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Martin Kettle

Martin Kettle

The Guardian

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Starmer can’t dodge the Europe question for ever. In office, the economy will answer it for him

“Who do you think will lead the Labour government’s revolt on Europe?” asked my walking companion, steeped in politics, as we battled a cold...

yesterday 80

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Let’s stop talking about ‘great’ Britain – and rebrand ourselves as a different sort of country

Addressing the Labour conference in October, Keir Starmer promised to lead a decade of national renewal. After Covid, Brexit and the cost of living...

11.04.2024 30

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Sunak’s Conservatives face years of oblivion. Changing leader will solve nothing

Incredible though it may seem, it is increasingly likely that Rishi Sunak’s Conservative leadership will be challenged in June. To many, the idea...

04.04.2024 40

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

A defeated Rishi Sunak should go, but my advice is: not too quickly

The Conservative party needs another leadership election right now like it needs a hole in the head. Most observers agree about this. Even Jacob...

21.03.2024 9

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

This is the Tory party now: so devoid of values and leadership it can’t respond to blatantly racist remarks

As racist, misogynist and generally incitement provoking remarks go, Frank Hester’s are not even borderline. Looking at Diane Abbott makes you...

14.03.2024 50

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Jeremy Hunt gave us a hit-and-run budget. But unlike cornered chancellors past, he showed no shame

There is nothing, says the former chancellor Ken Clarke in his memoir, “so dead and forgotten as old budgets”. A chancellor’s budget is the...

06.03.2024 2

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

A lesson and a wake-up call from Rochdale: Labour has become too complacent about its big poll lead

More than four months into the Israel-Hamas war, and after the Labour party’s Rochdale byelection candidate shambles, it can come as something of a...

15.02.2024 30

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

In sickness or health, a new path will be needed for the British monarchy and the nation

On this, at least, everybody can identify with King Charles. His cancer diagnosis this week is a traumatic moment, and not just for him but for his...

08.02.2024 10

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

After a historic deal in Northern Ireland, what next? Old political battles on a reshaped field

Start with the positives, for they are hard to dispute. The new Northern Ireland plan unpicks some of the economic and political damage inflicted by...

31.01.2024 5

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

The House of Lords is very flawed. But if it picks apart Sunak’s Rwanda bill, that’s its job and it deserves support

Recent prime ministers have been all too obviously thrilled by the adrenaline rush of the flak jacket and international conflict. One or two others...

25.01.2024 20

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

How should Keir Starmer take on 2024? By looking back a century to Labour’s first government

Next year’s general election will be the 22nd in Britain’s postwar history. Only a handful of these can be described as pivotal. Three stand out:...

28.12.2023 10

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Britain is a country that looks to its parliament. And the truth is, parliament is failing us

Watching the parliamentary year dribble towards the Christmas recess this week, three glaring reasons for Britain’s political malaise shone out as a...

21.12.2023 10

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Migration is dominating Sunak’s premiership – but the pressure on Starmer may be even greater

For Keir Starmer, the Tory party is the gift that keeps on giving. If Labour has one overriding wish as the start of general election year approaches,...

14.12.2023 8

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Lazy and fraudulent: we saw the true Johnson at the Covid inquiry – and why his like must never have power again

François Mitterrand once said that the most essential single attribute for success in politics is indifference. France’s former socialist president...

06.12.2023 2

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Europe has entered a new age of anxiety – and it’s dragging Britain along too

Once again, a spectre is haunting Europe. Yet the spectre is not communism, as Karl Marx wrongly predicted nearly 200 years ago. Far from it. The...

30.11.2023 40

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Guardian Opinion cartoon Ben Jennings on Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement – cartoon

23.11.2023 30

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

The Gaza truce is a ray of hope in the darkness. Both sides must remember that

Observing events from outside the region, one habitually hesitates. Nevertheless, it feels clear that the four-day truce between Hamas and Israel,...

22.11.2023 5

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

The Rwanda plan is dead in the real world, but will live on in the fantasyland of Tory politics

Ever since Brenda Hale stepped down as president of the supreme court in 2020, it has not been difficult to find lawyers who worried that her more...

15.11.2023 7

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

The Guardian view on marching for Gaza: a ban without legal justification would only inflame divisions

Political demonstrations are frequently controversial. Any issue that can mobilise tens of thousands of people is likely to involve fierce passions,...

09.11.2023 4

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

The Guardian view on the census: a 10-yearly snapshot that is too important to be binned

Let us start with a quiz question. A British tradition dating back more than two centuries faces abolition, even though it is both hugely popular and...

09.11.2023 10

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Maybe Sunak does have a grand plan. But that king’s speech looked more like an admission of failure

Less than 24 hours after the king’s speech, supposedly one of the most reverberant events in the parliamentary calendar, Wednesday’s political...

08.11.2023 5

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

The Covid inquiry has exposed more than just a few bad apples – the whole system is rotten

Yes, Dominic Cummings was in almost every way the ultimate colleague from hell. Yes, Boris Johnson was in a different way the sum of all nightmares as...

02.11.2023 100

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Sunak’s shambolic government is achieving nothing. Must Britain really wait 15 months to throw it out?

Another week and, with disturbing predictability, yet another miscreant MP. Another recall petition looms as a result, carrying the likelihood of...

26.10.2023 80

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

The Guardian view on support for Ukraine: Kyiv stands strong, but others are faltering

As temperatures fall and a second winter of war approaches, Ukraine fears that the international enthusiasm for its cause that followed Russia’s...

19.10.2023 20

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

The Guardian view on the SNP conference: there are no shortcuts to a mandate for independence

In what already feels like a different political era, but was really only last year, Nicola Sturgeon named this Thursday as the target date for a...

18.10.2023 2

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Joe Biden’s peace mission to Israel exposed the limits of US global influence

The White House’s collective stress level must have gone up several notches as Joe Biden and his entourage sat on the runway waiting to leave for...

18.10.2023 4

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

The universal rules of war that emerged after 1945 are being broken – and not just in the Middle East

H amas’s murder of Jewish civilians in the Kfar Aza kibbutz on 7 October was “without doubt a war crime”, the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen concluded in...

13.10.2023 100

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

The Guardian view on Kevin McCarthy’s removal: dysfunction is the Republicans’ new normal

S tunning. Unprecedented. Uncharted territory. A first in American history. Kevin McCarthy’s removal as speaker of the House of Representatives on...

05.10.2023 40

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Guardian Opinion cartoon Steve Bell on Rishi Sunak’s decision to scrap HS2 leg – cartoon

04.10.2023 3

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Rishi Sunak’s speech showed what’s next for the Tories – and it isn’t him

R ishi Sunak has spent Conservative party conference week claiming he wants to do politics differently. If only. In fact, yesterday’s speech –...

04.10.2023 20

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Look back at Giorgio Napolitano: learn the limits of dogma and how good leaders can change lives

I t’s not every day that you see a pope paying tribute to a former communist – but it happened this week in Rome. By the same token, it is a...

29.09.2023 9

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

See Sunak’s green retreat for what it is: a ruthless short-term electoral gamble

R ishi Sunak’s retreat from the government’s net zero pledges triggers large- and small-scale conclusions alike. These range from a message about...

20.09.2023 4

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

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