Rishi Sunak launches the 2024 Conservative Party manifesto.
The Conservative Party/Flickr
The current Conservative government has not met actual housing need in England. The proposals in the party’s manifesto are not likely to either.
Alamy/AP/Henry Nicholls
More than half of people now support electoral reform.
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey.
Liberal Democrats/Flickr
The Lib Dem manifesto addresses many of the key areas in social care that need reform. But it doesn’t say how the party would pay for them.
Stefan Rousseau/PA images
It is impossible for politicians to use TikTok for necessary, nuanced discussion around important policy proposals.
Nottingham town hall.
Poppy Pix/Shutterstock
Austerity Britain has translated into worse lives for many people: tougher working conditions, minimal statutory services and a retraction of the local state at a time when people need it.
Birmingham’s Curzon Street station under construction: the demise of the HS2 project shows how levelling up has floundered.
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Despite a decade of Northern Powerhouse and levelling up, England remains thoroughly divided.
Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald and Northern Ireland’s first minister Michelle O'Neill greet crowds at an event to mark the anniversary of the Easter Rising.
Alamy/Niall Carson
Sinn Féin continues to abstain from attending the House of Commons but it still runs candidates, both to boost its own position and deny its rivals the seats.
Gavin Robinson was only confirmed as the DUP’s new leader after the election was called.
Alamy/Liam McBurney
It’s been a terrible few years for unionism’s biggest party, and they could be about to see the fallout.
Alamy/PA/Andrew Milligan
The effort to get Muslims voting for independents won’t cost Keir Starmer the election – but is that all that matters?
Giuseppe Lami / EPA
Italy’s prime minister won big in the European elections, leveraging her campaign to bring her exclusionary politics into the mainstream.
Marine Le Pen delivers a speech next to National Rally president Jordan Bardella after the first results of the European elections.
Andre Pain / EPA
Enviroment policies and executive roles now in the spotlight – while France faces a potentially divisive national election.
Islandstock/Alamy
Ever since the welfare state was established in 1948, Britain’s elected leaders have grappled with how to pay for and deliver social care.
Kay Roxby/Alamy
Broadcasters can struggle to report impartially when they have to single out one party for making dubious claims.
Alamy/PA/Ludovic Marin
The prime minister attempted to play the populist and ended up playing into the hands of Nigel Farage.
Shutterstock/Lightspring
People are generally more prone to activating the parts of their brain associated with fear than those linked to rational decision making.
Alamy/AP/Carl Court
The rule that people vote with the economy in mind stretches back across a government’s lifespan, not just the few weeks before the election.
L-R: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrats), Stephen Flynn (SNP), Rhun ap Iorwerth (Plaid Cymru), Penny Mordaunt (Conservatives), Angela Rayner (Labour), Nigel Farage (Reform UK) and Carla Denyer (Green Party).
Getty/EPA-EFE/Alamy
The multi-party debate is an opportunity for smaller parties to get their messages across.
LCV / Shutterstock
European voters head to the polls to elect new MEPs – the results will shape who takes the EU’s top jobs.
Royal Navy Trident nuclear submarine Plymouth UK after a refit in 2015.
Jonathan Somers / Alamy Stock Photo
Commitment to nuclear deterrence has become a de facto criterion for entering No. 10.
Rishi Sunak at the ITV debate in June 2024.
EPA-EFE/Jonathan Hordle/ITV
Political calculations with Treasury figures can be wide of the mark.
See that? Steady as a rock.
Alamy/PA/Jacob King
The votes-at-16 story reveals a lot about how people actually consume politics.
The British Normandy Memorial, near Ver-sur-Mer in Normandy, France, was unveiled on 6 June 2021.
Duc/Flickr
Veterans are rightly centered in D-day events but the speeches that invited heads of state deliver bring proceedings into the geopolitical present.
Nigel Roddis/EPA-EFE
There is something contrived about parties producing detailed plans for a parliament that may well last five years, in a world that is volatile and uncertain.
EPA/ITV/Jonathan Hordle
It was hard to escape the feeling that the would-be leaders are as out of touch as one questioner suggested.
EPA/Jonathan Hordle /ITV
The day’s agenda was already set by Nigel Farage, hours before the two party leaders stepped on stage.