Nigel Farage calls for General Election after Starmer replacement June 22, 2026 Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has called for a general election after Sir Keir Starmer announced his resignation today. In a Substack essay, Farage hit out at Andy Burnham – the likely successor to Starmer – and said that the UK could not “afford to waste another week drifting from crisis to crisis”. “To men [...]
Conservatives will slash the regulations holding the City back June 18, 2026 The reforms Kemi Badenoch announces today will see the end of ringfencing and the end of an unfair international disadvantage imposed through capital requirements set by regulators. This is only the start. We will go further, says Andrew Griffith If, like me, you left university to work in the city in the 1990s, you will [...]
As it happened: Stocks sink after Fed and Bank of England opt for hawkish hold; Oil price tumbles June 18, 2026 Welcome back to the Morning Wire liveblog. Interest rates were left unchanged at 3.75 per cent in Bank of England’s monetary policy committee meeting today as rate-setters wait to find out whether the Iran war peace deal holds up. The Bank’s decision followed Thursday’s inflation data, which stayed below undershot expectations after coming at 2.8 [...]
Kemi Badenoch can still woo the City June 17, 2026 Just under a year ago I sat down with Kemi Badenoch to talk through her plans to win over the City. I left the interview with little to report back. “We are looking at everything,” Badenoch told me at the time. “Our policy renewal programme is trying to get us to a place where we [...]
Badenoch: City’s risk culture should be ‘championed’ to boost UK growth June 16, 2026 Tory leader Kemi Badenoch will pledge that the role of Canada would be one of her central levers for driving economic growth, whilst suggesting that financial regulators have buckled to pressure from media and political leaders in recent years. In an address to City financiers, Badenoch will argue that the Square Mile [...]
Billionaire Labour backer John Caudwell: I was misled by ‘disastrous’ Starmer June 3, 2026 Billionaire John Caudwell has said he was “misled” by Keir Starmer’s Labour Party and revealed that he hopes to once again back the Tories at the next election. The entrepreneur and philanthropist said there is “no chance” of him voting Labour at the next election, which he says the government is bound to lose. Labour [...]
Is Zack Polanski’s honeymoon over? June 2, 2026 Green Party leader Zack Polanski’s approval ratings have dived as scrutiny over his past experiences has put him in an awkward position. Morning Wire/Freshwater Strategy polling has shown that Polanski’s approval ratings have dropped from a high of -5 in March to as low as -23 in this month’s data. On a monthly basis, his [...]
The King’s Speech was overshadowed by the Westminster clown show May 14, 2026 Put the current political chaos from your mind for a moment and imagine that Keir Starmer wasn’t under threat. Imagine a version of the Prime Minister – still unpopular and still struggling to engineer economic growth – but at least with the full backing of his cabinet and MPs. Under such circumstances, yesterday’s King’s Speech [...]
Tories pledge to slash tax and red tape in ‘alternative King’s Speech’ May 10, 2026 The Tories have set out their vision for the UK economy, pledging to slash taxes and red tape to “back innovation, entrepreneurship and growth”. Kemi Badenoch’s party has said it would slash welfare spending, scrap business rates for high street business and repeal Labour’s workers’ rights reforms. The Conservatives have published their “alternative King’s Speech,” [...]
Sir Jim Ratcliffe is right – our energy policy is ‘all over the place’ May 6, 2026 Punchy interventions from chemicals tycoon Sir Jim Ratcliffe are not rare; most announcements from his company, Ineos, are enriched with a missive from the billionaire on where exactly the UK is going wrong. But these are no mere PR ploys. The stakes are high and he knows what he’s talking about. Yesterday’s confirmation of his [...]