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Sebastian Payne

Sebastian Payne

Financial Times

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We have the answer to ending toxic culture wars

There is almost no debate more tribal, toxic or territorial than around trans issues. Often conducted on social media, through piecemeal posts and...

12.04.2024 4

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Leaving the ECHR is a bloody fight Sunak must be prepared to have

To leave or not to leave? That’s the question Rishi Sunak might soon have to answer when the Rwanda asylum plan returns to the political fore very...

04.04.2024 2

iNews

Sebastian Payne

The Tory attack ads are tone deaf - but we do need tougher policing

It was the phrase that kick-started a presidency. Addressing the nation for the first time as leader, Donald Trump painted a dystopian, dark, sinister...

28.03.2024 1

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Rishi Sunak has no alternative but to Get Rwanda Done

Will we ever stop talking about Rwanda? It’s rapidly coming up to two long years since Boris Johnson announced plans to off-shore processing of...

21.03.2024 4

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Tory fretting over Lee Anderson puts them on a dangerous path

To understand Lee Anderson is to understand where he comes from. Ashfield in the East Midlands fits many of the stereotypes of the “Red Wall” that...

14.03.2024 2

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Cutting taxes won't woo young Tory voters

In the end, Jeremy Hunt had a bad hand and played it the best he could. Despite loading up with £10bn of tax cuts and some measures to boost growth,...

07.03.2024 4

iNews

Sebastian Payne

What should be in the Budget (and what should Jeremy Hunt avoid)

It’s Budget time once more, but how much does next week’s really matter? Is this the tentative pre-election fiscal event to merely set out the...

29.02.2024 8

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Mob politics is putting our democracy in peril

What a mess. The parliamentary shenanigans of Wednesday evening’s Israel-Gaza ceasefire vote may prove to be the downfall of Commons Speaker Sir...

22.02.2024 3

iNews

Sebastian Payne

How to make the Tories popular

“There’s no easy popularity in what we are proposing but it is fundamentally sound, I believe people accept there’s no real alternative.” So...

08.02.2024 2

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Mike Freer is merely another victim of the rage age

Elmo might just be the most astute political analyst of our times. When the Sesame Street star took to social media this week to ask how everyone...

01.02.2024 5

iNews

Sebastian Payne

The immigration debate we have all forgotten

After all that, it was not even a dozen. After months of darkening threats, both quiet and loud, Conservative MPs unhappy about the Safety of Rwanda...

18.01.2024 2

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Chris Skidmore is deeply wrongheaded about the Tories’ climate record

The by-election bandwagon rolls again. The writ for Kingswood has been moved on Wednesday and another £200,000 or so will be spent electing an MP who...

11.01.2024 2

iNews

Sebastian Payne

The Post Office scandal exposes a second injustice - Westminster is failing us

For once, Sir Keir Starmer’s righteous indignation was correct. “You’re right to be anti-Westminster,” he fumed at an aeroplane factory this...

04.01.2024 4

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Rishi Sunak should cut income tax if he wants millennial votes

“It is a radical vision but it is also a realistic one,” so said Rishi Sunak two summers ago. Many want to forget the leadership wars of that...

28.12.2023 4

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Labour's £28bn problem

What’s going to be the most important number in British politics next year? Three hundred and twenty-six? – the number of seats for a...

21.12.2023 3

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Rwanda bill is not the new Brexit

Harold Wilson was fixated on political plotting and intrigue. He spent much of the 1970s in a paranoid state about a notional secret cabal within the...

14.12.2023 4

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Free speech 'protectors' have allowed antisemitism to thrive

Larry Summers is no tubthumping right-winger. The former president of Harvard University has long-standing links to progressive American politics –...

08.12.2023 7

iNews

Sebastian Payne

The one thing the Tories can do to stop Farage

The Isle of Thanet is one of the more unlikely places for a political revolution. Lying on the eastern extremity of Kent, its remoteness gives the...

30.11.2023 5

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Time for Britain to become a nation of builders once more

What is the most profoundly depressing document in Britain today? Not Nigel Farage’s invoice for his stint in the jungle or a list of the recent...

23.11.2023 2

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Suella Braverman and her supporters have never understood 'Red Wall' voters

Andrew Neil called it one of the most important political moments of his life. As the 2019 election results rolled in, the doyen of broadcasting...

16.11.2023 6

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Suella Braverman and her supporters have never understood Red Wall voters

Andrew Neil called it one of the most important political moments of his life. As the 2019 election results rolled in, the doyen of broadcasting...

16.11.2023 6

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Suella Braverman is right about policing – but her ‘hate march’ language is toxic

London’s Charing Cross Road was distinctly anxious last Saturday. As dusk fell and punters headed towards their evenings of enjoyment, gaggles of...

09.11.2023 3

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Dominic Cummings' foul WhatsApps reveal the ugly influence the app has on government

When and why did you join WhatsApp? If you’re in America, the answer is you still probably haven’t. But in Britain, you likely joined years ago...

02.11.2023 3

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Rishi Sunak’s fearmongering on AI is holding us back

Not for the first time, the future of the Western world will be decided at Bletchley Park. Yards away from the laboratory where Alan Turing’s...

26.10.2023 3

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Integration in the UK is failing – and we are now seeing the consequences

Sajid Javid looked at me firmly and pledged “I will fix this.” It was early 2018 and the long-awaited Casey Review into community cohesion was...

19.10.2023 2

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Keir Starmer doesn't realise the family is crucial to a prosperous future

You have to hand it to Sir Keir Starmer: he has finally learnt how to tell a story. The Labour leader has come some way since he delivered one of the...

13.10.2023 5

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Labour’s attack on private schools is class warfare that will hurt millions of parents

Imagine a policy that, with a stroke of a pen, would pile more pressure on schools and cause fresh pain for a million parents. Imagine, at a time when...

28.09.2023 2

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Keir Starmer has made his first big mistake

In just one week, Sir Keir Starmer has made two blunders. Since becoming Labour leader, he has gradually tried to shift his party away from the...

14.09.2023 6

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Rejoining Horizon does not mean we should row back on Brexit

A new Horizon has broken, has it not? Ripples of relief are emanating from British scientists as, after two years in the cold, we have joined the...

07.09.2023 1

iNews

Sebastian Payne

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