Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

The Prime Minister should not be misguided – Beijing is already in economic decline Daily Telegraph 30/01/26 Sir Keir Starmer is late to the Chinese economic miracle. Hyper-growth was already on borrowed time as far back as 2010, undermined by debt saturation and the insidious long-tail effects of the global financial crisis. China’s share of world GDP has fallen for the last four years at market exchange rates. Capital Economics expects it to fall again this year, touching lows seen almost a decade ago. China’s output has already fallen back from three quarters to two thirds of US levels. It will not surpass the US over the next half century – assuming that Congress and the American people act in time to halt the dangerous buffoonery and predatory wag-the-dog wars of Donald Trump. Talk of a superpower sorpasso is now just a relic of past hubris. Britain’s Prime Minister should by all means be visiting Beijing to build a “more sophisticated relationship”. The UK and China are on...

Government accused of ‘running scared of voters’ as councillors step down in protest over delays Daily Telegraph 29/01/26 Councillors have launched a revolt after Labour cancelled local elections for 4.6 million people. Norfolk, one of Britain’s biggest councils, has been hit by a string of resignations in protest over the delays, which have been branded a “democratic outrage”. Meanwhile, the leader of Welwyn Hatfield council stood down after a backlash over cancelled voting drove its ruling coalition to the brink of collapse. Essex, another major council that was thought to have been considering cancellations, formally announced on Thursday that it would hold a vote after all. The Telegraph understands a string of other councillors across Britain are also considering whether to stand down, potentially forcing local authorities to hold dozens of by-elections. Labour announced plans earlier this month to deny millions of people the vote, leaving some with no say over who contro...

Matt Goodwin, the Reform candidate for Gorton and Denton by-election, says his comments on Manchester deliberately taken out of context Daily Telegraph 28/07/26 Reform UK has reported Labour to the police over a “misleading” video that attacked its candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election. Matt Goodwin, who is contesting the by-election for Reform, claimed that Labour breached the Representation of the People’s Act 1983 which bans any “false statement of fact” against a candidate. His complaint to Greater Manchester Police centres on the way the Labour party used a video posted previously on X by Mr Goodwin. In the video, the Reform candidate says: “I was lucky enough or unfortunate enough to be in Manchester a few days ago and the energy in this room is 10 times what it was in Manchester so congratulations.” The Labour Party account captioned the clip: “This is what Reform’s latest candidate thinks about where he’s standing to represent.” But Mr Goodwin, a former Univer...

The fact that our Prime Minister offered his service for free to prosecute troops who served this country is shocking, even to me Daily Telegraph 27/01/25 In my efforts to dismantle their approach over the past 10 years, I have often tried to understand what drives politicians who continually advocate for the endless hounding of troops who serve this country on operations. They can’t claim to represent the British public. Unfortunately for politicians, the public are not stupid. They understand the fog of war, that things go wrong, and that nothing is black and white. They want those egregious cases of serious wrongdoing prosecuted – we run professional Armed Forces, have built our country on their legacy and are deeply proud of their service. But the public cannot understand this almost insatiable desire from some quarters to harass British soldiers. That The Telegraph – which I have worked with for more than 10 years on this subject now – revealed that Sir Keir Starmer, our Pr...

Party members say blocking Mayor of Greater Manchester from running will hand seat to Reform Daily Telegraph 27/01/26 Labour activists in Gorton and Denton have demanded Sir Keir Starmer reverse the decision to block Andy Burnham from standing for Parliament. Sir Keir and his allies have prevented Mr Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, from running in a by-election in the seat on Feb 26. Seventeen members of Gorton and Denton’s local Labour party have written a letter to the Prime Minister accusing him of “playing” with their future and handing the seat to Reform UK. The letter, which will be sent on Tuesday, tells Sir Keir that the National Executive Committee (NEC), Labour’s ruling body, “should reverse the decision to block Andy Burnham and allow him and anyone else to stand”. The Gorton activists said their “future has been played by party figures in Westminster”. They write: Dear Keir Starmer MP, Leader of the Labour Party, and Shabana Mahmood MP, Chair of the NEC,...

Former home secretary is latest Tory MP to join Nigel Farage’s party, just days after Robert Jenrick Daily Telegraph 26/01/26 Suella Braverman has become the latest senior Conservative to defect to Reform UK. The former home secretary’s decision to leave the Tories two weeks after Robert Jenrick and Nadhim Zahawi will pile further pressure on Kemi Badenoch. Mrs Braverman became the 27th current or former Conservative MP to defect to Nigel Farage’s party and brought the number of Reform seats in the Commons to eight. The latest defection will likely be touted as a major coup by Reform after Mr Farage said he was looking to gain more ministerial and policy expertise in the party. Unveiling his newest MP at a press conference on Monday, he said it was “about time” Mrs Braverman defected, describing her as “somebody who’s reached high office in the Cabinet”. In a scathing attack on her former colleagues, Mrs Braverman said: “I’m calling time on Tory betrayal. I’m calling time on...

Allies of Greater Manchester mayor say No 10 has ‘chosen factionalism’ as decision leads to a furious backlash The Guardian 25/01/26 Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) has blocked Andy Burnham’s request to seek selection for the Gorton and Denton byelection, setting off an immediate and furious row within the party. A Labour statement said that under party rules, sitting mayors or police and crime commissioners must seek permission to stand for parliament. “The NEC has decided not to grant Andy Burnham permission to stand,” it said. “The NEC believes that causing an unnecessary election for the position of Greater Manchester mayor would have a substantial and disproportionate impact on party campaign resources ahead of the local elections and elections to the Scottish parliament and Welsh Senedd in May. Although the party would be confident of retaining the mayoralty, the NEC could not put Labour’s control of Greater Manchester at any risk. It added: “Andy Burnham is doing...

Concerns grow within Labour that party chiefs could block the Greater Manchester mayor’s return to Parliament Daily Telegraph 24/01/26 Sir Keir Starmer has been warned not to block Andy Burnham’s potential return to Parliament as a Labour MP or risk reprisals from his own backbenchers. The Prime Minister’s supporters fear that Mr Burnham, who is considered to be one of the most popular figures in the Labour Party, could pose a future challenge to his leadership. Andrew Gwynne, the suspended Labour MP, has confirmed he will step down from his Gordon and Denton seat, opening the door for the Greater Manchester mayor to seek a return to Westminster. There is growing concern within Labour that the party’s National Executive Committee [NEC], which must approve candidates and is widely seen as supportive of Sir Keir’s leadership, could attempt to block Mr Burnham from standing. In anticipation of Number 10’s plans to block the move, several high-profile Labour MPs have urged the NEC n...

The US president was right to kibosh the PM’s sell-out treaty and now it looks dead in the water Daily Telegraph 22/01/26 They laughed at me when I said Chagos would become one of the major issues of this Parliament, but it has now appeared in Keir Starmer’s rear-view mirror like a looming juggernaut. It’s an issue that I believe could yet bulldoze the Government. I put down questions after the election to the newly burnished Starmerite lieutenants, enquiring as to their intentions for the British Indian Ocean territory. Their answers were characteristically deceptive – and in the year and a half since, ministers have continued to act both incompetently and disingenuously. And now their entire Chagos plan has exploded like a bunker buster dropped on Labour HQ. The Prime Minister only has himself to blame. He ignored the many opponents to this bizarre deal, even as their voices grew louder – whether in the public, in the media, or in the House of Lords – where all opposition parti...

Dear Robin, As you know, Keir Starmer is colluding with Labour and Tory councils to attempt to cancel local elections for millions of British people in May. Again. I am pleased to inform you that yesterday, lawyers instructed by our party leader Nigel Farage, on behalf of Reform UK, successfully cleared the path in the High Court for our legal challenge to stop them from denying democracy again. Our Judicial Review will be heard on the 19th and 20th of February. The judge gave the government until the 16th of February to file their defence. We have also served legal papers to all 63 councils in question. As you know, sadly, we have a justice system in this country that has become politicised. However, our lawyers are first-class, and the law is on our side. We have a realistic prospect of victory. Our message to Keir Starmer and the Tory and Labour councillors trampling democracy is clear: we are coming for you in the High Court. Our message to you is that we will do ever...

Matt Goodwin 20/01/26 The Tory Wets - ‘One Nation’ liberal conservatives who have dominated the Tory party for much of the last thirty years - are in Cloud Cuckoo Land. That is the only logical conclusion one can reach based on how they are currently responding to the defection of Robert Jenrick, Andrew Rosindell, and many other right-wing Tories to Nigel Farage and Reform. Writing in The Times this week, Matthew Parris, the standard bearer of the Tory Wets who more than a decade ago famously urged the Tory party to “give up” on white working-class people from the likes of Clacton because they were “going nowhere”, argues this: “For [Kemi] Badenoch it’s time, now the nutters have gone, for an olive branch towards men like Kenneth Clarke, Michael Heseltine, David Gauke, Dominic Grieve”. Other Tory Wets have been similarly giddy with delight at ejecting their right-wing challengers, joining the growing calls to return the Tory party to its Cameroon past. In recent days, The Times...

Good afternoon. As Donald Trump lets his feelings about the Chagos “deal” be known, what role might Nigel Farage have played in this bolt-from-the-blue intervention? And as the Chinese embassy – similarly unpopular with the US president – is given the go-ahead, for how much longer can Keir Starmer walk the diplomatic tightrope? Annabel Denham, Senior Political Commentator. Daily Telegraph Donald Trump has just made a blow-your-socks-off intervention on Chagos. His Truth Social post, dripping with sarcasm about “brilliant” Britain, was a rebuke – some would say long overdue – to Keir Starmer’s decision to surrender the archipelago. Foreign policy is drifting into turbulent waters, and Starmer is not going to be able to chart a course with “calm discussion” alone. The Prime Minister had justified the deal on the grounds our allies supported it. Now the US president has described it as an act of “GREAT STUPIDITY”. If America is the rock, the hard place is the Starmeresque worldview ...

Daily Telegraph Newsletter 19/01/26 So much for “every minute we focus on anything other than cost of living is a wasted minute”. Once again, Sir Keir Starmer began the week intending to turn our attention to the economy; once again, the Orange One has torpedoed those plans. Donald Trump’s latest threat – a blanket 10 per cent tariff on imports – is not just dominating headlines but would worsen living standards here in Britain. The US is our single largest export market at country level, and economists warn that tariffs on such a scale could tip us into recession. As opposed to the 1 per cent growth we've been enjoying over the past 10 to 15 years – itself largely the effect of higher immigration rather than productivity (the only sustainable basis for rising living standards). Britain has no buffer; external shocks land harder here than they would in a healthier or more productive economy – notwithstanding Rachel Reeves’s implausible insistence, citing the IMF's latest ou...

Nigel Farage stands to benefit from having a talented politician with cabinet experience Daily Telegraph 18/02/26 It’s hard to know which Tory claim of the last week is more ridiculous. The one suggesting Kemi Badenoch handled Robert Jenrick’s defection to Reform well. Or the one suggesting the Tories are better off without him. We’ve heard both absurdities in the last week, when the reality is Nigel Farage has been handed yet another nail to hammer into the Tory coffin. Let’s take the first one first: that Badenoch did a great job in firing him. It’s true that taking fast and decisive action – with a rapid briefing on her own terms – was a technical success. But too many people are missing a more fundamental point: Jenrick partly left because she consistently treated him badly after her leadership win. Jenrick ran a decent, energetic leadership campaign and had extensive experience in Government, not least as a cabinet minister. Even though Tory ranks were hugely depleted after...

Even power cuts and the three-day week seem preferable to today’s circumstances for businesses Daily Telegraph 13/01/26 While the voice of big business is seldom absent from public debate with its professional lobbying and media operations, family businesses receive less of a hearing, which is surprising because they comprise 85 per cent of all British businesses and provide more than half of the UK’s private-sector employment. To get a sense of what the people who run the businesses, that make up the backbone of our economy, think about the current economic and political climate, the Jobs Foundation commissioned a poll of more than 1,100 family business leaders. The verdict is in, and it’s not pretty. It is important to say from the outset that their deep sense of disillusionment is not confined to the current government. Just one in five say that they trust the Conservatives the most to help their business thrive – a poor result for a party which has historically received stron...

Former frontbencher launches savage attack on Conservatives as he defects to Reform Daily Telegraph 15 January 2026 10:20pm GMT Robert Jenrick declared that the Conservative Party “broke Britain” in a highly personal attack on former colleagues as he defected to Reform UK. Speaking at a press conference alongside Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, on Thursday, Mr Jenrick called his former party “rotten”, “dishonest” and “no longer fit for purpose”. Arguing that the Tories lacked the “backbone” to solve the country’s problems, the former shadow justice secretary criticised Sir Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, for overseeing an “explosion of the welfare bill” and Dame Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, for enabling “five million migrants to come” to Britain. Writing for The Telegraph, Mr Jenrick also singled out Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, saying her team was not “willing to change”. His shock departure will raise fears in Tory circles of more defectio...