Politics

What a difference a day makes. Only yesterday it seemed that the Ukip civil war was still rattling on, with Nigel Farage’s former senior advisor Raheem Kassam writing a feisty article for the Telegraph criticising Douglas Carswell, who had in turn criticised Farage. Happily relations between Carswell and Farage seem amiable for now. They were joined by rumoured Ukip leadership hopeful Suzanne Evans for a selfie outside Number 10. The trio met with members of the Green party and Plaid Cymru as they called for David Cameron to organise fairer voting system than first past the post. Not that this cause stopped Carswell from focussing on Ukip matters at the meet. Is this a photo of the future Ukip leadership?

Imagine you are a Labour MP or a trade union official surveying Britain this week. The following points will strike you: Labour has just lost an election it could have won, in part because Unite helped impose a useless leader on it in Ed Miliband and an equally incoherent programme, which failed to convince millions of voters to rid themselves of a mediocre Tory government. Poverty and inequality are everywhere growing in part because of the shocking failure of the trade union movement to come to the aid of the new working class. In the care, hospitality and private security industries and in the shopping, leisure and call centres that

How does the Labour party recover? Harriet Harman set out how it will try to come back from its latest election defeat in a speech this morning which told the party to listen to the customer because the customer is always right. Her basic pitch was that just like a product or a shop or a magazine, it’s more important to work out what people want to buy, rather than what you want to sell or write because your own tastes might not be particularly representative of the market that’s out there. To that end, she told the audience that ‘as we conduct this debate, as we elect our leader

Michael Gove has been keeping a relatively low profile since being made Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor last weekend. I understand that he is keen to master the brief, and particularly the complexities around the creation of a British Bill of Rights, before he starts hitting the TV studios. But an address he gave to staff at the Ministry of Justice on Wednesday gives some clues as to the direction he is heading in. Interestingly Gove didn’t simply declare that the Tories would be scrapping the Human Rights Act. Instead, he said, ‘We’ll be seeking to ensure that human rights are enhanced and preserved by modernising and reforming the framework of

“I’m the change candidate,” said Andy Burnham, settling down to the consolidation phase of his leadership bid. Chuka Umunna is out, so he is now the bookies’ favourite. He faces a conundrum: the brains of Labour want to tack to the centre, the money (ie, the unions) want to keep it to the left. So how can he keep both happy? Andrew Marr this morning asked Burnham if he was happy to be the union candidate. “I’m the unifying candidate,” he said. He admitted that he has spoken to Unite’s Len McClusky – the union Godfather – but only as part of his attempt to “build support from all parts of

Ukip’s internal warfare continues today with interventions from both sides. Suzanne Evans, the party’s deputy chairman, appeared on the Andrew Marr Show this morning to play down the tensions. She told Andrew Marr that the situation has been overegged: ‘I don’t think anyone hates anyone, I genuinely don’t. I think we’ve had some problems with some advisers around Nigel who very much kept him in their pocket if you like and he’s had too much influence from them. But they’ve gone.’ She singled out Raheem Kassam, Farage’s ex-senior advisor, who she happily noted has left the party and returned to work for Breitbart, a ‘far right, Tea Party, American style shock-and-awe publication’ where she