tory leadership race
Bring on the housing crash!
It has been a long time coming, given that shares and bonds have been falling for most of the year,…
Sunak and Truss’s Q&A with Sky – the reaction
Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss were quizzed by Sky News’s Kay Burley and undecided Tory members this evening, with Truss the…
The case for an October election
Neither Liz Truss nor Rishi Sunak would name Gordon Brown as an inspiration, but I wonder if whoever becomes PM…
Only one tax cut can save Rishi Sunak now
Rishi Sunak’s promises on tax are lacklustre. He’s announced a fiddly one-off tax break on energy that will last for just a…
Is Liz Truss too comfortable?
After England scored their first goal last night, the team visibly relaxed and had a spell of playing happily until…
The real difference between Sunak and Truss’s tax policies
The Tory leadership race is becoming a test of patience. Today Rishi Sunak has laid out his plan to slash…
Sunak is running out of time
This could be the biggest week of the Tory leadership campaign: postal ballots will start arriving on members’ doormats in…
Portrait of the week
Home In a television debate between the two contenders for the leadership of the Conservative party (and hence the prime…
Running to keep up
Why Sunak suddenly finds himself facing defeat
The new PM’s growing to-do list
In theory, the Conservative leadership contest could have stretched to the autumn, but the 1922 Committee and CCHQ decided to…
The unflattering truth
The battle to be PM raises the question: in a functioning democracy, how should arguments be won? Surely, by persuasion.…
The Spectator’s Notes
David Trimble, who has just died, has rightly been praised for his courage. History may prove him to have been…
Did Rishi Sunak’s interview gamble pay off?
Rishi Sunak took a major risk tonight, agreeing to a one-on-one interview with Andrew Neil on Channel 4 News. As…
Andrew Neil’s interview with Rishi Sunak – as it happened
Rishi Sunak was interviewed by Andrew Neil on Channel 4 tonight. He was quizzed on inflation, the NHS backlog and more. Liz Truss,…
Liz Truss’s failed Lib Dem bid revealed
She is the current favourite to be our next Prime Minister but Liz Truss hasn’t always been such a staunch…
The decline and fall of Rishi Sunak
Ed Balls, the intellectual powerhouse behind the economics of the New Labour era, was once described as having a brain…
Rishi Sunak’s energy bill u-turn is too little, too late
A tweak to the landfill tax perhaps? A minor adjustment to the airport levy? Rishi Sunak no doubt stayed up…
Portrait of the week
Home In the contest for the leadership of the Conservative party, Jeremy Hunt and Nadhim Zahawi were the first of…
The high price of Tory failures
I was listening to a rich bastard on the radio explaining why he was feeling disinclined to give any more…
The final three
The leadership candidates on taxes, net zero and freedom of speech
Liz Truss is no Margaret Thatcher
The late Senator Lloyd Bentsen was 26 years older than the young Senator Dan Quayle when in 1988 they crossed…
The fight for the future
To govern is to choose. So leadership contests for a party in government tend to come down to a key…
Diary
When I was a teenage Tory activist in the mid-1990s, I hoped one day I’d be part of a leadership…
The ruthless inefficiency of the Tory party
It is hard to love the Conservative party. But one reason it has at least always commanded a certain amount…
The new face of the Tories
The hardest thing for any political party to achieve is renewal in government. The Tories have managed it twice since…
