Politics

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

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory whips jittery about local government finance rebellion

Communities Secretary Greg Clark is giving a statement this afternoon in the Commons on local government finance. This sounds like something rather lacking in drama, but I understand it is part of an attempt to ward off a rebellion threatened by MPs on Wednesday. MPs will vote on a local government finance settlement motion on Wednesday, and I hear that the Tory whips are so jittery about whether they might lose that vote that they are refusing to give MPs permission to leave Westminster that afternoon. Conservative MPs have been lobbying ministers to grant fairer funding for rural councils, and are threatening to vote against the government if it does not do

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris for In? Mayor teases readers in column

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] They may not be allowed to speak out yet, but everyone is trying to find out what senior eurosceptic Tories really think about David Cameron’s EU renegotiation deal and whether they’ll vote to leave. For some Cabinet ministers like Michael Gove, this decision is balanced as much on his personal loyalty to David Cameron as it is on his own beliefs about Europe. For others, there’s what happens to their careers after the vote to think about.  Boris Johnson is blissfully free from Cabinet collective responsibility and from having to worry too much about whether he’ll get promoted in

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Are we really supposed to believe David Cameron cares about reforming prisons?

David Cameron has outlined his plans for prison reform today. But does he genuinely care about prisons or is he only concerned with shaping his own legacy? The Prime Minister labelled the number of prisoners reoffending as ‘scandalous’. He also pledged to protect the £130m prison education budget. His motives may seem worthy but it’s arguable he is merely paying lip service to an issue which has been bubbling along under his watch for years. That much appeared to be the view of the Prison Reform Trust’s Juliet Lyon. Speaking on Today, Lyon criticised the PM for turning late to the issue. She said: ‘It is certainly true (that things

Sunday

Robin Harris

I know that Margaret Thatcher would have fought for Brexit with all her strength. Here’s why

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] To be quite so desperate, quite so early, in the pre-referendum campaign as the In campaigners must be to wheel out Lord Powell of Bayswater with his proxy, post-humous Thatcher endorsement is not a good sign for them. Charles Powell even suggests of David Cameron’s package that Mrs Thatcher “would have gone along with what is on offer, indeed negotiated something similar herself”. I would find this assertion astonishing had Charles not got form on the subject. At the time of the bitterly fought Maastricht Treaty and later, he insisted that Margaret Thatcher would have eventually signed up to

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Charles Moore: Sorry, but Margaret Thatcher would not have voted to stay in the EU

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] Margaret Thatcher would have voted to stay in the European Union, her former foreign policy adviser Lord Powell writes in the Sunday Times today. Here, in an extract from his Spectator’s Notes, Charles Moore, Lady Thatcher’s official biographer, says she would have voted to Leave: On Tuesday night, at a Spectator readers’ evening, Andrew Neil interviewed me about my biography of Margaret Thatcher. He asked me if, after leaving office, Lady Thatcher had come to the view that Britain should leave the European Union. I said yes (I think it happened after the Maastricht Treaty in 1992), although advisers had persuaded her that

Saturday

The Spectator

Cameron’s “deal” has backfired – badly. So what will he do now?

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] It should, by now, be clear to David Cameron that he is in some degree of trouble with his referendum. The latest YouGov poll shows the ‘out’ side with a four-point lead: those who were waiting for his renegotiation to yield results have been appalled first at the paucity of the “deal”, and then at his shameless attempt to sell it as a victory. As Cabinet members rally behind this non-deal, we are presented with the unedifying sigh of an establishment closing ranks. This, in itself, causes a degree of public revulsion – which is being reflected in the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Who will be out for Out?

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] The Leave campaigns continue to bicker with each other in increasingly absurd fashion, but it would be wrong to think that everything is going the In campaign’s way. Number 10, as I write in The Sun today, have been taken aback by the sheer scale of the hostility to the deal. There have been some very tense meetings in Downing Street this week. Cameron himself is, I understand, acutely aware of how volatile the situation is and how quickly the referendum could turn. But those around him are more confident. They believe that they are succeeding in denying the

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Marco Rubio is the only candidate who understands America’s global role

Last week, I was in the United States, where the media are even more subject to groupthink than their British equivalents. Fox News, supposedly the conservative voice, is really much more conformist than it pretends, and specialises in noisy opinion more than real news. The only person I met who got the Republican caucuses absolutely right was Chris Ruddy, founder and CEO of Newsmax, the conservative cable channel which claims to be in ‘42 million US homes’. He told me he thought Cruz would beat Trump and the real winner would be Marco Rubio. So it proves. It is interesting that in a campaign in which all the candidates shout about

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour’s election star on ‘evil left-wing bastards’

Since Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader, the party have had a fair few run-ins with dictators of the past. After John McDonnell quoted Chairman Mao during the budget, Corbyn then cited Enver Hoxha at the Labour Christmas party — while his director of comms Seumas Milne has questioned just how many deaths Stalin actually brought about. Happily some prominent Labour members are happy to talk about the shortcomings of such dictators. In an interview with The Rake, Martin Freeman — who starred in Labour’s election broadcast when Ed Miliband was leader — says it’s unfair to call all Tories ‘evil’, as the left has been responsible for more deaths in recent

Friday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Split in Labour Leave over whether it has left Vote Leave

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] This might seem impossible, but the row between Vote Leave and Labour leave has become even more complicated. This afternoon, Labour donor John Mills, who remains on the Vote Leave campaign, has put out this statement: ‘I am the founder and co-owner of Labour Leave. A statement has been put out by someone called Richard Hillgrove purporting to be from Brendan Chilton, General Secretary of Labour Leave. That statement is fraudulent. Richard Hillgrove has no position in Labour Leave. Labour Leave is an independent campaign but corporately it supports Vote Leave.’ But Kate Hoey, who is co-chair of Labour

Steerpike Steerpike

Ken Livingstone tips John McDonnell as Corbyn’s successor

Although Jeremy Corbyn has only been Labour leader since September, there has been much talk from various fractions of the party about who might succeed him. While many Blairites hope someone like Dan Jarvis or Chuka Umunna will be next, Ken Livingstone has now offered his prediction. In an interview with Sam Delaney — on Russia Today — the former Mayor of London says that if Corbyn were killed tomorrow, it would be John McDonnell who would become Labour leader: ‘If Jeremy was pushed under a bus being driven by Boris Johnson, it would all rally behind John McDonnell. Because John, like Jeremy, like me, he’s been in this game for 45 years. [He’s]

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour Leave to split from Vote Leave

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] Following reports of a furious row between Labour Leave and Vote Leave in the Guardian and the Times, I understand that Labour Leave will later today issue a statement confirming that it is going to work as an independent group and will not be supporting Vote Leave’s bid for official designation from the Electoral Commission. The Labour group has decided to work with other grassroots groups such as ‘GO’, set up by Tory MP Peter Bone and Labour MP Kate Hoey, after a split between party donor John Mills and other Vote Leave staff. Nick Watt and Sam Coates

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why Cameron needn’t worry about Leave’s nine-point lead – yet

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] Funnily enough, David Cameron’s EU deal hasn’t gone down all that well with voters. The Times this morning gives the ‘Out’ campaign a nine-point lead, up from four points last week. The YouGov poll puts Leave on 45 per cent, Remain on 36 per cent and 19 per cent on don’t know or won’t vote. This is an entirely predictable reaction to a deal that has genuinely astonished some MPs with its lack of anything that could come close to looking like a fundamental recasting of Britain’s relationship with Europe. The press has savaged it and while all hell

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 4 February 2016

Ballots drawn Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tossed a coin to decide which of them was the winner in some precincts of Iowa. What would we do if we had a tied election? — The closest British election in modern times was the council election in Bury, Greater Manchester, in 2011. With Labour needing one more seat to take control of the council, the Labour and Conservative candidates in the ward of Ramsbottom were found to be tied. They drew straws, the longer of which went to the Labour candidate, Joanne Columbine. — The closest recent parliamentary election was that in Winchester in 1997, where Liberal Democrat Mark Oaten won

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 4 February 2016

In 2000, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, accused Magdalen College, Oxford, of class bias in failing to admit a student called Laura Spence, a pupil at a Tyneside comprehensive. This was grossly unfair — how could the Chancellor know the details of a particular case? It was also outrageous in principle: why should a politician tell a university whom to admit? This Sunday, David Cameron did much the same thing. In the middle of his EU negotiations, the migrant crisis and the other genuinely important things the Prime Minister must deal with, he found time to offer an article to the Sunday Times, headlined ‘Watch out, universities; I’m

The Spectator

Cameron’s “deal” has backfired – badly. So what will he do now?

Throughout his negotiations with the European Union, David Cameron was fatally undermined by his own lack of resolve. He was never going to recommend an ‘out’ vote in his referendum, as the other leaders knew. He promised a referendum three years ago, not from any great sense of conviction, but as a ploy to stop his party talking about Europe until after a general election which he half-expected to lose. Then, in May last year, he found himself with a majority — and in a position to renegotiate. But not in a position to win, and for a simple -reason: the other side always knew that he’d say yes, no

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory MPs press ministers on sickness benefit cuts

The Welfare Reform and Work Bill has its third reading in the House of Lords on Monday before returning to the Commons for consideration of amendments. Jeremy Corbyn raised one of the controversial aspects of this bill, which is to cut the amount of money paid to people who are judged too ill to work currently but with the potential to return to the workplace in the future, at Prime Minister’s Questions this week. Peers have defeated this measure, but the government intends to reverse it. But there are Tory MPs who are worried about the cut to employment and support allowance, too. Heidi Allen, she of the dramatic Commons

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Today in audio: Margaret Beckett’s praying for another Corbyn miracle

Haven’t had a chance to follow the day’s political events and interviews? Then don’t worry: here, The Spectator, brings you the best of today’s audio clips in one place for you to listen to. Margaret Beckett said she is hoping and praying for a second Jeremy Corbyn ‘miracle’: There was praise for Miles Goslett in Parliament, with Paul Flynn saying the Spectator piece he wrote on Kids Company was ‘British journalism at its very best’: Geoffrey Cox said sorry in the Commons for failing to declare £400k of his income: But after removing his tail from between his legs, he gave a rousing speech to tell the chamber why he

The Spectator

The Spectator Podcast: Eurosceptic chaos, Trump’s campaign and the inaugural What’s That Thing? Award

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”Fighting over crumbs: Eurosceptics and the EU deal” fullwidth=”yes”] Listen [/audioplayer]In this week’s issue, political editor James Forsyth asks whether David Cameron has somehow managed to dish the Eurosceptics for good. In the wake of the publication of the draft EU deal this week, James suggests the current climate ought to have whipped up the perfect storm for Eurosceptics. Amidst the migrant crisis plaguing the continent and widespread dislike of the EU in Britain, those backing Brexit could not have dreamed of a better scenario. But instead the Eurosceptic campaign is in chaos. Isabel Hardman is joined on this week’s podcast by James and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson to

Joe Baron

A lesson in self-censorship

According to my former colleagues, history teachers in an urban English state school, anyone who votes for the Conservative party is ‘thick’, the British Empire was ‘unambiguously evil’ and capitalism leads to ‘mass inequality and misery for the vast majority of working people’. The only answer was, you guessed it, socialism. Yes, the cliché of the Little Red Book-carrying schoolteacher is alive and well. As the only right-of-centre teacher in the history department, I found lunchtime particularly galling. My colleagues would sit around denouncing the British empire, Michael Gove’s changes to the national curriculum and the government’s ‘ideologically driven’ attempts to cut the nation’s deficit. But what worried me more