AboutArticles by John Rentoul

The next election will be a contest of competence

08 Jan 2023

We saw a preview of the election campaign between Keshi Sumer and Rishir Starnak this week. One of them gave a speech declaring: “It’s time for change.” The other replied...

Time has come to show some seriousness

01 Jan 2023

The coming year will be the year that The Question changes. Until now, the question that opinion pollsters ask, “How would you vote if there were a general election tomorrow?”,...

British PM Rishi Sunak is a quick learner

25 Dec 2022

The most surprising thing about Rishi Sunak being prime minister is that he doesn’t look surprised. He hasn’t been in politics long. He became an MP only seven years ago....

This is how Rishi Sunak could win the next election

18 Dec 2022

As one of the Bolsheviks at the Peter Mandelson Memorial Dim Sum Supper, I predicted that Rishi Sunak will be prime minister after the next election. The Bolsheviks, Russian for...

Britain will be closer to the EU in future for sure

14 Dec 2022

Funny business, British politics. Before the 2016 referendum, none of the parties in the House of Commons advocated leaving the EU, which was what the majority of the people wanted....

Twitter has turned me into an optimist

04 Dec 2022

I love Twitter, and I am not embarrassed to say that I spend a lot of time on it. It has made my life better; I think it has improved...

We shouldn’t move on from disasters of ‘party democracy’

14 Nov 2022

The insouciance with which some Conservatives have walked away from the wreckage of the shortest premiership ever is surprising. Iain Duncan Smith wrote an article saying that Liz Truss was...

Rishi Sunak makes mistakes, but gets big things right

30 Oct 2022

Rishi Sunak makes mistakes under pressure. Despite the calm manner, he is a surprisingly inconsistent politician. When he was chancellor he presented a spring statement in March that was denounced...

Conservative Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister is the most shocking reversal of fortune in recent British politics

25 Oct 2022

The surprise of Rishi Sunak’s comeback was briefly obscured by the even greater audacity of Boris Johnson’s attempted comeback. Fairly early on in the previous Conservative leadership election, it was...

Johnson bottles it — again — clearing the way for Sunak

24 Oct 2022

It was all too predictable. Indeed, it was predicted, because Boris Johnson has done it before. In 2016, winded by his betrayal by Michael Gove, he pulled out of the...

John Rentoul

Chief Political Commentator, The Independent; visiting professor, King's College, London.

author