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Sebastian Payne

Sebastian Payne

Financial Times

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James Cleverly is right: the Tories need to be more 'normal'

Let’s be honest, no one in politics is particularly normal. People who put aside stable careers for a precarious existence where success is often...

previous day 20

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Keir Starmer has two major problems

From the moment he was proclaimed “Mr Rules”, Sir Keir Starmer set himself up for an almighty fall. Just as Rishi Sunak’s pledge to lead a...

26.09.2024 6

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Sue Gray’s fate is already sealed

“This can’t go on” is one of the most grating mantras in politics. Yet it’s one that often turns out to be true. When Boris Johnson first...

20.09.2024 40

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Mel Stride will be back

Back in the David Cameron era, when the Conservatives were still in power, two battle cries were heard at the Treasury when the Government was in a...

12.09.2024 5

iNews

Sebastian Payne

The Tories have six months to save the party

Where is Nigel Farage? When in doubt a good assumption is in America, doing all he can to support his compadre Donald Trump. He might be at home...

22.08.2024 4

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Sue Gray is a powerhouse - that's a lesson for the Tories

Tony Benn was no friend of Whitehall – and the antipathy was mutual. Reflecting on his difficult relationship with officialdom, the hero of the hard...

16.08.2024 10

iNews

Sebastian Payne

The Tories' Robert Jenrick conundrum

It’s not the most obvious nickname that comes to mind, but Robert Jenrick is the first Conservative leadership contender to acquire one. “Bobby...

08.08.2024 6

iNews

Sebastian Payne

The economy is improving – we have the Tories to thank for that

Imagine a different world. The Bank of England still announced the first interest rate change in over a year yesterday, bringing rates down from a...

02.08.2024 10

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Any future Tory leader must remember this motto: be normal

And without a bang, more of a social media ping, the Conservative leadership contest is off. Three contenders are now formally in the race to succeed...

25.07.2024 4

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Keir Starmer's EU promises are an impossible pipe dream

“It is always an error in diplomacy to press a matter when it is quite clear that no further progress is to be made,” Winston Churchill prophesied...

18.07.2024 10

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Suella Braverman has been infected with the venom of US rhetoric

Frank Luntz is the famed American pollster who actually understands Britain. It was he who first predicted that Conservative MPs with majorities of...

12.07.2024 10

iNews

Sebastian Payne

My plea to Tories: don't rush to elect Kemi Badenoch or Suella Braverman

Is this a tale of two elections? Let’s start with Labour’s positive story: the Conservative Party faces a grinding spell in opposition after...

05.07.2024 8

iNews

Sebastian Payne

'No surrender' roars Sunak - and finally he finds a slogan that works

The incandescent ghost of Dr Ian Paisley is haunting the election. When Rishi Sunak went head to head with Sir Keir Starmer in the BBC debate this...

27.06.2024 6

iNews

Sebastian Payne

'Betgate' crosses an appalling line

The decision to call an early election was always a gamble. But the stakes have been raised (pardon the obvious pun) after two Conservative candidates...

21.06.2024 20

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Sebastian Payne

This boring election campaign hides dark clouds for Labour

Apathy. No momentum. Low turnout. A general sense of disengagement. The result: a limp landslide that was baked in from the start and barely impacted...

13.06.2024 10

iNews

Sebastian Payne

It's 9 July and Nigel Farage saunters into the House of Commons...

It’s Tuesday 9 July and our new Parliament is gathering for the first time. Some old faces greet their colleagues after six tough weeks out on the...

06.06.2024 6

iNews

Sebastian Payne

A pact with Nigel Farage would be electoral suicide for the Tories

Is it time to make plans for Nigel? What, if anything, the Conservatives should do about the Reform UK is being debated following Jacob...

17.05.2024 20

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Sebastian Payne

I’m an ardent unionist – but feel forced to defend Kate Forbes

Kate Forbes isn’t someone I’d typically rally to. We might be the same age and both take a great interest in politics. We’re also broadly...

01.05.2024 20

iNews

Sebastian Payne

Sadiq Khan’s attacks on Susan Hall smack of desperation and fear

The tension between Sadiq Khan and Susan Hall has finally erupted into real rancour. As the London mayoral race enters its final, critical week, the...

26.04.2024 20

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Sebastian Payne

Only two names will matter in the May elections

On 2 May only two names will matter. When large swathes of the country go to the polls for this year’s local elections, all eager Westminster eyes...

18.04.2024 4

iNews

Sebastian Payne

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 5

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 6

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 9

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 7

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 5

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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 7

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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 10

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 6

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 5

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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 9

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

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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 4

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 7

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 6

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 10

iNews

Sebastian Payne

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