Politics Archives

Thursday

1 Feb 2018

The Spectator Podcast: Lead or go

On this week’s episode we’re wondering whether Theresa May can weather this latest storm, speaking to a robot expert (and a literal robot), and getting the inside story of male allyship workshops. The Prime Minister’s fortunes have ebbed and flowed since her disastrous election, but a yuletide season of relative calm has been replaced by her greatest challenge yet. ‘Lead or go’: that’s what James Forsyth says in this week’s cover piece, as pressure mounts on Theresa May to cobble together something resembling an agenda. He joins the podcast along with Giles Kenningham who worked at No.10 under David Cameron. As James writes: “The Prime Minister is either unwilling or

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: It’s not too late for May to save her skin

In the wake of a doomed cabinet reshuffle, Theresa May is on the brink. The Spectator’s cover piece this week calls on the Prime Minister to lead or go, and Tory MPs are said to be close to triggering a leadership challenge, amid reports of a rising number of letters of no confidence in the PM. But it is not too late for May to save her skin, argues the Sun. After all, Theresa May has shows an ability to constantly defy her critics. This is demonstrated in her ability this week to finally come around to talking up Brexit as a ‘golden opportunity’ for Britain, says the Sun. ‘At

Nick Cohen

Crisis of conscience

In 1989, the year Soviet communism collapsed, John O’Sullivan, Margaret Thatcher’s former speechwriter, gave the world O’Sullivan’s First Law of Politics. ‘All organisations that are not actually right wing,’ he pronounced, ‘will over time become left wing.’ No one who watched Amnesty International’s descent from austere principle to cultural relativism can deny he spoke with a little truth. Yet if you listened carefully, you also caught notes of self-satisfaction and self-regard. Subversives corrupt impartial organisations, O’Sullivan continued. They rig the system and impose their prejudices against ‘private profit, business, making money, the current organisation of society and, by extension, the Western world’. Who fought them? Who reinvigorated the West and

Wednesday

31 Jan 2018

Steerpike

Julian Smith finds Brexit diplomacy a piece of cake

Julian Smith has his work cut out as Chief Whip. As well as trying to stop Tory MPs firing off letters to 1922 Committee chairman Graham Brady, Smith must try and keep both Tory Remainers and Tory Brexiteers in line. In a bid to do this, Smith met with the European Research Group – the all-powerful Brexit wing of the Conservative party – this week to try and ease concerns that the government is about to water down the version of Brexit it is seeking. Now Jacob Rees-Mogg is chair of the ERG, the group is seen to have greater potential for trouble. So, what was his strategy? Serving cake.

Lloyd Evans

David Lammy’s shambolic PMQs appearance should worry Corbyn

Theresa May is in China so the Westminster bunfight has been replaced by dull politics. Journalists hate dull politics. But normal people welcome a few days respite from the cocktail of gossip, malice and envy known as ‘democracy’. David Lidington took the PM’s place. Decent chap. Reliable second-eleven all-rounder. Against him was Labour’s Emily Thornberry who tried to trip him up three times. And three times he refused to be tripped. It was fun to watch. Dainty, unpredictable. Quite a change. She recalled their last despatch-box tussle in 2016 when the Tories had an opinion-poll lead of 17 points. Mr Lidington had likened Labour’s infighting to a pirate film written

Steerpike

Watch: Minister resigns at the despatch box

A government minister has just dropped a clanger in the House of Lords – by resigning for missing a question. Lord Bates told peers that he was ‘ashamed’ for not being there to answer a query from Labour’s Baroness Lister. An emotional Bates told the Lords: ‘I am thoroughly ashamed at not being in my place, and shall therefore be offering my resignation to the Prime Minister…’ His announcement was greeted with cries of ‘no, no’, and Lord Lamont even did his best to try and stop Bates in his tracks. But it was too late – Bates had made up his mind and walked out of the chamber…

Isabel Hardman

Tory leadership crisis: where are the whips?

Despite having to answer questions about whether or not she is a ‘quitter’, Theresa May must be reasonably glad that she’s got a few days’ escape from her domestic agenda while she is visiting China. But being away does mean that she has left her party to stew without her, and it’s not clear that those around her are doing much to calm things down. Over the past few days, I’ve spoken to a range of Conservative backbenchers and ministers who either privately or publicly hold concerns about the way May is leading (or isn’t, as the case may be). All agree that things are rather critical for the Prime

Tuesday

30 Jan 2018

Steerpike

Baroness Trumpington: Theresa May is terribly boring

Oh dear. Theresa May’s bad week just got worse. On top of Tory MPs taking to social media, the airwaves and the papers to criticise her, it now seems that Conservative peers are going public with their grievances. In the new issue of Tatler magazine, Baroness Trumpington – who retired from the Lords last year – offers a rather frank assessment of the Prime Minister. When asked about May, the 95-year-old Lords stalwart and former land girl offers a trade mark V-sign to the interviewer: ‘As I ask a question about Theresa May, Lady Trumpington flicks her fingers at me from across the table in her Chelsea care home, making the

John Osullivan

Eastern Europe’s new conservative alliance

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s ‘controversial’ (i.e. conservative) prime minister, travels today to Vienna to meet the new premier of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, for their first serious political conversation since the latter’s election. Orban and Kurz are seen in the conventional narrative shared by the international media, the European Left, and most Western European governments as the terrible twins of the populist nationalism now emerging across Europe. Both are better described as nationalist-minded conservatives who draw on populist support—Kurz’s conservatives have the populist Freedom party as their junior coalition partner, Orban’s substantial parliamentary majority is achieved in part by populist votes from the still unrespectable Jobbik party. Both are also known, in this

Alex Massie

Tory attacks on the Brexit impact report will help Corbyn

The good news is that the latest civil service analysis of the most likely impact of Brexit is more optimistic than previous civil service estimates of Brexit’s consequences for the British economy. The bad news is that they’re still pretty gloomy. The best case scenario, modelled for officials at the Department for Exiting the EU, envisages a two per cent hit to GDP by the 2030s. The worst, trading in a ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ environment, suggests an economy eight per cent smaller than would otherwise be the case. As Brexit bonuses go this seems on the thin side. No wonder the reaction to Buzzfeed’s scoop

Steerpike

Stepford students come for Jacob Rees-Mogg

Here we go. First the Stepford students at LSE submitted a motion to ban the university’s free-speech society, next City University students tried banning newspapers at the institution famed for its journalism school, then Lincoln University’s Student Union suspended the Conservative Society’s social media use after young Tories dared to suggest that the powers-that-be were intolerant of free speech. And now, it’s the turn of Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Moggster is due to speak at Queen Mary University of London this week: However the university’s Socialist Worker Student Society takes a different view – they say: ‘This is our campus, and we won’t have politicians who are against the welfare and freedom of

Katy Balls

Len McCluskey calls on Labour MPs to vote down the Brexit deal

The Conservatives are currently in such disagreement over what the government approach to the second round of Brexit negotiations should be that the vote on the final deal seems a long way off indeed. However, it’s clearly on the mind of the Opposition. At a Resolution Foundation panel event this morning, Len McCluskey – the leader of Unite and top Corbyn ally – said he hoped Labour MPs voted down any Brexit deal the Tories come back with: ‘My personal hope and belief is that in late Autumn of this year the [Brexit] deal that comes back to parliament will be rejected, Theresa May will resign, and it will lead

Katy Balls

Theresa May’s good news: poll finds Prime Minister is the least worst option

Finally some good news for Theresa May. After a tawdry few weeks in which Conservative MPs have taken to Twitter, newspapers and the airwaves to criticise the Prime Minister, May’s premiership looks on shaky ground. Reports on the number of letters calling for a confidence vote in May are said to be getting perilously close to the magic number required. But any MPs considering firing off a letter to Sir Graham Brady – the chair of the 1922 committee – would be well-advised to look at the latest YouGov/WPI poll first. In a survey of Conservative voters (which took place 28-29 January), over two thirds back Theresa May to remain

Steerpike

What the BBC won’t tell you about the leaked Brexit forecasts

The leaked government Brexit forecasts have this morning been reported by the BBC just as its leakers intended: as embarrassing proof that Brexit is bad for the economy. If it had any vague interest in being impartial, perhaps the Beeb would have bothered to make the rather obvious point: not only have we seen such forecasts before, but the new figures are more optimistic than HM Treasury’s last effort. The government’s April 2016 analysis said that the economy would be 3.8 percentage points smaller than it otherwise would have in 15 years if we were to stay in the EEA; that has now been revised down to a 2pc hit.

Steerpike

Angela Merkel’s Theresa May jibe

Theresa May’s not having a good few weeks. With Tories scrambling to either criticise their leader or covertly campaign to be the next leader, May’s premiership appears to be on shaky ground once more. Add to this a backlash from Conservative Brexiteers and a government Brexit forecast leak and it’s safe to conclude things aren’t about to get better anytime soon. Now it seems she can’t even rely on her European allies for support. ITV’s Robert Peston reports that May was the punchline to a joke Angela Merkel told hacks at Davos. He says that the German chancellor had journalists in stitched when she told a story about May’s negotiating

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Eurosceptics are wrong to ‘rage over the Brexit transition’

Michel Barnier’s Brexit transition deal offer – under which Britain will continue to pay into the EU’s budget and have no say on rules – has not gone down well with some Brexiteers. The Daily Telegraph says that this suggestion means that the date of when Brexit will happen has effectively been pushed back until December 31st 2020. The paper says that it was right for Theresa May to initially lay out a request for a two-year transition deal during her Florence speech last year. But since the PM made that speech, Britain has been too ‘meek’ in obeying the EU and allowing Brussels to ‘call all the shots’. This

Monday

29 Jan 2018

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May’s caution about appearing weak has made her even weaker

Can Theresa May really solve the latest crisis affecting her leadership? Previously, her survival owed a great deal to Conservative backbenchers, who vowed to protect her against a badly-behaved Cabinet, but everyone is restless now. So what can she do? The Prime Minister isn’t going to have a personality transplant, but this doesn’t mean that she is destined to continue doing absolutely nothing. She may never be able to conjure up small talk with her own MPs, but she has in the past shown that she can make bold decisions (the snap election was, admittedly, a bad example of this) and have a reforming zeal. The absence of any activity

Ross Clark

The myth of the 2017 ‘youthquake’

So was it Corbyn’s appeal to younger voters what swung last year’s general election in his favour? Not according to the British Election Study (BES) which today publishes a paper questioning the received wisdom that Labour’s unexpectedly strong showing was down to a surge of support from younger voters who managed to cast off their apathy for the first time. Indeed, claims the team, the Oxford English Dictionary may have been a bit premature in declaring ‘Youthquake’ as its word of the year. The idea that Corbyn managed to inspire a generation of normally-apathetic youngsters was cast very early in the post-election analysis when it was noticed that some seats snatched

James Forsyth

Don’t sweat the Brexit transition deal

There are many things to worry about with Brexit, but the terms of the transition should be pretty low down that list. The transition was always going to have to be off-the-shelf (if you could negotiate a bespoke transition, you might as well do the final deal) and as long as it is time-limited, it shouldn’t be a problem. Indeed, it should help smooth out Britain’s exit from the European Union. Bill Cash’s urgent question today was another sign of how some Tory Eurosceptics are becoming more and more concerned about the terms of the transition, and how it will make Britain—in effect—a non-voting member of the EU. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s

Tom Gross

The truth about Iran is now of little importance to Jeremy Corbyn

If any further evidence was needed about the disingenuousness of Jeremy Corbyn and the dangers a government led by him might pose internationally – not just for Britain but also for Britain’s Nato allies – it is worth watching Corbyn’s interview on Iran with the BBC’s Andrew Marr yesterday. ‘You’ve been very reluctant to condemn the government of Iran. Can I read you what Amnesty International has said about Iran… ?’ began Marr yesterday, to which Corbyn interrupted him with the extraordinary response: ‘I think that actually, if I may say so, you’re spending too much time reading the Daily Mail, do you know that?’ Having failed to read Corbyn