Politics

So Austria has a new leader. The radical leftist Alexander Van der Bellen, a former Green party leader running as an independent, has just edged out radical right-wing politician Norbert Hofer in one of the closest elections in European history. After postal votes were counted, Van der Bellen had 50.2 per cent and Hofer 49.8 per cent – a margin of just 0.4 percentage points. Most of the continent will probably breath a sigh of relief while still being disturbed at the size of the radical right vote; more shocking, perhaps, is the fact that among the working-class, there was almost unanimous support for Hofer, with the Freedom Party receiving 86 per

Oh dear. Spare a thought for whichever bright spark at Labour HQ is responsible for today’s email on the EU referendum. The message — which has been sent out to party supporters — asks voters to help Labour campaign to remain in the EU. To do this, they are keen to take the personal approach — inviting readers to share the reasons they will be voting In. The email also urges recipients to donate money. Alas, a technical glitch means that the email has struck the wrong chord with would-be supporters. Instead of individually addressing each email to the recipient by name, all the emails begin with ‘Dear Firstname’: A second email has

Churches are generally ideal venues for public debates. But there’s a slight chance that a speech about the perils of EU membership will be interrupted by a homeless person doing a pee in the corner. At a debate on Christian responses to the EU at St James the Less church in Pimlico last night, Giles Fraser left off quoting his hero Tony Benn on the evil of unaccountable power in order to do his muscular Christian duty and help eject the man, who spluttered invective as he departed. Did I imagine it or did he shout ‘Fexit Brexit’? A bit earlier, his opponent Ben Ryan had set out an optimistic

After months of local campaigning, backbiting and press releasing, the Greater Manchester mayoral election has finally piqued the national attention. Andy Burnham’s apparently sudden declaration he will run for the role has thrust the race into the limelight. There may be more than a hint of cockiness to his claim that the competition needs a ‘big name’ to raise its profile, but there is also more than a hint of truth. Unlike the London race, there has so far been little momentum to its poorer northern relative. But for Andy Burnham the question that really matters, given that the Labour candidacy is likely to determine who becomes mayor of 2.5m people next year,

A Ryanair plane in a Stansted hangar was not the best backdrop for George Osborne’s claim that the economic argument about the European Union is now over and that his ‘consensus’ has prevailed. In recent years, Ryanair has lost its status as the fastest-growing budget airline in Europe: that honour goes to Norwegian Air, which has thrived outside the EU. And on the day of the Chancellor’s speech, a group of Ryanair passengers had announced their intention to take out a lawsuit against the company for what they see as unfair tricks to disguise the true cost of tickets. The Chancellor does the reverse of Ryanair: he tries to frighten