James Heale

The Mandelson scandal claims yet another victim. Late on Thursday night, Olly Robbins was sacked from his post as the Foreign Office’s Permanent Secretary. It came six hours after the Guardian first revealed that Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting clearance in late 2024 to become the UK ambassador to the US, with the

Here is a fun one: what do Giorgia Meloni, Pope Leo XIV, Ed Miliband and the Cato Institute all have in common? The answer is that they have each been attacked in the past 24 hours on Donald Trump’s overactive Truth Social feed. The US President’s erratic actions both online and off now seem to

With three weeks to go until the local elections, Reform are back campaigning on their favourite subject: migration. Having talked up deportations in the run-up to last year’s contests, the party is hoping to rerun the same playbook to achieve similar success. At a press conference this morning, Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf unveiled a

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has conceded election victory in Hungary after 16 years in power, with the opposition on course for a landslide win. Péter Magyar is set to be the country’s new prime minister and his party, Tisza, is forecast to win a massive majority in parliament. ‘The election results are not final yet,

Nigel Farage likes a gamble. Crypto bros and hedge-fund managers bankroll his enterprises; his social circle is filled with traders, bridge players and money men who fancy a flutter. It was Malcolm Muggeridge who claimed that ‘to succeed pre-eminently in English public life it is necessary to conform either to the popular image of a

One of the great gifts in politics is the capacity to surprise. Kemi Badenoch, again, demonstrated her ability in this respect when she chose to wrong-foot Keir Starmer at the last PMQs before recess. All of Westminster is talking about Morgan McSweeney’s missing phone, which has taken on the status of Chekhov’s gun in the

The Tories launched their local election campaign this morning, with a beaming Kemi Badenoch surrounded by rows of flag-waving party members. The polls remain stubbornly low for the party, but the Conservative leader gave little sign of that getting to her. In a 20-minute speech, she gave an upbeat, on-message performance which centred on her

Shabana Mahmood made an impressive start as Home Secretary. Within her first 100 days, she had set out a tough new plan to ‘stop the boats’, drawing lessons from the experience of Denmark. Yet as we now move from winter to spring, it seems that much of the Labour party is becoming increasingly squeamish about

Is any party having a ‘good war’ on Iran? After Donald Trump’s first strikes, I suggested that the Prime Minister had few appealing options. A week on and both the Tories and Reform now appear to be rowing back on their initial statements calling for greater UK involvement. One party which feels confident that they

After Gorton and Denton, where next? The scale of the Green triumph in Manchester has sent shockwaves through Sir Keir Starmer’s party. Much has been written about looming losses in Cardiff and Edinburgh. But the Greens – with their appeal to urban professionals, young Muslims and the economically disaffected – pose a threat in the

Next month marks forty years since the United States bombed Libya. Ronald Reagan requested the use of British air bases for F-111s to retaliate against Colonel Gaddafi after the West Berlin discotheque bombing. Margaret Thatcher readily agreed, despite the refusal of France and other European allies. She later reflected on the episode as cementing the

In the end, it was not even that close. The Green party has stormed to victory in Gorton and Denton, winning their first ever parliamentary by-election by more than 4,000 votes. Hannah Spencer, the new MP, pulled off an impressive result, winning 41 per cent of the vote compared to Reform’s Matt Goodwin on 29

One intriguing element of the battle on the right is the arms race for donations. Twelve months ago, Kemi Badenoch’s supporters could point to her prowess in this field; the Tory leader managed to raise £3.3 million in the first three months of 2025. By contrast Reform UK, the pop-up party, were struggling to keep

There is an old joke about Nigel Farage, put about by former colleagues. ‘Why is Nigel like a beech tree?… Because nothing grows under him.’ The comparison to this acid-leafed tree which stifles all beneath it is one the Reform UK leader has never accepted. ‘I don’t fall out with people,’ he once said. ‘They

It has been a busy few days for Reform UK. Having dominated the last summer recess, this week they are determined to do the same. This morning, the party unveiled their ‘shadow cabinet’, with prime jobs for Robert Jenrick (Shadow Chancellor), Richard Tice (Shadow Business, Energy and Trade), Suella Braverman (Shadow Education, Equalities and Skills)