menu_open Columnists
Polly Toynbee

Polly Toynbee

The Guardian

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Here’s what Labour should learn from Donald Trump: think bigger, think faster

Here’s what Labour should learn from Donald Trump: think bigger, think faster
previous day 10

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Ben Jennings on Rachel Reeves’s obsession with economic growth – cartoon

23.01.2025 9

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Of course there’s a bosses’ backlash over workers’ rights. Starmer must face them down

Of course there’s a bosses’ backlash over workers’ rights. Starmer must face them down
23.01.2025 20

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

There’s a way to beat a far-right takeover in the UK. So why has Starmer gone silent about it?

There’s a way to beat a far-right takeover in the UK. So why has Starmer gone silent about it?
21.01.2025 10

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

This could be the toughest winter in NHS history. Here’s a simple way we can all help

This could be the toughest winter in NHS history. Here’s a simple way we can all help
17.01.2025 40

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Labour has been sucked into the WFH culture war. It should know better

Labour has been sucked into the WFH culture war. It should know better
14.01.2025 40

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

I didn’t think it was possible, but this week has been a new low for the Tories

I didn’t think it was possible, but this week has been a new low for the Tories
09.01.2025 50

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Ignore Musk, ignore the critics – you’ll feel the benefit of Labour’s policies in your pocket before long

Ignore Musk, ignore the critics – you’ll feel the benefit of Labour’s policies in your pocket before long

Look up, despite the bleak midwinter, the flu crisis and this dismal mood of political cynicism. Despite, too, the daily doom that pumps out of the...

07.01.2025 70

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Forget ‘benefit cheats’ – £23bn a year is going unclaimed. How do we get that to vulnerable people?

At the stroke of midnight on Saturday night, the shutters came down. Anyone who didn’t claim pension credit by then will have lost their winter...

23.12.2024 10

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

The Waspi women suffered outrageous misogyny, but in poverty-stricken Britain they’re not the top priority

Some women born in the 1950s were not adequately warned that they would have to work up to six extra years before drawing their state pension. Some...

19.12.2024 4

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Labour seems to be flailing, but keep faith: Starmer’s long-term plans are both radical and sound

This is slow government. This solemn and serious cabinet is not one for quick, bright eye-catchers, timed to hit 6 o’clock bulletins. The best it...

17.12.2024 50

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

The latest cost of Brexit is about to hit – and voters are watching. Will Labour act?

“It’s done! Get over it! It’s eight years ago! We’re independent and we’re free!” claimed Nigel Farage on Question Time last week. But the...

10.12.2024 200

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

George Osborne is a walking ad for a wealth tax. Labour should target the inheritocracy

Now he’s retired from casting millions of people into poverty, George Osborne has become another flaunting, flamboyant example of a fast-growing...

03.12.2024 80

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

The assisted dying bill has passed. At last: a decent life can end in a decent death

Here it is at last, a landmark that will be an enduring symbol and the humane legacy of this Labour government. Parliament has finally caught up...

29.11.2024 40

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Here’s one way to slash Britain’s rate of child poverty: stop dithering and make all fathers pay what’s due

Men don’t pay and won’t pay. Governments for more than 30 years have failed abysmally to make fathers pay for their children. The latest...

29.11.2024 20

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Don’t listen to opponents of assisted dying: this Labour government’s legacy must be freedom

The time has come for a defining moment early in a Labour era that has so far lacked definition. This is the week a Labour parliament can make its...

26.11.2024 40

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Look at the farmers’ protest, and then ask yourself: how will we ever make tax fairer amid such grumbling?

That was a state-of-the-nation image, those thousands of farmers in Whitehall protesting about inheritance tax (IHT). Their little inheritors on...

22.11.2024 50

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

In Kent, Labour has a fight on its hands – and a make-or-break test for its housing revolution

Watch what happens in Swale, as it’s a tale that will be repeated often in the next few years. Here in Kent is a test of Labour’s determination...

19.11.2024 10

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

The right to die is about freedom – don’t let those who see it as a line on a spreadsheet torpedo it

That is a low blow, health secretary. On a matter of life, death and personal freedom, the debate should be elevated above this. Wes Streeting...

14.11.2024 10

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Voters around the world wish a plague on all incumbents. Labour can avoid that fate

Those panic alarms in MPs’ welcome-to-Westminster packs may have been eyed nervously by some on the Labour benches in the past week. The shock of...

12.11.2024 10

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

It’s OK to feel despair at Trump’s victory. The important thing is not to give in

With wailing woe in the small hours, many of you shared that wrenching despair when the US election result extinguished hope. Beyond reason, beyond...

07.11.2024 4

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

All these sad stories of the stricken rich prove one thing: Labour’s budget is on the money

Someone had to pay. Is this a “class”-based budget, the chancellor is asked on the BBC? No, it’s raising money urgently needed for the NHS and...

05.11.2024 90

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Rachel Reeves needs more than just policies if she wants to make this week’s budget sing

It’s the mood music that matters most. The budget needs to sing “Here comes the sun” after too many grey months of grim prognosis. That hefty...

28.10.2024 40

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Another day, another social care review. But don’t despair, it may actually work this time

A collective groan greeted the rumour that the government will announce yet another royal commission on social care. The fear is that it just kicks...

24.10.2024 3

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Labour gave us Sure Start to tackle child poverty. Now it should hike tax to keep it

As the budget approaches, outrage from the Tories and their media outriders at any mention of proposed tax rises is reaching boiling point. Never a...

22.10.2024 50

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Don’t listen to the Tories – Labour is right to raise taxes

As the budget approaches, expect more balderdash and hogwash from Labour’s enemies and their foghorn media. Listen to them protest that raising...

18.10.2024 6

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Let’s get this straight: private healthcare will and must work for the NHS – not the other way around

Our critically injured public services beg for help, but the totem signifying the state of the nation will always be the NHS. The monthly waiting...

15.10.2024 30

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

The super-rich claim they’ll flee to escape a Labour ‘tax grab’. Here’s an idea for how to stop them

They’re off! The millionaires are taking flight in droves, chased away by Labour’s budget plans. Day after day, rightwing thinktanks and media...

11.10.2024 40

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Two deaths shaped my belief in the right to die. This bill could change everything

Bravo to Kim Leadbeater. She can expect a rough ride for introducing an assisted dying bill. If passed, the Leadbeater legislation will enter the...

09.10.2024 40

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Time is ticking for Labour to scrap the two-child limit – and then make Britain a welcoming place for children again

At a stroke, this government could wipe out much of the extra child poverty caused by the last government. It would be a bargain, at a cost of just...

03.10.2024 10

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Call this a party conference? It’s more like a weird Tory festival of mass delusion

Inside the Tory party sinkhole, its denizens pretend to understand what has befallen them, but they act like the undead who haven’t realised they...

01.10.2024 8

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Take it from me (and Keir Starmer) – you should never pretend to be more working class than you are

“I’m not working class any more,” Keir Starmer told LBC’s Nick Ferrari this week. Of course that’s the case. As the Daily Mail rushed to...

26.09.2024 6

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Labour has been overdoing the doom and gloom – but now Reeves has given us a glimpse of sunshine

With the hail of bad freebie stories echoing the Mersey downpour, this looked set to be a less joyous conference than was due a party that had just...

24.09.2024 30

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Fear and sanctions have failed to get Britain working. Why not try tea and empathy?

Jobcentres are the “least well-used” and “least well-loved” of all public services, a failure at the heart of the economy that helps account...

20.09.2024 9

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

If Keir Starmer wants to be braver than Tony Blair, this is how: be gentle on crime

Of all the landmines planted by the last government, bursting prisons were the most dangerous. This left Keir Starmer with no choice but to release...

17.09.2024 4

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

The NHS is in critical condition – but with the right care, it can make a recovery

Broken but not beaten, is Lord Darzi’s verdict on the NHS in England. “My colleagues in the NHS are working harder than ever but our productivity...

12.09.2024 3

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Beaten, marooned, demoralised – and yet still the right clings to Thatcher. I’ve seen them: they’re so lost

I crept into the inaugural Westminster meeting of The Future of the Right, a Policy Exchange project from a bygone age of Tory ascendancy. I admit...

10.09.2024 50

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Knock knock: it’s the rental inspectorate here about renewing your landlord licence

04.09.2024 20

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

The anti-Labour rightwing press is on the warpath. If you wanted this government, defend it

The honeymoon for Labour is over, say the massed ranks of the rightwing media. What honeymoon was that? It seems to have been over since 5 July....

04.09.2024 30

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

How can Labour avoid the ‘union paymasters’ jibes? By banning all large donations

The Labour party is “under the thumb” of its trade union paymasters and its strike settlements are payback for the union millions that funded...

22.08.2024 6

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Say it loud and rejoice: the days of anti-union worker exploitation in Britain are coming to an end

This is what a fundamental power shift looks like. Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, has swept away the worst of the Tories’...

13.08.2024 80

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

The far right promised violence and mayhem last night – but decency took back the streets

These were the headlines after an extraordinary night. “Peaceful atmosphere at Sheffield”, “No signs of disorder in Liverpool”,...

08.08.2024 5

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

England’s GPs are squaring up to the government – but it’s an unnecessary battle

GPs in England have embarked on industrial action for the first time in 60 years. The 10 actions they can choose from could bring the NHS to a...

06.08.2024 8

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Labour is right to ditch the winter fuel allowance – it isn’t ‘robbing’ old people

That sounded like a totemic cut, one that everyone could understand. She cut old folk’s winter fuel allowance! Is it like Margaret Thatcher, milk...

02.08.2024 40

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

The billions Britain needs are at Rachel Reeves’s fingertips, and no fiscal promises need be broken

That was authentic anger, Rachel Reeves’s indignation well justified as she thundered in the Commons at the inheritance she has been left. Labour...

30.07.2024 70

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

At last, the chance to legalise assisted dying in the UK – and end the untold, unnecessary anguish

Every Labour government forges ahead with life-changing liberal reforms, and this one will be no exception. Expect the right to die to be one of...

26.07.2024 40

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Starmer will bin the two-child benefit cap and outdo New Labour on tackling poverty – I’ll bet on it

I will eat my hat – or several – if Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves don’t soon find the money to bury the pernicious two-child benefit cap. The...

19.07.2024 2

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

I went to see how the Tories are handling defeat – and found Faragism and a total lack of reflection

The Bruges Group celebrated its 35th anniversary last week in the august portals of the Army and Navy club in Pall Mall in central London. The...

16.07.2024 70

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee

Labour will rightly be judged by how it fixes our problems. But never forget who left the UK in such a rotten state

Lest we forget, here is an audit of the state of the country Labour inherits. Pin it up, brand it into public memory so no one can forget the...

12.07.2024 60

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee