Britain's biggest political party...

Really raher bold of this administration to patronise backbenchers about "Economics 101" and the bond markets, given the backbenchers didn't write the manifesto, or the first budget... www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Reform's fiscal rules still a work in progress, it seems. Richard Tice asked at Bloomberg to provide a definition tonight: "We’ve got to keep it simple folks: we must not go bust. We’ve got to starting earning more than we’re spending…. Let’s keep it simple. Basic housekeeping.”

fascinating use of the passive voice by Cambridgeshire police. Self-raising crime, perhaps

Farage's jettisoning of the 2024 manifesto in favour of what promises to be a much more fiscally-conservative approach is a significant moment. My colleague @archiehall.bsky.social ran the rule over the policybook as late as May. It wasn't pretty. www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Come work for us. The Economist is hiring a Britain political correspondent. Make the sample piece original and Economisty economist.com/britain/2025...

Sandringham sounds rather like a Kolyma labour colony

i think it was @joelbudd.bsky.social who coined the analogy of post-Brexit Britain taking the controls of immigration policy like someone flying a plane for the first time - first pulling back hard on the yoke and then pushing hard down. That noise is the stall alarm...

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Imagine explaining to a Gen Z the concept of getting angry about the content of adverts on linear tv

A pro-monarchy case for parliament to step in and fix an institution apparently incapable of fixing itself

Delighted to be nominated for comment journalist of the year at the British Journalism Awards, alongside some fantastic peers 🎈🍾 pressgazette.co.uk/press-gazett...

General election 2028 as a choice of two Powellisms

A touch of l’esprit d’escalier as Starmer remembers a bunch of things he meant to say about digital ID two weeks ago

Delighted to share that several brilliant colleagues from @economist.com have been shortlisted for the British Journalism Awards 2025 🏆 Congratulations @matthewholehouse.bsky.social, @duncanrobinson.bsky.social and @sondreus.bsky.social! Read the full shortlist: pressgazette.co.uk/press-gazett...

The Conservative Party now doing to immigration law what it did to international law. Taking a statement of the constitutionally obvious - that parliament is sovereign - as a permission slip to disregard all other consequences. Can becomes should.

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Good piece on Labour’s learned helplessness as much as Andrew. “Nobody told us we could do that,” as Sidney Webb said of leaving the gold standard

good analogy from @georgeeaton.bsky.social

Superb

Super obituary for the now-deceased Labour Safe Seat (1906-2024), not least for the mention of Alfred Onions MP.

There's going to be a lot of projection as to the Reform government of one's hopes and dreams over the next four years www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

The curtains have been measured and a large order placed at the drapers

The case for the Tories' pivot from immigration to the economy: 1. Public opinion on tax and spend tends to be thermostatic, and the cycle is on the turn 2. Tax hikes at budget will be unpopuar 3. The Tories have surprising underlying brand strength on fiscal policy www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Notable how very little mention Badenoch gives in her speech to the man who is feasting on the Tories. The only reference: "Whether it’s Starmer, Farage, Corbyn or Davey all these men are shaking the same magic money tree."

Conservative background note on stamp duty talks up the productivity benefits of increased labour mobility from a more fluid housing market. Which is both true and a welcome escape from the anti-mobility logic that took hold under Johnson

"We need bold ideas, a positive vision for our country and a plan to deliver it." A chatbpt leadership bid of a speech this

One of those speeches where "Britain" is used when "We, the incumbent government," would be more accurate.

Jenrick channeling Keats and Housman. Things must be serious

Among many the missed opportunities to draw a line under the last administration, the shadow cabinet's determination to cling to Rwanda - an unpopular scheme that had become a logistical millstone around the party's neck - is among the oddest.

Wolfson’s advice on which Badenoch relied to announce ECHR withdrawal: it’s possible this results in parts of the EU TCA being terminated, but it’s a political question

Been to Manchester central complex many times for conferences and rarely has the main hall been so light on outside exhibitors. Lots of padding with empty stands put up by central party

Badenoch's argument that Reform's ECHR denouncement policy is rushed and not thought through, whereas her ECHR denouncement policy is based on 200 pages of legal advice ("so forensic, so thorough") may fall down on the fact that the end-point of those policies is identical.

Badenoch's intro video is scenes from the Robinson march interspersed with footage of migrant boats.

“I’m tired of us asking all these irrelevant questions about where they should go… this is a fatalistic and defeatist attitude.” Badenoch on her scheme for mass deportations

‘The average man travelled 8,245 miles in 2002 and 6,549 miles in 2024—a drop of 21%. Almost the entire fall was caused by a decline in driving.’ Such an interesting piece economist.com/britain/2025...

Shades of Starmer in the new Archbishop of Canterbury's CV, in having reached tthe top of two separate vocations consecutively

An interesting vignette. Asked by BBC Scotland whether Michelle Mone should lose her peerage, Kemi Badenoch says twice that people convicted of crimes should not be in the House of Lords. That is a curious answer as Mone has not been convicted of a crime; DHSC v PPE Medpro is a contractual case.

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There are good reasons to think the number of small boat crossings may fall in the next couple of years - and it will have little to do with whatever has been announced at party conferences Europe’s astonishing drop in illegal migration economist.com/internationa...

No more hippy punching. Starmer decides to stop punching its own voters in the face www.economist.com/britain/2025...

It's about much more than Farage. When Keir Starmer starts rolling his eyes about the lies on that blimmin' bus, you know a full-bore core vote strategy is underway www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Ed Miliband has got his party back. Regales conference about his father’s address to conference in the 1950s. “Let’s raise the roof for Keir Starmer.”

Aux armes, citoyens! On Starmer's headspinning change of strategy, and a rather Macron-like attempt to force a showdown between liberal Britain and Farageism. www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Next week of polling is going to be the most fascinating I can remember. The junking of an entire strategy that a mountain of evidence suggested was failing on its own terms. And an alternative from which there is no turning back. A genuine shit or bust moment.

Rachel Reeves on Michelle Mone: “She’s come out today and says the government has got a vendetta against her. Too right we do.”

“Globalisation is dead… global Britain is back.”

Strong hint that govt is to move on two child limit … existing measures are “the first step… the first step…. On ending child poverty…”

Reeves on bond markets and Truss: “That was a warning. The British people will not forgive any party that forgets it. " “There are still people who peddle the idea we can just cast off economic responsibility and cast off any constraints on spending. They are wrong.. Dangerously so."

Rachel Reeves opens conference with a list of big ticket interventions: new nuclear, Harland and Woolf rescue, steel bailout, JLR bailout, etc...