This is not the contest that Labour was preparing for. Across the summer plenty of MPs ruminated on who could succeed Keir Starmer (with the aftermath of next May’s elections viewed as a moment of vulnerability). But it was a measure of Angela Rayner’s internal strength that her position was thought unassailable. Now the party finds itself thrown into an unfamiliar world. Not since 1981 – when Tony Benn faced off against Denis Healey – has Labour elected a deputy without an accompanying leadership contest. Faced with this, some inside the party argued that the post should simply be abolished. “The role of deputy leader invites theatre without remit,” wrote Tom Watson (who ironically survived a Corbynite attempt at abolition in ...

Labour’s deputy leadership election officially began just after 9.30pm last night when the left-wing MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, announced her candidacy. The MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill and a member of the Socialist Campaign Group (SCG), Ribeiro-Addy said in a post on X: “I am putting myself forward to stand as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. I look forward to explaining why, over the three short and undemocratic days we have to do so.” She was the first MP to formally announce her challenge. Ribeiro-Addy has already been crowned the left’s candidate. Within minutes of her announcement, she had received backing from fellow SCG members including Richard Burgon, Brian Leishman, Nadia Whittome and Andy McDonald. However, she was not the ...

“Quite possibly the most dangerous cabinet appointment in British history.” When Shabana Mahmood was appointed Home Secretary on Friday (5 September), this was the response on parts of the political right. Not a political objection, but a hysterical and moral one – and one with ethnic overtones, coming alongside a slew of pictures of Mahmood wearing the hijab. Other observers have described the move as a well-deserved promotion, citing Mahmood’s effectiveness and firm approach during her tenure as Lord Chancellor. Yet on social media – particularly X – some voices have focused not on her record but on her identity as a “Pakistani Muslim”, and raising unfounded concerns about whether this might compromise her stance on the grooming gangs scandal. There ...

For John Fisher, the racist vandalism at The Dragon House Chinese restaurant in York was an attack on England. Speaking out to his over 62,000 followers on X, Fisher, otherwise known as Big John, Bosh Soldier, said, “Where is this takeaway? I wouldn’t mind visiting to show support.” Fisher was responding to a local man, a window cleaner, who had gone down to scrub off the graffiti, which included “Go Home” scrawled alongside badly drawn St George’s flags. “Well done to the window cleaning company for helping out,” Big John added. Big John, as his X bio says, is “Leader of the Bosh Soldiers of the Romford Bull Army. Dad to heavyweight boxer Johnny, and Henry, William, and Hetty.” And if ...

I’ve finally worked out what watching Lee Anderson speak is like. It was today (5 September) at this year’s Reform conference after he was introduced as a “famous international comedian”. Lee Anderson is a Peter Kay set gone wrong. Like Peter Kay, that is, he relies on sequences, routines, anecdotes and political catchphrases, all ungirded by his working-class upbringing and demotic. He is substantially a nostalgia act, a reminder of the world of working men’s clubs, half pints of bitter, and packets of ten Bensons. Unlike Peter Kay, however, he is awful. First the catchphrases, which start from his entrance, where Lee leads a chant of “Here we go”, conducting the audience with swinging arms. Then he really warms up. We ...

Zack Polanski is so fetch. In the classic Noughties high school flick Mean Girls, gossip baron Gretchen Wieners uses “fetch” to mean excellent. And the new leader of the Green Party has excelled at campaigning. In 2018, Jonathan Bartley and Siân Berry won the leadership with 6,329 votes. In 2021, Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay cinched it with just 5,062. As announced on Tuesday (2 September), 20,411 members voted for Polanski. Many had joined the party just to vote for him. He beat the joint ticket of MPs Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsay by more than 65 percentage points. Polanski offered bolder policies that laid the blame for Britain’s malaise squarely on wealth inequality. He campaigned with videos posted directly to TikTok. When, ...

The biggest winner from the first PMQs session of the new parliamentary term? Angela Rayner. The Deputy Prime Minister has spent the last weeks of summer under fire over her tax and housing situation, after reports emerged that she paid the lower “main home” rate of stamp duty on a flat she purchased in Hove. The home she mostly lives in is understood to be a property in her constituency of Ashton-under-Lyne, which she does not technically own but which has been placed in trust for her disabled son following her divorce. After mounting speculation, Rayner released a highly personal statement this morning admitting that on the advice of her lawyers she had underpaid stamp duty on the Hove flat (estimated ...

As a comedy writer, Graham Linehan wrote Father Ted and The IT Crowd. As a social media activist, he wrote gender-sceptical X posts. Perhaps the former deserved some sort of punishment. The latter did not. Yet when the 57-year-old Irishman touched down at Heathrow Airport yesterday (1 September 2025), he was detained. The Metropolitan Police said a man was arrested by the MPS Aviation Unit, then taken to hospital, then bailed “pending further investigation”. Linehan and his team supplied their story on his Substack. Linehan was confronted by five officers, had a panic attack and had to go to hospital because of his blood pressure. He said his arrest was for three April X posts about challenging “a trans-identified male” in ...