We interviewed
🔴 First Minister Eluned Morgan
📗 Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth
🔵 Reform UK Welsh leader Dan Thomas
Loads of intel on campaign tactics, secret manifesto-writing, huge unanswered policy questions & escaping Starmer & Farage's shadow
www.politico.eu/article/uk-b...
"What is the point in this party?"
"We will have to start again"
Labour insiders look down the barrel of defeat in Wales — and wonder what it will mean for their existence after 104 years
I teamed up w @saschaosullivan.bsky.social for our long read and Westminster Insider podcast ⬇️
My husband bought a “hedgehog house” a few weeks ago. I had my doubts, but … 🦔
EXCL: The payoff to the head of the civil service, forced out by Keir Starmer, is likely to be even higher than reported
Chris Wormald was widely said to be getting around £260,000. But this was based on a standard tariff. My understanding is that it'll be higher
www.politico.eu/article/uk-c...
NEW: Britain and Norway's foreign ministers both tell me they back the idea of an “Arctic Sentry” NATO mission to countries — including Greenland
It would aim to counter Russian threats ... while trying to reassure Donald Trump of Europe’s commitment
Story ⬇️
www.politico.eu/article/uk-a...
NEW: Deputy PM David Lammy raised the recent flood of AI-generated, sexualized images on X with JD Vance when they met in the White House last night
One person said it had gone well, and that Vance seemed receptive to Lammy’s points
PM's allies insist his opposition to a customs union is deep. Says one senior Lab official: “Keir is really strong on it."
Starmer is invested in his plans and discussed them on a Chequers walk with Nick Thomas-Symonds
But others detect a need to reclaim a Europhile narrative from Wes Streeting 👀
One person who speaks regularly to No. 10 says there could be a "boil the frog strategy" at work
“You get closer and closer and then maybe … you go into the election saying ‘we’ll try to negotiate something more single markety or customs uniony.’”
Stella Creasy told me Labour should put a "Swiss-style" deal — which would return Britain to free movement and hefty payments to EU — in its 2029 manifesto
PM's biographer Tom Baldwin says Starmer's comments this week indicate 2029 manifesto could “get very close to rejoining the single market.”
🌹 The Customs Unionists
🌹 The Single Marketeers
🌹 The Swiss Bankers
🌹 The Issues-Led MPs
🌹 The Blue Labour holdouts
All except the last group are united by wanting closer ties with Brussels regardless of the mechanism.
But some would come closer to Keir Starmer's red lines — or crash through them
🌹 Labour's Brexit tribes
This isn't the Tory "five families" or the Malthouse Compromise. Not yet.
But distinct strains of thought are beginning to emerge in the Labour Party and could burst out if there was a leadership contest
Where will it all end?
⬇️
www.politico.eu/article/meet...
🔮 In your special New Year's Day Playbook — out now!
Featuring predictions for 2026 by some very fine journalists
The most interesting conclusion is ... Keir Starmer survives?
Keir Starmer doesn’t have a big back-to-school speech in the diary next week, I hear — though he does have a series of visits planned to talk about the cost of living and will give a few remarks
Nigel Farage meanwhile is drawing up plans for a press conference next week
🎖️ Forget the New Year Honours! Here are the London Playbook Awards 2025
From SpAd and Political Adviser of the Year to Survivor of the Year ... no prizes for guessing who that last one is
www.politico.eu/article/poli...
AND ... we've got a podcast for that! Patrick Baker has wheeled through the next year in 40 minutes on a great edition of Westminster Insider
(Featuring me and Annabelle Dickson predicting whether Starmer will still be leader by September 😬)
megaphone.link/POLL4534090041
MARK YOUR DIARIES — How to watch British politics in 2026 like a pro 📅
Why is the May king's speech so jeopardous?
Will the Treasury manage to keep the March spring statement low key?
Which summit on May 15 will decide the future of migration policy?
The guide you need ⬇️
🧰 🧰 🧰 My budget piece
How today shows that — despite Rachel Reeves' best efforts — British politics is still living hand-to-mouth, year-to-year.
What will next year bring? Who knows!
NEW: How the Tories learned to stop worrying and fight dirty
Inside the "attack cell" in CCHQ that fuelled the Angela Rayner story before her resignation
Plus, the changes in Kemi Badenoch's office line-up that have finally helped her find attack mode
EXC: Keir Starmer is polling even worse than ex-prince Andrew, Wales’ Labour finance minister has said
Two people tell me Mark Drakeford made the hair-raising comparison at an event on Sunday
The former first minister's team say he was talking in a personal capacity re. publicly available polling
🚨 Home Office will offer families "financial support to enable them to return to their home country. Should they refuse that support, we will escalate to an enforced return. We will launch a consultation on the process for enforcing the removal of families, including children.”
2/2
"We will also take action to recover support costs in scenarios where any assets are not convertible into cash or declared at the point that asylum support is initially provided but become convertible or are discovered at a later date.”
This looks like the "jewellery" clause in the Home Office's asylum reforms:
“We will require individuals to contribute towards the cost of their asylum support where they have some assets or income, but not enough to support themselves independently.
1/2
🚨🚨🚨 EXCLUSIVE by @estwebber.bsky.social and me
Final decision on restoration of parliament is set to be postponed **beyond the next general election**
MPs were due to vote this year on 4 options
Plan is now: pick 2 options, and start "preparatory work"
Final option may only emerge in early 2030s
BUT ... a PM who is good enough can conquer the building.
As ex-Blair aide John McTernan put it: “The problem with any government is, if you don’t know what you want to do, how are you going to know how to do it?
“And then you blame your tools. The house is a tool."
No. 10 gravitates toward small groups and "silo thinking."
The 8.45 a.m. has Starmer and just over half a dozen key aides including McSweeney, his two deputies, Allan and Cabinet enforcers Darren Jones and Jonathan Reynolds.
Previous PMs tried to change the way the building works to little avail
We have stories of Liz Truss’s sweaty aides queuing for a single shower after joining her morning run … Donald Trump dripping orange from his face in an overheated room … the Scooby Doo-style slapstick of finding Boris Johnson ...
Keir Starmer and Morgan McSweeney have both struggled — like previous occupants — with the building
The embattled PM (usually an open plan kinda guy) regularly escapes the "hustle and bustle of the ground floor" to his first floor study. He's been known to complain about the noise 😬
