What to look out for in London’s local elections Opinion With more parties and more candidates than ever before, next week’s local elections across London are the most unpredictable for a generation, argues James Ford On 7 May, Londoners go to the polls to elect the councillors that will run the capital’s 32 borough councils. More than 1,800 council seats are up for election, alongside [...]
London local elections 2026: Who will win in Barking and Dagenham? Politics Labour will take the fight to Reform in its defence of Barking and Dagenham as it looks to continue its long-running hold on the borough. In 2022 Barking and Dagenham was painted a unanimous red. All 51 seats in the 232,747 strong borough went to Labour in a clean sweep, though turnout was 24.5 per [...]
Local elections 2026: who will win in Hillingdon Council? London The Conservatives have run Hillingdon since 2006 but their majority is slipping. Reform is targeting the Leave-voting area hard, a 4.99 per cent council tax rise is biting, and a £65m Heathrow-linked funding gap is straining local services. No overall control seems to be a real possibility. Voters in Hillingdon face a disrupted trip to [...]
Local elections 2026: who will win in Havering Council? April 23, 2026 Havering is one of Reform UK’s top London targets, and one of its most plausible. The borough backed Leave in 2016, is propped up by £77m in emergency government funding, and has approved a 4.99 per cent council tax rise for 2026/27. Reform has grown fast through defections, while the Havering Residents’ Association minority administration, [...]
Historians won’t care about Starmer’s international diplomacy April 15, 2026 When future historians explain why Keir Starmer's premiership fell apart, they'll look at domestic issues, not international diplomacy.
Tories brace for heavy losses as Badenoch outpolls rivals April 4, 2026 Five years ago, the Conservatives were polling at around 40 per cent, buoyed by the vaccine rollout and post-Brexit momentum, and went on to gain 235 seats in the 2021 local elections. But ahead of May’s vote, that position seems to have shifted. Political scientist Stephen Fisher has suggested the party could lose as many [...]
Rocco Forte: Inheritance tax grab has endangered my family firm March 25, 2026 With luxury outposts across Europe, and plans to expand to the Gulf, Rocco Forte Hotels has become one of Britain’s most successful hospitality exports. But after being hit by a wave of damaging policies – including a potentially existential inheritance tax crackdown – he tells Ali Lyon, he is more disillusioned with Britain now, than [...]
Has YouGov been barraged by Farage? March 25, 2026 Nigel Farage has never been shy in locking horns with big business. Just ask Dame Alison Rose, whose stint at Natwest came to a sharp halt after a row with Farage over a debanking. The British banker resigned after Natwest admitted to “serious failings” in closing the Reform UK leader’s account at its high-net-worth subsidiary [...]
Nigel Farage invests in Kwasi Kwarteng-backed Bitcoin treasury business March 9, 2026 Nigel Farage has invested in an Aquis-listed Bitcoin treasury business as the Reform leader doubles down on his commitment to cryptocurrencies. Farage has spent £215,000 to acquire a 6.3 per cent stake in Stack BTC, a small-cap company which says it is “focused on building a portfolio of high-quality, cash-generative businesses alongside a Bitcoin treasury,” [...]
Mel Stride vows ‘Big Bang’ as he targets careful City March 6, 2026 Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride is set to promise a new “Big Bang” on City regulation in a speech at a Conservative conference this weekend harking back to Margaret Thatcher’s financial reforms. Stride is set to decry the lack of risk-taking across the UK economy and suggest regulation has been a “vast yoke” on businesses. [...]