David Lammy’s Trump problem
The tone of the new British foreign secretary’s anti-Trump statements was more millennial troll than statesman-in-waiting
Labour
Saturday
Thursday
How safe do you feel boarding a Boeing?
‘They knocked down our old house in three hours,’ says a friend who has embarked on what he says is a conventional rebuild, nothing Grand Designs about it, on the south coast. ‘But it’s taking forever to get planning permission for the new one. They want reports on everything, from bats to highway impacts: you’d think we’re trying to build a whole huge housing estate.’ And if you do happen to be in the business of building whole huge housing estates, you’ll be eager to know whether Rachel Reeves’s reforms and ‘mandatory targets’ – aimed at delivering 1.5 million new homes in this parliament – will put rockets under the
The secret diary of Sue Gray
Once we entered Downing Street a No. 10 protocol adviser took Vic upstairs to show her the facilities in the private flat. ‘That sofa’s gotta go,’ said her ladyship. ‘So has Simon Case,’ I said. The protocol officer was shocked. ‘So new, and almost without a stain,’ he protested. More than can be said for the Cabinet Secretary. For the first few hours it was easy to keep the Prime Minister busy with congratulatory calls from world leaders. He was fine once we reminded him not to shout at them like an Englishman addressing foreigners. Emmanuel Macron was overfamiliar, Giorgia Meloni tearful – it seems she had a hot pash for
Friday
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
Wednesday
Trump campaign lead blasts Labour meetings as ‘fake news’
As Britain’s election campaigns draw to a close, Sir Keir Starmer has found himself under scrutiny at the eleventh hour
Thursday
Why should Putin be allowed to keep seized Russian assets?
The seizure of enemy treasure, formerly known as plunder and pillage, is an ancient tool of war. Though still practised in the world’s nastiest conflict zones, it’s a tricky business within a rules-based international order. The G7’s agreement to lend $50 billion to Ukraine – using income from $300 billion of frozen Russian assets to cover interest and repayments on the loan – is a vivid case in point. And some would say, a lily-livered half-measure. The key feature of the deal is that it does not actually claim ownership of Russian loot – which however ill-gotten is mostly held in EU banks in the form of western government bonds.
How Keir Starmer plans to rule through the courts
Never mind Labour’s promise not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT – the party will soon be jacking up taxes for everyone. That sums up the Conservatives’ attack line for this election campaign. But in focusing almost wholly on tax, the Tories are missing what threatens to become the real theme of a Keir Starmer government: the eclipse of elected politicians and the continued draining away of power to the courts. The Labour leader effectively decriminalised assisted dying in 2009, before he was even an MP According to polls, Labour is heading for a majority of more than 200. That in itself would clip the wings of the
Thursday
Have you had the school gate VAT chat?
Another day closer to the general election and I’m at my daughter’s prep school in Oxfordshire. As has come to be the norm, I’m having a ‘VAT chat’ with a fellow mother. Of course, we’ve known about Labour’s plan for months. It will lead to a likely 20 per cent rise in private-school fees. Recently, however, these VAT chats have intensified and become louder. ‘To think that other parents would vote Labour given what’s coming enrages me,’ a friend says I begin with my usual opening gambit. ‘Isn’t it awful?’ I say, trying to convey my real sense of desperation that I will have to take my daughter out of
Tuesday
The TikTok stars taking on the Tories
The old adage is that you win elections by seizing the center ground. That’s not how you win TikTok
Friday
I’ll still work with Trump, says Starmer
The strategic interests of the UK and the US are such that any incumbent administration in London will have to work with whoever occupies the White House
Thursday
Starmer purges the Corbynites
The Labour Party leader wants an army of Starmtroopers to focus on delivering his agenda — rather than fighting it
Bury the Canaletto, now
I’m not on the guest list for the Duke of Westminster’s wedding, but I wish him luck anyway. Mind you, the young seventh duke – Hughie to his friends – hardly needs more luck than has already come his way in the form of the £10 billion Grosvenor property empire in London and elsewhere. When the playboy second duke known as ‘Bend’Or’ died in 1953, Pimlico had to be sold to pay record death duties. But the Grosvenor family has taken a firmer grip on tax planning since then, their fortune multiplying despite the dukedom passing through three cousins to reach the father of today’s incumbent, who inherited via reportedly
Labour’s plans to rewrite the National Curriculum
Michael Gove’s decision to stand down in this election was a reminder that the one really bright spot in the past 14 years was the education reforms he steered through between 2010 and 2014. These policies were vindicated in the most recent PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) survey, which showed England climbing the OECD’s international league table and outperforming Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In maths, England rose from 17th place in 2018 to 11th in 2022, whereas Scotland, significantly above England in 2010, fell below the OECD average. I was involved in the most successful of these reforms, the free schools programme. Many of these schools are now
Monday
Private schools can’t complain about Labour’s VAT raid
Of course Labour’s policy of charging VAT on private school fees is all about throwing a bit of red meat to those in the party who are motivated by class envy. Why otherwise expend so much political effort on a policy which in the opinion of the Institute of Fiscal Studies will only raise £1.6 billion a year? And that, of course, is mere guesswork. No-one really knows how the parents of private school pupils will really behave when whacked with a 20 per cent uplift in fees. Even if parents don’t withdraw pupils immediately, many might be tempted to do so at the end of prep school – and
Why is Rachel Reeves so proud of working at the Bank of England?
We don’t know much about what taxes she will impose. Nor do we have many clues as to how she will boost growth, or find the money to improve public services. Still, not to worry. It turns out that we can, at least according to her feed on X, trust the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves to ‘run the economy’ for a very simple reason. She used to work at the Bank of England, and apparently they know about that kind of stuff over there. There is just one problem. In reality the Bank is not as brilliant as Reeves seems to think it is – and it is questionable, to
Friday
Why it’s time to vote Labour
Most people don’t belong to a political tribe. They vote pragmatically. When an election comes round, they ask themselves how well the party in power has performed in government and try to decide whether it looks likely to improve their living standards in the future. In next month’s general election, millions of pragmatic middle-of-the-road voters, who have supported the Conservatives in every election since 2010, will be wondering whether the party deserves their support yet again in 2024. The current team at the top of the Labour party are serious people of integrity and ability. For nearly 20 years I was a member of the Conservative tribe. A councillor for
Thursday
Inside Labour’s fight with the unions
By the end of the year, Britain may be one of the few countries in the democratic world where the right is losing. In America, Donald Trump is the favourite to win. Ahead of next month’s European Parliament elections, momentum is with Germany’s AfD, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Austria’s Freedom party. Migration is the most pertinent issue pushing Europe rightwards, but many voters are also turning to insurgent right-wing parties as a rebellion against the cost of net-zero policies. Labour sees an electoral benefit in sticking to its green energy plans to stop voters defecting to the Greens In the UK, the future of green scepticism looks somewhat
The deluge: Rishi Sunak’s election gamble
‘Only a Conservative government, led by me, will not put our hard-earned economic stability at risk,’ said Rishi Sunak as he announced a general election on the steps of Downing Street in the pouring rain. Upon these words, the Labour anthem ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ boomed out from the street. The din made the rest of his speech nearly inaudible. His suit jacket went from wet to soaking. ‘It’s bizarre,’ said one former minister. ‘How are we supposed to trust No. 10’s judgment when no one in the group even knows what an umbrella is?’ Sunak’s gamble is that while he can’t get a hearing in government, he might
Wednesday
A summer election is suicide for the Tories
Calling an early election is an admission of defeat — and that, on everything from public finances to public services, the worst is yet to come
Thursday
Can Starmer and Reeves add some fizz to the economy?
If the 0.6 per cent first-quarter GDP uplift reported by the Office for National Statistics is sustained for the rest of this year, Rishi Sunak will be able to claim – as he waves goodbye – that he and Jeremy Hunt have succeeded against their naysayers in dragging the UK economy from pandemic depths back to the level of ‘trend growth’, around 2.5 per cent per annum, that used to be thought of as normal. That’s spookily in line (as is the path of inflation) with Ken Clarke’s achievement as Tory chancellor in 1996 ahead of the election that swept Blair and Brown to power the following May. How lucky
