Politics

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

Friday

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Corbyn’s disgraced aide gets behind Sadiq Khan’s campaign

Throughout his London mayoral bid, Sadiq Khan has been at pains to distance himself from Jeremy Corbyn. Although Khan was one of the 35 MPs to help get Corbyn onto the ballot paper, he has since gone on to declare that if elected mayor, he will not be ‘Corbyn’s representative in London’. His comments have led his mayoral rival George Galloway to accuse Khan of ‘stabbing Jeremy Corbyn in the back’. Happily, Corbyn’s team still seem happy to support Khan’s mayoral bid despite. With less than a week to polling day, Khan’s official campaign Twitter account has shared a photo of their bustling phone bank in action: 8 days to

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Whitto feels the heat at Westminster Correspondents’ dinner

Last night lobby hacks gathered with their favourite SpAds in tow for the Westminster correspondents’ dinner. This year’s guest of honour was George Osborne, who proceeded to win over the crowd with a jibe-filled speech. Osborne — who has previously accused the BBC of harbouring ‘imperial ambitions’ — did manage to find time to include a serious message alongside his many parliamentary put-downs. He urged Auntie to work alongside local news rather than against. However, it was his jibes against both his colleagues and himself that received the biggest laughs from the well-hydrated audience. Referring to his esteemed guests, Osborne said that never had there been so many big egos in one

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

‘Labour at war’: Papers make miserable reading for Corbyn as Ken row rumbles on

The Labour party knew that the row over Ken Livingstone’s suspension was not going to disappear overnight. And this morning’s papers show that this story will be bubbling along for some time. All of this comes at a dreadful time for Labour with just days to go until Britain goes to the polls. In particular, it will be interesting to see how these front pages could have an impact on London’s mayoral race. Sadiq Khan has acted swiftly to distance himself from what happened. But with this very public row not likely to go anywhere any time soon, whether this undermining of Labour’s credibility affects Khan remains to be seen.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 28 April 2016

Green reasons to stay in Sir: As Conservatives we are clear that the European Union has been central to improving the quality of the UK’s environment. European policy is not always perfect, but on environmental issues it has allowed us to move forward in leaps and bounds. The wealth of the environment on which our economy depends is not confined to national boundaries, which is why the EU has become such a vital forum for negotiating Britain’s interest in maintaining healthy seas, clean air, climate security and species protection. It is largely thanks to European agreements that we now have sewage-free beaches in Britain. Because of tough European vehicle standards, British car

Peter Jones

Henry III vs EU law

It is no surprise that the laws imposed on the UK by a European parliament in Brussels should so infuriate the ‘Leave’ campaign. England has form here going back 750 years. Roman law has been one of the wonders of the world since its codification in the Twelve Tables (449 BC). But it is not the laws themselves that are the real point. The key lies in the way that laws were later argued over by the ‘jurists’. These started out as private, freelance legal consultants, simply earning respect for the legal advice they offered. In a case fought against his jurist friend Servius, though Cicero admitted Servius was good at ‘providing

The Spectator

Barometer | 28 April 2016

Getting a head Barack Obama dismissed Boris Johnson’s accusations that he shown disdain for Sir Winston Churchill by removing a bust from the Oval Office. What’s the going rate on eBay for such a bust? One-sixth scale resin bust of Winston Churchill (removable head) £12.50 Sir Winston Churchill bronze/brass bust £44 English-made marble bust of Sir Winston Churchill £70 Signed classic Winston Churchill bust by Oscar Nemon £80 Tallent Winston Churchill Terracotta Bust Cigar Lighter (used) £165 The academy difference Education Secretary Nicky Morgan partially retreated on plans to turn all schools into academies, free from council control. How do academies perform against maintained schools at GCSE? Sponsored academies Capped point

The Spectator

Fear and loathing

Strange as it may seem, there are still people around David Cameron who regard the Scottish referendum campaign as a great success. Yes, they say, the nationalists didn’t like the original ‘Project Fear’ — the attempt to frighten Scotland into voting no — but it worked. Alex Salmond was defeated by a 10 per cent margin — proof, it’s argued, that relentless negativity works. Those who complain about it are either losers, or too squeamish to win. Andrew Cooper, chief of the Scottish ‘in’ campaign, said afterwards that the only criticism he would accept is that it was not negative enough. This attitude is a poison in the bloodstream of

Douglas Murray

Labour’s anti-Semitism problem stems from its grassroots

If I were the Conservative party I’d be getting worried: Labour’s implosion is happening too fast. At this rate they could fall apart and regroup in time to go into the next election with a respectable leader. Everybody knows the latest developments. Naz Shah MP was found to have said some anti-Semitic things on social media. After some bitter internal wrangling she was suspended from the party. Fellow MP Rupa Huq tried to come to her defence and compared anti-Semitism to any old mishap. And then Ken Livingstone smoothed it all over by talking about which of Hitler’s policies he thinks Zionists agree with. The low-point today was probably the

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Coffee Shots: Happy #EdBallsDay

Although Ken Livingstone has done his best to steal Ed Balls’s thunder today, it’s important to take a moment and remember what April 28 is really all about. Today marks the 5th anniversary of Ed Balls day — the day the former shadow chancellor accidentally tweeted his own name. Five years on and a lot has changed for Balls — and Labour. Happily, now he is no longer an MP — let alone a shadow Cabinet member — Balls seems to have a lot more time on his hands, which would explain why he has made himself a cake to mark the occasion.

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Today in audio: Ken’s day to forget

Ken Livingstone has been suspended by the Labour party after plonking himself firmly at the centre of the anti-Semitism row by once again stepping in to defend Naz Shah. The former London mayor said the Labour MP’s remarks were ‘over-the-top but they were not anti-Semitic’. During his interview with Vanessa Feltz, he added: ‘Let’s remember when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism and this was before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.’ Next up for Ken was the Daily Politics show, in which he tried again to defend his remarks. Ken

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Rupa Huq performs a u-turn over her disastrous Naz Shah interview

This morning Rupa Huq managed to anger listeners when she used a slot on the Today programme to compare Naz Shah’s anti-semitic social media posts to tweeting a photo of Boris Johnson on a zip-wire. With both the presenter and audience left bewildered by her disastrous defence of Shah’s posts, it appears that Huq has now had second thoughts. Opting to give an interview to the Russia Today show Sam Delaney’s News Thing — rather than return to the BBC — Huq claims she was simply unprepared for the interview. The Labour MP says that she wasn’t ‘fully aware’ of the details of Shah’s anti-Semitic posts before she appeared on the Today

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Watch: The Spectator’s Brexit debate

In the largest event in The Spectator’s 188-year history, 2,200 people packed into the Palladium this week to watch our debate chaired by Andrew Neil on whether Britain should leave the EU. Dan Hannan, Nigel Farage and Kate Hoey backed Brexit. Whilst Nick Clegg, Liz Kendall and Chuka Umunna argued that Britain was better off remaining a part of the European Union. Leave won the debate, which was sponsored by Rathbones, with a resounding number of the audience siding with Hannan, Farage and Hoey. But if you weren’t lucky enough to make it to the Spectator’s Brexit debate yourself, then you can make up your own mind by watching the

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Diane Abbott gets cold feet about Ken Livingstone

Ken Livingstone has been the talk of the Commons today after he took to the airwaves to defend Naz Shah over her anti-Semitic posts. Since then he has been suspended after several Labour MPs urged their leader to take action. So, what’s Diane Abbott been doing to help the cause? While the MP for Hackney North stayed quiet on the row this morning, she has busied herself by deleting past supportive tweets about Red Ken from the internet. Abbott appears to not want members of the public to know that she was once on friendly terms with Livingstone. After Livingstone’s suspension was announced, the ‘Tweets MPs Delete’ Twitter account started displaying old tweets from Abbott which are

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Ken Livingstone suspended by Labour

Ken Livingstone has been suspended by Labour after wading in to defend Naz Shah in the anti-Semitism row. Labour officials finally stepped in following comments made by Ken on the BBC earlier today in which he declared that saying the ‘Jews are rallying’ was not an anti-Semitic remark. A spokesman for Labour said: ‘Ken Livingstone has been suspended by the Labour party, pending an investigation, for bringing the party into disrepute.’ Instead of keeping a low profile following his blundering appearance on the Vanessa Feltz show, Ken spent the morning touring the studios, acting in the words of Labour MP Wes Streeting ‘like a political arsonist’. It’s hard to disagree

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Watch: John Mann takes on Ken Livingstone over anti-Semitism – ‘you are a Nazi apologist’

As the Labour party continues to implode over the party’s handling of Naz Shah’s anti-Semitic social media posts, a number of MPs have turned on Ken Livingstone in light of his comments today on anti-Semitism. However, John Mann has gone one step futher. The Labour MP confronted Livingstone over his claim that Hitler supported Zionism, just before Livingstone appeared on the Daily Politics: ‘You’re a Nazi apologist, rewriting history, rewriting history, rewriting history. Go back and check what Hitler did, go back and check. There’s a book called Mein Kampf, you’ve obviously never heard of it.’ Mann then appeared on the Daily Politics to repeat his claim — this time appearing from a

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Watch: Ken Livingstone’s career-ending Daily Politics interview – ‘a real anti-Semite doesn’t just hate the Jews in Israel’

After Ken Livingstone claimed that Hitler supported Zionism and that anti-Semitism is not racism in a BBC radio interview, Labour MPs including Jess Phillips and Sadiq Khan have called for Ken Livingstone to be expelled from the party. With Corbyn — slow as ever — to respond to their calls, Livingstone appeared on the Daily Politics presumably in the hope of conducting some damage limitation. Alas this didn’t go to plan, and instead Red Ken made his situation even worse as he went on to say that he had seen ‘nothing to suggest’ Naz Shah is anti-Semitic — despite the Labour MP admitting yesterday that her posts were guilty of anti-Semitism.

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Labour’s halfwits have revealed their anti-Semitic side

My guess is that the people who voted for Naz Shah at the last election think she did not go anywhere near far enough in her comments about transporting Jews. Ms Shah is, somehow, still the MP for Bradford West, a seat she yanked from under the feet of someone we had all assumed had the votes of anti-Semites in the constituency sewn up. This is problem number one, for Labour. The loathing of Israel, and concomitant anti-Semitism, among its core Muslim vote is implacable. But problem number two is that Labour’s white middle-class metro liberal halfwits, of which Jeremy Corbyn is undoubtedly a member, are also disposed towards anti-Semitism. They

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Jeremy Corbyn must now confront Labour’s anti-Semitism problem

What is being said by senior figures in the Labour party about anti-Semitism at the moment is as depressing as it is jaw dropping. On the Today programme this morning, the Labour MP Rupa Huq—who went to Cambridge University—tried to play down the whole Naz Shah issue. She argued that sharing these kind of vile posts on Facebook was no big deal and not much different from her mocking Boris on Twitter for getting stuck on a zip-wire. She said that Shah had been subject to ‘trial by Twitter’. If this was not bad enough, Ken Livingstone then went on BBC London to say that declaring that the ‘Jews are

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Tommy Corbyn pays a visit to ‘Corbyn the musical’

This week there have been two rival Corbyn dramas being played out across London. In Westminster, the Labour leader struggles to get a grip on the anti-Semitism crisis taking over his party, while over in Waterloo Corbyn faces a nuclear dilemma. While both seem fantastical, unfortunately only one is make believe. Corbyn the Musical: the Motorcycle Diaries — written by Rupert Myers and Bobby Friedman — imagines Corbyn facing a nuclear crisis, and also offers a take on what may have gone on when Corbyn and Diane Abbott are said to have gone on a motorcycle holiday in the 1970s. Despite much media interest, Corbyn is yet to attend the show. However, Mr S can disclose that one

Violet Hudson

Money digest: today’s need-to-know financial news | 28 April 2016

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development warns this morning that Brexit would cost the average Briton one month’s salary by 2020, according to the Telegraph. The think tank predicts that families will be £2,200 worse off by the end of the decade should Britain chose to leave the EU on 23 June. ‘Normally when you pay a tax, you get something in return,’ said Angel Gurria, the OECD’s Secretary General. ‘You’re asked to pay a tax in order to have greater security, or because they’re going to pave the streets, or you’re going to get cleaner water.’ Meanwhile eight leading economists have formed ‘Economists for Brexit’, backing the Leave campaign. The report was