Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has died at the age of 96

The Queen has died. Buckingham Palace has just confirmed that Her Majesty passed away at Balmoral this afternoon.  It was clear Her Majesty was most unwell when the cancelling of the privy council yesterday was followed by a rare bulletin from Buckingham Palace on her health. The Speaker informed the House of Commons of the Queen’s ill-health this morning and since then the nation has been braced for the worse. The Queen was the model constitutional monarch The Queen has reigned for seventy years. She worked until the very end. Just on Monday, she invited her 15th Prime Minister, Liz Truss, to form a government. In private, she will have dispensed

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Buckle up: the Liz Truss era begins

35 min listen

In this week’s episode: As the Liz Truss era begins, we assess the bumpy road that lies ahead of her. James Forsyth and Rachel Wolf, co-author of the 2019 conservative manifesto, join the Edition podcast (01:04). Also this week: From generation rent to generation buy: has Help to Buy been a success or a failure? Emma Hollender speaks with economist – and ‘Trussketeer’ – Dr Gerard Lyons (12:29). And finally: is metal detecting becoming popular? Nigel Richardson discusses this in his piece in The Spectator this week and is joined by Julian Evan-Hart, editor of Treasure Hunting magazine (25:17). Hosted by Lara Prendergast and William Moore. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Kwarteng axes top Treasury civil servant

Liz Truss’s shake-up of Whitehall continues. Her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has sacked Tom Scholar as permanent secretary to the Treasury – with the Cabinet Secretary to begin the recruitment process to find his successor. Announcing the news in a government press release, Scholar made clear the decision was made by Kwarteng: ‘The Chancellor decided it was time for new leadership at the Treasury, and so I will be leaving with immediate effect’. What message does it send to the markets? There’s a risk that it suggests turbulence The new Chancellor did at least offer some parting words of praise – describing Scholar as ‘a dedicated and exceptional civil servant’ who had provided

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Royal Family gathers at Balmoral amid fears for the Queen’s health

Members of the Royal Family have gathered at Balmoral amid concerns for the Queen’s health. Buckingham Palace released a statement this afternoon saying Her Majesty was ‘comfortable’ but that ‘the Queen’s doctors are concerned for Her Majesty’s health and have recommended she remain under medical supervision’.  Prince Charles, Camilla and Princess Anne are at Balmoral. Prince William, the Queen’s eldest grandson and second in line to the throne, is on his way there. Prince Harry is travelling to Scotland too. Prime Minister Liz Truss has said ‘the whole country will be deeply concerned by the news’.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How much will Truss’s energy plan cost?

10 min listen

Today Liz Truss has announced in parliament an energy price cap to tackle rising bills. As of October, the average household energy bill will be frozen at £2,500 for the next two years. How effective will this be? And how have her free market allies reacted to her use of price controls?  James Forsyth and Katy Balls discuss.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Will Truss’s gamble on energy bills pay off?

Today’s energy bills announcement was the first really important moment of Liz Truss’s premiership so far – and may prove to be the most important one of her entire tenure. Kate has a run-down of the details of the policy here, but what the plan to freeze the average energy bill at £2,500 a year means politically is that there is a clear dividing line between the Truss government and Keir Starmer’s opposition – a line both of them are very happy to thicken.  A striking thing about Truss’s manner is that she goes headlong into the arguments of her opponents before they’ve even had a chance to raise them.

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Truss chooses price controls to tackle energy bills

When Liz Truss spoke from the steps of Downing Street on Monday, she declared proudly that she ‘campaigned as a conservative’ and would ‘govern as a conservative’. It was a dig at her leadership rival Rishi Sunak, who she beat by 15 percentage points, and who she accused throughout the campaign of having lost his way over tax hikes during his time in the Treasury. He insisted this was the path to fiscal responsibility; she insisted it was the path to recession. Yet Truss’s first policy announcement of her premiership – and quite possibly one of the biggest announcements she’ll make as Prime Minister – is not one you can

Alasdair Palmer

How to tackle illegal migration

Immigration policy is a mess. For at least the past decade, it has been characterised by unrealistic targets and broken promises. Every government has promised to reduce dramatically the number of foreigners who arrive here in search of work, or justice, or hope. Every government has failed. The numbers keep going up. David Cameron promised to reduce immigration to below 100,000 a year. So did Theresa May. Boris Johnson claimed his version of Brexit would see immigration fall precipitously. None of them came close to keeping their word. Curbing immigration, both legal and illegal, is an immensely difficult problem, so perhaps it is not surprising that successive governments have failed.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Buckle up! The Liz Truss era is here

Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng arrive in Downing Street having been on a long political journey together. Both elected in 2010, they have co-written books setting out their shared economic agenda; they have co-founded party groups during their time in parliament; and now they will govern together. The future direction of the country, and the Tories’ electoral prospects, depend on the success of this new Downing Street partnership. Their strategy is one of big economic gambles from day one. Chief among these is the big energy package, potentially costing over £100 billion, designed to ‘freeze’ energy prices for households and businesses. This will involve the state – future taxpayers, in

The Spectator

Liz Truss can’t ignore the issue of NHS reform

It’s hard to think of any Prime Minister who has entered office surrounded by such low expectations. Liz Truss was backed by just over half of Conservative party members and secured barely an eighth of MPs in the first ballot. Her critics dismiss her as a lightweight, wholly unsuited to tackling the problems now facing the country. The presumption is not just for trouble, but calamity: the fastest drop in living standards in living memory, followed by prolonged recession and worse. So if Truss manages to send inflation into reverse and makes a noticeable cut to taxes by Easter, it will be seen as quite an achievement. She has also

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

In defence of Iain Macwhirter

Those of us on the right often sense a form of racism in the protests by some of those on the left who are suspicious of the racial diversity in the Tory front bench. Kemi Badenoch has often spoken about how black politicians who differ from the Labour narrative are accused of somehow betraying their race. Priti Patel has spoken about how much she hates the label ‘BME’ which lumps together all ethnic minorities as if they have more in common with each other than whites (she banned her officials from using it). James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, has said he has been told to ‘go home’ and referred to by

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Russia’s Ben Stiller ban is a sign of Putin’s desperation

What do Ben Stiller, Sean Penn, the chairman of the BBC, Piers Morgan, and, er, me, have in common? The answer is that we’ve all been banned from Russia. For some of us, that’s a blow. For others, an irrelevance. But for all of us, it’s a strange accolade: somehow Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin thinks we’re significant, dangerous or hostile enough to need to be kept out at all costs. What level of insecurity does it take to worry that the screen Zoolander and Harvey Milk, respectively, represent a threat to the stability and integrity of the Russian Federation? And what desperation demands that this be done not quietly, if, as and

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Truss’s appointments are ruffling Tory feathers

Liz Truss has started to appoint supporters of her leadership campaign rivals to ministerial positions, answering the demand (mostly from said supporters of her leadership campaign rivals) to ‘reach out’ across the party to bring the Conservatives back together. There are Rishi Sunak backers in the latest slew of jobs – Robert Jenrick returns to government as health minister, Jeremy Quin goes to the Home Office, Mark Spencer to Defra and Victoria Prentis goes to DWP – along with two who had previously backed Kemi Badenoch (Rachel Maclean goes to Justice and Julia Lopez goes to DCMS). In the interests of fairness and equality, there are a few Truss backers

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Have Labour underestimated Truss?

12 min listen

It’s Liz Truss’s first full day as prime minister and, backed by a fully assembled cabinet, she has conducted her first Prime Minister’s Questions with Labour leader Keir Starmer. Who came out on top?  Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.  Produced by Cindy Yu and Oscar Edmondson.

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Is long Covid all in the mind?

What’s the link between long Covid and mental health? A study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests it’s a significant one. The paper looked at more than 3,000 people who tested positive for Covid in the US. Of those who went on to develop ‘long Covid’, it found many of them already experienced mental distress before catching the virus. The study looked at 3,193 people – mostly women – who reported Covid symptoms continuing four weeks after first falling ill. They found that those reporting long Covid were more likely to have already experienced a range of symptoms including ‘depression, anxiety, worry about Covid, loneliness and

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Liz Truss’s first PMQs felt like a dress rehearsal

That felt like a dress rehearsal. Liz Truss sailed through her first PMQs which will probably be her easiest. It may turn out to have been her best. When she arrived, the House burst into ecstasies of joy as if she’d just found the cure for malaria, solved the Jack the Ripper case and liberated Hong Kong. The questions lobbed at her were as soft as pizza dough, and each was prefixed with a note of congratulation and welcome. The mood was warm enough even to thaw the frost that covers Theresa May. Suspending her sulk for a moment she made an ironic observation. ‘Why does she think it is

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

Sturgeon’s rent controls will hurt Scots

It’s all getting a bit Latin American in Britain and not in a good way. Inflation is stuck stubbornly in the double digits, the current account deficit is at record levels, our new Prime Minister is preparing to spend the annual budget of the NHS on subsidising energy purchases, and regional separatists are tightening their grip on the Scottish economy by introducing price controls. At least the weather’s still good. Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to freeze all rents in Scotland would be a disaster for Scots. Economists almost universally agree that rent control is one of the worst possible ways the government can intervene in a housing market. The short-term consequences

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Liz Truss revealed her weakness at PMQs

In her first Prime Minister’s Questions, Liz Truss said that before she was anything else she was ‘on the side of people who work hard and do the right thing’. In response, Keir Starmer showed that Labour’s first task was to make clear that she was nothing of the sort. And I suspect he will have the easier time of it. For a Prime Minister to portray herself as the faithful friend of Big Oil is – how to put this politely? – a ‘brave strategy’ at the best of times. It looks terrible when fuel prices and the national debt are in a race to see which can inflate

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Liz Truss should increase Universal Credit

Liz Truss’s plans for a two-year energy bill freeze, estimated to cost £100 billion, underscore three points. One, the incoming Prime Minister expects the energy crisis to be with us for more than one winter. Two, she grasps how lethal it will be to the Tories’ hopes of re-election if the Treasury doesn’t intervene in a big way. Three, she is prepared to run up government debt even further in order to mitigate a crisis that threatens people’s quality of life. This third point is the crucial one. When a neo-Thatcherite like Truss concedes the merits of transformative interventions funded by borrowing, it opens up a broader conversation. If the Treasury

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Why Liz Truss’s political journey matters

As is now well known, Liz Truss has travelled politically. Her parents are left-wing, and there is a photograph of her as a child posing with them and their CND banner in Paisley. She herself was active in the Liberal Democrats. Professor Truss is reportedly upset that his daughter became a Conservative. I can identify with this story a little since both my parents were/are (my mother is still alive) ardent Liberals and I fear my own move to the right – though never really a party-political thing – upset them. Parents tend to be more upset by children moving to their right than to their left. This is because non-conservative politics