Politics

To the disappointment of Conservative MPs and the delight of Labour politicians, Amber Rudd has resigned as Home Secretary – but the best politicians can always clutch victory from the jaws of defeat. Or at least that appears to be what Anna Soubry is trying to do. The arch-Remainer has taken to social media to lament Rudd’s passing – praising her ‘great courage and immense ability’. Soubry goes on to add that she will give her a ‘huge welcome on to our back benches’: V sorry that @AmberRuddHR has resigned. She is a woman of great courage & immense ability. Amber will be missed in many ways. We’ll give her

It’s hard not to feel a little sympathy for Amber Rudd. She was the lighting rod of the Windrush scandal, having inherited a deeply dysfunctional department from her predecessor, Theresa May. The “hostile environment” policy that led to the shameful Windrush debacle was developed under Mrs May, as was the situation where even senior Home Office officials didn’t know what going on. But as Mrs May herself said in 2004 when calling for the resignation of Labour ministers over an immigration debacle, ignorance is no excuse. Blaming others won’t cut it. Had Rudd handled herself brilliantly during this crisis, she would have survived it – perhaps even enhanced her reputation.

The fallout of the Windrush scandal has continued from the previous week, with Home Secretary Amber Rudd still in the firing line and facing calls to resign. Rudd has been criticised after telling the Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday that the Home Office did not set targets for removals of illegal migrants to the UK. However, a memorandum leaked to the Guardian states that the Home Office had actually exceeded a quota of ‘12,800 enforced returns in 2017-18’, which Rudd later apologised for not having been aware of. Conservative party chairman Brandon Lewis, who was the minister responsible for immigration at the time, took to the Andrew Marr Show

A few weeks ago, Westminster went into a frenzy over allegations in The Observer about the relationship between Vote Leave and the campaign group BeLeave. I have seen a copy of a statement that Vote Leave has sent to the Electoral Commission which they believe proves that they did not destroy evidence. Vote Leave statement: This statement concerns a serious allegation against Ms Victoria Woodcock recently made by Shahmir Sanni et al, which we have reviewed urgently and needed to respond to more immediately, alleging what was variously described as data deletion on, or removal of access permissions from, Vote leave’s ‘BeLeave’ folder on March 17th 2017. We are now

The government’s opponents were not slow, as usual, to blame today’s disappointing data on economic growth on Brexit (the IOD) or ‘austerity’ (John McDonnell) – while the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, chose to fall back on that old chestnut used by corporate spokesmen when announcing dismal results: the weather. None of these will really do as an explanation as to why GDP growth, according to the ONS, plunged from a healthy 0.4 per cent in the final quarter of last year to a miserable 0.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2018. As for Brexit, GDP figures have been shrugging it off for nearly two years – the economy even

Ken Livingstone could soon find himself booted out of Labour for good if the party ever gets its act together to deal with his suspension. So it Ken sorry? Not a bit. The former mayor of London told LBC this morning that the anti-Semitism row was a ‘complete diversion’ and insisted it wouldn’t damage the party on May 3rd. What’s more, despite still being suspended, Ken is representing Labour on the doorstep – by campaigning in his local constituency. Still, at least Ken has said he does have some regrets – but Mr S was surprised to hear these didn’t relate to his comments about Hitler. Instead Livingstone said his