Election

As part of their vote-Tory-or-the-kitten-gets-it final push, the Conservatives have spent the past 12 hours pushing the idea that Keir Starmer would ‘clock off’ at 6 p.m. as prime minister. This was based on a radio interview the Labour leader gave where he said he would try to protect Friday evenings for his family: his wife is Jewish and they raise their children in that tradition. Labour has been pushing back pretty hard against the Tory attacks on this matter, saying Starmer didn’t suggest in the interview that he would refuse to take important calls on a Friday night, and pointing to the full transcript where he also argued that

Britain’s creaking infrastructure and frequent paralysis of public services deserved to be a bigger factor in the election campaign than it has been. But could it now actually affect the result by disenfranchising some voters? A growing number of voters have complained about failing to receive their ballot papers in the post. Given that many people requested postal votes because they knew they were going to be away from home this week, it will now be too late for them to vote, even if delays are sorted out at the last moment. Come Friday, and the late arrival of postal ballots threatens to become a major scandal It is not

In just two days, voters will head to the polling booth to cast their vote in the 2024 general election. Will there be any surprises in store? So far, there has been little movement when it comes to the gap in vote share between Labour and the Tories. While Labour’s has fallen during the campaign, the Tories have failed to benefit too much from it thanks to the Reform party – which is eating into their vote share. A poll by Savanta for today’s Telegraph finds that the Tory campaign has steadied things since their mid-campaign D-Day gaffe: the party is now at its highest level since the debacle with

One perfectly valid reason for voting is to reward past success and punish past failures. We have no guarantees about what politicians will do in future, whatever they promise. We know what they did in the past. For millions of right-wingers, this punish-reward perspective is central to their decision about how to vote in 2024. They may differ a bit on what it is that they want to punish the Tory party for – whether it’s for partygate; ousting Liz Truss; net zero; inflation; Brexit; not making enough of Brexit; high public spending and taxes; too much wokery; too much immigration; or too many lockdowns. Whatever the precise reason for

Uh oh. All is not well within the Scottish Conservative party and just days before polling day, senior figures have dubbed the election campaign ‘the most inept [and] shambolic’ in the party’s history – called for a clear-out of the party hierarchy. Good heavens. Senior party figures have told the Times that Scottish Tory candidates have been ‘badly let down’ by ‘disastrous errors from the top’. One MSP blasting campaigning efforts said that ‘no one involved in the leadership of the campaign should ever be allowed near one again’. Another party insider echoed the sentiment, saying: The main focus for now is getting as many candidates over the line as

Who says Britain is no longer a Great Power? To those of a declinist cast of mind, it must stand as a rebuke that, even with everything else on his plate, Vladimir Putin still regards our elections as worth interfering in. And, what’s more, those elections are so important that the Aussies are taking enough of an interest in them to consider that Russian interference newsworthy.   Russia may be trying to influence our elections, which as I say is flattering and all, but they aren’t trying very hard At the same time as it’s heartening that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation considers this a big deal it’s also, I suppose,