And then there were… 50. When the Conservatives won the 2019 general election, their “80-strong majority” became a mantra – a triumph championed by their MPs and lamented by the much-diminished opposition. It was felt that, with their majority of 80 (greater than any majority since 2001, even the coalition’s joint-party 76), they could pass Boris Johnson’s agenda easily. Not only did that agenda wither away, but two prime ministers and zero general elections later the party’s majority has shrunk to 50. Now, it would take just 29 Tory rebels to defeat the government. This is a drop of 30 seats of the majority in four years, just above the number John Major’s government lost in 1992-97, when his 21-seat majority fell to ...

Charles attended his first Queen’s Speech in 1967 when Harold Wilson was prime minister. Fifty-six years later, the late-bloomer has finally delivered the first King’s Speech of his reign. The King, royal editors across Fleet Street inform us, is enjoying his new role. Reports suggest he’s found a balance between maintaining propriety over political interference and agitating for his personal causes. He is said to be thrilled at the prospect of opening the Cop28 climate conference in Dubai this month. Whether that was part of a quid pro quo with Downing Street, so that the King would announce today (7 November) that the government will expand North Sea oil and gas licensing rounds, has not been disclosed. Nonetheless, as MPs gathered ...

Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, stuck to protocol and on Monday (6 November) gave the first mandate to form a government to the current prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, and his Law and Justice party (PiS). It seems a hopeless endeavour, and a waste of time for the opposition. PiS did indeed come first in elections in October, but with 194 seats, it needs another 37 to ensure a majority. No other party is volunteering to step forward for this role. By contrast the three main opposition groups have declared their desire to form a government together, and have a comfortable majority of 248 seats in the 460 seat assembly. Still, PiS won’t give up, and Duda, a PiS loyalist, will not deprive ...

What is repressed always returns. The anti-Zionist politics that Keir Starmer rooted out of Labour has erupted with a vengeance. The party is being torn apart by a conflict two thousand miles away. In truth Britain can do nothing to alter the course of the conflict in the Middle East. We are no longer a major military and political power with global reach. Labour politicians calling for a ceasefire are performing for audiences at home. The principal political task for Labour is to limit the impact of the conflict here in the UK.  In Britain, unlike much of continental Europe, Jews have been secure and Muslims have had freedom to express their cultures and practise their faith. But this inheritance of liberty, ...

Elon Musk has returned to the US after his chat with Rishi Sunak, but like a fox on a patio he could not resist leaving us a pungent memento. Yesterday (5 November) he intervened to ensure two of our country’s best-known far-right agitators, the former reality TV contestant Katie Hopkins and the former mortgage fraudster Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) are reinstated on his social media platform, X. Yaxley-Lennon was banned from Twitter in 2018, Hopkins in 2020; both thanked Musk personally for allowing them to spread their views to a wider audience. For Twitter/X users who air their displeasure at sharing the digital town square with people whose views they find repellent, there’s also the prospect that their displeasure (and everything ...

As many as 70 Labour MPs, including 18 frontbenchers, have now demanded a ceasefire in Gaza. Yesterday (5 November) the leader of Burnley council and ten other councillors resigned from the party in protest at Keir Starmer’s refusal to back this stance.  Frontbench resignations are not thought to be imminent, however, despite unrest among some members of the shadow cabinet. Insiders credit the “power team” of Lisa Nandy, the shadow international development secretary, and David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, with helping to shore up Starmer’s position among MPs behind the scenes. Starmer's Chatham House speech on 31 October, in which he called for more aid into Gaza and said leaders for too long had placed a two-state solution to the ...

Fireworks night has always been so vivid in my childhood memories. Perhaps that’s because it stamps itself – sonically, visually – onto a frightened-exhilarated young brain. But it was also the ritual of it. Hot chocolate and sparklers at home, a limp roman candle or two, and perhaps a rogue Catherine wheel that would fly in the face of the London Fire Brigade off the trellis around the garden. Then it would be duffle coat on, and off to the big fireworks display. You’d go every year even (or especially) as a teenager because all your friends were there, it was free, and you’d upgraded your duffle coat to a super cool faux-fur-lined parka. But the big free public fireworks displays and ...

A bit of a narrative buster today. A YouGov poll for the Mile End Institute has found that Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, is cruising to a third term as he leads his Conservative opponent Susan Hall by 50 per cent to 25 per cent. Khan’s re-election had been cast into doubt by a Redfield and Wilton poll showing him just a point ahead of Hall (33-32) and a JL Partners poll putting him two points ahead (37-35). Next year’s mayoral election will be the first to be held under first-past-the-post rather than the preferential supplementary vote, under which Khan was able to scoop up second preferences from Liberal Democrat and Green supporters. The YouGov poll shows Khan leading not only ...