Max Colchester

Britain Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. Covering Politics, National Security and of course Royalty. A tad French.

[David Luhnow @davidluhnow]

British politics is getting crazy again. We take you to a town that is likely to pick the next prime minister.

People in town say if Andy Burnham can’t fix immigration, they’re voting Reform UK
https://t.co/4rjcFbw1LT

[Max Colchester @MaximColch]

When the @WSJ accidentally bumped into Andy Burnham outside Cain’s butchers in Ashton-in-Makerfield.

We had a chat with the man tipped to be the next UK prime minister. Got his views on Trump and the dems.

https://t.co/Ibe0iEdgFc

[laurence norman @laurnorman]

👀👀👀 🇬🇧 🇬🇧

[David Luhnow @davidluhnow]

British Politics Is About to Get Even Messier https://t.co/JPqYp8mjeD

[Max Colchester @MaximColch]

Which helps explain why Streeting hopes Starmer just throws in the towel after a mini cabinet coup.

[Duncan Robinson @duncanrobinson]

LabourList/Survation polling says Starmer batters Streeting in a contest that goes to the members

[Duncan Robinson @duncanrobinson]

LabourList/Survation polling says Starmer batters Streeting in a contest that goes to the members

[Max Colchester @MaximColch]

This @ONS chart kryptonite for any political party.

And helps explain why Starmer is likely headed for the door.

[Faisal Islam @faisalislam]

If Starmer goes that would be 5 different PMs in five years, despite two of them having historically large Parliamentary majorities…

Impossible to plan, strategise and deliver even medium term economic plans, let alone long term thinking going on elsewhere…

[Mark Littlewood @MarkJLittlewood]

Average tenure of a Prime Minister since 2007 = 2.2 years

Average tenure of a Premier League Manager since 2007 = 2.3 years

[Max Colchester @MaximColch]

U.K. government borrowing costs zipping up on Starmer coup threats. The markets are pricing in Burnham’s “let’s roll back the 80s” view on the economy.

[Max Colchester @MaximColch]

A poll of Labour members shows Starmer is pretty immune to challengers on the right of his party (Streeting Mahmood etc).

So it’s to the left he, and the country, goes.

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 BREAKING: Sky News projects the UK would have a hung parliament with Reform as the largest party if today's results were a general election

[Max Colchester @MaximColch]

For decades the assumption was a populist party on the far left or right couldn’t prevail in Britain’s first past the post system.

Reform UK's surge in the polls shows that assumption is no longer valid.

https://t.co/xRXemg1g9h

[Mohamed A. El-Erian @elerianm]

"I'm not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos."
This statement from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer this morning explains why gilt yields are lower today (Bloomberg table below), despite the Labour Party’s heavy (and expected) losses in the local elections.
For the markets, the prospect of continuing fiscal stability is outweighing the electoral setback.
#economy #UK #elections #markets

[Max Colchester @MaximColch]

Britain's local elections are normally about trash collection and pot holes. But now a hot button issue is thousands of miles away: Gaza. @davidluhnow and I go to Sparkhill in Birmingham to see how Palestine is reshaping local British politics.
https://t.co/CjVXJWMPpl

[Dominic Pino @DominicJPino]

Imagining explaining to the Founding Fathers that the president imposed tariffs without an act of Congress and then removed them at the request of the King of England

[David Luhnow @davidluhnow]

King Charles III's tour of the U.S. was a home run. He helped take some of the rancor out of trans-Atlantic ties. And in an era of polarization, reminded us to try a little harder to set aside division and celebrate the many things that bind us.

https://t.co/75HRPKU4m3

[David Luhnow @davidluhnow]

Fascinating. Upshot: Higher taxes in UK in coming years are not going to pay for new spending; they will pay for drawing down debt for a spending increase that happened in pandemic and stuck.

Absent GDP growth, it won't create a great dynamic between voters and politicians.

[Max Colchester @MaximColch]

King Charles made a strikingly political speech to Congress, urging the U.S. (ergo Trump) not to abandon Ukraine, Nato or climate change. Both sides of the aisle seemed to lap it up. https://t.co/Ql0oBp8vCg

[Philip Melanchthon Wegmann @PhilipWegmann]

Pomp and circumstance blunts recent sharp disagreements between the US and UK--an early win for King Charles with @MaximColch. https://t.co/LvCrgQwRqZ