Politics Archives

Wednesday

20 Jun 2018

Rebels climb down on ‘crunch’ Brexit vote – again

One of the laws of Brexit is that every Commons division and Cabinet meeting billed as being a ‘crunch vote’ or ‘crunch talks’ ends up postponing the crunching again, and again and again. This afternoon, Dominic Grieve announced that he would ‘accept the government’s difficulty’ on the matter of a meaningful vote and ‘support it’. He was speaking in the Commons shortly before a division was supposed to be called on this matter, and not long after the government had offered a compromise. That compromise involved David Davis issuing a Written Ministerial Statement which clarifies that the Speaker can decide whether or not a motion issued by the government using

Steerpike

Phillip Lee’s bad press

The Remain rebels have this afternoon backed down and found a compromise to the government’s meaningful vote amendment that they can live with. So, was it all worth it? That’s a question Phillip Lee may well be asking himself – following his decision to resign his junior ministerial post last week so he could speak freely on his issues with the government’s Brexit strategy. Alas, it seems not everyone in Lee’s Leave-voting Bracknell constituency about his escapades. Today’s issue of the Bracknell News sees the MP for Bracknell on the front page along with the headline ‘MP faces fresh calls to resign’: ‘Furious residents are calling for the resignation of Dr

Steerpike

Labour councillor who said ‘no proof’ Isis exists to help protect children from radicalisation

Remember Safia Akhtar? Back in May, Mr Steerpike reported how the Birmingham Labour candidate had ‘waltz[ed] to victory’ in the local elections and been elected as a Labour councillor. Given that the Labour representative once said there was ‘no proof’ that Isis existed, not everyone was thrilled by her appointment. After Khalid Masood murdered five people including PC Keith Palmer in the March 2017 Westminster terrorist attack, Akhtar posted to her Facebook: ‘Can people relax and stop fighting on Facebook, sadly people died in Westminster today but people die everyday in Syria Palestine Africa Rohingya Kashmir.. Need I carry on?!! Grow up and stop pointing fingers!’ A few days later, she added:

James Forsyth

Jeremy Corbyn lets Theresa May off the hook at PMQs

PMQs today was a missed opportunity for Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn chose to go on the NHS, rather than Donald Trump’s border policy. But this needn’t have been a mistake. Corbyn, after a rather long preamble, started off by asking what taxes would rise to pay for this increased spending. Theresa May replied that Philip Hammond would set all this out in due course. At this point, Corbyn should have asked May to rule out specific tax increases, for example an increase in National Insurance, or to embrace certain measures, such as removing the earnings cap on National Insurance contributions. This would have put May on the spot more. Instead, he

Steerpike

Watch: Minister taken to task over ‘Brexit dividend’

Theresa May has said a Brexit dividend will help fund the NHS cash boost, but does it actually exist? It was left to health minister Jackie Doyle-Price to convince viewers on the Daily Politics that it does. But Mr S wasn’t entirely convinced by her explanation: Andrew Neil: It surely stands to reason that there is no Brexit dividend to finance these rises. Jackie Doyle-Price: Well, the secretary of state made clear in his statement that this would come in a reduction of subscriptions (to the EU) but also, we will have to look at taxes as well. AN: But there is no reduction of subscriptions in 19/20 or 20/21,

Steerpike

David Davis makes an entrance

To the Westbourne summer party where James Bethell and Iain Anderson were celebrating the new merger between their respective companies Westbourne and Cicero. Only the speech didn’t go quite to plan. To much laughter, Bethell told partygoers that the Cabinet big beasts hadn’t been able to make the bash – but had sent their apologies. Boris Johnson had wanted to have his cake and eat it, Theresa May to try and bake a cake and David Davis was too busy delivering said cake… Only as the public affairs honcho was reading out the Brexit Secretary’s ‘excuse’, Davis walked in to the party and grabbed the mic: ‘Let me read it

Tuesday

19 Jun 2018

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May’s ministers make the decisions while the Prime Minister prevaricates

Who is taking all the big, difficult decisions in government at the moment? Not Theresa May, who seems to be caught up in a particularly bad bout of prevarication. Sajid Javid’s announcement today that there will be a review into the use of medicinal cannabis came just 24 hours after his boss said there was a ‘very good reason’ for the current rules being in place. Yesterday May had also tried to block Javid from raising the matter at Cabinet, arguing that it hadn’t been on the agenda. It’s just one example of Cabinet ministers mounting very public campaigns for a policy change which they then get all the credit

Steerpike

Ruth Davidson’s potshot at Theresa May

Theresa May has managed to surprise absolutely no-one this afternoon with her spokesman’s confirmation that the Prime Minister has never smoked cannabis. Cue widespread jokes that May was too busy running through fields of wheat – the activity that May herself describes as the naughtiest thing she has ever done. Now not even May’s colleagues can resist taking a pop at the boss’s idea of fun. Ruth Davidson has intervened on Twitter after a user asked how many fields of wheat she had run through: That will go down well in No 10…

Katy Balls

What happens if the government loses today’s vote?

It’s that time of the week again: crunch time for Theresa May. Tomorrow MPs will vote again on Dominic Grieve’s meaningful vote amendment along with the government’s ‘compromise’ meaningful vote amendment. The problem with that compromise is it’s already been rejected by several Remain Tory rebels – who say the Prime Minister personally misled them last week on the issue. The problem with their preferred amendment is that it has been rejected by the government on the grounds that it would tie their hands in the negotiations. Only one side can come out of this the winner. Government figures are sounding increasingly confident that they have the numbers to defeat

Alex Massie

Brexit has become England’s white whale | 19 June 2018

Brexit must happen. Of course it must, for the people have decreed it should and, in this instance, their command cannot, as it can be in other circumstances, be countermanded. That leaves ample room for argument over the precise shape of Brexit – for it turns out there are many kinds of Brexit – but the essence of the matter is clear: Brexit must mean Brexit. It is possible to be sanguine about this and to recognise that even as the net impact of Brexit is likely to be negative in an economic sense, some sectors of the economy may benefit from it. In many areas, there is undoubtedly an

Steerpike

World Cup 2018: Tory MPs pay the penalty

A promising early start that got everybody’s hopes up before getting bogged down and allowing a mediocre opposition to equalise. To many Tory MPs watching the football last night, it was all too familiar. George Freeman took to Instagram to share his own sense of déjà vu: ‘It’s a shocker. Lacking coherence. Command of the game. Any sense of direction. Another night in Parliament watching the national team. A v quiet tearoom dreaming of a super sub. “We need some inspiration from somewhere”.’ The big question, can Theresa May take inspiration from Harry Kane’s final moments on the pitch. Has the Prime Minister got an injury time win in her?

Monday

18 Jun 2018

Stephen Daisley

The myth of the SNP’s Brexit ‘power grab’

Forgive me if I seem out of sorts but my country has been through a lot this past week. We have been subjected to ‘provocation’ and our imperial masters in Westminster intend to ‘exert a kind of colonial authority’ over us. Our parliament has been ‘slighted’ and we are bearing the ‘impact of such condescension on the psyche’. The UK Government has sought to ‘lessen the ability of the people of Scotland to govern their own affairs’ and in doing so its ‘contempt for Scotland was laid bare’. The amen corner of the Scottish commentariat is once again standing up and bravely telling it like Nicola Sturgeon says it is. The

Ross Clark

Donald Trump’s migrant policy shows he has finally gone too far

Historians will still be asking in 100 years’ time why public outrage did not do Donald Trump more harm. How come he could keep seeming to offend three-quarters of America yet still end up with half the vote? The answer, I think, is that his opponents kept falling into the same trap: they kept over-reacting. Mildly-objectionable comments and policies were met with full-on Twitter storms, making his opponents end up looking like the ones who were deranged. When you went back and thought about what Trump had actually said he kept coming across, if not reasonable, then as less unreasonable than the voices raging against him. You found yourself asking:

Nick Cohen

Brexit exposes the limits of Jeremy Corbyn’s radicalism

The left middle class is filled with anger as it sees the right, and, in its terms, the far right, triumph. Every time I write about Brexit I feel its fury pulsating around me. Brexit threatens the left’s core beliefs in international cooperation and anti-racism, while making its dream of ending austerity by reviving the economy unattainable. It must be resisted. Yet in a classic struggle against nationalist conservatism, Jeremy Corbyn, supposedly the most left-wing Labour leader ever, is at best an irrelevance and at worst an enemy when it comes to Brexit. His supporters sound like supporters of Tony Blair in the 1990s as they say Labour members must

James Forsyth

Theresa May and Sajid Javid clash over Billy Caldwell case at Cabinet

At Cabinet this morning, Sajid Javid tried to raise the Billy Caldwell case and the issue of medicinal cannabis. Theresa May replied that now was not the time to discuss this question. But Javid came back several times, pointing out that this was a fast-moving situation and that the Cabinet needed to discuss it. One Secretary of State tells me, Javid ‘wouldn’t take it is not on the agenda for an answer’. The Cabinet Ministers I have spoken to since the meeting are with Javid on this issue. They believe that the government urgently needs an answer to this question if it isn’t to look heartless, and that compassion dictates

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: a sonnet on Theresa May’s rictus

The request for sonnets inspired by a well-known contemporary figure’s characteristic feature went down a storm. Entries ranged far and wide, from Victoria Beckham’s pout via Gorbachev’s birthmark to the rise – and fall – of Anthony Weiner’s penis. But both John O’Byrne and Barrie Godwin used Sonnet 18 to hymn hairstyles – Donald Trump’s and Boris Johnson’s respectively (Shall I compare thee to a bale of hay?/ Thou art more windblown and intemperate…’) There was a spot of preposition-related confusion this week – my fault entirely – and sonnets either ‘to’ or ‘on’ were acceptable. Honourable mentions go to Mike Morrison, Jonathan Pettman, Douglas G. Brown, Max Gutmann and

Steerpike

Love Island’s government adviser

When the contestants of ITV2’s Love Island discussed Brexit earlier this month, it led to widespread ridicule after one reality star – by the name of Hayley – suggested that Brexit could mean the UK no longer had any trees. However, should you be in the market for a slightly more informed political discussion on the hit reality show – in which contestants try and find love – you could be in luck. Last night, a ‘government adviser’ entered the villa. Step forward Zara McDermott. In the past eight months, Zara has worked for the Department of Education under Damian Hinds, advising on policy. On entering villa, she said: ‘I think

Steerpike

Thomas Markle: Prince Harry thinks Brexit is an experiment we have to try

Oh dear. First Meghan Markle’s father declined an offer to walk his daughter down the aisle for her wedding to Prince Harry. Now, Thomas Markle has performed a royal faux pas and given an interview to the UK press on his son-in-law’s political leanings. In an interview with Good Morning Britain, Markle is asked by Piers Morgan about Prince Harry’s views on Brexit: TM: It was just a loose conversation about something we have to try. There was no real commitment to it. PM: Do you think he was in favour of it? TM: I think he was open to the experiment Prince Harry spoke to Thomas Markle about #Brexit.

Sunday

17 Jun 2018

Steerpike

Christopher Chope: I’m the victim of a Tory stitch-up

When Sir Christopher Chope stopped to a bill to ban upskirting on Friday, he was denounced in the most vicious terms, as Steerpike revealed, by his fellow Tories. They were appalled by the optics of a 71-year-old Tory who rejected the bill without saying why. Sir Christopher has now come out swinging, saying how appalled he is that his fellow Tories assumed he was against the ban when he was – and remains – all for it. In fact, his main complaint is that it has taken the government so long to back a ban. Theresa May, he says, has ‘a lot to answer for’ in not banning upskirting until now.

Isabel Hardman

The ‘Brexit dividend’ for the NHS is Theresa May’s new Magic Money Tree

So the Tories have, as The Spectator predicted last month, announced an extra £384 million a week for the National Health Service – something Theresa May was perfectly happy to sell this morning as being the ‘Brexit dividend’ that Boris Johnson had been pressuring her for. This is an odd choice, given it is impossible to know what the real ‘Brexit dividend’ will be when we haven’t yet left the European Union. Indeed, May couldn’t say very much at all about how this extra NHS money will be funded: that’s presumably because no Prime Minister wants to tell voters how much more tax they’ll be paying, regardless of whether that