Politics

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

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Desmond Swayne: I ‘blacked up’ as James Brown

Justin Trudeau found himself in hot water last week after pictures emerged of him ‘blacking up’ for a fancy-dress party. A week on, an unlikely supporter has leapt to the Canadian prime minister’s defence. Step forward, Desmond Swayne. In a blog on his website titled ‘Trudeau’s Turban’, the flamboyant Brexiteer said the only thing Trudeau did wrong was say sorry. Swayne then made a surprising confession of his own: ‘I once went to a ‘Blues Brothers’ themed fancy-dress party as James Brown. I went to some trouble to be as authentic as possible.’ So will Swayne now follow in Trudeau’s footsteps and say sorry? Don’t bank on it: ‘I can

Steerpike Steerpike

Karl Turner’s unparliamentary behaviour

Labour MP Karl Turner took the opportunity to berate Boris Johnson’s adviser Dominic Cummings in a heated, and slightly bizarre, exchange in the House of Commons yesterday. Turner (whose staff just happened to be filming the MP’s grandstanding) approached Cummings in Portcullis House and attacked him for the ‘sort of language’ Boris Johnson had used in this week’s Commons debates, which Turner attempted to link to death threats made against him. Karl Turner’s entire demeanour during the exchange was probably not quite what you’d expect from a Member of Parliament. But Mr S was more curious about what the MP said around the 55 second mark of the video. Mr Steerpike

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Revealed: The SNP’s plan to back Corbyn as temporary PM

The Scottish National Party has come round to the idea that Jeremy Corbyn may shortly have to become temporary caretaker prime minister, in order to prevent a no-deal Brexit on 31 October and immediately afterwards hold a general election. A source close to the SNP leadership tells me that Ian Blackford, leader of the SNP in Westminster, and Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, are deeply concerned that it may now be impossible to prevent a no deal Brexit unless Boris Johnson is removed from office. One said: “It is increasingly clear that we will have to install a new prime minister via a vote of no confidence, so that we

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Labour is following in the doomed footsteps of the French left

The left no longer exists as a coherent political force in France. Embarrassed in the 2017 presidential election, the Socialist party has continued to disintegrate, polling just 6.2 per cent of the vote in May’s European elections. That was marginally fewer votes than Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise, which mustered a distinctly modest 6.3 per cent. The far-left leader polled well in the first round of the presidential election but as one French commentator wrote this week, his mistake was then to ‘to revert to his original culture, that of the radical left’. As for the Socialist party, since 2007 their membership has plummeted from 260,000 to 102,000. But that

Thursday

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Eight reasons why I know I’m a Conservative

‘Why don’t you just join the Liberal Democrats?’ If I’ve heard that once in the past couple of years I’ve heard it a hundred times. In online posts beneath my Times column, in public debates or private conversations, the question is sometimes a genuinely puzzled enquiry but more often an implied: ‘What the hell are you doing posing as a Tory?’ It’s all about Brexit, of course: the questioner’s assumption being that, strip from a Conservative the ambition that Britain should leave the European Union, and there remains nothing important to distinguish him or her from a Liberal Democrat. The assumption is part of the poisonous modern heresy that leaving

Toby Young Toby Young

Abolish private schools? Bring it on!

I cannot recall a week in which Britain’s private schools have received better PR. The Labour party has pledged to scrap them because of the huge advantages they confer on their pupils — including ‘lifelong networks for the powerful’, according to Owen Jones. Presumably that’s a reference to Jeremy Corbyn, who, thanks to his private school background, has risen to the top of the Labour party in spite of getting two Es at A-level. Laura Parker, the national coordinator for Momentum, welcomed Labour’s new policy on the grounds that ‘every child deserves a world-class education, not only those who are able to pay for it’. In other words, only private

Peter Jones

Would the Athenians have held a second referendum?

The Athenians invented the referendum: after debate in the citizens’ assembly, they voted through all political decisions by a show of hands. They could also demand a revote, as happened on a famous occasion in 427 bc, after Athens put down the revolt of the city-state of Mytilene. Does this justify the proposed second Brexit referendum? The Athenian assembly, angered by the revolt, initially voted to execute all adult males and sell the women and children into slavery. A ship was sent to see to it. But next day, as the contemporary historian Thucydides reported, ‘the people began to think how excessively savage it was to destroy everyone, not just

Robert Hardman

Robert Hardman: My private encounter with David Cameron and the Queen

David Cameron’s revelation that he sought ‘a raising of the eyebrow’ from the Queen during the 2014 Scottish referendum campaign has caused conniptions at the Palace. But it has also eclipsed the royal record of the prime minister who did more to reform the monarchy than any of the Queen’s 14 (and counting) British PMs during this reign — Churchill included. It was Mr Cameron and his chancellor who tore up the 250-year-old Civil List, the moth-eaten system for funding the monarchy, and devised an annual grant pegged to Crown Estate revenues. It was also Mr Cameron who rewrote the laws of succession. Since 1979, there had been 13 failed

Alexander Pelling-Bruce Alexander Pelling-Bruce

Has the Supreme Court handed Boris Johnson a Brexit escape route?

The Supreme Court’s judgement is the latest constitutional perversion after the Benn act. But ironically it may assist the Government in achieving its objective of Britain leaving the EU by 31 October, without having to seek an extension to the Article 50 process. In paragraph 34, the Supreme Court states that its ‘proper function’ under our constitution is to give effect to the separation of powers (which justifies court intervention in relation to prorogation). Then, in what appears to be an innocuous sentence in paragraph 55, it says that it is to be “remember[ed] always that the actual task of governing is for the executive and not for Parliament or the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tory party depends on winning over Leave-voting Labour seats

A Prime Minister held in No. 10 against his will. The very notion seems absurd, but this is essentially what is happening right now. Boris Johnson wants a general election, a chance to see whether the public agree with him or parliament on the sanctity of the 31 October deadline for leaving the European Union. The House of Commons won’t give him one. Instead it keeps him in office while the opposition condemn him as unfit to be there. In more normal times, the Supreme Court finding unanimously that the prime minister acted unlawfully in the advice he gave the Queen would lead to either a prime ministerial resignation or a

Steerpike Steerpike

Valerie Vaz demands Geoffrey Cox apologise for calling MPs ‘turkeys’

There is no love lost between MPs in the Commons today following last night’s fractious debate. But has one Labour MP gone a little too far in calling for her opposite number to say sorry? Shadow Commons leader Valerie Vaz took to her feet this afternoon to ask Geoffrey Cox to ‘come to the House to apologise’. The reason? For ‘calling us turkeys’, Vaz told the Commons. Mr S. remembers hearing worse in the school playground…

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Brexit voters do feel betrayed. So why can’t Boris say so?

Rarely has there been such a flagrant display of hypocrisy and cant as there was in the House of Commons last night. Opposition MPs stood up one after the other to denounce Boris Johnson for his use of apparently toxic and dangerous words like ‘surrender’ and ‘sabotage’. Such language is polluting the public sphere and making life hell for politicians, they claimed. Their ostentatious offence-taking would be a tad more convincing if they had ever said anything about the bile heaped on Brexit voters these past three years. Where were these people when it became positively vogue to refer to lower middle-class Brexit blokes as ‘gammon’? Where were they when

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Has Boris Johnson ruined his chances of passing a Brexit deal?

Boris Johnson’s behaviour in the Commons last night was clearly part of his strategy to set up a ‘people vs parliament’ narrative ahead of an election. We can debate the rights and wrongs of telling MPs that the best way to honour Jo Cox would be to get Brexit done, but there are also political implications of this. The Prime Minister’s team has, over the past few weeks, been making contact with Labour MPs to try to persuade them of the merits of supporting a Brexit deal should one come before the Commons. Many of them have been sympathetic: they regret not supporting Theresa May’s deal and are fearful of

Douglas Murray

MPs and the outrage game

It was never clear what this Parliament was going to do if it was no longer prorogued. For three years the UK Parliament has been unable to act on the 2016 referendum result. It was never clear what they were hoping to achieve if they got an extra three days, weeks or months. But the Parliament that reassembled yesterday managed to live down to even what low expectations there might have been. The Members appear to have decided, as is the way in modern British politics, to win by playing games of language and offence taking. The signs were clear when the Attorney General, Geoffrey Cox, at one stage referred

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The torture chamber: how opposition MPs plan to humiliate Boris

When Jeremy Corbyn declared at Labour conference that his party would only allow an election once no deal had been taken off the table, MPs began to wonder if it could be put off until the new year. The Prime Minister’s tormentors can’t agree when exactly they would like to go to the country, but all agree that there are plenty of ways to torture Boris Johnson. It’s as good a way as any to pass the time. The Tories no longer have a working majority, so these opposition MPs — aided by activist Speaker John Bercow — now hold the power. What will they do? Well, the Conservatives are meant

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Why business is perfectly relaxed about Brexit

It’s difficult to go into the office nowadays, since most of my colleagues are so distraught by the prospect of a no-deal Brexit that they rarely speak. The finance department have painted European flags on their faces for solace, and spend the day staring blankly out of the window sobbing over a tear-stained picture of Guy Verhofstadt. Except, um, no. None of this has happened. In fact, most businesses seem weirdly calm in contemplation of a no-deal Brexit. I have met people from multinationals who are sanguine about Brexit, and those who are worried, but few get emotional about the subject as, say, academics, politicians or journalists do. Brexit has

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

‘Cameron was a bloody good prime minister’: Michael Gove interviewed

Michael Gove stands in front of an empty throne in the magnificent Cabinet Office room. George III was the last monarch to use it and there it has stayed, beneath his portrait. For a second, it looks like Gove is about to sit in it and grant us an audience, but he’s only leaning over to show off the royal crest. At the other end of the room stands a large television which, a few hours before we meet, was used by Gove and other ministers to watch Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling. From the madness of King George III, to the humiliation of Boris Johnson. As the minister in charge

Paul Embery

Paul Embery: Labour is too much Hampstead, not enough Hartlepool

Arrived in Remain-on-sea (also known as Brighton) for Labour party conference. As an old-fashioned trade unionist hailing from a working-class heartland who supports Brexit, opposes mass immigration and doesn’t believe someone with a penis can be a woman, I feel about as welcome as a hedgehog at a nudist colony. The conference centre and fringe mills with the usual throng of delegates and activists. Many are unquestionably decent people fighting for a better world. But it is largely an army of the woke, liberal middle-classes and young toytown revolutionaries — as though the social services department at Camden council and the Labour club at the University of Sussex have arranged

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

At least Thomas Cook’s fall allows ministers to look in control

It’s not obvious that the state has a moral obligation to repatriate holidaymakers whenever a tour operator goes bust, as Thomas Cook did on Sunday night. Being briefly stranded in a sangria-fuelled resort is not like being left behind in a war zone, after all. But when large numbers of tourists are involved such situations will swiftly become consular crises if government does nothing to help. So there’s pragmatic reason for ministers to act — as well as political motives that might have been scripted by Armando Iannucci for The Thick of It. Here’s the scenario: a government in chaos under a prime minister who’s all over the Sunday papers

Charles Moore Charles Moore

For millennials, pre-Thatcher Britain must seem another — quite mystifying — country

Lymeswold; Hi-de-Hi!; nuclear-free zones; Walkmans; the Metro; Red Robbo; the SDP; Michael Foot’s Cenotaph donkey-jacket; Protest and Survive; Steve Davis and Hurricane Higgins; Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett; hunger strikes; Red Ken and Fare’s Fair; ‘On your bike’; Lady Diana; ‘hog-whimpering drunk’; Chariots of Fire; Beefy Botham; ‘The lady’s not for turning’; the Peterborough Effect; Spectrum computers; ‘Gotcha!’; ‘We are not Britain. We are the BBC.’ Councillor Jeremy Corbyn. Merely to repeat these names and phrases, all drawn from this, the fifth in Dominic Sandbrook’s great chronicle of Britain since the 1950s, is to re-enter the period. It encompasses the first three years of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership up to and