Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Sunday

Lee Cohen

Pity poor America: at least Brits can change their leader

Watching the Conservative leadership race from across the sea in America has left me both hopeful and envious. Hopeful that the Tories will select a leader who will steer Britain to a better, stronger place, and exhibit responsible global leadership to offset the void left and damage done by our catastrophe-in chief, Joe Biden. In the same breath I am envious that Britain, unlike America, has this chance to correct its course. Whether Boris’s fall was deserved has been beaten to death in the British press, so this Yank won't presume to intrude other than to say he had me at ‘I will deliver Brexit, unite the country and defeat Jeremy Corbyn.’ Biden, on the other hand is going nowhere for now.

Mary Dejevsky

Liz Truss is right to look at family taxation

Launching her campaign for party leader and prime minister, Liz Truss said something that barely registered amid the big tax-cutting promises, but made me prick up my ears in a very positive way. She talked about trying to make sure that parents and other carers were not penalised by taking time out of paid work. ‘To ensure people aren’t penalised for taking time out to care for their children or elderly relatives,’ she said, ‘we will review the taxation of families’, describing families as ‘a vital part of our lives and the crucial building block for a stable society’.

Steerpike

Truss struggles with surging Kemi

It's been a mixed performance thus far for the 'Liz for leader' brigade. A flawless campaign launch, strong cabinet support and enthusiastic media backing have all been positives but the failure to lock up the votes of the Tory right have left the Foreign Secretary in a less confident situation than she might otherwise have liked. Truss's efforts have not been helped in this respected by Kemi Badenoch, the surprise package of the leadership campaign. On the second round of voting, Truss came third with 64 MPs, ahead of Badenoch on 49. While the latter is still regarded as a long-shot candidate, there are whispers about whether the junior minister could bag enough backers from Suella Braverman, Tom Tugendhat and other undecideds to leapfrog Truss to third by Tuesday night.

Ian Williams

China’s economy is grinding to a halt

Economic growth in China is grinding to a halt. The days of soaring double-digit growth are over, and the malaise facing the country’s spluttering economy goes far deeper than the hit from Covid-19 lockdowns. Gross domestic product in the April to June quarter grew by a paltry 0.4 per cent from a year earlier, according to figures released on Friday, well below the forecasts of analysts. On a quarter by quarter basis, the economy shrank, down 2.6 per cent compared with January to March. It was sobering reading for China’s communist leaders, who derive much of their legitimacy from their management of a fast-growing economy. It is easy to blame the impact of the lockdowns. Restrictions were imposed on major cities across the country in March and April.

Steven Fielding

Which Tory leader does Labour fear the most?

Ask any Labour politician which of the Conservative leadership candidates they fear most and they will most likely say: none of them. That is largely hubris, because Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, the likeliest candidates to become Britain’s next Prime Minister, pose different threats to Labour’s opinion poll lead. Ideally, Labour would like Boris Johnson to remain caretaker Prime Minister for as long as possible – recent weeks have seen Labour’s polling rise and rise with the messy demise of the Prime Minister. When Keir Starmer said his party had an electoral mountain to climb after the 2019 election, he likely did not figure on Boris Johnson acting as his personal Sherpa Tenzing.

Stian Westlake

Why does Kemi Badenoch want to break up the Treasury?

Conservative leadership elections aren’t usually associated with big policy ideas. But last week Kemi Badenoch put forward a proposal that could revolutionise the way the British state works. She suggested we should break up the most powerful government department, the Treasury. Others also think there’s a problem; Penny Mordaunt’s book Greater: Britain After The Storm suggests ‘decentralising’ and ‘localising’ Britain’s finance ministry. What’s behind the sudden interest in the fate of the goings-on in one building in Whitehall? At the heart of the issue is the fact that Her Majesty’s Treasury is rather unusual, and very powerful.

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

Penny drops, Kemi soars in Tory activist poll

While Tom Tugendhat won the public opinion poll after last night’s debate, this is a race that will be decided by Tory members – and they seem to have a new winner (for now at least). A new ConservativeHome poll has seen Penny Mordaunt knocked off the top spot by Kemi Badenoch – who now has a double-digit lead. In a rapidly-moving contest, it’s quite significant. 'Mordaunt’s ship is becalmed,' says Paul Goodman in the ConHome analysis. She led Badenoch by 46 per cent to 40 per cent in an either/or poll last Tuesday. But in this different poll (with all five candidates) she’s on just 18 per cent, with Liz Truss second at 21 per cent and Badenoch quite clearly ahead on 31 per cent.

Damian Reilly

Ditching Boris was a terrible mistake

Watching the Channel 4 leadership debate last night was thoroughly depressing. If only Boris Johnson’s premiership hadn’t ended in the way it did – a surreal version of the famous butterfly effect where one man gropes another in the Carlton Club and the leader of a nuclear power gets the boot. Without Boris there seems so little to differentiate the Conservatives from Labour The Tory party has made a terrible mistake, one they will regret bitterly when they are soundly beaten at the next election. Naturally, they will blame it on him. Without Boris there seems so little to differentiate the Conservatives from Labour. Both parties claim to want to lower taxes. Both seem utterly unable to navigate the mad woke maze.

Steerpike

Tories parade their military attire

As the reputation of Westminster sinks ever lower and our elected masters seem able to do even less, candidates for political office seek outside areas by which they can bolster their credentials. Once it might have been the Church: now it's often business. But one evergreen way of commanding instant respect in Tory circles is a connection, however tenuous, with the Armed Forces. Unsurprisingly therefore, those leadership candidates with such a connection have been doing their upmost to mention their service at every available opportunity. Take Tom Tugendhat, the man who's quipped that his 'biggest weakness' is 'talking about the army too much.' He proudly sported the tie of his former regiment, the Special Boat Service, last night in the Channel 4 debate.

Lloyd Evans

The real winner from last night’s debate

Last night Channel 4 held a 90-minute live event starring Rishi, Liz, Tom, Penny and Kemi. Not a manufactured pop-band but the candidates for the Tory leadership. The first question was easy-peasy. ‘Is Boris Johnson honest?’ ‘No,’ the obvious answer, was beyond them. They ducked and weaved and dodged and fudged. Except for Tom Tugendhat. ‘Honest?’ He bowed his head and shook it gravely. Massive applause. Major Tom is known as a bit of a heartthrob among ladies of a certain age (over 90) and his manner is to bark out terse and meaningless soundbites, parade-ground style. ‘Clean break!... Ready to lead!… Government only works when it works for you!… Fresh start!... Ready to serve!

Steerpike

Glyndebourne goes gender neutral

Angela Rayner caused a bit of a stir a few weeks ago when she rocked up at the Glyndebourne opera festival. The stiletto-sporting socialist made much capital out of her trip after Dominic Raab mocked her for picking a Mozart opera over the RMT picket line, enabling her to pose as a victim of Tory sneers and classist smears. But it seems that Glyndebourne made the right-on Rayner and others feel right at home, judging by the latest innovation at the Grade II listed manor house. Now gender-neutral toilets have been introduced at the venue in question, replete with the requisite sign that left some older attendees baffled. Along with the traditional pictogram for male and female toilets is a half-skirt, half-trousers symbol to denote those who do not identify as either gender.

Rupert Darwall

The next Tory leader should commit to ditching net zero

‘We’re all Keynesians now,’ Richard Nixon reportedly said in 1971 before ushering in a decade of high inflation. In the twilight of his premiership, Boris Johnson’s chief political legacy to the Conservative party is likely to be cakeism – the political philosophy that denies the existence of trade-offs and asserts you can have it all. And nowhere does that apply more than his embrace of net zero, which has been embraced by virtually all the Tory leadership candidates. Cakeism is the antithesis of Thatcherism, which was about the politics of making hard choices. Cakeism also represents the negation of strategy. In his famous 1996 paper ‘What is strategy?

James Kirkup

A storm is coming – and none of the leadership candidates are ready

You’ve probably heard the joke about the two hikers facing an angry bear. One changes into his running shoes, telling his confused friend: ‘I don’t need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you.’ The gag captures the importance of differentiating between the relative and the absolute. Knowing that a tree is taller than the other trees in the forest doesn’t tell you how tall that tree is – or how big the forest is. Learning that a company is more profitable than others in its market doesn’t tell you if that company is actually doing well – they could all be failing. This is largely how I view the first prime ministerial candidates’ debate on Channel Four on the key issue of the day: energy bills and the cost of living.

Nigel Jones

Do Tory MPs still represent their members?

As the Tory party leadership race enters its next stage this weekend, one thing is becoming very clear: the two candidates that MPs will select for party members to vote on may not be the people that, if it was up to them, the grassroots members would pick themselves. The yawning gulf between Westminster and Tory foot soldiers is nothing new. Ever since her cabinet overthrew Margaret Thatcher, and still more so since David Cameron imposed his A list of diverse and celebrity candidates on local associations – many of them not even nominal conservatives – the gap between central office and ordinary Tories has grown ever wider. Take the great Brexit debate, the most divisive issue to rend the party (and nation) in recent years.

Gus Carter

Boris 2029!

OK, it might sound a little fanciful, but hear me out. I think there could just be a way for Boris to scrape back in to power. Some Johnson loyalists in Westminster think that whoever replaces him will implode, that there could be another leadership race before the 2024 election and that Boris could run and win. That seems like wishful thinking. Instead, I'd suggest he plays the long game. It's a little convoluted and involves quite a few what-ifs – but if anyone can do it, it’s the great greased piglet himself.  Step one: take over the Evening Standard. The ailing London paper has been in trouble for some time. It recorded a £14 million loss last year even after the majority of commuters returned post-Covid.

Patrick O’Flynn

Liz Truss was the biggest loser of last night’s debate

Enid Blyton made a lot of money out of the Famous Five. Maybe she could have invented a brand called the ‘Infamous Five’ that would have made her even more. But the Unfamous Five is a name that might have struggled to bear box office fruit. Yet the glories of the British constitution are about to deliver one of five little-known people – none of whom has a substantial political following of their own – into the office of prime minister. One out of Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat is about to become the political leader of the nation. Constitutionally, there is no issue about any of them taking over the mandate that the Conservative party won under Boris Johnson in December 2019.

Friday

Katy Balls

Tory leadership debate: who won?

16 min listen

In the first televised Tory leadership debate, the five remaining candidates set out their stalls on trust in politics, tax cuts and the NHS ahead of the next round of voting on Monday. How did each candidate fare tonight?Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth.

Freddy Gray

Did René Girard understand America?

40 min listen

Freddy Gray speaks to Geoff Shullenberger, a lecturer at New York University and columnist for Compact Magazine about a range of topics, from the ideas and appeal of philosopher René Girard to transhumanism and transgenderism, and the war in Ukraine.

Coffee House

The Tory leadership debate – as it happened

On Friday night the Tory leadership candidates faced-off in the first televised debate of the contest, hosted on Channel 4. The five contenders – Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat – set out their stalls on trust in politics, tax cuts and the NHS ahead of the next round of voting on Monday. A snap poll carried out by Opinion after the debate put Tom Tugendhat in first place, followed by Rishi Sunak, and then Penny Mordaunt and Kemi Badenoch. Liz Truss came in last.  Follow the debate as it happened below:  9.21pm – Sunak’s second place will calm nerves Katy Balls writes... The snap poll from tonight’s debate puts Tom Tugendhat ahead with Rishi Sunak in second place.

James Forsyth

Penny Mordaunt is more like Boris than you think

As the Tory leadership candidates prepare for tonight’s debate on Channel 4, I find my mind turning back to the Cleggmania that followed Britain’s first televised election debate. As I say in the Times today, Penny Mordaunt’s current momentum feels a bit like things did in 2010: a previously little known politician is shooting to prominence. Only 16 per cent of Tory voters can recognise Mordaunt but she is now in with a serious shot of becoming PM. Mordaunt’s rise is a product of the unique circumstances in today’s Conservative party. She is managing to have her cake and eat it. She has served in the cabinet, but not Boris Johnson’s cabinet.