Politics Archives

Sunday

4 Nov 2018

Sunday Roundup – Arron Banks fights back

The day’s most anticipated interview came from Arron Banks, the businessman and co-founder of the Brexit campaign group Leave.EU, who agreed to talk with Andrew Marr. Earlier in the week, the Electoral Commission announced that it was referring Banks to the National Crime Agency amid questions over the exact source of Leave.EU’s funding for the referendum campaign in 2016. One of the central allegations raised is whether an £8 million loan came through Rock Holdings, a business based in the Isle of Man, which would contravene UK law: AM: Were you the real source of that money? AB: …Of course I was. The money came from a UK registered company.

Fraser Nelson

The Tories can’t blame BBC bias for losing a Budget spin battle

The Mail on Sunday today splashes on “the most biased BBC News bulletin in history” – a reference to the Radio 4 Today programme on the morning after the Budget. I was a guest on that programme, coming in at the end, so I should be pleased to have been a part of history. But was it really so biased? I’m not so sure. The furore is around the decision by R4 news to lead on a Resolution Foundation critique about the distributional effects of the tax cuts, saying that raising the personal allowances etc helps the richest the most. A left-wing story? Yes, but it was clearly identified as

Charles Moore

The faulty logic of a ‘Norway for Now’ Brexit

The campaign ‘Norway for Now’, an idea promoted by Nick Boles, is that Britain should join the European Economic Area and EFTA, until such time as we can move further out of the EU, for example with a Canada-style free-trade deal. This is what Norway and Iceland and Liechtenstein do. The idea sounds nice as a friendly and temporary compromise. But in fact the psychology is wrong. Such arrangements were devised more as an entry chamber to full membership (which is what Norwegian elites still want) than as part of an exit strategy. The Norwegian Prime Minister is now making this point. The point of Leave is to escape the gravitational

Saturday

3 Nov 2018

James Forsyth

Brexiteers in government nervous about what’s going on in the negotiations

It is quiet out there, too quiet in the views of many Brexiteers in government. As I say in The Sun this morning, they fear that right now a deal is being done that they’ll be bounced into supporting. They worry that since last week’s Cabinet meeting, there hasn’t been any new Brexit offer put either to Cabinet or the inner Cabinet yet technical talks have resumed in Brussels. They fear that a deal will be agreed and then they’ll be faced with a choice of rejecting it and having to take the blame for no deal and the chaos that would involve or accepting the agreement with all its

Friday

2 Nov 2018

Stephen Robinson

Life after No. 10 is not what David Cameron was hoping for | 2 November 2018

It can be cruel, the way politics plays out. At the very moment George Osborne was telling the bemused staff of the London Evening Standard that his working life in politics had obscured a passionate desire to become a newspaper editor, a familiar figure could be seen in the fresh meat department of the Whole Foods supermarket almost directly underneath the paper’s Kensington newsroom. That man was David Cameron, and inevitably someone with journalistic instincts spotted him, snapped him on her phone, and tweeted it. We congratulate ourselves on the ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ nature of British politics. So it is a healthy sign that there is an informality about

Ross Clark

Have the Labour moderates forgotten how elections are won?

Labour, as we know, is a party which has fallen into the hands of a dreamy left-wing idealist who is out of touch with the public, and who has managed to push out the party’s down-to-Earth moderates – people who, like Tony Blair, understand that if Labour wants to win power it must appeal to broad swathes of Middle England. That, at least, is how it seemed until this week. But it all looks a little different after 20 backbench Labour MPs defied the whips to vote against the Chancellor’s decision to raise income tax thresholds. Jeremy Corbyn had instructed his MPs to abstain. It is astonishing to read the

Robert Peston

Theresa May is rubbing salt into the wounds of the Tory Brexit bunch

The flurry of overnight speculation that a deal had been done to guarantee post-Brexit access for the City to the EU was all a bit odd. It’s true that a few weeks ago, the Treasury over the course of a couple of days successfully negotiated some “high level principles” for what the future access relationship might be for UK-based banks and other financial institutions to the EU’s single market. But this is a million miles from a deal – which would not and could not be negotiated in its practical detail for months and even possibly years. What was broadly agreed – and as I say by the Treasury, not

Cindy Yu

The Spectator Podcast: will the EU project crumble after Merkel leaves?

Angela Merkel is stepping down but what is her legacy and can the EU project survive without her? On this week’s Spectator podcast, we also take a look at whether WhatsApp has made it harder for MPs to plot; and ask: should Brits be allowed to forage for wild mushrooms? Merkel has been Germany’s Chancellor and Europe’s de facto leader for 13 years. In this week’s cover piece, Douglas Murray argues that her departure is the end of the federalist EU project. On the podcast, Douglas is joined by Sophie Pedder, the Economist’s Paris bureau chief and Emmanuel Macron’s biographer. But Sophie isn’t convinced that Merkel’s departure is good for Macron, her natural

Thursday

1 Nov 2018

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 1 November 2018

At the Brexit-related cabinet last week — as revealed by James Forsyth in these pages — David Lidington made an intervention in support of the Prime Minister’s approach to the negotiations. He was, he said, the only person present who had been an MP at the time of ‘Black Wednesday’, when the pound fell out of the ERM on 16 September 1992. It had been so disastrous and divisive, he went on, that the government must at all costs avoid a repeat over Brexit. Many heads nodded sagely. Mr Lidington, a moderate and public-spirited man, was quite right about the pain caused to his party 26 years ago; but the

Julie Burchill

Diary – 1 November 2018

Upon discovering that Sinéad O’Connor has converted to Islam, I was about as shocked as a Yuletide shopper hearing the opening bars of Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ while picking up last-minute stocking-fillers. It had to happen, didn’t it? Douglas Murray attributes home-grown Islamic conversion to the retreat of the secular West from spiritual life — the Search For Meaning — but I don’t give the clowns that much credit. A vast amount of male Islamic conversion takes place in prison — suddenly thugs have the blessing of a higher power to torture, rape and kill — and with women I think it’s often a combination of grieving for fading physical

Steerpike

All the ministers who’ve resigned from Theresa May’s government

Another one bites the dust. Sports Minister Tracey Crouch became the latest minister to resign from the government this evening, in protest at Theresa May and Philip Hammond’s decision to delay the introduction of a £2 maximum stake on fixed-odd betting terminals. Crouch’s resignation puts her in the growing group of Conservative MPs who have resigned from Theresa May’s dwindling government since the 2017 general election – some leaving in protest, and some in disgrace. And since the number of resignations seems to keep on growing larger and larger, Mr Steerpike thought it only best to remind readers who’s departed (so far): Michael Fallon Resigned in November 2017 after a

James Kirkup

Tracey Crouch’s resignation is a big blow to the Tories

Tracey Crouch has resigned as a minister at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, over the Government’s handling of reforms to the rules around fixed-odds betting terminals. I don’t know much about the policy or the events that preceded this, but I know enough about Tracey Crouch to be confident that this is exactly what it seems to be: a minister resigning on point of principle because she could no longer defend the Government’s position on an important issue. If that sounds unusual and perhaps even a bit old-fashioned (politicians don’t do that sort of thing these days, do they?) then that’s probably because Crouch is that sort of politician –

James Forsyth

Tracey Crouch resigns over fixed odds betting delay

The Budget appeared to have landed well. Tory MPs at PMQs on Wednesday were in a notably better mood than normal; a fight with Labour over a tax cut cheered them all up. But this evening some of the sheen has come off the Budget with the resignation of the Sports Minister Tracey Crouch. Crouch has gone over the fact that the stake limit for fixed odds betting terminals is not coming in as quickly as expected. Crouch’s resignation is embarrassing for the government as the main reason that this ban, which would take the maximum stake down from £100 to £2, isn’t coming in quicker is the amount of

Tom Goodenough

Arron Banks facing police probe over Brexit campaign spending

Arron Banks has been referred to the National Crime Agency in relation to alleged wrongdoing during the referendum. The Electoral Commission said it had ‘reasonable grounds’ to suspect that Banks was not the ‘true source’ of an £8m loan made to Better for the Country, which ran Leave.EU’s campaign. It also said that the money being investigated might have come from ‘impermissible sources’. Banks’ Leave. EU campaign, as well as Liz Bilney, another senior figure in the organisation, are also now being investigated by the NCA. In a statement, the Electoral Commission’s Bob Posner, said: ‘We have reasonable grounds to suspect money given to Better for the Country came from impermissible

Rachel Cunliffe

The William Sitwell row is nothing to do with free speech

When William Sitwell fired off a rude response to a vegan journalist he probably didn’t think it would cost him his job as editor of Waitrose Food magazine. Nor is it likely that he would have anticipated his email kickstarting the latest battle in the ongoing culture war. Yet that is exactly what has happened. At first glance, the story seems clear-cut: it is surely just another clash between the outrage army of censorious, over-sensitive millennials – so-called ‘snowflakes’ – and the free speech warriors. The former seek out offence; the latter decry Sitwell’s departure as another example of ‘political correctness gone mad’. The thought police have struck again, they say,

Douglas Murray

Mutti’s last days

Whatever anyone’s views on the enterprise, there was one question always begging to be asked of the European Union: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ At an early stage it wasn’t clear to everyone. Then the purpose and direction of travel seemed agreed — under the stewardship of Angela Merkel. She was there to settle disputes, authorise bailouts, offer German help to struggling nations and protect the project as it led to ever-closer union. Whatever else can be said of it, with Merkel at the helm at least the EU appeared to have direction. Not anymore. This week — after another political drubbing for the CDU

James Forsyth

Spending Corbyn’s inheritance

There’s a spectre haunting the Tories — the spectre of 1997. Tories fear that history could be about to repeat itself. That after several years in office, they spend a parliamentary term arguing about Europe and plotting against their weak leader with the result that Labour wins the next election by a handsome margin. Back then, the Tories left Labour with a ‘golden inheritance’. John Major’s government had done the responsible thing on the economy. It had pared down the deficit, even putting VAT on domestic fuel in an attempt to help balance the books. But the party’s reward for this was its worst defeat since universal suffrage was introduced.

Martin Vander Weyer

Has Hammond saved the high street? No, but every little helps

How much did Philip Hammond’s giveaway Budget help dying town centres? Not enough, say campaigners, but let’s give the Chancellor some credit. A one-third relief in business rates for retail properties with a rateable value of less than £51,000 means an annual saving of up to £8,000 for a huge number of small businesses; pubs where people still drink beer and spirits in old-fashioned style benefit from a duty freeze that one industry body says will ‘secure upwards of 3,000 jobs’; and there’s money to help convert disused premises into homes. On the other hand, there was a £3 billion sting for the growing army of freelance ‘consultants’ and techies

Katy Balls

Losing the plot | 1 November 2018

How to explain Theresa May’s resilience? As Prime Minister, she has survived mishaps and calamities that would have finished off her predecessors. She has no shortage of rebels keen to succeed or denounce her, but all seem oddly unable to act. Why? The answer might lie in a group messaging service which seems to have disabled the ancient art of the Tory coup: WhatsApp. Tory backbenchers are so addicted to this app that these days they cannot tear themselves away from their screens. It gives them the impression of being plugged into each other’s lives, when the opposite is true. Where MPs would once have met to scheme and gossip,

Wednesday

31 Oct 2018

Rod Liddle

Why should we listen to Mike Leigh rant about Brexit?

Another well-heeled luvvee who knows better than the working class people he patronises in his dreadful films. Mike Leigh, then, in an interview from the Nonexistant, I mean Independent: Cut to Brexit,” he continues. “Some boneheads might say; ‘Hang on a minute, we’ve got the vote now and 52 per cent [voted to leave the EU]…’. But what role did the truth play in people’s decision to vote Brexit? And to what extent has real truthfulness motivated what’s gone on since, politically? I go to Cornwall quite a lot, and there were huge signs saying ‘vote leave’, and I talked to intelligent, working people [who were] saying: ‘No, we’ve got