Will Trump and Netanyahu launch another round of strikes on Iran?
An American political operator contacted me last week, before the blue tidal wave swept aside Donald Trump’s Republicans in Congress,…
Burnham has finally come clean about the welfare bill
Andy Burnham has this afternoon admitted the least well-kept secret in Whitehall – that his planned changes to benefits will…
Is Burnham preparing to call a December election?
What is the purpose of a Budget? To stabilise the national finances? To kickstart economic growth? If you’re John Healey,…
The real meaning of the Budget
I’ve been writing about politics for 25 years and, putting aside the two years (2007-09) I was based in Washington,…
Does Andy Burnham actually have a foreign policy?
It often takes an outsider to see us most clearly. When I had breakfast with the ambassador of an EU…
Burnham’s unpopularity in Scotland makes a general election less likely
Andy Burnham has gone to Scotland, where the SNP annual conference is under way in Aberdeen. In his speech at…
Kemi Badenoch has given the Tories cause for hope
The old jokes are the best. When I arrived in Birmingham on Sunday evening for the Tory party conference, I…
Fourteen things we learned from Kemi Badenoch’s Tory conference speech
Kemi Badenoch delivered her Conservative party conference speech in Birmingham this afternoon. Here are fourteen things we learned from her…
Is Badenoch cutting through?
We are on the home stretch of the party conference season. It’s the turn of the Greens this weekend and…
‘I get better every day’: Has Kemi Badenoch revived the Tory party?
Kemi Badenoch, like many in the Labour party, is not sorry to see the back of Keir Starmer. ‘I did…
14 things we learned from Andy Burnham’s speech
1) He’s the most effective speaker we’ve had in a PM for years I’ve been attending party conferences since 2001…
Burnham’s bet: is the Prime Minister planning to call an election?
On 1 September, Andy Burnham gathered Labour MPs in No. 10 for a rousing speech. ‘We are a fighting force,’…
Burnham pours cold water on a snap election
Andy Burnham has just ruled out a general election next May. As I wrote in my cover story this week,…
Revealed: Ed Miliband ignored MI6’s warnings over Israel sanctions
When Andy Burnham was quizzed at PMQs last week about his and Ed Miliband’s decision to sanction the Israeli government…
Andy Burnham’s deafening silence on the Russian threat isn’t sustainable
It’s hard to keep up with what might kill us first. A week ago, the tech-bros were competing to tell…
Meet the most powerful woman in Britain
Some years ago Antonia Romeo, now the Cabinet Secretary, was stuck in a boring meeting about civil service reform. She…
How real is the ‘Burnham bounce’?
We’re still in the dead zone between Reform UK’s conference and the TUC and Lib Dems’ next week, with Labour…
The five takeaways from Reform’s conference
1) THE SPEECH Nigel Farage has made his big speech to Reform’s party conference in Birmingham this evening. It was…
Reform UK is a party in crisis
Deputy heads have rolled. Britain’s populist Reform UK party, in the person of chairman Lee Anderson, announced this morning that…
Revealed: the feuding at the heart of Reform
If Tolstoy had written about British politics, he might have noted: ‘Happy parties are all alike; every unhappy party is…
This year’s silly season has turned sinister
There’s a great scene in The West Wing where the White House is engulfed by a crisis in the Middle East…
Politicians’ contempt for the press is contempt for the public
I was hacked by the Chinese a few years ago. Security at News UK, where I was employed on the…
Five things we learned from the Clacton by-election
1) Nigel Farage is king of Clacton The Reform UK leader won the oddest by-election in UK political history. His…
Rod Liddle was one of the finest journalists of his generation
I only met Rod Liddle a few times, though at The Spectator and the Sunday Times I worked alongside him…
No election? Don’t bet on it
When Dwight D. Eisenhower had to decide whether to launch the D-Day armada he kept a close eye on the…
