Politics

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

James Forsyth

Defence review: Cameron takes Corbyn to task over national security

David Cameron’s initial statement to the Commons on the Strategic Defence and Security Review was a rather high-minded affair. Cameron talked about how the world was an even more dangerous place now than it was in 2010 and conceded that governments can’t predict the future, and that you had to ‘expect the unexpected’ when it came to national security. But his reply to Corbyn’s rather rambling response – which went on so long that John Bercow felt obliged to tell the Labour leader to hurry up – was brutal. Cameron rattled off Corbyn and his shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s greatest hits on national security as the Labour benches looked even

Full text: Jeremy Corbyn’s response to David Cameron’s SDSR statement

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. As I said to him in the House last week the first duty of a state is to protect its citizens. At the moment the country’s overwhelming focus is on the threat we face from terrorism and on how we can best ensure the defeat of ISIL. Labour supports the increased expenditure to strengthen our security services that he has announced to protect against the threat of terrorism. However, faced with the current threat the public will not understand or accept any cuts to frontline policing. Everyone will be very concerned about the warnings we now know he has had from security officials and the

Full text: David Cameron’s statement on the Strategic Defence and Security Review

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review. Mr Speaker, our national security depends on our economic security, and vice versa. So the first step in keeping our country safe is to ensure our economy is, and remains, strong. Over the last five years we have taken the difficult decisions needed to bring down our deficit and restore our economy to strength. In 2010, we were ordering equipment for which there was literally no money. The total black hole in the defence budget alone was bigger than the entire defence budget in that year. Now it is back in balance.

Labour’s social media clampdown should be the least of its worries

Labour appears to be obsessed with its image on social media. If the general election result taught us anything, it’s that opinions on Twitter and Facebook do not reflect the whole country. Yet at a recent meeting of the party’s National Executive Committee, a decision was taken to create guidelines for its members using social media. Peter Willsman, a member of the NEC, reports on the Grassroots Labour blog: ‘Several NEC members raised the issue of the very harmful leaks to the media and the very damaging way in which social media is being used. It was agreed that we need to develop a Labour Party Code of Conduct in relation to

Maria Eagle: it’s ‘conceivable’ Jeremy Corbyn would support Syria bombing

David Cameron will be making the case for bombing Syria in the Commons later this week and all eyes are on Jeremy Corbyn and Labour to see if they supports his proposals. On the Today programme, the shadow defence secretary Maria Eagle summed up the party’s current position as we wait and see: ‘We are in a position in which we will make a decision after the Prime Minister puts forward his rationale – that is the sensible way of doing it and we will do that.’ Eagle also said the party’s leadership has yet to decide on whether it will whip Labour MPs in any future vote on bombing Syria: ‘We

Steerpike

Robert Halfon earns himself a new nickname

Last week Robert Halfon made headlines after he confessed to an affair with a Tory activist, claiming that Mark Clarke — the Tatler Tory currently facing allegations of blackmail and bullying (which Clarke denies) — had planned to film him leaving a hotel with his mistress as part of a blackmail plot. While Halfon has since promised Tory officials that there are no more embarrassing revelations to come out relating to him, Steerpike understands that the Minister without Portfolio has been given a new nickname by colleagues. ‘He’s now known as “red hot Rob”.’ Mr S’s No.10 mole whispers. Meanwhile, Halfon is scheduled to meet yet more young Tory activists this week in Parliament when he gives an

Steerpike

George Galloway on Seumas Milne: ‘he’s my closest friend’

Since Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Labour leader, the party has struggled to put on a united front. In fact, MPs from the moderate section of the party have regularly found themselves at loggerheads with the Corbynistas during meetings of the PLP. Happily the majority of MPs did at least manage to find common ground at one meeting earlier this month, where Steerpike understands Jess Phillips’ call for Corbyn’s old comrade George Galloway — who was expelled from Labour in 2003 — to never be allowed back into the party was met with loud cheers. So Mr S can’t imagine a disclosure from Galloway over the weekend is likely to prove helpful to ‘Team Corbyn’. In an

Isabel Hardman

Labour struggles to talk straight on Syria vote

It’s quite clear what the Tory approach to a vote on British involvement in action against Islamic State in Syria will be: the Prime Minister will set out his strategy for this later this week, warning MPs that they need to choose to be ‘Churchill not Chamberlain’. George Osborne warned this morning on Marr that a second defeat in the Commons on Syria ‘would be a publicity coup for Isil, that would send a terrible message about Britain’s role in the world’. But Labour’s position is, of course, not clear at all at present. Jeremy Corbyn’s slogan of ‘straight talking, honest politics’ sounds like an aspiration at present. Caroline Flint

Jeremy Corbyn’s popularity plummets after Paris attacks

Jeremy Corbyn’s response to the Paris terrorist attacks has been heavily criticised by the media and it appears the public have similarly negative views. According to a new ComRes poll from the Sunday Mirror/Independent on Sunday, the Labour leader’s net favourability rating has dropped to –28 — a ten point decrease since the last ComRes poll in mid-September. Notably, 53 per cent of Labour voters view Corbyn favourably, compared to 85 per cent of Conservatives for David Cameron. While George Osborne has a -19 net approval rating and John McDonnell -12, the only politician with a worse score than Corbyn is Vladimir Putin on -41. There is also bad news for

James Forsyth

Cameron to make his case for war to the Commons next week

David Cameron will set out his case for air strikes against IS in Syria to the Commons late next week. Cameron is, as I say in my Sun column today, immensely frustrated by the current British position of only bombing Islamic State in Iraq and not Syria. But he knows that it would be politically back breaking for him to lose another Commons vote on a matter of war and peace, so is proceeding cautiously.   But last night’s UN resolution has strengthened Cameron’s hand. Even before that, 30 Labour MPs were certain to back Cameron on this issue and another 30 were highly likely to. With a UN resolution

James Forsyth

Cameron to make his case for war to the Commons next week

David Cameron will set out his case for air strikes against IS in Syria to the Commons late next week. Cameron is, as I say in my Sun column today, immensely frustrated by the current British position of only bombing Islamic State in Iraq and not Syria. But he knows that it would be politically back breaking for him to lose another Commons vote on a matter of war and peace, so is proceeding cautiously.   But last night’s UN resolution has strengthened Cameron’s hand. Even before that, 30 Labour MPs were certain to back Cameron on this issue and another 30 were highly likely to. With a UN resolution

Fraser Nelson

James Forsyth starts a weekly column in The Sun

As Spectator readers know, James Forsyth is the most insightful and best-informed political columnist around. Today, he also becomes the best-read – starting a column in The Sun, the country’s favourite newspaper. It has dropped its paywall, so you can now read it here. His column is, as you’d expect, a mixture of his brilliantly-sourced insights into what’s really being said at the top table of British politics, along with the the freshest gossip. In his debut, he explains why the saying ‘Raqqa before Christmas’ is now going around the government, and the calculations that the Prime Minister is making ahead of a very risk vote. He reveals the Chancellor’s choice of karaoke

Kate Maltby

Boris shows a hint of Euroscepticism — but he still can’t beat Mary Beard

Thank God for Mary Beard. Sure, she’s wrong about Jeremy Corbyn. She was wrong about 9/11. She’s wrong about plenty. But let’s talk about what matters. She’s right about Ancient Rome. It’s rare to see Boris Johnson lose a popular vote. Last night, Beard trounced him at the Intelligence Squared Greece vs Rome debate, winning the day for Rome with a 9% swing. This was also a fundraiser for one of the most worthy educational charities I know: Classics for All encourages access to ‘elite’ classical subjects in state schools, teaching teens that you don’t have to be Bullingdon material to ‘get’ Boethius. So there was something uncomfortable, not just

Steerpike

Diane Abbott seeks help getting her message across

Since Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Labour leader, his close friend – and rumoured former lover — Diane Abbott has proved to be one of his most loyal allies. When Abbott — who has earned the nickname Madame Mao — isn’t spending PLP meetings writing her Christmas cards, the Shadow International Development Secretary can be found defending Corbyn from accusations of sexism, as well as appearing on television to praise the new regime. Still, with rumours circulating that Abbott is being given the cold shoulder by some members of Team Corbyn after a rather disastrous turn on Today, could it be that she is planning to change the way she deals with the media?

Another day, and another terror attack that is ‘nothing to do with Islam’

Another day and another group of men from an unknown religion storm into a hotel shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’. This time in Mali. Once again they take hostages. And once again they free only those who can recite the Quran. Of course our Home Secretary Theresa May along with the President and Secretary of State in the U.S. will all say this has ‘Nothing to do with Islam.’ Or as Secretary Kerry said a couple of days back after the massacre in Paris. ‘It has nothing to do with Islam; it has everything to do with criminality, with terror, with abuse, with psychopathism – I mean you name it’. Indeed, so

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May has some unusual allies in her fight with George Osborne

Cutting the police was always going to be difficult without a terror attack just before the spending review, but naturally the events in Paris have made it much more difficult for the Treasury to stand up to the Home office in a fight that was going to happen anyway. The leaked letter from one of the most senior police officers to Theresa May warning that cutting police numbers would ‘reduce very significantly’ the UK’s ability to respond to a terror attack is very helpful indeed to the Home Secretary. So helpful that she is unlikely to be the one calling for a leak inquiry. Similarly, Andy Burnham’s original push for

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 19 November 2015

When Jeremy Corbyn says it is better to bring people to trial than to shoot them, he is right. So one might feel a little sorry for him as the critics attack his reaction to the Paris events. But in fact the critics are correct, for the wrong reason. It is not Mr Corbyn’s concern for restraint and due process which are the problem. It is the question of where his sympathies really lie, of what story he thinks all these things tell. Every single time that a terrorist act is committed (unless, of course, it be a right-wing one, like that of Anders Breivik), Mr Corbyn locates the ill

A better way

To say that the Paris attacks could have happened in Britain is not enough. Such attacks are being attempted here with terrifying regularity —seven have been thwarted so far this year alone. MI5’s official assessment is that a terrorist attack on British soil is ‘highly likely’. Our security services have so far been very good at keeping us safe. But as the IRA famously put it, spies have to be lucky all of the time, terrorists have to be lucky only once. So it is impossible for Britain to view events on the continent with any sense of complacency. Still, the Prime Minister was justified in pointing out last week that

Isabel Hardman

Why David Cameron is paying special attention to new Tory MPs

David Cameron has had another one of his friendly meetings with new Tory MPs today. These are regular slots where new backbenchers get the chance to raise matters that they’re interested in and the Prime Minister tells them how well they are doing. Unsurprisingly, Syria came up today. It’s interesting that Cameron is being quite as active as he is with new MPs. It’s not just meetings in Number 10: it’s also letters to each new MP after their maiden speech, each with a little detail about what he particularly liked about what they said. This sort of behaviour from the Prime Minister is striking because he was so poor