HS2: Transport secretary confirms two-year delay after ‘shambolic mess’ June 18, 2025 Transport secretary Heidi Alexander has confirmed that HS2 will be delayed by at least two years, slamming previous handling of the project as an “appalling” and “shambolic mess”. The embattled high-speed rail link will be pushed back beyond 2033 following a “litany of failures” outlined in two reports by HS2 boss Mark Wild and KPMG’s [...]
Free Thinking: Mel Stride on Farage’s ‘fantasy’ economics and why Tories are different June 13, 2025 City AM's Opinion and Features Editor sits down with Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride for a very special episode of Free Thinking.
Reform and Tories aligned on Spending Review criticism June 11, 2025 Reform UK has described government spending plans as being “completely out of control” after Rachel Reeves unveiled a package of measures that would increase spending by nearly £200bn over the course of the parliament. Responding to the Chancellor’s Spending Review, Reform Deputy Richard Tice said: “inflation is up, unemployment is up, government borrowing is up, [...]
Kemi Badenoch is still the best the Tories have got June 11, 2025 Kemi Badenoch’s listless leadership is still better than a divisive alternative like Robert Jenrick or James Cleverly, says Will Cooling It’s just over a year since Nigel Farage re-entered frontline politics. What started as an inevitable defeat for the Conservative party in Clacton has become an existential rout. After they slumped to their worst election [...]
Farage has a point, the UK should stop subsidising Scotland June 11, 2025 It may have lost him the byelection, but Nigel Farage has a point about Scottish spending, writes Paul Ormerod.
Conservatives defy claims the party is ‘dying’ with millions in fundraising June 10, 2025 The Tory party raised £3.4m in donations in the first quarter of 2025, surpassing all other parties’ fundraising efforts and defying claims the party was ‘dying’. In addition to short money – meaning taxpayer and electoral commission funding – the Tories received £5.5m in the three months to end March. In the last quarter of [...]
Reform UK: TalkTV’s David Bull to replace Zia Yusuf as chairman June 10, 2025 TalkTV host David Bull has been tapped as Reform UK’s new chairman on Tuesday morning. Bull is a long-standing member of both Reform and the Brexit party, and was previously deputy leader of the party between 2021 and 2004, alongside Ben Habib. He was also a Member of the European Parliament for six months in [...]
Reform and Conservative supporters are open to an alliance, City AM poll finds June 10, 2025 Over half of Reform and Conservative voters support a merger or deal between the two parties, fresh polling by Freshwater Strategy and City AM has found, as Tory leader Kemi Badenoch wrestles to contain the surge in support for her upstart rivals in the wake of the local elections. The prospect of a ‘unite the [...]
Can populists survive in public office? Ask Geert Wilders… June 9, 2025 Right-wing firebrand Geert Wilders has withdrawn from government in the Netherlands after discovering that governing is harder than criticising from the fringes. It’s a lesson Nigel Farage may learn too, say Eliot Wilson Last week, greeted by more weary fatalism than surprise, the government of the Netherlands collapsed. On Tuesday, radical nationalist Geert Wilders withdrew [...]
Government needs to focus on lowering energy costs to sell net zero, polling says June 9, 2025 The government’s embattled net zero mission suffers from a PR problem. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has been tasked with two huge goals: achieving clean power by 2030, and net zero by 2050. According to fresh polling by PR agency Grayling Media, 55 per cent of people think the 2030 clean power target cannot be attained. [...]