Politics Archives

Tuesday

27 Oct 2015

Ministers must now work out how to avoid a similar showdown with the Lords

Unsurprisingly, the double defeat in the Lords on tax credits came up at Cabinet today. Baroness Stowell, Leader of the House of Lords, told the meeting that peers had broken the ‘longstanding convention’ of primacy of the Commons on financial matters. The Prime Minister reiterated his desire for a ‘rapid review’, details of which may emerge later today (once ministers have worked out what that rapid review might entail). Ministers need to work out what it is possible to announce that ensures the same scenario doesn’t arise again when the government tries to get a new Statutory Instrument through. The changes need to be something that the Lords will approve,

Steerpike

Chuka Umunna pops the question

When Chuka Umunna pulled out of the Labour leadership race earlier this year, he explained in a statement that he had decided it was time to prioritise his personal life over his political career: ‘I’ve said that I could live without leading the Labour party or politics. For once I decided to put the rest of my life first,’ the former bookies’ favourite mused. While Umunna may have been led to question his decision in the months following Jeremy Corbyn’s election as the leader of the Labour party, his efforts in regards to his personal life have at least paid off. Umunna has proposed to his solicitor girlfriend Alice Sullivan,

Sebastian Payne

Chris Grayling: we’ll figure out how to take a measured approach with the Lords ‘in the next few hours’

After the government’s humiliating defeats in the House of Lords yesterday over tax credits, how will it seek revenge on the upper chamber? Chris Grayling, the Leader of the House of Commons, spoke on the Today programme about the government’s plans. On tax credits, he said ‘the Chancellor is clear, he will look again at the transitional arrangements’. But on the relationship between the Commons and the Lords, Grayling said a more careful approach would be taken — one that will be worked out ‘in the next few hours’: ‘The first thing not to do is to react on the hoof to this. We have to have a measured look at what the

Steerpike

Ruth Davidson takes a swipe at Diane Abbott

After Diane Abbott was appointed to Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet in the role of shadow secretary for International Development, some naysayers suggested her promotion could be linked to a brief fling she enjoyed with the Labour leader over 40 years ago. While many Labour MPs failed to come to Abbott’s defence, Ruth Davidson — the leader of the Scottish Conservatives — did at least intervene. She said that rather than any lingering feelings, it would be a ‘lifetime of friendship and shared activism’ that led to Abbott being given a front bench role. Alas, the power of the sisterhood appears to have diminished somewhat since then. In an appearance over the weekend on Have I Got News For You, Davidson

Steerpike

Revealed: how Jeremy Corbyn caused a scene at the China state banquet

Last week Jeremy Corbyn appeared to be on his best behaviour when he attended the state banquet at Buckingham Palace in honour of China’s President Xi Jinping. While he opted to attend the event solo, the republican Labour leader did manage to don white tie, and appeared to successfully make small talk with both the Royal family and members of the Chinese delegation. Alas, word reaches Steerpike that Corbyn’s efforts during the dinner were not so well received. Mr S understands that he actually broke one of the most basic rules of dining etiquette during the lavish do: no mobile phones at the dinner table. Party guests were surprised to spy the Labour leader

Monday

26 Oct 2015

Fredrik Erixon

Poland’s shock election result has just made the EU even more of a mess

European politics hardly needs more excitement, but that’s what in store after the crushing victory for the Law and Justice party (PiS) in Poland’s general election. The party is not just pretty far off the European mainstream; its politics breathe what Adam Michnik, the legendary dissident, has called ‘a combination of an inferiority and superiority complex’. Its redeeming quality now seems to be that it is, nowadays, less nutty. But its politics still have a scent of its past: a social conservatism occasionally lashing modern liberties, a confused and populist economic agenda, and schizophrenia over Germany that swings between pride and feeling of cultural inadequacy. If the party’s rank and

Isabel Hardman

Osborne pledges help for tax credit claimants after Lords humiliation

Tonight has not been a good one for George Osborne, with peers refusing to take his word that he was in ‘listening mode’ about tax credits. He didn’t look particularly happy about the matter when he gave a pooled clip to broadcasters a few minutes ago. He complained about an unelected group of Labour and Lib Dem lords voting down a matter passed by the House of Commons, and added: ‘I said I would listen and that’s precisely what I intend to do. I believe we can achieve the same goal of reforming tax credits, saving the money we need to save to secure our economy while at the same

Fraser Nelson

Going to war with the Lords over tax credits would retoxify the Conservatives

With a gossamer Tory majority in the Commons and no majority at all in the Lords, confrontation between the two chambers was always inevitable. Tonight’s defeat over tax credits will be the first of many. But it would be a great error for the Conservative government to choose this as the issue over which to go to war with the Lords. For a start, their Lordships are right: taking tax credits away from low-paid workers, rather than phasing them out, is cruel and and unnecessary. Next, this was not in the Tory manifesto: the party said they would cut £12 billion but didn’t say how — and had hinted that they would

Isabel Hardman

Number 10 lashes out at Lords on tax credits vote

Number 10’s response to the government being defeated twice in the Lords on tax credits is, unsurprisingly, to say that the problem is the House of Lords, not the policy in question. A Number 10 spokesman has said this evening that there will be a review to see how the breach of a constitutional convention can be repaired: ‘The Prime Minister is determined we will address this constitutional issue. A convention exists and it has been broken. He has asked for a rapid review to see how it can be put back in place.’ There will be further details of this review tomorrow. This does suggest that the government will

James Forsyth

Government defeated twice in the Lords on tax credits

The government was defeated twice in the Lords tonight on tax credits, with the motions put down by Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hollis both passing. We are now expecting a response from George Osborne this evening on what the government will do. Considering that these tax credit changes are meant to bring in £4.4 billion in 2016/17, the government is in a proper pickle. Now, the motions in the Lords tonight were not ‘fatal’, they don’t compel the government to abandon the tax credit changes wholesale. But the Hollis amendment means that existing tax credit claimants would be exempted from the cuts until they had moved on to universal credit

Isabel Hardman

Peers offered tax credit deal: behave and Osborne will listen to you

The House of Lords is unusually packed this afternoon for the debate on tax credit cuts. As I explained earlier, there are four motions to consider, and the government has decided to plump for one by the Bishop of Portsmouth as the least worst way of peers expressing their dissatisfaction with the situation. Tory Leader of the Lords Baroness Stowell has just told peers that she visited Number 11 this morning and that the Chancellor ‘would listen very carefully were the House to express its concern in the way that it is precedented for us to do’. The Bishop’s amendment adds the following to the end of the motion introducing

Brendan O’Neill

Tony Blair doesn’t need to apologise for the Iraq war

I was against the Iraq War. And I’ve been against Tony Blair ever since I first clapped eyes on his moisturised, illiberal countenance, all teeth and no soul. (In 1996 I was standing on street corners selling a magazine that said ‘Tony Blearghh!’ on its cover, while every other lefty was hailing him a messiah come to save us from Toryism.) Yet I don’t like the obsession with making Blair repent and weep and whip himself for what happened in Iraq. It’s ugly, and even worse it’s wrong: Blair doesn’t bear sole responsibility for that war. The disappointment with Blair’s half-arsed apology during his CNN interview, when he said the

Steerpike

How Stella Creasy helped boost Bernard Jenkin’s Eurosceptic cause

Although Stella Creasy has proved to be one of the most vocal pro-European politicians, the Labour MP may have unwittingly managed to convince one Tory MP of the cons that come from remaining in the EU. David Cameron is facing a potential Commons defeat over the ‘tampon tax’ after a group of Eurosceptic Tory MPs decided to vote with Labour to demand an end to the EU regulated tax on sanitary items. While the amendment is tabled by Labour’s Paula Sheriff, Bernard Jenkin is one of several Tory MPs who have jumped on it, in the hope that they can use it to gain a wider renegotiation of the UK’s relationship with the European

Isabel Hardman

What to expect from today’s Lords showdown on tax credits

There could be four troublesome votes on tax credits in the Lords this afternoon, each challenging not just the measures that George Osborne is keen to introduce, but also the way that the Lords functions. The most troublesome of all in terms of the constitutional implications is the amendment to the motion introducing the instrument from Baroness Manzoor. This is the Lib Dem ‘fatal’ motion and it changes the government motion ‘that the draft Regulations laid before the House on 7 September be approved’ to ‘that this House declines to approve the draft Regulations laid before the House on 7 September’. The Lib Dems want to appear to be tougher

Sebastian Payne

Matthew Hancock on tax credits: ‘George is very much in listening mode’

The House of Lords is set to vote on several measures relating to the tax credits reforms today and Westminster is on tenterhooks to see if they have the nerve to kill off the cuts. Matthew Hancock, the Cabinet Office minister and close college of George Osborne, said on the Today programme the government is listening to the concern in the Lords — echoing the words of Nicky Morgan yesterday: ‘George is very much in listening mode and the peers this afternoon have the opportunity through a motion put down the Bishop of Portsmouth to express regret at this measures without braking this constitutional convention, long standing.’ Hancock reiterated his admiration for the Lords’ work

Sunday

25 Oct 2015

Isabel Hardman

Labour MPs try to ward off deselection threat

As well as the rather big problem of how to get rid of a leader they think is unpalatable to the general voting public, Labour MPs also have to work out how to protect themselves from deselection. Simon Danczuk seems to be the only member keen to talk about the former, claiming today that he’s happy to be a ‘stalking horse’ if Labour performs badly in next May’s local, London and Holyrood elections. But without many colleagues backing him and the leadership contest rules and party membership remaining the same, Danczuk could find that his intervention drops like a dead donkey. On the second question – how to prevent the

Steerpike

Martin Amis: Jeremy Corbyn is undereducated and slow-minded

After Mr S’s colleague Harry Mount argued in the Spectator that the Labour party ‘has had a brain transplant’ under Jeremy Corbyn with a purge of the Oxbridge set, Martin Amis has accused the new Labour leader of being undereducated. Writing for the Sunday Times, the best-selling novelist has launched a verbal attack on Corbyn over his ‘slow-minded rigidity’. The life-long Labour supporter — who says he found himself ‘close to the epicentre of the Corbyn milieu’ in his twenties when he worked for the New Statesman — has criticised Corbyn for his lack of educational achievements: ‘He is undereducated. Which is one way of putting it. His schooling dried up when he was 18, at which

Saturday

24 Oct 2015

Steerpike

Farage-themed Halloween party cancelled after joke falls flat with Ukip

Oh dear. The Halloween plans of a group of Ukip supporters look set to turn into a nightmare for the event’s organiser. After Guido Fawkes reported earlier this month that a Farage-sceptic branch of ‘Kippers were planning a Halloween party with the theme ‘Nigel Farage and his creepy henchmen’, word reaches Steerpike that the event has now been cancelled. Richard Hendron — who launched a failed bid earlier this year to be selected as Ukip’s candidate for London mayor — has written to attendees explaining that he has cancelled the event after ‘the powers that be in Ukip’ failed to see the funny side. He says that they threatened him with suspension and

Rod Liddle

Are European socialists waking up to the fact they’ve created a monster?

Remarkable events in Portugal, no? A democratically elected government is denied the opportunity to govern because its policies challenge the European Union. The left wing coalition won more than fifty per cent of the vote; out of the single currency, an end to austerity, bollocks to the Lisbon Treaty etc. But Anibal Cavaco Silva, the constitutional president, has banned them from taking office because it’s ‘too risky’. As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard puts it in The Daily Telegraph: ‘Europe’s socialists face a dilemma. They are at last waking up to the unpleasant truth that monetary union is an authoritarian Right-wing enterprise that has slipped its democratic leash, yet if they act on

Friday

23 Oct 2015

Isabel Hardman

Arnie Graf: Corbynmania feels like student politics, not people trying to form a government

Arnie Graf was, for a little while, the man who was supposed to rebuild the Labour party after its 2010 defeat. He was a famed community organiser from the US, brought over by Ed Miliband to have a go at revitalising is party. Graf didn’t last, but last night he spoke about his experiences with the Labour party, and what he thought of the current surge in membership under Jeremy Corbyn. This was his first brush with proper party politics, and while Graf had clearly enjoyed the work he’d done in building up the party in small local areas with community meetings, he said ‘I wouldn’t come back to it