Politics

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

Thursday

27 Sep 2018

Steerpike

Watch: Diane Abbott’s BBC bias gaffe

There’s a burning question being asked everywhere from Liverpool to London: is Diane Abbott capable of getting through a single interview without committing a massive blunder? After another stellar performance on Newsnight, the answer almost certainly appears to be no. When the shadow home secretary was asked by Emily Maitlis if Labour’s Brexit immigration stance risked painting them as the party of the metropolitan elite, Abbott thought she had the perfect combative response: ‘You seem to be reading from a Tory script. I’m telling you that migration is a complex issue and we need to start with the facts. I’m telling you the reason that some parts of the country

John McTernan

The fatal flaw in Labour’s politics

If we learned one thing from Labour Party Conference it’s that capitalism is bad. The union leaders said so, the delegates said so, Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Labour Party, said so – at length. And do you know what? They’re right. Capitalism is bad, very, very bad – at defending itself. As anti-business policy after anti-business policy was announced, despair at the poverty of the response of the business lobby was matched only by grudging admiration for the message discipline of Corbyn and his supporters. The bar is set low in UK politics, where the monstrous incompetence of Theresa May’s Conservative government is matched only by the appalling

James Forsyth

All by herself

Few people would choose to celebrate their birthday by listening to Philip Hammond speak, but that is the pleasure that awaits Theresa May on Monday. On Tuesday she must suffer in silence as Boris Johnson derails Tory party conference with an appeal to ‘chuck Chequers’. It’s hard not to pity the Prime Minister. She is now horribly isolated. Both in her own cabinet and in Europe, she has few allies. As she tries to sell her Chequers plan, almost nobody is backing it or her. Other prime ministers have endured difficult periods. Few have faced them with as little support. It is no coincidence that Ruth Davidson, the leader of

Fraser Nelson

‘She will decide’

David Lidington is the most powerful minister you’ve never heard of. He is Theresa May’s de facto deputy, tasked with both supervising the domestic agenda and solving the trickiest Brexit conundrums. Much of government business is, nowadays, done through committees of cabinet members: he chairs seven such committees and sits on another 20. ‘I am the man who stands on the stage spinning plates on the top of poles,’ he says cheerfully. ‘Every now and then the PM gives me another plate and I have to keep that going as well.’ That’s hardly a metaphor that inspires much confidence in the running of the government, but everybody will know what

The Spectator

Allenby’s triumph

From ‘The Eastern successes’, 28 September 1918: The glorious news from Palestine and Macedonia has exceeded all expectations. The annihilating victory of Sir Edmund Allenby in Palestine, and the rapid advance of the Allies against the apparently demoralised Bulgarian Army, will help very powerfully towards weakening the unity and breaking the heart of our enemies. Though it would be impossible to praise too highly these splendid achievements, it is necessary to judge them in their proper relation to the strategy of the whole war… The principal thing the nation ought to remember in enjoying the glorious news which comes daily from the East is that, however much these victories may

Olivia Potts

A taste of Brexit

Supermarkets have always moved with the times. After the recession we wanted affordable luxury, so we got M&S’s ‘Dine in for two’ and its various imitators. These promised us a restaurant-quality meal and a nice bottle of sauvignon blanc for a tenner. Well, now the times they are a-Brexit, and retail giants are adapting accordingly. Last week Tesco opened Jack’s. Partly it’s a response to the explosive growth of German rivals Aldi and Lidl. Partly it’s an attempt to create a new, patriotic shopping experience for a nation trying to go its own way. Tesco bosses swear Jack’s is ‘nothing to do with Brexit’. But the clue’s in the name.

William Cook

Hebden Bridge

Bernard Ingham once told a story about a reporter from the Financial Times who went to cover an election in Ingham’s hometown of Hebden Bridge. The reporter went into a café and ordered a cappuccino. ‘Nay lad,’ said the waitress. ‘You’ll have to go to Leeds for that.’ Ingham told that story to illustrate the no-nonsense attitudes of the rugged town he grew up in — attitudes that shaped the man who became Margaret Thatcher’s muscular press secretary. So it’s wonderfully ironic that Hebden Bridge is now full of fair trade craft shops and vegan cafés. Nowadays you’ll have no trouble ordering a cappuccino — so long as you like

Martin Vander Weyer

McDonnell’s one-term mission to turn Britain into the new Venezuela

The least convincing thing said by Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell at the Labour party conference in Liverpool was ‘I believe we’ll be elected for a second term.’ In all his other remarks about plans for compulsory employee share schemes, workers on boards, higher corporate taxes, extended employment rights, attacks on the rich and below-market renationalisation of water utilities whose bosses he would fire, he talked about getting the programme done ‘within the life of a Labour government’ — with the clear implication that he thinks Tory turmoil might be about to give him a once-in-a-lifetime, one-term-only chance to make a reality of the recreation he lists in Who’s Who:

Matthew Parris

Don’t dismiss McDonnell as a loony

‘Wherever Sir Stafford Cripps has tried to increase wealth and happiness,’ wrote the Conservative Scottish journalist Colm Brogan, ‘grass never grows again.’ But Roundup has its uses. When Brogan made this comment, Sir Stafford was Britain’s postwar ‘austerity’ chancellor of the exchequer, a post he held from 1947 to 1950. Dry as dust, Cripps had rejoined the Labour party only two years previously, having served as ambassador in Moscow, then in Churchill’s war cabinet. A leading voice on the hard left, he had been expelled from Labour for his advocacy of co-operation with communists in 1939, but his judgment had proved shrewd. Hard-edged, essentially pragmatic, but fiercely moral and always

Wednesday

26 Sep 2018

Katy Balls

Why the latest Labour broadcast should worry the Tories

In his speech today at Labour conference, Jeremy Corbyn confidently set out his vision for government. The Leader of the Opposition promised that a change was coming – and said that this change would benefit the many. On Brexit, however, he disappointed some pro-EU MPs by refusing to soften the party’s position and explicitly back a Leave/Remain second referendum. A glimpse of why that was can be found in the party’s latest broadcast. Following on from that speech, Labour has released ‘Our Town’. The short video is centred on the message that a Corbyn government would ‘restore pride in British towns and bring our high streets and communities back to

James Forsyth

The Tories will have to up their game in response to this Corbyn speech

Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to Labour conference has raised the stakes for the Tories ahead of their gathering in Birmingham. Corbyn is mastering the art of making very radical things sound reasonable. Listening to him talking about ‘Inclusive Ownership Funds’ which ‘will mean workers share more fairly in the rewards of successful businesses’ you would have no idea that what this really means is the government confiscating 1pc of a companies’ equity every year without compensation; an idea that is bound to scare off business investment. Labour want to present their agenda as a response to the 2008 crash. Jeremy Corbyn’s distance from New Labour means that the Tory arguments about

Isabel Hardman

Corbyn’s confident conference speech will send Labour members home happy

Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to Labour conference showed how confident the Labour leader is now. He knew his way around the text enough to be able to make little spontaneous jokes, rather than reading the ‘strong message here’ instruction from the autocue, as he did in his 2015 address. He varied his pitch, his pace and his tone. None of these things have been guaranteed with Corbyn until now. The speech itself was well-written and structured, starting with a lengthy but effective values-based section where Corbyn praised the membership and attacked the press, which warmed up those in the hall no end. Not that the members needed warming up. They were,

Liam Halligan

Review: The book that reveals John McDonnell’s economic world view

In 1995, the Labour party voted to amend Clause IV of its constitution, ditching its historic commitment to mass public ownership. A significant victory for Tony Blair, it sparked a modernisation process that saw New Labour win three successive elections. On Monday John McDonnell drew wild cheers from Labour delegates in Liverpool when he directly rebuked Blair, insisting Clause IV is ‘as relevant today’ as a century ago. The Shadow Chancellor certainly rolled back the years during his conference speech, unveiling the most radical Labour prospectus of modern times – an unashamedly socialist pitch, calling for aggressive re-nationalisation and sweeping trade union powers. Listed UK companies will be forced to

Melanie McDonagh

When a dictionary definition becomes hate speech

So, when does a dictionary definition count as hate speech? When it’s the dictionary definition of a woman – ‘woman/noun/adult human female’ – and it’s on a poster in Liverpool during the Labour Party conference, that’s when, silly. Admittedly, the idea, courtesy of a female blogger, Kellie-Jay Keen Minshull, to put the definition up on a £700 billboard for the duration of the conference seems a little eccentric. ‘I wanted it to stimulate debate,’ she said. The conversation she had in mind was probably about the gender pay gap, all female parliamentary shortlists, Twitter abuse of female politicians, all the usual stuff that gets feminists worked up at these events.

The Spectator

Full text: Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour conference speech

Thank you for that welcome. I want to start by thanking the workers, the fantastic staff at the Conference Centre and hotels, the Labour Party staff who make this possible, and the people of Liverpool who have made us feel so welcome this week. And I want to thank my family, but in particular my wife Laura. Tu eres mi fuerza y mi apoyo. Gracias Laurita. And congratulations conference, to all of you on what’s been a great conference. A conference of a Labour Party that’s ready to take charge and start the work of rebuilding our divided country. This year we mark the centenary of the Representation of the People Act,

Steerpike

Theresa May grills the press pack

Whisper it quietly, but Theresa May might actually be having a good week for once. While Labour fill up the headlines with the chaos over their Brexit position, the Prime Minister has managed to keep a low profile as her cabinet wait for their chance to spring their own conference ambush. So, with the wind in her sails, the Prime Minister decided to take some questions from the press pack travelling with her as she flew to the UN General Assembly in New York. One hack, hearing of May’s piety, and possibly hoping she’d say ‘a plague of locusts on Boris’s house,’ asked the vicar’s daughter: ‘What do you pray

Isabel Hardman

How blaming the media keeps Labour activists happy

One of the features of conference season, along with the stale sandwiches and lack of natural light, is the obsession with ‘the mood’. It’s a nebulous thing, made up of the atmosphere in the conference hall and fringe meetings, but it can tell you a lot about what a party might be up to over the next few months. Labour’s 2014 conference, for instance, felt eerily flat for a party that was supposed to be on the cusp of government. Conversely, the party’s 2016 gathering felt pretty edgy following the second leadership contest in as many years. That conference saw a very clear pulling-apart of the ‘moderates’ and the Corbynites

Tom Goodenough

Momentum’s Brexit fudge would make the Labour party proud

What Momentum thinks about Brexit matters. But is Momentum prepared to ask its members what it really thinks about Brexit? Not yet is the answer, according to Jon Lansman, the group’s founder. And it’s refusal to do so produces a fudge on the hot topic of the day of which the Labour party itself would be proud. While the group’s World Transformed festival has been a hotbed of discussion on all kinds of issues – socialism, Marxism, anti-Semitism, climate change, to name a few – there’s one topic that isn’t on the menu: Brexit. At least, that is, in so far as coming to a settled position among Momentum members

Steerpike

No early election? We’ll just go on a general strike, says Labour MP

Oh dear. Despite reports this year of a more professional tone at conference, one Labour MP appears to have missed the message. Last year John McDonnell told a conference fringe that his party was wargaming for a ‘run on the pound’ in the event they were elected. This year’s socialist slip-up has been committed by Laura Smith. The MP for Crewe and Nantwich has come up with a Plan B should Labour’s Plan A of bringing about an early election fail: ‘If we can’t get a general election, we should unite with our comrades in the trade union movement and bring an end to the government with a general strike.’

Steerpike

Security check: Corbyn’s adviser, the former Communist Party member

Jeremy Corbyn’s adviser and close friend Andrew Murray has been scratching his head of late as to why he still hasn’t had his request for a Parliamentary security pass granted. In search of answers, Murray has hit out at the ‘deep state’ made up of spies and sinister civil servants looking to thwart a left-wing government. However, Mr S wonders whether there could be another reason it’s taken so long for the pass to be granted. So, in the interests of national security, Steerpike has put together his own security check to see if Murray should be given a parliamentary pass: Previous employment Journalist at the Soviet news agency Novosti Morning Star