Selection campaign: How do parties choose their candidates? June 6, 2024 Westminster insider or local champion? Choosing who gets on the ballot paper is harder than you’d think, says John Oxley There’s a little over 24 hours left until the first stage of the election is done. Nominations close tomorrow afternoon, at which point we’ll know the full slate of candidates vying to be MPs. For [...]
Remembering D-Day is an exercise in not forgetting Ukraine June 6, 2024 It has become something of a cottage industry in academia, and polite society, to denigrate the achievements of the past. And national myth-making deserves scrutiny, for it forces us to confront the bad old days of the past, too, in order to create a better future. One war, however, has mostly avoided the too-clever-by-half revisionism [...]
Campaign cock-up of the week: Milkshake brings all the boys to Farage June 6, 2024 In this column, former No 10 advisor Giles Kenningham analyses the worst comms screw-ups of the election campaign. So what took the prize for the worst PR gaffe this week? What is it with politicians and food? Ed Miliband eating that infamous bacon sandwich. Peter Mandelson getting covered in custard at a carbon summit in [...]
Rishi may as well have been debating Liz Truss – he lost that one too June 5, 2024 Whether it’s his own leadership rival or the general public, Rishi Sunak keeps speaking to people like he’s a British tourist in the Mediterranean struggling with a non-English speaking waiter, says Will Cooling In a summer contest that he has surprisingly brought forward despite his unpopularity with the electorate, Rishi Sunak impresses journalists by aggressively [...]
Sunak v Starmer: Who won the first election debate? June 5, 2024 Who came out on top in last night's general election TV debate? No 10's former head of press Giles Kenningham gives his verdict.
The Notebook: How to sum up this election? The politics of ennui June 5, 2024 How to define the mood of this general election? One word: ennui, writes Neil Bennett in today's Notebook column.
Baillie Gifford is the latest target of the ‘omnicause’ June 5, 2024 Pressuring book festivals to divest from Baillie Gifford over its tenuous links to climate change and war in the Middle East is characteristic of the woolly thinking underpinning protest culture, says James Price We are all now, sadly, used to nonsense campus trivialities migrating from universities and into the office and even the streets. What [...]
My generation must never forget the sacrifice D-Day heroes made for our freedom June 5, 2024 80 years on from D-Day, memories of the allied re-invasion of Normandy are fading and a mood of national pessimism downplays its success. It’s time for that to change, argues William Atkinson For my generation of young people, D-Day’s importance and the scale of the heroism involved can pass us by. Only 48 per cent [...]
Greater Mayoral power would put London in line with the rest of the country June 5, 2024 A June event to which one of our reporters was scheduled to speak – a private dinner of London’s great and good – has been pushed back until September. The election has been given as the reason, but even the organisers acknowledged London is largely absent from the debate apparently gripping the country. The capital [...]
The Debate: Are voluntary carbon markets good for businesses? June 5, 2024 Are voluntary carbon markets a good thing for the planet and for business? Or are we just fooling ourselves?