Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Sunday

Steerpike

Penny Mordaunt changes tack on trans rights

Penny Mordaunt has had a good start to the leadership race, storming into second place with 16 names, even though she is yet to declare. But is the Portsmouth MP worried about her past views coming back to haunt her? Mr S was surprised to see Mordaunt fire off a late-night ten-part Twitter thread shortly after midnight, in which the Royal Navy reservist tried desperately to prove that she really isn't woke. Having complained that she wants to talk about 'how we get our economy growing', Mordaunt then shared a graphic captioned 'Do I know what a woman is?' Taking a sideswipe at the Times for using an image of her on a gameshow, the trade minister declared that 'Some people born male and who have been through the gender recognition process are also legally female.

Coffee House

Latest: Hunt says he would make McVey his deputy

It's day three of the Tory leadership race. As things stand there are nine declared candidates: Rishi Sunak, Nadhim Zahawi, Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Sajid Javid, Tom Tugendhat, Jeremy Hunt, Grant Shapps and Penny Mordaunt. All eyes are on Liz Truss to see whether she will choose to launch today or tomorrow, ahead of the crucial Monday meeting of Tory MPs. Thus far a quarter of Tory MPs have made endorsements with more than 100 going public, according to our Coffee House list here. Keep track of the latest developments below: 6.30 p.m. – Zahawi kicks back at tax 'smears' Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has called stories about his finances 'inaccurate, unfair' and 'clearly smears'.

Saturday

Nadhim Zahawi

My plan to fix Britain

Thanks to Brexit, we are now a free nation. But let’s not just talk about the opportunities that follow: let’s take them. If a young boy who came here aged 11 without a word of English, can serve at the highest levels of Her Majesty’s Government and run to be the next Prime Minister, anything is possible. The burden of tax is simply too high. As an entrepreneur and businessman, I know that lower taxes are how we create a thriving and dynamic economy. Taxes for individuals, families and business need to be lower - and will be on my watch. Having been born in Iraq and fled the dangers of Saddam, I know that security, safety and freedom are things that we can never take for granted.

Coffee House

Latest: Zahawi, Javid & Hunt declare, Wallace out

Nadhim Zahawi, Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt have declared their candidacy this evening. Ben Wallace, who had topped the poll among Tory activists, has announced that he won't be standing in the Tory leadership race. Rishi Sunak is now leading the field in both MPs' endorsement – he has 24 – and bookmaker's odds (below). Sajid Javid has announced his candidacy and Liz Truss will on Monday. Trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan is backing Tom Tugendhat and Justin Tomlinson has quit as deputy chairman to support Kemi Badenoch. Keep track of the latest developments below:10:10 p.m. Sajid Javid declares his candidacy in Sunday Telegraph interview  Fraser Nelson writes... 'We cannot afford not to have tax cuts,' he says (a dividing line with Sunak).

Francis Pike

Shinzo Abe and the long history of Japanese political violence

Shinzo Abe, perhaps the most significant Japanese politician of the last 50 years, has been assassinated. The killing was carried out by Tetsuya Yamagamu, a youngish and apparently disgruntled former employee of the Japan’s Maritime Self Defence Force.  It was a brutal and sordid end to what was an important if not uncontroversial life. Shinzo Abe was the dominant politician of his era. Forced to give up the prime ministership after just one year in 2007 because of ulcerative colitis, a congenital condition, Abe came back to win landslide elections for the Liberal Democratic Party in 2012, 2014 and 2017. In an era when many Japanese prime ministers have served for little more than a year, Abe was prime minister for a record eight years and 267 days.

Damian Thompson

Why the Tories should gamble on Kemi Badenoch

There's only one candidate for prime minister with the guts to dismantle the self-loathing culture of identity politics that is destroying Britain. She's uniquely qualified to take on the challenge because she's a black woman raised in Nigeria who studied for her A-levels while working in McDonald's. And she may succeed because, in addition to a passion for knocking heads together, she has a startlingly clear understanding of how our politics and culture are poisoning each other in a left-liberal suicide pact. As soon as I read Kemi Badenoch's article in this morning’s Times, I thought: this is a risk worth taking. The last gamble didn't pay off, but then Boris Johnson was always too distracted and self-absorbed to assemble his maverick ideas into a political philosophy.

Fraser Nelson

Are the Tories ready for a real contest?

Will this leadership contest provide a debate? The Tories got into this mess because have spent years asking who can bring them power, rather than what they stand for or who has the best ideas for the country. The leadership contest should come in two stages: first discussing what has gone wrong and then next who best to remedy. So far, this is my test for the candidates. Have they said anything that moves beyond platitude and cliche? Do they show any signs of being thoughtful? Do they recognise that there is a fight ahead, and that they are prepared for that fight? I fervently hope the Tory party abstain from the stitch-ups and have a broad and productive debate about who they are and what they stand for.

Steerpike

Jolyon makes a mess of it (again)

Oh dear. It seems that Britain's favourite kimono-wearing, fox-murdering, bat-wielding loudmouth lawyer has done it again. The Conservative party is shaping up for a leadership contest between the most diverse range of candidates ever, including five MPs from ethnic minority backgrounds (Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch, Rishi Sunak, Nadhim Zahawi and Sajid Javid). There are also four women (Braverman, Badenoch, Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt) –  more than the prospective number of straight white men (Tom Tugendhat, Ben Wallace and Jeremy Hunt). But that's not enough for Jolyon Maugham, the right-on Remainiac best known for losing cases and killing foxes.

Mark Galeotti

Russia is militarising its economy

The ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine isn’t a war – there’s a law and a possible maximum sentence (though no one seems to have faced it yet) of 15 years in prison to stop you claiming it is in Russia. Yet Russia does seem to be inching towards a wartime economy, for all Vladimir Putin’s recent bullishness. At the recent (if rather sparsely-attended) St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin struck a triumphalist note, crowing that ‘the economic blitzkrieg against Russia never had any chances of success,’ and ‘gloomy predictions about the Russian economy’s future didn't come true.’ That’s both true and not true.

Sam Ashworth-Hayes

Can the next Tory leader save Boris’s broken Britain?

Whatever else will be said about him in the days and years to come, Boris Johnson will leave No. 10 having achieved the full extent of his policy ambitions: become Prime Minister. After a little under three years in office, Johnson has been reduced to the status of squatter in Downing Street, pottering about with a cabinet consisting of Nadine Dorries and pocket lint, grumbling about leakers and betrayers. Having successfully weaned itself off foxhunting, the Conservative party meanwhile is preparing for another bout of its favourite triennial bloodsport.

Danny Shaw

‘They call him the tunneller’: meet the new head of the Met police

Dressed in full uniform and clutching a clipboard, Mark Rowley walked out of the Royal Courts of Justice in London, down the steps and towards a row of microphones. It was January 2014. An inquest into the fatal police shooting in Tottenham of Mark Duggan had just concluded with a verdict of ‘lawful killing’ and the Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner had a statement to make. As he began to speak, there were shouts from a group of Duggan’s supporters nearby. ‘Murderers, liars, racists, scum!’ they screamed, drowning out the officer’s words. One man came up to him, just inches from his face, and hurled abuse, but Rowley carried on.

Robert Peston

Will Sunak’s polished campaign harm his chances?

Rishi Sunak has launched a slick, well organised leadership campaign very early. It is impossible to escape the conclusion that he has been preparing his leadership pitch quietly for weeks and months. Will this hurt or harm him? There may be some Boris Johnson loyalists who will accuse him of disloyalty - although Johnson did not manifest much fealty to Theresa May when she was PM and he foreign secretary. Per contra, Johnson’s many critics may want to reward Sunak for quitting as chancellor last Tuesday and triggering the crisis that led on Thursday to Johnson announcing he was stepping down. So it is not clear to me whether Sunak will be rewarded or punished for contingency planning for a bid to become PM while in theory there was no vacancy at the top. https://twitter.

Andrew Lilico

What the Tories should look for in their next leader

The Conservatives are selecting a new leader, who will become Prime Minister. What sort of a person should that be? It needs to be someone with the spark or edge of a leader, able to carry others with them – not just a clubbable ‘Yes Man’ type. It needs to be someone able to press a vision and policy agenda across a range of issues, not just something narrow like finance, defence, international relations or legal issues. It needs to be someone able to convey an optimistic message, but have a serious mode that can be turned on when necessary. Someone who is willing to be unpopular, taking tough decisions when necessary with the confidence that vindication will come later, who trusts that the truth is the Conservative’s greatest political friend.

Andrew Willshire

How the Tories can avoid a leadership election stitch-up

Boris Johnson’s resignation has fired the starting gun on yet another Conservative leadership election. The race to succeed Boris is the fifth to have been fought under the rules introduced by William Hague in 1998. But there’s a problem with the way the contest is run: it forces MPs to second-guess the Tory membership – who ultimately pick the winner – rather than simply back the best candidate. Should he stand, Jeremy Hunt is quite likely to make the final cut again this year. Why? Because Hunt would lose to every other major contender among the 200,000 or so strong membership, according to the latest polling.

Friday

Katy Balls

Ready for Rishi? Sunak launches leadership bid

Rishi Sunak has this afternoon confirmed that he is running to be the next leader of the Conservative party. In a launch video published on social media, the former chancellor begins by telling the story of his grandmother coming to the UK from East Africa and starting a life here as he declares that 'family is everything' to him. https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1545426650032111616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Sunak is associated with high taxes rather than tax cuts and will be arguing for patience Sunak – who has also launched a leadership website under the name Ready for Rishi – has adopted the slogan: 'restore trust, rebuild the economy and reunite the country'.

Katy Balls

Who wants to replace Boris?

11 min listen

The Tory leadership race has begun. Some candidates, like Steve Baker and Suella Braverman, have already declared that they will be running. Others, like Nadhim Zahawi, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, are expected to announce their candidacy in the coming days. What are their platforms? How many MPs will hopefuls need to have supporting them to make it onto the ballot? What should the party look for in a new leader? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth. Produced by Max Jeffery.

James Forsyth

The Tory leadership race is wide open

Westminster is strangely quiet today. Most MPs are back in their constituencies. But the place will feel very different next week when there’ll probably be two rounds of voting in a Tory leadership contest. The speed of the contest – the 1922 executive is likely to propose having the parliamentary rounds wrapped up by 21 July – will mean that momentum is all important. Whoever is seen to outperform in round one will get a big boost. Another key factor will be transferability, how able are candidates to pick up support from others as the contest goes on. No one is going to be close to 120 votes, what you need to guarantee making it through to the members’ round, on the first ballot. The field remains very open.

Sean Thomas

How Boris Johnson changed my life

Over the coming weeks we will be regaled with dozens of personal recollections, from around the world, of the man who has dominated British politics this last half decade. Some of them will paint him as a foolish clown, others as a flawed genius, others will see him as Leaver saint or Brexiteering Satan, but my Boris Johnson story might be the only one involving medically dangerous levels of masturbation. So it needs to be told. About eighteen years ago I got horribly addicted to internet porn – free online porn then being an innovation – to an extent that I went days without sleep, became perilously run down, and then got taken out with a suppurative form of tonsillitis. I actually ended up on a drip, badly dehydrated, in hospital.

Kate Andrews

The Tory leadership candidates’ tax cuts promises won’t be enough

What does Boris Johnson’s resignation mean for the economy? The pound started its rebound yesterday from a two-year low against the US dollar after Johnson resigned. A few economists were quick to point out though that it had dropped so much, there was only one place it could really go: up.  It’s very likely this leadership race turns into a competition over who would cut taxes hardest and fastest, which is no bad thing Had Johnson managed a few more months in the role, we would have almost certainly seen some deficit-financed tax cuts, led by the new Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi. ‘We were 24 hours away from reversing the corporation tax hike,’ one minister tells me, which will rise from 19 per cent to 25 per cent for large companies.