Politics

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

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories are risking their reputation as the party of law and order

Theresa May’s Home Office record is normally off limits at cabinet. But when ministers discussed the government’s strategy for reducing violent crime on Tuesday, Boris Johnson took issue with what the Prime Minister regards as one of her key legacies: the dramatic reduction in stop and search. He argued that more stop and search was needed to deal with a spike in crime. What went unsaid — but what every-one around the cabinet table was acutely aware of — was that this was the opposite of Mrs May’s approach as Home Secretary. The exchange was pointed. ‘They irritate each other,’ one cabinet minister observed to me afterwards. They also have

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Our response to the nerve gas attack has been an act of self harm

There was a growling Russian maniac on the BBC’s Today programme last week, an MP from the United Russia party called Vitaly Milonov. Breathing rather heavily, as if he were pleasuring himself, Mr Milonov likened our country to Hitler’s Germany for having accused Russia over the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. At this point he was cut off by the presenter — rather a shame, I thought, at the time. I would have liked to hear Vitaly expand upon some of his other beliefs, such as homosexuals being responsible for the Ebola virus and Jews being Satanists. He also hates cyclists, so not all bad, then.

Tom Ball

The Russian wives club

The Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Knightsbridge is nestled in a maze of mews streets and embassy rows somewhere between Harrods and Hyde Park. It’s as much an expat social club as it is a place of worship, and on Sunday mornings it’s packed to the rafters. In what can sometimes look like one big game of Grand-mother’s Footsteps, the congregation of headscarved women and men in leather jackets quietly make a dash to circulate every time the priests turn their back, while old women maunder about kissing icons and hushing grandchildren. Tatyana Ivanova was conspicuously aloof from all this. I first saw her one Sunday morning in a ray of

Wednesday

Joe Nutt

Cambridge Analytica’s flaws aren’t unique in the world of big tech

The furious response to the revelations about Cambridge Analytica is in danger of missing the point. Much of the backlash has focused on what hand the company played in the Trump election and Brexit vote. But this is actually a broader tale of what goes wrong when our tech firms hand authority and power to poorly-educated, immature technicians. About twenty years ago, I took up my first role working in the technology business. I was the creative bod in a small tech team which relied entirely on one coder to produce anything. He was barely out of his teens and had no formal qualifications whatsoever. He had walked out of school aged

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Boris Johnson’s undisclosed meeting with Alexander Nix of Cambridge Analytica

Now that Alexander Nix has been suspended as Cambridge Analytica chief executive, the hunt is on to see who else he has been meeting – in London or Washington. His meetings with UK officials would have been disclosed. But one wasn’t: a meeting with Boris Johnson in December 2016. The Foreign Secretary wasn’t seeking the algorithm that took Trump to victory – his objective was to try to learn about, and improve links with, Team Trump. And here was a Brit who, apparently, was a close part of that team. Boris and Nix met on the advice of Foreign Office officials, at a time when Britain was scrambling for routes

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Jeremy Corbyn’s post-election honeymoon is over

The political weather has changed at Westminster. Tory MPs now have a spring in their step in a way that they haven’t had since the snap election went so wrong. By contrast, the Labour benches look glummer than they have in a while. Tory MPs might be exaggerating how much things have really changed; several of them are currently demonstrating that the Conservative party really does only have two modes, panic or complacency. But a couple of things have shifted in the last few weeks. Jeremy Corbyn’s reaction to the assassination attempt on Sergei Skripal has reminded Labour moderates of why they were so opposed to Corbyn in the first

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Jeremy Corbyn shows why he shouldn’t stick to the script at PMQs

Brexit is going well, apparently. And the prime minister seemed in chipper mood at PMQs. She was even enjoying herself. To neutrals this is a distressing sight. To fans of the Tory leader it must seem downright dangerous. History has taught us that when May feels she’s on top the world, the world promptly lands on top of May. Corbyn raised council tax. His theme was Tory misrule, higher bills and vanishing services. Privatisation fetishists at Northamptonshire, he said, had caused the council to implode entirely. May felt herself on solid ground as she fought back by cataloguing Corbyn’s troubles at council level which have led to two recent Labour

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Can Corbyn keep up the pressure on May on council cuts?

Jeremy Corbyn had a good line of attack at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, choosing to focus on the financial crisis at Northamptonshire Council. When the Labour leader chooses a less-obvious topic, he has the benefit of surprise, but also the disadvantage of appearing to be avoiding talking about something more important. Today, though, Corbyn had also worked out a smart introductory question, which ended with him asking if what was happening at Northamptonshire was down to ‘incompetence at a local level of national level’. This was a difficult question for Theresa May to answer, as it would involve either criticising her own government, or suggesting that Tories weren’t very good

Steerpike Steerpike

Fact Check: Owen Jones’ hat-gate claim fails the test

This week the main political news in Labour has revolved around a hat. Rather than the Brexit transition period or Russian aggression, the issue that has kept the Corbynistas busy is whether or not Jeremy Corbyn’s hat was photoshopped on Newsnight. This was the claim made by Owen Jones on the show – when he accused the BBC of photoshopping a hat to make him look like a ‘Soviet stooge’. Since then the claim has gone viral – with Guido reporting a social media reach of over 2 million – despite repeated denials by the BBC. It’s also handily worked as a dead hat strategy – successfully distracting from Corbyn’s

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Tories just don’t get it

Sometimes it is the little details that tell you everything you need to know. So when, as Politics Home revealed yesterday, the chief whip meets Tory backbenchers to assuage their concerns over the transitional arrangements for the fishing industry as the UK edges its way out of the EU and tells them not to worry because, look, “It’s not like the fishermen are going to vote Labour” you know there is something deeply wrong at the heart of the government.  This, remember, is what passes for the government’s intelligence unit. And with leaders like this, who needs enemies? It is not evident whether the ignorance is more startling than the

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The great Cambridge Analytica conspiracy theory

This Cambridge Analytica thing is starting to sound like a chattering-class conspiracy theory. We’re meant to believe that Donald Trump won the presidential election and Brexit was victorious in the EU referendum because sinister rich and right-wing people trawled social media, harvested our inner-most lives, and then planted messages that ‘mind-fucked’ us into voting for things we shouldn’t have voted for? This is straight out of the David Icke school of political thought (I say thought…) where it is always assumed that faceless malevolent actors are puppeteering public life and secretly controlling people’s minds and behaviour. This might be the moment when the paranoid style of thinking went mainstream. It’s

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The Russian spy poisoning is tearing the SNP apart

The SNP is a coalition that behaves like a megachurch and when the spirit is low, the congregation remembers its schisms. One such departure is defence, because, for all they appear a homogenous rabble of bomb-banners to unsympathetic outsiders, the Scottish Nationalists are quietly but keenly divided on security. The combination of their current political funk and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal has forced this into the open.  Nicola Sturgeon’s response to the Salisbury incident surprised some of her opponents and appalled some in her party. Her instinct was to tweet in support of Theresa May’s statement and package of sanctions, including the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats.

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Jennie Formby’s appointment will delight Jeremy Corbyn

Privately educated. Mother of Len McCluskey’s child. Close ally of Jeremy Corbyn. Jennie Formby’s appointment as Labour general secretary is a heartwarming tale of how one woman managed to overcome all her connections to make it to the top. More than that, it is confirmation that The Corbynite Takeover Of The Labour Party Is Now Complete (TCTOTLPINC). There seems to be another TCTOTLPINC moment every few weeks and, in all honesty, the authentic one was probably summer 2016 when Corbyn was able to cling on despite mass resignations and a vote of no confidence. That was the point Labour ceased functioning as a political party and went into the personality

Steerpike Steerpike

Sadiq Khan takes a swipe at Labour’s Great Leader

Well, this is going well. Last night Jeremy Corbyn’s control of the Labour party grew even stronger with the appointment of Jennie Formby as Labour’s general secretary – the party’s most senior official. Formby – a key Corbyn ally – won the overwhelming support of Labour’s ruling NEC to take the post after a short contest, which saw her main rival Jon Lansman drop out. Only it’s not clear to Mr S that everyone in Labour is so impressed by recent goings on. Just an hour after her appointment, Sadiq Khan was entertaining hacks at City Hall – where he made a number of jokes about both Corbyn and the hire

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Chief Whip’s SNP blunder

Oh dear. How best to stop a row over the terms for fishermen in the Brexit transition period escalating into a rebellion? Well, don’t send in Julian Smith for one. After the Scottish Conservatives saw red over the decision to keep the United Kingdom in the Commons Fisheries Policy during the Brexit implementation period, the Chief Whip summoned Tory MPs to see him. However, rather than soothe concerns, it appears he made a bad situation worse. PoliticsHome reports that Smith told them to accept Theresa May’s Brexit transition deal because ‘it’s not like the fishermen are going to vote Labour’. Someone had best introduce Smith to the SNP…

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Let’s hear more of the moral case for Brexit

How many times over the past few months have some remain supporters tried to tell us that tariffs on imported goods are a very big deal indeed? Were trade between Britain and the EU to revert to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, they assert, the UK economy would be reduced to ruins. Food prices would soar, leaving millions scrabbling around in bins. British firms will never export anything ever again. This morning comes a slightly different tack. Actually, it seems that tariffs don’t really matter all that much at all. Removing them, according to reports broadcast loudly at various points during the Today programme this morning, will hardly affect consumer

Steerpike Steerpike

Liz Truss speaks freely: we need to be Tories with attitude

It’s been a rough few months for the Conservatives so last night’s launch of Freer made a welcome change. Cabinet ministers and MPs gathered to celebrate the new initiative intended to promote a freer society and a freer economy. Or, Liz Truss’s leadership ambitions, depending which way you look at it. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury – and rising social media star – gave a lively speech at the Conrad hotel to kickstart the project. Truss entertained the crowd with anecdotes from her time as a young Conservative, plans to win over younger voters and criticism of a ‘po-faced’ opposition: Truss’s early years: ‘They don’t want to be told what

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: The verdict on the Brexit transition deal

It wouldn’t be Brexit if everyone was happy, so it is no surprise that not everyone is pleased with the latest developments in negotiations. Britain’s Brexit transition deal has been called a betrayal, while Jacob Rees-Mogg said the government had given away too much in a ‘very unsatisfactory’ agreement. But the Sun says it won’t join in those criticising the deal. After all, the paper points out, ‘no one gets everything they want from a negotiation’. Of course, it is right to ‘sympathise’ with Scottish fisherman who will be disappointed that the EU will, for now, continue to set fishing quotas. Yet it is clear that ‘the agreement could not

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why Jeremy Corbyn’s hat matters

What did you do this weekend? It seems a significant number of Jeremy Corbyn supporters spent it talking about a hat. The claim that Newsnight photoshopped a picture of Jeremy Corbyn so that he looked ‘more Russian’ has gone viral, earning tens of thousands of shares across Facebook and Twitter. The BBC actually photoshopped Jeremy Corbyn's hat to make it look more Russian for this smear on Newsnight. Let that sink in. The BBC is being used as an anti- #Labour propaganda machine. pic.twitter.com/IFrmhy2wCk — John Clarke (@JohnClarke1960) March 16, 2018 The BBC has had to deny photoshopping Corbyn’s hat to make it look bigger, which is a strange denial

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Brexiteers smell something fishy in the transition agreement

The Brexit transition draft agreement is in – and it’s not all smooth sailing for the UK government. In a press conference, Brexit negotiators Michel Barnier and David Davis heralded the proposed terms for the implementation period as a ‘decisive step’ towards achieving an orderly Brexit. However, it’s clear that the government will have to rein in some disorderly MPs before it’s signed off by the EU27 on Friday. As proposed, the transition period will end New Year’s Eve 2020, three months earlier than expected. In terms of the pros for the UK side, the government will be able to negotiate and sign trade deals during the transition period and there is no longer a