Election

Read the latest General Election news, views and analysis.

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Duffield slams Starmer’s gender response

Starmer Chameleon strikes again. Sir Keir hadn’t taken to the stage long in the BBC’s Question Time special last night before the issue of his tendency to U-turn cropped up. Turning to the trans debate and Starmer’s rather, um, checkered history on the matter, one audience member asked the Labour leader: ‘Three years ago you criticised your MP Rosie Duffield for saying only women have a cervix. What do you believe now and how do we know you will stick to your views?’ For readers that are struggling to remember quite how many times Sir Keir has dithered on the gender debate, Mr S can fill you in. Starmer was

Iain Macwhirter

The Supreme Court’s oil ruling spells trouble for the SNP

Judges on the Supreme Court appear to have joined Just Stop Oil. In a landmark ruling, with profound implications for the UK energy industry, they’ve said that Surrey County Council cannot give permission to drill new wells on an existing extraction site, Horse Hill, which already has a couple of them. This is because the oil might be burnt – which admittedly tends to happen with hydrocarbon fuels. Net Zero campaigners who brought the original action against the ‘Gatwick Gusher’ as they called it back in 2019 are ‘over the moon’. The Scottish government, however, is not quite so sanguine. The Supreme Court’s ruling is illogical Could the ruling mean the end

Thursday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Sunak’s best Question Time moment also exposed his weakness

Tonight’s election Question Time programme was probably the best of the campaign in that it gave space for proper discussion while making all the leaders uncomfortable. None of the four men questioned over the two hour programme – Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, Ed Davey and John Swinney – did badly: in fact, given what a mess his wider campaign is in, Sunak acquitted himself pretty well. There were some good revelatory comments, both in terms of the arguments used and the reactions of the audience. But there wasn’t one defining moment that will sum up the election once we know the results.  All faced questions about whether the public could

Steerpike Steerpike

Tory duo probed in election betting claims

Dear oh dear. Now it transpires that a second Tory election candidate is facing scrutiny over an alleged bet related to the timing of the national poll. Laura Saunders, the party’s candidate for Bristol North West and a former CCHQ staffer, is being investigated by the Gambling Commission – the second Conservative candidate to face questions on bets in so many weeks. Mr S understands that it is not currently known when the alleged bet was placed – or for how much money. Saunders has worked in the Tory party since 2015 and was most recently involved in the International Division of CCHQ, which works with a range of political

Euan McColm

The SNP’s election pitch is a masterclass in inconsistency

The SNP may be in crisis, with police investigating the use of party funds and support from voters sliding, but the current General Election campaign obliges leader John Swinney to pretend everything in the garden continues to bloom. Launching the Nats’ manifesto in Edinburgh on Wednesday, the First Minister acted as if his scandal-scarred party was still the unstoppable force it once seemed to be. On 4 July, if Scots wanted independence, then a vote for the SNP was the way to achieve it, he said. Victory in a majority of Scottish seats would, said Swinney, mean a mandate for him to ’embark on negotiations with the UK government to

James Kirkup James Kirkup

A Danish lesson for Labour in how to revive Britain’s economy

The coincidence of the 2024 general election and the Euro 2024 football tournament is a great lesson in the myopia of Westminster and its creatures. Somewhere, deep in our hearts, we do know that the vast majority of people in Britain (OK, England and Scotland) are far more interested in the football than in the ups and downs of the campaign. But does that stop us fixating on the minutiae of that campaign? Not at all: for political nerds, this is our championship, after all, one of those (quite) rare moments when all the stars, all the heroes and villains, are on the pitch together, generally kicking lumps out of each

Wednesday

Catriona Stewart

When will Labour get specific about its stance on gender reform?

In a general election campaign that has oftentimes presented scenarios that feel like a fever dream, the surreal headlines keep coming. ‘Sir Keir Starmer agrees with Sir Tony Blair,’ we read this week, ‘that a man has a penis and a woman has a vagina’. Newspaper articles focused on two Labour leaders in simpatico and this is the outcome? ‘Tony’s right about that,’ Sir Keir said, in response to his colleague’s statement of fact: ‘He put it very well.’ That clattering noise is the sound of women’s eyebrows shooting from their heads to hit the ceiling; women who have said – and said repeatedly – this very thing, only to

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Poll puts Tories on lowest seat total in history

How is the Conservative campaign going? Well, according to the latest YouGov poll, things are looking worse for Rishi Sunak and his party than when he called the election. The latest MRP poll from the pollster suggests that were an election held now, the Labour party would return 425 MPs, the Conservatives would come in second on 108 seats and the Liberal Democrats in third on 67 MPs. What will make this particularly uncomfortable is that the figures are less favourable to the Tories than their poll two weeks ago – they are down 32 MPs from the last poll. Meanwhile, Labour are up two from that poll. The big

Steerpike Steerpike

Sunak on course to lose seat, predicts poll

Good heavens. One of the many polls released today has suggested that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak could become the first sitting Prime Minister to lose their seat at a general election. The Savanta and Electoral Calculus poll for the Telegraph predicts that the Conservative party could be left with just 53 MPs – with the party leader not being one of them. Crikey. The Telegraph’s MRP poll – which concluded the Tories are on course to face overwhelming defeat from a disillusioned electorate – surveyed approximately 18,000 people from 7-18 June. It concluded that Sunak is predicted to lose his Richmond seat to Sir Keir’s Labour party – although the

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

What does Keir Starmer think a ‘working person’ is?

Keir Starmer has promised not to raise taxes on ‘working people’. But who, exactly, is a working person? The definition, it turns out, is not so simple. Or rather, Starmer has particular characteristics in mind that might not line up with how others would interpret that phrase. Speaking on LBC yesterday, Starmer laid out his definition of a working person he would shield from tax rises: ‘people who earn their living,’ he said, who ‘rely on our [public] services and don’t really have the ability to write a cheque when they get into trouble.’  It’s the kind of answer that leads to more questions. In the UK practically everyone (regardless of

Ross Clark Ross Clark

It shouldn’t be surprising that a Muslim son of immigrants is funding Reform

Should it really be a surprise that Zia Yusuf, a Muslim entrepreneur who made his fortune setting up a company that runs an app providing concierge services for posh blocks of flats, has chosen to support Reform? It is clear that Mr Yusuf has not thrown his lot in with Reform in spite of its policies on migration, but because of them. Britain, he says, has ‘lost control of its borders’, adding, ‘my parents came here legally. When I talk to my friends they are as affronted by illegal Channel crossings, which are an affront to all hard-working British people but not least the migrants who played by the rules

Lucy Dunn

Will the SNP manifesto win back disillusioned voters?

‘Is the biggest problem for the SNP at this election,’ a Times journalist quizzed Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney this morning, ‘a deficit of enthusiasm?’ The SNP leader was in Edinburgh, launching the party’s general election manifesto. It focused on public service improvement, eradication of child poverty, worker’s rights and, of course, Scottish independence. But enthusiasm for the party is hitting new lows – and at a time when the Westminster group looks on track to lose over half its seats in the election, was the manifesto enough to convince Scotland’s undecided voters to vote SNP? Independence may be ‘page one, line one’ of the SNP’s manifesto, but it was only first

Iain Macwhirter

When will the SNP admit its independence dream is over?

Line one page one of the SNP manifesto is, as promised, about independence. If the SNP wins a majority of seats it will ‘be empowered to begin immediate negotiations with the UK government to give democratic effect to Scotland becoming an independent country’. Well in your dreams. No one seriously believes that independence is coming, even in the SNP. The leadership has been underplaying independence in this election so far; John Swinney hardly mentioned it in the first leaders debate. The nationalists realise that it is better not to call this 2024 general election any kind of ‘de facto referendum’ as Nicola Sturgeon claimed it would be. This is for the

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Boris Johnson can’t save the Tories from the coming wipeout

Are you beach-body ready? Boris Johnson, who has always projected a joyously uninhibited confidence about his physical form, clearly thinks that he is. The blond bombshell has been basking in Sardinia and is now reported to have a second summer holiday already in the diary which will keep him away from these chilly shores until Wednesday 3 July. So all the speculation about him helping the Tories out on the campaign trail, being a secret vote-winning weapon and reaching the parts that Rishi Sunak cannot reach, turns out to have been nonsense: he hasn’t offered and he wasn’t asked. Seldom have so many column inches been expended so pointlessly. Perhaps

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Sunak hits out at defector donor

As the election date draws ever closer, this morning it was the turn of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to face callers on LBC’s phone-in. And as the questions rolled in, the PM found himself doing a rather lot of defending: of his decision to have the national poll in July, on his party’s plans to introduce national service for 18 year olds and of his, um, predilection for Haribos. On public trust, LBC introduced a rather novel way of measuring voters’ faith in their potential leaders. Sunak was told by presenter Nick Ferrari that 60 per cent of people would rather Sir Keir Starmer be their GP than the PM

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Why Sunak will struggle to win the credit for falling inflation

After a three-year saga, inflation has finally returned to the Bank of England’s target. The Office for National Statistics reports this morning that the inflation rate slowed to 2 per cent in the 12 months to May 2024: its lowest point since July 2021. The greatest contribution came from another slowdown in food and non-alcoholic beverages: having once peaked at a staggering 19.1 per cent in 2023, prices have now slowed to 1.7 per cent in the year to May, down from 2.9 per cent in the year to April. It’s a painful reminder of what triggered an early election in the first place Clothing and footwear also played a

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour ditches Scottish candidate over ‘pro-Russian’ posts

It’s a day ending in ‘y’ which means that a political party somewhere is having candidate drama. This time it’s Sir Keir Starmer’s lefty Labour lot, who have had to drop their Aberdeenshire North and Moray East candidate over controversial social media posts about Russia and antisemitism. Oh dear… Andy Brown shared contentious posts about the 2018 Salisbury poisonings, in which the nerve agent Novichok was used in an attempt to take the lives of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. The links shared by the ex-Labour candidate raised doubts about Putin’s involvement in the attack and suggested that the life-threatening nerve agent did not come from Russia.

Steerpike Steerpike

Why does Labour want to ban these 15 peers?

Following last week’s manifesto launches, Mr S has been looking into the fine print. As part of Labour’s plans to reform the House of Lords, Starmer says that he now wants to forcibly retire British peers at 80 years old when – he believes – they will be unfit for public service. But Steerpike is rather sceptical of how Sir Keir’s grand plans will go down with the second chamber, given the Labour leader will be turfing out some rather high-calibre comrades.  Labour’s manifesto states that ‘at the end of the parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House

Robin Ashenden

The case for not voting at this election

Anyone over the age of 40 can scarcely help comparing this election, or the state of our two main parties, with those of the past. Though in 2024 it seems a choice between dumb and dumber (or grey and greyer), this wasn’t always the case.  The government of Blair, Brown, Prescott and Cook seem like a supergroup compared to the current front bench The first election I could vote in was in 1992, and back then there was a clear difference. Yes, Labour, under Neil Kinnock, had kicked out many of the hard left and moved to the centre-ground, but it was more a question of style. The Tories wore