How the SNP’s tanking poll ratings doomed its alliance with the Greens  Henry Hill “Whatever the specific issues upon which the Bute House Agreement foundered, the two parties are suddenly competing for votes in Holyrood’s regional lists.” — A summer election may be Sunak’s only hope of avoiding a wipeout  William Atkinson “The Chancellor has little headroom for another tax-cutting Budget. The Rwanda plan is a dud. A Nigel Farage return looms. How much worse can the Tory position become in the next six months?” — Truss shows in her book how fatal an ideology can be to a conservative ..read more

The post ‘Excellent news, and I wish him the best.’ Hill on the King’s return to public duties. appeared first on Conservative Home ..read more

Events are rapidly overtaking the Scottish National Party. Last Thursday Peter Murrell, Nicola Sturgeon’s husband and for more than two decades the party’s Chief Executive, was arrested and charged in connection with a fraud investigation into the SNP’s finances. Then this week, with the Scottish Government still off-balance from that disastrous development, the Scottish Greens announced that they were going to put the future of the Bute House Agreement, their coalition deal with the Nationalists, to a membership vote. Seeing which way the wind was blowing, Humza Yousaf tore it up himself. All ..read more

Angus – Arbroath West, Letham & Friockheim Conservatives 1,682 (41.9 per cent, +10.6) SNP 1,175 (29.3 per cent, -6.9) Labour 644 (16.1 per cent, +9.6) Lib Dems 333 (8.3 per cent, +3.9) Green Party 176 (4.4 per cent, +1.1). First preferences. Conservatives gain from an independent Cardiff – Grangetown Labour 1,470 (47.5 per cent, -5.6) Plaid Cymru/Green Party 573 (18.5 per cent, -9.3) Conservatives 387 (12.5 per cent, +3.5) Propel 292 (9.4 per cent, +6.2) Independent 205 (6.6 per cent, +6.6) Lib Dems 123 (4.0 per cent, -0.9) Independent 44 (1.4 per cent, +1.4) Labour hold Forthcoming contes ..read more

Adrian Lee is a solicitor-advocate in London, specialising in criminal defence, and was twice a Conservative parliamentary candidate. The recently resolved delay of Joe Biden’s $61 Billion aid package to Ukraine by Congress has drawn attention to the phoenix-like rebirth of an ancient Republican Party (G.O.P.) tradition: isolationism. Isolationism is defined as a country unilaterally deciding not to engage in the affairs of others. This involves a reluctance to enter into international agreements, military alliances, treaties, or trade deals. It may come as a surprise to those whose knowledge ..read more

Marcus Solarz Hendriks is a Research Fellow at Policy Exchange. Last Friday Ali Khamenei, the Iranian Supreme Leader, woke up to the news that Israel may have already delivered his 85th birthday present: in the early hours, several explosions rocked Isfahan province, home to nuclear storage and research facilities, an airbase, and a drone manufacturing site. Although Jerusalem has not claimed responsibility, this appears to be its anticipated response to Iran’s unprecedented missile and drone salvo into Israeli territory on April 13. Iranian officials have played down the incident (blaming a l ..read more

As research by the Taxpayers’ Alliance and Policy Exchange has shown, Conservatives are still heavily under-represented when it comes to appointments to public bodies. ConservativeHome has regularly highlighted some of the appointments to these bodies, and encouraged subscribers to apply, and we will continue to do so. As well as checking out the appointments that we highlight, we would also encourage all those subscribers with an interest in offering their expertise to public bodies to sign up to the free Cabinet Office email alert service. Here is the link for the se ..read more

Sunak ‘rebukes’ Macron’s criticism of Rwanda plan “Downing Street has rebuked Emmanuel Macron over his criticism of the Rwanda policy after the French president described it as a “betrayal of values.” Mr Macron used a speech in Paris on Thursday to suggest the policy would prove “totally ineffective” and that using third countries to handle asylum seekers created a “geopolitics of cynicism”… James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, also hit back, saying that third-party agreements to tackle migration were “not anything new” and were recognised as international solutions to the illegal migration cri ..read more

An underrated factor in deciding when the general election is held is whether Issac Levido is paid by the month. If the polls are right, after the election, it might be a very, very long time before anyone is again willing to hire the Aussie as their campaign chief. As such, he has every financial incentive to press Rishi Sunak to go to the country as late in the year as possible. Nonetheless, one would hope that British democracy hangs on more than one Antipodean’s employability. The Prime Minister’s stock answer has been that his “working assumption” is that an election will be “in the secon ..read more

Ten Years to Save the West: Lessons from the only conservative in the room by Liz Truss This book is more valuable than one would think from the derision which has been poured on it. Lessons can be learned from it about the difficulties not only of being Prime Minister, but of being a conservative. The troubles which beset Liz Truss during her 49 days in Downing Street can be traced to her assumptions about what it means to be a conservative (or indeed a Conservative). On page 14 she writes: “Politics is ideological – you either believe in big government running everything or you don’t; you e ..read more