Politics

‘You guys should get outside London and go to talk to people who are not rich remainers,’ Dominic Cummings declared in September to journalists expressing scepticism about Brexit. There’s been a strong sense, ever since Boris Johnson took office, that the Prime Minister and his advisors wanted to do things differently. Their plan it seemed was to shift the party’s focus away from the metropolitan elite and towards working class leave voters in areas of the country that haven’t typically voted Conservative. Their dreamed-of parliamentary majority depends on it. Yet a close look at Johnson’s chosen candidates at the snap election shows the Conservative party still favours those from typical

If an MP’s researcher is accused of sexual assault, what should the MP do? Co-operate fully with the police, of course, which is what Chris Skidmore claims he did when his assistant ended up in court. The Tory MP and minister for universities strenuously denies that he refused to provide the police with evidence. But questions still remain after what an officer said during the trial at Southwark Crown Court. You might have heard about the case: 27-year-old Callum Warren, Skidmore’s former staffer, was cleared last week of molesting a teenager. The court heard descriptions of a legislature that runs on an endless supply of cheap lager and eager young

Nigel Farage says his decision not to run in Tory-held seats, but to contest Labour ones, eliminates the risk that there will be another referendum to decide whether we quit the EU. This is nonsense. It is helpful to Boris Johnson – who like Farage sees a referendum as pure poison – that the Brexit Party will not be battling him in his backyard. But Johnson lacks a majority right now (Obvs! Why else is the misery of an election being inflicted on us?) And the Tories are highly likely to lose seats in Scotland and in and around London to parties in favour of a referendum or staying in

Andrew Marr was joined this morning by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Conservatives have published a document which they claim represents the ‘eyewatering’ cost of Labour’s policies should the party win the general election, with the overall figure estimated at £1.2 trillion. Marr challenged the figures, claiming that Conservatives were relying on ‘bogus accounting’. Javid defended the costings, which include the introduction of a four day working week and trialling a guaranteed basic income for all: General election 2019: Chancellor Sajid Javid tells #Marr Labour’s economic spending is “absolutely reckless”https://t.co/kiAcRqKV58 pic.twitter.com/Sz0acK4Xtq — BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) November 10, 2019 SJ: Every single costing in this dossier that we’ve published today

Wales has not been the source of good electoral tidings for the Conservatives for a very long time. The party last won a general election here in ’59 – that’s 1859. Since then, Wales has had successive lengthy eras of Liberal and then Labour dominance, with the Conservatives rarely able to mount a serious challenge. The last person to defeat Labour in a general election in Wales was the Liberal, David Lloyd George – just after he led Britain to victory in world war one. Since then, Labour have come first in both votes and seats in the last 26 successive general elections. For a while, early in the 2017 campaign, it