Politics

Today’s Cabinet was not a happy affair. I’m told that Liam Fox, Gavin Williamson and Andrea Leadsom all made clear their grave concerns about the Government’s new strategy. There was considerable anger at Amber Rudd, Greg Clark and David Gauke for how they have heaped pressure on May to offer this vote on a delay if the meaningful vote fails on the 12th of March. Liz Truss labelled them ‘kamikaze Cabinet Ministers’ and Andrea Leadsom was, I’m told, audibly furious. Brandon Lewis, Julian Smith, Jeremy Wright, Damian Hinds and James Brokenshire all criticised the way this trio had behaved. Michael Gove asked how May would whip in the vote on

Let us consider the gravity of Jeremy Corbyn’s announcement that Labour will push for a second referendum. In siding with the so-called People’s Vote lobby, Corbyn has betrayed Labour’s traditional working-class base, who tend to favour leaving the EU. He has betrayed his party’s own manifesto in the 2017 general election, which promised to respect the outcome of the referendum. He has betrayed his old Labour mentors, most notably his hero Tony Benn, who was the left’s most articulate critic of the EU. And he has betrayed himself. He has betrayed his own longstanding and correct belief that the EU is an illiberal, undemocratic, anti-worker outrage of an institution. Has

Sorry. I just don’t believe it. The conviction of George Pell – still Cardinal Pell – last December, on which reporting restrictions are lifted today, isn’t credible; he’s appealing against it. Fiat Justitia and all that, but the problem with the rerun of this bizarre trial on five counts of child abuse in 1996 is that the implausibilities of the case against the Cardinal are as great as ever – in his first trial, the Catholic News Agency reported the jury was divided 10-2 in Pell’s favour. Here is what Pell was accused of: “The complainant said that he and another choir boy left the liturgical procession at the end of

Britain is going to proscribe the terrorist group Hezbollah in its entirety. This is a victory, not least for common sense. For just over a decade the UK government has stuck to a very strange lie on this matter. In 2008 they banned the military wing of Hezbollah. This idea – only ever believed in by a few officials in the British Foreign Office – survived on an extraordinary presumption: which was that the Lebanese terrorist group had two totally separate arms. On the one hand was the military wing of Hezbollah, which has spent decades raising the levels of violence in Lebanon and bringing destruction to various neighbouring countries,

I understand that ministers are being pressured to rapidly approve a new, £1.6bn towns fund. The suspicion among ministers is that this fund, which is spread over seven years, is all part of Number 10’s efforts to get the support of some Labour MPs for Theresa May’s Brexit deal. The write round asking for ministers’ approval for this scheme declares that, ‘This government is committed to supporting communities that feel left behind’. The region which will receive the most money per capita is the Black Country. One cabinet minister tells me that while the write round letter has come from James Brokenshire ‘I don’t believe this has been invented in

Theresa May begins the week with a chunk of her party growing increasingly frustrated with her handling of Brexit. The Prime Minister announced over the weekend that she would not bring her deal back to be voted on in the coming days – instead she has promised to hold a second meaningful vote by March 12. This has led to accusations of can-kicking from members across the House. However, May has grown used to such criticism – the thing No. 10 is worried about is whether ministers will be so dismayed by the move that they vote for an amendment on Wednesday which seeks to force the government to take