Our top ten picks of the week

Starmer has no idea how to deploy or rebuild the Royal Navy, or to deal with Trump

Andrew Gimson

The test for Starmer is whether his government resolve that the humiliation of not having a single deployable Navy ship is not repeated. We must start spending on defence. By starting a war for which we were pitifully unprepared, Trump has at least taught us that lesson.

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Our Survey: Conservatives realistic but more optimistic about May’s elections

Giles Dilnot

The word from many of the more senior Conservative Party officials campaigning across the country is that in some areas the loses could be pretty bad, but in others – London gets mentioned a lot – there could be brighter news.

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It is our war

Harry Phibbs

It’s just that the Americans and Israelis are fighting it for us.

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Shadow Cabinet League Table: Badenoch extends her lead, Timothy holds second

Tali Fraser

It is the third Shadow Cabinet League Table in a row in which she has come first. The first time she reached pole position was shortly before Robert Jenrick’s defection to Reform UK. It underlines the marked shift from her earlier performances.

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Labour is sorely mistaken if they think Starmer is ‘having a good war’

Lord Redwood

The Prime Minister tries to portray an image of calm, but to many of us it looks like ignorant inaction, fearing the reality of energy and food shortages and higher prices.

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Time’s up for the triple lock but there’s little hope of pension reform from the Right

Miriam Cates

The pensions triple lock is a policy that everyone in Westminster knows is unaffordable. The delusion is so potent that it has led some to claim that those calling for pension spending restraint are ‘far left’. We really are flying upside down.

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The war with Iran might, potentially, be over but for Labour the problems have just begun

John Oxley

Starmer’s government was already struggling to articulate a coherent economic vision before the crisis; the renewed inflationary pressure now arrives like a second wave before the first has receded. Higher prices strained public finances, renewed pressure on wage settlements.

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My latest polling – The crucial “Centrists” who reject both Reform and the Greens

Lord Ashcroft

A general election is still years away but if the landscape then resembles the current state of play, one key question will be which putative governing coalition is least chaotic – and this Centrist group of voters may hold the answer.

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A heads up for the Tories – beyond policy, it’s feelings and identity that drives voters

Chico Khan-Gandapur

Rational policy design still matters enormously, because bad policy can wreck lives, economies and ecosystems, but it has to work through emotional and identity‑based channels first, rather than pretending to hover above them.

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Council by-election results from yesterday and forthcoming contests

Harry Phibbs

The Green Party gained a seat from Labour in Rossendale. Reform UK gained a seat from the Conservatives in Bury and a seat from the Lib Dems in Luton. But the Lib Dems gained a seat from an independent in North Devon.

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