Politics Archives

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

Sebastian Payne

The Chinese government are propping up George Osborne’s pet projects

The Chinese President’s visit to the UK ended today in the heart of the Northern Powerhouse. David Cameron took Xi Jinping up to Manchester to announce various new deals that supposedly demonstrate China’s commitment to the British economy. The Prime Minister said the president’s appearance in Manchester highlighted China’s commitment to the northern project and will ‘see real investment going into the north.’ But how much money is China really putting into the Northern economy? Today’s FT says the deal is netting just £4 million of actual investment for the North — the Beijing Construction and Engineering Group will finance the construction of an apartment block at Middlewood Locks, a

Steerpike

Jeremy Corbyn officially gains Momentum

After the Jeremy Corbyn-backed ‘grassroots network’ Momentum was launched, several Labour politicians voiced fears that the campaign group could be used to oust moderate Labour MPs in favour of Corbyn champions. The campaign group has since insisted that although it grew out of the Corbyn campaign, it is independent to the party’s leadership. Now things have been made official with the Labour leader’s election campaign group renamed Momentum on Companies House. Newsnight‘s Ed Brown reports that Corbyn’s leadership campaign has changed its name on Companies House from ‘Jeremy Corbyn Campaign 2015’ to ‘Momentum Campaign Ltd’: This acts as a reminder of just how close the relationship between Corbyn’s team and the group really is. With Corbyn’s aide Simon Fletcher no

Alex Massie

The SNP’s attitude to English votes for English laws is as hypocritical as it is tedious

Is anyone so dreary as the man who’s never happy except when he’s unhappy? Perhaps only the man who ceaselessly agitates for something only to reject it when it’s given him. Consider, by way of a random illustration of this phenomenon, the case of Pete Wishart, the SNP MP for Perth and North Perthshire. A year ago Mr Wishart told the BBC that so-called English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) was: “An issue that the Scottish people could not care less about”. Scots were “not interested in your inconsequential spat about English Votes for English Laws”. Mr Wishart had “no concern or issue” in the matter. As he put it,

Steerpike

I’m a Corbyn rebel… get me out of here!

As Corbynmania continues to divide the Labour party, it appears that casting directors at ITV are keen to bring the party’s inner turmoil to the small screen. With several Labour MPs resigning from the frontbench after Jeremy Corbyn was announced as the new leader, producers have been sniffing around disillusioned party members in the hope of luring them onto this year’s I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! Jamie Reed writes in the Guardian that he has declined an offer asking him to take part in the ITV reality show. He says he received the offer three days after he resigned as the party’s shadow health minister in response to Corbyn’s election: ‘Three days later, sitting in my Westminster office, surveying

Sebastian Payne

Is there a constitutional crisis on the horizon over tax credits?

The row over tax credits could blow out into something much bigger. The House of Lords may table a ‘fatal’ motion — the deadline is 4pm today — which could see peers voting next week to kill off the statutory instrument needed to allow the cuts to come into action. But if that happens, will the government flood the House of Lords with new Tory peers or even suspend it? On the Today programme Lord Robin Butler, the former Cabinet Secretary and a crossbench peer, said the Lords has to accept it is the inferior chamber on financial matters and the Commons has passed the cuts: ‘The fact is the House of Commons has passed it. The

Thursday

22 Oct 2015

Peter Jones

Pericles vs Corbyn

Whatever else one can say about Jeremy Corbyn, one thing is clear: he is a leader who does not believe in leadership. But he is (he believes) a democrat, and thinks democracy means acceding to the views of those who voted him into the leadership. He should try the 5th-century bc Greek historian Thucydides to see what it really entails. Thucydides’ hero was his contemporary Pericles, a man who so controlled the Assembly — Athens’ sovereign decision-making body (all Athenian citizens over 18) — that Thucydides described Athens at the time as ‘in theory a democracy, but in fact rule by the foremost individual’. This is an exaggeration. Pericles in

Sebastian Payne

New poll shows the EU referendum is neck and neck

The battle for Britain to remain in or leave the European Union is now very tight. What UK Thinks, a new website providing non-partisan information on the referendum, reports on a new poll from YouGov and the ESCR that looks at the influence party leaders may have on the referendum. Without any leader mentioned, 50.6 per cent would vote to remain in, compared to 49.4 per cent who would vote to leave — a tiny 1.2 per centage point difference. Unsurprisingly, the poll finds that a large majority of those inclined to vote to leave are Conservatives, while the Remain vote is comprised of Labour, SNP and Lib Dem backers. Both David Cameron and

Isabel Hardman

MPs approve plan to introduce English votes for English laws

MPs have just approved the change to the Commons regulations that will introduce English votes for English laws by 312 votes to 270. The proposals mean an additional stage of scrutiny in the Commons where a grand committee of either English MPs or English and Welsh MPs can consider and veto the proposals. It is not particularly clear how often this situation would arise, and therefore it really does remain to be seen whether this will practically make a great deal of difference to Parliament. The debate on the measure saw Scottish National Party MPs warning of the creation of two classes of MP, and of damage to the Union.

James Forsyth

The lunch that began the end of the Cold War

It is one of the great counterfactuals of contemporary history, what if Mikhail Gorbachev had walked out of that Chequers lunch with Margaret Thatcher in 1984? As Charles Moore explained at last night’s Spectator event to celebrate the launch of the second volume of his Thatcher biography, that lunch—where Thatcher and Gorbachev debated capitalism and Communism—was key to the ending of the Cold War. For Thatcher then persuaded Ronald Reagan that he should meet Gorbachev and that Gorbachev was someone they could do business with. But Gorbachev had almost left Chequers early, his wife had mouthed to him across the table ‘should we go now?’ as Thatcher hammered away at

Steerpike

So Theresa May, isn’t your own workforce ‘too white’?

Today Theresa May has hit out at the lack of black and Asian officers in the police forces, arguing that the current diminutive figures are ‘simply not good enough’. She said that the current forces must increase ethnic diversity in order to represent their communities, claiming that there are no black officers in Cheshire, Durham, Dyfed-Powys and North Yorkshire. Strong words from the Home Secretary, which left Mr S wondering just how diverse May’s own personal work force is. Surely with May — an apparent champion for ethnic diversity in the workplace — branding police forces ‘too white’, she herself has a high proportion of staff from ethnic minorities? Alas, in terms of her

Sebastian Payne

How Ukip intends to fight (and maybe win) the Oldham West & Royton by-election

The death of Michael Meacher means the first by-election of this Parliament is upon us — as well as the first with Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. The exact timings have yet to be announced but sometime before the end of 2015 seems likely. The seat is likely to be a shoo-in for Labour: Oldham West & Royton and its predecessor constituency have been represented by Meacher since 1970 and by Labour since 1950 (minus one by-election in 1968). But strange things happen in by-elections and Ukip managed to increase its vote share in May’s general election by 17 per cent to 20.6 per cent. Labour has a whopping 14,738 majority but the Kippers

Isabel Hardman

Osborne: Tories ‘signalled’ tax credit cuts during election campaign

The general election was only a few months ago, but according to George Osborne, voters and his own MPs have forgotten what happened during that campaign. Indeed, it seems we have all already forgotten what was said, because apparently the campaign included details of cuts to working tax credits. Today the Chancellor defended these cuts when he appeared before the Treasury Select Committee. John Mann decided that the most effective way of attacking the cuts was by appealing to George Osborne’s own personal ambition. ‘We’re trying to help you Chancellor avoid Mrs Thatcher’s mistakes with the poll tax,’ he said, adding: ‘That will be a political disaster for you as

Jenny McCartney

The ‘Stakeknife’ investigation and the dark reality of double agents

The decision by Barra McGrory, the Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland, to recommend an official investigation into the activities of Freddie Scappaticci – the alleged IRA enforcer and British agent known as ‘Stakeknife’ – seems likely to unearth some of the most painful, long-buried secrets of the ‘dirty war’ in Northern Ireland. In so doing it will raise difficult questions about the permissible limits of state intelligence-gathering which remain highly relevant today. Scappaticci, who denied being a British agent before departing Northern Ireland in 2003, is nonetheless widely reported to have been a longstanding head of the IRA’s ‘nutting squad’, or internal security unit, which was responsible for

Steerpike

Revealed: Zac Goldsmith’s new campaign genius

Given that Ivan Massow failed to be picked as one of the four final candidates in the race to be the Conservative candidate for London mayor despite a flashy campaign, it’s safe to say that Massow still has some work to do when it comes to mastering how to succeed in politics. So Mr S was surprised to hear that the business mogul is now assisting Zac Goldsmith with his campaign. Speaking at Josh Spero’s Second Hand Stories book launch party at Bonhams, Massow said he was working with the Conservative mayoral candidate when it came to the policy side of things: ‘I’m working with Zac. I speak to him a lot but

Martin Vander Weyer

Mark Carney should avoid the EU referendum and stick to plain monetary economics

Governor Mark Carney is no orator, and whoever puts the fancy metaphors into his speech drafts really ought to desist. In his Mansion House address in June, it was about the legacy of the Great Fire and subsequent rebuilding — just like the great financial crisis, obviously. In last night¹s Cairncross Lecture at Oxford, it was the construction of the Sheldonian Theatre and the strengths of Wren’s design supporting the art on the ceiling — just like the architecture of the European single market, except that ‘they may in time need to be buttressed to realise the full creative potential of the peoples of the UK and Europe’. On both occasions, Carney looked briefly

Cosmo Landesman

Women’s issues are for everyone now, not just feminists

Like all right-thinking lefty men who came of age in the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s, I always thought of myself as a feminist. But now, thanks to Meryl Streep, I’ve been liberated from the label. Last week I heard her on the radio promoting her new film Suffragette. Asked why the story of the suffragettes hadn’t been made into a film before now, she said that in Hollywood the men with the power to get films made didn’t see this subject as anything to do with them. ‘It wasn’t their fight,’ said Streep. But now things were changing. ‘Increasingly we think that women’s issues and women rights are

Harry Mount

Red-brick revolutionaries

‘I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University,’ said William F. Buckley Jr, the American conservative writer. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party must be hoping British voters agree. Under Corbyn, the Labour party — once the clever party — has had a brain transplant. It’s out with the Oxbridge and Harvard graduates with first-class degrees; in with the red-brick university graduates. Or, in Corbyn’s case, a non-graduate. Corbyn got two Es at A-level at Adams’ Grammar School in Newport, Shropshire. He did a year of trade union studies at the North London Polytechnic