Election

Read the latest General Election news, views and analysis.

Sunday

Coffee House

The complete guide to Labour’s cabinet

Keir Starmer has appointed his cabinet, but who are the men and women who will be running Britain? The Spectator‘s writers, including Katy Balls, Kate Andrews and James Heale give the run down on Labour’s top team: Chancellor: Rachel Reeves Kate Andrews: It is not strictly true to say that the government is out of money. Rachel Reeves is entering a Treasury that is taxing and spending at record levels. But the new Chancellor still has some very difficult choices to make, as it becomes increasingly clear that spending commitments have far-exceeded what the country can currently afford. Reeves is expected to play hardball with her colleagues who want to turn on the

Tom Slater Tom Slater

The troubling truth about Keir Starmer

‘A politics that treads more lightly on all our lives.’ That’s what Keir Starmer – remarkably, our new Prime Minister – promised a weary nation as he was vying for their vote. Perhaps fittingly, he ended up with a victory that is incredibly light on voters – a huge majority on a lower vote share than any victorious party in the postwar era. Clearly, while Brits had grown tired of the Tory soap opera, they’re switching off from Starmer already. Keir Starmer is an empty vessel – a man for whom principles are fine until they interfere with getting elected Like so much Starmer says, that quote – and his insistence on

Saturday

Steerpike Steerpike

Failed SNP candidates slam party for election loss

Oh dear. The SNP faced a gruelling general election result this week, losing 38 seats to end up on just nine as voters north of the border overwhelmingly backed Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot. A number of parliamentarians lost their seats in nationalist exodus and some of the party’s failed candidates aren’t taking things well. In Falkirk, SNP hopeful Toni Giugliano – who recorded a rather, um, bizarre song for his election campaign – lost to Labour’s Euan Stainbank in a constituency that hasn’t voted red since 2010. Taking to Facebook to blast the outcome, Giugliano hit out at his party’s poor result and, er, the nationalist MSP for his

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour should ignore the Lib Dems on social care

Politics is a goldfish bowl, and not in the sense that it’s small and everyone is watching you intensely. It’s more that the inhabitants of the bowl have a three-second memory. That’s the only explanation for the Liberal Democrats saying they will use their 71 MPs to push Labour for cross-party talks on social care.  Care and the health service was one of the key themes of Ed Davey’s campaign, so it’s not a surprise that his party is briefing that social care will be an early focus. And there is a crisis in social care that we’ve known about for 20 years and that is seriously hampering the ability

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Freddy Gray, Angus Colwell, Matthew Parris, Flora Watkins and Rory Sutherland

30 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: after President Biden’s debate disaster, Freddy Gray profiles the one woman who could persuade him to step down, his wife Jill (1:05); Angus Colwell reports from Israel, where escalation of war seems a very real possibility (9:02); Matthew Parris attempts to reappraise the past 14 years of Conservative government (14:16); Flora Watkins reveals the reasons why canned gin and tonics are so popular (21:24); and, Rory Sutherland asks who could possibly make a better Bond villain than Elon Musk? (25:00).  Presented by Patrick Gibbons.  

John Oxley

What did the Tories do with power?

Fourteen years of Tory-led government is over. The second-longest period of dominance by one party since the war is done. For the left, that means relief and joy. For many on the right, there is a sense of frustration, a sense of waste: power has been squandered and little about the country feels more conservative, or even more successful than it did a decade ago. Much of it, bluntly, feels worse. Much of their legacy will be swept away by the stroke of a statutory instrument or a line in the next budget In some ways, this analysis is unfair. There have been some successes in the last 14 years of

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron’s France has much to learn from Britain’s peaceful election

The left-wing French newspaper Le Monde last month sent its London correspondent across Great Britain to gauge the mood before the general election. He reported that Britain was ‘a broken nation’, and its people ‘glum and divided’. Britain is not in the best of shape, a point on which the people and its politicians are agreed. So the Tories have been booted out and it’s Keir Starmer’s responsibility to try and reinvigorate the country. The transition was achieved calmly, peacefully, democratically, with the only dramatic incident of note the day a silly young woman desperate for attention threw a milkshake at Nigel Farage. If Britain is ‘broken’, then what is

Matthew Lynn Matthew Lynn

Would Rishi Sunak really be welcome in Silicon Valley?

Rishi Sunak’s bags are probably packed. The plane tickets are booked. And no doubt he has found somewhere for the family to stay while they look for a permanent home. It is widely assumed that, having lost the election, Sunak will soon disappear to Silicon Valley as quickly as possible to restart his career. But hold on. Sure, it is easy to understand why Sunak would want to get as far away as possible from the car crash he has presided over. Yet after running one of the most spectacularly inept election campaigns in history, will the tech giants still want him?  Sunak has just fought what will surely go

Friday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Streeting declares: ‘the NHS is broken’

Wes Streeting has just given a striking statement on arrival at the Department of Health and Social Care in which he announced that ‘from today, the policy of this department is that the NHS is broken’. Parties make campaign threats that there are ‘24 hours to save the NHS’, but this description of Labour’s sacred cow as ‘broken’ goes far beyond that. It recognises the seriousness of the situation for the health service and is a declaration of Streeting’s intent to reform. Streeting has become health secretary during an existential crisis. Voters are still committed to the principles of free healthcare but increasingly losing satisfaction with the way the NHS

Debbie Hayton

How Keir Starmer can make it up to Rosie Duffield

Congratulations to Rosie Duffield, who has won re-election for a third time as Labour MP for Canterbury. For many women – and men, indeed – Duffield’s courageous stance on sex and gender has been a beacon of sense, and a reason to vote Labour. She increased her majority from 1,800 to almost 9,000, an astonishing success in a county where she had previously been the sole Labour MP. It started with LGBT+ Labour’s demand for ‘an apology and reparations’ Duffield’s success owes little to Keir Starmer who couldn’t even be bothered to invite her to his election campaign launch just up the road in Gillingham. Perhaps he is still smarting

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Keir Starmer channeled Obama in his first Downing Street speech

In his first speech from the Downing Street lectern, Sir Keir Starmer was setting out to reaffirm those qualities that won him the election. That was a relatively low bar to clear – he just had to give the impression that he was neither a crook nor a maniac – and he cleared it with ease. Here was a solid, sensible, ostentatiously humble speech delivered with persuasive but unshowy emotion.  Starmer was punctilious about showing grace in victory. Just a few days ago, he was deriding Rishi Sunak as a selfish chancer who had enriched himself ‘betting against Britain’ in his financial career; today, he was keen to ‘pay tribute’

Eliot Wilson

The election has left Irish unionism in crisis

The voters of Northern Ireland are used to being an impenetrable afterthought to most mainstream commentators in Britain. The general election has, however, delivered a series of enormous shocks, many of which are in danger of being overlooked. One of those is that Sinn Féin has seven Members of Parliament and is, for the first time in Northern Ireland’s history, the largest party at Westminster. But that is at best nuanced, and at worst misleading. The deeper story is the crisis facing unionism. Sinn Féin, founded in 1905 when A.J. Balfour was still prime minister, and for many years the political wing of the Provisional IRA, held the seven seats

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What Keir Starmer’s first Downing Street speech reveals

Keir Starmer has given his first speech as prime minister. Labour’s seventh leader to make it to 10 Downing Street walked up the pavement to his new home to cheers from supporters and campaigners gathered on the street. He and his wife Victoria made an effort to stop, thank and hug their friends and family on the way up. Given Starmer has won a majority close to Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide, he could be forgiven for striking a slightly triumphalist tone. Instead, Starmer treaded carefully. He said: ‘With respect and humility I invite you all to join this government of service… our work is urgent and we begin it today.’

Keir Starmer

Full text: I’ll govern ‘unburdened by doctrine’

I have just returned from Buckingham Palace, where I accepted an invitation from His Majesty the King to form the next government of this great nation. I want to thank the outgoing prime minister, Rishi Sunak. His achievement as the first British-Asian prime minister of our country – the extra effort that that will have required should not be underestimated by anyone, and we pay tribute to that today. And we also recognise the dedication and hard work he brought to his leadership. But now our country has voted decisively for change, for national renewal and a return of politics to public service. When the gap between the sacrifices made

Robert Tombs

How the Tories changed Britain

The late Roger Scruton (whose wrongful sacking as a housing adviser by a Tory minister in 2019 was a sign that things were badly wrong) defined the fundamental issue: ‘There can be no democracy without a demos, a “we” united by a shared sense of belonging.’ How has the demos changed over 14 years of Conservative government? The ‘we’ is weaker than when David Cameron and Nick Clegg were promoting a Big Society. We are in a pessimistic mood in which saying that ‘nothing works’ has become a catchphrase. Politicians are despised. The party that has governed for so long cannot avoid responsibility.  The government seemed scared to defend their only truly historic

Andrew McQuillan

The triumph of Sinn Fein

Sinn Fein has consolidated its position as the biggest political party in Northern Ireland. It retained its seven seats and, as a result of DUP reversals, is now Northern Ireland’s largest party at Westminster. Sinn Fein were very close to winning the East Londonderry seat from the DUP – which went to various recounts – but the DUP held on with a majority of 179. So the result could have been even better for them.  Northern Ireland now has an alphabet soup of parties representing it Already the largest party at the Stormont Assembly and on Northern Ireland’s councils, it is quite the hat-trick for Sinn Fein and its leader Michelle

Charlotte Henry

Why the Lib Dems did so well

It has been quite a 14 years for the Liberal Democrats – from the coalition in 2010 to near total wipe-out in 2015. Things barely improved in the two elections after that. They even managed to lose then-leader Jo Swinson’s seat in 2019. Five years on, the party has secured 71 seats, a gain of 63 and the party’s highest ever total. They haven’t quite managed to become the official opposition but return to the new parliament as the third-largest party. The Lib Dems have benefited from ruthless targeting One of their gains includes David Cameron’s old seat of Witney on a swing of over 15 per cent. They also

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Sunak’s perfect resignation

Rishi Sunak’s resignation speech was classy, generous and a model of the British system at its best. He started by taking personal responsibility for the election disaster, saying (as expected) that he’d resign as party leader as well as prime minister. His next move was not back into No. 10 but into the car and to Buckingham Palace to ask the King to accept his resignation and recommend that he appoints Keir Starmer. The contrast to America’s last change of power is striking. It’s time to learn the lessons of the campaign, Sunak said. As he spoke, his wife stood in the background with an umbrella as if to illustrate

Rishi Sunak

Full text: I will resign as Conservative leader

Good morning. I will shortly be seeing His Majesty the King to offer my resignation as Prime Minister. To the country, I would like to say, first and foremost, I am sorry. I have given this job my all. But you have sent a clear signal that the government of the United Kingdom must change, and yours is the only judgment that matters. I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss. This is a difficult day at the end of a number of difficult days To all the Conservative candidates and campaigners who worked tirelessly but without success, I am sorry that we could

Jawad Iqbal

Why Muslim voters turned their backs on Starmer’s Labour

In an otherwise jubilant night for Labour, the party has performed badly in areas with a high proportion of Muslim voters. So far, Labour has lost five seats with large Muslim populations – four to independent candidates and one to the Conservatives. The party’s vote is down on average by 11 points in seats where more than 10 per cent of the population identify as Muslim, with pro-Gaza candidates making significant inroads. Labour has been wary throughout this campaign of the impact that the Middle East crisis would have on its vote in urban areas with significant numbers of Muslim voters. It followed comments last year by the Labour leader, Sir Keir