Politics

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

Sunday

Steerpike Steerpike

Toff takeover at Tories’ ‘black-and-white’ ball

After Georgia ‘Toff’ Toffolo won I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here, the Tories have been divided on how best to utilise their celebrity supporter. A proud Conservative, Toff’s offer to share her million Instagram followers with the party was snubbed by CCHQ over concerns she was ‘too posh to win over Labour supporters’. Since then, the Made in Chelsea cast member has complained that MPs spun a trip she made to Parliament for TV work to make it look as though she had come for a meeting. Happily, Conservative MPs will soon have a chance to make amends with the reality star. Writing in her Style column, Toff says

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Amber Rudd defends civil service

Amber Rudd: ‘I have complete confidence’ in the civil service The Home Secretary has defended the civil service after recent comments made by members of her party. Brexit minister Steve Baker and backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg – now the chair of the influential European Research Group – have both criticised the institution. Baker apologised to the House of Commons on Friday for suggesting that there was significant internal pressure from civil servants to stay in the EU customs union, while Rees-Mogg accused officials who drew up a post-Brexit economic analysis of ‘fiddling the figures’. Rudd told Andrew Marr that the British civil service is the envy of the world: AM: [Do]

Steerpike Steerpike

Former civil servant claims civil service ‘impartial’ on Brexit – says problem is… Brexit

Oh dear. After a week in which senior Brexiteers accused the civil service of trying to frustrate Britain’s exit from the EU, the Sunday papers have seen the first signs of fight back. In the Observer, Andrew Turnbull, who led the civil service under Tony Blair, claims the Brexit bunch are using tactics similar to those of rightwing German nationalists between the two world wars. Now Gus O’Donnell has appeared on Peston on Sunday to dismiss accusations that the civil service is trying to thwart Brexit. Defending the ‘honesty, objectivity integrity and impartiality’ of the civil service, the former Cabinet Secretary said the problem wasn’t with his side but with… Brexit: ‘Now

Saturday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The best way to avoid a Tory split? Decisive leadership

At political Cabinet this week, the chief whip warned ministers how difficult it was to hold the Tory party together, I write in The Sun this morning. Julian Smith warned them that noises off from the Cabinet made it even more of a struggle to maintain unity. Smith is right. The Tory party is dangerously divided, a split is a real possibility. He’s also right that ministers sounding off over Brexit heighten these tensions. But what he didn’t mention is the most important thing, the need for leadership. Ministers are putting forward their views on Brexit so publicly because there isn’t a clear government position. They think everything is still

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Darkest Hour is superb Brexit propaganda

After I wrote that I would not be going to see Darkest Hour, so many people told me I should that I did. The Kino cinema in the village of Hawkhurst was packed for the afternoon showing and the youngish man in the seat next to me wept copiously. The scene in which Churchill travels by Tube is as absurd as I had heard. But one can understand the purpose of the device: here is a man who has become prime minister without a popular mandate yet has a stronger intuition of the general will than most of the high-ups who surround him. So he moves among the people —

Friday

Isabel Hardman & Katy Balls

What do Tory MPs really think about Theresa May?

It’s not a good sign when a party finishes the week with MPs making the same complaints as they did at the start. Yet that is where the Conservatives are now, with the malcontents still fretting that there is no sense of vision or authority from the leadership. One thing that has changed is that the Tory party now seems rather more noticeably split over how MPs should be behaving. There is the camp who say, either privately or publicly, that Theresa May should go because things are only going to get worse under her leadership. But then there are others who are furious with anyone agitating for a change

Steerpike Steerpike

VIDEO: Jacob Beats Mob

No one puts the Moggster in a corner. He was due to speak to the UWE Bristol Politics and International Relations Society. A bunch of hooded protesters entered the room, and started to shout. There are about a dozen of them, shouting about Brexit, some with their faces covered. The Moggster, rather than taking cover, walks towards the mob. 1) Masked thugs arrive to disrupt @Jacob_Rees_Mogg at an event in the University of the West of England in Bristol. pic.twitter.com/6Z0eCUBRGY — Peter Thompson (@P_G_Thompson) February 2, 2018 Then the scuffle @BBCNews a huge amount of (physical) violence at a Jacob Rees Mogg speech in UWE Bristol pic.twitter.com/bfaOqAVwc6 — Chloe (@chloekayex)

Rupert Darwall

The toxic politics of ‘soft Brexit’

The management principle that in static organisations, people are promoted to their level of incompetence reveals the government’s two most inept politicians to be the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Appearing at Davos last week, Philip Hammond pitched the government into its current – conceivably terminal – Brexit crisis. Thanks to his intervention, the Chancellor’s game plan is now obvious: the softest possible Brexit. Getting away with it involves a softly, softly approach. The politics of being outside the EU but ruled by the EU as a de facto Brussels protectorate require copious doses of political Temazepam. This, one would have thought, would have come naturally to

Steerpike Steerpike

Michael Portillo: Jacob Rees-Mogg offers what the public is crying out for

With doubts about Theresa May’s leadership rising, talk has turned – once again – to who might replace her. Jacob Rees-Mogg has topped this month’s ConservativeHome leadership poll of members. So, is Moggmentum what the public needs? That’s the suggestion made by Michael Portillo. Speaking on This Week, the Tory stalwart conceded that Rees-Mogg could have some of the answers: AN: Jacob Rees-Mogg is now the bookies’ favourite and indeed in some internal Tory party polling is the favourite to succeed, what do you make of that? MP: I make of it that he is now one of about five or six Tories that the public can name, and that

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Tories should imitate – not attack – Jeremy Corbyn’s land policy

Ever since Labour published its manifesto for the snap election it became clear to me that tackling Jeremy Corbyn is going to require a bit more than simply calling him a bearded Trot. This is because some of his prominent policies, while notionally quite left wing, are actually rather popular with many natural Conservative voters. Renationalising the railways and utilities, ending the automatic contracting-out of public services – you will find plenty of support from people on the right who, while generally sceptical of state intervention, feel that the current arrangements are not a free, open market which offers consumers a genuine choice. Rather they come across as a racket

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Theresa May must stop presenting Britain as the supplicant in Brexit talks

Theresa May is on her way back from China, but those hoping the Prime Minister has turned over a new leaf on her trip will be disappointed. Formal talks will soon begin on the implementation – or transition period, yet all the signs are that the Government is continuing to prevaricate on spelling out what it really wants from Brexit. Instead of setting out any kind of grand vision, the PM opts instead to take baby steps on the long road towards Britain’s departure from the EU. During her interview on the Today programme just now, May kept up this approach and again refused to spell out much in the

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Jeremy Corbyn and his followers are in denial about his past

There are three people in every conversation about Jeremy Corbyn’s grim past. I have noticed this before but renewed interest in his paid work for Iran’s Press TV confirmed it for me. First, there’s the anti-Corbynista, who points out one outrage or another. This might be Corbyn’s ‘friends’ in Hamas and Hezbollah, his inviting a hate preacher to tea on the Commons terrace, or the time he was arrested at a ‘solidarity’ demo for the Brighton bomber. These are well-documented facts and the anti-Corbynista believes, despite melancholy experience, that reason and evidence still have some purchase in current political debate.  He is quickly disabused, again, when the Corbynista interjects. He may deny the facts (‘MSM smear!’)

Thursday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 1 February 2018

A hundred years ago on Tuesday, King George V assented to the Representation of the People Act. Women got the vote for the first time. In all the commentary on this centenary, little has been said about who gave it to them, presumably because the answer — Lloyd George’s Conservative-dominated wartime coalition — does not fit the heroic narrative of liberation struggle. The Bill was passed by 385 votes to 55, with Lloyd George himself, Winston Churchill, Ramsay MacDonald and Asquith among those in favour, and Mrs May’s hero Joe Chamberlain the best known of those against. There were several reasons for the change of mind in favour of women’s

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Conservatives dump their dirty laundry on the despatch box

Well, this is going well. The leak of the government’s Brexit economic forecasts this week has led to an almighty row within the Conservative party. With Britain predicted to be worse off in all the off-the-shelf alternatives to EU membership, Remainers have claimed it as evidence that Brexit is a bad idea while Brexiteers are quick to brand it as the latest Project Fear effort. Steve Baker – a Brexit Minister – took the unusual step on Tuesday of rubbishing the government report – and, for that matter, the government’s ability to forecast anything; ‘I am not able to name an accurate forecast and I think they are always wrong and wrong

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

The Spectator Podcast: Lead or go

On this week’s episode we’re wondering whether Theresa May can weather this latest storm, speaking to a robot expert (and a literal robot), and getting the inside story of male allyship workshops. The Prime Minister’s fortunes have ebbed and flowed since her disastrous election, but a yuletide season of relative calm has been replaced by her greatest challenge yet. ‘Lead or go’: that’s what James Forsyth says in this week’s cover piece, as pressure mounts on Theresa May to cobble together something resembling an agenda. He joins the podcast along with Giles Kenningham who worked at No.10 under David Cameron. As James writes: “The Prime Minister is either unwilling or

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: It’s not too late for May to save her skin

In the wake of a doomed cabinet reshuffle, Theresa May is on the brink. The Spectator’s cover piece this week calls on the Prime Minister to lead or go, and Tory MPs are said to be close to triggering a leadership challenge, amid reports of a rising number of letters of no confidence in the PM. But it is not too late for May to save her skin, argues the Sun. After all, Theresa May has shows an ability to constantly defy her critics. This is demonstrated in her ability this week to finally come around to talking up Brexit as a ‘golden opportunity’ for Britain, says the Sun. ‘At

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Crisis of conscience

In 1989, the year Soviet communism collapsed, John O’Sullivan, Margaret Thatcher’s former speechwriter, gave the world O’Sullivan’s First Law of Politics. ‘All organisations that are not actually right wing,’ he pronounced, ‘will over time become left wing.’ No one who watched Amnesty International’s descent from austere principle to cultural relativism can deny he spoke with a little truth. Yet if you listened carefully, you also caught notes of self-satisfaction and self-regard. Subversives corrupt impartial organisations, O’Sullivan continued. They rig the system and impose their prejudices against ‘private profit, business, making money, the current organisation of society and, by extension, the Western world’. Who fought them? Who reinvigorated the West and

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Julian Smith finds Brexit diplomacy a piece of cake

Julian Smith has his work cut out as Chief Whip. As well as trying to stop Tory MPs firing off letters to 1922 Committee chairman Graham Brady, Smith must try and keep both Tory Remainers and Tory Brexiteers in line. In a bid to do this, Smith met with the European Research Group – the all-powerful Brexit wing of the Conservative party – this week to try and ease concerns that the government is about to water down the version of Brexit it is seeking. Now Jacob Rees-Mogg is chair of the ERG, the group is seen to have greater potential for trouble. So, what was his strategy? Serving cake.

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

David Lammy’s shambolic PMQs appearance should worry Corbyn

Theresa May is in China so the Westminster bunfight has been replaced by dull politics. Journalists hate dull politics. But normal people welcome a few days respite from the cocktail of gossip, malice and envy known as ‘democracy’. David Lidington took the PM’s place. Decent chap. Reliable second-eleven all-rounder. Against him was Labour’s Emily Thornberry who tried to trip him up three times. And three times he refused to be tripped. It was fun to watch. Dainty, unpredictable. Quite a change. She recalled their last despatch-box tussle in 2016 when the Tories had an opinion-poll lead of 17 points. Mr Lidington had likened Labour’s infighting to a pirate film written

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Minister resigns at the despatch box

A government minister has just dropped a clanger in the House of Lords – by resigning for missing a question. Lord Bates told peers that he was ‘ashamed’ for not being there to answer a query from Labour’s Baroness Lister. An emotional Bates told the Lords: ‘I am thoroughly ashamed at not being in my place, and shall therefore be offering my resignation to the Prime Minister…’ His announcement was greeted with cries of ‘no, no’, and Lord Lamont even did his best to try and stop Bates in his tracks. But it was too late – Bates had made up his mind and walked out of the chamber…