Diane Abbott has been blocked from standing for Labour at the election, the Times has reported. This is the probable end of Britain’s first female black MP’s 37-year parliamentary career. Abbott was suspended in April last year after she wrote a letter to the Observer suggesting Irish, Jewish and Traveller people did not experience racism. She reportedly had the whip restored this week, which has now been overshadowed by the decision to block her candidacy. Extracting details from Labour about the investigation has always been difficult. Shadow ministers and aides have swatted away questions by saying they don’t want to interfere in an independent investigation. Even as investigations into other MPs such as Andy McDonald – who was suspended for saying, “We will not rest ...

No group has fared better under 14 years of Conservative government than pensioners. The triple lock (intended as a temporary measure when it was brought in by the coalition government) has ensured the state pension has steadily increased even as workers’ wages stagnated. Since it was introduced in 2011/12 it is estimated to have grown by £78 billion. On average, pensioners are statistically more likely to live in households with assets over £1 million than they are to live in poverty. They somehow still managed to feel aggrieved. Jeremy Hunt's main giveaway in the Spring Budget was a reduction in National Insurance - a tax that pensioners are already exempt from. This prompted Janet Street Porter (aged 77) on Loose Women ...

In 1992 Robert Hayward, the Tory peer and polling expert, wrote a paper for his party contending that despite Labour’s narrow leads, the end result would likely be a majority for John Major’s Conservatives. This analysis was duly vindicated and the term “shy Tories” was born. Hayward was proved right again in 2015 when he argued the polls were overstating support for Ed Miliband’s Labour. So when he argues, as he has, that the polls are understating the Conservative support it’s worth investigating.  In advance of the May local elections, Hayward forecast that the Tories would lose at least 400 council seats – they ended up losing 470. In spite of this, his post-election analysis finds that the Conservatives are winning back ...

Politics is different at elections because people start to listen. That Starmer grew up in a pebble-dashed semi has been his mantra for a while. But most voters won’t have memorised his childhood living arrangements, or even watched his daytime speeches. That’s why Starmer used his first major campaign speech yesterday to push home the lines many in Westminster will have grown tired of. The message was that he will restore people’s trust in politics by prioritising public service. He talked about his childhood in Oxted, a place, he said, that was “about as English as it gets… [a] mix of Victorian red bricks and pebble-dashed semis while all around you have rolling pastures and the beautiful chalk hills of the ...

Is Keir Starmer’s left flank vulnerable? Jeremy Corbyn has been in exile from Labour since 2021 after he refused to apologise for saying reports of anti-Semitism inside the party were exaggerated. After months of speculation over his next move, the former leader is now running as an independent in his Islington North constituency – a decision that meant he was immediately expelled from the party. This is a threat to Labour’s dominance. In one of 650 seats, at least. Corbyn’s expulsion from the party he represented in parliament for 40 years was not inevitable. In October 2020 a deal between himself and the leadership was close. Accounts vary, but negotiations were reportedly scuppered because Corbyn was on holiday on the Isle ...

Jeremy Corbyn will be standing as an independent candidate in his Islington North constituency – for which he has now been expelled from the Labour Party. He can win. But this is contingent on one big unknown: how many voters will abandon Labour and follow him? Similar historical examples suggest this varies from seat to seat. The margins tend to be wide. Excluding the extreme ends of the list below, the proportion of support won by an independent candidate from a former party can range from 22 per cent to 70 per cent. That makes an average of 50 per cent. If Corbyn performs as well as the average MP running as an independent, he may end up with 30-something per cent ...

A key attack line the Conservatives will use against Labour in this election is the idea that the latter will raise taxes if it forms the next government. This insight comes from my interpretation of a few subtle indicators, such as the big red sign that Jeremy Hunt stood in front of last week that read: “Labour’s Tax rises”, and Hunt’s claim that Starmer will “help himself to you and your family’s wallets”. The quickest and most doorstep-friendly response to this is that Jeremy Hunt has already raised taxes very significantly, not just now but for years to come. Hunt’s freezing of the income-tax thresholds extends to April 2028, by which time his decision will be lightening the nation’s wallets by ...

Scotland can expect to see a lot of Kate Forbes during the general election campaign. It’s already seen a lot of her, in fact, since John Swinney took office as First Minister and appointed her his deputy earlier this month. Forbes has been everywhere, all the time, speaking at events, appearing on the news bulletins and popping up on the front of newspapers. After a year cooling her heels on the backbenches, she has exploded from the blocks – if anything, her profile has been higher than her boss’s. The rest of the cabinet has been notable for its lower public presence. This is quite deliberate, I understand. The Nats have realised that, for all the reservations some on the left ...