Politics

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

Sunday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Corbyn event descends into chaos

It’s a hard time for Labour cranks. With Keir Starmer (belatedly) trying to rid his party of his more eccentric elements, many have found themselves barred from the movement they joined under Jeremy Corbyn. A number of them today pitched up today at The World Transformed (TWT) in Brighton – a rival socialist shindig just a stone’s throw away from the official Labour conference at The Hilton and The Grand on the seafront. TWT began in 2016 at the height of the Corbyn craze and now continues as a kind of gathering in exile of the Corbynista faithful. A panel event on climate change this afternoon was scheduled to boast a full

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Keir Starmer’s brains trust

Who are Keir Starmer’s big thinkers? Every political leader has them: folk who provoke them and offer a type of politics and policy that they can pick and choose from. Ed Miliband had ‘salons’ with key thinkers who he respected, David Cameron had Steve Hilton, and Tony Blair had a whole suite of colleagues working on his project in opposition. Starmer hasn’t been in politics for very long, which is one of the reasons he felt the need to write such a long essay setting out what he thinks: he doesn’t have the back catalogue of speeches and pamphlets that many other senior politicians do. He’s not really a ‘salon’

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Rayner challenges Boris to apologise first

Angela Rayner: The cabinet are ‘scum’ If the Labour party was hoping to make the headlines this morning, they were in luck. The party’s conference is underway in Brighton, and it had been expected that much of the focus would be on Sir Keir Starmer’s efforts to reform the way the party elects its leader. However, it is the deputy leader Angela Rayner who has stolen the limelight so far, with remarks she made at an event last night. While addressing activists, she referred to prominent Conservatives as ‘homophobic, racist, misogynistic… scum’. Trevor Phillips picked her up on the choice word ‘scum’, upon which Rayner doubled down, especially singling out

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Starmer distances himself from Rayner

Keir Starmer appeared on the Andrew Marr Show in Brighton this morning to kick off Labour party conference. Faced with a revolt on the left of his party over his proposed rule changes and an overnight row over his deputy Angela Rayner’s latest Tory scum comments, the Labour leader tried to turn the focus back to his pitch to voters. Only things didn’t go quite to plan. Following a dip in the polls over the past year, Starmer attempted to brush off criticism that he has failed to make his mark in the role. He took issue with Marr’s suggestion that many people believe he is too dull to succeed as

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Calling Tories ‘scum’ is part of Angela Rayner’s leadership pitch

The chair of this year’s Labour Party conference, Margaret Beckett opened proceedings yesterday emphasising the importance of civility. A few hours later, Angela Rayner delivered some remarks to a Labour conference fringe event which included the following description of the Tories: Well, she’s running. Labour’s deputy leader has suffered false starts in her efforts to drop the ‘deputy’ from her title but such brazen pandering is a sure sign she hasn’t given up her designs on Sir Keir Starmer’s job. Tories might object to locutions such as ‘Etonian… piece of scum’ and try to imagine the level-seven nuclear meltdown that would proceed from a senior Conservative calling Rayner ‘schemie scum’

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Matt Hancock’s cringe comeback video

Whether it’s Michael Gove raving in an Aberdeen club, Humza Yousaf falling over on his scooter or James Duddridge mixing up Zimbabwe with Zambia in a eulogy, it’s certain been a summer for cringeworthy political clips. But now all those efforts have been trumped by a fresh entry from master of the video nasty, the star of the CCTV kiss cam, the one and only Matt Hancock. The former Health Secretary has managed to somehow surpass the leaked footage of his June clinch with Gina Coladangelo by releasing an even more embarrassing video of himself out meeting voters. The West Suffolk MP is said to be plotting a rapid comeback just three months after being forced

Steerpike Steerpike

Angela Rayner denounces Tory ‘scum’ (again)

Labour’s conference began yesterday and already there’s a familiar feel to events. We’ve had the timeless Labour shenanigans over membership rules, with an under-fire leader forced to compromise for his union backers. The party’s youth wing is on the war path, amid claims of organisers using ‘dirty tricks’ against Young Labour to scupper attendance at their events. Len McCluskey has done his bit to ‘help’ another leader by claiming he’d have backed Scottish independence and Starmer can’t win the next election. And now a leading Labour frontbencher has overshadowed their major policy announcement with foul-mouthed comments about the Tories. One long-suffering moderate buried his head in his hands when being told what

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Is this the real reason Macron dislikes Brexit?

As I read The Wet Flanders Plain by Henry Williamson, a veteran of the first world war who encountered hostility from locals when he returned to the western front in 1927, a thought struck me: have I stumbled upon the source of Emmanuel Macron’s Anglophobia? Let’s not beat around the bush; the president of France does not like us. Politicians and diplomats may gainsay, and claim that Macron has the greatest respect for the United Kingdom. But his behaviour during the last four and a half years indicates that the current resident of the Elysée is the most Anglophobic president since Charles de Gaulle. Throughout the Brexit negotiations Macron was the

Saturday

Steerpike Steerpike

The Lancet and the problem with women

Quite soon, the word ‘women’ could be considered so dangerous as to be unutterable. That may seem hyperbolic, but Steerpike can see which way the wind is blowing. Even our most distinguished scientific voices are now shunning the w-word: ‘Women’ are out. That hateful word has been consigned to the ash heap of history where it belongs — next to mod clothing and freedom of speech. All hail the Bodies With Vaginas (BWVs). And the Lancet can’t even offload the blame for this one on to the article in question.  To quote the scientist and body with a penis Max Planck, the truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Gary Neville’s political football

Gary Neville was a fine footballer but he is a confused pundit. He keeps trying to get political when talking about football — and it’s boring. During England’s Euro 2020 semi-final game this summer, he obnoxiously suggested Gareth Southgate, the England manager, had shown more leadership than the Prime Minister. It was an irritating and unnecessary moment of politics in what should have been a moment of celebration. Now, he’s at it again. In an interview with the Times, Neville has been talking about politics: ‘I’d love half an hour across from Boris Johnson at the despatch box. I’d be angry with myself if I didn’t tear him to shreds

John Keiger John Keiger

Emmanuel Macron and the art of tantrum diplomacy

France’s fit of pique following Australia’s cancelled submarine contract – and the signing of the Aukus pact – is a sulk that keeps on giving. After recalling its ambassadors to Australia and the US, Paris cancelled last week’s scheduled bilateral Franco-British defence summit. France is also reported to be seeking to delay the EU-Australia trade deal whose twelfth meeting was organised for next month. The French are all the more bruised for the major powers in the Indo Pacific – Japan and India – welcoming the Pact while Paris has received only muted support from EU members. France is even extending her sulk retrospectively to others who recently declined French defence

Steerpike Steerpike

Who are the energy companies going bust?

The ongoing energy crisis has now seen seven companies go bust in recent months. On Wednesday, Avro Energy and Green Supplier Limited became the two largest companies to collapse. The industry is seeing high wholesale natural gas prices reach record levels, with firms unable to significantly raise their prices due to the government’s price cap. In the interest of transparency, Steerpike thought he would look at some of these companies in question, amid calls in certain quarters for government-backed bailouts. To begin with, it seems ludicrously easy to become an energy supplier, with a licence from Ofgem costing £450 for electricity and between £350 to £450 for gas. The online

Tim Stanley

How Labour wins

Labour can win the next election. The winds that blew apart their electoral coalition in 2019 can change in their favour; Brexit has destroyed old certainties but also made anything possible. The party needs first to analyse honestly what went wrong and then conjure up a new, yet old-fashioned progressivism to fix it. The most popular narrative is that Labour was undone by a mix of Jeremy Corbyn and Brexit: Corbyn was too radical and inept; Brexit drove the patriotic working-class into the arms of BoJo and the populist Right.  At this week’s conference, this story will be endorsed by several factions. The small Blue Labour tendency, which argues that

Mary Dejevsky

Feted abroad, dismissed at home: will Germans really miss Merkel?

As Angela Merkel finally steps down, the verdict on her leadership – at least from overseas – appears to be unanimous: she is a safe pair of hands who will be greatly missed. Her departure is a big loss for Europe. But is that right? Many Germans, it seems, are much less favourable about Mutti. There have been dissenting voices outside Germany to be sure, arguing that her achievements and historical importance have been exaggerated. Her overseas critics point out that she failed to make the most of the considerable authority she acquired and that her interventions in the European Union only made its divisions worse. The inflexibility of Merkel

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Starmer’s essay is gold dust for Boris

Keir Starmer’s incredible shrinking pamphlet was initially said to run to 14,000 words, then 13,000, then 12,500 and now 11,000 is even being mentioned. As someone who has read it from start to finish, let me assure you that whichever of those word counts is accurate, it’s still much too long. But those who are disparaging the document as useless are nevertheless barking up the wrong tree. In fact, it is a tremendously useful document – but useful to the Conservatives rather than Labour. Because while earnest Sir Keir has failed to come up with anything that will produce the kind of visceral connection with the electorate that could presage

Friday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Starmer is playing a risky game with the Labour left

Keir Starmer is a keen amateur footballer. It’s one of the few facts anyone knows about the Labour leader. He enjoys a game on his spare time, and on the campaign trail too. One person who played with him recently told me: ‘You can tell he plays a lot and takes it very seriously.’ What they couldn’t say was that he was very good at it. Starmer is currently trying to play a political game by changing the rules for Labour’s leadership elections. It’s a big and serious move as it would make it harder for the party to go left when it picks his successor. It is therefore a

Steerpike Steerpike

Fresh criticism for Rusbridger over Greenslade IRA article

Few journalists have been more celebrated by the liberal elite than Alan Rusbridger. The longtime editor of the Guardian for twenty years, a winner of the Marie Colvin prize for improving British journalism and a former head of an Oxford college: there are few baubles which have eluded his grasp. But now the Roy Greenslade scandal has cast a belated shadow over his former editor’s career. Back in 2014, Greenslade wrote an article in his capacity as the Guardian’s media commentator about Mairia Cahill in which he questioned her motives in going public about her sexual abuse at the hands of an IRA man. The piece, published 28 October 2014,

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is Joe Biden OK?

10 min listen

President Biden has spent the week meeting with foreign leaders including Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Now, the number of people starting to speculate about the state Joe Biden’s health is growing. Freddy Gray sits down with Amber Athey, the Washington Editor for The Spectator to discuss where the cracks are beginning to show and what this could mean for Kamala Harris.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Will the energy crisis leave Britons cold?

17 min listen

For this week’s Saturday Coffee House Shots, Katy Balls, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth sit down with John Kemp, senior energy analyst at Reuters to discuss the energy crisis. How long will this continue? How high will prices go? What will the government do in response? And is there a possibility of blackouts during the winter months?

James Forsyth James Forsyth

We’re living through eerie reminders of the 1970s

There are eerie parallels with 1970s at the moment, I say in the Times today. The inflation of that decade was principally caused by the abandonment of the gold standard in 1971 and the oil shock of 1973-4, which saw the price of a barrel of oil go from $3 a barrel to $12. Today, we have seen huge amounts of quantitative easing from central banks to keep the economy going through Covid – and unlike the post-financial crash QE, which was largely used to repair banks’ balance sheets, it has gone into the real economy. On top of that, we have now seen the gas price rise fourfold. There are