Politics

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

Monday

Sebastian Payne

Could Jeremy Corbyn be removed as Labour leader?

If Jeremy Corbyn is elected as Labour leader, how long would he last? Blairities, such as John McTernan, have promoted the idea of an instacoup — taking him out as soon as possible. Or the party might decide further down the line they’ve had enough. In either scenario, there is a formal procedure for removing a leader. Under the 2014 Labour rule book (produced after the Collins review), clause two of chapter four explains how a leader can be challenged: ‘Where there is no vacancy, nominations may be sought by potential challengers each year prior to the annual session of Party conference. In this case any nomination must be supported by 20 per cent of the Commons members of

Sebastian Payne

Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall deny Peter Mandelson asked them to drop out

He may be out of power but Labour’s Prince of Darkness is still attempting to pull the strings. Today’s Daily Telegraph reports that Peter Mandelson suggested to Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall that they should drop out of the Labour leadership contest in order to have the whole thing called off. One source told the paper ‘Lord Mandelson and other Blairites were saying – this is a disgrace, let’s get this thing pulled. But it was not going to happen’. On the Today programme, Yvette Cooper gave a guarded answer as to whether there had been any contact with Mandelson. Cooper denied she had spoken to him directly, but left some wiggle room if it emerges there had

Steerpike Steerpike

Andy Burnham, we have got news for you!

In an interview with Labour Uncut, Andy Burnham admitted a dark secret: that throughout the 90s he lived in fear that his early-career journalism gigs — from his time working for B2B magazines — would wind their way onto Have I Got News for You. He recently repeated his reason for not going on the programme in an interview with GQ: ‘Have I Got News for You bid for me almost ten times a year and the reason they do it, I am certain, is they have some of my old articles – so I refuse it every time.’ While Mr S can’t vouch for the Beeb, Steerpike has at least managed

Steerpike Steerpike

MPs enjoy a summer of freebies

With MPs being awarded a 10 per cent pay rise this summer, politicians have been left having to defend their annual salary of £74,00o from sceptics who point out that the boost comes at a time when their constituents face tough cuts. Still, Mr S wonders whether that number is too small an estimate after one takes into account all the freebies they can receive. According to the latest register of interests, MPs have been managing to enjoy a summer of freebies in between their constituency work. After John Bercow boasted last year that he had watched 65 of Roger Federer’s matches, he looks on course to achieve a similar number for 2015. According to the

Sunday

Robert Mcgregor

Jeremy Corbyn can fill a Glasgow hall quicker than Nicola Sturgeon. It’s time for her to worry

Strange things have been happening in Scottish politics of late, and Jeremy Corbyn’s speech in Glasgow on Friday was one of them. I’m a Labour supporter, and can safely say it was the most electrifying and energetic rally I have ever attended. Labour’s problem in England may well be a failure to win in the market towns, but its problem in Scotland was losing 40 of its 41 seats to a party that outflanked it on the left. I suspect that even before Jeremy Corbyn’s visit, he was the Labour candidate who worried Nicola Sturgeon most of all. Had she been in the audience, she’d have been more worried still. Within

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Gordon Brown’s speech provokes scuffles amongst Labour MPs

So, funnily enough, Gordon Brown’s speech about his party’s leadership election hasn’t been that well-received by some quarters of Labour. There are some interesting people who are inevitably claiming he’s a Tory, but what’s more interesting is the way it has gone down with Labour MPs. Clive Lewis, for instance, seems to be quite keen to help the Tories out by saying that the guy who was Labour Chancellor and then Prime Minister during its last time in power isn’t credible: Graham Allen thinks Brown should have been talking about something else: And supporters of rival camps are starting to do the Twitter equivalent of mud-wrestling: All of which underlines

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Gordon Brown tries to save his party

Gordon Brown has just given one of his saving-the-world-at-the-last-minute speeches. He was speaking just as the ballot papers for his party’s leadership election are being sent out, and in keeping with his other saving-the-world-at-the-last-minute speeches, particularly the one he delivered shortly before the Scottish referendum, it was a barnstormer. His main theme was the importance of getting Labour into shape so that it can be in power in order to carry out its moral mission. Brown argued that ‘it is not an abandonment of principles to seek power and to use that power in government. It is the realisation of principles’. He described the party as being broken-hearted after losing

Charlie Cadywould

Lurch to the left or the right? Where Labour and the Tories must position themselves to win in 2020

What are the best political positions for Labour and the Conservatives to take to win back more voters? The Tories want to maintain and extend their victory, while Labour is trying to work out how to unite the left and encourage more people to turn out for the party. These two parties used to focus their attention on swing voters in the centre-ground, but politics has fragmented too much for that now. Things are, naturally, more difficult for Labour. The scale of its 2015 defeat means that just taking votes and seats from the SNP, Plaid and the Greens is insufficient to give the party a majority in 2020. The

The Spectator

A Twitter snapshot of the Labour leadership struggle

Who would win the Labour leadership contest if it were decided by the number of Twitter followers? Jeremy Corbyn 94,200 Andy Burnham 85,400 Yvette Cooper 72,800 Liz Kendall 35,900 And the nascent Tory leadership battle? Boris Johnson 1.43m* George Osborne 135,000 Theresa May 0† *For @MayorofLondon; his personal handle has another 73,200. †She doesn’t tweet.

Friday

Georgina Stockley

Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet: runners and riders

Who could Jeremy Corbyn invite into his shadow cabinet if elected Labour leader? Some frontbenchers are suggesting today that he could find two thirds of his shadow ministerial positions unfilled as MPs refuse to serve under his leadership. But who might say yes to an offer from the veteran socialist. These are the runners and riders who might just be prepared to join Corbyn’s inner circle: Golden Oldies Dennis Skinner MP for Bolsover One of Corbyn’s earliest backers, the Beast of Bolsover is also a long-serving member of Labour’s awkward squad. Perhaps he could help out by adding jokes to Corbyn’s dry speeches: his annual Queen’s Speech gags will come

Ed West Ed West

Could the Tory right do a Corbyn?

If the Labour leadership has taught us anything it is that, as Kent Brockman once observed, democracy simply doesn’t work.  The people’s party has asked the people, and the people are going to drive them off a cliff. One or two journalists have speculated about whether the Tory Right could ever do something similar. To some extent it’s a moot point because the set-up of the Conservative leadership election favours the moderates, by allowing only two candidates to go forward to the membership for voting. But imagine, say, a situation in which three Tory wets of the Kenneth Clarke or Heseltine ilk were running for the member’s votes against a

Steerpike Steerpike

Coffee shots: Cocktails for Corbyn

With the registration period now closed, Labour members are sitting tight, waiting for their ballot papers to arrive. A period of quiet, sober reflection now begins, as members decide who they want to see face off the Tories. But not everyone is seeing it that way. The Scottish Labour Young Socialists – who say they are ‘fighting for a new, subversive politics’ – are holding an event in honour of comrade Corbyn. Forget champagne socialism; for young Corbynites, the tipple of choice is a cocktail. Marxtini anyone?  

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Andy Burnham: We should/shouldn’t attack Jeremy Corbyn

At least Andy Burnham is keeping us all on his toes with his leadership campaign. If you’d stopped paying attention to the Labour leadership election for a couple of hours, you might be forgiven for thinking that the Shadow Health Secretary thinks it is a bad idea to attack Jeremy Corbyn. This is what he had to say on the matter yesterday: ‘I would say the attacks we’ve seen on Jeremy I think misread the mood of the party because what people are saying is they’re crying out for something different, they are fed up with the way politics has been, particularly the way Labour has been conducting politics in

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Tories can start celebrating the Labour leadership result now

The Conservatives are naturally very much enjoying the Labour leadership contest, and are starting to make use of it in the press, with Matt Hancock warning that Jeremy Corbyn would cost every working household £2,400. It’s the sort of thing the Tories were doing in the general election, slapping often rather arbitrary price tags on Labour’s policies, but Corbyn does make it rather easier for these attacks to gain purchase with voters. Hancock does say that any Labour leader will cost voters money. And it is not right that the Tories will only benefit if Jeremy Corbyn wins. It is too late for any leadership candidate to put the Corbyn

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour’s attack dog takes a swipe at the Guardian after Burnham snub

Oh dear. Is the Labour leadership campaign beginning to get too much for the Burnham camp? After the Guardian announced last night that they would be endorsing Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham’s campaign manager Michael Dugher was quick to tweet a link to the Guardian‘s 2010 endorsement of Nick Clegg. BREAKING NEWS (2010): @guardian backs Nick Clegg http://t.co/59bJFzIX2A — Michael Dugher (@MichaelDugher) August 13, 2015 As this endorsement didn’t work out too well for the Liberal Democrats, some users took this to be a thinly veiled dig by Dugher — who previously worked closely with Labour spin doctor Damian McBride under Gordon Brown — to suggest that the paper’s endorsement is not worth much.

Thursday

Peter Jones

Boris’s waiting game

While the Labour party rakes over its past in an effort to find a policy for its future, the commentators continue to speculate about Boris’s role, if any, in a Tory party increasingly dominated by chancellor George Osborne. Romans would have sympathised. Life in the imperial court in Rome was not necessarily one long orgy. One’s fortunes rested precariously on the good will of the emperor, who could inspire both love, hate and fear, as the philosopher Epictetus pointed out, because he had the ‘power to confer the greatest advantages’ such as ‘wealth and office — tribunates, praetorships, consulships’. In a striking image Epictetus envisaged men in the court scrabbling for

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why all the Labour leadership candidates have failed to deal with Jeremy Corbyn

Even though Jeremy Corbyn has the Big Mo in this Labour leadership campaign, it is fair to say that Yvette Cooper has had a pretty good few weeks too. The Shadow Home Secretary managed to produce all her passion for her speech today in which she finally rounded on Corbyn, as well as rightly attacking the idea that only those at the hard ends of the political spectrum are the ones with principles. This evening she has bagged the endorsement of the Guardian. Andy Burnham, meanwhile, has not been enjoying the campaign since his bungled handling of the welfare bill. It was striking this afternoon to hear callers on his

Steerpike Steerpike

Is the dream over? Corbyn’s friend comes out against him

It’s safe to say that today has not been a great day for the Corbyn campaign. After Yvette Cooper gave a speech claiming her Labour leadership rival’s policies are neither original nor credible, Corbyn’s good friend Paul Flynn has come out against him. Despite being tipped for a plum role in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet should he be elected, Flynn — who endorsed Liz Kendall before he knew Corbyn was entering the race — says that he cannot support his like-minded colleague’s leadership bid: ‘My caller today asked why I have not declared support for Jeremy Corbyn. He is my closest friend among the candidates. I have spoken on more public platforms with him in

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Will Tony Blair really help save Labour?

Will Tony Blair’s intervention into the Labour leadership contest really make a difference? The former Prime Minister argues in today’s Guardian that this is a far worse crisis for his party than the 1980s, and uses what Angela Eagle last night described as ‘apocalyptic language’ to warn members of the danger the party is in. He writes: ‘This is directed to longstanding members and those who have joined but without an agenda. They’re still a majority and they have to exercise leadership now to save the party. It doesn’t matter whether you’re on the left, right or centre of the party, whether you used to support me or hate me.

Steerpike Steerpike

John Bercow: clapping could be permitted in the Chamber

The SNP may finally be having an effect on Westminster’s rules and traditions. Ever since the 56 SNP MPs descended on Parliament they have been repeatedly told off by the Speaker of the Commons for breaking tradition by clapping in the Chamber: ‘The convention that we do not clap in this Chamber is very, very long established and widely respected, and it would be appreciated if Members showed some respect for that convention.’ Despite this, the SNP MPs have shown little regard for the rule, even going so far as to applaud Simon Burns after he told them it was against Westminster etiquette to clap. Now the tide may be