Politics

A thin turnout for Theresa May’s penultimate PMQs. Labour members were skulking in corridors plotting to oust their leader. And Tories, especially devout Remainers, were busy talking to journalists about their lifelong commitment to a no-deal Brexit. Mrs May seemed to be angling for the post of chief attack dog at the next election. Jeremy Corbyn asked her about climate change but she raised Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis. ‘You have failed the test of leadership,’ she said, bending the rules by addressing him directly. ‘Stand up and apologise.’ Breaches of protocol always add extra juice to Commons rows. Corbyn retorted that Labour was the first party to pass anti-racism legislation in

Did you know that Jeremy Hunt is an entrepreneur? If you’ve heard any of the Tory leadership contender’s speeches or been at a hustings event, you are bound to, given how often Hunt has mentioned his business background. But while Mr S. doesn’t doubt Hunt’s money-making credentials, he does wonder whether he could do with brushing up on his spelling. Over on Hunt’s official Facebook page, a meme has appeared boasting that Hunt is ‘an entreprenur to turbocharge our economy’. Oh dear…

The Final Showdown, as the Sun/Talkradio’s debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt was billed, clarified some important points for Tory members still deciding how to cast their vote. Both candidates ruled out a general election before the UK leaves the EU, though Hunt warned that setting a deadline as Johnson has means we could ‘trip ourselves into an accidental general election before October 31’. Both men were also clear that the backstop has had its day, with Hunt declaring it ‘dead’. The Foreign Secretary talked up technological solutions to the Irish border, while stressing the need for a ‘cast-iron guarantee’ to Dublin that there would be no hard border.

Among the first things I did when moving to the UK from Australia was sign up to three British institutions: Arsenal football club, the NHS and the Labour party. Sure, Jeremy Corbyn’s party is further to the left than the Australian iteration. But following Labour’s surge in the 2017 general election there was something alluring about the party. It was offering wholesale change, by improving public services, increasing the minimum wage and scrapping student tuition fees. These policies sat well with my millennial sensibilities. And like it or loathe it, Labour’s grassroots campaign back then radiated a palpable sense of excitement about the party’s future. A year on from arriving

Boris Johnson had been refusing to engage with the question of Cabinet appointments and the like until he was through his Andrew Neil interview. But with that done, his focus is now shifting from the campaign to the transition as I say in The Sun this morning. One source explains the move by saying that ‘from next week, decisions have to be taken for the success of a Johnson administration’. I understand that Johnson will settle on who he wants as Chief Whip, Chancellor and Party Chairman before moving on to the other appointments. One long time Johnson confidant tells me that Boris has learnt lessons from what happened to