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John Rentoul

@JohnRentoul

John Rentoul is The Independent’s chief political commentator, having worked for the title since 1995. He is also visiting professor at King’s College, London, and a prominent tweeter. He is the author of a biography of Tony Blair and, with Jon Davis, of Heroes or Villains? The Blair Government Reconsidered. He writes the free daily View from Westminster newsletter, and the weekly Commons Confidential email on Wednesdays for subscribers only

<p>Keir Starmer speaks with a border officer in Tirana, Albania, on Thursday </p>
Politics explained

How might Starmer’s migrant ‘return hubs’ even work?

<p>Geri Hignett, a doctor, protesting outside parliament in Edinburgh on Tuesday </p>
Politics Explained

Is the tide really turning against assisted dying?

<p>Unemployment is still pretty low by historical standards</p>
Politics Explained

Has Labour really made Britain’s jobs market worse?

<p>Prime minister Keir Starmer and Louise Haigh when she was transport secretary</p>
Voices

Starmer has wins on the global stage but must beware domestic threats

<p>John Rentoul answers your questions on the US-UK trade deal</p>
UK Politics

John Rentoul answers your questions on Starmer’s trade deals

<p>Kemi Badenoch, current leader of the opposition</p>
Voices

Kemi’s sour grapes response to ‘two-deals Keir’ is a recipe for chaos

<p>Ask John Rentoul Anything on the US-UK trade deal</p>
UK Politics

Q&A: Ask John Rentoul anything on historic Trump trade deal

<p>Suddenly we have been moved from the back of Barack Obama’s queue to the front of Trump’s line. The charm offensive has worked</p>
Voices

‘Two-tier Keir’ turned into ‘two deals Keir’ (with a third on the way)

<p>Kemi Badenoch knows this is a good deal for the taxpayer because she was trade secretary 10 months ago, leading the British negotiations on the deal</p>
Voices

The right’s attack on the India deal is opportunistic, envious fakery

<p>Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has placed a ban on Ukrainian flags flying at English council buildings – even though the Ukrainian cause is overwhelmingly popular in Britain... and even Reform voters support it</p>
Voices

Reform’s ban on Ukrainian flags shows us who Nigel Farage really is

<p>Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform UK party, celebrates the victory of Sarah Pochin, the party’s candidate, in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election at the DCBL Stadium in Widnes </p>
Voices

Yes, Nigel Farage really could be prime minister in 2029

<p>While Kemi Badenoch’s party will take years to recover from its own disfavour, Farage will conquer all in the meantime</p>
Voices

It was a bad night for Labour – but even worse for the Tories

<p>Your local election questions answered by John Rentoul</p>
UK Politics

Will Farage’s success endure? John Rentoul answers your questions

UK Politics

Will Farage’s success endure? John Rentoul answers your questions

<p>Your local election questions answered by John Rentoul</p>
<p>Ask John Rentoul anything on the local elections</p>
UK Politics

Local elections 2025: Ask John Rentoul anything in exclusive Q&A

<p>Ed Miliband, energy secretary</p>
Voices

Is Ed Miliband, Labour’s green conscience, about to be dumped?

<p>Now that Rachel Reeves realises that a US-UK trade deal is a second or third-order priority for Trump, she must know that her chances of avoiding more big tax rises in the autumn Budget are one step closer to zero</p>
Voices

Rachel Reeves has given up hoping for a trade deal with Donald Trump

<p>Former prime minister Tony Blair</p>
Voices

Tony Blair has exposed the inconvenient facts about net zero

<p>Former prime minister Tony Blair</p>
Voices

Tony Blair has exposed the inconvenient facts about net zero

<p>Sir Keir Starmer, centre, with his wife, Victoria, left, at the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome</p>
Voices

Pope’s funeral a chance for PM to seal the deal with European leaders

<p>Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is said to be ‘open’ to a youth mobility scheme with the EU on a ‘one in, one out’ basis</p>
Voices

Could Yvette Cooper’s ‘one in, one out’ EU youth mobility scheme work?

<p>Ed Miliband, energy secretary</p>
Voices

So will regional energy prices really spark poll tax-style riots?

<p>Keir Starmer speaks to children during a visit to St Michael’s Junior School in Bath following the rollout of 750 new free breakfast clubs across England</p>
Voices

Is Labour’s breakfast club rollout a poorly disguised bribe?

<p>Certain alien life forces can put the fear of God into you – but enough about our parliamentarians...</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Definitely not Daleks?

<p>Liz Truss and Nigel Farage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC last year</p>
Voices

Nigel Farage’s party has been talking to Liz Truss – a big mistake

<p><a href="/news/health/learning-disabilities-autism-hospital-nhs-b2734869.html" title="‘Every day she begs for help’: Father fighting for daughter detained in hospital for years to be freed"></a>Streeting’s approach to reform is fundamentally sound, which is to bring in the people who made the NHS the best it has ever been and put them to work</p>
Voices

Wes Streeting must cut and run to a safer seat – his country needs him

<p>‘The truth is that Trump and Vance have played their hand so badly that they now need a UK trade deal as much as we do’</p>
Voices

How can Starmer seal the deal with Trump?

<p>Liz Truss and Nigel Farage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC last year</p>
Voices

Nigel Farage’s party has been talking to Liz Truss – a big mistake

<p><a href="/news/health/learning-disabilities-autism-hospital-nhs-b2734869.html" title="‘Every day she begs for help’: Father fighting for daughter detained in hospital for years to be freed"></a>Streeting’s approach to reform is fundamentally sound, which is to bring in the people who made the NHS the best it has ever been and put them to work</p>
Voices

Wes Streeting must cut and run to a safer seat – his country needs him

<p>‘The truth is that Trump and Vance have played their hand so badly that they now need a UK trade deal as much as we do’</p>
Voices

How can Starmer seal the deal with Trump?

<p>The public learns little from politicians publishing their tax returns that it didn’t already know</p>
Voices

What do tax returns published by Starmer, Rayner and Reeves tell us?

Voices

What do tax returns published by Starmer, Rayner and Reeves tell us?

<p>The public learns little from politicians publishing their tax returns that it didn’t already know</p>
<p>‘Miliband may linger in Starmer’s cabinet as a green talisman, helping to keep Labour idealists from defecting to the Greens, or he may resign on a point of principle, helping Labour to appeal to Reform-minded voters’</p>
Voices

The big loser from the collapse of British Steel is Ed Miliband

<p></p>
UK Politics

What Tony Blair told Keir Starmer about how to deal with Donald Trump

<p>Home secretary Yvette Cooper has promised a named police officer for every community</p>
Voices

Two cheers for Yvette Cooper’s bid to put more bobbies on the beat

<p>King Charles in Rome with Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni</p>
Voices

How the King is seducing Labour

<p>King Charles in Rome with Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni</p>
Voices

How the King is seducing Labour

<p>‘The falls in stock markets around the world reflect a rational assessment of the consequences of a trade war’</p>
Voices

Donald Trump is the Liz Truss of US economic policy

<p>US president Donald Trump greets British prime minister Keir Starmer at the entrance of the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, on 27 February 2025</p>
UK Politics

John Rentoul answers your Trump tariffs questions

<p>Sir Tony Blair (left) backs Sir Keir Starmer’s approach on tariffs (Stefan Rousseau/PA)</p>
UK Politics

Tony Blair urges Starmer not to retaliate against Trump tariffs

<p>Tony Blair and Keir Starmer </p>
News

Tony Blair has warned Starmer against retaliatory tariffs – here’s why

Voices

Keep calm and carry on: Starmer is right to duck the tariffs brawl

<p>Donald Trump has launched a fresh wave of tariffs, including a 10 per cent duty on all British exports to the US (Carl Court/PA)</p>
UK Politics

Ask John Rentoul anything in Q&A on Trump’s tariffs, Brexit and more

<p>Squeaky blinders: rats during the Birmingham bin strike</p>
Voices

Rats! Why Angela Rayner must sort out Birmingham’s striking binmen

<p>Migrants on board a people smuggler’s boat in the English Channel</p>
Voices

Keir Starmer is angry about illegal migration – but he won’t stop it

<p>Engineer Marc Isambard Brunel built the world’s first underwater tunnel, the Thames Tunnel, not his son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea culpa: trading places with Donald Trump

<p>Michael Gove (right) with his protege, Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch</p>
Voices

Michael Gove explains why he abandoned Boris Johnson twice

<p>King Charles appears to have many interests in common with his current administration</p>
Voices

Is King Charles the ultimate poster boy for Starmer’s Labour?

Voices

Is King Charles the ultimate poster boy for Starmer’s Labour?

<p>King Charles appears to have many interests in common with his current administration</p>
<p>Rachel Reeves announced changes to planned welfare reforms in her spring statement</p>
Voices

Labour’s war on the poor will backfire badly – not least among its MPs

<p>Rachel Reeves ‘keeps betting on black and the roulette wheel keeps coming up red’</p>
Voices

Rachel Reeves’s sticking-plaster solutions won’t fix the economy

<p>The OBR is a public body funded by the Treasury that provides independent analysis of public finances and economic forecasts</p>
Politics explained

What is the OBR and why is it so powerful?

<p>Readers can, quite understandably, get hung up on the correct spelling of the building where planes are stored</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Hanging on to some intriguing etymology

<p>Readers can, quite understandably, get hung up on the correct spelling of the building where planes are stored</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Hanging on to some intriguing etymology

<p>Ed Miliband in Westminster last month</p>
Voices

Labour’s hero-worship of Ed Miliband won’t save him

<p>Liz Kendall sat out the Corbyn years – and was a late arrival in Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet</p>
Voices

Is Liz Kendall now the most formidable woman in Starmer’s cabinet?

<p>Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall announced Labour’s changes to the welfare budget today</p>
Voices

Liz Kendall has done the impossible: Cut welfare and crushed rebellion

<p>Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch</p>
Voices

Badenoch’s first new policy shows her party is a long way from power

<p>The prime minister now has the courage of chief of staff Morgan McSweeney’s convictions</p>
Voices

Keir Starmer is on a journey: He is now ‘more Tory than Tony Blair’

<p>Keir Starmer announced NHS England will be abolished</p>
Voices

Welfare cuts could be a ‘make or break’ moment for Starmer

<p>Sir Keir Starmer announced NHS England will be abolished (Oli Scarff/PA)</p>
Voices

Can Keir Starmer, the unlikely revolutionary, shrink the state?

<p>‘Powell invented the modern role of the “political” chief of staff to the prime minister and made it work so well that it has been maintained by every prime minister since’</p>
Voices

With Jonathan Powell’s return, the Starmer government is in safe hands

<p>The prime minister said the welfare system was ‘unsustainable, indefensible and unfair’</p>
Voices

How the new steely Starmer is attacking welfare

<p>Genuine article: ‘Virgin with Child’, by Duccio di Buoninsegna</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: nothing wrong with an icon in its place

<p>Nigel Farage – the main threat to a continued Labour government – has been damaged by the split in his own ranks</p>
Voices

Reform’s implosion makes a second term for Keir Starmer more likely

Voices

Reform’s implosion makes a second term for Keir Starmer more likely

<p>Nigel Farage – the main threat to a continued Labour government – has been damaged by the split in his own ranks</p>
<p>Kemi Badenoch recently renewed her friendship with US vice-president JD Vance over dinner in Washington</p>
Voices

Come in, Agent Badenoch – your cover as a Labour asset is blown…

<p>‘Despite the praise Donald Trump showered on Keir Starmer, the prime minister has since been dealt several blows’</p>
Voices

Starmer hasn’t put a foot wrong over Ukraine – but he can’t win

<p>If Keir Starmer thought he was a bridge between Trump and European leaders, the US president has blown it up</p>
Voices

Starmer’s fawning at the court of Donald Trump now leaves a sour taste

<p>International development minister Anneliese Dodds</p>
Voices

Dodds’s resignation is like Robin Cook’s – principled, but pointless

<p>International development minister Anneliese Dodds</p>
Voices

Dodds’s resignation is like Robin Cook’s – principled, but pointless

<p>London’s Metropolitan Police were severely criticised in a review carried out by Baroness Casey</p>
Politics Explained

Can police overcome distrust over ‘stop and search’?

<p>Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales sets sail from Portsmouth</p>
Politics Explained

Cutting aid to spend more on defence: do the numbers add up?

<p>Home secretary Yvette Cooper has announced new measures to give police more power when it comes to phone thieves</p>
Voices

Of course the police should have the power to go after stolen phones

<p>‘The letter is revealing because it so clearly sees Nigel Farage as the main threat faced by Labour’</p>
Voices

Starmer’s secret letter reveals that he sees Farage as the real threat

<p>There have been many demands for a scheme to allow some freedom of movement post-Brexit (Yui Mok/PA)</p>
Politics Explained

Will Starmer agree to an EU youth movement scheme after all?

<p>‘Wait, so you’re telling me I should click my heels together three times and say, there’s no place like hone?’</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea culpa: our cup of beauty treatments overfloweth

<p>‘Even the cheapest options, such as a three-child limit, would add to the welfare bill, which Reeves is trying to cut’</p>
Voices

Can Rachel Reeves hold the Labour Party together?

<p>The prime minister said that Europe must ‘meet the demands of its own security’</p>
Voices

If Labour increases defence spending, will it declare war on itself?

<p>Lisa Nandy and Bridget Phillipson have been named in a report from The i Paper as in danger of demotion</p>
Voices

A cabinet reshuffle is coming: will it include Rachel Reeves?

<p>The four-day work week could be the norm in the next 10 years</p>
Voices

To Labour MPs calling for a four-day week – what happened to growth?

<p>Attorney general Richard Hermer </p>
Voices

How the attorney general became a legal time bomb for Keir Starmer

<p>Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has now declared £3,550 worth of clothes donated by Waheed Alli earlier this year</p>
Voices

Labour is stretching credibility – but the elastic will go ‘ping!’

<p>Kim Leadbeater has changed her mind about the proposed requirement for a High Court judge to approve assisted dying requests after listening to experts’ concerns</p>
Voices

Kim Leadbeater is right to rethink assisted dying – but will MPs?

<p>‘Backlash, boy? I’ll give you backlash...’</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea culpa: the abhorrent ape

<p>Energy secretary Ed Miliband has made a U-turn on Heathrow’s third runway</p>
Voices

Now even Ed Miliband backs Heathrow: So much for his green dream

<p>Kemi Badenoch has announced that she wants to double the time that immigrants need to have been in the UK before they can claim indefinite leave to remain</p>
Voices

Kemi has come up with her first policy… and it’s a stinker

<p>‘Backlash, boy? I’ll give you backlash...’</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea culpa: the abhorrent ape

<p>Energy secretary Ed Miliband has made a U-turn on Heathrow’s third runway</p>
Voices

Now even Ed Miliband backs Heathrow: So much for his green dream

<p>Kemi Badenoch has announced that she wants to double the time that immigrants need to have been in the UK before they can claim indefinite leave to remain</p>
Voices

Kemi has come up with her first policy… and it’s a stinker

<p>Warrior women: Kemi Badenoch and her Tory forebear, Margaret Thatcher</p>
Voices

Badenoch’s first 100 days will mark the last gasp of Thatcherism

<p>Age-old problem: an increasing population is creating grammatical glitches</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea culpa: statement of the dead obvious

<p>Former Prime Minister Baroness May of Maidenhead (Hannah McKay/PA)</p>
Voices

Yes, Dominic Cummings, Labour should have backed Theresa May’s Brexit

<p>Boris Johnson led the official Vote Leave campaign bus in the Brexit referendum (Stefan Rousseau/PA)</p>
Voices

Who are the 10 biggest villains of Brexit?

<p>Home secretary Yvette Cooper leaves Hull Minster with husband Ed Balls</p>
Voices

Yvette Cooper has given up trying to stop the boats

<p>According to new ONS stats, the UK population will soar to 72.5million by 2032 </p>
Voices

Without immigration, we’d be a lonely, isolated isle

<p>The zealous optimism of Reeves’s latest interview ended up trying to have it both ways</p>
Voices

Reeves’s Scrooge-like epiphany on British growth is unconvincing

<p>Nigel Farage could help Kemi Badenoch defeat Labour... but would it happen? </p>
Politics Explained

Would a Tory-Reform electoral pact really be ‘unassailable’?

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