menu_open Columnists
Martin Kettle

Martin Kettle

The Guardian

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

After Southport, Westminster is floundering. It should look to Idris Elba

After Southport, Westminster is floundering. It should look to Idris Elba
30.01.2025 10

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

It’s the reign of King Donald: now a people who fled cruel monarchs have their own

It’s the reign of King Donald: now a people who fled cruel monarchs have their own
23.01.2025 90

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Keir Starmer’s handling of the Tulip Siddiq affair forms part of a worrying pattern

Keir Starmer’s handling of the Tulip Siddiq affair forms part of a worrying pattern
15.01.2025 6

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Elon Musk is a monster bully on the loose, but he can only get his way if we let him

09.01.2025 100

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Millions of Britons want a fresh start and a new life. But they will find it at home, not in Australia

In Chris Bush and Richard Hawley’s musical, Standing at the Sky’s Edge, there’s an exchange that has stuck in my mind. The scene is...

31.12.2024 10

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

We now have a plan to make England’s local government work – but I fear party politics will trash it

I am under no illusions about this. Compared with Prince Andrew’s latest disgrace or with Keely Hodgkinson’s latest glittering prize, the reform of...

19.12.2024 30

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Starmer’s Labour knows the kind of Britain it wants – it just doesn’t know how to build it

After five months in office, Labour knows where it wants to take the country; but it does not know how to get there. In this, and despite radically...

11.12.2024 5

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Sue Gray’s final departure marks the moment that the Starmer project gets serious

Sue Gray’s departure matters. But not in the way some may assume. Gray became famous because of three things: her Partygate investigation under...

14.11.2024 4

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

The shocking US election result will create a new world order – and launch a fresh wave of Trump wannabes

Even more than his first victory in 2016, Donald Trump’s re-election marks a historic disruption. It is a profound moment of change, not just for...

06.11.2024 50

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

After Reeves’s historic budget, Labour has time to pursue its revolution. What it needs now is public trust

Rachel Reeves is the third Labour chancellor of the exchequer be an MP in my home city. In earlier times, Hugh Gaitskell and Denis Healey both sat...

01.11.2024 10

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

The US election interference row tells us this: Starmer’s political compass urgently needs resetting

Gordon Brown famously brought his moral compass to the prime ministership. Boris Johnson, notoriously, did not. Under Keir Starmer, there is a...

25.10.2024 7

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Does Starmer believe in anything, people ask, and now I can answer: his credo is the rule of law

Political speeches seem to fall like autumn leaves at this time of year. Speeches at party conferences. Speeches at leadership hustings and to the...

17.10.2024 20

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

The new Tory leader will be Badenoch or Jenrick. Either would be a one-way ticket to another political planet

So the final Tory run-off, whose result will be announced on 2 November, will be between Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick. The one who thinks...

09.10.2024 3

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Whether it’s Trump or Harris in office, Starmer will need an incredible US ambassador. Here’s my vote

The widening of the Middle East war has a multiplicity of woeful causes and grim consequences. Many have the potential to become even more...

03.10.2024 4

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

After Labour’s near-death experience, Starmer needs a way to head off claims of sleaze. I have a way

No iron law of politics says a government cannot recover from a bad early stumble. So don’t write Keir Starmer off too quickly because of the long...

26.09.2024 20

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Working together, Labour and the Lib Dems could exile the Tories for a generation

Can the Liberal Democrats and Labour see themselves as allies in a common national project? Or are they fated to behave as rivals, always pursuing...

19.09.2024 30

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Two parties suffered catastrophic defeats in the UK election – but only one of them is facing up to that

After a succession of victories, the governing party got a drubbing in the general election. This autumn, it must set out on the long, difficult...

05.09.2024 30

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

A warning from the No 10 garden and an EU olive branch. We are finally seeing Starmerism in action

On Tuesday, in the Downing Street garden, Keir Starmer delivered a grim, generation-defining warning that “things will get worse” for Britain. On...

29.08.2024 20

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Workers v bosses: the right is obsessed with zero-sum rows over trade union power. Starmer is right to ignore them

“I believe in management’s right to manage – and I also believe in the trade unions’ right to stop them.” This combative adage has always been...

22.08.2024 20

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

In cancelling his family summer holiday, Keir Starmer has made his first serious mistake

It’s a mandate to do politics differently, Keir Starmer announced after the general election. After the chaos of the Conservative years, those were...

15.08.2024 20

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Starmer is being tough on the rioters, but history shows that preventing further unrest is the real challenge

Britain’s 2024 riots are a surprise national crisis. There was no particular buildup, no clearly discernible pressure cooker process. No one...

07.08.2024 2

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Labour is still in its ‘phoney’ period. Far tougher tests await in autumn

In the Britain of September 1939, it became known as the phoney war. Hitler had invaded Poland. War had been declared. For months, though, there...

03.08.2024 7

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

It might be hard to take the future of the Conservative party seriously right now – but we must

The contest to succeed Rishi Sunak as Conservative leader may seem like an argument between corpses in a tomb. The candidates are yesterday’s...

25.07.2024 30

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

Ella Baron on Labour’s failure to address the two-child benefit cap in the king’s speech – cartoon

17.07.2024 3

The Guardian

Martin Kettle

With this king’s speech, Starmer has staked everything on the long game. But politics has a habit of moving fast

Britain’s new government has just reached the point where things get serious. The king’s speech marks the ceremonial divide between Labour’s pinch-...

17.07.2024 10

The Guardian

Martin Kettle