TAG: British politics
Tony Blair seeks climate role at COP29 in Azerbaijan
LONDON — Tony Blair was once hired to lobby for a gas pipeline from Azerbaijan that activists described as a “carbon bomb.” Now he wants to help the Baku government run its climate talks.The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), which was founded...
6 months ago
Oil and gas companies lash out at Labour’s new windfall tax plans
LONDON — More than 40,000 jobs in the U.K. energy sector could be lost because of Labour’s new oil and gas windfall tax plans, an industry group is warning.In a scathing attack on the U.K. opposition party's proposals, David Whitehouse, chief executive of...
6 months ago
Labour slashes green spending pledge in major U-turn
LONDON — Keir Starmer's Labour Party U-turned on its green investment plans after months of speculation.The party on Thursday ditched its totemic pledge to spend £28 billion a year on green policies — slashing those spending plans by nearly 75 percent.In...
6 months ago
How a group of elderly Swiss women could take the UK out of the European Court
LONDON — In politics, timing is everything. And the European Court of Human Rights’ shock ruling on climate targets this week could hardly have been more explosive for a British political landscape already gripped by election fever. In a landmark ruling T...
6 months ago
How a climate U-turn broke the Scottish government
It was meant to make Scotland a green world leader.But the country’s ambitious climate targets — and the Edinburgh government’s failure to keep up with them — triggered the break-up of the country's governing coalition and left the ruling Scottish Nationa...
5 months ago
The UK’s Brexit dream is dead
LONDON — British voters head to the polls Thursday for their first general election outside the European Union. But in so many ways, the Brexit dream has already died.All the key Vote Leave characters have left the stage. Five years after winning a landsl...
2 months ago
Labour plots radical shake-up at heart of British government
LONDON — The nerve center of the British government is in line for a major overhaul, under plans for a huge cost-saving drive potentially affecting thousands of officials’ jobs. The Cabinet Office, which supports the work of the prime minister and his top...
2 months ago
As the West slaps tariffs on Chinese cars, Britain ducks the fight
LONDON — While its allies slap steep tariffs on Chinese state-subsidized electric vehicles, Britain is sitting tight.The U.S., EU and Canada have put up barriers this summer after multiple probes found Beijing boosted its EV sector with billions in suppor...
1 month ago
UK slammed for watering down key climate pledge
LONDON — U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy stood up to give a speech in London Tuesday wanting to be a global climate leader. By the time he sat down he had managed to undermine those sweeping ambitions.Lammy has since drawn criticism from diplomats and...
3 weeks ago
Nigel Farage is right: Britain’s Remainers are back
LONDON — For successive Tory governments, the most feared parliamentary tribe was the European Research Group. For the best part of a decade after the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, the pro-Brexit ERG was by far the most organized of the Conserva...
3 weeks ago
Liz Truss: Things would be better if I was still in charge
LONDON — Real Liz Truss-ism has never been tried.That’s the verdict of Liz Truss, Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, who launched a robust defense Monday of the economic plan that precipitated U.K. market chaos and prompted her ouster from office...
3 weeks ago