James Ball
27 September 2024
Of course Starmer was right to meet Trump
The PM would prefer a Harris victory, but snubbing the Republican would have been dereliction of duty
Read the full article25 September 2024
Sunak: the sequel?
The new prime minister’s government has started with worrying echoes of how his predecessor’s ended
Read the full article24 September 2024
Starmer’s not for turning
The prime minister rejected a reset and instead fell back on old themes in his Labour conference speech
Read the full article24 September 2024
Labour’s corporate conference
Sponsors’ stalls at the party’s Liverpool get-together shows how much the political axis has shifted
Read the full article22 September 2024
The dangers of longevity
People in the UK are living longer lives – our economic system is not set up to deal with the consequences
Read the full article18 September 2024
Starmer’s missed opportunity
Labour could have made a much better argument over the scrapping of the winter fuel allowance. But it didn’t. Big mistake
Read the full article15 September 2024
Starmer is ignoring an open goal
Everyone wants to regulate lobbying – even the lobbyists. Why won’t Labour do it?
Read the full article11 September 2024
The weird and artificial Tory leadership race
The slow march towards crushing defeat goes on
Read the full article11 September 2024
Elon Musk: a man without a plan
A credulous, paranoid chancer, Musk has risen to fame through luck and other people’s hard work
Read the full article09 September 2024
The winter fool allowance
Starmer’s decision to cut heating benefits for pensioners is woeful politics, and Labour MPs are in despair
Read the full article07 September 2024
It’s time to build jails
Labour has inherited a jails crisis. Its short-term decision to release prisoners will be unpopular. The long-term answer might be even more so
Read the full article04 September 2024
Killed by greed and deregulation
The Grenfell inquiry report is damning and heartbreaking
Read the full article04 September 2024
The promise Starmer should have broken
Keir Starmer pledged no tax rises for working people, yet that’s impossible. Unless, of course, he drops his red lines on the single market and customs union
Read the full article01 September 2024
Labour’s new smoking ban is cliched nannyism
There is no good reason for banning cigarettes outside pubs while allowing them on the pavement next door
Read the full article28 August 2024
Bitter harvest: how Brexit harms our farms
Post-Brexit subsidies were supposed to save the countryside. Instead they’ve given landowners incentives to oust their tenant farmers
Read the full article27 August 2024
France’s stalemate is the result of a broken constitution
The current chaos serves as a reminder that, on some fundamental levels, the constitutional settlement of the French fifth republic doesn’t really work
Read the full article26 August 2024
The danger in Labour’s briefing battle
The public is sick of political in-fighting, so Keir Starmer must clamp down on No.10 leaks
Read the full article26 August 2024
Whatever happened to good news?
It’s time Labour did something big and transformative to save us from a news cycle of misery
Read the full article21 August 2024
The cult that ate itself
This was supposed to be the year populism triumphed. But a push towards its most extreme followers could be fatal
Read the full article19 August 2024
The crank who can force Trump’s hand
Robert Kennedy Jr is deeply weird - but could still end up with a key role in a Republican White House
Read the full article13 August 2024
The Musk/Trump mess
Technical issues delayed the start of the blowhards’ audio chat. The delay was the best bit
Read the full article11 August 2024
The truth about Matt Goodwin’s big win
Getting honorary status at the university he has just left is nothing special
Read the full article10 August 2024
Kamala Harris leads in the polls
But are her strong numbers evidence of a temporary “bounce” or a long-term “wave”?
Read the full article07 August 2024
Matt Goodwin’s fall into the abyss
How a once respected academic embarked on a “sad, depressing journey of radicalisation”
Read the full article07 August 2024
Disinformation station
GB News, the populists’ TV channel, has long tiptoed on the edge. Will making excuses for thugs finally send it over?
Read the full article05 August 2024
Fixing social media in antisocial times
Elon Musk allows Twitter users to fan the flames of disorder - and that may come back to burn him and them
Read the full article31 July 2024
The grief and the grifters
Extremists who used the Southport tragedy to play on people’s prejudices should feel the consequences
Read the full article31 July 2024
Trump’s vision of division
Almost everything you have heard about Donald Trump and Project 2025 is true. And it is every bit as terrifying as it sounds
Read the full article30 July 2024
Ruthless Reeves shows skill and intent
The chancellor ripped up Tory legacy dreams and made the right call on the Winter Fuel Payment
Read the full article25 July 2024
Major Tom has lost control
Tugendhat and the Tories won’t win if they abandon common sense to ape Reform
Read the full article24 July 2024
We’ll all pay for the HS2 delay
Sooner or later, a British government will be forced to restart HS2. It should have been this one
Read the full article21 July 2024
Biden is out, but chaos is in
It was the toughest of decisions - now the Democrats face many more
Read the full article