Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Jeremy Corbyn’s London-centric shadow cabinet

Jeremy Corbyn has sacked the Labour chief whip Rosie Winterton in his shadow cabinet reshuffle. Winterton was attempting to broker a deal that would see a shadow cabinet elections return, allowing some of those who resigned from the front bench to return with some dignity intact. Her sacking indicates that Corbyn doesn’t want to compromise on this. Winterton’s dismissal also suggests that Corbyn feels emboldened by his re-election, and is now even less interested in placating the Parliamentary Labour Party. Diane Abbott has also been made shadow home secretary. This will mean that there are Corbynites in the three major shadow cabinet positions for the first time—chancellor, foreign and home. But

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Ukip’s Steven Woolfe ‘conscious and recovering’ after ‘altercation’ in Strasbourg

The latest Ukip leadership contest to succeed Diane James has descended into chaos after Steven Woolfe was rushed to hospital. The Ukip MEP — and leadership hopeful — is reported to have regained consciousness after an incident in European Parliament this morning. In a statement at lunchtime, the party claimed Woolfe had been ‘taken suddenly ill in the European parliament building in Strasbourg this morning’. But was this an entirely honest version of events? Details have since emerged that suggest Woolfe was actually taken to hospital after he was punched by a party colleague — alleged to be the party’s defence spokesman Mike Hookem — at a Ukip meeting. The Telegraph reports that following the blow to

Helen Nugent

Bank of England, Brexit, Inheritance Tax and Life Insurance

City traders are speculating about how long Mark Carney will remain as Bank of England governor, after Theresa May attacked the BoE’s loose monetary policy stance yesterday. According to The Guardian, Carney is expected to decide by the end of the year whether to just do five years at the Bank (the original plan), or sign up for an extra three year’s service. He arrived in July 2013. May’s criticism could, perhaps, encourage Carney to exit gracefully in 2018 after all. Or he might decide that London remains the place to be, as the Brexit story plays out. May surprised the City by telling the Conservative Party conference that ultra-low interest

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Britain for the British: Theresa May leads a new nationalist government

Scottish jobs for Scottish workers. We’re going to stop foreigners from coming here and taking jobs Scottish people can do. We are going to make companies declare the nationality of their employees: those that do not employ a sufficiently high percentage of Scots will be ‘named and shamed’. They have a duty to this country; a duty to our people. If companies wish to employ foreigners they will have to prove they need to and demonstrate that they have tried, but failed, to fill the position with a native-born Scot. We understand the pain felt by those Scots who have lost their jobs to English migrants. We feel your anger

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Theresa’s Tory love-in

Theresa May doesn’t use an autocue for her speeches. She feels that reading off a screen at the back of the hall makes it far harder to connect with the audience. But the Prime Minister had no need to worry about her connection with the audience at this conference. Tory activists love her; they regard her as one of their own and are rejoicing at her leadership. ‘The grown ups are back in charge’ was a refrain heard frequently in Birmingham this week. The mood of Tory activists has been further improved by what Mrs May has said about Brexit. Her commitment to trigger Article 50 by the end of

Harry Mount

Meet Boris Mark II

The make-up lady at the BBC’s Millbank studio in Westminster has noticed a change in Boris Johnson’s look. ‘His hair is much smarter now,’ she told me as she slapped anti-shine talc on my pate for the Daily Politics show. ‘But he still messes it up a bit after I’ve combed it.’ Boris Mark II has entered the fray. As his conference speech this week showed, he’s still making the gags but they play second fiddle to his more serious aspirations — as a successful Foreign Secretary and, ultimately, PM. Like some rare species of blond cockroach, Boris survived the post-referendum nuclear fallout while the other Bullingdon boys and the

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The new reality on immigration

The good people of Hungary went to the polls on Sunday and voted by more than 98 per cent against accepting even a few hundred migrants, as per the European Union’s insistence. That poll result must have been gravid with nostalgia for Magyars over the age of about 35. They will remember that sort of election result being de rigueur, rather than astonishing. Indeed, in 1985 the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party succeeded in capturing 98.8 per cent of the popular vote — and even this was a bit of a disappointment, because in 1980 it had pulled in 99.3 per cent. On both occasions the ruling party was aided, of

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The students fight back

Last week, students at York University staged a walkout from the sexual consent classes organised by their student union women’s officers. A quarter of the freshers decided they didn’t want to be lectured to by union worthies about when it’s OK to have sex. So they got up and left. ‘These talks are inherently patronising of both genders,’ said Ben Froughi, a third year accounting student at York, who had stirred up sex class dissent by handing out leaflets telling students the classes were optional and they didn’t have to attend. But sex consent classes are mandatory at some universities, including Cambridge and Oxford. Young people are being chaperoned through

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Brexit spooks the markets, but the housing crisis will swing more votes

‘I rang and said can I have a council house, I’ve nowhere to go, an’ the bloke said no you can’t, we need them all for t’Romanians,’ was a remark offered by a fellow patient, known to me as Fat Lad, when I was hospitalised three years ago. ‘I’m telling you, I’m the biggest Ukip supporter there is…’ he went on, illuminating how — unnoticed by the comfortable classes — a shortage of social and affordable housing was helping to fuel the national mood that eventually led to the Leave vote. Belatedly, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid has had a Damascene moment: ‘Tackling the housing shortage is not about political expediency,’

James Delingpole James Delingpole

I want my Brexit good and strong

What you really should have done if you were in Birmingham on Monday this week was skip the not notably riveting Philip Hammond speech, and head instead for the fringe event run by the Bruges Group starring me, Professor David Myddelton and Charles Moore. I can’t speak for my performance (modesty forbids me) but my fellow panellists were brilliant: funny, incisive and as optimistic as you’d expect of a pair of ardent Brexiteers addressing the victorious home crowd for probably the first time since that happy day in June. ‘Which of us here could ever have imagined that we’re actually part of the majority: the 52 per cent?’ I asked.

William Cook

Who comes after Merkel?

A year from now, 60 million Germans go to the polls in the most important general election in mainland Europe for a generation. The result will define German — and European — politics for the next four years. There are huge questions to be resolved, from the refugee crisis to the financial crisis, but right now the question in Germany is: will Mutti run again? Angela Merkel’s nickname, Mutti (Mummy) is a memento of happier times. A year ago, her position as matriarch of the Bundesrepublik seemed unassailable. And then, last September, she opened Germany’s borders to hundreds of thousands of fleeing Syrians. Over a million refugees arrived last year.

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Theresa May’s ‘carpe Brexit’ speech

Theresa May’s speech was an attempt to seize the moment created by Brexit and Labour’s lurch to the left. She tried to set out a new centre-ground politics, promising to stand up to elites on behalf of ordinary people.  She attempted to nationalise Clement Attlee, the Labour Prime Minister who presided over the creation of the NHS, hailing him as one of her inspirations and promised government intervention to fix the housing, energy and broadband markets. In political terms, the speech was clever. There are an awful lot of voters who will nod along with her criticism of a ‘sneering’ elite who view themselves as ‘global citizens’ and her demands

Steerpike Steerpike

Chipping Norton set cut out of May’s speech

It’s not been a great conference for the Cameroons. After George Osborne and Michael Gove decided to give the event a miss, Nicky Morgan was left alone to face the flak as the whips kept a close eye on her at fringe events. Now it seems the Chipping Norton set has, too, been left in the cold by the new regime. Once the place of power with David Cameron, Jeremy Clarkson, Matthew Freud and Rebekah Brooks all residents, the village has been cut out of Theresa May’s government’s plans. Just as the Prime Minister’s speech kicked off in the conference hall in Birmingham and was aired across the country, a power cut

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Coffee House Shots: The verdict on Theresa May’s conference speech

Theresa May has brought the curtain down on this year’s Tory party conference with a speech in which she made a snatch for the centre ground. The Prime Minister pledged to stick up for the working class and went on the attack against the ‘sneering elite’, who May said looked down on others. But how successful was her speech? And did it tell us anything more about May? On the Spectator’s Coffee House Shots podcast, James Forsyth says: I think she is keener on the state than most Conservatives are. I think there was a lot of aim taken at the liberal elite. There was a lot of vicar’s daughter

The Spectator

Full text: Theresa May’s conference speech

When we came to Birmingham this week, some big questions were hanging in the air. Do we have a plan for Brexit? We do. Are we ready for the effort it will take to see it through? We are. Can Boris Johnson stay on message for a full four days? Just about. But I know there’s another big question people want me to answer. What’s my vision for Britain? My philosophy? My approach? Today I want to answer that question very directly. I want to set out my vision for Britain after Brexit. I want to lay out my approach – the things I believe. I want to explain what

Steerpike Steerpike

Conference party round-up: Theresa’s kiss is put on hold

After four days of speeches and panels at Tory conference, there is now at least a little consensus over what Brexit means Brexit means and much concern over the quality of Philip Hammond’s jokes. However, while a number of conference speeches proved dry, Mr S is glad to report that the after hours soirees were free-flowing. At the Sun‘s conference party — where guests were offered teetotal May Day cocktails — tributes were paid to two men who were unable to make it to Birmingham this year. The paper’s editor Tony Gallagher recalled what David Cameron and George Osborne had said to him ahead of the paper backing Brexit. ‘David and George took us aside

The Spectator

Full text: Ruth Davidson’s Conservative party conference speech

Friends, five years ago I came to this conference, seeking to win the leadership of our party in Scotland. We’d just had our worst ever Scottish election result on the back of two decades of decline. As career moves went, the omens didn’t look exactly ideal. We were being kicked around by our opponents. And the media was calling us a corpse that wouldn’t twitch. And that was on a good day. But conference, you always kept the faith. When I argued we could win again as Conservatives, you granted me the privilege of allowing me to lead. We weren’t being credited with much in the way of prospects but

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

David Davis: I’m 100 per cent sure EU migrants working in Britain can stay after Brexit

Theresa May has gone out of her way to repeatedly reassure people that Brexit means Brexit. But where the Prime Minister has been less eager to offer words of comfort is on the status of EU nationals living and working in Britain. That stony silence has been one of the big themes of the Conservative party’s conference this year. May’s refusal to commit has left a question mark dangling over millions of people. At a Spectator fringe event last night, David Davis went as far as any member of Government (or, indeed, any loyal cabinet minister) to reassuring those from the EU that they wouldn’t be removed from Britain. When

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Diane James stands down as Ukip leader

Diane James is standing down as Ukip leader after only 18 days in the job, blaming ‘personal and professional reasons’ and a lack of ‘sufficient authority’ within the party for her decision to quit. James said she didn’t have the backing she needed among fellow Ukip MEPs and party officers, but insisted she would still ‘concentrate fully’ on her role within the European Parliament. In a statement released last night, she said: ‘Having won the enthusiastic support of party members, I was nominated by them as the new leader at the Ukip conference. Since that time, I have been in discussion with party officers about the role. It has become clear that I do

Tuesday

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Damian Green strikes a softer tone on welfare

Under David Cameron, it was sometimes tricky to tell who was in charge at the DWP. Iain Duncan Smith favoured a softer approach to welfare reform while over at the Treasury, George Osborne’s interventions were more nakedly political. It all came to a head in March when IDS resigned after Osborne announced £4bn of cuts to disability benefits. That was just over six months ago and seems like a distant memory in the pre-referendum haze. Yet it’s rapidly becoming clear that under Damian Green, things will be very different at the DWP. As with other areas of Government, Theresa May’s work and pensions secretary has marked a signal departure with