top of the issue than they are. We need that right now.

Katy Balls

Can Penny Mordaunt make it onto the ballot?

Will Rishi Sunak be prime minister by teatime? After Boris Johnson announced that he would not enter the contest after all, the chances of a coronation have risen. Penny Mordaunt has 25 MPs publicly backing her – a long way short of the 100 required to make it onto the ballot. However, she still has an opportunity to get there. Will Boris Johnson's backers row in behind Mordaunt? Boris Johnson has somewhere in the region of 60 public supporters to play for (and more still if you go by his own figure of 102 backers). There are also just over 100 MPs yet to back anyone. That means there is a path to Mordaunt entering the contest.

Fraser Nelson

The gig economy – how far have we come?

32 min listen

When Uber arrived in Britain ten years ago, the app transformed the way people move around cities. All of a sudden, at the click of a button, city dwellers could order a car for a competitive price which would arrive within minutes.To some policymakers, this hailed a new way of working and putting consumers first. Since then, a lot has changed. Uber came under strict regulatory obstacles and many more app-based competitors have entered the market. But the business has transformed with the times. Whilst emblematic of the gig economy, are the critics right about driver treatment? And does more regulation create barriers for the customer?

Stephen Daisley

Tory troubles are a reflection of the crisis facing Britain

One of the quaint superstitions of the moment is a belief that our political dysfunction has a ready solution. The government stumbles from one crisis to another but things will pick up once Liz Truss is gone. Rishi Sunak warned that she would fail and so he is best placed to succeed her. He will calm the markets and lead us back to growth. Tories tell themselves he might even be able to beat Labour next time.  Other Tories put their faith in Boris Johnson, not least Boris Johnson. His withdrawal will be greeted with relief by MPs but there are costs attached. Whatever mandate this government still has is his. He won the Red Wall. He is said to have delivered Brexit. He grasped the need for the Tories to spend money and be seen as patriotic and anti-woke, albeit only rhetorically.

Sam Leith

Even Rishi Sunak can’t save the Tories

Once again, 357-odd Conservative MPs have complete control over what happens next in this country. There are three questions that each of them will be urgently considering. One is: what’s best for the country? The second is: what’s best for the Conservative party? The third is: what’s best for me personally? It will not have escaped the attentive student of recent Tory politics that these things do not always point in quite the same direction. So, question one. The country, poll after poll now tells us, wants rid of the whole shower of these blue-rosetted bozos as soon as is humanly possible. It seems to follow from that – even if the rules allow you to dodge it – that calling a general election would be the right thing to do for the good of the country.

Sunday

Steerpike

Nadhim Zahawi’s political Odyssey

Does Nadhim Zahawi have the worst judgement in Tory politics? As recently as last year, the man could do no wrong: the boosterish vaccines minister who impressed at education, winning fans with his back story and media savvy. Yet since then, the millionaire pollster's winning touch seems to have deserted him. Indeed, Zahawi has been on something of a political Odyssey, without the happy ending. For, in his search for a patron Penelope, Zahawi seems to embrace every Scylla and be sucked into each Charybdis that he encounters on his way. Take the events of the last three months. On 5 July, he was appointed as Boris Johnson's Chancellor of the Exchequer, declaring that 'this is a team game, you play for the team and you deliver for the nation.

Boris Johnson

Why I am not standing for the leadership

In the last few days I have been overwhelmed by the number of people who suggested that I should once again contest the Conservative Party leadership, both among the public and among friends and colleagues in Parliament. I have been attracted because I led our party into a massive election victory less than three years ago - and I believe I am therefore uniquely placed to avert a general election now. A general election would be a further disastrous distraction just when the government must focus on the economic pressures faced by families across the country.

James Forsyth

Boris has avoided a nightmare scenario

Boris Johnson’s decision to pull out of the Tory leadership contest averts a nightmare scenario where he had got the support of less than a third of the parliamentary party and was then returned to Downing Street by the member’s vote (though, I think the result of that ballot was becoming less and less certain). This would have been a recipe for instability. Can you really lead a party in parliament if the vast majority of the MPs wanted someone else?   Even allies of Johnson were saying today that they hoped that he wouldn’t run. They feared that if he did he would be remembered as the man who broke the Tory party rather than as the man who delivered Brexit, won the 2019 general election with a majority and was right about Ukraine.

Katy Balls

Why Boris Johnson pulled out

Boris Johnson has this evening pulled out of the Conservative leadership contest, leaving the field clear for Rishi Sunak. Only this morning his MP supporters had been insisting that the former prime minster had secured the 100 MP nominations required and would definitely run, but Johnson says the opposition to him is such that he will not enter the race - but there were severe doubts about this, with some MPs saying they were being approached by a desperate Boris team that did not have the numbers but had claimed otherwise. Sunak had more than twice as many declared nominations.

Fraser Nelson

Might Tory MPs refuse to recognise Boris Johnson as PM?

Might Tory MPs refuse to recognisee Boris Johnson as leader if party members choose him? George Osborne raises the prospect on the Andrew Neil Show today saying: I think there’s a real chance the Tory parliamentary party says ‘we don’t accept the result of the members’ ballot. We don’t accept that 200 of us are going to serve under a PM we didn’t want’. And so I think the crisis will develop sooner than the privileges committee. It will develop at the end of this coming week and the beginning of this coming week, the beginning of next week, if Johnson gets through. This might reflect the attitude of Osborne’s contacts in Parliament (who found Boris V1 hard enough to deal with) but it’s not, so far, hugely widespread.

Kate Andrews

Mervyn King said the unsayable about Britain’s economy

This morning the BBC hosted a current Tory leadership contender and the leader of the opposition on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Yet the most insightful comments came from one of the panel members: Lord Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England between 2003 and 2013. Asked by Kuenssberg about the narrative that’s doing the rounds with some Truss supporters – that markets ‘bullied’ Truss out of her plans and out of office – King offered up a robust response and a clear explanation of what had gone so badly wrong: Markets are not in charge. Governments and central banks are. Markets respond to the announcements made by government and central banks.