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Rethink - Rethink... voting - BBC Sounds

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How can we make every vote count? Quadratic voting could be a possible solution.

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In short this is a manifesto in Rishi Sunak's image.

Not surprising really, you might say, he is the Conservative leader and fair point - but let me flesh out what I mean.

It feels like a document that encapsulates what you might call Sunakian Conservatism.

His allies would say the fundamentals of that are deliverable, pragmatic, thought-through ideas, not flashy for their own sake but sensible.

His critics within the party are already saying they are insufficiently bold, grabby or game-changey - when a game-changer is so desperately needed, if even possible.

"Doubt any of this will make a blind bit of difference," one senior Tory texts me.

Before adding, "Should have gone for a tax cut that would have some cut through. These won't. ECHR language is completely pointless. It is unreformable and we should be leaving."

A final thought: there is an undercurrent to public utterances and social media adverts from the Conservatives now, to match their private musings.

It is an undercurrent which acknowledges the possibility, even the likelihood of defeat.

That is not to say for a moment they are giving up - we are three weeks into this campaign with the three most important weeks still to come.

But a framing is emerging from the Tories which acknowledges maximising Conservative support may be about minimising a Labour victory, not preventing it.

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General election 2024: Is the Conservative manifesto a game-changer?

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This is a manifesto in Rishi Sunak's image - can it turn the tide of the election?

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How important is Scotland in deciding this election?

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Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are hoping this election marks the end of an era of SNP domination.

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Rishi Sunak has taken an astonishing gamble in going for a general election at a time when there is still a little room to delay and the governing party is in such poor shape with public opinion.

The Guardian's poll of polls shows Labour 21.7 points ahead of the Conservatives, with 44.7% of the vote to 22.9%. Poll leads of more than 20 points are usually only seen at exceptionally bad moments in the midterm.

A deficit about half this size in spring 1964 was enough for Alec Douglas-Home - who, like Sunak, had taken office most of the way through the parliament after Tory turmoil - to announce that there would be no election until autumn.

Governments in 1979, 1997 and 2010 were lagging in the polls, but they had no choice about timing - James Callaghan had lost a confidence vote in 1979, and the parliaments that had sustained John Major and Gordon Brown through bad times had reached the limit of their legal terms.

Election campaigns that started with the government well behind in the polls showed the gap narrowing in 1979 and 1997, although in 2010 the campaign was thrown into confusion by the prime ministerial debates and " Cleggmania ". But the narrowing was not enough: only in 1970 and February 1974 has a party ever won when it started the campaign - slightly - behind.

Labour's poll lead now is a little narrower than it was at the equivalent stage of the contest in 1997. Support for both the main parties is down on 1997, with Reform UK (11.5%) and the Green party (6.5%) picking up. The swing since the December 2019 election is a mammoth 16.8 percentage points; the previous postwar record was the 1997 swing of 10 points.

Levels of support for each party may well change during the campaign, as people think about the issues and get the measure of the party leaders, all of whom are new since 2019.

The result in 2017 - a hung parliament - was very different from the comfortable Conservative majority forecast at the start of the campaign. It may be that the polls are inaccurate, as many of them were in 1997. While the campaign and poll error probably mean the Labour advantage on election night will be less than the polls are showing now, that is not necessarily so. Opposition leader images are particularly prone to change during election campaigns, and Keir Starmer has an opportunity to project himself to the electorate and improve his mediocre personal ratings.

Tony Blair's large overall majority in 1997 could be emulated in a uniform swing to Labour, if the party also gained seats from the SNP in line with Scottish polling. Photograph: Max Nash/AP

The swing in the polling average is easily enough for Labour to win a large overall majority. A uniform swing would see Labour gain all its target list down to Kettering, target number 179 from the Conservatives. If Labour also gained seats from the SNP in line with Scottish polling, the majority would be virtually identical to Tony Blair's 179-seat margin in 1997.

But there is evidence from polling and the local elections that the swing is not uniform, and that it is much lower in Labour-held seats and even higher in some constituencies that swung a lot in favour of the Conservatives between 2005 and 2019. If this turns out to be the case, and Labour maintains its massive lead, then the party's majority will be the largest in any election since the 1931 National Government landslide. Even if Labour's poll lead starts to slip, the distribution of swing should be enough to grant a bare overall majority with a vote lead as small as 6 percentage points.

The Liberal Democrats are scoring 9.8%, down two points on 2019. Despite this, they are likely to emerge much strengthened from the election. The main reason is arithmetic - with the Conservatives 22 points down, the net effect is a 10-point swing from Conservative to Lib Dem in the seats that are contested between the two. The Lib Dems will probably also benefit from tactical voting: people who would swing behind Labour in most constituencies supporting the Lib Dems in the constituencies where they are the main challengers to the Conservatives. This pattern has also been demonstrated in byelections and local elections during this parliament. The Lib Dems could realistically think in terms of increasing their representation to 30-40, and perhaps more in the event of a real Conservative meltdown.

Like Sunak now, Major played it long in 1997, to give Labour time to come apart under the pressure of a six-week campaign. While Major narrowed the gap a little, Labour maintained their discipline, as Thatcher's Conservatives did in 1979. It would take a turnaround in public opinion that is absolutely unprecedented in British history for Sunak's Conservatives to still be in government on 6 July.

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Sunak has taken an astonishing gamble in going for a general election

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Polls show Labour more than 20 points ahead, an opposition lead usually only seen at exceptionally bad moments in a midterm

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Rishi Sunak will this afternoon call a surprise early election for July, senior sources have told the Guardian, a contest that will see Keir Starmer try to take power for Labour after 14 years of Conservative-led government.

The prime minister is set to announce the election will be in the early summer, with speculation that it will be held on 4 July, after claiming inflation was back under control and the economy was improving.

Labour is about 20 points ahead in the polls and Starmer is widely expected to become the next prime minister after transforming his party since its historic election defeat almost five years ago.

Sunak will make the announcement after a day of febrile speculation in Westminster, triggered by rare good economic news for the government and an unusually timed Cabinet meeting, with senior ministers changing their plans to attend.

The prime minister, who has long said his "working assumption" was that the election would be held in the second half of the year, was previously thought likely to wait until the autumn and a further tax-cutting budget before holding a contest when so far behind.

However, government insiders suggested that Sunak had been persuaded that with the economic backdrop unlikely to improve significantly before the autumn, and questions over the delivery of his Rwanda deportation scheme, he would be better off going now.

Ahead of the announcement, a spokesperson for Starmer said: "We are fully ready to go whenever the prime minister calls an election. We have a fully organised and operational campaign ready to go. And we think the country is crying out for a general election so I would urge the prime minister to get on with it."

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Rishi Sunak will call general election for July in surprise move - sources

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PM says he wants to hold summer poll after claiming inflation is back under control and economy is improving

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'Only a Conservative government, led by me, will not put our hard-earned economic stability at risk,' said Rishi Sunak as he announced a general election on the steps of Downing Street in the pouring rain. Upon these words, the Labour anthem 'Things Can Only Get Better' boomed out from the street. The din made the rest of his speech nearly inaudible. His suit jacket went from wet to soaking. 'It's bizarre,' said one former minister. 'How are we supposed to trust No. 10's judgment when no one in the group even knows what an umbrella is?'

Sunak's gamble is that while he can't get a hearing in government, he might get one in a short election campaign

A few hours earlier, almost no one in the cabinet had any inkling that the Prime Minister was about to lead them into battle. They had dismissed the rumours of a summer election as wild speculation.

'To go now would be a death wish,' said one cabinet minister yesterday morning. 'I quite like my job and don't want to end it.' Yes, the cabinet meeting had been moved from Tuesday to Wednesday, but Sunak had been travelling so his schedule was off kilter. The election speculation was chalked up as crossed wires. The last prime minister to spring an election on the cabinet with no prior discussion was Theresa May. That did not end well. Would Sunak really tempt fate like this?

But for weeks the Prime Minister has held the view that an election campaign should be launched as soon as enough decent economic news comes through. First, it turned out the UK economy grew faster than expected at the start of the year. Next, inflation fell. Those pieces of news were enough, he thought, to make his pitch: that he has a plan - and Labour doesn't.

There were dissenting voices around the cabinet table. Esther McVey, who Sunak calls his 'minister for common sense', said voters may not feel enough economic improvement at this stage to swing the vote, but they might if an election was held in November. Several others in the cabinet agreed, although none said so at the time. 'Going now doesn't make sense,' one said before yesterday's meeting. 'We will have more to point to on the economy and migration by the autumn.' Chris Heaton-Harris - the Northern Ireland Secretary - also voiced concerns. But he's standing down at the election and said he'd support the Prime Minister's decision.

Sunak came to the view that there is little evidence so far to suggest that waiting for better economic weather would lead to greater Tory support. After ten months of real-terms wage increases, for example, the polls have barely moved. As John Major found in 1997, economic recoveries don't always translate into political ones.

The hope in CCHQ and Downing Street is that calling an election now will focus minds and mean the Tories are at least heard. 'A lot of voters are currently not listening,' says a minister. The thinking is that, with an election, voters - especially those who are usually politically minded - will sit up and pay attention. 'Now is the time for the country to look at the actual choice they have,' says a senior government figure. Sunak's gamble is that while he can't get a hearing in government, he might get one in a short election campaign.

The Tories will fight the election on the economy and the idea that Sunak brought stability to the country. The second part of the campaign will be to position him as a leader willing to hold unpopular positions when he believes they are right (such as on Covid lockdowns, welfare reform and the need to moderate net zero). At yesterday's cabinet meeting, Sunak's close ally and protégé Claire Coutinho opted not to complain about the election and instead praised her boss as a man unafraid to stand up for what he believes in. Starmer will be attacked as a weathervane, who holds whatever position suits him that day.

Victory may look unlikely but, as the last ten years of elections have often showed, polls can be wrong and experts can be confounded. That said, few in Sunak's party believe his timing is anything other than an attempt to lose less badly. Isaac Levido, the Tory election strategist, has previously been of the view that waiting until autumn is the best option. Others, such as the deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden and James Forsyth, formerly of this parish, are said to have seen the merits of going sooner. However, the final decision was ultimately Sunak's. His circle has been divided: on current polls, most Tory MPs will not be returning to their jobs. Those with the safest seats have been the ones most likely to say that holding an election when the party is 20 points behind in the polls is worth the risk.

For some Tory MPs, the election call was so inexplicable they refused to believe it at first. An hour before Sunak's announcement, when a July poll was being reported as fact, some were walking around parliament insisting it could not be the case. The optics of the campaign launch was not terribly auspicious. The protestors were on song and the rain had been falling long before the lectern was positioned in front of No. 10. 'It's all too much of a metaphor,' said one MP.

And what about the tax cuts Jeremy Hunt was promising? He had spoken of another 'fiscal event' before the election, but it was never clear how his giveaways would be paid for. Then there are potentially unpleasant surprises: increases in the NHS waiting list when the number is supposed to be falling, for example. More embarrassing immigration figures. Or perhaps the prospect of summer riots in prisons or coming HGV licence changes that could mean lorries crossing into Europe are held up in endless queues.

No prime minister has ever called an election from 20 points behind and won. One cabinet member said just before the election was called that a good result would be retaining 200 MPs (implying a landslide Labour majority) and a bad result would be keeping just 50-odd. 'Our best message in this campaign is saying that we're going to lose, but Labour doesn't deserve a crushing majority,' said another cabinet member. 'But we can't say so. We have to pretend that we stand a chance of winning.'

CCHQ has a few lines of varying plausibility to raise morale among MPs. One is to point to the national polling share in the recent local elections, which was closer to a ten-point Labour lead than the 20 points suggested in general election polling. But many Tory MPs believe those results were dire and hardly constitute a launch pad from which to take the decision to the country. 'I don't know what they are thinking,' says a concerned MP, 'other than maybe they want it all done now.' Nadine Dorries, the Boris Johnson loyalist who quit in protest at Sunak's refusal to ennoble her, claimed that Sunak wants to go early because the Californian school term starts in August.

On the right of the party, some MPs are pleased because they believe the failure of the supposedly 'wet' Sunak would pave the way for someone more radical in opposition. But it's not clear who that candidate would be. Kemi Badenoch remains the bookmakers' favourite and the shadow Tory leadership election will be a subplot throughout the upcoming campaign.

All of this is seen by Labour as richly comic. Shadow ministers were truly taken by surprise at Sunak's decision and the party's strategists had been reluctantly coming round to the likelihood of an autumn election. But Starmer had his election speech ready and rehearsed. Morgan McSweeney, his main lieutenant, has long believed that an election before the autumn was probable. Labour's manifesto is nearly complete, and many policy announcements are ready to go. The final document should be thin and simple: Starmer wants to get away with saying as little as he can, to present as small a target as possible.

Might the Tories have some ammunition by 4 July? There are still some who claim a Rwanda flight mid-campaign is possible, ideally with enough time to also demonstrate a deterrent effect. However, this seems unlikely. Instead, part of the reasoning behind going earlier than planned was concern that lawyers would bring system legal challenges that could tie it all up.

Sunak is taking the classic underdog approach to debates: to say 'yes' to everything and try to portray Starmer as a shyster on the run should (as the Tories expect) he try to limit his appearances to just two or three debates.

'How are we supposed to trust No. 10's judgment when no one in the group even knows what an umbrella is?'

The Tories want to have a special broadcast focus on GB News. In the words of one campaign figure: 'It is the most important election channel.' The reason for this is its viewership among the coalition of Tory voters that Johnson assembled in 2019. BoJo himself will be asked to join the campaign trail to woo these voters back. David Cameron, whose return to government seems destined to be short-lived, will be deployed in the Lib Dem-facing seats.

In Scotland, the SNP is facing a massacre as John Swinney, its caretaker leader, is plunged into battle after just a few weeks as First Minister. Labour is hoping to take about 20 seats from the SNP and the Tories about five, but the result should mean that Swinney stands aside after the campaign and Kate Forbes, his deputy, picks up the pieces.

Perhaps the biggest single Tory hope is that Reform may implode or, at least, never get the chance to develop into a genuinely national political party. As an opinion poll option, Reform is the preference of about 12 per cent of the public. But it has few candidates, no national apparatus, no get-out-and-vote operation. If it fails to present itself as an electoral force, then at least some of its voters will be up for grabs. Just as the contraction of Nigel Farage's Ukip vote in 2015 took Cameron over the line for a majority, the Tories would be the beneficiaries should Richard Tice's party seem more irrelevant in a general election than in the locals.

This is, perhaps, the Tories' best chance for a miracle. 'When you look at the polls, Reform and the Tories are backed by about half of the country,' says one of the more optimistic cabinet members. 'We think the same things as the country think, and Labour doesn't really think anything. The argument should not be too hard to win.' The worry, though, is that Farage springs a political comeback in the coming days.

Anyone who does think the Tories will win should, of course, go to the bookmakers, who are offering odds of 25-to-one on a Tory majority. It's hard to think of a Conservative government that has faced more daunting odds. 'We could win: stranger things have happened,' says one former leadership contender. 'It's just that I can't think of any.' Yet for all their doubts over Sunak's strategy, Tory MPs have little option but to back him and hope for the best.

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The deluge: Rishi Sunak's election gamble

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'Only a Conservative government, led by me, will not put our hard-earned economic stability at risk,' said Rishi Sunak as he announced a general election on the steps of Downing Street in the pouring rain. Upon these words, the Labour anthem 'Things Can Only Get Better' boomed out from the street.

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In other words, do it now or it could get worse.

The prime minister can also point to at least some of his objectives being fulfilled, or seemingly en route to being fulfilled.

Today's inflation number can be chalked up as a success.

Of course it's not purely down to the actions of the government.

But governments get blamed when it's sky high, so it's reasonable to expect they will attempt to siphon off some credit when it falls - and it has.

The wider economic picture appears a little brighter too.

Then there is the plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

It hasn't happened yet but it would appear flights could be imminent, perhaps even during the election campaign, although the claim that it will act as a deterrent will not be tested before polling day.

And so the campaign begins.

The Conservatives will say over and over again: be careful what you wish for. Labour and others will say over and over again it is time for change.

The outcome will be quite something, whatever happens.

Either the opinion polls are broadly right and the party of government will change, or they are wrong and it will be one of the biggest upsets in recent years.

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Chris Mason: Why did Sunak decide to call summer election?

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An election has been called by Rishi Sunak sooner than many commentators and politicians had expected.

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I have never before heard of pegging an election launch to a set of economic statistics, but Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has clearly decided to go for an election on the back of Wednesday's inflation figures, and the stronger than expected exit from recession.
Inflation figures showed that the UK rate is at its lowest level in almost three years. That figure was not unexpected. Headline inflation in general is now back to more normal levels, though not quite yet at the Bank of England's target.

Those numbers did have a sting in the tail, however. Underlying measures of inflation, especially in the service sector, remained stubbornly high at just below 6%. This means that a Bank of England rate cut on 20 June - in the middle of the campaign - is considered rather less likely now.

But the PM clearly thought he had enough of an economic turnaround story to tell the nation, and that the triple price shock is beginning to ebb away.

It's a significant gamble on election economics. Firstly that there is a recovery - and Wednesday's figures help. It's a further bet that any recovery will be widely felt, and lastly that the public feel that credit is due to the Conservative government.

His pitch will be that as chancellor and PM, he shepherded the country through three years of global crisis, with unprecedented economic support for jobs and bills, and the public should not "risk the recovery". His party wants to paint a vision of a Korean-style high tech economy, with more efficient, digitised public services allowing a smaller state and lower taxes.

But Labour also wants to fight on the economy. Keir Starmer and Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves will say some of the blame for high prices and mortgage rates lies with the government of the day and that, in any case, families do not feel a turnaround.

They will incessantly focus on the fallout in the aftermath of Liz Truss's mini budget, and say "economic stability" is a change from three PMs and four chancellors in one parliament. They will argue for more green investment and house building and public money for steel communities.

Ultimately the Conservatives want credit for running the economy during a tumultuous triple shock, and returning to growth and normal inflation. Labour want to blame the incumbent for what happened on their watch.

An argument about economics is likely to define this campaign.

But it may be more about the economic past than the future.

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Calling election on economic issues is a risky gamble

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Calling election on economic issues is a risky gamble

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Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: "This government is out of touch, it's out of excuses and it's out of time - and it's time to get this Conservative government out of office.

"And if we do, we can transform our politics, we can sort out the crisis in the health and care system, we can get our economy back on track, we can end the sewage scandal and we can get the fair deal people deserve."

Scotland's First Minister John Swinney said the general election was a chance to "remove the Tory government and put Scotland first by voting SNP".

"People in Scotland know we stand up for them and protect them from the damage done by Westminster," he posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Reform UK, which is neck-and-neck with the Lib Dems in the polls, said voters had a "clear choice" between the Tories, who had "broken Britain", and "Starmergeddon" under Labour.

"It's only Reform UK's common sense policies that can now save Britain," said the party's leader Richard Tice.

The Green Party of England and Wales - from the opposite end of the political spectrum - also promised "common sense" policies, and said it was aiming to get four MPs elected to Parliament.

Co-leader Adrian Ramsay said: "Across the country, people will have the chance to vote for a Green candidate offering voters hope and practical solutions to the cost-of-living crisis, supporting people into warm, affordable homes, protecting our NHS and cleaning up our toxic rivers."

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UK's future in your hands, Starmer tells general election voters

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The Labour leader says the general election would be an opportunity to "change the country".

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Talking of image, and perhaps attempting to look relaxed and conversational, Sir Keir does his interviews with us standing up and almost always leaning to his left, resting his arm against a railing or anything nearby.

The strategic aim of the promises set out by the party this week is to give their candidates and senior figures something to talk about between now and the moment the general election is actually called.

It is what politicians like to call their "retail offer" - ideas they can summarise in a doorstep-ready sentence or two and repeat over and over again until people notice.

Far from everything is there - for instance housing isn't.

Expect the party to address that vital topic for so many people in the coming days.

Insiders claim the absence of an idea from the six "first steps" doesn't mean it is no longer a priority.

They cite the National Minimum Wage, a flagship idea of the Labour government of the late 1990s, which was in the party's manifesto in 1997, but was not on their pledge card at the time.

Put together, the theatre of the launch and the words themselves, I witness Labour with a craving for power I haven't seen before.

It is a longing for office grounded in and further fuelled by how often it has failed to make it there, not just in the last decade but the last century.

Psychology with that amount of history weighs heavy.

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Starmer: What the razzmatazz and promises tell you about Labour

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Sir Keir Starmer has carefully crafted an image similar to previous Labour leader Sir Tony Blair.

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We are in the fifth week of Donald Trump's 'hush money' trial and the real scandal is that it's all so intensely boring. Sex, porn-star witnesses, shady lawyers, a president in the dock - the headlines are a tabloid dream. The crux of the case, however, is a bunch of tedious charges to do with tax reporting and accountancy. Who wants to read about that?

Trump is 'not looking for an heir because that would be Macbeth or King Lear, a bloodbath'

Trump adores the attention, naturally. As the greatest showman of the 21st century he understands that we, the people, need fresh drama and new characters. That's why, while railing every day against the 'weaponisation' of the justice system, he's also busy teasing fans with a more intriguing subplot: who might he pick as his running mate in 2024?

In fact, the trial in Manhattan is now doubling up as a sort of pick-me-please pageant for vice-presidential hopefuls. On Monday, J.D. Vance, the Ohio Senator, showed up in court to parade his loyalty. The next day, Florida congressman Byron Donalds and the entrepreneur-turned-politician Vivek Ramaswamy put in appearances, as did Trump's latest favourite billionaire, Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota.

Trump likes to hire people who look, in his words, 'straight out of central casting'. Burgum, an obviously rich man with a square jaw and a blonde spouse, ticks some of his favourite boxes. 'There's a personal chemistry with Burgum,' says Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist. 'And President Trump is not just looking for a vice- president to fly around going to funerals. Burgum has that executive experience that could help share the burden of taking on the administrative state.'

Last weekend, at a rally in New Jersey, Trump set tongues wagging by introducing the crowd to Governor Burgum and his wife Kathryn. 'Just an incredible couple,' he said. 'You won't find anybody better than this gentleman... You know he made his money in technology, but he probably knows about energy more than anybody I know. So get ready for something... Just get ready.'

Was that a strong hint Burgum is the leading contender to be the vice-presidential nominee? An intimation Burgum will be his secretary of state in charge of energy? Or just Trump reprising the TV role he loves most: CEO of The Apprentice, toying with his audience about which contestant he likes best? Nobody knows and that's half the fun. In recent months, the Trump campaign has been firing out regular emails about the big VP decision. The latest, sent on Monday, is headlined 'CONFIDENTIAL TRUMP MEMO: My next Vice President will be ...' Signed at the bottom by Donald J Trump, it reads: 'I couldn't imagine making this decision without you... you hold a special place in my heart. MAKE YOUR PICK.' Supporters can then submit the name of their preferred nominee along with a filled-out questionnaire about the qualities they regard as most important in a Republican vice-president - in return for a campaign donation, of course.

Campaign insiders tend to dismiss 'veep talk' as scuttlebutt for the rubes. 'Only Trump knows and only he will decide,' says one. 'I'm not even sure he knows,' says another. 'He has a shortlist in his head and that's where it will stay until he decides.' Usually, vice-presidential nominees are announced only a few days before the party's national convention in the summer, and this year's big Republican jamboree in Milwaukee will not begin until 15 July. A lot can change.

Probe a little deeper, though, and you get a sense of frantic scrabbling behind the scenes and jockeying for position. One source expresses concern that the vetting process for possible candidates has been 'slapdash'. It hasn't escaped anybody's notice that, while Trump may be younger than President Joe Biden, he turns 78 next month and cannot serve a third term. Even if Trump loses in November, his vice-presidential nominee may well become leader of the MAGA movement and the next Republican president.

Bannon says that Trump is 'not looking for an heir because that would be Macbeth or King Lear, a bloodbath.

'You know this whole process is not just about the vice-president slot. It's all about getting face time with Trump and also with MAGA, the movement, ahead of the next administration or 2028. All these people are getting exposure in places where Trump people see them. It's really going to be The Cabinet Apprentice.'

When it comes to the veep role, there's little doubt that Trump is looking for loyalty. Vance has been burnishing his credentials on that score. As well as appearing in Manhattan this week, he's making all the right noises on television. 'The world is on fire,' he told Fox News recently. 'And I sort of see Donald Trump as a bit of a fireman.'

Vance is an America Firster best-known for his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, about growing up very poor in drug-addled Appalachia. He's a devout Catholic and a classic Trump-nationalist in the sense that he leans left on the economy and right on immigration and the culture wars. But he's not crazy - in fact, the actual far right is suspicious of him, since his political ascent has been well funded and the ultra-progressive executives at Netflix turned his book into a film. Vance is also quite a plodding speaker, which could help his chances: in 2016, Trump chose Mike Pence as his vice-president at least in part because he was so dull as to be unthreatening. (Pence also reassured white Protestant Republicans that Trump was one of them.)

Presidential campaigns usually try to recruit a veep who helps with voters from a swing state or a particular demographic, religious or minority group. Trump tends to have no truck with such conventional thinking and it's hard to think of a Republican figure who might help him win any particular battleground state. Still, in 2024, he might pick a Hispanic or an African-American, someone who could increase his already growing appeal among those sections of the US population. The most fancied Hispanic candidate for now is 'Little Marco' Rubio, Trump's former presidential adversary, who realised after 2016 that the best way to get ahead was to move away from the old Republican establishment and towards the Trumpian worldview. It would be quite the turnaround if Trump ended up nominating the man who once insulted his small hands. Rubio is also the senator from Florida, which, because of the electoral college system, might mean Trump would have to move out of his Floridian home in Mar-a-Lago. Rubio would, however, be a popular choice among mega-money donors, whose whims always have to be considered.

When it comes to African-Americans, the most talked about contenders are Ben Carson, Trump's former secretary of housing and urban development, and Tim Scott, the senator for South Carolina.

Scott's easy-going, biddable character is thought to make him well suited to what Trump wants. He is also said to be well regarded among both moderates and conservatives, and has done some noble work addressing poverty and creating jobs. 'I've long thought he was the standout candidate and lots of people agree with me,' says one Trump adviser. Other Republican insiders are less sure. 'He ran a shitty presidential campaign and his recent media appearances have been terrible,' says one.

It's long been thought that, since Trump's clearest electoral weakness is with suburban women, he would do well to pick a female candidate. Trump himself has said he likes 'the concept' of a woman running mate. It's the reality of finding one that's proving more difficult. Senior figures on the campaign are still pushing for Nikki Haley, his most successful Republican challenger in 2024, though Trump ruled her out on his Truth Social platform - 'but I wish her well!'

Kristi Noem, the good-looking Governor of South Dakota, was once thought to be a strong contender. But she made the mistake of allegedly having an affair with Corey Lewandowski, Trump's dodgy former campaign manager, and found herself frozen out. Then, last week, Noem spectacularly blew up any presidential ambitions she may still have had by publishing her memoir, No Going Back. In the book, she confesses that, 20 years ago, she shot and killed her 14-month-old dog Cricket in a gravel pit. She further admitted to executing a 'nasty and mean' goat on the same day, in what appears to have been a deranged animal-slaughtering frenzy.

Some have suggested that Noem was making a desperate last-ditch bid for Trump's attention, since he famously hates dogs. 'She was trying to say, "We're farmers: we make tough decisions",' says another Republican consultant. 'But you don't kill America's most beloved animal.'

A less disastrous figure might be Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican Conference, who was much tipped at the start of the year. The word in Republican circles, however, is that Trump considers her insufficiently telegenic for his ticket. That might also rule out Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump's rotund former press secretary, who is now the Governor of Arkansas. Yet Nigel Farage, who's been spending more time in Trumpland of late, say he thinks Trump 'trusts Sanders and for Trump trust is a bigger issue than whether someone looks good on a catwalk'.

According to the bookmakers, the woman with the best chance of being Trump's veep is Tulsi Gabbard, who has good looks, Samoan heritage and a military background. As a former Democratic presidential candidate and an anti-war figure who opposed Covid vaccine mandates, she also has considerable maverick appeal. She might attract voters who are tempted to back the independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And she's already done what the next Republican vice-president will have to do before the election: clashed with the incumbent veep Kamala Harris on a debate stage. In 2020, Tulsi tore into Kamala's anti-progressive record on criminal reform and foreign policy, a viral moment that helped bury Harris's bid for the White House.

Then again, any politician who can string a sentence together would fancy his or her chances in a vice-presidential debate against Harris's mind-blowing ineloquence. Which brings us to another thought that might be buzzing around Trump's head: he can pick whoever he wants because really it's all about him. He might even choose one of his children: Ivanka or Donald Jr. What could sound better than Trump-Trump 2024?

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Veep show: who will Trump pick for his running mate?

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We are in the fifth week of Donald Trump's 'hush money' trial and the real scandal is that it's all so intensely boring. Sex, porn-star witnesses, shady lawyers, a president in the dock - the headlines are a tabloid dream.

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Keir Starmer will on Thursday unveil his version of New Labour's pledge card for the next general election with six key commitments "put up in lights" as part of his party's offer to swing voters.

The campaign material, which will be distributed to voters on doorsteps across England, will be revealed at an event in Essex as the Labour leader launches the party's biggest advertising blitz since the 2019 election.

His commitments, which include stabilising the economy, cutting NHS waiting times, setting up Great British Energy, cracking down on antisocial behaviour and recruiting 6,5000 new teachers, are the latest step in his five "national missions".

However, he is also pledging a sixth - the launch of a new border security command - after the party was criticised for not having a separate mission for migration with the topic of small boats rising up the political agenda.

Starmer's six 'steps for change'. Illustration: Labour party

A Labour spokesperson said the electorate was right to be concerned about migration and, dismissing the Tories' Rwanda deportation plan, added "we have a plan for the whole problem. They have a plan for 1% of it."

Labour insiders said that the six "consumer focused" issues were chosen as they were expected to go down well in battleground areas where the party is hoping to pick up swing voters at the general election.

However, they denied it meant that other policy issues, such as housing and workers' rights, had been "de-prioritised", citing the example of the national minimum wage, one of New Labour's biggest achievements, which had not been on Tony Blair's pledge card in 1997.

A party spokesperson said the pledges were "not the sum total of what a Labour government hopes to achieve", and that it stood by other commitments already made. He did not, however, say whether there would be new pledges in the manifesto.

Instead, the spokesperson said the policies were a "bridge to longer-term plans" with each of the commitments to be achieved in the first term of a Labour government.

The party conceded the word "pledge" had lost its currency as trust in politics has been eroded over recent years, but suggested they would aim to explain exactly how policies would be implemented and paid for.

The campaign event, which will be attended by the whole shadow cabinet off the back of a successful set of local results, represents the party's biggest spend on advertising since the race against Boris Johnson in 2019.

It will include vans and billboards, as well as regional newspaper adverts in battleground seats, with local campaign materials to hand out to voters. There will be different versions for Scotland and Wales.

Starmer is pictured with his sleeves rolled up and text about "my" first steps for change, with party insiders admitting there was a deliberate decision to put his "personal stamp" on the campaign, despite mixed personal approval ratings.

Amid frenzied speculation about a surprise guest at the event, senior party figures have ruled out there being another defection from the Conservatives today, after rightwinger Natalie Elphicke's shock move to Labour last week.

Labour has denied any significance launching its pledges in Essex, saying it was just one of many battleground areas, although party elections chief, Pat McFadden, has told the Guardian it is planning to target the south of England heavily at the general election.

At a shadow cabinet meeting before the event, Starmer said the pledge card showed his "first steps" towards delivering his missions were "a down payment on change".

"What is crucial about these commitments is that they are part of a long-term plan to get Britain back on its feet," he added. "Each of the first steps would chime with voters' aspirations, show a clear set of priorities and a powerful direction of travel."

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Keir Starmer puts six key pledges 'up in lights' to win over swing voters

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Campaign material to include pledges on NHS wait times and recruiting teachers

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Laura Kuenssberg: How it went wrong for Project Sunak

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His supporters hoped Rishi Sunak would breathe life back into the Conservatives. Few are convinced he has.

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This playlist is made up of videos I've made for A Level Politics. It covers UK and US Politics as well as Political Ideas. I will continue to add videos as ...

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The police arrived in force at dawn on Saturday, with orders to clear "infiltrators" from the Gaza war protest camp at Northeastern University in Boston.

Within an hour, more than 100 people were under arrest, students and non-students alike, and many of their tents flattened or removed.

A large counter-protest then formed, as officers from the state police in tactical gear hauled off their suspects. The scene was one of confrontation, and chaos.

Northeastern campus administrators said they were compelled to call police as infiltration by outsiders "led to a clear escalation in tensions" and that an anti-Semitic slur had been heard - something the protesters deny.

As the campus protests stretch into a second week across the US, Northeastern is among many colleges who have now taken the decision to crack down hard and refused calls to divest from companies involved in Israel's military.

Columbia in New York squashed the very first camp, blanked protester demands and then threatened suspensions to any one taking part. The student response has been escalation, and on Tuesday dozens occupied and damaged a university building, leading to officials threatening expulsions.

Other colleges, however, have shown that confrontation, chaos and escalation can be avoided.

The story at Northwestern University, just outside of Chicago, is entirely different to that of Northeastern.

Its protest camp appeared on Thursday morning. University administrators responded by banning tents and calling in campus police.

They stopped short of calling in state police and no arrests were made, and the campus officers eventually left.

On Monday, administrators announced a deal: protesters were to be allowed to stay until the end of classes on 1 June if they remove tents and limit those taking part to students and others affiliated with the university.

They stopped short of agreeing to stop investments in Israeli companies and arms manufacturers, but agreed to restart an investment committee and increase transparency over its approximately $13.7bn (£11bn) endowment.

Northwestern also promised to fund places for two Palestinian faculty members and five Palestinian students.

A truce appears to be holding - at least for now.

Northwestern and Northeasten are both private colleges, and both in left-leaning, liberal states. So why were their responses to essentially the same situation and demands so different?

Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, a historian at the University of New Orleans, said the pro-Palestine protests have not reached the fever pitch or level of violence seen during anti-war demonstrations in the 1960s and 70s - where some students were calling for the overthrow of the US government.

She said that in some cases, however, calling in outside police forces had dramatically raised the stakes.

"Nearly all American universities have campus police, who are full-time, uniformed and can make arrests," she said.

"Calling in municipal police or National Guard troops is a high-risk strategy."

Scenes of police clashing with protesters have been splashed across social media, and outsiders and observers can also get caught up in the camp shutdowns.

At Emory University in Atlanta, professors were among those arrested by city and state police last week, including Noelle McAfee, chair of the university's philosophy department.

Ms McAfee told the BBC that she was observing what she described as a peaceful protest when police started to move in and the protesters began to move.

She began filming police hitting a protester, she said, and noticed chemical irritants in the air.

"It was really disturbing. I started yelling 'stop it', and I was trying to take a video. One of the cops stood up and told me I need to step away... I froze in place." She was then arrested.

Hundreds of other arrests have been reported at universities all around the country, even as other disputes have been resolved without law enforcement.

On Tuesday, protesters and administrators reached an agreement at Brown University, similar to Northwestern's, which promised to hold a vote on divestment from weapons manufacturers in the autumn.

And a camp at University of California, Berkeley - the epicentre of the 1960s protest movement - has been both largely peaceful and left alone.

Political pressure

Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, said that political pressure, including from high-ranking members of Congress, had forced some administrators into potentially risky moves that in some cases have backfired.

"Increasingly, college presidents are trying to show Congress and the world that they're tough enough to be college presidents," he said. "And that is so reminiscent of the late 60s, with lawmakers threatening college presidents and insisting that they cannot coddle anti-war student protesters."

The pressure can be more acute on leaders at private universities, he said, because publicly funded universities are obliged to provide students First Amendment protections.

"At private schools, they don't necessarily have to offer free speech rights," Mr Paulson said. "So they can't tell legislators that their hands are tied and they can't do anything. They have to navigate these protests strictly with their own policies."

Time may be on the side of campus administrators.

Mr Paulson said that most students are no part of the protests and are simply trying to get through the year, although graduation ceremonies could provide another protest target. Some universities have already cancelled commencement ceremonies or are considering doing so.

If history is any guide, said Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, "we are going to have an intense next week or two until the spring semester ends".

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Crackdown or compromise? A tale of two US campus protests

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One sent in the police, the other struck a deal with students. But why have responses been so wildly different?

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A minority government scrambling for support might look chaotic but the Scottish Parliament was designed to encourage rival parties to do deals.

The vision for devolution was to get away from the adversarial atmosphere of Westminster, using a different electoral system to allow smaller parties a bigger voice and to encourage consensus.

There was no sign of that on Monday when Humza Yousaf announced his resignation after clumsily ending a power-sharing arrangement with the Scottish Greens, ejecting them from his government.

With 63 MSPs to the opposition's 65, that left him trying to secure support to carry on in office, a task made more urgent by the tabling of motions of no confidence in his leadership and his government.

The Glasgow Pollok MSP tried to persuade the scorned Greens to back him, to no avail; rejected a deal with the sole MSP from Alex Salmond's Alba party; and, facing a humiliating parliamentary defeat, promptly announced his resignation.

It has not always been so difficult. Handled well, minority government has worked at Holyrood before. Both Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon presided over Scottish National Party (SNP) administrations which relied on opposition support.

Now though, the acrimonious collapse of the pact with the Greens has exposed divisions not just within the parliament in Edinburgh but within the SNP itself over independence strategy, economic policy and social issues such as gender healthcare.

On top of those troubles the party is under the shadow of a police investigation into its finances which has seen former chief executive Peter Murrell, the husband of Ms Sturgeon, charged by police.

Who will inherit these challenges?

Perhaps John Swinney, who led the SNP two decades ago?

He has packed a lot of politics into his 60 years, joining the SNP at the age of 15.

Mr Swinney has been a member of the Scottish Parliament since Tony Blair's Labour Party devolved power to Edinburgh a quarter of a century ago.

Among the potential contenders for the SNP leadership, Mr Swinney's experience is unrivalled.

He has a decade as finance secretary, six years running the education department and a nine-year stint as Nicola Sturgeon's deputy first minister under his belt.

If it is experience you want, Mr Swinney is hard to beat, although there are arguably two John Swinneys.

In public he has been a doughty defender of independence, a parliamentary performer not averse to barracking and heckling his political opponents.

In short, tribal. And yet, behind the scenes, he is that rare figure in politics, a man widely regarded by friend and foe alike as decent, kind and honest.

Many senior colleagues in the SNP are urging him to run, hopeful that he can provide both stability and wisdom after 39-year-old Humza Yousaf's brief, and often troubled, tenure.

They include Westminster leader Stephen Flynn, Energy Secretary Màiri McAllan and Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth.

"These are serious times and serious times demand serious politics and serious people," said Mr Flynn.

"I think the public would be reassured by his presence. I think the party would be united by his presence, and I think that can only be a good thing for Scotland as a whole," he added.

Liz Lloyd, Ms Sturgeon's former chief of staff, suggested that a coronation rather than a leadership contest might be desirable.

"If they can get that sorted quickly and get back to the bread-and-butter basics that people care about, then I think there's potential for the SNP to stop the decline in the polls," she told BBC News.

Could that be Mr Swinney, MSP for North Perthshire?

He is a member of the Church of Scotland and describes himself as a man of deep faith while his most likely rival appears to be Kate Forbes, the former finance secretary who ran Mr Yousaf close in a leadership contest a little over a year ago, also a devout Christian.

During that contest Mr Swinney criticised her for saying she would have voted against gay marriage had she been an MSP in 2014.

"I'm a man of deep Christian faith," he said, "but I do not hold the same views as Kate has set out in the course of the last couple of days."

Hamza Yousaf quits

As a member of the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland, she saw her campaign against Mr Yousaf blown off course by her socially conservative views on marriage, abortion and gender.

Nonetheless, the Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch MSP secured 48%of the vote with a message that the SNP had drifted under Nicola Sturgeon and needed to sharpen up its act.

"Continuity won't cut it," was her mantra as she attacked Mr Yousaf in sometimes brutal terms.

"You were transport minister and the trains were never on time, when you were justice secretary the police were stretched to breaking point and now as health minister we've got record high waiting times," she told him in a televised debate on STV.

Her assessment of his political skills may have been prescient but it was not well received by some of her parliamentary colleagues who regarded it as disloyal and discourteous.

Now the 34-year-old Ms Forbes is said to be considering running again.

An SNP source said that, if she did, she would need to find a way to frame her social values that did not alienate younger and more liberal voters.

The question for her, said the source, was: "Can Kate find a way to convince others that her views are not going to get in the way?"

So far she has few declared backers. Sibling MSPs Annabelle and Fergus Ewing, whose late mother Winnie Ewing won a fabled by-election victory for the party in 1967, are among them.

"It has to be the new generation & Kate Forbes," Ms Ewing wrote on social media.

"Kate Forbes, without a shadow of doubt, is head and shoulders above all the other candidates," Mr Ewing told the World at One on BBC Radio 4, arguing that she was respected by Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats and could govern by securing backing from them on an issue-by-issue basis.

"They will trust her," he said, adding: "Alex Salmond ran a minority government with 47 MSPs. We've got 63 so you only really need to win a budget debate and a motion of no confidence. The other debates, frankly, don't matter so much."

However, the Greens, who have seven MSPs at Holyrood, do not like the economic or social agenda of Kate Forbes.

Co-leader Lorna Slater said she would not intervene in another party's leadership race but she has been clear that the policies of Ms Forbes would not be acceptable to her party.

The question for the SNP, she said, was whether they wanted to "continue to be a progressive party", committed to "make income tax fairer" and tackle climate change, or to "take a different direction."

Whoever wins the leadership, says James Mitchell, professor of public policy at Edinburgh University, they must refocus on competence.

"There's too much high level visionary stuff, spin and all the rest of it," he said, adding: "very little thought goes beyond that.

"There's very little thought going into delivery."

Or, as deputy first minister Shona Robison put it, bluntly, on Monday night's Reporting Scotland: "We need to get our act together, clearly, and as quickly as possible."

As Humza Yousaf has discovered, governing is hard but governing without a majority is much harder, whether by accident or design.

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Humza Yousaf: SNP seeks new leader as divisions are exposed

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Whoever follows Humza Yousaf, who is standing down as Scotland's first minister, inherits formidable challenges.

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Humza Yousaf's decisions follow on from SNP political timebombs

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Humza Yousaf has realised the numbers don't add up and has concluded it's better to resign than lose.

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On the day Theresa May signed her Brexit withdrawal agreement with Brussels, Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary, resigned. She tried to dragoon Michael Gove, a leader of the Brexit campaign, into taking the job. Dominic Cummings, the erstwhile campaign director of Vote Leave, persuaded Gove to resign rather than take the job. It was mayhem. That day Cummings texted a friend in Westminster to say: 'Sometimes nothing happens for years. Sometimes years happen in days.'

The phrase was originally Lenin's, though he referred to 'decades' rather than years - but it was apt for the almost revolutionary cascade of events unleashed by the EU referendum of 2016, which we are still living with eight years later. When Sajid Javid announced he was standing down as an MP after serving as a minister for a decade, he said he felt he had lived through a lifetime of political tumult in ten years.

Once, it was Blair vs Brown every week. The speed at which things have moved since then is dizzying

I know how he feels. I set out to write a book, All Out War, about what struck me as an unusually dramatic period in British political history; then it turned into a trilogy. Now the last part has split into two books, the first of which, No Way Out, has just been published. The second has the subtitle A Year of Political Mayhem. Looking back, it has been more like a decade.

I started as a political reporter during the 2001 general election and the first seven years of my career consisted entirely of Blair vs Brown every week. Ten years ago I started at the Sunday Times. The speed at which things have moved since then is extraordinary. Within four months we had printed an explosive YouGov poll which suggested that Scotland was poised to vote for independence: a previously unthinkable proposition that came close to becoming reality. The chaos had begun, and I don't think things have calmed down since.

It became a good rule of thumb to expect the unexpected. Just days before the 2015 election, the FT published a Populus 'predictor' polling model which gave David Cameron a 0.5 per cent chance of winning a majority. His surprise victory meant that he had to deliver on the manifesto pledge of a referendum on leaving the European Union. Oliver Letwin confirms in my new book what we all suspected: that Cameron had intended to ditch the pledge in what he thought would be new coalition talks with the Lib Dems. Instead we got Brexit.

Uncertainty reigned. Many of the Labour MPs who nominated Jeremy Corbyn as leader only did so because they thought he had zero chance of winning. His 2015 win led serious Labour figures, including Tony Blair, to write Labour off as unelectable. So in 2017, the Tories had a 20 point lead and Theresa May thought she could risk a snap election: at the time, it looked like she could be PM for a decade or more. In a shock turn-around, Labour did far better than expected and the Tories lost their majority.

Two years on, Nigel Farage created the Brexit party from scratch (a wildly successful startup) and forced the Tories into a derisory fifth place in the 2019 European elections with a 9 per cent share. Now it was the Conservatives' turn to look doomed.

Politics is simple but it is hard. To succeed, leaders must let themselves be steered by both conviction and polling; they need to plot a tactical path forward, and the communication skills to take voters with them. The only time in the past seven years when all these elements have been in play was in the latter half of 2019, when Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings used a combination of brute force and cleverness to get Brexit done. They forged a new voter base. Johnson won an 80-seat majority and the populists were nowhere to be seen. The future, it seemed then, was Conservative. But it was a coalition of voters that it seemed perhaps only Johnson could sustain.

Today, Keir Starmer - who had been on the verge of resigning in 2021 when Labour lost the Hartlepool by-election - looks like he'll be weighing rather than counting his votes when the public gets a chance to decide at the general election. The opinion poll lead he enjoys is consistent with an almost unprecedented majority of 270 MPs.

What has caused this political chaos? One reason has been the breakdown of the traditional bonds of political loyalty which tied voters in certain places to the parties of their grandparents. That loyalty, once lost, is not transferred to a new party. Red-wallers who abandoned Labour in 2019 to lend Johnson their votes are now moving on again: many of them to a new party, Richard Tice's Reform. Meanwhile, Scotland has gone from being regarded as a Labour fiefdom to an SNP fortress to a country where votes are once again up for grabs.

At the same time we have seen a breakdown of deference and whipping in parliament, where younger MPs have little time for the blackmail and brutality of 1970s party management. William Hague famously said that the Tory party was 'an absolute monarchy, moderated by regicide'. Having tasted blood, Conservatives keep wanting more.

A revival in the politics of place, or national identity, is also a factor. It almost ended the Union in the Scottish referendum and it drove support for Brexit, particularly in England. But it never mapped on to party politics.

One reason for the unpredictability has been the breakdown of the traditional bonds of political loyalty

The result of the Brexit referendum was grafted on to the Westminster system of representative democracy: 70 per cent of MPs backed Remain but they were expected to deliver a Leave vote which commanded just 52 per cent of public support. It was a recipe for disaster, gridlock and extremism. This was exacerbated by the Fixed Term Parliament Act, which made it impossible for the May government to force people into choosing a compromise by threatening to call a general election.

Westminster's first-past-the-post system is designed to turn close elections into more decisive outcomes - avoiding the coalitions seen in the continent (no bad thing in my view). This does mean violent swings of fortune. But it is also why, alone among major European countries, the UK has not had a breakthrough populist party in parliament. It's quite possible that Reform will win five million votes but not a single seat.

Is there any pattern detectable here? For someone who has spent so long in the weeds of our politics and is fascinated by the interplay of personalities, I'd say the character and abilities of successive prime ministers have been decisive. If you could take Boris Johnson's feral political skills, his boundless optimism and public charisma; Rishi Sunak's meticulous attention to detail; Theresa May's dedication to public service and Liz Truss's bloody-minded determination, and mix these qualities altogether, you could construct a very good prime minister. But individually each was lacking.

Keir Starmer has only had to be sensible and a bit ruthless to position himself for victory. If Labour does win, the size of that victory will be vital for Starmer and for the country. A landslide would ensure that he could do as he wished, but that might expose the limits of his vision and the difficulty of tackling the problems that have lingered ever since the 2008 financial crash. It would also ensure that the Labour government's main opposition would come from within the party. So: back to Blair vs Brown.

And after that? Whenever parties have revived themselves (as under Thatcher, Blair, Cameron and Johnson), the common factor has been dynamic new leadership that combines a sense of where we have come from with a clear vision for the future. The past few years have made the public wearier of politics and politicians, and more cynical about modern communications - but still willing to be galvanised. If this does not happen, we risk remaining in a hyperloop leading somewhere much worse.

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Hyper-history: why did politics go crazy?

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On the day Theresa May signed her Brexit withdrawal agreement with Brussels, Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary, resigned. She tried to dragoon Michael Gove, a leader of the Brexit campaign, into taking the job. Dominic Cummings, the erstwhile campaign director of Vote Leave, persuaded Gove to resign rather than take the job.

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Mike WendlingBBC News in Royal Oak, Michigan

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Democrats are worried. But will RFK Jr take more votes away from Trump?

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In a tight election, the independent candidate could get enough votes to influence who wins the White House.

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Humza Yousaf to hold extra cabinet meeting

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The agenda is not known but it follows speculation about the future of the power-sharing deal with the Greens.

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Scottish Greens will vote to oust first minister

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Patrick Harvie says Humza Yousaf “burnt his bridges” by scrapping the power-sharing deal between the SNP and Greens.

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Can Humza Yousaf survive as Scotland’s first minister?

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The first minister is fighting for his political career and his best chance may be a figure from his party’s past.

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Angela Rayner has been dogged in recent weeks by a row over her living arrangements before she was an MP.

It has prompted weeks of unhelpful headlines for Labour's deputy leader, who stands in for Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs.

The row has seen her face questions over whether she owed tax on a house she sold in 2015, and registered to vote at the correct address.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is now investigating, following a request from Conservative deputy chair James Daly.

Ms Rayner has promised to step down if she is found to have committed a criminal offence - but insists she has followed the rules at all times.

How did this begin?

Questions about her living arrangements have been raised since an an unauthorised biography of her, written by Tory peer Lord Ashcroft, was published last month.

Ms Rayner bought her former council house in Vicarage Road, Stockport under the right-to-buy scheme in 2007.

Eight years later, she sold the property for £48,500 more than she paid.

She initially said she didn't pay Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on the profit, because, like the "majority of ordinary people who sell their own homes," it was "my home and the only one I owned".

Those selling their "main residence" typically don't have to pay the tax.

But married couples and civil couples can normally only count one property as their main home for CGT purposes, prompting questions over whether she should have paid some.

What has she said?

Ms Rayner has said she wasn't aware of these rules at the time of the sale, and didn't get legal advice at the time.

She says, however, that since the row broke earlier this year she commissioned legal advice that confirms she didn't owe anything.

However, she has not published the advice, on the grounds that it relates to her private life.

The rules in this area are complicated, with various exemptions, including when the cost of refurbishment on a property can lower the amount owed.

Tax experts have estimated she may owe up to about £3,500 in CGT in the worst case scenario - although she may owe nothing at all.

Where was she living?

The tax question has prompted further questions over whether Ms Rayner registered to vote at the correct address.

Eligible voters are required to join the electoral roll, which as well as registering people to vote is also used for things like credit checks and asking people to sit on court juries.

It is an offence to give "false information" when joining the roll.

She was reportedly registered at the house she sold, in Vicarage Road in Stockport, Greater Manchester, until she sold it in 2015.

But she appears to have given two different addresses when she re-registered the births of two of her children in 2010 following her marriage to Mark Rayner, listing her then-husband's home on Lowndes Lane in the town.

Earlier this month, a Labour spokesperson said Ms Rayner spent time at her husband's house after their marriage, but "the house she owned remained her main home".

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) launched an investigation earlier this month into whether "any offences have been committed".

However, the force has not said exactly what it is investigating. Its chief constable has said it would not give a "running commentary" on a live probe.

It had initially decided not to investigate, after calls from Mr Daly for it to open an inquiry.

But it reversed that decision earlier this month, following a "reassessment" of information he had provided.

In media interviews since the investigation was launched, Mr Daly has not set out his allegations in any detail, adding he didn't want to discuss them publicly to give police "time and space to investigate".

The inquiry was initially thought to be solely into the electoral roll claims, but there have been reports it may be wider than that, including into whether she paid the correct amount of council tax on the property.

What are Labour saying?

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has given his backing to his deputy, saying he is "fully confident" she has not broken any rules.

He says he hasn't himself seen the legal advice she has received - although members of his team have.

And he accused Rishi Sunak of "smearing a working-class woman," after he called on the Labour leader to read the advice during a feisty Prime Minister's Questions last week.

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A simple guide to the Angela Rayner house row

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Labour's deputy leader has been dogged by questions over her living arrangements before she was an MP.

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Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government

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WHAT'S MOST IMPORTANT TO YOUNG VOTERS. For the last decade, top Democratic politicians, most notably Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, have struggled to re-create the coalition of voters who elected Barack Obama twice. Minorities, women, and young people - Obama's strong performance among those groups made it less urgent that he win the votes of white people who have voted solidly Republican over the last several decades. (Interesting fact: The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the white vote was Lyndon Johnson in 1964.)

Now we have some new information about one part of the Obama coalition. The Kennedy School Institute of Politics has released its biannual Harvard Youth Poll, and it shines light on the priorities of voters aged 18-29 in the 2024 presidential election. You want the short version? They're worried about inflation, just like everybody else, but even that takes a back seat to abortion.

The Harvard poll tried a smart variation on the old "What is the most important issue?" question. It gave respondents a bunch of issues, and then, in random order, asked whether the young voter thought this issue was more important than that issue or vice versa. The pollsters came up with some fascinating results.

For example, the pollsters asked, is climate change more important to you than jobs? The answer: No. Fifty-eight percent of young voters said jobs were more important than climate change, while just 38% said the other way around. Another example: Is inflation more important than "protecting democracy"? The answer: Yes. Fifty-three percent said inflation is more important than "protecting democracy," while 40% said the other way around. (Incidentally, the issue of "democracy" is fraught for pollsters. If you ask respondents about "protecting democracy," you're more likely to get a lopsided pro-Democratic response. If you ask about "election integrity," you're more likely to get an equal response from Democrats and Republicans. This poll asked about "protecting democracy.")

The big picture of the poll is that young voters say inflation is more important than anything else in this election - except abortion. For example, the young voters say inflation is more important than climate change, 61% to 38%. Inflation is more important than healthcare, 60% to 39%. Inflation is more important than gun violence, 67% to 32%. All sorts of other issues, too - you name it, and inflation is more important than everything except abortion. (By the way, the pollsters called abortion "women's reproductive rights," and that can skew results, too.)

The poll offers a pretty clear road map to, say, a Democratic president with low approval ratings and a lot of liabilities who still wants to win young voters. Make the race, to the extent you can, about abortion. It's more important than anything for a Democratic presidential candidate, especially since abortion as an issue hurts Republicans and inflation as an issue hurts Democrats. Why waste your time talking up the economy when so many people just don't believe it - their experience says otherwise - when you can bash Republicans about abortion?

One more thing about the Harvard poll, and it concerns an issue that is the subject of a lot of news coverage from some college campuses these days. Among the issues the pollsters included in the one-to-one comparisons was "Israel/Palestine." And contrary to what one might have seen in some of the coverage, young voters are not, as a whole, all that fired up about it. When asked to compare, the young voters said the following issues are more important than Israel/Palestine: jobs, taxes, healthcare, immigration, housing, abortion, corruption, gun violence, crime, protecting democracy, inflation, and education. Israel/Palestine is just not near the top of many young voters' lists.

Another final thing. The Harvard pollsters included student debt as an issue for young respondents to consider. After all, who would be more sensitive about and likely to be energized by that particular issue? The answer is, very few of the young voters surveyed put student debt anywhere near the top of their list of concerns. In fact, with every single other issue - there were 15 in all - majorities of respondents said that issue was more important than student debt. Yes, there are subgroups of voters for whom student debt is a big issue, and Biden is trying to buy them off. But as a big issue to motivate large voter groups? No.

Overall, what does the poll say about the 2024 presidential campaign? For young voters, it says the contest could come down to the economy vs. abortion, Republican issue vs. Democratic issue. If the candidates fight strength against strength, that's the fight.

For a deeper dive into many of the topics covered in the Daily Memo, please listen to my podcast, The Byron York Show - available on Radio America and the Ricochet Audio Network and everywhere else podcasts can be found.

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What's most important to young voters - Washington Examiner

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For the last decade, top Democratic politicians, most notably Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, have struggled to re-create the coalition of voters who elected Barack Obama twice.

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At 8.30 a.m. each morning, Keir Starmer holds a meeting with his inner circle to go over the business of the day. Once, these meetings were mainly filled with unelected aides, but now they are attended by senior shadow ministers, such as Labour's campaign co-ordinator and Blairite old-timer Pat McFadden or the shadow cabinet office minister and Brown-ite Jonathan Ashworth. Starmer's deputy, Angela Rayner, may drop in too. If Rachel Reeves can't make it, one of her shadow treasury aides goes in her place.

The new setup is one of the many measures Sue Gray has brought in since she was appointed Starmer's chief of staff a year ago. Her aim is to strengthen ties between the Labour leader and his shadow cabinet. She has also reached out to Labour's regional mayors who had been the subject of vicious briefings by Starmer's aides. The fact that London mayor Sadiq Khan and the new First Minister of Wales, Vaughan Gething, attended shadow cabinet this week is a sign of improved relations. Her goal is to ensure that once Starmer is in power his standing in the party will be strong enough to endure the turbulence of office.

Her work is already dividing opinion. There are ongoing reports of a rift between her and Starmer's male-heavy team, referred to dismissively by female members of shadow cabinet as 'the boys'. 'Sue is definitely more of a good thing than a bad thing, but it would be lying to say there haven't been teething issues,' says a shadow minister.

As prime minister, Gordon Brown said Gray was his go-to woman for help in a crisis

Gray's critics see her as a civil service automaton who knows little about politics and even less about the Labour party. Some blame her for making Starmer slow-footed on key announcements, such as the painfully delayed decision to ditch the £28 billion green spending pledge.

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At 8.30 a.m. each morning, Keir Starmer holds a meeting with his inner circle to go over the business of the day.

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Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has his running mate, completing what has so far been the highest-polling independent presidential ticket in more than 30 years.

Not since Ross Perot first ran for president in 1992 has a candidate polled as well for the White House without a major-party affiliation. Perot even led former President George H.W. Bush and his eventual Democratic successor, then Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, head-to-head at one point.

Kennedy's numbers have a much wider range. The longtime activist and son of the former attorney general, senator, and 1968 Democratic presidential candidate ranges from a high of 15% nationally in a recent Harvard-Harris poll to 2% in an Economist/YouGov survey, both released this month. He stands at 9.9% in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

Perot received 19% of the vote in 1992 and followed up with 8% in 1996, then as the nominee of the Reform Party.
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The Harvard-Harris poll looks somewhat like the 1992 final results, with the Democrat and Republican reversed - but not the incumbent and challenger. Over three decades ago, Clinton finished first with 43% of the popular vote to Bush's 38%. This time around, the aforementioned survey has former President Donald Trump at 43% and President Joe Biden at 38%.

Clinton won north of 300 electoral votes in 1992. Perot did not carry a single state, though he finished second in both Maine (narrowly beating Bush) and Utah (beating Clinton).

It's not clear how many ballots Kennedy will appear on, though he vows it will be all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, like Perot.

There are also questions about the debates. When Perot appeared on the debate stage alongside Clinton and Bush, he won nearly a fifth of the national vote. When he was excluded from the debates four years later, he dropped to below 10%. The only other time a third-party candidate debated a major-party nominee was when John Anderson took on Ronald Reagan in 1980. President Jimmy Carter, the incumbent, sat it out and debated Reagan one-on-one.

This year, there is no guarantee that Biden and Trump will debate each other, much less Kennedy. Trump has called for debates against Biden, but boycotted all the Republican National Committee-sanctioned debates against his 2024 primary opponents, creating a precedent some believe will be invoked to justify the 81-year-old incumbent skipping them.

Perot did well in the 1992 debates, partially overcoming voters' concerns about how he dropped out of the race, claiming Republicans were going to disrupt his daughter's wedding, and equally abruptly reentered it. Kennedy's spasmodic dysphonia, an unusual voice disorder, would be another question mark on the debate stage.

Even with all this uncertainty, third-party candidates with less support than Perot have arguably affected the outcome of presidential elections before. Green Party nominee Ralph Nader received less than 3% nationally in 2000, significantly less than the margin between Al Gore and George W. Bush, who lost the popular vote but won the election.

Nader's impact was strongest in Florida, where he failed to crack 2% of the vote. But the consumer advocate's 97,488 easily exceeded the 537 votes by which Bush won the state, securing the Electoral College majority and the presidency.

In 2016, Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson won 3.3% of the vote nationally. But the Green Party's Jill Stein, who won just 1.07%, was seen as having a bigger effect. That's because most of her votes were believed to have come at Hillary Clinton's expense in key battleground states, especially as Trump turned the Rust Belt red for the first time since the 1980s.

The drop-off in third-party vote totals from 2016 to 2020 was believed by many analysts to be a contributing factor to Biden's election.

It's not entirely evident which major-party nominee stands to lose the most from Kennedy in 2024. At the moment, it appears to be Biden. Trump does slightly better in polls including Kennedy and other third-party candidates.

But Stein, who is running again this year, and Cornel West are clearly candidates of the Left. While that is where Kennedy's background is, some of his appeal on vaccines and media bias could draw support from the Right. This includes some former backers of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) who did not like Trump's approach to COVID-19. Republicans often boosted Kennedy when he was planning to run against Biden in the Democratic primaries instead.

Kennedy is nevertheless an afterthought in much of the campaign coverage. The major parties are poised to renominate the sitting president and the previous one, who both generate copious headlines on their own. Many working political journalists have never covered a semi-serious independent or third-party campaign. And Kennedy is widely viewed as eccentric.

But the unpopularity of Biden and Trump, who both poll below 50% in terms of favorability, creates the market for a third candidate. In the absence of a successful No Labels recruiting push, Kennedy appears to be the third best-known candidate.
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No third-party or independent candidate has won a state or an electoral vote other than from a faithless elector since George Wallace in 1968.

Wallace was a regional candidate of the Deep South, carrying five states. He was also a recent former governor of Alabama who continued to run the state through his wife, Gov. Lurleen Wallace, into the presidential election year.

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The RFK factor: Can Kennedy make a difference in 2024? - Washington Examiner

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has his running mate, completing what has so far been the highest-polling independent presidential ticket in more than 30 years. Not since Ross Perot first ran for president in 1992 has a candidate polled as well for the White House without a major-party affiliation.

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It's five weeks to go until the local elections and Tory high command are stepping up their attacks. On Monday, the Conservatives released the first of several videos focusing on Labour controlled administrations. A 70-second, black-and-white video attacked Sadiq Khan's record and gravely intoned that 'London under Labour has become a crime capital of the world.' But the in-house clip, voiced by an unknown actor, has since divided opinion among Tories, amid controversy over its use of footage from a New York subway station.

Mayoral candidate Susan Hall was quick to distance herself from the adverts, telling the BBC that the video had 'nothing to do' with her team. Hall's spokesman subsequently confirmed that the video had been created by Conservative Party headquarters. Assembly Member Andrew Boff went further, telling Politico: 'Susan Hall has a hugely positive message, and one that is independent of the contribution of what I can only assume was an inexperienced intern at CCHQ.'

One London Tory told Steerpike that there are fears that such attacks could backfire by allowing Khan to go on the offensive and attack the Conservatives for their campaign tactics, rather than being forced to defend his own record on crime.

Undeterred, CCHQ have since released a second advert, focusing this time on Birmingham. Jonathan Gullis, the newly-appointed deputy-chairman, was quick to share the video, writing on Twitter/X that 'Birmingham residents are paying' the price of 'living under Labour' adding 'Go woke, go broke.' Talk about doubling down.

Still, Mr S has been told there are signs these tactics are working in the party's favour. Word in CCHQ is that the video has got approximately 50 million impressions.

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It's five weeks to go until the local elections and Tory high command are stepping up their attacks. On Monday, the Conservatives released the first of several videos focusing on Labour controlled administrations. A 70-second, black-and-white video attacked Sadiq Khan's record and gravely intoned that 'London under Labour has become a crime capital of the world.'

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Rishi Sunak faces increasing pressure over donations from Frank Hester, whose comments about Diane Abbott have been condemned as racist and misogynistic, after it was reported he has given another £5m to the Conservatives.

The additional money, not denied by the party or Downing Street, would take Hester's contributions to Tory party coffers in less than a year to £15m, almost as much as the Conservatives spent in the entire 2019 general election campaign.

There is disquiet among some Conservatives about the willingness to accept money from Hester, whose software firm has won lucrative NHS and prison contracts, after the Guardian revealed he told a 2019 meeting that seeing Abbott on TV made "you just want to hate all black women".

Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said on Thursday that the donations should be "looked at" by the party, with Sayeeda Warsi, the Tory peer and former party chair, saying the money should be handed back.

Hester, who also said that Abbott, the UK's longest-serving black MP, "should be shot", gave £5m to the Tories in May 2023 and £5m more via his company, the Phoenix Partnership, which he formed and solely owns, in November.

According to the Tortoise website, he has given another £5m, which will be confirmed in the next Electoral Commission update of donations, due in early June.

A Conservative party spokesperson declined to comment, saying only: "Declarable donations will be published by the Electoral Commission in the usual way." No Tory or No 10 officials sought to deny the donation, however.

If confirmed, the £15m total will mean Hester alone has donated almost as much as the near-£16.5m spent by the party in their entire 2019 campaign.

The Conservatives are likely to spend notably more in the forthcoming election, having overseen an increase in the total permitted per-party spending from close to £19m - it was set at £30,000 per seat contested - to about £34m.

This means few in the party expect Hester's donations will be rebuffed. One former senior Conservative HQ official said: "There is no way they are returning that money. It's just not happening. The sum is too large and they'll have mostly spent it."

Nevertheless, this is not without risk. Ross, speaking to journalists after first minister's questions, echoed a call from the Scottish Conservatives for the UK party to "carefully review" the donations it received from Hester.

He said the comments were "racist, unacceptable and wrong", adding: "I think the party at a UK level needs to look at that donation."

Pressed on whether the money should be returned, he said: "I think this should be looked at. I think most people would think it's fair to allow a review to review the situation and look into it."

Lady Warsi told Times Radio: "They've got to give the money back. You don't build election campaigns and you don't build political parties on the back of money where an individual has these views."

Contact the team securely: create a Protonmail account and email us at guardian.politics.desk@protonmail.com; or use Signal Messenger or WhatsApp to message +44 7824 537227.

Labour has argued that Sunak cannot on the one hand argue against extremism and hate in politics, and also accept Hester's money - although Keir Starmer said on Thursday that he did not expect the prime minister to hand back such a large sum.

"It's a test for Rishi Sunak," the Labour leader told LBC radio. "He's failing that test. And if this report is true, I think it raises serious questions about what his real motivation is in clinging on to that money in the current environment."

Some campaign groups have also expressed worry at the financial dominance of a donor whose company, the Phoenix Partnership, has won more than £400m of public contracts in the last eight years.

Tom Brake of Unlock Democracy, commenting on the current system where donors can also be government contractors, said: "To avoid any suggestion of impropriety, the Conservative party treasurer and individual MPs and constituency parties should decline any donation from a company or individual who has benefited from government contracts."

In a statement on Monday, Hester's company said he "accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbott in a private meeting several years ago but his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin".

Hester has been contacted for comment.

Anneliese Dodds, the Labour party chair, said: "Frank Hester's remarks were clearly racist, misogynistic and have no place in our politics. There is absolutely no excuse for the Conservatives accepting additional money from Frank Hester. They should pay this back before it hits the coffers.

"Rishi Sunak needs to pay back every penny, cut ties with Frank Hester and apologise unequivocally to Diane Abbott."

Wendy Chamberlain, the Liberal Democrat chief whip, said: "The Conservative party must urgently confirm whether these reports are true and if so hand this tainted money back.

"The Conservative party has dragged its feet in condemning these racist remarks for what they are. If that was in any way linked to this £5m donation it would show this scandal is even worse than we thought."

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Tories urged to return 'further £5m donation made by Frank Hester'

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Scottish Tory leader says all of Hester's donations should be reviewed after racist and misogynistic comments

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Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government

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After dominating the GOP presidential primary and clinching presumptive nominee status, former President Donald Trump 's vice presidential pick is the next step on his path to the general election in November.

An announcement of Trump's running mate will likely come in late spring or early summer before the Republican National Convention in mid-July.

Trump's first running mate, former Vice President Mike Pence, won't be on the ticket this time around after challenging Trump during the 2024 cycle. Another 2024 Trump challenger, Vivek Ramaswamy, is reportedly no longer in contention for the vice presidential slot but could be a Cabinet member if Trump is reelected.

But Trump is not without a long list of Republicans vying for the second slot.

Here are the pros and cons of Trump's possible running mates.

Sen. Marco Rubio

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), another one-time rival of Trump in 2016, has emerged as a top contender to join the Trump campaign. At 52, Rubio is 25 years younger than the 77-year-old Trump. He would make history as the first person of color to join a Republican presidential ticket and would appeal to Latino voters as the son of Cuban immigrants.

But federal law prohibits electors from voting for a presidential and vice presidential candidate from the state. Trump and Rubio both reside in Florida, and one of the pair would need to change their state residency if they became running mates.

The former president was a lifelong New Yorker before changing his residency to the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, which he could once again claim.

Rubio claimed he has not had any conversations with Trump about joining the ticket but will still support the campaign irrespective of who Trump chooses.

"Anybody who gets a chance to serve as vice president of the United States should consider that an honor," Rubio told Glenn Beck. "I have never spoken either to President Trump or anybody on his campaign about this or anybody else that they're considering for vice president."

"What I do know is that, unlike the Democrats, President Trump will have a lot of good options available to him," he continued. "And I'm confident he's going to make the perfect and right choice."

Sen. Tim Scott

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) emerged relatively unscathed after running unsuccessfully against Trump during the 2024 GOP primary.

The South Carolinian politician has campaigned for Trump as a surrogate, appeared onstage with the former president at rallies, and participated in joint interviews with Trump.

Trump has singled out Scott when asked about running mates in several interviews. The senator has tried to brush off the speculation. "Well, one day at a time," Scott told supporters in his home state last month when questioned about joining Trump's ticket.

A Scott selection would make him the first black politician on a Republican presidential ticket after making history as the first black Republican senator from his state.

Scott remains well liked among his Senate colleagues, but it is not clear how many black voters, who overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party, he could persuade to vote for the Trump ticket.

Rep. Byron Donalds

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) has long been a vocal supporter of Trump, willing to go on the airwaves to attack the former president's detractors. Like Rubio, Donalds is young (45 years old), a person of color, and a Floridian. Either he or Trump would need to change residencies to remain on the presidential ticket.

Similarly to Scott, Donalds has appeared at campaign rallies for Trump and championed black voters abandoning the Democratic Party to vote for Trump. But as a Tea Party conservative, his appeal to black Democratic voters is not guaranteed to succeed nor could he appeal to moderate voters.

"President Trump's going to make a decision," Donalds told the Washington Examiner when he appeared at a Black Conservative Federation honors gala in South Carolina last month. "Whatever decision he chooses to make, I'm a support. I just want to win, and so, you know, if it's me or anybody else, the only thing that matters is victory and getting the job done."

Gov. Kristi Noem

Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) remains a top supporter of Trump, not just stumping for the president but for the candidates he has endorsed this election cycle.

At 52, Noem is primed for a long career in the GOP and would be an asset for Trump as a fierce conservative woman. Trump has lost a sizable share of suburban women while in office, which Noem could help him potentially bring back into the GOP fold.

When the Washington Examiner asked if she could help Trump defeat Biden in November as part of the ticket, Noem said: "Oh, I know I could."

But Noem has faced significant pushback recently over peddling business products on social media. The South Dakota governor was sued after she posted an unusual infomercial-style video on X last week. Her office has not disclosed whether she received financial compensation for the posting.

Days later, the governor promoted Fit My Feet, which has several locations in the Mount Rushmore State, for building Noem insoles for her running shoes and cowboy shoes.

The scrutiny may prove off-putting for Trump's campaign.

Rep. Elise Stefanik

House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is one of the most-rumored of Trump's vice presidential possibilities. She appeared onstage and at campaign rallies for Trump in New Hampshire as he was on track to locking up the nomination.

At one New Hampshire rally in February where Trump made it blatantly clear he would not select former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley as his running mate, Stefanik said she would be "honored" to be Trump's running mate. (Haley has repeatedly said she wasn't running to become Trump's running mate.)

"President Trump is a friend. I've been proud to be the strongest supporter and the first member of Congress to endorse him," Stefanik said during a press gaggle back then. "I'd be honored to serve within the future Trump administration."

Trump was reportedly impressed with the New York congresswoman's grilling of three university presidents for campus antisemitism, with two of the leaders later resigning.

Stefanik's top weakness may be criticisms that she is not experienced enough to become Trump's running mate at 39 years old.

Gov. Ron DeSantis

Once considered the top candidate to defeat Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) exited the race after losing the Iowa caucuses.

Although he has endorsed Trump for president, DeSantis has not appeared onstage with the former president, a sign that lingering tensions may remain between the two foes.

DeSantis remains a principled conservative who ran on enacting top priorities for evangelicals, including signing a six-week abortion ban and opposing race, gender, and sexuality teachings in public schools.

But it's unclear whether DeSantis would join the ticket after repeatedly stating he would reject a vice presidential offer while he was running for president.

"I can tell you under any circumstance I will not accept that because that's not why I'm running," DeSantis said during a campaign stop in New Hampshire. "I'm running for the nomination and to be president. ... I'd rather be governor than vice president, no question."

Tulsi Gabbard

Former Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard isn't an actual Republican. She served as a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 to 2016 and ran for president as a Democrat in 2020.

But she has made overtures to appeal to Republicans after leaving Congress and renouncing her status as a Democrat. She spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, has appeared on Fox News, and has increasingly attacked the Democratic Party.

Her anti-establishment credentials could help Trump, but her history as a former Democrat is likely to turn away Republicans who may not trust her credibility.

Kari Lake

Arizona Republican Kari Lake is running for the Senate seat vacated by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), but that doesn't mean she wouldn't take up a vice presidential offer.

Lake is an outspoken supporter of Trump who frequently urged his primary rivals to drop out of the race. Trump endorsed Lake during her unsuccessful gubernatorial race in 2022, which she has not conceded she lost.

Her bombastic attitude and refusal to accept President Joe Biden won the 2020 election may endear her to Trump, but it's unlikely to play well with moderates and independents who will decide the race.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has made a name for herself in Congress for her news-grabbing spats with Democratic members. But as a pugnacious congresswoman from the critical battleground state of Georgia, she could prove useful to the Trump campaign.

Trump lost the Peach State to Biden in 2020 and then helped cost Republicans two Senate seats in 2020. A native such as Greene could help him solidify Georgia in November.

In August, Greene made waves by suggesting she could either run for a Senate seat in Georgia or accept a vice presidential offer.

"I haven't made up my mind whether I will do that or not. I have a lot of things to think about," she told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Am I going to be a part of President Trump's Cabinet if he wins? Is it possible that I'll be VP?"

Greene's antics in Congress may please her constituents in Georgia's 14th Congressional District, but it could backfire with centrists and suburban women voters who are voting more Democratic in recent elections.

Ben Carson

Ben Carson served as Trump's housing and urban development secretary during the 2016 administration. Now, he's the only one of Trump's former Cabinet members who could become his running mate.

Carson endorsed Trump's 2024 bid, unlike Pence or Haley. At this year's CPAC, he told the Washington Examiner that Trump is "being politically persecuted" due to his 91 criminal indictments across four cases.
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Carson also said he hadn't put much thought into joining Trump's ticket again, but he said he'd "consider what we can do to save our country."

The retired neurosurgeon is a low-key politician who may not appeal to GOP voters who want a pit bull fighter to defend Trump against Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

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Trump vice presidential tracker: The pros and cons of his running mate contenders - Washington Examiner

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A look at Trump's vice presidential contenders' strengths and weaknesses.

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Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government

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The 2024 presidential race will likely be decided by seven swing states, accounting for less than one-fifth of the United States population.

The swing states former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden are eyeing to capture this year, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, are far fewer in number than in previous elections.

"Each vote everywhere counts, but the 61 million Americans living in the seven battlegrounds will decide who's president," said Karl Rove, former White House chief of staff under President George W. Bush.

Having such a focused electoral map means a lot of money will be spent by both parties vying to flip undecided voters there. Trump's campaign lags behind Biden's in fundraising - Trump ended February with $33.5 million cash on hand, compared to Biden's $77 million. This cash translates into TV ads, staffers, and mail pamphlets that campaigns will use to reach swing state voters. Being behind in this aspect spells trouble for Trump and Republicans.

Besides those seven swing states, most states vote in a fairly uniform fashion from election to election. Biden can count on 20 states and the District of Columbia voting Democratic, giving him 226 electoral votes, and Trump can count on 24 states with 219 electors voting Republican.

Biden needs 45 of these seven states' electoral votes, while Trump needs 51 to pass the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election.

Of those swing states, five have Democratic governors, signaling a move to the left in recent years.

In Arizona, where a third of voters are independents, Biden won in 2020, marking the first time the Grand Canyon State voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since then-President Bill Clinton in 1996. Since 2018, the state has also elected two Democratic senators to office, though Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) has since left the party.

The Biden campaign is eyeing North Carolina as a state within reach to flip blue in 2024 as then-Sen. Barack Obama did in 2008. In seven of the last eight gubernatorial elections, North Carolina has voted Democrats into office, proving they can win statewide elections.

It is difficult to tell if Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC), the Republican front-runner who has been criticized for his remarks about the LGBT community, will be popular statewide. Extreme candidates were unpopular in past years - Arizona rejected Kari Lake for governor in 2022, opting to elect Democrat Katie Hobbs instead. Lake is running for Senate this year.
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Down-ballot races also helped Biden in 2020. In Georgia, campaigning alongside Raphel Warnock and Jon Ossoff for Senate flipped the state for the first time since 1996. In Arizona, campaigning alongside Mark Kelly also helped flip that state. Biden still managed to switch Wisconsin in his favor, despite the reelection of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), highlighting the truly purple nature of some swing states.

In other recent elections, the number of swing states was much higher, which means elections in these seven will have large consequences nationwide. In the 2000 election, George W. Bush and Al Gore fought for 21 states. The 2016 election had 11 swing states.

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Why a shrinking battleground map is bad news for Trump and Republicans - Washington Examiner

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As the number of swing states continues to get smaller and smaller, winning them may be more difficult for Donald Trump in November.

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Conservative Manchester mayoral candidate defects to Reform UK

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Dan Barker follows Lee Anderson as another Conservative politician to defect to the party.

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However Robert Buckland, a former justice secretary, was one of a few Conservative rebels to support some of the Lords' amendments, saying he was concerned about "creating legal friction" over whether Rwanda was and continued to be a safe destination.

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Rwanda bill amendments overturned in Commons vote

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Labour continues its opposition, flagging how six flights to space cost the same as each deportation.

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Chief political correspondent

The mood in the Conservative Party is dark, and it has noticeably darkened over the past few days.

Why? Last week was not a good week for Rishi Sunak, to say the least. First Lee Anderson, who had been suspended from the Conservative ranks over comments he made about Sadiq Khan, joined Reform, the insurgent right-wing party.

Then came the reporting of alleged comments made by Frank Hester, a mega-donor to the Conservative Party.

Generally Conservative MPs seem content with Mr Sunak's decision to keep hold of the £10m he gave the party last year, but there is definite frustration at the prime minister's handling of the revelations, especially the initial decision not to condemn the reported comments as racist.

But there are more fundamental reasons that the vibe appears to have shifted among Conservatives. One is the state of the opinion polls. Conservative MPs can see the same polls as the public. They suggest that their party is headed not just for a defeat at the general election but for a very, very bad defeat.

Many MPs, even those who have long reconciled themselves to the strong possibility of defeat, had thought that the gap with the Labour Party would have narrowed by now.

There's also frustration that the Budget earlier this month appeared to do nothing to affect the polls. One former minister said they had seen the Budget as the "last big needle mover" - but that despite a significant personal tax cut, nothing appeared to have changed.

While the prime minister last week ruled out a general election on 2 May, there are still local elections in many parts of the country on that day.

This means MPs are beginning to ramp up campaigning in their local areas. One Conservative MP - a supporter of Mr Sunak's leadership - said they were struck by the extent to which the prime minister "is a drag" on their vote when mentioned on the doorstep.

The local election campaign trail also appears to be focusing minds on what a general election might look like. Some were heartened by reports last week that Boris Johnson will campaign for the Conservatives at the election.

For others, this just underscored their frustrations with the current leader. "Who do you want coming off the battle bus in your marginal seat, Boris or Rishi?" one MP has been asking their colleagues. (To be clear, it's a rhetorical question - their answer is not Rishi).

The mutterings - and for now they are just that - about the leadership have focused so far on Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons. We know that she would like to be leader of the Conservative Party: after all, she tried to become leader twice in 2022.

Few Conservatives are giving much credence to the idea that there is an advanced plot, anchored by an alliance of Ms Mordaunt's supporters and those on the right of the party. But that doesn't mean the possibility isn't of interest to MPs. "I don't think it's coming from Penny," one senior MP said. "But I think it's a fairly credible idea."

Others think the notion of removing Mr Sunak and installing a fifth Conservative leader in five years is absurd. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour last night Damian Green, Theresa May's former deputy, said: "All I can say is that nobody's spoken to me about Penny Mordaunt or anyone else like that, so I think there are people claiming that things are happening that I know are not happening".

He added: "I think we've had enough prime ministers for this parliament thank you very much."

One senior minister was more pithy. "Mental," was their one-word take on the idea of replacing the prime minister again.

Mr Sunak is in Coventry today talking about the economy, arguing that a corner is being turned. That reflects the political message to his MPs too: hold your nerve.

It is certainly possible that the political mood could feel different for him by the end of this week. The Rwanda bill, designed to put the government's flagship asylum policy on a stronger legal footing, could be law by the end of this week. Inflation statistics may show a significant drop on Wednesday, paving the way for a possible interest rates cut. Then early next week MPs break for Easter, meaning they will not be able to plot in person together for at least a few weeks.

So if there is to be a crunch leadership moment, most MPs seem to think it would come after the local elections.

Yet some wonder if the bleak atmosphere right now is sustainable up to that point.

"I think the party has just about had it," one senior Conservative figure, a firm supporter of the prime minister, said.

"There's a realisation that there's nothing good left."

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Mood among Tory MPs darkens as Rishi Sunak faces leadership questions

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If there is to be a crunch leadership moment, most MPs seem to think it would come after the local elections, the BBC's chief political correspondent says.

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President Joe Biden delivered a fiery State of the Union address on Thursday, taking repeated swipes at Donald Trump and covering the broad themes of his re-election campaign.

Mr Biden used the term "my predecessor" to refer to Mr Trump 13 times in a speech that lasted more than an hour.

He accused his likely election opponent of "bowing down" to Russia and criticised him over the Capitol riot.

Mr Biden also covered immigration, abortion, the economy and Gaza.

The atmosphere in the House chamber was raucous at times, with loud cheering from Democrats and heckling from some Republicans.

It was a spectacle more typical of a political convention than a State of Union address - a constitutionally mandated report that is usually heavy on pageantry and policy.

But this is an election year and the stakes for Mr Biden were high. He was feisty and confrontational as he sought to draw the battle lines for his nascent campaign.

Taking aim at Trump

Unsurprisingly, many of his barbs were aimed at Mr Trump given he is almost certain to be his opponent in November's general election.

"My predecessor failed the most basic duty any president owes the American people - the duty to care,"he said in reference to Mr Trump's handling of the Covid pandemic. "That is unforgivable."

He criticised Mr Trump for his recent comments about Russia and Nato, and said that he sought to "bury the truth" about the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

He blamed him for the Supreme Court decision to overturn the Roe v Wade ruling which guaranteed abortion rights and for blocking bipartisan immigration reforms.

Mr Trump, meanwhile, had promised to react in real time to the speech on his Truth Social platform. "Biden is on the run from his record and lying like crazy to try to escape accountability for the horrific devastation he and his party have created," he wrote.

"They continue the very policies that are causing this horror show to go," he said.

Mr Biden aggressive approach on Thursday may have been born, at least in part, out of necessity. At 81, he is the oldest president in US history and has been beset by questions about his age and mental acuity.

His approval ratings are the lowest of any modern president seeking re-election. He is in a statistical dead heat with Mr Trump, however, who also is viewed negatively by voters.

Even when Mr Biden addressed his age, he did so with a jab at Mr Trump, who at 77 is only a few years younger than him.

"I know it may not look like it, but I've been around for a while," he said. After rattling off a list of positive attributes he said defined America, he added a kicker.

"Some other people my age see a different story: an American story of resentment, revenge and retribution."

A stumble on immigration

Mr Biden regularly ad-libbed responses to what was at times a hostile audience on the Republican side of the chamber. He quipped, parried and expressed mock surprise at their outbursts.

When the topic turned to immigration, a subject of political vulnerability for the president, he was once again ready to engage. But here, he stumbled.

After Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene accused him of ignoring the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley by an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant, Mr Biden held up a button with her name on it - one Ms Greene had given him as he walked in.

After seemingly mispronouncing her name as "Lincoln" Riley, he said she was murdered by an "illegal" - a term criticised by immigrant-rights groups.

Mr Biden went on to call for Republicans to support the bipartisan immigration legislation passed by the Senate and accused Mr Trump of "playing politics" by opposing the bill for electoral gain. The damage, however, may have been done.

A sales pitch for November

When Mr Biden wasn't throwing haymakers at his opponent, he sought to highlight what he characterised as a record of accomplishment during his first term and outline a sales pitch for his re-election.

"I inherited an economy that was on the brink," he said, "and now our economy is the envy of the world."

Figures on the American economy have been trending up for months now. The public perception of the economy, however, has been much darker.

Mr Biden nodded at this split, calling the US economic revival "the greatest story never told".

More on the US election

Whether the president's words will be enough to change minds, however, remains to be seen.

It was a speech geared toward the American middle class - the voters of moderate means who make up the bulk of the electorate.

It included a variety of new proposals, most of which would require congressional legislation to enact - an unlikely scenario unless Democrats retake the House of Representatives in November.

He pitched a tax credit for new home buyers, who have seen their purchasing power eroded by higher mortgage rates. He also called for expanding a cap on prescription drug spending to every American who has health insurance and raising taxes on corporations.

Walking the line on Gaza

Mr Biden opened his speech with a call for military aid to Ukraine, but the bulk of his discussion of foreign policy came towards the end when he turned his attention to the Middle East.

The Gaza war has divided Democrats, with a vocal portion of the president's liberal flank calling for the US to use every means at its disposal to push for a ceasefire. Some took to the Washington streets on Thursday evening in an unsuccessful attempt to block the president's motorcade from reaching the Capitol.

Mr Biden said his administration was working towards a ceasefire that would last "at least 6 weeks," and he detailed a new plan - announced earlier in the day - for t he US to construct a temporary seaport in Gaza to allow humanitarian aid to enter by ship.

He had some harsh words for Israel, calling the civilian casualties in Gaza "heartbreaking" and saying it had a "fundamental responsibility" to protect innocent lives.

Mr Biden's speech, because it was delivered without few significant stumbles or gaffes, is a hurdle cleared for the president - and its content could serve as a guide to how his campaign plans to sell the American public on another four years of Democratic governance.

At the very least, it will probably convince nervous Democrats that their presumptive nominee is ready to go toe-to-toe with his Republican opponent in November.

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State of the Union: Biden draws election battle lines in fiery speech

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The president took repeated swipes at Donald Trump in his last State of the Union before November.

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Political editor, BBC News

We have had a glimpse into the most important tussle of the general election campaign.

The battle for economic credibility.

This was a Budget where the Chancellor attempted to portray himself as a careful, cautious custodian of the economy.

The National Insurance fall, alongside the same cut a few months back, amounts to a big tax cut.

But there was nothing wildly surprising in what Jeremy Hunt had to say, no fireworks that are likely to instantly transform the Conservatives' prospects.

Mr Hunt is instead attempting to make an argument that slowly but surely the economy is recovering.

In my interview with him, for instance, he pointed out that average earners will be better off when you compare the National Insurance cuts with those frozen tax thresholds that have amounted to huge tax rises for many people.

But the big economic argument to come is wider than that. It takes in inflation, mortgage costs, rent and income per head.

As the statistics are traded in the coming days, there is something beneath them that matters more: sentiment. Do people feel better off, do they feel they have more disposable income and do they feel economically confident about the future?

It is those three questions that frame the political argument between the Conservatives, Labour and others over the economy.

Labour feel they have scraped their way back to being taken seriously by many on the economy again, and there is opinion poll evidence to support this.

What is often an Achilles' heel for Labour they now hope is a strength, not least because they think many, many people feel worse off under the Conservatives.

Conversely for the Tories, what is so often a strength for them is now a vulnerability, the economy, given they have presided over the turbulence of recent years.

Most of that turbulence, many would accept, was entirely beyond their control: the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, both of which prompted vast public spending to support families and businesses that many were very grateful for.

The consequences of that spending can be seen now in tax rates and the national debt, among other things.

But Labour are keen, too, to pin some of the blame squarely on the Tories. "Where's Liz? Where's Kwasi?" shouted Labour MPs during the Budget address.

Pantomime-esque questions with political bite: Labour want to remind people the previous prime minister and the previous chancellor caused an economic calamity with real consequences.

Jeremy Hunt, beyond what he has announced, is trying to set a direction of travel: he told me he would like to scrap National Insurance altogether.

Now that might be like you or me saying we'd like to win the lottery: what we'd like to do and what is likely to happen are not the same thing. Scrapping it would cost a fortune.

But it is an indicator of aspiration, and an attempt to frame points of difference between the Conservatives and Labour.

Can he do enough to start tempting people to think again about switching to Labour?

The opinion polls suggest he has one heck of a job on his hands.

Labour, meanwhile, conscious they lose far more elections than they win, are attempting to appear reassuring to floating voters.

And so a lot of what this government announces, whether in the Budget or over the last six months, they have gone along with, including much of what was in the Budget.

Which now leaves them with a headache - how they pay for some of their promises, having accepted the Chancellor's tax cuts.

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Tax cuts allow a cautious chancellor to create some headaches for Labour

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The Budget gives a glimpse of what will be the big tussles come the election, says our political editor.

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Super Tuesday is over and so is the primary season. Although some states have not voted yet and a few others have not finished counting, the parties' nominees are now locked in. They were really locked in several weeks ago. Biden had no serious competition and Trump vanquished his two main rivals in the early voting.

Trump's chief competitors were Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and Trump's UN ambassador. The former president effectively clinched the nomination when he beat both decisively on their most favourable terrain: DeSantis in Iowa and Haley in New Hampshire and her home state. Haley stayed in the race but, despite winning DC and Vermont, had no path to victory.

Biden's challenges are hard to solve: the economy, immigration and his own physical frailty

Why did Trump win the nomination? Because he transformed his party's base during his first run for president and then reassured that base he was able to run aggressively one more time. DeSantis found there was no room to Trump's right on social issues, or at least not enough to persuade primary voters. Haley found the centrist, internationalist wing was too small. She still presents a challenge to Trump, even if, as she says, she won't run as an independent in the November election. The challenge is that her voters form a significant portion of the Republican electorate, roughly a third, and many of them are hesitant to vote for Trump in the general election. He needs to bring most of them back into the fold to win the White House. One open question is whether Haley herself will help him.

President Biden had a much easier time in the primaries, winning without serious competition. He even won New Hampshire as a write-in - no easy feat. His name wasn't on the state's ballot to avoid offending South Carolina, which Democrats had made their first primary.

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The race for the White House is about to get much dirtier

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In the primaries, Joe Biden had no serious competition and Donald Trump vanquished his two main rivals in the early voting.

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It may be called Super Tuesday, but the results have not exactly been laden with excitement.

After US voters headed to the polls in 15 states and American Samoa, Donald Trump and Joe Biden remain on course to be the Republican and Democratic candidates for the general election in November.

Just because the results were predictable, however, doesn't mean there aren't things to learn as the dust settles on the largest single-day of voting in the primary calendar.

Here are some of the key takeaways so far:

Mr Trump is well on his way to what is expected to be a dominating performance on Super Tuesday, with wins in North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Tennessee, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Oklahoma and Maine.

When all is said and done, the former president is expected to build a near-insurmountable lead in convention delegates, even if he will have to wait to mathematically guarantee that he is the Republican Party nominee until next week.

Exit polls give some indication of why the former president has been so dominant.

In North Carolina, 43% of Republican primary voters said immigration was the most important issue for them - a topic that has been at the top of Mr Trump's political agenda since he launched his first presidential bid in 2015. In Virginia, 64% said that they trusted Mr Trump over Nikki Haley on border security.

Those Virginia primary voters also said they wanted a candidate who shares their values and fights for people like them- qualities that tilt toward Trump - over temperament and electability.

Electability was one of Ms Haley's central pitches to voters. It apparently fell flat. Exit polls once again made clear that a majority of Republicans don't believe Mr Trump lost in 2020, with only 34% of Republican voters in North Carolina saying Mr Biden won that election "legitimately".

Mr Trump may be denied a clean sweep, however, as the count in Vermont currently remains neck and neck.

Some warning signs for Trump

Even with his Super Tuesday dominance, there were some signs of continued disaffection with the former president among Republican primary voters.

In Virginia and North Carolina, Ms Haley continued to do well in counties with large numbers of young, suburban and college-educated voters - and some of their concerns registered in exit polls..

Forty percent of Republican primary voters in Virginia and 32% in North Carolina said that Mr Trump would not be fit to be president if convicted of a crime.

Among North Carolina Haley voters, only 21% said they would vote for the Republican nominee "no matter who it is".

Of course, opinions could change in the heat of the autumn general election campaign. Back in 2016, exit polls found that 75% of non-Trump voters said they would be dissatisfied with Mr Trump as the Republican nominee.

In the end, 90% of Republicans backed him against Hillary Clinton.

The former South Carolina Governor opted not to hold a public event on the evening of Super Tuesday, perhaps reflecting the campaign's belief that there would be little to celebrate from the day's results.

While Mr Trump's sole remaining Republican opponent has benefitted from the support of anti-Trump voters, there simply aren't enough of them - even in states like Virginia that allow non-Republicans to vote in the party primary - to translate into wins or even narrow defeats.

Weeks ago she pledged to stick in the race through Super Tuesday, hoping to add to her delegate totals. Tuesday's results will do that, but not in any substantial amount.

Now the waiting game commences for when - and how - she will throw in the towel.

Earlier this week, she said she did not feel committed, despite an earlier pledge, to support Mr Trump if he is the nominee.

Will she ultimately back the former president, despite her recent sharp criticisms? Is she angling for an independent presidential bid? With all the drama now stripped out of the nominating contests, the South Carolinian's future is one of the few immediate sources of mystery.

This story will be updated

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Key takeaways from Super Tuesday's results so far

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Donald Trump is dominating again, but could be denied a clean sweep as Vermont remains neck and neck.

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Political editor, BBC News

For Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with an election imminent, there is a rapidly shrivelling number of big set moments where the levers and stage of government can be commanded to attempt change, economic and political.

Today is one of them. The backdrop? A stagnant economy and dire opinion poll ratings.

And both those things coupled with the fear among many Conservative MPs that swathes of the electorate have stopped listening - whatever they now say.

Whatever is announced later isn't going to shift the big picture.

The pandemic and the energy price shock caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine prompted state interventions, such as furlough, that were so big you could see them from space.

And, to pay for them, there have been tax rises that, you guessed it, you can also see from space.

They are tax rises that have been delivered, in the main, by stealth.

Not by the chancellor standing up and doing something, announcing something. But by the opposite, doing nothing.

By freezing the thresholds at which various tax rates are paid, he has hauled millions of folk into paying higher rates of tax.

Economists call it "fiscal drag". It doesn't really matter what you call it. Millions of people can feel it.

Alongside the vast amount of money the government is paying in interest on the national debt, it gets us to an explanation as to why it feels like lots of tax is being paid but public services often don't feel like they are getting better.

Enter next, the Budget statement at lunchtime, and the politics of it.

The 2p National Insurance cut in the Autumn Statement didn't appear to shove the political dial. Will having a bash at the same idea work for the Conservatives second time round?

Some Tories would like to see an income tax cut. A better headline, they think. More understandable to more people.

But there's a catch: it's more expensive.

Labour reckon the government might have more room for manoeuvre for tax cuts than they are currently letting on, and may cut income tax too.

And Sir Keir Starmer will choose to agree with the tax cuts for workers. But, in so doing, create a spending headache for Labour if they win the general election.

Whatever the chancellor announces, expect the opposition to say the tax cuts don't make up for the tax rises that have contributed to people feeling squeezed.

It is back to that big picture, and how it will frame the day ahead, whatever emerges from the chancellor's red box.

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The Budget is one of the government's last chances to move the political dial

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The statement comes amid Tory fears that many voters have stopped listening, says our political editor.

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Donald Trump vowed to cheering supporters that he would "take back our country" after dominating the Super Tuesday primary contests.

Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Mr Trump declared that "this has been a day we've been waiting for" to a somewhat muted crowd.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden largely sailed through the Democratic nominating contests.

The results all but guarantees a repeat of the 2020 election.

Both men appear poised to frame the election as an existential test for the future of the country, as they head toward a rematch that will likely be just as heated as their last contest four years ago.

Polling indicates that many Americans do not want a choice between Mr Biden and Mr Trump again, yet that seems a forgone conclusion when Americans vote in November.

Despite the lack of enthusiasm, both men swept nearly all of the contests they were involved in on Super Tuesday - a key US election day when voters in 15 states and one territory cast their ballots.

Mr Trump is projected to win contests in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, according to the BBC's US partner CBS.

Mr Biden was projected to win the same states plus Utah and Vermont. He also won the Iowa caucus, which announced its results on Tuesday.

As the two candidates racked up their wins on Super Tuesday, they characterised each other as threats to the US.

Mr Trump warned his supporters at Mar-a-Lago that if "we lose the election, we're not going to have a country left".

Just before Mr Trump spoke, Mr Biden released a statement that alleged his opponent was "driven by grievance and grift," rather than by his concerns for the country.

"Tonight's results leave the American people with a clear choice," he said. "Are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?" he said.

Throughout his speech, however, Mr Trump sought to recast his tumultuous presidency through a nostalgic lens and invoked several tropes from his past campaign.

More on the US election

He continued to lean on the issue of immigration, which has been a driving issue for Republican voters in the early primaries. The former president referred to a wave of recent migrant crossings at the US southern border as an "invasion", echoing the hardline rhetoric that buoyed his first campaign.

Mr Trump also continued to share his view that the world would see fewer wars if he were president, and he pledged Americans would see economic improvements if he returned to office.

Analysts are viewing the Super Tuesday primaries as a test of Mr Biden and Mr Trump's support in different states and among different groups. It is also a test for the parties and their voters' enthusiasm.

There were several other important takeaways on Tuesday night:

The only remaining Republican challenger to Mr Trump, Nikki Haley, is projected to win the primary in the small northeast state of Vermont

Mr Biden faced his only defeat in the US territory of American Samoa, where he was bested in the caucuses by a long-shot - and largely unknown - challenger named Jason Palmer

In Minnesota, Mr Biden has encountered another rebuke from voters over his handling of Israel and Gaza after 20% of Democratic voters cast their ballots for "uncommitted"

North Carolina now has its top two candidates for a closely-watched gubernatorial race between Republican lieutenant governor Mark Robinson and Josh Stein, the attorney general and a Democrat

In California's US Senate race, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey, a former baseball player, will advance to the general election

Meanwhile, in Texas's US Senate race, Rep. Collin Allred - a former NFL football player - is projected to be the Democratic nominee to take on Republican Ted Cruz

While the presidential race may seem like a forgone conclusion, the primary contests are key in securing a party's nomination and makes Super Tuesday particularly important for the presidential election.

By the end of Super Tuesday, Democrats and Republicans will have awarded about a third of the total delegate count that is available to presidential candidates through the entire nominating contest.

The Trump campaign is well on its way now after Tuesday's wins, and it is confident the former president will hit the delegate threshold later this month.

Though Mr Biden and Mr Trump have all but locked up their parties' nominations, political observers are watching whether either man faces significant defections from supporters on Super Tuesday. Thus far, Mr Biden has seen some Democratic voters back "uncommitted" on ballots, and it is conceivable that losing their support could threaten his re-election effort.

On the Republican side, many anti-Trump voters have coalesced behind Ms Haley, who served as the former president's UN ambassador when he was in the White House.

She did not hold a campaign event after failing to gain huge traction on Tuesday night, but her campaign emphasised that her Republican supporters - who could prove key in a general election - continue to seek an alternative to Mr Trump.

"In state after state, there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump," her campaign said in a statement Tuesday night. "That is not the unity our party needs for success. Addressing those voters' concerns will make the Republican Party and America better."

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Super Tuesday: Trump and Biden near rematch after dominating state primaries

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Joe Biden and Donald Trump are on track for a rematch after winning a slew of state primaries on Super Tuesday.

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Newscast - How Donald Trumped The Supreme Court - BBC Sounds

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Catch up on your favourite BBC radio show from your favourite DJ right here, whenever you like. Listen without limits with BBC Sounds.

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The government has suffered five defeats in the House of Lords over its bill to revive its proposed Rwanda deportation scheme.

The legislation would deem Rwanda a safe country to send asylum seekers to, in a bid to stop removals being derailed by appeals.

But peers backed changes to make it easier for judges to challenge this.

They also said the treaty underpinning deportations must be "fully implemented" before flights take off.

The bill will continue its passage through the Lords on Wednesday, when opposition peers could inflict further defeats.

However, the government is likely to overturn these when it returns to the Commons - likely later this month.

The bill is a key part of the government's plan to "stop" small boats crossing the English Channel, which Rishi Sunak has made a priority for his premiership. Ministers want flights to Rwanda to begin this spring.

Ministers unveiled the draft law late last year, after its scheme to send an unspecified number of asylum seekers to the east African country was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court.

In a attempt to resurrect the scheme and prevent legal challenges blocking future deportations, it would say Rwanda is a safe country in UK law and restrict the ability of the courts to block them on human rights grounds.

The government argues this is a necessary step to ensure deportations are not derailed by legal challenges.

But critics, including some Conservatives, say it will put people at risk and also undermine the independence of the courts.

In a series of votes earlier, opposition peers backed an amendment that would enable courts to overrule the presumption Rwanda is safe, if they see "credible evidence to the contrary".

The amendment, proposed by crossbench peer Lord Anderson of Ipswich, was also supported by a handful of Conservatives, including former home secretary Lord Clarke of Nottingham.

Lord Anderson added: "If Rwanda is safe as the government would have us declare, it has nothing to fear from such scrutiny".

Peers also approved changes that would mean Rwanda could only be deemed safe when independent officials overseeing the UK's deportation treaty with the country say it has been "fully implemented".

They also backed a Labour amendment that specifies the bill must maintain "full compliance with domestic and international law".

'Merry-go-round' of challenges

The government says its new treaty with Rwanda, signed in December, addresses the Supreme Court's objections.

Home Office Minister Lord Sharpe of Epsom said the treaty, which replaced an earlier deal, would mean there was no risk of people sent to Rwanda being sent on to their home countries, where they could face persecution.

Outlining why he rejected the amendments, he said the legal grounds for challenging deportations should remain "limited," in order to "prevent the merry-go-round of legal challenges".

"We cannot allow systematic legal challenges to continue to frustrate and delay removals," he added.

The changes made to the bill will now go back to the Commons, where the government has a majority and is likely to overturn them.

If the changes are rejected the bill will then undergo a process known as "ping pong", expected later this month, where it would go between MPs and peers until they can agree on the final wording.

Labour has suggested its peers will not seek to block the bill's passage into law completely, although Lord Coaker, one of the party's whips, said ministers should "listen" to objections raised in the Lords.

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Rwanda bill: Government suffers five defeats in House of Lords

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Peers back five changes to the draft law aiming to revive the UK's Rwanda deportation scheme.

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Super Tuesday: What is it and why is it important?

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The biggest day so far in the 2024 US election calendar will be a key test of the front-runners’ strength.

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Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government

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Tale of two cities: Biden’s and Trump’s border visits tell very different stories - Washington Examiner

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President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are both visiting the southern border, but the two places the men are visiting have differing accounts of the ongoing border crisis.

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Rochdale by-election: Landslide win for George Galloway

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George Galloway in back in Parliament after a resounding victory in the Rochdale by-election.

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Mitch McConnell announced on Wednesday that he intends to step down as the longest-serving Senate Republican leader following November's general election.

For nearly 20 years, Republicans have relied on the effective Kentucky legislator to navigate the passage of conservative priorities.

Since he announced the news, Washington has moved quickly to speculate who could replace Mr McConnell, who has skilfully held his fracturing party together in recent times.

Those vying to succeed Mr McConnell face the daunting prospect of appealing to competing wings of the party.

Here are some of the Senate Republicans who are potential successors.

Senator John Thune of South Dakota

Mr Thune is typically the first mentioned of the "three Johns" who are considered the top candidates to take on Mr McConnell's leadership position.

The South Dakota senator is currently the Republican whip, second-in-command to Mr McConnell, and he is known as an effective fundraiser within his party. He also is seen as a moderating force among Republicans, who have taken a hard turn to the right under the leadership of former President Donald Trump.

But Mr Thune's position in leadership could also undermine his ambition to take on Mr McConnell's post. Some Senate Republicans, particularly those allied with Mr Trump, have made clear they would like a fresh leader.

It is worth noting that Mr Thune only endorsed the former president's candidacy a few days before Mr McConnell's announcement. Mr Trump also endorsed the South Dakota senator's Republican primary challenger in 2022.

Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming

As the Republican Conference Chair, Mr Barrasso has an influential position within Senate party leadership - and he also has never crossed Mr Trump.

That could prove to be the necessary recipe to earn the support of many of his fellow Republicans if he were to pursue Mr McConnell's leadership post.

Mr Barrasso was the second senator to support Mr Trump's candidacy ahead of the 2024 primary campaign, and he has backed a slate of candidates who are in lockstep with the former president.

He immediately dismissed reporters questions when asked whether he intends to battle for Mr McConnell's position, saying that he remains focused on the election results in November.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas

The Texas senator once served in Mr McConnell's leadership team, and he remains a close confidant of the Kentucky politician. He is widely considered a strong Senate operator thanks to his 22 years of legislative experience.

Being outside of leadership could also prove to be a benefit, as he did not participate in the recent deal to pass foreign aid in the Senate. He also was not part of the failed border security negotiations, which proved unpopular with the Republican Conference.

And, while Mr Cornyn has taken Mr Trump to task in the past, he endorsed the former president last month. He also never supported any of Mr Trump's challengers, which saved him from earning the Maga movement's ire.

Senator Rick Scott of Florida

Mr Scott angered a number of his Republican colleagues when he mounted a challenge against Mr McConnell 15 months ago.

He burned further bridges with them by proposing that several popular federal programs - such as Medicare and Social Security - be renegotiated every five years.

Even Mr Trump, who has been supportive of the Florida politician, has warned Mr Scott to "be careful" about his policy suggestions.

While odds are low that Mr Scott would run again or win the leadership position, he has maintained that the Senate needs new leadership. That comment was reflected in the statement he shared after Mr McConnell's announcement.

"I have been very clear and have long believed that we need new leadership in the Senate that represents our voters and the issues we were sent here to fight for," Mr Scott said.

The dark horses

While the four men are the most likely candidates, Capitol Hill can always surprise political observers. After all, few would have considered Mike Johnson, a little-known Louisiana congressman, as a viable candidate for Speaker of the House.

Sen Joni Ernst of Iowa, who served as the vice-chair of the Republican conference until January, is considered another potential candidate and a reliable backer of Mr Trump.

Another possibility is Sen Steve Daines of Montana. He currently leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and is leading the party's efforts to retake the Senate majority.

Many Republicans feel bullish about their chances, and their electoral success in November could lift Mr Daines' profile further.

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Who will replace Mitch McConnell as the Senate's top Republican?

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The three "Johns" and a senator who challenged McConnell for his post are considered likely successors.

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Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government

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LANSING, Michigan - Former President Donald Trump won the Michigan Republican Party's presidential primary Tuesday night, defeating former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley for the second time in less than one week.

The Associated Press called the race shortly after all the polls closed at 9 p.m. ET. Trump had 68% of the vote to Haley's 26.5%. On the Democratic Party side, President Joe Biden fended off a protest vote campaign over the Israel-Hamas war, earning 81% of the vote, to 13% for "uncommitted."
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In his victory address to the Michigan GOP, Trump thanked voters and congratulated former Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra as the new chairman of the state GOP after he replaced the controversial former chairwoman Kristina Karamo. He did not mention Haley at all in his remarks.

"This was a great day, and Pete, congratulations. You'll be a fantastic chairman, one of the best ever," Trump said before referencing the November elections.

"We have a very simple task: We have to win on Nov. 5, and we're going to win big, and it's going to be like nothing that anybody has ever seen," Trump continued. "It's going to be fantastic. We win Michigan, we win the whole thing. The auto workers are with us. We have so many people with us."

The Michigan victory is another notch in cementing the Republican presidential nomination for Trump, and it comes just three days after he defeated Haley by 20 percentage points in South Carolina, her home state. The loss in the Palmetto State further diminished the odds of Haley winning the GOP nomination.

The former president has won all the early nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina, along with the U.S. Virgin Islands caucuses and the Michigan primary.

Haley refused to heed calls from Trump allies to drop out and instead rallied in Michigan on Sunday and Monday. The former ambassador vowed to continue her campaign through Super Tuesday on March 5. She remains the final candidate contesting Trump for the GOP nomination.

Haley repeatedly has emphasized that 40% of GOP voters want an alternative to Trump after she lost the South Carolina primary as a sign of the former president's weaknesses. However, as her share of the vote in Michigan was on track to drop below her previous benchmark, her campaign lowered the math to better reflect the margin of defeat.

"Donald Trump is losing about 35 percent of the vote," Haley spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement after Trump's victory. "That's a flashing warning sign for Trump in November. Since Trump became president in 2016, he lost Michigan Republicans the state House, state Senate, and Governor's mansion. What was once a beacon for the conservative cause, the Michigan Republican Party is now fractured and divided."

But Trump's allies claim voters will come around to supporting him.

"Donald Trump is Donald Trump," Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) said. "I think a lot of people in Michigan and other places understand that he will never be constrained by anyone, tweeting and all of the messages that he puts out, the names that he gives people. I think a lot of people have come to accept that as him.

"There certainly are independents, and there's certainly Never Trumper Republicans who say, because of that, they can't support him," Walberg continued. "But in the end, when it comes actually down to a general election, vote."

Tom Barrett, the likely GOP nominee for Michigan's 7th Congressional District, claimed that if Trump contrasts his record with President Joe Biden, voters likely will support him in the general election.

"I think President Trump has a real opportunity to draw that distinction for people," Barrett said. "The failures of the Biden administration are miles deep. You've got cost-living challenges that families are still facing. You've got a border that is completely and totally unsecured, seemingly on purpose, through dereliction of duty and purposeful violation by the Biden administration. You have national security crises, you have war, you know, seemingly festering in every corner of the world right now and growing worse and worse as time goes on."

Michigan's primary is the last major nominating contest before Super Tuesday, when 15 states and one territory will hold Republican primary contests. Trump is expected to dominate Haley among the states that are voting and once again inch closer to becoming the GOP presidential nominee.

Trump leads Haley by 62.2%, according to an average of national polls from RealClearPolitics.

Michigan is also the first battleground state to hold a primary this election cycle. Both Biden and Trump, should he become the GOP standard-bearer, are looking to shore up support in the crucial Wolverine State.

In the past four election cycles, the winner of the state has gone on to win the presidency. In the 2020 election, Biden won Michigan over Trump, 50.6% to 47.8%, flipping the state blue. Four years before that, Trump narrowly won Michigan over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 47.6% to 47.3%.

In 2012 and 2008, former President Barack Obama won the state over Republican nominees Mitt Romney and John McCain, respectively.

Biden faced no major Democratic challenger in Michigan's primary contest, but Arab American and Muslim voters infuriated with his handling of the Israel-Hamas war have vowed to "Abandon Biden" and cast "uncommitted" votes.
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The disgruntled anti-Biden voters are pushing the president to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the sole Palestinian-American in Congress, voted "uncommitted" in the Michigan Democratic primary in a sign of the tensions Biden faces within his party.

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Donald Trump wins Michigan GOP primary, defeating Nikki Haley - Washington Examiner

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Donald Trump soundly defeated Nikki Haley in Michigan's GOP primary Tuesday night as he marches one step closer to winning the GOP presidential nomination.

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When the Emirati government moved to bid for the Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, via an investment vehicle called Redbird IMI, ministers were blindsided. Since the 2008 crash, autocracies have been testing how much infrastructure they are allowed to buy in newly debt-addled democracies (as this OECD report details) but Britain had not really joined other countries in setting limits. The idea of a national newspaper (and magazine) being controlled by any government, let alone an autocratic foreign government allied to Putin, is plainly absurd. But no laws exist to prevent it happening, because no one thought a foreign government would ever attempt it.

The House of Lords could be about to change that. An amendment has been tabled to the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill stating that 'A foreign power (as defined in Section 32 of the National Security Act 2023) may not acquire a news media organisation or publisher of news in any form ("a publisher") where the publisher's primary place of business is in the United Kingdom' without parliamentary approval. It is moved by Tina Stowell, a former cabinet member and backed by George Robertson, a former Labour cabinet member and Nato chief (underlining that this is about national security).

.@Telegraph report on the amendment I've tabled to the Digital Markets & Competition Bill, which would prevent foreign govts buying UK news organisations without explicit approval of Parliament. https://t.co/YEWkVXkmqU

Here is text of amendment pic.twitter.com/BXMYXL7K25
- Tina Stowell (@tinastowell) February 27, 2024

The phrase 'foreign power' is defined by the National Security Act to include the proxies and investment vehicles deployed by autocratic governments. George Osborne, who is currently acting for the Emiratis with this proposed deal, argues that Redbird IMI can be made independent of the Emirati government by the creation of a supervisory board guaranteeing editorial independence. The notion is not taken seriously within publishing, where such boards have always been proven to be a joke.

So what will happen now? This is a big test. A great many politicians in both Houses have expressed not only their anger at the proposed takeover (opposing it is a 'no-brainer' as Michael Forsyth put it) but we will now see how many of their lordships will vote for this amendment. It would, needless to say, have to be approved by the Commons. But this should be doable, given the cross-party objection to the Emirati power grab. The Tories have a majority in the Commons: if Sunak wants this to happen, then it will happen.

Why is it needed? Is this just theatre? I'd like to end by putting my case for consideration for any member of the Lords or Commons considering voting for this amendment.

We're living in an age, now, where the Arab states are powerful, rich and no longer neutral. They are actively allying with Russia and China, playing all sides to make the most money. In December, the Emiratis gave Putin a hero's welcome when he visited and called him their 'dear friend', underlining how good they have been about buying his oil and funding his war machine. They want to find out: if they're buying Putin's oil and berthing Xi's ships, will this impair their relations with the UK?

So far: not in the slightest. George Osborne didn't hesitate to offer his services to Putin's 'dear friends'. David Cameron actually lived in Abu Dhabi last year as a well-paid lecturer (in the UAE-funded NYU campus) for a university term. The Emiratis have found they can do what they want while cash-strapped Britain looks the other way and begs for investment. The Emiratis may succeed where Huawei failed.

Buying wind farms is one thing, 15 per cent of Vodafone is another - but to buy a democracy's number one quality newspaper and its most influential magazine would set a new bar in the shopping spree strategy. The Emiratis bid for both the Telegraph and Spectator in the same month as they laid on a 21-gun salute for Putin. Their boldness is extraordinary. But so far, it has been vindicated. Putin's 'dear friends' have found no trouble at all in enlisting the services of George Osborne and Nadhim Zahawi, both former Tory chancellors. This sends a big message: when MPs leave office (as most Tories will soon do), lucrative work with the Emiratis awaits. Advising, lecturing: whatever! It's an incredibly effective strategy.

The Ofcom investigation into the sale, currently underway, is a joke: there are no competition concerns in the Redbird deal. That's the whole point: the Emiratis nor any other autocracy has been allowed to own any other title in any other democracy. The deal could be blocked on national security grounds (pace Vodafone) but you can dodge that too, by watering down the Emirati stake to, say, 49 per cent. So I am not at all confident that this Tory government will block the deal.

Alarmingly, objections to The Spectator's sale have already been dropped. We are not mentioned in the new PIIN putting the deal on hold and we have also been dropped from the 'hold separate' order. It seems dangerously like a legislative green light from the government. The Spectator is not defined as a newspaper under the Enterprise Act so the government has no powers to stop us being sold to the Emiratis - or, for that matter, to the Kremlin, to Xi or any of their proxies.

Parliament can now step in. In an era of information wars, having the power to prevent foreign states owning news providers is an act of common sense. If there is a consensus behind it, the Lords can act now to put that consensus into law.

This is not about two right-leaning titles, but about whether parliament can block acquisitions on national security grounds. If the Emiratis are allowed to buy these two titles, they'll be back for more: television or radio stations, perhaps. We can see an expanded role for Mr Osborne (word is that he is keen to act as auctioneer for The Spectator should the Emiratis wish to sell).

Just a few months ago, there were 22 companies down as prospective bidders for The Spectator and Daily Telegraph. They included some of the most respected names in British and European publishing, all keen to invest. There is a way to keep the free press inside the ownership of the free world, and it seems it falls to the House of Lords

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Lords amendment could thwart Emirati bid for Telegraph and Spectator

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When the Emirati government moved to bid for the Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, via an investment vehicle called Redbird IMI, ministers were blindsided.

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President Joe Biden has won Michigan's Democratic presidential primary comfortably, despite a significant protest vote over strong US support for Israel in the war in Gaza.

Mr Biden won 81% of the vote, according to projections, but the "uncommitted" exceeded expectations with 13%.

His campaign will pay close attention to see if that result in the key swing state will spread nationwide.

Many voters have been angered by the US stance in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On Wednesday, activists from the group Listen to Michigan and its supporters hailed the size of the protest vote - more than 100,000 - as a victory.

They pledged to continue to pressure the Biden administration to back a ceasefire in Gaza and limit foreign aid to Israel.

"What is clear is that our president has a choice before him," said Abdullah Hammoud, mayor of Dearborn, a Detroit suburb with a large Arab-American population.

"It is my hope, Mr President, that you listen to us, that you choose the people of America over Benjamin Netanyahu."

People were in tears at the organisation's watch party on Tuesday night as tallies were updated.

The US is a close ally of Israel, providing it with billions of dollars in military aid.

Earlier this month the US vetoed a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, while proposing a draft of its own urging a temporary ceasefire.

Many people, including in Mr Biden's own party, want the president to take a much stronger stance against Israel's military campaign.

"I think he should be cognisant of it as he moves forward with his Middle East policy," Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia, said of the "uncommitted" vote.

"Because the truth is, he's losing a lot of votes, not just Arab Americans and Muslim Americans, but young people."

The "uncommitted" result could bolster similar protest efforts underway in states like Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.

Mr Trump is also projected to easily win Tuesday's Republican primary in the state, after what he called a "great day".

Results so far from the primary contests - which the US political parties use to select their presidential candidate - indicate that the two men are on course to face off in November's general election in a rematch of 2020.

Michigan is considered a critical swing state, which picked the winning president in the last two contests. It has the largest proportion of Arab-Americans in the country, but Mr Biden's support for Israel appears to have cost him support among that demographic.

The war in Gaza began after Hamas's attack in southern Israel on 7 October, in which about 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage.

Israel has launched a massive military operation in the Palestinian territory since then, with the stated aim of eliminating Hamas.

However, almost 30,000 people have been killed and 70,325 injured in the retaliatory campaign - most of them civilians, the Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip says.

The huge toll has led to international pressure on Israel and calls for a ceasefire.

Tuesday does not mark the first time a significant portion of Michiganders opted to cast votes as "uncommitted".

Around 19,000 residents did so in 2020's primary and more than 21,601 in 2016. In 2008 it was 238,000 - after Barack Obama's campaign encouraged them to do so, because he chose not to be on the ballot due to party squabbles.

But campaigners in Michigan have been organising for months to send Mr Biden a message of "no ceasefire, no vote" over the war in Gaza.

At Salina Intermediate School in Dearborn, the BBC spoke to Hala, 32, who said she voted "uncommitted".

She did not "want to vote for Genocide Joe", she explained - alluding to allegations made against the Israeli military during its campaign in Gaza, which Israel strongly denies.

Hala - who declined to share her last name - said she voted for Mr Biden last time, but was not sure she would do so again when the presidential election comes round. "Maybe, if he calls for an immediate ceasefire, but he's not going to do that," she said.

Some members of the state's Armenian community also pushed for a protest vote over what they see as a failure of the Biden administration to address the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Other Democrats told the BBC on polling day that they remained supportive of Mr Biden, including Kim Murdough, an office manager at a church in the city of Flint.

"I voted Democrat. I personally don't have an issue with anything that the administration has done," she said.

She added that separate concerns about Mr Biden's age - 81 - were not a deal-breaker for her. "I'd rather have someone in office that forgets a few things than a criminal," she said, referencing Mr Trump, who faces federal and state criminal charges.

Margaret Won voted for Mr Biden, too. She is mostly happy with the work the president has done, though said he had been blocked in some of his aims by Republicans in Congress.

She said she wished the frontrunner presidential candidates were younger and said if Nikki Haley beat Mr Trump to the Republican nomination, she might get her vote.

Ms Haley, however, is yet to win any primary contest against Mr Trump - a trend that continued on Tuesday.

Like dozens of other states, Michigan has open primary elections - which means Democrats, Republicans and independents were all able to cast votes, though they had to ask for a specific party's ballot when casting their ballot.

The state's remaining Republican delegates - who must be secured for a candidate to win their party's nomination - will be formally awarded later at a convention this weekend.

During the present conflict between Israel and Hamas, the "uncommitted" movement gained endorsements from at least 39 state and local elected officials in Michigan, including Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib.

Ms Tlaib's sister was the campaign manager for Listen to Michigan campaign.

Samraa Luqman, an activist with the Abandon Biden campaign, said her goal was to "oust somebody from office for having this many lives lost without calling for a ceasefire".

Another woman, who did not want to be named, told the BBC she had even switched to the Republican party over the Middle Eastern conflict.

Most foreign policy analysts agree that Mr Trump, who has boasted of being the most pro-Israel president in US history, would be even less likely to challenge Israel's Gaza policy if he returns to the White House next year.

Senator Gary Peters, from Michigan, told reporters at a meeting arranged by the Biden campaign on Monday that the president understood voters' concerns about Gaza.

However, the White House has been reluctant to row back its support, sending billions of dollars in military aid to Israel and three times blocking a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.

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Joe Biden wins Michigan primary despite sizeable Gaza protest vote

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The US president's campaign will be watching to see if the backlash over support for Israel spreads.

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The math is clear for Nikki Haley. Even though she outperformed polling expectations in her home state of South Carolina, getting 40 per cent of the vote to Trump's 60 per cent, her path to the Republican nomination is only going to get harder now. Thanks to significant Republican rule changes that increased the number of winner-take-all states, Donald Trump should have the nomination officially locked up within a month. And while donor money can keep Haley afloat through that moment and perhaps beyond, she has lost the backing of the Koch machine, which is shifting its resources to lower level contests.

So what lessons, if any, should we take from Haley's performance, and the fact that she ended up as the last woman standing against a Trump nomination that has seemed inevitable for months? The overall takeaway is that Trump has a problem with the same portion of the coalition that proved difficult for Republicans to win in 2020 and 2022: namely, college graduates, non-evangelical women and people who don't think he won the 2020 election.

The real problem for these voters is that they tend to be more positive about the economic situation than others in the coalition. If you're largely insulated from the consequences of Joe Biden's agenda on inflation, and if your retirement account has tracked with Wall Street, things just don't seem as bad as they do for your average middle-class family. The hit you take from grocery and energy prices is felt, but not as severely. And if you happen to also be in the category that put a Ukraine flag sticker on your car, the foreign policy agenda of people around Trump (though oddly, not Trump himself) may give you pause. Issues such as the border and crime in cities are certainly hot points for Democrats, but the Republicans' inability to get their message across on issues like abortion and IVF are going to be exploited by the media to make you hesitate.

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Trump needs to win over some of Nikki Haley's voters

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The math is clear for Nikki Haley. Even though she outperformed polling expectations in her home state of South Carolina, getting 40 per cent of the vote to Trump's 60 per cent, her path to the Republican nomination is only going to get harder now.

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Labour has inflicted two by-election defeats on the Conservatives, overturning big majorities to take Wellingborough and Kingswood.

In Wellingborough the party overcame a majority of more than 18,500 to take the Northamptonshire seat.

The swing of 28.5% was the second biggest from the Tories to Labour in any post-war by-election.

In Kingswood, where the Tories previously had a majority of more than 11,000, there was a swing of 16.4%

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the results showed "people want change and are ready to put their faith in a changed Labour Party to deliver it".

It means the Tories have suffered 10 by-election losses this Parliament - more than any previous government since the 1960s.

With a general election due this year, the latest defeats are a major blow for Mr Sunak, whose party is trailing Labour in national polls.

In Wellingborough, Labour's Gen Kitchen, a former London councillor who works in the charity sector and grew up in Northamptonshire, secured a comfortable majority of 6,436.

Meanwhile, the Tories suffered their biggest drop in vote share in any by-election since at least the Second World War.

Ms Kitchen said: "The people of Wellingborough have spoken for Britain. This is a stunning victory for the Labour Party and must send a message from Northamptonshire to Downing Street."

The by-election was triggered after former Tory MP Peter Bone was ousted by voters in a recall petition, following his suspension from Parliament over bullying and sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied.

Mr Bone had held the constituency since 2005, increasing his majority since then to turn it into a safe Tory seat.

His partner, Northamptonshire councillor Helen Harrison, was selected by local members as the Tory candidate to replace him.

Ms Harrison told the BBC she would be "back and fighting again for the general election".

The Tories also faced a challenge from the right with Reform UK, which achieved its best by-election result since it rebranded from its previous name, the Brexit Party, in 2021.

The party came third in both by-elections, picking up 13% of the vote in Wellingborough and 10.4% in Kingswood.

Labour secured a majority of 2,501 over Tory candidate Sam Bromiley in the South Gloucestershire seat of Kingswood, near Bristol.

In his victory speech Damien Egan, who resigned as mayor of Lewisham in London to fight the seat where he grew up, said 14 years of a Conservative government had "sucked the hope out of our country"

He blamed "Rishi's recession" for leaving people "paying more and getting less".

The constituency had been held by former Tory MP Chris Skidmore since 2010, until he quit over the government's climate policies, triggering a by-election.

Conservative MP and former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, who represents the nearby seat of North East Somerset, said the Kingswood result was "not as bad as I'd expected".

He told the BBC a lot of Tory voters appeared to have stayed at home and suggested more could turn out at a general election, which he said "focuses people's minds in a different way to a by-election".

Mr Rees-Mogg said the Tories needed to focus on appealing to voters who had turned to Reform, adding that there was "a lot of common ground" between the two parties.

He insisted support for Mr Sunak's leadership was "solid" and "by-elections don't change that".

However, the results pile further pressure on the prime minister following the latest official figures on Thursday which showed the UK economy fell into recession at the end of last year.

It also comes at the end of a difficult week for Labour, after the party dropped its flagship pledge to spend £28bn a year on green projects and was forced to withdraw support for its candidate in the upcoming Rochdale by-election over comments he made about Israel and Jewish people.

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Wellingborough and Kingswood by-elections: Labour scores double victory over Tories

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The party overturns big majorities to win former Conservative seats of Wellingborough and Kingswood.

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The US Department of Justice special counsel investigating Joe Biden's handling of classified documents after his vice-presidency released a report on Thursday concluding that he "willfully" kept and shared classified information - but that the now US president will not face criminal charges. Biden was declared "pleased" but his team criticized "inappropriate" comments in the report and "investigative excess".

Here are the key points:

Special counsel Robert Hur's report says: "Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen", including "classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan" and handwritten notes about national security and foreign policy "implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods". FBI agents recovered the material from Biden's Wilmington, Delaware, home. His disclosures included sharing classified national defense information with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer for a memoir about his (pre-presidential) time in office.

No criminal charges warranted, now or later

Justice department policy prohibits bringing charges against a sitting president. But Hur says even if Biden were not president, he would not recommend criminal charges. Hur opines that jurors at any trial would not convict Biden because evidence suggests he simply forgot he had classified material, or that they would believe he wouldn't realize he was breaking the law because he was so used to seeing such documents.

Report damning about Biden's memory

Hur acidly describes Biden, in an interview the president sat for with him, as presenting himself as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" who would probably behave the same with a jury, thereby sowing "reasonable doubt" and a sense that Biden made "an innocent mistake" in keeping the documents. Hur said Biden couldn't remember exactly when he was vice-president and asked Hur, and couldn't recall "even within a few years" when his older son, Beau, died (2015).

A dog bed, a broken lamp ...

Classified documents about the US war in Afghanistan were found "in a badly damaged box in the garage, near a collapsed dog crate, a dog bed, a Zappos [an online retailer] box, an empty bucket, a broken lamp wrapped with duct tape, potting soil, and synthetic firewood".

The special counsel says a juror in any criminal case would conclude that Biden had forgotten about or was unaware of the documents.

'This matter is now closed'

Biden spoke at an event in Virginia on Thursday afternoon and said he was "especially pleased to see the special counsel make clear the stark differences between this case and Trump's". The president contrasted his cooperation, and Hur's conclusions, with the criminal case accusing Donald Trump of hiding classified material, including top secret papers and nuclear weapons information after he left the White House in 2021, refusing to return everything when officially asked and even sharing sensitive military plans. "That's the distinction ... this matter is now closed," Biden said.

Trump attacks US justice system

Trump posted a social media response, slamming a "TWO-TIERED SYSTEM OF JUSTICE AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL SELECTIVE PROSECUTION" and declaring Biden's case to be "100 times different and more severe than mine ", adding: "I did nothing wrong, and I cooperated far more."

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Biden classified documents special counsel report: six key takeaways

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No charges despite 'willfull' retention of material but Robert Hur stresses president's age and allegedly faulty memory

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In removing one of its promises, Labour has removed one of its political opponents’ targets, writes Political Editor Chris Mason.

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Also some really good links to other articles about Haley's reaction!

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US election: Donald Trump wins crushing victory in Nevada caucus

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Initial results showed the former president gaining more than 98% of the vote in the state.

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Biden defends his memory after special counsel criticism

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'My memory is fine' - US President Biden hits back after special counsel questions his ability to recall key dates

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Labour's position on the policy in recent weeks has been increasingly muddled, with some senior figures repeatedly refusing to use the £28bn figure when pressed in interviews, while others, including party leader Sir Keir Starmer, continued to do so.

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Labour ditches £28bn green investment pledge

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A U-turn on the policy is set to be announced on Thursday, following confusion over the party's position.

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Migrant arrivals at the border have risen to record highs during President Joe Biden's administration, a massive political headache for him ahead of the election.

Polls suggest that more than two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Mr Biden's handling of the issue.

His likely opponent in November's presidential election, Donald Trump, has condemned the bill as not tough enough, a sentiment echoed by many conservative lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

But it's not just Republicans who are unhappy about it. Democratic mayors in cities struggling to cope with the influx are also making their feelings known.

More than 6.3 million migrants have been detained crossing into the US illegally under Biden, a higher number than under Trump, Obama or George W Bush.

The reasons for the spike are complex, with some factors pre-dating this government and beyond the control of the US. We asked experts what's going on.

Pent-up demand after lockdown

The number began to rise towards the end of the Trump administration, largely driven by Central Americans fleeing a series of complex crises including gang violence, poverty, political repression and natural disasters.

That uptick came to a sudden halt in early 2020, when pandemic-era restrictions led to a drastic reduction of over 53% between March and April that year.

Since these measures were lifted in early 2021, the numbers have steadily risen, reaching an all-time high of just over 302,000 in December 2023.

"That's when we began to see an increase again, primarily of Central Americans after mobility restrictions [there] and across the region began to ease," said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a policy analyst at the Washington DC-headquartered Migration Policy Institute.

"That's also when the bigger change happened and we began to see much more diversified flows, starting with Venezuela, but also Colombia, Ecuador and places further away."

Migrants now come from as far afield as West Africa, India and the Middle East.

Of migrants from outside the Americas, the greatest increase comes from China. More than 37,000 Chinese nationals were detained at the US-Mexico border last year, about 50 times the figure from two years ago.

Global migration trends

The increases in migrant figures seen at the US-Mexico border seen in the last several years also come at a time when, globally, migration to rich countries is at an all-time high.

Statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released late last year show that 6.1m new permanent migrants moved to its 38 member states in 2022 - a 26% increase over 2021 and 14% higher than in 2019.

The number of people granted asylum in the US doubled in 2022, driven in large part by migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. The US is second only to Germany now in levels of humanitarian migration.

"We are experiencing displacement around the world at a level never seen in recorded history, and people are turning up at our southern border for a variety of different reasons," explained Jorge Loweree, managing director of programmes at the American Immigration Council, a Washington-based non-profit and advocacy group.

"There are four failed states in our hemisphere alone."

From Trump to Biden

The switch in the White House in 2021 also contributed, say some experts.

A key message from President Trump, even if never became a reality, was the building of a border wall and increased deportations. The headlines created by the separation of children from their detained parents, decried by many as cruel, added to that impression.

Under President Biden there was a change of tone and of policy. Deportations fell and "deterrent-focused" policies such as the rapid removal of migrants to Mexico and the building of a border wall ended.

Migrants were paroled into the US to await immigration court dates - a process which can often take years.

People trying to cross the border during this time told the BBC they thought that entering and staying in the US was going to be easier now. And human smugglers took advantage of a change in presidency to create a sense of urgency among migrants that they should hurry to the border.

"Part of it is that they think they can just come. I think that's just what they're being told," said Alex Cuic, an immigration lawyer and professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.

"They feel like there's a pathway to come here," he added. "It's almost like an invite."

Conversely, some immigration activists have criticised the Biden administration and US lawmakers from both parties for failing to pass meaningful immigration reform.

The last major overhaul of the system was more than 30 years ago under Ronald Reagan.

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Why are US-Mexico border crossings at record levels?

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The influx has caused Joe Biden a massive political headache ahead of the presidential election.

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Will voters unhappy with the Conservatives be attracted to Reform?

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The party says it targets Labour supporters, but it is the Tories who are most worried about Reform UK’s polling.

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Politics has been a bit of a rollercoaster over the past decade. Nowhere is that more true than in Scotland.

At the 2019 general election, Labour won just one constituency, finishing fourth behind the SNP, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

This time, senior figures in the party think they could finish first. They've identified 28 Scottish seats as 'in play' - ones they think they could win.

If they succeed, it would be the most remarkable turnaround and could be an important factor in deciding whether Labour wins power at Westminster.

If you don't follow Scottish politics, here's a quick crash course: Labour was nearly wiped out in Scotland at the UK general election in 2015.

The party's vote had been falling, but the Scottish independence referendum made it much worse.

A lot of traditional Labour voters backed independence but the party did not and so some decided to vote SNP.

Labour went from having 41 Scottish seats to just one. The SNP went from having six MPs to 56.

Speaking to me for a new BBC Radio 4 documentary, Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar admits the party became complacent.

He admits there was an air of Labour feeling "untouchable". It wasn't.

She told the programme: "It definitely made it undeniable that something in Scotland had shifted and it had shifted dramatically."

It's hard to exaggerate how bad the situation was for Labour in Scotland. At times, some questioned the party's very existence; squeezed electorally between the pro-independence SNP and the pro-union Conservatives.

So how did they get from that, to now?

The Rutherglen by-election in October 2023 was seen as a big test of whether Labour's hopes of a revival were realistic. Labour won comfortably - and since then, senior figures have become more confident.

Labour thinks 28 of Scotland's 57 seats are in play.

The party plans to dedicate significant funding to seats in Glasgow, chunks of Lanarkshire, several towns in Scotland's central belt, parts of the east coast around Edinburgh, the Western Isles and more.

When I spoke to Mr Sarwar for the programme, he was sitting in front of a map of constituencies in Scotland's central belt. Twenty five of them had been highlighted bright red. They looked suspiciously like target seats.

He said: "If you look at where we are in the polls right now, it would suggest we are competitive in that range of seats."

What's interesting though, is that Labour's strategy on the independence question hasn't really changed. In 2015, it urged voters to focus on other issues. Voters ignored that plea. But this year, Labour believes it could be working.

In fact, it seems fair to suggest the big changes in Labour's fortunes aren't really about Labour. They're more to do with the SNP and the Conservatives.

The last few months have been a nightmare for the SNP. After Nicola Sturgeon resigned, there was a bruising leadership election. Ms Sturgeon was arrested in a probe over funding (then released without charge).

The party's new leader, Humza Yousaf, has proved a lot less popular with the public. The SNP have suffered in the polls - and some of the decisions the party has taken in power at Holyrood have been criticised.

Then there's the picture at Westminster.

Polls suggest a Labour government is a realistic prospect. So, the argument goes, voting Labour becomes a more attractive prospect for Scottish voters who want to see change.

Ruth Davidson used to lead the Conservatives in Scotland. She told the BBC: "In Scotland, as well as in the rest of the United Kingdom, there are continuity elections and there are change elections. And this feels like a change election in both."

Finally, there's independence.

Support for leaving the UK hasn't fallen. But what has changed is there's no obvious way for the SNP to deliver a second referendum soon. The courts have ruled Scotland can't hold a referendum without Westminster's agreement - and both the Conservatives and Labour say that won't happen. So, Labour argues, it becomes less pressing for voters.

This isn't just about Scotland. It's about who runs the UK after the general election.

Labour need a colossal, record swing to win a majority in parliament but winning more Scottish seats makes winning power overall a bit more likely.

The SNP says more of its MPs are needed to force Labour into more radical policies on issues like the cost of living.

If no party has a majority in the next parliament. would SNP MPs vote for Labour's policy programme to keep them in power?

Scotland's First Minister Mr Yousaf wouldn't make that firm commitment in his interview. He told me he didn't want to negotiate through the BBC. But the SNP would want concessions to prop up a Labour government. Prominent figures like Mhairi Black say allowing another independence vote in Scotland should be a "red line".

Ms Black is standing down at the election. She admits the SNP is facing challenges, but insists it's all to play for.

Mr Alexander, the Labour big beast she beat, is hoping to return as an MP, standing for Labour in a different seat in the east of Scotland.

He says a "permafrost" that's "held Scottish politics frozen for the last decade... is finally beginning to melt".

The people of Scotland will make that decision within the year.

Labour's Scottish Challenge is on BBC Radio 4 on Monday, 5 February and will be available on BBC sounds after broadcast.

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General election: Why the battle for votes in Scotland is key

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Labour aims for an election comeback from one seat in Scotland, the BBC's Nick Eardley writes.

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The Labour Party has sent its election candidates a "campaigning bible," as party insiders describe it.

The 24-page document is aimed at winning back those who have lost faith in Labour.

There have been concerns among some MPs and at grassroots level that the party's opinion poll lead has been too dependent on disillusionment with the government - rather than a positive vote for Labour.

So in this election year, the new glossy tome - Let's Get Britain's Future Back - is strewn with campaign slogans.

The document is divided into five policy areas representing the five weighty "missions" for government which Sir Keir Starmer has set out over the past year.

But the sub-headings in each section ram home the messages that Labour expects its activists to deliver.

These are: "It's Time for a Change", "'The Tories Have Failed', 'Labour Has Changed" and "Labour has a Long Term Plan".

Mandelson's three Ms

Last weekend, Labour peer and strategist par excellence Peter Mandelson set out what he felt his party had to do in what could feel like a long election year.

Speaking at the Jewish Labour Movement conference, he said an incoming Labour government would face "a much bigger challenge and task" than Tony Blair had in 1997.

He stressed the importance of what he described as the three Ms.

The first of these was to find ways of maintaining Momentum (forward political motion, not the left-wing grouping of the same name).

The second was to secure a sizeable Majority.

But key to Labour's success at the polls and in government would be to secure a Mandate.

"People need a positive choice," he said. "They need to know what they are voting for."

If new and returning voters were to stick with the party, then they needed to buy into what it was trying to do.

The new candidates' document is an attempt to do this.

The party's policies have been made more digestible - reduced to bullet points and "five point plans".

And in each section, Labour's offer is juxtaposed with its characterisation of an apparently more grim life under a Conservative government.

There are also attempts, perhaps predictably, to accentuate the positive.

In the Green Energy section, lower bills are promised, while £28bn of borrowing isn't explicitly mentioned.

And the title of each of Sir Keir's mission has been recast in more active terms, following complaints from some MPs that the concept hadn't been landing with voters.

Last February, when the idea of "mission-led government" was launched by the Labour leader, he suggested one of the missions would be to "improve the NHS".

That rather neutral language has now been transformed in to "Getting the NHS Back on its Feet".

Similarly "Reforming the Justice System" has become "Taking Back Our Streets" and "Raising Education Standards" is re-badged as the more dynamic and wide-ranging "Breaking Down the Barriers to Opportunity".

'Stevenage Woman'

The document isn't just a more voter-friendly version of the Starmer missions.

Its preface contains significant political positioning which the leadership will want grassroots Labour activists to communicate in key seats.

Last year, the influential group Labour Together - formerly run by the party's chief election strategist, Morgan McSweeney - produced a report called Red Shift.

The title sounds like a made-for-Netflix thriller, but the content is partly about how to excite voters that are turned off by politics.

The group's research identified "Stevenage Woman" - described as "hard-working but struggling to get by, she feels national politics makes little difference to her town".

And it concludes that while "she votes in some elections not others" nonetheless "she, above all others, holds the keys to Downing Street".

Stevenage, in Hertfordshire, is seen as typical of constituencies which are Labour when the party is in power, and Conservative when it's not - a swing seat.

And Labour Together believes the message which appeals to voters in those areas is one of "secure work, safe streets, and a strong nation".

Fast forward to the preface to the wider party's campaigning document.

It says all its missions are built on "strong, stable and secure foundations" and on "strong national defence" and "secure borders".

It also asserts that its policies are fully-funded.

And in an introduction to the document, Sir Keir makes a pitch for the swing voters of Stevenage (and similar seats) by declaring: "How people voted in recent elections doesn't matter to me. What matters is that we come together for the sake of our country."

Labour knows that winning back seats lost in 2010 not just 2019 is essential for victory, and it believes it may have found a way of communicating with those who have not been listening.

'Give before you get'

The campaign document is the very visible part of the political iceberg which Labour insiders believe will help sink the Conservatives' election chances.

There have been changes going on beneath the surface, too.

So if you live in Kingswood or Wellingborough and Labour activists knock on your door at the forthcoming by-elections, you might discern a change of tack.

Where the party had previously categorised a "conversation" on the doorstep as anything from an unsubtle attempt to 'get the vote out' to an unconvinced voter grunting as they slammed the door on canvassers' faces, now a new approach has been adopted.

It's been refined in previous by-election campaigns and has been dubbed "Give Before You Get".

Canvassers will ask what voters are interested in, rather than either forcing party policy down their throats or eliciting voting intention straight away.

Based on genuine conversations, strategists can try to work out if a vote is up for grabs and can also then get the party machine to target appropriate digital messages.

Labour's field and communications operations - in which it has invested heavily - would be expected to work in harmony.

A vast amount of time was devoted successfully to listening to voters' concerns in the Mid-Beds by-election, a territory formerly seen as hostile to Labour, but which Labour took from the Tories.

So while we will hear many of the slogans in the campaign document relentlessly over the next year, the policy material in the candidates' document won't be used as a 'one size fits all' election tool.

Instead doorstep conversations will inform what bespoke messages voters will hear - from Stevenage to Scotland, and anywhere where Labour needs to regain lost ground.

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Labour Party 'campaign bible' gives hints of general election strategy

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The party issues instructions to candidates on how to get their core policies across to voters.

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The shadow chancellor has told the BBC Labour would not reinstate a bankers' bonuses cap that was scrapped last year by the Conservative government.

It comes as Ms Reeves set out Labour's plans to boost economic growth through the financial services sector.

She described the sector as one of the UK's greatest assets which the party would "unashamedly champion".

It marks a big change from the policies of the previous Labour leadership and goes too far for some.

A maximum bonus of 200% of bankers' regular pay was introduced across the European Union (EU) to deter the excessive risk-taking many blamed for the financial crisis.

The decision to abandon the bonus cap was made by the short-lived Liz Truss government before turmoil on the financial markets forced her chancellor Mr Kwarteng to step down, followed by the prime minister herself.

Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor and a former Bank of England official, told the BBC that she had no plans to reinstate it despite criticism from the likes of the umbrella body for the UK's trade unions at the time.

"The cap on bankers' bonuses was bought in in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and that was the right thing to do to rebuild the public finances," she said.

"But that has gone now and we don't have any intention of bringing that back. And as chancellor of the exchequer, I would want to be a champion of a successful and thriving financial services industry in the UK."

The Labour Party has declared its strongest support to date for the financial services sector.

Ms Reeves said Labour's policies would also include closer ties with the EU, expanding finance centres outside London, streamlining regulation and boosting pension investment in UK companies and green technologies.

Labour's new plan is the result of a consultation with leading financial figures including the chairs of Barclays, the London Stock Exchange, Legal & General and the chief executives of Yorkshire Building Society and the London Stock Exchange Group.

The report comes ahead of a major conference for business leaders in London hosted by Labour on Thursday.

Labour has been on a charm offensive with business and finance for some time.

When the government has organised investment summits, like the recent one at Hampton Court Palace, Labour has held shadow events. It recently hosted a business breakfast for the global business elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to deliver a message that it is very business friendly.

Many of Labour's ideas to scrap burdensome regulation are remarkably similar to recent government initiatives to keep up with new emerging technologies and other global financial centres.

But in an election year, it's a deliberate shift to demonstrate Labour has changed from 2019 when Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell supported the nationalisation of some industries and described City bankers as overpaid "speculators".

Miles Celic, chief executive of financial services body TheCityUK, said: "Labour has set out a forward-thinking plan for financial services with a clear focus on innovation, modernising the regulatory landscape, driving more investment, and unlocking growth in the wider economy."

However, there are some in the industry who are uncomfortable with the direction Labour is taking.

Mick McAteer, co-director of the Financial Inclusion Centre and a former board member of the Financial Conduct Authority, suggested the party was "going too far".

"It seems to have forgotten the mistakes of the previous Labour administration which allowed finance to become too dominant, leaving the UK one of the most exposed global economies when the devastating 2008 crisis came.

"Ordinary people and the UK's public services are still paying the price for that failure," he said.

"The City finance lobbies are very vocal at promoting the benefits of the sector. The City doesn't need another champion in Labour," Mr McAteer added.

The Conservative government has attacked Labour's financial credibility with the public finances and its pledge to bring down government borrowing as a percentage of national income over the next parliament.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has singled out Labour's 2021 pledge to invest £28bn a year in green technologies as being unachievable without higher taxes and borrowing.

That pledge has been watered down by shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds to "an ambition" and Ms Reeves has said Labour's spending plans would have to adjust to the situation it would inherit if it wins.

The Conservative Party has dropped heavy hints it will use any spare money in the public kitty to cut taxes - something Ms Reeves has described as a "scorched earth" approach.

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Bankers' bonuses: No cap under Labour, says Reeves

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Rachel Reeves told the BBC that Labour would not reinstate the bonus cap that was scrapped last year.

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Government borrowing is lower than had been forecast. The economy needs some form of a boost. And perhaps most of all there is an election within a few months. There are plenty of reasons why Chancellor Jeremy Hunt might want to cut taxes slightly in his spring Budget, and perhaps even once more by the autumn.

But hold on. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has just said it would be 'fiscally irresponsible'. Well, perhaps. And yet, the IMF's record on forecasting is very poor, and it is also very committed to a high-tax, big-state economic model. On that basis, Hunt should just ignore it, and cut taxes anyway.

There is nothing the IMF hates more than a British chancellor cutting taxes

Apart from an urgent phone call from the Argentine Finance Ministry, there is perhaps nothing the IMF hates more than a British chancellor cutting taxes. After seeing off the unfortunate Kwasi Kwarteng in 2022, accusing him of increasing inequality, it is now looking to stop any more modest reductions in the tax burden from his successor this year.

In its latest assessment of the global economy, the IMF has 'advised the UK against any further tax cuts', arguing that longterm spending commitments, and the need to invest more in the health service and infrastructure meant the government needed to squeeze more money out of the country instead of less. This is a warning to Hunt: tweak a few tax rates, and he will be back in the middle of a sterling crisis just as Liz Truss was.

Hunt shouldn't pay any attention to the IMF. It has consistently underestimated UK growth, putting it at the bottom of the G7 rankings, only to be forced to revise its numbers when the actual figures are available.

What the UK really needs to do right now is reform a tax system that is so large and so complex that it is crushing the life out of the economy, destroying incentives to work, and deterring investment. We won't be able to break out of that doom loop easily. But we should at least make a start. Thanking the IMF for its advice, but firmly rejecting it, would be a good place to start.

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Jeremy Hunt should ignore the IMF's tax cut warning

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Hunt shouldn't pay any attention to the IMF. It has consistently underestimated UK growth, putting it at the bottom of the G7 rankings.

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Nicola Sturgeon’s reputation on the line at UK Covid inquiry

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Former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will give evidence to the UK Covid inquiry in Edinburgh.

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Political editor, BBC News

Four years ago to the day, the UK left the European Union.

At 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (midnight Brussels time, as January became February there), the EU shrank, the UK was out.

Here we are four years later, as the latest solution to one of the knottiest of consequences of Brexit, or at least the flavour of Brexit chosen, is revealed.

The government will publish what is known as a Command Paper later, setting out the detail of the changes to Northern Ireland's post-Brexit arrangements that have tempted the Democratic Unionists, or at least most of them, to go back into power-sharing devolved government.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris will return from Belfast to lead a debate in the Commons.

Within government there is optimism power sharing might finally be about to return, save for any last minute hitches.

One of the golden rules of UK politics is don't predict the future in Northern Ireland.

But, this time, it looks on.

On Thursday, the changes in the law required will happen, via what are known as Statutory Instruments.

I am told there will be two of them.

Once they pass, as they will, attention will switch back to Belfast.

And the prospect not just of restored devolution, functioning government for Northern Ireland, but a Sinn Féin First Minister, Michelle O'Neill.

It is a weakness of my trade, journalism, to occasionally splash around in hyperbole, exaggeration and attach the word "historic" to forgettable footnotes or one-day wonders.

But a Sinn Féin first minister would be a landmark moment - the party aspires one day to unite with the Republic of Ireland.

And take a look at the Republic - Sinn Féin surged forward at the last general election and opinion poll numbers for them, while down recently, suggest they are the most popular political party in Ireland, with an election expected in the next year or so.

So they are buoyant.

Yes, Northern Ireland's first and deputy first minsters have equal legal powers, and one of them can't make any decisions without the agreement of the other.

But one job title has the word "deputy" in it. And the other does not.

The assembly leader of the largest party becomes the first minister, and Sinn Féin won more seats than any other party - for the first time - in the devolved elections in Northern Ireland in May 2022.

It will be a moment heavy with history when Michelle O'Neill becomes first minister.

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Northern Ireland: A new dawn ushered in by a republican first minister

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If Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill becomes first minister, it will be a moment heavy with history.

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The Republican primary race is not officially over but with no obvious pathway to victory for Nikki Haley, a general election showdown between two adversaries is coming into view.

We are months away from the Democratic and Republican conventions, the moment when each party officially unveils its presidential nominee.

But the 2024 election seems all but set in stone.

The contest between Joe Biden and Donald Trump will be unique in modern history as a rematch between the current president and his immediate predecessor.

"Having two presidents running changes the nature of the race," says Todd Belt, a politics professor at George Washington University.

"This is a comparison, not just a referendum on the incumbent. There are no blank slates going into this election."

The contrast will be simple, according to Sean Spicer, who served as Mr Trump's first press secretary and worked for the Republican National Committee prior to that.

"For those people who say, well, during Trump, the policies of Donald Trump made my life better, more secure, made the economy and our communities better, it's a no brainer."

The Trump campaign has every motivation to go on the attack against Mr Biden, in part to distract from his own weaknesses - including his legal troubles, his divisive rhetoric and his attempts to undermine the 2020 election results, which contributed to the January 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

But Mr Biden also has key vulnerabilities, struggling to sell his first-term achievements and trying to convince the public he has the energy for the campaign and a second term. Already in this presidential race he is painting his predecessor as out-of-control and a threat to America, and to democracy itself."Usually, that's what you do when you're running against somebody who's unknown in politics," says Susan Estrich, a Democratic author and analyst who managed Michael Dukakis' presidential campaign in 1988."But here, you've got somebody who's very well known, and you're just trying to prove he's a big risk."It's a rematch few Americans say they want - a bare-knuckle, nasty slog of a campaign - but it's a presidential choice that at this point they seem almost certain to get.

Mr Biden's approval ratings continue to languish in dangerous territory for an incumbent entering an election year. Public perceptions of Mr Trump are also negative, however.By all indications, November's general election is going to be tight. National polls show the two candidates either neck and neck or Mr Trump with a slight advantage.

But this early in the race they are of limited usefulness, given the nature of the US political map. While Americans will head to the polls across the nation, this race will once again be decided in only a handful of states.

That's because the electoral college, the system the US has to pick its president, depends on candidates winning each state and most states are solidly Democratic or Republican.

The most crucial states that could go either way this year include Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan in the so-called Rust Belt, and Arizona and Georgia, two states that Mr Biden flipped Democratic in 2020. Nevada is also considered a toss-up but its small population makes it a less valuable prize.A few states that have been battlegrounds in previous election cycles have slipped off this map - Florida and North Carolina have trended Republican of late, while Virginia and Colorado appear to be more solidly Democratic.

So while national polls provide fodder for political commentators, a much smaller subset of voters will ultimately be the ones who matter.Polling in November that showed Mr Trump inching ahead in these key states caused alarm among some Democrats, but polls a year from the election are not necessarily accurate predictors of the outcome.

The economy (again)

When it comes down to it, Americans tend to vote from their wallets in national elections - for the governing party in good times and the opposition in bad."It's the economy, stupid" was the mantra of Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign, and the refrain has become political gospel in the decades since.One of the factors that makes 2024 challenging to predict is that, on the whole, economic indicators are positive.

More on the US election

The economy is growing at a steady clip. Unemployment is near record lows. The stock market is hitting record highs. And yet American voters continue to have a grim view of their economic situation.Some of this can be attributed to several years of high inflation and the continuing high cost of housing in many parts of the US. Home sales in the US have sunk to the lowest levels in nearly 30 years.At the Trump victory party in Iowa, two large video screens cycled through graphics showing how rising home mortgage interest rates during the Biden administration have driven up monthly home payments.There are some recent signs of hope for Mr Biden, however. Consumer confidence, as measured by a University of Michigan survey, has reached its highest level since July 2021. Inflation and gas prices have fallen. There is still plenty of time for voters to change their minds about the state of the American economy.

Mr Trump will argue that things were better when he was in office. According to Mr Spicer, the economy - like crime - is a "gut" issue and many Americans still don't believe their everyday situation has improved."Until you viscerally feel it," he says, "it doesn't matter what statistic gets thrown at you."Mr Biden will counter that the US weathered the post-Covid economic storm better than almost any other country in the world and that Bidenomics - his blend of infrastructure investment, tax cuts and social spending - has improved the lot of working Americans.

Abortion or immigration?

The Biden campaign will try to convince voters that Mr Trump is responsible for abortion becoming illegal or greatly curtailed in dozens of states, even as the former president has tried to moderate his position on the issue.Ever since the US Supreme Court, with the help of three Trump-appointed justices, discarded a 50-year precedent giving the right to abortion constitutional protections, Democrats have been riding a groundswell of support on the issue to post better-than-expected results at the ballot box.Mr Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris recently held a campaign event in Northern Virginia focused narrowly on this one issue."Abortion has turned out to be a much more powerful issue than a lot of people thought it would be," Ms Estrich says. "Everywhere it's been on the ballot, the pro-choice position has won."If abortion is the electoral issue the Democrats will be trying to elevate in the minds of voters, Mr Trump and the conservatives will be doing the same for immigration.

Border crossings reached an all-time high in December with 249,785 arrests on the Mexican border - up 31% from November and up 13% from December 2022, the previous record.This massive influx of undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers has at times overwhelmed government processing facilities and strained social service programmes in major cities thousands of miles away.Polls show that immigration is the top issue for much of Mr Trump's base - and a source of weakness for the president and division among Democrats. Efforts to address the problem in Congress have proven unsuccessful, in no small part because Mr Trump has been pressuring Republicans to block compromise legislation until after the election."The Biden administration has lost the argument on safety and security at our southern border," says Mr Spicer. "It's over."

Other issues might also play a factor in the upcoming presidential race, including US crime rates, the environment and climate change, and foreign policy. The Gaza War, in particular, might be an ongoing headache for Mr Biden, as the administration's support for Israel has angered some Democrats, including a larger percentage of the young voters whose turnout in November could decide the election.

Known unknowns

The longest general election campaign in recent memory leaves plenty of time for the unpredictable to occur.Given the advanced age of both Mr Biden (81) and Mr Trump (78), an incident that calls into question their health and fitness could happen any time. In the autumn presidential debates, their energy and composure under pressure will be particularly scrutinised."Age is hurting Biden right now. Everybody thinks Biden is old," say Ms Estrich. "The question is, will Trump show the signs of his age?"Given that polls indicate a majority of Americans are dissatisfied with their two major-party options, the environment is ripe for a third-party or independent candidate to emerge. Robert Kennedy Jr, the anti-vaccine activist, is already running, although he is only on the ballot in one state so far. The No Labels group, which has the backing of some deep-pocketed donors, may field its own candidate.

Mr Trump's legal headaches could also factor into the race - he faces 91 charges and four criminal trials. Although the indictments seem to have buoyed his standing among Republicans, a criminal conviction may be a different matter.According to an exit poll of voters in the recently concluded New Hampshire Republican primary, 42% said Mr Trump would not be fit for office if he were found guilty.The timing of the former president's trials - some of which have been tentatively scheduled for March and April - is still in flux. The spectacle of Mr Trump in the defendant's dock, and a detailed litigation of his alleged crimes, could also affect public opinion in a way that the indictments have not.The January 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters, with Mr Trump accused of egging them on, has left a scar on the American psyche. While Republican voters appear willing to move past it, Democrats - and, perhaps, the kind of independent voters who will help decide this election - still remember.The more they are reminded of that trauma, and the way the first Trump presidency ended - whether by Mr Biden and the Democrats or through courtroom drama - the more the former president's past actions may ultimate come back to haunt him.

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Where Biden v Trump will be won and lost

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A general election showdown between two adversaries is coming into view. Here's what to look for.

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"Both our party officers and party executive have mandated me to move forward.. on the basis of the proposals brought forward by the government, subject to and on the basis of the government delivering measures of that package."

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DUP executive endorses deal to restore devolution at Stormont

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Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said it was dependent on the government passing new legislation it had agreed.

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US drone attack: Death of US troops ratchets up pressure on Biden

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Three US troops were killed in a drone attack on a US base near Jordan’s border with Syria.

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BBC Sounds - The Kids Are Alt Right? - Available Episodes

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Americast - America looks set for Trump v Biden - BBC Sounds

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Donald wins... and then lashes out at Nikki Haley.

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Sir Simon Clarke became the second former minister publicly calling for the PM to resign.

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Donald Trump has won the New Hampshire primary, likely cementing his place as the Republican presidential nominee.

The win over Nikki Haley, who had briefly threatened to rein in the former president, suggests there will be a smooth path to the GOP nomination for Trump, who also won easily in the Iowa caucuses last week.

The Associated Press called the race just as the last remaining polling places in New Hampshire closed at 8pm ET, following a contentious primary that saw groups backing both candidates spending millions of dollars in increasingly vicious TV advertising.

Results of New Hampshire primary graph.

Haley, who branded Trump a "chaos" candidate, promised a more palatable version of the rightwing fire and brimstone that has come to characterize the Republican party. She surged in the polls in New Hampshire in mid-December, but could not capitalize on that momentum on Tuesday night.

Despite the disappointing performance, Haley's campaign insisted she would continue on to her home state of South Carolina, which will hold its primary next month.

"South Carolina elected Nikki as Governor twice, against the odds," Haley's campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, said in a campaign memo on Tuesday. "The people of South Carolina KNOW Nikki's strong conservative record because they lived it."

But polls show Trump maintaining a significant lead in South Carolina, so it is unclear how that primary might reshape the dynamics of the race. New Hampshire appeared to represent the last significant threat to what seems set to become a Trump coronation. In a purple state that voted for Joe Biden over Trump in 2020, Haley presented herself as a centrist Republican, while Trump continued to proffer rightwing populism in a series of rallies in recent days. Haley was Trump's only serious contender in New Hampshire, after Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race on Sunday.

"Chaos follows him. You know I am right," Haley said in her final campaign event on Monday, referring to Trump.

"And we cannot have a country in disarray and have a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos, because we won't survive it."

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But Trump's routine continues to appeal. Tina Lorenz, who said she had supported Donald Trump since 2016, was among those who voted for the former president on Tuesday.

"He is representing the American people. He is not out for himself. He's not out for political gain. He's not out for financial reasons. He doesn't need money, he doesn't need fame and fortune. He already has all of that," Lorenz, 63, said.

"He is out there for the average person. And that's what's happening, we've become so polarized, that there's nobody out there for just regular people."

The result suggests Trump will become his party's presidential candidate for the third election in a row, and will likely face Biden in November. Both men are viewed unfavorably by a majority of people in the US, meaning Americans will face a difficult and dissatisfying decision later this year.

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Donald Trump wins Republican primary in New Hampshire

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Nikki Haley vows to keep campaigning despite disappointing results in both tonight's primary and Iowa caucuses last week

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Trump has sucked the energy out of the Republican primaries

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At some level, Trump might quite want Haley to keep going, if only for the repeated pleasure of beating her over and over.

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Anthony ZurcherNorth America correspondent in New Hampshire

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Trump’s New Hampshire victory shows Republican race is all but over

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The former president asserts his strong hold on the Republican party and forges a clear path to the 2024 nomination.

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With Ron DeSantis suspending his presidential campaign on Sunday, Nikki Haley gets the one-on-one match-up with Donald Trump for which she's been longing.

"At one point in this campaign, there were 14 of us running," she says in an email fundraising pitch, sent out shortly after the DeSantis news broke.

"But today, it's officially a two-person race between me and Donald Trump!"

Ms Haley's showdown with Mr Trump in the state-by-state contest to choose a Republican presidential candidate may not turn out exactly as she hoped, however. The way the 14-person field has thinned of late has played out mostly to the former president's advantage.

First, Mr DeSantis edged ahead of Ms Haley for second place in Iowa's caucuses, denying her any substantial momentum boost heading into New Hampshire, which votes on Tuesday.

The day after Mr Trump's huge win in Iowa, another presidential rival, Vivek Ramaswamy, withdrew from the race and endorsed Mr Trump, giving him an extra round of headlines.

Now Mr DeSantis is out of the picture, as well. Like Mr Ramaswamy, he has endorsed Mr Trump, although with a bit less fervour. The Florida governor reserved most of his passion for Ms Haley - and not in a good way.

He called the former US ambassador to the UN part of "the old Republican guard of yesteryear - a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism". It was a line of attack - Haley the elite-loving globalist - that has been the centrepiece of Mr Trump's attack on his former Cabinet member over the past few days.

It took six days for the DeSantis campaign to churn through the stages of political grief and arrive at acceptance. But his decision to back out when he did, and the way he did, might have helped sealed Mr Trump's victory.

Most public-opinion surveys indicate that a clear majority of voters who support Mr DeSantis view Mr Trump as the next best option, suggesting that his withdrawal will end up being a boon to the former president.

A CNN/University of New Hampshire poll released earlier on Sunday, for instance, found 62% of those in the state who backed Mr DeSantis named Mr Trump as their second choice, while only 30% named Ms Haley.

Those aren't great numbers for the former South Carolina governor who has been focusing on New Hampshire for months as the place she believes will give her campaign the boost necessary to seriously challenge Mr Trump.

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In theory, her strategy was sound. The state's Republican primary is open to independent voters as well as members of the party, allowing moderates who may not like Mr Trump's brand of conservative populism to have a say. The state also has a higher number of college graduates in its population, 37%, which is one of Ms Haley's strongest demographics.

She's seen her support rise in the state over recent months, as she's become the clear alternative for those who don't favour the former president. There's little doubt she brings the people skills that DeSantis lacked and has also chosen a different path to the former Florida governor, who positioned himself to the right of Mr Trump.

In policy and tone, her campaign has been described as something of a throwback to a pre-Trump era in the Republican Party. There is more compromise in her message and she has largely stayed away from grievance politics and conspiracy theories. And she supports continuing US funding of the Ukraine war.

But not being Trump and delivering a more moderate message may not be enough.

If she fails to beat him in New Hampshire, it is difficult to see where she might prevail - even in her South Carolina home, where the former president is immensely popular and has the support of almost every other state Republican official.

The lament among anti-Trump Republicans has always been that a majority in the party didn't want to see him as the nominee again, but the field against him was simply too divided. If they could only unite behind one candidate, the argument went, victory would be within reach.

In New Hampshire, on Tuesday, that theory will finally be put to the test.

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Nikki Haley finally gets her solo showdown with Donald Trump in New Hampshire

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But her showdown with Mr Trump in New Hampshire on Tuesday may not turn out exactly as she hoped.

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All eyes are on New Hampshire as the two remaining Republican presidential candidates make their last-minute pitches across the state, before voters cast their ballots on 23 January.

The second in a series of state-by-state contests will serve as another test for Donald Trump and Nikki Haleyas they fight for their party's presidential nomination.

That prize will pit them against the Democratic choice in November, almost certainly President Joe Biden.

The election comes a week after Mr Trump enjoyed a landslide win in Iowa, but he may find stiffer competition in this second round of voting, where Ms Haley is polling well.

Ron DeSantis, who was not expected to perform strongly in New Hampshire, announced on Sunday he was dropping out of the primary race altogether.

Here's what to know about the contests.

When is the primary?

Primary elections for both Republicans and Democrats will take place on Tuesday.

Voters in the New Hampshire primary will cast their ballots privately at different polling locations over the course of the day, much like other elections.

What time voting begins at those locations is up to the town and city governments in New Hampshire.

By law, doors must open by 11:00 EST (16:00 GMT) and can only close after at least eight hours.

While that's the official rule, most locations in the state will open by 6:00 or 7:00 local time before closing around 19:00.

Some are opening even earlier, however. Dixville Notch, a village of four people, plans to open its polls at midnight - continuing its long-time tradition of being the first voters in the state to cast their ballots.

Who might win?

After Mr Trump steamrolled his opponents in Iowa, experts predict he will likely enjoy another victory thanks to Granite State voters.

"Let's be clear, his brand is winning," said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist in the state.

Recent polling suggests Mr Trump still holds a substantial lead over Ms Haley, his closest rival in the contest. The former president's New Hampshire rallies have seen hundreds of voters line up in freezing conditions to hear him speak.

Ms Haley, a former United Nations ambassador, has focused her campaign efforts on New Hampshire, making dozens of stops in diners, local shops and other small-town spots.

She has said that New Hampshire will "correct" Iowa's vote - a claim her opponents have used in attack ads. A former South Carolina governor, she added she hopes her state then "brings it home" with its upcoming primary on 24 February.

Time will tell whether that strategy works. Her third-place finish in Iowa, behind Mr Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, may have stalled her momentum.

Why is New Hampshire different?

The New Hampshire primary offers a chance for Ms Haley to cut into Mr Trump's big lead.

A win in this contest would also demonstrate she has broad appeal and could gain enough support to lead Republicans to victory in the 2024 general election.

The state's distinct bloc of independent voters - who represent nearly 40% of its electorate - has led to electoral surprises in the past.

"That spirit - that 'live free or die', our motto - lives on in the mentality of the voters here," said Mr Bartlett. "They don't like to be told what to do."

Candidates will be working to win over these more moderate New Hampshire independents, who can choose to vote in the Republican primary.

Ultimately, the two Republican rivals are fighting for the 22 delegates at stake in New Hampshire, which will be awarded proportionally among the top candidates.

To come out on top at the Republican National Convention in July, a Republican candidate must secure 1,215 total delegates out of the 2,429 available across the primary contests.

What about Ron DeSantis?

Mr DeSantis, who spent most of his campaign funds and time in Iowa, was polling in the single digits in New Hampshire.

With his campaign faltering and a poor performance in the state likely, he announced on Sunday he was suspending his campaign, admitting he had no "clear path to victory".

Mr DeSantis struggled in the race because the Florida Governor has "extreme difficulty connecting with voters", according to Sean Westwood, a professor of government at Dartmouth College, a prestigious school in New Hampshire.

"It's challenging for someone who goes to a DeSantis event to come away energised and excited," he said.

The DeSantis campaign had already stripped back its New Hampshire presence in recent weeks.

This year looks a bit different for Democrats in New Hampshire, due to a dispute between state party officials and the Democratic National Party.

Because the party claims state officials violated rules by scheduling the primary for earlier than allowed, zero delegates will be awarded.

As a result of the dispute, Mr Biden, the incumbent and frontrunner candidate, decided not to participate. He had asked to push New Hampshire from its prime early spot and bump up the primary in South Carolina.

With the president out of the race and no official delegates on the line, the primary will be decidedly less consequential for Democratic candidates - though it will still be interesting.

The president's New Hampshire allies have launched a write-in effort for him, and it will measure support for his two longshot challengers - Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips - who have spent much of their time campaigning in the state.

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Republican presidential candidates are making last-minute pitches ahead of the 23 January election.

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Republican Governor Ron DeSantis suspends his campaign for US president, saying there is no "clear path to victory"

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Tory MPs start the week fretting about their seats after the Telegraph published an MRP poll suggesting Keir Starmer would win a majority of 120 if an election were held tomorrow. So, it was a case of interesting timing that the party's official election strategist Isaac Levido was already scheduled to address Tory MPs on Monday night. Levido ran the 2019 election campaign and holds clout with Conservative MPs (when Liz Truss cut ties with the strategist during her premiership, it led to panic in parts of the party).

Levido used the address to discuss that poll - playing down its significance as 'just another poll, another MRP model, with the same margins of error, the same statistical limitations as any other - and you know your constituencies better than me, better than any media commentators and certainly better than any public pollster'.

He then went further - taking aim at the mysterious Tory donors behind the poll, which has been championed by Lord Frost:

The people who organised this poll and analysed and timed the release of it seem to be intent on undermining this government and our party, and therefore the re-election prospects of every single one of you in this room.

They seem to be throwing in the towel, and are more interested in what happens after the election rather than fighting it - making the pathway narrower and steeper.

According to those present, Levido went on to warn MPs: 'Let me be clear. ⁠Divided parties fail. It's time to get serious - I am fighting to win this election, and I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe it was possible. We all need to be be fighting to win this election.' He said that voters were unconvinced by Starmer and are 'looking for reasons to vote for us. We must not give them any more reasons not to'.

This message received a warm response with banging on the tables by attendees. But overall, those hoping for a pep talk or secret polling to suggest all is rosier than it seems will have left disappointed. One attendee describes the mood as 'sombre and serious'.

As for the wider strategy, MPs were shown a slide presentation of the polling over the past year - and the gap between the Tories and Labour. When it comes to the message the Tories will be pushing in an election year, Levido said the economy would be front and centre. As for Brexit, they should talk about the benefits rather than reprosecute the case for it.

In the past week or so, Rishi Sunak along with ministers have been talking about the need to 'stick with the plan', rather than risk going back 'to square one' with Starmer. MPs were told this message will be important as they can contrast themselves with Starmer arguing he has no plan. It could also be used against the Liberal Democrats and Reform.

When it came to the question and answer session that followed, a lot of the questions were technical. There was one approaching hostile intervention from Justin Tomlinson who suggested he didn't think the plan was the best but he was still glad the Tories had one. After the meeting ended, one Tory MP said: 'It hasn't made things worse but it's a reminder of how far we have to go.'

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Isaac Levido's warning to the Tory party

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Tory MPs start the week fretting about their seats after the Telegraph published an MRP poll suggesting Keir Starmer would win a majority of 120 if an election were held tomorrow.

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Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is already looking forward to the next nominating contest in the GOP primary season after a disappointing third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

Former President Donald Trump handily won the caucuses Monday night and is on track to win by the largest margin in modern presidential primary history with 51% of the vote with 95% of the vote counted.

ELECTION 2024: FOLLOW LATEST COVERAGE

Haley is trailing behind Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) 21.2% to 19.1% as of 11:41 p.m. Eastern time in their bitter battle over second place in the GOP field behind Trump.

Yet Haley attempted to spin the results positively. "I can safely say tonight Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race," Haley said to an enthusiastic crowd of supporters. "Tonight, I will be back in the great state of New Hampshire. And the question before Americans is now very clear. Do you want more of the same or do you want a new generation of conservative leadership?"

The third-place finish dampens Haley's momentum as she looks forward to the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary. Haley had overtaken DeSantis in some early-nominating state polls for second place before finishing behind DeSantis on Monday night.

But the former South Carolina governor argued that voters are tired of both Trump and President Joe Biden.

"Trump and Biden both lack a vision for our country's future because both are consumed by the past, by investigations, by vendettas, by grievances. America deserves better," Haley said.

She later added, "Our campaign is the last best hope of stopping the Trump-Biden nightmare."

DeSantis, however, remained defiant, saying he would not drop out and criticizing outlets who called the caucuses for Trump before voters had a chance to decide. "They were just so excited about the fact that they were predicting that we wouldn't be able to get our ticket punched here out of Iowa," DeSantis said in his speech Monday evening. "But I can tell you because of your support, in spite of all of that that they threw at us, everyone against us, we've got our ticket punched out of Iowa."

Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who came in fourth place, dropped out of the race on Monday night and endorsed Trump.
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But Haley, who has the endorsement of Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH), appears ready to face Trump again next week.

"As we head to New Hampshire, I have one more thing to say, underestimate me because that's always fun," Haley said. "I love you Iowa but we're on to New Hampshire."

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Nikki Haley focuses on New Hampshire after loss to Trump in Iowa

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Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is already looking forward to the next nominating contest in the GOP primary season.

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Tory divisions on show as Rwanda crunch votes loom

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But the government appears relatively confident they can get their plans through the Commons, says BBC’s Chris Mason.

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Iowa caucuses 2024: Vivek Ramaswamy suspends campaign and endorses Trump

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The biotech entrepreneur's departure comes after a disappointing fourth place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

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Donald Trump notched a commanding win in the Iowa GOP caucuses, more than doubling the 24% support he received in 2016. Caucusgoers braved subzero temperatures to deliver a resounding victory for the former president, whose 30-point win was the largest for a contested presidential caucus in modern Iowa history.

That's according to our Fox News Voter Analysis of Iowa Republicans.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis edged out former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for second place. The result was a much-needed boost for DeSantis, who visited every county and invested significant time and resources in the Hawkeye State.

Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy finished far behind with single-digit support, dropping out and endorsing Trump as the results became clear.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY ENDS PRESIDENTIAL BID FOLLOWING IOWA CAUCUSES
Underscoring the extent of his dominance, Trump won almost every demographic group by double-digit margins. He was particularly strong among some of the largest groups of Iowa Republican caucusgoers: those without a college degree, very conservative voters and rural voters.

TRUMP STRENGTHS
No College Degree 62% Very Conservatives 58% Rural Caucusgoers 58%
Trump won 55% of White evangelical Christians, a crucial bloc of Iowa voters, more than double DeSantis' 24% and Haley's 13%.

More than 6 in 10 caucusgoers consider themselves supporters of the Make America Great Again movement, and most of them (74%) backed Trump. In a hint of the next challenge for Trump - ensuring the full party is united behind him if he wins the nomination - non-MAGA voters backed Haley by 8 points, with DeSantis second.

NON-MAGA SUPPORTERS
Haley 42% DeSantis 34% Trump 13%
DeSantis' main sources of strength - the college-educated, very conservative voters and suburbanites - overlapped with both Haley's and Trump's. While he did not win any major demographic group outright, his advantages over Haley among White evangelicals (+11 points) and those who felt abortion should be illegal in all cases (+30 points) were enough to vault him into second place.
TRUMP WINS MASSIVE VICTORY IN IOWA, DESANTIS EDGES HALEY FOR SECOND IN 1ST GOP PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATING CONTEST
DESANTIS STRENGTHS
College Degree 29% Very Conservatives 28% Suburban Caucusgoers 28% Abortion Always Illegal 35%
Haley ran strongest among college graduates, suburban voters and political moderates. Despite her pro-life record, Haley had a notable 22-point advantage over DeSantis among voters who felt abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

HALEY STRENGTHS
College Degree 30% Moderates 33% Suburban Caucusgoers 28% Abortion Should Be Legal 33%
The final few days of campaigning may have been decisive in the battle for second place, as DeSantis had an 8-point edge over Haley among those who made up their minds in the last few days. Trump held a massive 73-point advantage among those who knew who they would support all along.

DECIDED IN THE LAST FEW DAYS
DeSantis 32% Trump 26% Haley 24%
DeSantis had a 7-point advantage over Haley among those who had participated in previous caucuses, while first-time caucusgoers backed the South Carolinian by 8 points. Still, Trump won the lion's share of first-timers (51%) and those who caucused in years past (51%).
WATCH: DESANTIS DELIVERS HOPEFUL MESSAGE AFTER IOWA
Overall, 6 in 10 caucusgoers would be satisfied with Trump as the party's eventual nominee. Far fewer would be satisfied with DeSantis or Haley.

SATISFIED IF CANDIDATE WINS NOMINATION
Yes, If Trump 61% Yes, If DeSantis 42% Yes, If Haley 35%
At the other end of the spectrum, 2 in 10 (20%) would be dissatisfied enough with Trump as the nominee that they would not pull the lever for him in November. Slightly more would not vote for DeSantis (26%) or Haley (30%) if they were the nominee.

Despite his resounding win, Trump has some work to do to unite the party in November. If he is the eventual nominee, two-thirds of Haley voters (68%) said they would be so dissatisfied that they would not support him. Fewer DeSantis supporters (25%) would refuse to back Trump.
WATCH: TRUMP'S FULL REMARKS TO IOWA SUPPORTERS
More than one-third of Haley (41%) and Trump (35%) voters would return the favor by declining to support DeSantis if he is the eventual nominee.

If Haley wins the nomination, nearly half of Trump voters (45%) and 2 in 10 DeSantis backers (19%) would not support her in November.

Regardless of their preferred candidate, voters' top priorities for their nominee were near-universal: having the mental capacity to serve as president, followed closely by being a strong leader. Despite Haley's efforts to question Trump's stamina, those who prioritized mental capacity backed the former president by 28 points.

Being able to win in November, caring about people like you and having the best policy ideas were second-tier priorities but very important to at least three-quarters of voters. Half were looking for a candidate who would work across party lines.

"VERY" IMPORTANT REPUBLICAN NOMINEE
Is Mentally Fit? 94% Strong Leader? 90% Can Win? 82% Has Best Policies? 75% Cares? 74% Bipartisan? 52% Rule Breaker? 16%
Few - just 16% - thought it was very important to nominate a candidate willing to break the rules in pursuit of their accomplishments.

Despite the array of legal challenges he faces, most caucus participants did not think Trump is a law-breaker. Roughly 2 in 10 (15%) felt he did something illegal regarding the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in his alleged attempt to interfere with the vote count in the 2020 election (19%) or the classified documents found in his Florida home (21%).

All told, the one-quarter of voters who felt Trump was guilty of at least one criminal act went for Haley by 28 points, while Trump carried those who felt he hadn't broken the law by an even wider 43-point margin.

TRUMP DID SOMETHING ILLEGAL ON AT LEAST ONE CHARGE
Haley 52% DeSantis 24% Trump 15%
Most caucusgoers felt the charges were political attempts to undermine Trump (80%) rather than legitimate investigations into wrongdoing (20%).

Perhaps as a result, only 4 in 10 said they had confidence in the integrity of the U.S. legal system.

More than half were confident in the integrity of elections nationwide and U.S. democracy in general, while almost all had confidence in Iowa's electoral processes.

CONFIDENT IN INTEGRITY OF...
Your State Elections 90% U.S.~Elections? 57% U.S.~Democracy 51% U.S.~Legal System? 43%
Reflecting their mistrust of U.S. elections, 6 in 10 voters felt Biden was not legitimately elected. Trump won these voters by a massive 54-point margin, while Haley won those who thought Biden was fairly elected by 21 points.

Republican caucusgoers were united in their desire for change in how the country is run - hardly surprising with a Democrat in the White House. The lion's share (56%) would prefer substantial change, while one-third (33%) were looking for complete and total upheaval in the country's governance. Trump had an advantage among those looking for substantial change, but those looking for complete upheaval turned the caucuses into a blowout.

WANT TOTAL CHANGE IN HOW U.S. IS RUN
Trump 69% DeSantis 16% Haley 7%
Meanwhile, economic issues were also a driver of the desire for change. Most voters - 9 in 10 - said they were either holding steady or falling behind financially.

FAMILY'S FINANCIAL SITUATION
Getting Ahead 11% Holding Steady 57% Falling Behind 32%
The economy was, predictably, among the top issues on voters' minds, but more caucusgoers cited immigration as the top issue facing the country. These two issues dominated the issue landscape, with every other issue in single digits.

MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE FACING THE COUNTRY
Immigration 41% The economy and jobs 33% Foreign policy 7% Health care 4%
Trump won immigration voters by 36 points, and his signature immigration policy - building a wall along the southern border - was almost universally popular with Iowa Republicans.

U.S.-MEXICO BORDER WALL
Favor 88% Oppose 12%
Three-quarters of caucusgoers felt immigrants in the U.S. today do more to hurt the country than help it. Haley won by a sizable 21-point margin among those who feel immigrants generally help the country; Trump won by an even wider 39-point spread among the larger group who feel immigrants hurt the country.

Trump won economy voters by 33 points, thanks in large part to a 52-point edge among those who said they were falling behind financially. Voters who were breaking even financially backed him by 23 points, while the relatively small number who said they were getting ahead went for Haley by 13 points.

Foreign policy was far from the top of voters' priority lists - just 7% said it was the most important issue facing the country - but it did provide a clear area of contrast between the candidates.

Four-in-ten voters preferred to continue aiding Ukraine in its war against Russia, and they favored Haley over DeSantis by 11 points. Trump won aid for opponents by 43 points.
WATCH: HALEY VOWS TO CONTINUE FIGHT AFTER THIRD-PLACE FINISH
There was more consensus on support for aiding Israel in its war against Hamas (67% support vs. 32% oppose). White evangelicals, who have traditionally been among the strongest U.S. supporters of Israel, backed continued aid by an even wider 54-point margin.

All told, a majority of caucusgoers felt the U.S. should take a less active role in world affairs.

IN SOLVING WORLD PROBLEMS THE U.S. ROLE SHOULD BE...
More active 19% Less active 51% About right 29%
School policy (3% most important issue) was an even lower priority than foreign policy, which hurt DeSantis, who sought to distinguish himself on the issue. Many Iowa caucusgoers agreed with the Florida governor in principle: 52% felt their local schools were too focused on racism, and three-quarters felt the same about lessons on sexual orientation (74%) and gender identity (76%). Unfortunately for DeSantis, he trailed Trump by nearly 30 points among those who felt schools were too focused on each issue.

While not a top priority for caucusgoers (3% most important issue), abortion is certain to be a major topic in the general election. Iowa Republicans largely felt abortion should be illegal in all (20%) or most cases (48%). Two-thirds backed a 6-week abortion ban (65% favor, 33% oppose), while far more were in support of a 15-week ban (78% favor, 20% oppose).
Methodology
The Fox News Voter Analysis is a survey of approximately 1,500 Iowa Republican caucusgoers conducted Jan. 9-15. Full methodological details are available here.

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Fox News Voter Analysis: Trump dominates Iowa caucuses

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Former President Trump came out of the Iowa caucuses victorious Monday night followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in second place and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in third.

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Peter BarnesSenior elections and political analyst, BBC News

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General election: Labour would need record swing to win

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Analysis shows the effect of the new election boundaries. Use our tool to look up your constituency.

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Typically, defeated presidential candidates fade from memory, never able to shake the taint of the loss. Mr Trump, however, has managed to convince Republicans - here in Iowa and nationally - that he didn't lose. And that is one of the reasons why he won on Monday night.

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Key takeaways from Trump's win at Iowa caucuses

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His projected victory is not a surprise but reinforces his dominance of the Republican Party.

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Anthony ZurcherNorth America correspondent in Des Moines, Iowa

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Five Republican storylines to watch for at Iowa caucuses

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A possible knockout punch, a fight for second place and one candidate’s last stand - Anthony Zurcher has the lowdown.

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There is not a crumb of comfort for the Conservatives in the YouGov poll splashed across the front of this morning's Daily Telegraph. It forecasts that the Tories will lose 196 seats in the coming general election, a bigger slump than the party suffered in 1997, 1945 or 1929. This would represent the second-worst defeat in the party's history, after Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Liberal landslide in 1906. Sir Keir Starmer would be looking at a majority of around 120.

The poll suggests election night, whenever it comes, will serve up a steady stream of Portillo moments, with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, and Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt all set to lose their seats. Unfortunately for the Tories, it appears to be a robust piece of research that uses multi-level regression and post-stratification, the method that accurately predicted the 2017 and 2019 election results.

This would represent the second-worst defeat in the party's history

Writing over at ConservativeHome, Paul Goodman notes that the poll was commissioned by an outfit calling itself the Conservative Britain Alliance, which is 'working with Lord Frost'. Goodman thinks it's an attempt by the right to bounce Number 10 into toughening up the Rwanda Bill, which will have its third reading this week. That may well be the case but the tactical use to which the research is being put does not invalidate the research itself.

And it purports to show 96 Tory-held seats which will be lost on account of Reform's presence on the ballot. The Thatcherite party, led by Richard Tice, has been talking up its challenge to the Conservatives on immigration. Remove Reform from the equation and the Tories win enough seats to deny Labour an overall majority. Reform, in its previous guise as the Brexit Party, cut deals in 2019 to stand aside in seats where the Tory incumbent was pro-Brexit. This time they say there will be no deals with anyone.

The Conservatives don't yet know whether this will be the extent of the damage Reform inflicts on them. There is another scenario, in which Nigel Farage returns to frontline politics and contests a Commons seat, such as Clacton, which he has hinted at. That would be the worst-case scenario for Rishi Sunak, as the YouGov poll shows him haemorrhaging Leave voters. Were Farage to become the face of Reform, it would not only give those Leave voters an alternative, it could tempt away others currently minded to hold their nose and vote Tory. In this case, the Conservatives could face an even more comprehensive defeat, perhaps even something akin to an extinction-level event.

There isn't anywhere for Sunak to go. As Goodman points out, if he gives his right flank what they want on Rwanda, his left flank will refuse to vote for the bill, sinking it altogether. These same considerations exist among the electorate at large. Save for the issue of Brexit, the Conservatives have spent more than a decade in power studiously ignoring their right-wing and pursuing policies the right considers scarcely different to those of a centrist Labour government. Yet if Sunak tries lurching rightwards at this late stage, he might drive more affluent blue-wall Tories into the arms of the Lib Dems.

For their part, backbenchers could put their letters in and elect a new leader but cracking open a fresh tin of Tory chaos would do nothing for their electoral chances. Besides, there is the risk that the right lands itself with another Boris Johnson, who dislodged Theresa May with right-wing votes but once in Number 10 governed from the left of the party.

There are no good options at this point. The Tories have lost the floating voters who put them in power in 2010 and kept them there in 2015 and 2017. They've lost the Red Wall voters who gave them the 80-seat majority with which they have done almost nothing. Now they face the prospect of losing their core supporters, who feel frustrated that right-wing votes only ever seem to produce centrist outcomes.

Everyone is ranged against the Conservatives now: the left, the right and the centre; the Red Wall and the Blue Wall; the Remainers and the Leavers. An electoral asteroid is heading in their direction and the only question is whether they will survive the impact.

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Could a 1997-style wipeout spell the end of the Tories?

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The Tories are forecast to lose 196 seats in the general election, a bigger slump than the party suffered in 1997, according to a YouGov poll

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Donald Trump remains the prohibitive favourite for the Republican presidential nomination, but Nikki Haley is surging. If the former president shows any signs of weakness when voting begins next week, her long-shot bid could become a real threat.

On a snowy morning in Iowa this week, in the middle of an Irish pub, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was giving her stump speech: a tight 13 minutes on spending cuts, education reform and a secure southern border.

At the heart of her pitch was this: a Haley presidency would be a return to normalcy, a drama-free alternative to the current frontrunner, former president Donald Trump.

"Don't you want that again? Because we could have that again," she said.

The line won the loudest applause of the morning from the hundred-odd voters who had braved the icy roads to hear her speak in Waukee, on the edge of the state capital Des Moines.

Eleven months into her candidacy, Ms Haley, 51, seems to finally have the wind at her back.

Heading into the Iowa caucuses on Monday, the first contest in the 2024 Republican race, the former South Carolina governor has claimed a series of well-timed victories - consolidating support from deep-pocketed donors, racking up endorsements and steadily advancing in the polls.

"She's engaging, she's smart, she's personable and I think she has a vision of where we should be 10 years from now," said Haley supporter Doug Stout after watching her speak on Tuesday.

The vision was for the "shining city on the hill" type of Republican Party, he said. "The one I grew up with."

The unfortunate reality for the Haley campaign, however, is that not enough voters seem to be buying that vision. Most polls, including in Iowa, suggest Mr Trump maintains a lead of around 30 points.

Observers say Nikki Haley is running a campaign for the wrong era of Republican politics; that her candidacy ignores the reality of the modern Republican party, whose base has turned so definitively toward Mr Trump that the establishment-friendly conservatism favoured by Ms Haley no longer makes sense.

"Ms Haley's campaign represents a misunderstanding of where the base is and what the base wants," said Gunner Ramer, political director for the Republican Accountability Project.

"To those that want the old Republican party back, Haley is offering a very attractive candidacy. But there aren't enough Republicans out there who do."

So what exactly is her game plan?

Ms Haley's allies say both privately and publicly that she is playing to win.

They insist that as the field narrows, and Ms Haley becomes the clear alternative to Mr Trump, she will pull ahead, propelled by moderates and a growing swathe of Republican voters who have tired of the former president, or are concerned about his chances in the general election.

In Iowa, Ms Haley looks poised to swipe the second place spot from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

At a Wednesday evening debate between the two, Ms Haley strained to position herself as Mr Trump's sole rival. "I wish Donald Trump was on this stage. He's the one I'm running against," she said.

Campaign aides told the BBC that the goal for Ms Haley in Iowa is simple: build momentum. A strong showing, they said, would carry her into New Hampshire - where polls with Mr Trump are much tighter - and then on to South Carolina, her home state.

Ms Haley may be helped by the sudden exit of anti-Trump candidate, Chris Christie, who suspended his campaign this week. Supporters of the former New Jersey Governor, surveys suggest, are most likely to flock to her.

Less helpful was Mr Christie's hot-mic moment, when he was caught saying she would "get smoked", presumably by Mr Trump.

"She's not up to this," he said.

Long-time observers counter that Ms Haley has a knack for defying expectations.

"If you look at her career, a lot of people have underestimated her and a lot of people have been wrong," said Randy Covington, a veteran journalist from South Carolina.

Even her critics acknowledge that she is a master of retail politics - the door-knocking and handshaking that delivered her to the statehouse in 2005. She stunned her own party in the primary by unseating Larry Koon, then the longest-serving member of the House. At the time, Ms Haley had no political experience and was a bookkeeper for her family's clothing shop.

Nearly 20 years later, the state representative-turned-governor-turned-UN-ambassador still likes to introduce herself first as an accountant. She points out that she is a mom of two, the wife of a combat veteran and the child of Indian immigrants, running to make her family proud. In televised debates, in pancake houses and town halls, Ms Haley pauses mid-speech for a smile and pointed eye contact. She's a down-home American hard at work for your vote.

"She connects, she has the X factor," said David Wilkins, a former South Carolina House speaker who led Ms Haley's transition to the governor's house. "The more people who are exposed to her, the more support she's going to get, it's just that simple."

Ms Haley's campaign often looks and sounds like something out of 2012: more compromise and pragmatism, fewer grievances and conspiracy theories. She is a staunch conservative, but she speaks with nuance on hot button issues like abortion and immigration, and is less eager to wade into the country's culture wars.

In Iowa this week, it was clear this was central to her appeal. Voters said they valued Ms Haley's tone and her civility - a clear departure from Mr Trump, who spent part of this week in a federal appeals court for one of the four separate criminal cases he now faces.

"She's boring," one Iowan said of Ms Haley, before quickly clarifying he meant it as a compliment. "We need to get out of the era of politics that is dominated by what someone tweeted."

Polls suggest Ms Haley's measured approach could make her the most formidable opponent to President Joe Biden in November's general election.

"Trump is head-to-head with Biden on a good day," she said this week, before citing a Wall Street Journal poll from late last year. "I defeat Biden by 17 points."

But she has to defeat Mr Trump first.

"This is still the party of Donald Trump, until the Republican party says otherwise," said Jimmy Centers, an Iowa Republican political consultant.

At least one-third of Republican primary voters are thought to be in the "always Trump" camp - a group both devoted to the former president and repelled by the establishment politics embodied by Ms Haley.

"I think she's just more of the same... and Trump isn't," said Mike Williams, an Iowa resident. "I want someone who's a bit of an outsider."

The vice-like grip Mr Trump has on the party doesn't give Ms Haley much room for manoeuvre.

She needs to appeal to two very different groups of Republicans: the "never Trumpers" who despise the former president, as well as those who still like him but worry he will lose to Biden. She has to distance herself from him without alienating his supporters who might yet be persuaded to back someone else.

Ms Haley has been cautious in her criticism of her old boss. At a televised town hall in Iowa, a prospective backer sheepishly admitted he had voted for Mr Trump twice. "Me too," she quipped, beaming.

In nearly every speech, she performs a tightly rehearsed juggling act. Mr Trump "was the "right president at the right time", she'll say. "But rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him".

Those close to Ms Haley shot down the suggestion that she may eventually join his ticket as the vice-presidential nominee - something the Trump campaign has also dismissed. But Ms Haley has said yes to him before, when she became his ambassador at the United Nations.

Mr Trump, for his part, has turned his ire increasingly on Ms Haley, whom he dubbed "birdbrain" in September. "She is a globalist," he said last week. "She likes the globe. I like America first."

The escalating critiques are perhaps the clearest sign that the frontrunner is taking her campaign seriously. Some Trump aides have also been downplaying expectations of a blowout victory in Iowa.

The Republican race will not be decided this month. But the upcoming votes in Iowa and New Hampshire will be the first test of whether Mr Trump's power is as strong as it seems. If not, then Ms Haley will be waiting in the wings.

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Can Nikki Haley really stop Donald Trump in 2024?

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She's betting the ex-president is more vulnerable than polls suggest. It's still a very long shot.

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Iowa's influential evangelical voters were once decidedly lukewarm on Donald Trump. But if recent polls are accurate, born-again Christians will carry him to victory on Monday in the Republican caucuses. What has changed?

The video is bombastic, even by Mr Trump's standards. Just consider the title: God Made Trump.

"God looked down on his planned paradise and said, 'I need a caretaker,'" a voiceover intones over a minimalist piano track. "So God gave us Trump."

The former president, according to the narrator, is carrying out the will of God. He's "a shepherd to mankind" who will "fight the Marxists" with "arms strong enough to wrestle the deep state".

The video is based on So God Made a Farmer, a 1978 speech by American radio host Paul Harvey which extols the virtues of simple rural American life.

Independently produced by a group calling itself "Trump's Online War Machine", the clip started to pick up steam a week ago when Mr Trump shared it with millions of followers on his Truth Social account. It immediately enraged some religious leaders here in Iowa.

"He's not the saviour," said Michael Demastus, pastor of the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ in the state capital. "Our allegiance as evangelicals is to Jesus, not to the Republican Party or to Donald Trump."

But despite Mr Demastus' insistence that many voters agree with him - and that a surprise is in store on Monday - opinion polls show a different story, with Mr Trump poised for a runaway victory over his Republican rivals.

Evangelical support is crucial here in Iowa, with born-again Christians expected to make up around two-thirds of all Republican caucusgoers.

They are a diverse voting bloc - made up of various denominations and including more traditional churchgoers along with others who may not even regularly go to a church, yet still define themselves as evangelical.

In 2016, Mr Trump picked up just 22% of this group on the way to a second-place finish behind Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who like previous Iowa Republican winners made faith a major part of his campaign.

But since that time, when many were still sceptical of the blunt-talking New York businessman trailed by sex scandals, Mr Trump has made born-again Christians a key part of his voter base. In this Iowa caucus, surveys suggest he will get the support of roughly half of evangelical voters.

Steve Scheffler, a Trump supporter and president of the influential Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, said that Mr Trump had delivered for the religious right, and they expected him to do so again at a moment that many see as the most important election in their lifetimes.

"Evangelical voters know that we live in a society where things have gone awry," he said, mentioning culture war issues over gender identify and "wokeness".

"They believe things are very bad, and if they don't get involved, they are going to get much worse."

Mr Trump's opponents, particularly Florida Governor Ron Desantis, have put a lot of effort into earning the support of religious voters. Mr DeSantis won the coveted endorsement of Bob Vander Plaats, head of The Family Leader, a conservative Christian non-profit group.

But Mr Scheffler argued that big-name endorsements weren't very important - "they're nice to have, but they don't move the needle".

And Mr Trump has hit back, collecting endorsements of his own and sending surrogates such as his former housing secretary Ben Carson on a tour of Iowa churches.

Mr Carson alluded to Mr Trump's unpredictability as he made the case for his former boss at a stop here last week.

"Would you rather have someone whose tongue is maybe a little wild, but has incredibly good policies that make your life better?" he asked the congregation. "Or someone who has a silver tongue and says all the right things and has terrible policies which ruin your life and those of your children and grandchildren?"

Self-described conservative evangelical David Pautsch is a huge fan of Mr Trump, and the former president is part of the reason he's decided to run for Congress in Iowa's 1st district, challenging a Republican incumbent from the right.

Mr Pautsch lives here in Davenport, a city of around 100,000 people in eastern Iowa, and was collecting signatures to back his campaign from hundreds of locals who braved frigid weather to visit a gun show at an exhibition centre.

Easily shifting between quoting Bible verses and Mr Trump's campaign messages - including immigration and his insistence that he did not lose the 2020 election - Mr Pautsch called the people who criticised the God Made Trump video "too uptight and literal".

Christians, he said, need to boldly demand that conservative religious values be injected into the heart of American government. "Our country was never meant to be run without God."

Kedron Bardwell, a political science professor at Simpson College in Indianola, just outside Des Moines, said that Mr Trump had a key advantage over his rivals - a track record that aligned with evangelical priorities.

His appointment of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court - and the overturning of Roe v Wade, which for decades had held that there is a constitutional right to abortion - is a key part of that record, as is his decision to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Politics and religion fuse

If the polls turn out to be accurate, another crucial factor might be an evolving sense of what it means to be evangelical - one that is increasingly aligned with Mr Trump's particular flavour of right-wing politics.

Although church attendance is in long-term decline across the country, according to the Pew Research Center the number of white Americans describing themselves as "evangelical" went up during Mr Trump's presidency. And the group most likely to start using that label to describe themselves were the president's supporters.

More on the US election

"In some ways 'evangelical' has become a political label more than a theological description," said Mr Bardwell, who studies religion and politics and is himself a long-time member of the evangelical community.

He described a deepening divide - mirrored in wider society - between church elites and the masses.

And he said that the decline in church attendance over time had meant that many of those who considered themselves religious were less influenced by spiritual leaders and more by right-wing media and politicians - Mr Trump foremost among them.

The former president regularly refers to religious themes and rarely misses a chance to contend that he is being persecuted by the authorities. Mr Bardwell said that he particularly appealed to "spirit-led" evangelicals, who see the divine playing out on the American political stage.

"There's a portion of the evangelical community that's very attracted to the idea that God knows everything and God appoints leaders," he said. "They believe that Donald Trump is the appointed leader at this moment in time."

On Sunday, most churches in this city in eastern Iowa were closed due to the winter storm that has sent temperatures plunging.

But whether Iowa's believers will ignore the cold and turn out in force for Mr Trump on Monday will be a decisive factor in the Republican race.

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Iowa caucus: Trump counts on evangelicals to carry him to victory

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In the 2016 caucus, religious voters in the state stayed away from Donald Trump. They've since become a vital part of his base.

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The prime minister is facing another long week in the House of Commons.

First up on Monday is his statement on British involvement in strikes against Yemen's Houthi rebels, and why the decision was made without consulting MPs.

But attention will quickly turn - once again - to his flagship Rwanda immigration plan.

You might remember before Christmas, after vast amounts of hullaballoo, the government's plan passed its first big stage in the Commons.

From Tuesday, it will be front and centre of a fresh Commons debate.

The plan would see the government send some asylum seekers arriving in the UK to Rwanda for processing.

The UK signed a deportation deal with the African nation in 2022 and insists the policy would deter people arriving to Britain on small boats via the English Channel.

But the UK Supreme Court said the plan was unlawful because of the risk that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda could be returned to their home countries, where they could face harm.

But some Conservative MPs reckon the plan isn't strong enough and is likely to fail, and so want to amend it.

Before I dive into the detail, I want to draw a distinction between two crucial things at Westminster generally, and in this row in particular: noise and numbers.

Before Christmas, there was rather a lot of the former, and not a lot of the latter.

In other words, those Conservative MPs who think the government's plans are wishy washy and won't work made a lot of noise to that effect, but didn't, in the end, vote against them.

They know they got teased as "cowardly custards" by some. But they said they would be back in the new year.

Well, here we are - and the volume is notching up again.

Some are encouraged, even excited, that the Conservative Deputy Chairman, Lee Anderson, appears to have indicated he is willing to support some of the amendments.

And Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch isn't denying a report in The Times that she privately warned Downing Street before Christmas that the current plans don't go far enough.

But are there actually the numbers to defeat the government?

On Tuesday and Wednesday, at what is known as the Committee Stage of the law-making process, MPs will debate and vote on the plans.

Loads of amendments have been tabled.

It will be up to the Deputy Speaker, Eleanor Laing, to determine which ones are selected.

The leaders of three Conservative backbench tribes, the European Research Group, the Common Sense Group and the New Conservatives said at the weekend around 60 Tory MPs have backed amendments aimed at toughening up the legislation, as they see it.

Many are particularly keen on two ideas.

Firstly, stopping the very thing that stood in the way when the government tried to make this idea work the first time round.

Back in June 2022 a plane was ready to go - until it wasn't, when the European Court of Human Rights intervened at the last minute.

So, some Conservative MPs want ministers to have the authority, as a default, to ignore these injunctions.

Secondly, they also want to significantly limit the number of personal circumstances a migrant could cite to avoid being sent to Rwanda.

The key thing here is these amendments will not pass: The government doesn't support them, and neither do the opposition parties.

So two things really matter: How many Conservative MPs are actually willing to vote against the government's plans, if they are not changed?

That vote, at what is known as Third Reading, will come on Wednesday night if the bill hasn't been amended.

I am struck at this stage that while those wanting amendments talk confidently about their support, they are considerably more circumspect when it comes to how many of those supporters would actually be willing to vote the entire Rwanda plan down and inflict a credibility crushing defeat on Rishi Sunak.

Again, remember the difference between noise and numbers.

As things stand, the mood music from government appears relatively confident.

They will argue the only chance to get the Rwanda plan up and running before the election is to back them.

If things do start looking shaky from No 10's perspective, could they offer any concessions?

They don't have much room for manoeuvre, as Conservative MPs broadly on the left of the party say the bill should remain as it is.

And the Rwandan government has said publicly the plan must remain within international law, which is why some of those arguing for changes insist their ideas are compliant with this.

And remember, even if after this week's noise the government does win, the plans then head off to the House of Lords.

There is plenty of mileage in this argument yet.

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Sunak gears up for battle on Rwanda bill

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The Rwanda bill, which would declare it a safe country, will face fresh scrutiny from MPs this week.

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Rishi Sunak is to address MPs for the first time since the UK joined US strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.

Mr Sunak said Thursday's strikes had been "limited" and "necessary" to protect lives and commercial shipping.

The PM authorised the action without consulting Parliament, prompting criticism from some in opposition.

Following the strikes, the US said it shot down a missile fired at one of its warships from a Houthi area of Yemen on Sunday, with no injuries reported.

It is the latest in weeks of attacks in the Red Sea by the pro-Hamas Houthis, who say they target ships linked to Israel.

The group's attacks on cargo ships - some of which have no clear connection to Israel - have led major shipping companies to divert vessels away from the Red Sea, instead taking a longer route around southern Africa.

Mr Sunak will deliver a statement about the strikes, which targeted Houthi command, storage, and launch facilities, in the House of Commons later.

The Houthis are a political and military group which control a large part of Yemen, including the capital. They are backed by Iran, Israel's arch-enemy.

Following the strikes, Mr Sunak said the Houthi attacks had been "risking lives at sea... causing major disruption to a vital trade route and driving up commodity prices".

"We have therefore taken limited, necessary and proportionate action in self-defence... to degrade Houthi military capabilities and protect global shipping," he said.

The government is not legally required to seek parliamentary approval before taking military action. However, a convention has been established in recent years under which the Commons is given the opportunity to debate the deployment of military forces in advance.

Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron told the BBC on Sunday that "operational security" made it necessary to proceed without a vote.

But Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokeswoman Layla Moran said Parliament had a "right to debate and vote on military action", and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said it was "utterly disgraceful that Parliament has not even been consulted".

Asked on the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme about the criticism, Lord Cameron said Mr Sunak had "followed all the correct procedures", including "assembling ministers, listening to legal advice, consulting with allies".

"I don't think it would have been right to have a debate and a vote before this sort of action, because I think it is important for reasons of operational security to, on this occasion, take the action and then have a statement in Parliament afterwards."

Speaking on the same programme, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who was briefed ahead of the strikes, said Labour supported the action, but there needed to be a debate in Parliament.

Asked about a previous pledge that he would pass a law requiring the government to hold a vote before taking military action, Sir Keir said there was a "huge distinction" between a limited operation like that carried out in Yemen and a "sustained campaign [of] military action, usually involving troops on the ground".

"National security must come first," he said. "There will always be urgent situations where Parliament can't be consulted beforehand."

He said there should be votes on any "sustained campaign", including deployments of ground troops.

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps is also expected to set out a series of measures intended to deter threats to the UK and bolster the country's defences.

In a speech at Lancaster House in London on Monday, Mr Shapps will announce that 20,000 personnel from the British armed forces will be sent to multiple European countries as part of the largest Nato deployment since the end of the Cold War.

They will join thousands of personnel from the 31 Nato allies and Sweden, which is currently in the process of joining the bloc.

"Today our adversaries are busily rebuilding their barriers. Old enemies are reanimated. Battle lines are being redrawn," Mr Shapps will say.

"We must be prepared to deter our enemies, prepared to lead our allies and prepared to defend our nation whenever the call comes."

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Rishi Sunak to address MPs about strikes on Houthis in Yemen

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The UK joined US strikes on Houthi targets without consulting Parliament, prompting criticism from some in opposition.

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Potential by-election as ex-Tory MP Scott Benton faces Commons suspension

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Scott Benton committed a "very serious breach" of parliamentary rules, standards watchdog finds.

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Daniel DePetris

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and US president Joe Biden in the White House (Credit: Getty images)

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to Washington a year ago was a love-fest, characterised by standing ovations from American politicians, lavish praise from president Biden and a commitment to keep the aid flowing. His visit this week, however, occurred in a much different atmosphere.

The politics of Ukraine aid have changed, with a growing number of Republican lawmakers wondering whether sending more taxpayer dollars to underwrite a stalemate is a wise course of action.

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Written by

Daniel DePetris

Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities, a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune and a foreign affairs writer for Newsweek.

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Why isn't Biden being straight with Zelensky?

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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to Washington was a chance for US president Joe Biden to be honest with his ally. He wasn't

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Relief for Rishi Sunak as Rwanda bill passes first vote in Commons

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Bill passes with a majority of 44 but prime minister faces further peril in the new year

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The government has won Tuesday's vote on the 'Safety of Rwanda' Bill comfortably at 313 votes to 269 against. This means Rishi Sunak has managed to pass his Bill at second reading after a day of negotiations with the various Tory tribes. Not a single Tory MP voted against the Bill. Thirty-eight conservative MPs abstained in total of which 29 Tory MPs abstained on principle. If the 29 had all voted against the Bill, this would have been enough to block it at second reading.

The result comes after various sceptic Conservative factions - including the European Research Group (ERG) and the New Conservatives - advised their members to abstain. The result will come as a relief to No. 10 following talk in the Conservative party that the vote could come down to the wire. Had the government lost at second reading, it would have been a devastating blow to Sunak's authority, given that the last time a Bill from the government fell at a similar stage was 1986 under Thatcher on Sunday trading.

Sunak has avoided a leadership crisis before Christmas

However, the problem for Sunak is that, while he has had the best result he could have hoped for today (and the margins are less tight than many MPs had predicted), his MPs plan to take the fight to the next stage. The ERG of eurosceptic Tory MPs has warned that they will vote down the Rwanda Bill in the New Year if they don't get the changes they want to see. Now based on these numbers, a majority of the MPs choosing to abstain would need to choose to vote against - but it's not impossible.

It means that in many ways today's result puts off rather than solves a clash within the Tory party. When the Bill reaches committee stage, the ERG and the One Nation group could yet put down amendments to change the Bill. It then also needs to get through the House of Lords. Sunak has avoided a leadership crisis before Christmas - but his problems on the policy are far from over.

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Sunak wins the Rwanda vote - but the battle is far from over

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The government has won Tuesday's vote on the 'Safety of Rwanda' Bill comfortably at 313 votes to 269 against. This means Rishi Sunak has managed to pass his Bill at second reading after a day of negotiations with the various Tory tribes. Not a single Tory MP voted against the Bill.

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Shortly before the vote, five factions of backbench MPs - the European Research Group (ERG), the New Conservatives, the Common Sense Group, the Conservative Growth Group and Northern Research Group - said they could not support the bill in its current form.

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Rishi Sunak sees off Tory rebellion over Rwanda bill

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Flagship bill passes its first Commons hurdle but PM still faces battle to get it through Parliament.

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Chris Mason: No easy way forward for Rishi Sunak after Commons win as Rwanda bill splits party

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Finding a way between opposing views over Rwanda will challenge the PM in 2024, writes Chris Mason.

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I know it's nearly Christmas, and maybe the last thing you want to think about is politics. But you might have to.

The governing party has to.

Because the Downing Street operation is in real trouble.

And, while it seemed a bit wild when we talked about it last week, it is not crazy to think that the Conservatives really are in such a bad place that some of them are wondering if a change of leader might be needed.

Take a breath - it is not the consensus that rolling a dice to produce a sixth prime minister since the EU referendum would be a good idea. But it is no longer a completely fringe view, for several really important reasons.

Rishi Sunak is under genuine pressure. He has to front up to the Covid inquiry on Monday, and on Tuesday there is the first vote on a plan he put his name to that has gone badly wrong.

Problem one: the Tories just can't agree on how to keep one of the PM's big promises, to 'stop the boats'.

That phrase has become part of the political lexicon, but Rishi Sunak's slogan has become a millstone around his administration's neck.

The plan was based on an aspiration to put off migrants from around the world from coming to the UK by saying they would be sent to an African country instead if they made it here. The problem overcame early political controversies, and Parliament approved it some time ago.

But then it hit practical and legal challenges. In the last few days, Mr Sunak's new attempts to make his long-term wish come true have been battered by some of his own party.

He's stopped short of the more radical action some of his MPs believe is needed to get planes in the air without further time-consuming legal tangles, but his new laws have gone further than other colleagues are comfortable with.

Like Theresa May's Brexit compromises, it doesn't quite satisfy everyone on the right of his party, and but it makes people at the softer end of his tribe feel itchy.

The result? He's stuck in the uncomfortable middle on an issue that he chose to make his own.

This weekend MPs of all stripes in his party are mulling over whether to back the plan or not. (Although be cautious about the headlines predicting certain disaster, as many backbenchers are likely to let the proposals pass at its first stage debate, known as second reading, but then try to tweak them, pull them apart, or even kick them out after Christmas.)

Problem two: it's not just the opponents you could predict who are in a stew. The prime minister's friend, and the minister who was in charge of dealing with the problem, has walked away. Robert Jenrick, who'll be with us in the studio on Sunday, says the plan simply won't work and he is raising big doubts about the government's whole approach to managing migration from abroad.

Problem three: Number 10 is not just trying to tack between two sides, but a restive brew of different tribes who all follow different lines.

It is impossible to imagine pleasing them all, and hard to see a situation where they all are content to go along with Number 10. One MP poking fun at the different groups describes them as follows: "The 'One Nation' would be the school swats. The goody two shoes. The European Research Group (ERG) are the Colonel Blimps or those old blokes who sit in the corner of the pub and the New Conservatives are those really annoying out of control kids in parks. The Truss lots are the Dementors!"

Catty jokes aside, how could one leader ever keep them all in check, even on issues that were not controversial? Of course, political parties are always coalitions. It's ridiculous to imagine they are all always in total harmony. But one former minister suggested in the Tory party in 2023: "There is no cohesion as a parliamentary team on any level - they don't like one another, and they don't get on."

On this week's show is Robert Jenrick, who resigned as immigration minister this week

We'll also hear from Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove and shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall

And Laura has interviewed Ukraine's First Lady Olena Zelenska in Kyiv

Watch live from 09:00 GMT on BBC One and BBC iPlayer or watch and follow updates here on the BBC News website

Email the show anytime: kuenssberg@bbc.co.uk

Problem four: an unhappy, messy Conservative Party faces a different opposition.

It was one thing for the Tories to be permanently scrapping when Theresa May was in charge, or when Boris Johnson took over. The green benches opposite them then were full of unhappy factions under Jeremy Corbyn.

Labour is different now, and the Tories know it.

Leaked recordings reach my ears of the trade minister and former Conservative chair, Greg Hands, telling student activists in Oxford at the end of October as much.

He said that voters have been put off by the turmoil in Number 10. "They have been turned off by us, particularly by the events of last year where we had three prime ministers."

And he said that although Keir Starmer might not have created rapturous excitement among the voters, the idea that Labour is a threat for voters, has gone.

In the recordings he says: "Corbyn was a great deterrent for a lot of more liberal-minded Conservatives from voting anything other than Conservative because they were afraid they would get Corbyn as their prime minister."

When talking about trying to hold on to voters he's heard to say that Starmer "isn't Corbyn, he doesn't alienate, frighten people like Corbyn does so that I think is a taller task for us at the moment is keeping those people on side". Mr Hands did say there were Conservative voters who could yet return to the party.

In response to that recording, he says: "As I said in Oxford, Sir Keir Starmer hasn't convinced the British people - and the Conservative Party can still win the next general election.

"Like Neil Kinnock in the 1980s, Sir Keir Starmer is not as left wing as his predecessor, but he is still too left wing for the British people, and when the spotlight is on him, he will be found out. He changes his mind on every single major issue to please his audience, whether it be the monarchy, the EU, tuition fees or taxation."

Rishi Sunak's allies would say, with some justification, that the prime minister created calm after a spasm of chaos.

But looking at recent events, it's clear that wasn't powerful enough to prevail. And his many resets have perhaps gone into reverse. The splits now seem as sore as ever.

Maybe that's because after so long being behind in the polls some Tory MPs would rather choose their own principles over the party's success.

Maybe it's because Rishi Sunak hasn't been able to persuade them that unity is a prize worth fighting for.

Maybe it's because after so long in power with endless reinventions the party isn't sure what it's really for.

Maybe it's a mix of all of the above, and more.

In fact, Rishi Sunak still leads a party that enjoys a massive majority in the House of Commons. The next election does not have to happen for another 12 months. Voters are volatile creatures these days, the public mood can move very fast.

But the prime minister's USP - ending the chaos of the Truss and Johnson year - has taken a battering. Splits and scrapping are back. And the public does not like divided parties.

Right now, that might be one of the few political truths that Conservative MPs can agree on.

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Laura Kuenssberg: Tory party splits and spats put Sunak under serious pressure

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The PM's unique selling point - ending the chaos of the Truss and Johnson years - is taking a battering.

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And the blunt truth is we now know his now former immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, thinks he's destined to fail, again. He had been talking to the prime minister for around a week about his concerns - and now he has resigned.

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Chris Mason: Mood in Conservative Party bleak after Jenrick's resignation

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Senior Tories say they would not be surprised if Rishi Sunak ends up facing a confidence vote, says Chris Mason.

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Robert Jenrick has resigned as immigration minister, saying the government's emergency Rwanda legislation "does not go far enough".

He said "stronger protections" were needed to end "the merry-go-round of legal challenges which risk paralysing the scheme".

The government said the bill, unveiled earlier, made clear in UK law Rwanda was a safe country for asylum seekers.

But it stops short of what some on the Tory right were demanding.

In his resignation letter to Rishi Sunak, Mr Jenrick said the prime minister had "moved towards my position" on the emergency legislation.

"Nevertheless, I am unable to take the currently proposed legislation through the Commons as I do not believe it provides us with the best possible chance of success."

Mr Jenrick added that the bill was "a triumph of hope over experience".

In response, the prime minister described Mr Jenrick's resignation as "disappointing" and "based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation".

"If we were to oust the courts entirely, we would collapse the entire scheme," Mr Sunak said.

"The Rwandan government have been clear that they would not accept the UK basing this scheme on legislation that could be considered in breach of our international law obligations."

The plans to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda aim to deter people from crossing the English Channel in small boats.

But the scheme has been repeatedly delayed by legal challenges and no asylum seekers have been sent to the east African country from the UK so far.

Mr Jenrick, who had supported Mr Sunak's leadership campaign, said the emergency legislation was the "last opportunity" to prove the government would do "whatever it takes" to stop small boat crossings.

Losing a minister who was once a key ally is a blow for Mr Sunak, in a week when the government had been trying to get on the front foot on migration.

Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "It is a sign of the total chaos in the Tory party and the complete collapse of Rishi Sunak's leadership that even while he is sitting in the Commons for the announcement of his new Rwanda plan, his own immigration minister is resigning because he doesn't think it will work."

Senior figures are musing privately that they would not be surprised if Mr Sunak ended up facing a confidence vote from his own MPs.

Although it may not come to that, it is a measure of the bleak mood among many Conservatives.

Reports of Mr Jenrick's resignation first started swirling after the government published the draft bill.

The legislation aims to address the concerns of the UK's Supreme Court, which last month ruled plans to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda were unlawful.

The bill - which must be approved by Parliament - orders the courts to ignore key sections of the Human Rights Act in an attempt to sidestep the Supreme Court's existing judgement.

It also orders the courts to ignore other British laws or international rules - such as the international Refugee Convention - that stand in the way of deportations to Rwanda.

However, it does not go as far as some Tory MPs wanted.

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman and her supporters had called for it to override the entire Human Rights Act, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the Refugee Convention, and all other international law.

The bill allows ministers to ignore any emergency order from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to temporarily halt a flight to Rwanda while an individual case is still being considered.

But it stops short of providing powers to dismiss the whole of the ECHR.

It also allows migrants to legally challenge their removal to Rwanda on specific individual grounds, if they can prove that being put on a plane would leave them at real risk of serious harm.

A source close to Mrs Braverman said the bill was "fatally flawed" and would be "bogged down in the courts for months and months".

However, if the government had agreed to her demands this would have provoked a backlash from centrist Tories.

The One Nation group, which is made up of more than 100 Tory MPs, had warned that overriding the ECHR was a "red line" for a number of Conservatives.

The group cautiously welcomed "the government's decision to continue to meet the UK's international commitments which uphold the rule of law" but added that it would seek legal advice "about concerns and the practicalities of the bill".

The draft legislation concedes that it may not be compatible with the ECHR.

This means government lawyers have told ministers the measures could still be legally challenged.

Who is Robert Jenrick?

The former solicitor became a Conservative MP when he was elected in the 2014 by-election in the Nottinghamshire seat of Newark.

He was promoted into the cabinet as housing secretary in 2019 by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Mr Jenrick, a 41-year-old father-of-three, also briefly served as a junior health minister in Liz Truss's government, despite backing Mr Sunak for the Tory leadership.

As immigration minister he consistently pushed for a harder line on legal and illegal immigration, expressing frustration at the high levels of both.

He was also at the centre of several controversies, including a row over approving planning permission for Tory donor Richard Desmond.

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Robert Jenrick resigns as immigration minister over Rwanda legislation

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The former immigration minister says the government's emergency legislation "does not go far enough".

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When he found out that a career-minded MP called Rishi Sunak had come out in favour of leaving the EU, David Cameron turned to George Osborne and declared: 'We've lost the future of the party.'

Almost eight years later, Sunak should be turning to his own wing man - Oliver Dowden perhaps or even Cameron himself - and saying the same thing about the resignation of Robert Jenrick as immigration minister.

Because Jenrick quitting over the Rwanda Bill not being strong enough is an equally telling moment. The 41-year-old Jenrick comes from the same well-mannered, centre-right Tory tradition as Sunak. He is in politics for the long haul and undoubtedly sees a return to full Cabinet rank as part of his personal career plan.

He was sent by Sunak to the Home Office to man mark that wild card Suella Braverman. But he came to see that she was right on the fundamentals of migration policy of both the legal and illegal varieties.

And now he has quit Sunak's administration, resigning both on a point of principle and as a result of a calculated analysis about the future direction and likely reservoirs of support of the Conservative party.

As a good performer on the Today programme and all-round smooth operator, Jenrick could easily have prospered in any 'liberal Conservative' government over the next 20 years. Clearly, he has gone because he does not think there is going to be such a government.

Instead, his political antennae have told him, correctly in my view, that the Conservative Party is going to lose the next election and then undergo a major reorientation that will see its patrician liberal wing of upper-class internationalists getting marginalised and then dropping out.

In their place will emerge an earthier, more provincial pro-nation state party that is genuinely socially conservative, particularly around the totemic issue of border control.

Jenrick has, in effect, made the opposite choice to the one that Sunak made a few weeks ago when he sacked Braverman and brought Cameron back into cabinet along with various bright young things who travel light when it comes to ideological baggage.

As immigration minister he looked into the future of migration trends and realised that the international arrangements currently in place are completely unsustainable and that the British public will turn towards a Nigel Farage political vehicle to remedy things if the Tories do not.

As MP for Newark in Nottinghamshire - a prosperous rural constituency with a market town at its heart - he has no doubt worked out that the Tories can win again if they rebuild the victorious 2019 electoral coalition of socially and culturally conservative voters across traditional shire seats and Red Wall ones alike.

Blue Wall, Home Counties Tory liberalism of a kind that prioritises foreign aid over domestic levelling up or international law over basic border control is destined to become so much political roadkill. The actual Liberal Democrats or Keir Starmer's new Blairism will hoover up voters who believe in that stuff.

The short-term impact of Jenrick's departure will be to blow further holes in Sunak's credibility on stopping the boats and immigration control in general. The odds must now be on a no confidence vote in the Prime Minister taking place before the Christmas recess.

But it is the long-term impact that is more fascinating still. Like other bright Tories who have yet to hit their career zeniths - Neil O'Brien and Nick Timothy come to mind - Jenrick has detected both the electoral and intellectual power of scepticism about mass, uncontrolled migration.

The National or 'New' Conservative movement, which prioritises the ideas of citizen preference in public services and social housing, strong law and order, pro-family policy, resisting Woke onslaughts from the identitarian left, and the enhancement of social solidarity is the coming force.

It will either take a controlling interest in the Tory party or create a party of its own - perhaps in conjunction with senior voices in Reform or even the SDP - after a calamitous Conservative defeat next year. Either way, a big shake-out is coming and the smart people are turning right just as Sunak has headed back towards the psychological comfort of the established centre ground. The herd is on the move again, but it is not going where Sunak wishes to lead it.

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Jenrick's resignation is a turning point for the Tory party

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When he found out that a career-minded MP called Rishi Sunak had come out in favour of leaving the EU, David Cameron turned to George Osborne and declared: 'We've lost the future of the party.'

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Tax cuts worth £20bn in Jeremy Hunt's autumn statement favoured the richest 20% of earners, undoing much of the progressive policy changes made during the parliament's first half, a leading thinktank has found.

The top fifth will gain £1,000 on average, five times the gains seen by the bottom 20%, who will be only £200 better off from measures that include a 2p cut in national insurance, according to the Resolution Foundation's analysis.

The thinktank also found that while earnings are growing faster than previously estimated by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) - the Treasury's independent economic forecaster - real average earnings adjusted for inflation are not forecast to return to their 2008 peak until 2028 - "a totally unprecedented 20-year pay stagnation".

The analysis said this parliament was on track to be the first in which real household disposable incomes fall - by 3.1% from December 2019 to January 2025. Households will on average be £1,900 poorer at the end of this parliament than at its start.

In what is widely seen as the opening bid by the chancellor to woo voters before an election next year, Hunt announced on Wednesday that he was able to lift the tax burden after a steep fall in inflation and after the economy had turned a corner.

However, he left in place £90bn of tax rises over the life of the parliament that the thinktank said remain progressive, with the richest fifth of households set to lose £1,100 on average, while the poorest 20% gain an average of £700.

Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said that "despite the tax-cutting rhetoric", taxes are on course to rise by 4.5% of the UK's gross domestic product (GDP) between 2019 and 2020 and 2028 to 2029, equivalent to £4,300 a household.

The thinktank praised welfare benefit increases and a lifting of the cap on private rent subsidies after a freeze of several years that had been blamed for thousands of tenants being forced to leave their homes.

However, Bell added that the tax cuts and benefit rises were underpinned by an "implausible" squeeze on public services over the next five years that amounted to a 15% budget reduction in real terms for unprotected departments such as justice and transport.

He said: "Jeremy Hunt yesterday got his pre-election giveaways in early, with an autumn statement offering tax cuts today, at the price of implausible spending cuts tomorrow.

"Well-targeted specifics, addressing problems such as our tax system's bias against working-age earnings or benefit system's failure to keep pace with fast-rising rents, were juxtaposed with far less well-designed big picture fiscal choices. Tax-cutting rhetoric clashed with tax-rising reality, and positive steps to encourage business investment combined with a growth sapping hit to public investment."

Commenting on the fall in real household disposable incomes, Bell said: "Ultimately this reflects the pressures, not only of an upcoming election, but of governing a sicker, older, slower growing Britain, amid an era of far higher interest rates.

"That might be difficult for policymakers, but it's a disaster for households whose wages are stuck in a totally unprecedented 20-year stagnation. This parliament is set to achieve a truly grim new record: the first in which household incomes will be lower at its end than its beginning."

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Autumn statement tax cuts favour richest 20%, thinktank analysis finds

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Resolution Foundation says top fifth to get £1,000 - five times poorest 20%, compounding '20 years of pay stagnation'