Politics

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

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Did a Momentum activist suggest Chuka Umunna wasn’t ‘politically black’?

It’s been a bad week for the Tories, but it hasn’t exactly been a great week for Labour. After a list categorising Labour MPs as ‘supportive’ or ‘hostile’ towards Jeremy Corbyn was leaked, things seem to have taken a turn for the worse, because it appears that Corbynistas are now ranking MPs in terms of how ‘politically black’ they are. The Evening Standard reports that during a speech given by Marlene Ellis – a Momentum activist and member of Chuka Umunna’s local party – she claims that her local Labour party branch in Lambeth is ‘very, very right-wing’. In a recording passed to the Standard, she is reported to claim that she

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Listen: Justin Webb takes Amber Rudd to task on Today over her ‘plague of frogs’ Brexit claims

Today Amber Rudd is doing her bit for the In campaign with a speech in which she will warn the nation that UK energy costs could ‘rocket’ by £500 million a year if Britain were to vote to leave the European Union. The Energy and Climate Change Secretary will also claim that leaving the EU would mean that President Putin could raise the price of Russian gas and in turn cause energy chaos for Britain. To discuss the claims, Rudd — whose brother Roland is the treasurer of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign — appeared on the Today show with Justin Webb. Unfortunately for Rudd, Webb had done his research when it came

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

If Scotland had gone independent today, it would be facing sado-austerity

Today is Independence Day, the 24 March, the day Alex Salmond nominated as his ‘independence day’ following a Yes vote. Today’s edition of The National, the newspaper dedicated to the cause of Scottish independence, imagines what might have been. But one rather important story is missing. Yesterday, the Institute for Fiscal Studies updated its forecasts on what an independent Scotland would look like. The result: it’d have the worst deficit in the developed world (see graphic, below). In his official forecasts Alex Salmond envisaged raising up to £7.5 billion of oil revenue. This was before the oil price plunge. Last weeks’ Budget revealed the actual amount: zero. (The graph, below, shows the

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Jeremy Corbyn at the British Kebab Awards: ‘hands up those kebab shops that don’t sell falafel’

As the leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn is a busy man these days. So busy in fact that he was unable to attend last week’s Scottish Labour conference. Happily, Corbyn did manage to find time, however, to attend last night’s British Kebab Awards. Politicians, kebab shop owners and meat-lovers alike gathered in the Westminster Plaza hotel for the annual awards which celebrate the best of the British kebab industry. While David Cameron was unable to make the Just Eat event — instead opting to send a message of support, Corbyn managed to make history. As his Labour comrade Keith Vaz — who is classed as ‘core group negative’ in the leaked Corbynista list

Wednesday

Ben Schott

Diary – 23 March 2016

Killing time in a Heathrow first-class lounge, I notice how many men adopt an unmistakable ‘first-class lounge’ persona. They stand like maquettes in an architect’s model (feet apart, shoulders squared, defining their perimeter) and bellow into mobiles like they’re the first person ever to need ‘rather an urgent word’ with Maureen in HR. Along with this ‘manstanding’ comes the ‘manspreading’ of jackets, laptops and newspapers (FT for show; Mail for dough) over a Sargasso Sea of seats. In many ways, ‘first-class-lounge persona’ echoes ‘country-house-hotel face’ — the affectations couples embrace during weekend mini-breaks. These include: pretending to be at ease in a Grade I Palladian mansion; summoning tea with a patrician

Peter Jones

Cicero on regulating MPs

As Sir Kevin Barron, chair of the MPs’ ‘Standards’ committee, steps down so that his own MP-packed body can adjudicate an allegation against him, the ‘Standards’ commissioner Kathryn Hudson says that some MPs are breaking rules because ‘they do not agree with them’. Are MPs simply not interested in their reputation? Oligarchs at all levels know how to look after themselves (apparently no complaint against Ofsted has ever been upheld). However committed ancient Romans were to the rule of law, it was a commonplace that to reach the top of the greasy pole, one needed to make three fortunes: one to get there, one to fight subsequent charges of corruption and

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Spectator’s Notes | 23 March 2016

Why have David Cameron and George Osborne overreached? Why are so many in their own party no longer disposed to obey them? Obviously the great issue of Europe has something to do with it. But there is another factor. Victory at the last election, followed by the choice of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, has convinced too many Tories, including Mr Osborne himself, that they will be in power for ten more years at least. So they get careless and cocky. Then they make mistakes. Then they come up against the most admirable fact about parliamentary democracy, which is that you can never guarantee being in power for ten years.

The Spectator

Barometer | 23 March 2016

Bottling out Does any country have experience of a sugary drinks tax? — Denmark introduced a tax on sweetened soft drinks in the 1930s which by 2013 was being levied at a rate of €0.22 a litre and brought in €60m a year. — However, the Danish government also estimated that it was losing €38.9m in VAT from illegal soft drink sales. — In 2011, the government also introduced a fat tax, levied at 16 Kroner (£1.78) on food items with more than 2.3% saturated fat, and planned a more general sugar tax. — However, the fat tax was abandoned after 15 months when surveys suggested only 7% of Danes

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Introducing ‘Team Hostile’ – the superhero edition

With the PLP more divided than ever today thanks to the discovery of Team Corbyn’s ‘hostile list’ — which ranks MPs in terms of the their loyalty to the leader — tensions are high among Labour politicians. Now it appears that Team Hostile have decided to have some fun. ‘Hostile’ MP Jamie Reed claims to have ‘uncovered’ a new list which contains ‘in-depth profiling’ of the most anti-Corbyn Labour MPs. Found in the tea room. Words fail me. pic.twitter.com/CXfkMbyt18 — Jamie Reed (@JamieFonzarelli) March 23, 2016 While this list is clearly a spoof, it’s alarming to see that MPs are now using their time to fuel in-fighting with playground-style pranks.

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Sorry, Danny Finkelstein, but you didn’t change Iain Duncan Smith’s career

A few years back, Mr Steerpike wrote a blog entitled ‘How Danny Finkelstein botched the reshuffle‘ – revealing how those around Iain Duncan Smith were furious to see his future in an expected reshuffle being discussed on Newsnight by the Fink. Our joke: that IDS might well have moved to the Justice department has he not heard the Fink talking about the move as if it were a done deal. Today, in his Times column, Lord Finkelstein repeats this story – except he upgrades it from joke to fact. ‘If it wasn’t for me, Iain Duncan Smith wouldn’t have resigned last week as work and pensions secretary,’ he announces to his

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs Sketch: A bemused Corbyn struggles against Cameron’s mockery

Corbyn had an open goal at PMQs. Cameron is weaker than he’s ever been. His favoured successor is toast. His party are restive and mutinous. Three months from now the retirement committee may gather around the PM with tense smiles and whetted blades. All Corbo had to do was kick straight. But asking the Labour leader to bang the ball into an undefended net is like asking a fish to sing ‘Heroes’. Up he got, looking a little bemused, like an elderly patient called unexpectedly to his hearing-aid appointment, and he set about his flat-battery attack. It hardly helped that he’d been greeted by a tinkling silence from his own

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Watch: Norman Smith’s live BBC broadcast interrupted by Parliament security

While PMQs took place in the Commons this lunchtime, outside in the Central Lobby a protest could be heard. Disability campaigners  had gathered outside Parliament to protest the benefit cuts in the Budget. Not that the powers that be want you to hear about the protest. The BBC’s Norman Smith was interrupted live on air by a member of Parliament security who told him he was not allowed to film while the protest was taken place: PS: You’re going to have to stop, you can’t film with this going on in the background NS: We’re not allowed to film this? PS: No NS: Why not? PS: Because it’s part of the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What’s behind Labour’s little list of ‘hostile’ MPs?

Why have Jeremy Corbyn’s allies drawn up a list ranking Labour MPs according to how hostile they are to the leadership? It’s not the first list that categorises MPs: I revealed in the Times recently that the moderates who are plotting to destabilise the Labour leader had drawn up their own list that ranged from the ‘signed-up Corbynistas’, the ‘nervous soft left’, the ‘organisational left’, ‘centrists’ and the moderates. It might be that the Corbynites are simply trying to understand the Labour party a bit better and finally improve their parliamentary operation. This would be a smart move given so many Labour MPs are distinctly wary of their leader, though

James Forsyth James Forsyth

PMQs unifies Tory MPs and weakens Jeremy Corbyn

On Sunday at noon, few would have predicted that Tory MPs would have come out of PMQs cheered and unified. But thanks to The Times’ Sam Coates revealing this morning that the Labour leader’s office have ranked their MPs from core group to hostile, David Cameron won this session hands down and cheered up Tory MPs in the process. Jeremy Corbyn had plenty of material of his own to work with, Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation letter should be a rich seam for Labour. But when Cameron started quoting the rankings at every turn, Corbyn — remarkably, given that his team had had all morning to come up with one — had

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Corbyn’s PMQ performance receives a ‘hostile’ verdict from Labour MP: ‘f—ing disaster’

Today’s PMQs ought to have been a walk in the park for Jeremy Corbyn following days of in-fighting and rebellion in the Conservative party. However, a secret document changed all that, with the Times today publishing a spreadsheet which categorises all the Labour MPs in terms of their loyalty — or lack there of — towards Corbyn. John Woodcock — who is on the ‘hostile’ list — was left unimpressed when Cameron was able to ridicule the party over the list at PMQs: ‘Mr Speaker there are five categories. We’ve got “core support” — I think you can include me in that lot. We’ve got “core plus”, the Chief Whip’s being

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Politicians should slow down their responses to terror attacks

David Cameron has been chairing a Cobra meeting this morning to discuss the UK government’s response to yesterday’s terror attacks in Brussels. Inevitably, the issue has become deeply partisan, with Ukip’s Mike Hookem managing to release a statement while the attacks were still taking place, arguing that ‘this horrific act of terrorism shows that Schengen free movement and lax border controls are a threat to our security’. Yesterday, too, Tory MPs attacked John McDonnell for calling into question the fitness of George Osborne for the job of Chancellor while a major terrorist attack was unfolding. What those Tory MPs didn’t acknowledge was that logically if it was wrong for a Shadow Chancellor

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Feminists for Brexit

For decades — even before it had its name, which sounds thrilling, as words with an X in them tend to — I’ve been a Brexiter. I even mistrusted the Common Market, as we called the mild-mannered Dr Jekyll before it showed us the deformed, power-crazed face of the EU’s Mr Hyde. The adored MP of my childhood, Tony Benn, preached against it in any shape or form. ‘When I saw how the European Union was developing,’ he said, ‘it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don’t

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Could a yoghurt defeat David Cameron?

I do not know if it has officially been measured, but my guess is that Christine Shawcroft, a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee, has an IQ of somewhere in the region of six. This would put her, in the global hierarchy of intelligence, directly between one of those Activia yoghurts women eat to relieve constipation and some moss. I’m sure Christine would argue, perhaps forcibly, that intelligence is an overrated, elitist concept and that no store should be put by it. Judging people by whether they are too thick to breathe in and out fairly regularly is discriminatory. The views of an imbecile, or, say, a Jerusalem artichoke, are

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Conservative crack-up

No one does political violence quite like the Tories. The fall of Margaret Thatcher in 1990 unleashed a cycle of reprisals that lasted until David Cameron became leader in 2005. During that time, Tories specialised in factionalism: wets vs dries, Europhiles vs Eurosceptics, modernisers vs traditionalists. Cameron’s great achievement was to unite the party in pursuit of power. Now that unity is coming undone. You can blame Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of Labour for the latest Conservative breakdown. The Tory wars of the mid-1990s were fuelled by a sense that defeat was inevitable: since the Conservatives weren’t going to beat Tony Blair, they felt they might as well fight each other.

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

My straw polls say the ‘leave’ campaign is failing to make a clear economic case

In every gathering, someone — often me — calls for a show of hands on Brexit. And I have to report that, in the varied circles in which I move, ‘leave’ may have the best tunes but isn’t winning the argument. At a Mayfair fundraiser for a Jewish charity, the crowd of mostly thirty-to-fortysomething men in suits (and many in yarmulkes) was 90 per cent for ‘remain’; a former Tory minister was spotted waving both arms in a desperate bid to boost the ‘leave’ minority. In a more mixed crowd of business people at a Budget briefing in Newcastle, the balance was much the same. At a Sunday lunch in