Politics

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

Friday

Sebastian Payne

Corbyn’s remarks on Iraq and Isis are a preview of the fireworks to come if he wins

Tories are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn winning the Labour leadership contest. Two stories that have broken this morning show precisely why. Returning to the Iraq war — always a comfortable topic for Labour — Corbyn has told the Guardian he would apologise to the British people for the ‘deception’ of the war: ‘Let us say we will never again unnecessarily put our troops under fire and our country’s standing in the world at risk. Let us make it clear that Labour will never make the same mistake again, will never flout the United Nations and international law ‘ ‘The endless delay on the Chilcot inquiry is wrong. But

Thursday

Andrew Marr

Diary – 20 August 2015

This is the Corbyn summer. From the perspective of a short holiday, my overwhelming feeling is one of despair at my own semi-trade — the political commentariat, the natterati, the salaried yacketting classes. Who among us, really, predicted that Jeremy Corbyn would be romping ahead like this? Where were the post-election columns pointing out that David Cameron’s victory would lead to a resurgent quasi-Marxist left? And that’s just the beginning: how many of the well-connected, sophisticated, numerate political writers expected Labour to be slaughtered in the general election? Not me, that’s for sure. Going further back, how many people in 1992 told us John Major was an election winner? That Parris,

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 20 August 2015

Watching the very pleasant Liz Kendall on television this week, I was struck by how extraordinary it is that more than 40 years have now passed since the Conservatives selected a woman leader and still the Labour party cannot bring itself to do so. (Although, come to think of it, it took Labour 142 years to catch up with the Conservatives in selecting a Jew, so perhaps we have another century to wait.) I am not necessarily saying that Ms Kendall is the answer — she seems able, but inexperienced — but there does appear to be a serious barrier to women at the very top of the Labour party.

The Spectator

Get fracking

Over the past week, the government has finally made a decisive move to kickstart a fracking industry in Britain. Licences have been issued for shale gas exploration and the planning process streamlined so that in future, if local councils fail to make decisions within 16 weeks, the communities secretary will step in and adjudicate. It’s excellent news that the years of prevarication over shale seem finally to have come to a close, and greatly to the credit of our Climate Change Secretary, Amber Rudd, and Communities Secretary, Greg Clark. But the dismally slow speed at which our much-vaunted ‘shale revolution’ has taken place will end up costing this country. The

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tsipras triggers second election

Greece has already had one election and a referendum this year. Now it’s going back to the polls again with Alexis Tsipras announcing his resignation and snap elections. Tsipras says he has a moral duty to go to the polls after securing Greece’s third bailout, arguing that ‘we did not achieve the agreement we expected before the January elections’ and that he wants voters’ approval before continuing with the programme. But this is also his attempt to secure authority by calling an election at an advantageous time for him, given he was facing a no confidence vote. He had lost the backing of many of his own MPs after his bizarre

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats are now the no1 force in Sweden, polls show

On the Swedish election before last, there was shock that the populist Sweden Democrats ended up with a foothold in parliament. Even more shock when they did well enough in last year’s election to topple the conservative-led government. Sweden’s parliament works on coalitions, but no party wants to do any kind of deal with Sweden Democrats. They’re regarded as toxic, beyond-the-pale. But now, according to a shock YouGov poll today, they’re the no1 party in Sweden. At first it was argued: let these lunatics come to parliament! They’re nuts, let everyone see how mad they are! In fact, they’ve been coming pretty well-prepared to debates in the Swedish Parliament – even the ones that

Steerpike Steerpike

Unite distances itself from Burnham camp after email blip

Oh dear. Andy Burnham’s efforts of late to appeal to Jeremy Corbyn’s left-wing voters may have gone to waste after an email blip this morning. Steerpike understands that he has risked the wrath of one of the unions after an official looking email was circulated to members of Unite, the trade union, urging them to vote for Burnham. With Unite backing Corbyn, members were surprised to receive the email, from Joyce Still and Steve Hibbert of the union’s executive council, asking them to support Burnham in the leadership race: @unitetheunion just rec email from Andy Burnham team in name of J Still & S Hibbert Unire Exec – why are they endorsing Andy in Unites name?

Sebastian Payne

Could Burnham or Cooper stand again in the next Labour leadership contest?

Does it matter who comes second in the Labour leadership contest? According to the polls and bookies, Andy Burnham is vying for second place with Yvette Cooper. Ladbrokes currently have Corbyn on 1/4 to be the next leader, Burnham 7/2 and Cooper 10/1. Assuming these predictions are right and Corbyn wins, it seems unlikely he will hang on through to the 2020 general election. How would he go? In the Spectator this week, Isabel looks at the various plots to get rid of Corbyn — despite the fact he hasn’t even been elected yet. One mooted idea is that he would be forced to resign by his fellow MPs: Some Labour MPs say they would refuse

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour ‘members’ object to ‘purge’

Some Labour party members are currently finding out that they can’t vote in the leadership election after all because they’ve been picked up as being insincere members. A number of them are furious about this, understandably, but what’s also understandable, perhaps, is that the party is struggling to consider them as sincere members given they were actively campaigning for other parties until recently. Marcus Chown is angry at being purged, even though he is the ‘twitter lead’ for the National Health Action party, and stood against Labour as a candidate for the NHA in the 2014 European elections. This self-described Labour member, trade union rep and Young Fabian Emily Maiden

Sebastian Payne

Yvette Cooper: I won’t be challenging Labour leadership result

It was Yvette Cooper’s turn to do a Q&A session on the World at One today and it was a pretty dry affair, unlike Corbyn or Burnham. There was nothing new about her policies or stances but Cooper did note that she fears a split of Corbyn wins — ‘the party does seem to be polarising between the different extremes’ — but Labour HQ has assured her that all the necessary checks over entryism are being done: ‘Obviously I hope there have and the Labour party has assured us that they are doing proper and robust checks — you’ve got to have that. We want people to be part of the election and we want people to be joining to be part of the election.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour’s bitter, bitchy battles will continue long after its leader is announced

Why is the Labour leadership contest so vile? It has been the bitterest, bitchiest battle that the party has experienced for a good long while, even though the last contest involved two brothers standing against each other in a very ill-humoured manner. Labour MPs are smarting that after years of fighting in the trenches for their party, they are being accused of being secret Tories – though some Blairites who experienced the misery of the wars between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown confess to a feeling of karmic satisfaction that Gordon Brown is also being described as a ‘Blairite’ by some on the left. One Labourite says: ‘The fact that

Steerpike Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Ed Miliband does a ‘Jeremy Corbyn’

This summer a new craze has taken hold of several politicians. Inspired by the frenzy Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘world weary sea dog’ beard has caused amongst women, both Ed Vaizey and David Gauke grew their facial hair in the style of the Labour leadership favourite. Now it appears Ed Miliband may have jumped on the bandwagon. The former Labour leader has been snapped sporting some serious bristle which bears a striking similarity to the facial hair sported by Labour’s new man of the moment. https://twitter.com/KerronCross/status/634320796110991360 With Corbynmania currently sweeping the nation, Mr S suspects Ed is keen to make sure the Milifandom survives.

Hamish Macdonell

Kezia Dugdale appeals to the Left with personal speech about her past

Jeremy Corbyn really has made socialism trendy – at least in Scotland. We can take that from the speech that Kezia Dugdale, Labour’s Scottish leader, will make a today focusing on the ‘s’ word – something she is unlikely to have done had Mr Corbyn been languishing in the polls. Indeed, it was only a few weeks ago that Dugdale warned that a Corbyn victory would leave Labour ‘carping on the sidelines’. Then, as he started to edge ahead in the race, she started to move, first insisting they shared some similar policies and then meeting him privately at a rally in Edinburgh. Today she will edge even closer to his agenda

Steerpike Steerpike

Rupert Murdoch comes out in support of Jeremy Corbyn

First Russell Brand, and now Rupert Murdoch has joined the list of ‘endorsements Jeremy Corbyn might not actually want’. The News UK media mogul, whose papers backed the Tories in the general election, says that Corbyn is the only Labour leadership candidate who actually believes in something: Corbyn increasingly likely Labor winner. Seems only candidate who believes anything, right or wrong. — Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) August 20, 2015 The praise is somewhat limited for Corbyn — who Murdoch says will most likely win — with the newspaper proprietor hastily adding a disclaimer that Corbyn’s beliefs may not actually be right. ‘Seems only candidate who believes anything, right or wrong,’ he says. While Mr S is unsure

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour MPs’ next choice: which leadership coup to back

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thecleaneatingcult/media.mp3″ title=”Isabel Harrdman and George Eaton discuss what happens if Jeremy Corbyn wins” startat=696] Listen [/audioplayer]Jeremy Corbyn’s close friend Tony Benn had five questions he always asked of those in power: ‘What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how do we get rid of you?’ Labour’s leadership election has a month left to run, but most of those involved think Corbyn will triumph. So they’ve already started working out how they’ll get rid of him. John McTernan, a former Blair adviser, recommends deposing him immediately. As he said on The Spectator’s podcast:

Harry Mount

Antigua

‘Tourism, tourism and tourism,’ said my Antiguan cab driver, when I asked what the country’s main industries were. Still, it’s easy to avoid the other tourists, even though the island’s just over 100 square miles. Take a quad-bike tour — arranged by my hotel, the Sandals Grande Antigua Resort — and you can go from one end of the island to another in a morning, without seeing another tourist. Instead, you’ll see fields of sweet potatoes, dotted with sprawling tamarisk trees; jagged cliffs and pale-yellow beaches, fringed with luminous, aquamarine water. You’ll also come across remnants of old sugar plantations; in the early colonial years, slavery was Antigua’s biggest moneymaker.

Tim Montgomerie

Capitalism’s true enemies

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thecleaneatingcult/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and Freddy Gray discuss the future of capitalism” startat=1326] Listen [/audioplayer]Friends of capitalism feared that the events since 2007 — the financial collapses, bailouts, deficits and austerity — would produce a massive swing to the left, but it hasn’t happened. Voters have consistently chosen sensible, middle-of-the-road parties that undertook to steady the ship rather than sail in completely different directions. In reacting to the biggest crisis to engulf the free enterprise system for decades we’ve learnt that the spirit of the anti-capitalists is willing but their flesh is weak — and also that they’re simply aren’t enough of them. They can’t even read the books that

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

Jeremy Corbyn: suggestions I’m anti-semitic are ‘disgusting and deeply offensive’

Jeremy Corbyn has hit back at suggestions he has been hanging out in a rather bad crowd. The former Conservative MP Louise Mensch has dug up a press release on her blog that suggests Corbyn invited Dyab Abou Jahjah, a Lebanese extremist who once said the ‘death of every British soldier is a victory’, to speak in Parliament. On the World at One, Corbyn responded to the accusation he invited Jahjah to speak in Parliament: ‘Sorry who? I saw the name this morning and I asked somebody who is he?’ He went to dismiss the idea that he is racist or anti-semitic: ‘My views are that the Holocaust was the most disgraceful and vile

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Come on, Prime Minister: a peerage for our peerless folding bike designer

Here is a preview of Martin Vander’s Any Other Business Column in this week’s Spectator, out tomorrow… Asked to name Britain’s greatest living industrial designer, most people might cite Sir Jony Ive of Apple or Sir James Dyson of the bagless vacuum cleaner. I’d certainly shortlist Ive, but I traded in my unreliable Dyson for a brutally efficient German machine called a Sebo and I’ve always thought Sir James was overhyped. I might also mention Dumfries-born Ian Callum, the director of design for Jaguar cars responsible for the sleek F-Type. But surely the top prize must go to Andrew Ritchie, the former landscape gardener whose one perfect product, the Brompton

Steerpike Steerpike

Russell Brand comes to Jeremy Corbyn’s defence

Jeremy Corbyn has been having a difficult time of late. The Labour leadership favourite has become increasingly tetchy with the media after facing questions about his links to a Holocaust denier, as well as being the subject of criticism from a host of former Labour bigwigs. However, there is one man who he can rely on to fight his corner; step forward Russell Brand. Although Ed Miliband had to pay a late night visit to the comedian-turned-revolutionary’s £2 million apartment in order to win his endorsement during the general election, Brand has come out for Corbyn all on his own accord. Joining a long list of celebrity Corbynistas — who so far include Charlotte