Politics Archives

Thursday

1 Oct 2015

Does Jeremy Corbyn believe in compromise, or just in compromise for other people?

One of my favourite things about Jeremy Corbyn, beyond the beard (I do like beards) and the way he was photographed in the Times the other day unabashedly wearing sandals with socks (spunky; no quarter given) is his embrace of dissent as a virtue. Which is a virtue born of necessity, obviously, on account of the way that there are only about six people in the Parliamentary Labour Party who don’t disagree with him on everything, and they’re not safe on telly, either. Still, though. I like it. The doctrine of collective ministerial responsibility — the notion that everybody in a government thinks the same thing, and if one of

James Forsyth

She could be a contender

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/boris-nickyandthetoryleadership/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss whether Nicky Morgan could be the next Tory leader” startat=38] Listen [/audioplayer]Nicky Morgan has been Education Secretary for 15 months now. Yet her office looks like she has just moved in. She has some family photos on the desk, a small collection of drinks bottles by the window and a rugby ball in her in-tray. But, unlike other cabinet ministers, she has made no attempt to make her office look like her study. This is not someone who sees their office as a home away from home. When Morgan was made Michael Gove’s successor last year, it seemed an unusual appointment. She’d

Matthew Parris

These days, compassion is for hacks and Lib Dems

There’s a hard, hard mood out there among the public and I don’t think our newspapers get it at all. Could it be that the general populace are now more cynical than their journalists? At Tim Farron’s closing speech to his Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth last week, I sat through nearly an hour of one of the biggest cartloads of sanctimonious tosh it’s been my fate to endure in decades. And who do you suppose was lapping this up as avidly as any misty-eyed Lib Dem conference-goer? The hardened hacks, the sketchwriters, analysts and reporters. The press are old-fashioned: they love this emotional stuff. But the 21st-century public have

Andrew Roberts

Premier league

At a large Tory breakfast meeting that David Cameron spoke to recently, the tables were named after all of the Conservative premiers of the past: the good, the bad and Ted Heath. So there were the Lord Salisbury, Harold Macmillan and Margaret Thatcher tables, for example. (I was delighted to be on the Winston Churchill table; the people on the Neville Chamberlain one looked suitably ill-favoured.) As Cameron — who was sat at the David Cameron table, appropriately enough — looked around the huge room that morning, he could be forgiven for wondering where he will wind up in the pantheon of past premiers. For as Cameron nears his tenth

Wednesday

30 Sep 2015

James Forsyth

Tom Watson has no intention of practising Corbyn’s ‘kinder, gentler’ politics

If Jeremy Corbyn’s speech yesterday was the musings of a left-wing activist, Tom Watson’s today was that of someone who is interested in winning elections. Watson made clear to the conference delegates that what matters is getting back into office and set about explaining how he thought Labour could do that. He told the hall, that if they weren’t interested in representing small business owners, then they wouldn’t be in government again. He said that after its ‘summer of introspection’, it was time for Labour to get back to making its case to the country again. It was a strikingly different tone to Corbyn’s yesterday. Watson clearly has no intention

Brendan O’Neill

No, Britain doesn’t need to pay reparations for the slave trade

A Jamaican official has called on David Cameron to ‘personally atone’ for the slave trade, and especially for his ancestors’ involvement in it. I hope Cameron tells this guy to do one. The PM has nothing to apologise for, far less self-flagellate for. He bears no more guilt for the slave trade than Justin Bieber does, or Mother Teresa, or Barack Obama, or any of the other millions of people born years after the slave trade ended. The pressure on Cam to weep publicly over the sins of his forefathers, to atone for a wrong he did not commit, is an ugly, medieval spectacle. Cameron’s trip to Jamaica is being

Isabel Hardman

Corbyn’s Trident comments spark end-of-conference row in Labour

Jeremy Corbyn has really pushed the button on the tensions in his party over Trident renewal. The Labour leader insists that he is just being honest when he says that he would never use nuclear weapons. But what he has done is to put his party in an impossible position. Either it respects his huge mandate and makes scrapping Britain’s nuclear deterrent official policy. Or else it votes to force the resignation of the leader. At first glance, this sounds rather confusing, and Corbyn’s team and John McDonnell have been spinning that Jeremy is just being honest about a long-held personal position. Why is this the implication of a man

Allan Mallinson

Corbyn has said he would never use our nukes. What kind of deterrent is that?

When pushed this morning by Today presenter Sarah Montague on whether there would be any circumstances that he would use the nuclear option, Jeremy Corbyn said: ‘No.’ In other words, Britain under his premiership would no longer have a nuclear deterrent. Deterrence requires not just the capability to strike – a capability that cannot be pre-emptively neutralised or destroyed (hence the need for submarine-launched weapons) – but also the will to use it. Or at least the question-mark in the mind of a would-be aggressor. We’ve been here before. The Rt Hon Jim Hacker (Yes, Prime Minister) wasn’t as certain as Jeremy Corbyn that he wouldn’t use Trident, but he

James Forsyth

Next year’s Labour conference will be even more Corbynite

Sitting in the hall during Jeremy Corbyn’s speech, one couldn’t help but be struck by how much the audience agreed with what he is saying. Corbyn was speaking to them, and they loved it. Now, as long as the Labour activists represented in that hall think Corbyn is their man then it will be almost impossible for the Parliamentary Labour Party to remove him. This week, Corbyn has done little to reach out to the country. But he has consolidated his position in the party. In casual conversations, the date at which people think a coup could be launched against him keeps slipping back. Next year, I suspect that Labour’s

Sebastian Payne

Podcast special: Labour conference review

Labour’s conference is rolling to a close today and it hasn’t been the explosive event some predicted it might be. In this View from 22 special, Isabel Hardman, James Forsyth and I discuss the highs and lows of the past days in Brighton and the impact it has had on the party. How big was the divide between the Corbyn-friendly activists and the MPs and politicos? And will next year’s conference see the promised fireworks? You can subscribe to our View from 22 political specials through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week, or you can use the player below:

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn: I wouldn’t use nuclear weapons anyway

Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t want nuclear weapons. We all know that. We also know that because he has a huge mandate (a phrase bandied about so much at this conference that it’s starting to feel like a refrain in Are You Being Served?), he’s keen to turn his views into official party policy on this area at least. But we now also know that if his party determined that it would remain committed to Trident, and if Jeremy Corbyn were Prime Minister, he wouldn’t ever use his weapons anyway. Which makes it entirely pointless to fund them at all. On the Today programme, the new Labour leader was asked if he

Steerpike

Do as I say (not as I do): a Guardian Corbynista lectures Blairites

The Fabian Society’s question time event at Labour party conference made for a lively debate. Tony Blair’s former staffer John McTernan joined Tim Montgomerie, Labour’s Kate Green and the Guardian‘s Ellie Mae O’Hagan to discuss the future of the Labour party now Jeremy Corbyn is leader. With McTernan criticising Corbyn for a leader’s speech which ‘gave no indication’ that the party had just lost an election, it fell on O’Hagan — who works for the Centre of Labour and Social Studies — to fight Corbyn’s corner. To kick her argument off, the Guardian writer — and Corbyn champion — explained that after the election result she had realised that in order for Labour

Sebastian Payne

Watch: what Labour activists make of this year’s conference

There may have not been fireworks at Labour’s conference in Brighton but the attendees appear to have enjoyed themselves. In the very lengthy queues for Jeremy Corbyn’s speech, I surveyed the activists to find out what they have made of the conference — you can watch what they said above. Those attending for the first time (a significant chunk of those here) generally said it has all been wonderful, while conference veterans were more split between those who think it’s been inspirational and others who have sensed divides rumbling along under the sheen of the new leadership. Judging by the continuous standing ovations Corbyn received for his speech, it’s a fair to say

Steerpike

Labour conference 2015, in pictures

After four days of ‘straight talking‘ politics in Brighton, Jeremy Corbyn’s first conference as Labour leader draws to a close today. With this year’s conference bringing together a mix of Corbynistas, Milifans and Blairites, Mr S has assembled a selection of photos showing some of the slightly strange elements of this year’s conference:

Tuesday

29 Sep 2015

Sebastian Payne

Keir Starmer: ‘I don’t think it’s about Jeremy Corbyn’

Along with Dan Jarvis, Keir Starmer is one of the new intake of Labour MPs who is cited as a rising star and someone who could replace Jeremy Corbyn. The former Director of Public Prosecutions and MP for Holborn and St Pancras, spoke at a Bright Blue fringe event this evening about Labour’s general election defeat and how the party can rebuild itself. Starmer backed Andy Burnham for the leadership and had a few choice words about Corbynmania: ‘I don’t think it’s about Jeremy Corbyn – I think it’s about a disaffection that’s been growing for a very long time. We lost most of our voters in 05 and we

Steerpike

John McTernan: Jeremy Corbyn’s speech gaffe shows he isn’t who he says he is

Jeremy Corbyn has come under increased scrutiny today after Mr S’s colleague Alex Massie revealed that parts of his conference speech were taken from a four-year old reject speech by the writer Richard Heller. The Labour press office claim that their straight talking leader approached Heller ‘because JC thought some of his material captured what he wanted to say’. However, given that Heller suggested Ed Miliband use the speech four years ago, it hardly epitomises Corbyn’s so-called ‘new kind of politics’. With the party playing the incident down, one Labour member is at least feeling more forthcoming. Speaking at the Fabian Society’s ‘week in review’ event, John McTernan — Tony Blair’s former director of political

Isabel Hardman

Corbyn’s tougher line on nuclear weapons could become a resigning issue for Shadow Cabinet

Jeremy Corbyn’s aim at this conference has been to keep the Labour party on an even keel. But there was one line in his speech that has unsettled some frontbenchers. He said this about Trident: ‘Today we face very different threats from the time of the Cold War which ended thirty years ago. That’s why I have asked our Shadow Defence Secretary, Maria Eagle, to lead a debate and review about how we deliver that strong, modern effective protection for the people of Britain. I’ve made my own position on one issue clear. And I believe I have a mandate from my election on it. I don’t believe £100 billion

Lloyd Evans

Sketch: Corbyn’s speech proved he is as cunning as Blair

He looked bored. He looked dishevelled. His half-knotted crimson tie sagged disconsolately beneath his bearded throat. The drab jacket seemed as beige as ever. Corbyn spoke to the Labour conference looking like an embarrassed scout-master thanking his colleagues for a surprise party he didn’t want. ‘Any chance we could start the speech?’ he asked as the crowed clapped and cheered him. He began in ever-so-humble mode by saying how grateful he was ‘to be invited’ to address the conference. And he warmly thanked the three rival candidates he had trounced in the leadership election. He sounded as if they’d trounced him. The hesitant, informal style is so effective it looks

Alex Massie

Exclusive: ‘unspun’ Jeremy Corbyn used an old speech rejected by Miliband

On its own terms, I imagine Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to the Labour conference can be considered tolerably acceptable. Much of it, after all, consisted of time-served bromides with which almost no-one could reasonably disagree. It was a Marx and apple-pie speech that omitted most of Marx. And who dislikes pie? Nevertheless, what was new was not good and what was good was not new. Much of it, actually, was not new at all. I can disclose that a significant chunk of Corbyn’s speech was, in its essentials, written many years ago. Not by Corbyn, of course, but by the writer Richard Heller. Mr Heller (with whom I should say I have

Sebastian Payne

‘Inspirational’, ‘poetic’ and ‘one of hope’ — what the comrades think of Corbyn’s speech

Jeremy Corbyn’s first conference speech as Labour leader was targeted at his core fanbase and they certainly appear happy with what he had to say. So far, this is what members of Corbyn’s shadow cabinet and his friends in the trade unions have said about the speech: Andy Burnham, shadow home secretary and Corbyn’s leadership rival: ‘I think out there the public are crying out for a different way of politics, a different style of politics, they are fed up of the soundbites the spin, they want to see authenticity, people who mean what they say and that’s what you saw today from Jeremy Corbyn. ‘He’s fought all his political life for the things