Labour Party
Labour’s dereliction of duty over defence
Last week, our political editor, Tim Shipman, revealed a recent meeting between Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the Chief…
Labour’s plan to unite the left
It is easy to criticise the Budget. The process was a chaotic mess. For many on the right, Rachel Reeves’s…
Inside the Wes Streeting plot
Keir Starmer is stuck in a catch-22. If he is to avoid the threat of continual leadership challenges, the Prime…
Portrait of the week: BBC vs Trump, a plot against Starmer and a weight loss deadline for North Sea oil workers
Home Tim Davie, the director-general of the BBC, resigned, as did Deborah Turness, the CEO of BBC News. Samir Shah,…
Labour isn’t working
Labour: the clue should be in the name. In March, Keir Starmer branded Labour the ‘party of work’. If ‘you…
Portrait of the week: Hurricane hits Jamaica, Plaid reigns in Caerphilly and sex offender gets £500 to leave Britain
Home An Iranian man who arrived on a small boat and was deported to France on 19 September under the…
Ukraine must stand as a fortress of European freedom
It is 35 years since I was last in Warsaw and the city is unrecognisable. Back then it was grimy…
This is Shabana Mahmood’s moment
What is the point of Keir Starmer? He was the means by which the Labour party could suffocate the hard…
Cicero’s tips for the Labour party
Labour may be in a bit of a mess, but Cicero (d. 43 bc) has some top tips. ‘Let conscience…
The return of Keir vs Andy
When Labour MPs met to hear from their leader on Monday, there was one group who felt particularly aggrieved. In…
Starmer’s survival depends on going against his instincts
Athelstan has long faded from public imagination, despite being the king who, in 927 ad, first united England. But thanks…
The misplaced sympathy for Angela Rayner
One evening last week I came home, flipped on the TV and saw on the news what must surely be…
Angela Rayner and the spite of Labour
As a snapshot of our country, you’ll be pressed to find anything quite so resonant as the one which depicts…
The left’s fightback against Labour has begun
If there is a hallmark of Keir Starmer’s leadership, it is a willingness to bash the left. For five years,…
Farage, flags and the forgotten English
The flag-raisings in towns and cities across the country are an inevitable consequence of elites’ seeming preference for every flag…
Letters: Village cricket is the highest form of the sport
Fighting dirty Sir: John Power is very interesting (‘Dark matter’, 16 August) when outlining the ‘dark arts’ being proposed by…
Varun Chandra: the most important adviser you’ve never heard of
The porousness of the Establishment, and its reluctance to advertise its activities, are illustrated by the career of Varun Chandra.…
The asylum hotel crisis will cost Labour
Yvette Cooper doesn’t do holidays, which is probably just as well since she is the minister who, this summer, holds…
How to handle the Wagner problem
There are deep ructions across Europe, as in Britain. All come down to the same thing. The societies in question…
The Online Safety Act and Labour’s ‘ancient’ institutions
After Reform promised to repeal the Online Safety Act, it didn’t take long for Labour to defend internet censorship. ‘And…
Raise the age of suffrage to 25
If I had been given the vote at the age of 16, I would have put my cross beside the…
The best deer deterrent? Radio 4
Behind the latest push for recognition of a Palestinian state – even though there is no agreement of what it…
The left-wing case for controlled immigration
Controlled immigration was once a left-wing cause. It was a basic tenet of trade unionism – not to mention economics…
‘Let Keir be Keir’: inside the cabinet’s away day
Labour ministers face a range of terrible political choices, but when the cabinet met for an away day at Chequers…
Peerless: the purge of the hereditaries
The House of Lords is very old, but not quite continuous. In 1649, shortly after the execution of King Charles…
