Politics

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

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Owen Paterson to write policies for Tory leadership hopeful

It’s official: the Tory leadership contest is well and truly underway. No matter that everyone’s interested in the Labour result this weekend and no matter that David Cameron hasn’t even set a date for his departure. This evening, at a drinks reception in a parliamentary lair, Owen Paterson announced that he would be drawing up a set of robust Tory policies for whoever wants to stand as leader to adopt. Speaking to a group of MPs, peers and hacks, the Tory MP said that his think tank UK 2020 – which he said he set up after ‘I was fired’ by the Prime Minister – would work on a series

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Is Jeremy Corbyn really more posh than Harriet Harman?

Harriet Harman ended her final appearance at PMQs as the interim Labour leader with a parting shot in the direction of Jeremy Corbyn, who is the odds-on favourite to be the party’s next leader. ‘It was quite surprising to discover I’m not possibly old enough or posh enough to be the frontrunner of this leadership election,’ Harman told Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics. It’s true Corbyn is one year older than Harman, at 66, but is he really more posh than the St Paul’s Girls’ School alumnus? The die-hard socialist certainly has the most privileged upbringing of any of the Labour leadership candidates. Growing up in a seven-bedroom manor house

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Yet more people are executed by the work and pensions secretary

Time’s up for Hattie. Her performance at PMQs had a whiff of embalming fluid about it. This was probably her last performance as Labour’s stand-in boss and she declared it ‘an honour and a privilege to lead this great party’. Mentally everyone corrected that to ‘this once-great party’. Labour is on the verge of sundering into two factions: the Labour party in opposition (i.e. Jeremy Corbyn) and the Labour party in exile (i.e. the rest of them). Magnanimous Cameron hailed Hattie’s three decades on the front bench. He praised her support for women’s rights and said she’d served her constituents ‘with distinction’. Which is half-true. Harman’s offspring enjoyed the ‘distinction’

James Forsyth James Forsyth

PMQs returns with drones and a serious question from the DUP

PMQs today was not the usual Punch and Judy show. Rather it was dominated by a serious exchange between Harman and Cameron about what to do about the refugee crisis. Cameron, having paid generous tribute to Harman, set out the thinking behind the government’s position far more clearly than he had on Monday. Now, I suspect that PMQs will be very much back to its old self with the debut of the new Labour leader next week. But what was refreshing about today’s session was that Harman and Cameron were disagreeing with each other and arguing, but just without the raised voices or insults. The SNP’s Angus Robertson used his two

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WATCH: Nicola Sturgeon sings God Save the Queen

As the Queen celebrates becoming Britain’s longest-serving monarch today, David Cameron led tributes for Her Majesty this morning in the Commons ahead of PMQs. While the Prime Minister praised her ‘unerring grace, dignity and decency’, Sir Gerald Howarth tried a different tack; showing his appreciation for her with an anecdote about his wife not wishing to attend a local donkey derby: ‘When I consult Lady Howarth and ask whether we should go to the donkey derby, and she says, “But we went there last year,” I say, “And Her Majesty does all sorts of things every single year.” Her Majesty has done a fantastic service to this nation.’ The leaders of the DUP and Lib Dems both managed

Chris Woods

Drone assassination is addictive. Is Britain now hooked?

With the drone killing in Syria of Reyaad Khan and Ruhul Amin, Britain joins an exclusive club. Only Israel and the United States publicly admit to carrying out targeted killings – assassinations – away from the hot battlefield. Yet as both of these nations have already found, a single killing today can lead to a conveyor belt of death further on. The challenge for the UK is whether it can do things differently. Israel targeted and killed hundreds of alleged militants in the West Bank and Gaza during the Second Intifada using snipers, booby-traps and drones. Indeed it was Israel which coined the term ‘targeted killing’ – a more palatable

Ed West Ed West

In the age of democracy, a monarchy keeps the powerful humble

My six-year-old, when told that there was a princess of England with the same name as her, was astonished to learn that such things existed. ‘In real life, not in princess-land?’ She assumed princesses only lived in some made-up world along with dragons and trolls and daddy’s savings account. One of the arguments made against the monarchy is that it is inherently ridiculous and belongs in a children’s story. But as we mark 64 years under the Elizabethan junta, it is worth noting that it’s the very absurdity of monarchy that makes it egalitarian and anti-authoritarian, in that it keeps powerful people in their place. If we were ever to

Sebastian Payne

Will Jeremy Corbyn end up ‘doing a Blair’ as Labour leader?

Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of experience in office makes it hard to predict how he will act as Labour leader. His tens of thousands of supporters are crowing that a new political age will begin on Saturday and are looking forward to a shadow cabinet made of like-minded folk from the hard-left — Diane Abbott, Michael Meacher etc. But the signs so far suggest that Corbyn as Labour leader will operate differently to Corbyn to march leader. Today’s Guardian offers an explanation why. The list of shadow cabinet ministers who would refuse to serve under Corbyn is growing, along with a unease among Labour MPs about a split between its Parliamentary party and grassroots. Chris Leslie, Emma Reynolds, Yvette Cooper and Tristram Hunt have

Michael Lind

The most useful thing about drones? They fly under the political radar

The targeted killing of suspected terrorists and enemy soldiers by drones is rapidly moving from controversial innovation to standard government practice around the world.  Pakistan’s announcement that it killed three suspected terrorists in a drone strike on Monday, September 7, makes Pakistan the fourth country to use drones in combat after the US, UK and Israel.  News of the Pakistani strike followed the controversy that erupted in the UK over Prime Minister David Cameron’s revelation that two British nationals had been killed in an RAF drone strike in Syria. Some opponents of drone warfare argue that it is immoral, nothing more than the summary execution of suspects.  But drone strikes typically take place

Tuesday

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Michael Crick outs Conservative press officer at Jeremy Corbyn rally

Although Conservative politicians insist they are not worried by the threat of a Jeremy Corbyn led opposition, an incident that occurred on Tuesday night appears to suggest otherwise. Channel 4’s Michael Crick discovered a Conservative press officer sat in the audience at Corbyn’s political rally in Nuneaton. When Crick confronted the staffer — known as Mike Watkinson — with his camera crew behind him, Watkinson came across all camera shy and immediately fled the scene: Just uncovered Tory Party press officer Mike Watkinson in Corbyn campaign meeting in Nuneston. When I confronted him he fled. Watch #C4News — Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) September 8, 2015 A chase scene followed as Crick threw questions in Watkinson’s direction, asking

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What the government’s first Commons defeat actually means in practice

Following the government’s first Commons defeat of the new parliament, I understand that ministers are not going to try to reverse the primary legislation that introduces a ‘full fat’ version of the purdah restrictions on what central and local government can publish during the EU referendum campaign. But what the government can do to get its way is to use a statutory instrument to set out certain exemptions from those purdah restrictions. This was what the government amendment to new clause 10 of the legislation will allow: that changes to purdah can be introduced through secondary legislation, which must be approved by MPs. This means ministers can try again at a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Government will not deny ‘kill list’ of Isis targets

Does the government hold a ‘kill list’ of terrorists fighting for the so-called Islamic State who can be taken out at a moment’s notice? Michael Fallon certainly seemed to suggest so this morning on Radio 4, saying the government ‘would not hesitate’ to launch further attacks on those who posed a threat to this country. The Prime Minister’s official spokeswoman neither confirmed nor denied the existence of a list when asked about it. She said: ‘It means the government remains absolutely committed to doing what is necessary to protect British people here on the streets of Britain.’ Pressed on the existence of a list of names, she said: ‘It means

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Professor of Corbynomics hired to lecture on ‘economics of the real world’

After Richard Murphy was revealed as the man behind Jeremy Corbyn’s economic policies, many were quick to start casting doubts over the duo’s credentials. In fact Labour’s very own shadow chancellor Chris Leslie dismissed their ‘Corbynomics’, claiming their plan for quantitative easing amounted to printing money to ‘magically deal with all the public service and public investment needs that we have’. While senior bods in Labour may think Murphy and Corbyn are away with the fairies, the tide may be turning when it comes to the education sector at least. With Corbyn potentially days away from taking charge of the Labour party, one university has decided Murphy — who is the author of ‘The

Sebastian Payne

How will the Conservatives react to a Jeremy Corbyn victory?

If the bookmakers and pollsters are to be believed, there is little doubt that Jeremy Corbyn will be crowned Labour leader on Saturday. Westminster is therefore wondering: what happens next? I’ve written a piece for POLITICO Europe today looking at the personal and policy battles ahead if Corbyn is the new opposition leader. Instead of treating him as a joke, it seems the Tories would take Corbyn seriously and use the bucketloads of research they have built up over the summer to undermine and destroy him. While Conservative HQ and Downing Street are not revealing too much about their plans if Corbyn wins, insiders suggest that their core message of ‘Labour hasn’t changed’ would be continued. Repeating the same

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Bevanite Ellie makes a comeback for Camp Cooper

In 2010 a young Labour blogger by the name of Ellie Gellard introduced Gordon Brown at Labour’s manifesto launch. Unfortunately the party’s attempts to look down with the kids soon backfired as it was revealed that Gellard — who goes by the name @BevaniteEllie on Twitter — had previously written on her Stilettoed Socialist blog that she hoped Brown would stand down; ‘get your coat: time’s up’. So Mr S hopes for Yvette Cooper’s sake that Gellard’s latest efforts will have a better result. While Gellard moved away from politics after a stint helping Ed Balls (and embarking on a relationship with his head of communications Alex Belardinelli), she is making a comeback having been appointed Elle

Sebastian Payne

Listen: Bernard Jenkin vs. James Naughtie on BBC bias and the EU referendum

The government’s humiliating defeat on purdah is the first major victory for Eurosceptics in the battle on how the EU referendum is fought. Bernard Jenkin, one of the lead Tory rebels, appeared on the Today programme to explain why his gang took on the government last night: ‘They initially wanted to abolish the purdah rules altogether, which would mean going to back to the kind of referendum that Wales had in 1997 which was so roundly criticised by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, where the government was spending money and ministers were being deployed by the civil service to conduct the campaign. In the general election and local election, there is a very strong tradition that that

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Lord Rennard’s call for House of Lords reform backfires

In this year’s dissolution honours, the Liberal Democrats were awarded 11 peerages, three more than their total number of MPs. Since this brought the party’s roll call of Lib Dem peers to 112, sceptics have been quick to point out that this number appears to be at odds with the party, which had previously prided itself on reforming the ever-growing House of Lords. Happily the whiffs of hypocrisy haven’t stopped Lib Dem peers from grumbling about the crowded upper house. Yesterday Lord Rennard — the Lib Dem peer who was readmitted to the party last year after facing suspension over allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards women — decided the time was right to call for

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Government defeated in the Commons on purdah

So as predicted on Coffee House earlier, Tory rebels and the Labour frontbench did manage to conspire together this evening to defeat the government on purdah. The Commons voted against amendment 53 to the EU Referendum Bill 285 ayes to 312 noes, and then did not oppose Labour’s amendment 4, which means that a ‘full fat’ version of purdah has been approved by MPs. The Labour celebrations of this defeat were notably muted: it’s difficult to get too excited when your own party is in turmoil. But David Cameron has just suffered a defeat on a matter that the whips and ministers had been scheming over for months. First they snuck

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron’s refugee announcement overshadowed by drone strike in Syria

David Cameron’s statement that Britain will take 20,000 Syrian refugees over the course of this parliament was overshadowed by his announcement that an RAF drone had killed two British ISIL fighters in Syria in August. Cameron said that that Reyaad Khan and Ruhul Amin had been killed in a lawful act of ‘self-defence’ as they were planning and encouraging terrorist attacks in Britain. He stressed that this was a targeted action and that he would come back to the House of Commons to seek permission for more generalised action in Syria; the Commons voted against military action there in 2013. Now, it is hard to think of many more serious

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Defeat looms as Labour and Tory rebels work together on purdah

Following a confusing afternoon, Tory rebels have told the Labour whips they will back their amendments to the EU referendum bill which introduce a ‘full fat’ version of purdah. This means that the government, unless it yields at the last minute on the legislation, will be defeated. It was not clear whether the Tories would vote with Labour on those amendments – numbers 4 and 53. But they appear to have indicated to the Labour whips that they will support their amendments. More to follow…