Election

Read the latest General Election news, views and analysis.

Steerpike

Harington endorses Labour – after in-law backed Brexit party

With the general election just three days away, the celebrity endorsements have started to roll in. Now Dragon’s Den judge Deborah Meaden, singer-songwriter Elton John and comedian Jason Manford have come out for Labour – all with snappy video messages gushing praise on the party. Steerpike has spotted one rather interesting addition to the celeb lineup however, in the form of one Kit Harington of hit TV series Game of Thrones. The Jon Snow actor was seen in a Twitter video shared by the party on Sunday telling viewers to back Sir Keir’s lefty lot. In his endorsement of Starmer’s army, a dressed-down Harington told the camera: One issue that

Steerpike

Reform candidate ditches party over ‘racism and sexism’

Another day, another election campaign drama. Now it’s Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party in the limelight with more candidate controversy. Only this time it’s not the party defending contentious comments. Instead, one of the party’s candidates has turned on Reform. Oo er. Liam Booth-Isherwood, formerly a Reform candidate for Erewash, has today disowned the party over allegations of racism. The former Farage man has instead decided to endorse the Conservative party, backing the Tory contender – Maggie Throup – in the election. ‘Over the past few weeks, I have been increasingly disillusioned with the behaviour and conduct of Reform,’ Booth-Isherwood claimed in a statement, adding: Whilst I have campaigned alongside

Isabel Hardman

Why is Sunak proud of his defensive campaign?

Rishi Sunak isn’t lacking in energy as he goes into his final few days of election campaigning. He is, though, using that energy in some quite futile ways. He spent much of his interview with Laura Kuenssberg this morning arguing with the way she phrased questions and getting irritated that he wasn’t being given enough time to explain himself on key policy areas. That tetchy impatience – something Sunak never recognises in himself – has long been one of his visible flaws.  It isn’t necessarily the kind of visible flaw that puts voters off a prime minister. The problem for Sunak was not whether he had eaten enough breakfast and

Fraser Nelson

Coffee House Shots live: election special

58 min listen

Join Fraser Nelson, Katy Balls and Kate Andrews for this special edition of Coffee House Shots, recorded live ahead of the general election. As election day draws closer, Fraser talks through some myth-busting statistics and the team answer questions from the audience. Could this election increase support for proportional representation? What policy does the panel think has been the most interesting? And was there ever a probable path to victory for Rishi Sunak? Produced by Natasha Feroze and Patrick Gibbons. Check out The Spectator’s data hub for more graphs and statistics, updated daily. 

Lisa Haseldine

Inside the Lib Dems’ campaign to tear down the Blue Wall

‘We would not put in this effort if we weren’t the challengers, and we clearly are.’ Liberal Democrat candidate Paul Kohler is sitting on a park bench on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Wimbledon, South West London. In 2019, this was the tightest Tory-Lib Dem marginal seat in the country: Kohler lost out to the Conservative incumbent Stephen Hammond by a mere 628 votes.  Last time may have been painfully close (‘You’re telling me!’) but now Kohler fancies his chances – and the polls suggest he’s right to be confident. With just four days to go until polling day, the latest surveys suggest that he could win the seat with

Kate Andrews

Paul Johnson: Tory and Labour attacks are ‘broadly fictional’

We’re five weeks into the election campaign – and just days away from polling day – and voters have plenty of parties, and numbers, to consider. Labour will raise everyone’s tax bill by £2,000, claim the Conservatives. Mortgages will rise by £4,800 under another Tory government, insist Labour. Is any of it true? ‘I would suggest that voters entirely ignore all of those sorts of numbers and calculations’, says Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, in The Spectator’s office. ‘I think they’re broadly fictional.’ They are impossible claims to make, partly because ‘we don’t know what would happen under these different governments, because they really haven’t told

The Tories have much to learn from their 1997 wipeout

If polls are anything to go by, Labour’s historic 1997 election win – 418 seats to the Tories’ 165 – is about to be dwarfed by this week’s vote. An exclusive survey for the Daily Telegraph recently predicted Labour would win 516 seats to the Tories’ 53. A political wipeout, in other words, seems to await Rishi Sunak and his government – their worst result ever. Hanging on to 165 seats in parliament, however woeful it seemed three decades ago, would put smiles of relief on most Conservative faces. Hanging on to 165 seats, however woeful it seemed three decades ago, would put smiles of relief on most Conservative faces

Why is Starmer starting rows before the election?

The Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he didn’t mean to cause ‘concern or offence’ when he called for more Bangladeshi asylum seekers to be deported. His comments – singling out Bangladesh as a place where more people could be returned to from the UK – have sparked uproar in the British-Bangladeshi community (traditionally Labour-supporting), as well as strong criticism from some of Starmer’s own MPs, councillors and activists. What exactly did the Labour leader say that has landed him in such hot water? Speaking specifically about people who come to the UK illegally, Starmer told the Sun newspaper: ‘I’ll make sure we get planes going off… back to the countries

How Scottish Starmerites are wooing urban voters

Will Scotland’s central belt turn red? The last eighteen months of SNP chaos, from police probes to iPad scandals, coupled with an intense distrust of the Westminster government post-pandemic have left many Scottish voters politically homeless. Sir Keir Starmer is predicted a historic win and Labour is hoping Scotland will help the party achieve it. Yet this general election lacks exciting, eye-catching leaders. And it’s certainly not Starmer’s personality that is compelling Scotland’s voters to switch sides. Spend a day out in Glasgow and the criticism of the party’s leader comes across. From his flip flopping over Gaza to his staid election debate performances, the Labour leader does not cut

Patrick O'Flynn

Sunak’s campaign has been a disaster from start to finish

Dry wit is a much under-appreciated quality in this age of high-impact sledgehammer communication. In an election full of sub-standard soundbites and slogans signifying almost nothing, there is an especially strong case to be grateful for the occasional appearance of wit. There was the moment when Nigel Farage mocked the Plaid Cymru chap who was opposing a crackdown on foreign students bringing in dependents by telling him that if you had got a place as an overseas student at a British university it didn’t mean that you should be able to bring your mum. But the gold medal for LOLs must go to the retiring Conservative ex-minister Tim Loughton, who was

Why I’m backing the Tories over Reform

You can often tell a lot about people, not by what they say but how they say it. Three weeks ago, I appealed to you to help me make up my mind, as a lifelong Tory, as to how to vote in Boston and Skegness, the constituency in which I live. Many of you kindly responded. Nearly all had a tone of slight despair, much mistrust and a smattering of anger. As far as my experience goes, Reform is the Church of Nigel The two main protagonists in my piece also contacted me. First was Matt Warman, the local Conservative candidate who is defending a 25,000 majority. Warman, as I wrote in

Tom Slater

Democrats can’t pretend to be shocked by Joe Biden’s decline

What a difference a week makes. Last week, White House spinners and Democratic pundits were insisting that clips of US president Joe Biden appearing to freeze up, slur his words and generally show his age at various public events were selectively edited ‘cheap fakes’ – tawdry, low-tech misinformation put about by the scurrilous right-wing media. Now, after Biden froze up, slurred his words and generally showed his age during last night’s first televised presidential debate of 2024, in front of tens of millions of Americans and in the full glare of the international media, they’ve suddenly changed their tune. Democratic pundits and politicians have finally had to concede that the president is clearly very

Lara Prendergast

Downfall: how Nigel Farage became the left’s greatest weapon

44 min listen

This week: Downfall. Our cover piece examines Nigel Farage’s role in the UK general election. Spectator editor Fraser Nelson argues that Farage has become the left’s greatest weapon, but why? How has becoming leader of Reform UK impacted the campaign and could this lead to a fundamental realignment of British politics? Fraser joined the podcast to talk through his theory, with former UKIP MEP Patrick O’Flynn (02:10). Next: Spectator writer Svitlana Morenets has returned to Ukraine to report on the war, which is now well into its third year. How are Ukrainians coping and what is daily life like? Svitlana joined the podcast from Kyiv with Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov (21:53). And finally: has

Isabel Hardman

The pointlessness of the junior doctors’ strike

Junior doctors are back out on strike in England today, walking out this morning for five days. The timing of this particular strike is highly political, given medics will return to work just before polling day – but it is also highly pointless: something NHS leaders have been quick to highlight. The election campaign is the one period when no politician can resolve the dispute over doctors’ pay. Rishi Sunak is not going to change his mind and award the doctors the 35 per cent raise they have been demanding, but neither could he if he wanted to because of the election purdah rules. Labour, on the other hand, aren’t

Julie Burchill

The trouble with David Tennant

Most people have a soft spot for the first ‘X’ film they legitimately saw as an alleged ‘adult’; mine was Magic, the 1978 film by Richard Attenborough, starring Anthony Hopkins as a mild-mannered ventriloquist who becomes possessed by the spirit of his verbally vicious dummy, leading to awful consequences when a steaming hot and sex-starved Ann-Margret happens by. The creepy plot of Magic came to mind when I saw a clip of the actor David Tennant’s astonishing outburst of spite directed at the Tory MP Kemi Badenoch while he was picking up a prize at something called ‘the British LGBT Awards’: What Tennant said was mind-bogglingly stupid ‘If I’m honest, I’m

Kate Andrews

The problem with Starmer calling Sunak a ‘liar’

Is Rishi Sunak a ‘liar’? That was the powerful and rather incredible word used by Keir Starmer multiple times in Wednesday night’s debate – with Starmer interrupting the prime minister’s closing statement, no less – after Sunak used the Tory calculation that Labour would raise the average tax bill by £2,000.  ‘Lies, liar’ Starmer pressed. It sounded like something being picked up on a hot mic off stage. But it was the Labour leader, who was visibly furious at the start of his closing statement. ‘That was a lie, and he’s been told not to repeat that lie, and he’s just done it,’ was how Starmer’s remarks started, before he went

Brendan O’Neill

Why won’t Dawn Butler show solidarity with Kemi Badenoch?

Behold the exquisite hypocrisy of the Labour MP Dawn Butler. This is a politician who has raised the alarm over the verbal abuse received by female MPs. And yet now she’s gleefully telling anyone who will listen that she agrees with the preening luvvie David Tennant who said Kemi Badenoch should ‘shut up’ and, better still, disappear off the face of the Earth entirely. So sexist barbs are fine if they’re aimed at Tory ladies, Dawn? Is it acceptable again for men to tell women to pipe down? Yes, Ms Butler, the MP for Brent Central, has weighed in with her usual tact to the Tennant-Badenoch showdown. It was at