Politics

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

Friday

5 May 2017

L’abstention: the third option for France

This weekend, France will again go to the polls in the final round of voting. The choice is between Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron. And while the polls look very much in Macron’s favour, many fear that Le Pen could still be in with a chance. Not so much because of the votes she will receive, but rather because of the votes Macron may not. 65 percent of disappointed Mélenchon voters are claiming they will abstain, according to a recent survey. This reflects a rising trend in France, called ‘l’abstention’ – the refusal to vote. For many French voters, both options they are presented with are equally unacceptable: having to choose between

Fraser Nelson

From Glasgow to the Highlands, the Scottish Conservatives are back

When I was a reporter in the Scottish Parliament 15 years ago, the Tories had stopped being hated. They were pitied, which was worse. Voting Tory was not seen as a giant evil but a harmless English perversion – roughly in the same bracket as cross dressing, or cricket. The party looked dead, a joke even to its own staff members (to whom its support seemed to be confined). There were discussions about renaming it; Jamie McGrigor, a Tory MSP, suggested “the effing Tories” because that was how the party had become known. How different things look today. The Scottish Conservatives have more than doubled their number of council seats,

James Forsyth

These election results show the coming realignment of British politics

The local elections have given us the clearest demonstration yet of how UK politics is being realigned. The Ukip vote has collapsed and is moving in large numbers to the Tories. Combine this with the erosion of the Labour vote under Jeremy Corbyn, and places where you never thought the Tories would win are turning blue putting the Tories on course for a general election landslide. Who’d have predicted that the first winner of the Tees Valley mayoralty would be a Tory? Almost as jaw-dropping was Andy Street’s victory for the Tories in the West Midlands, where Labour have 21 out of 28 parliamentary seats. What so excites the Tories

Tom Goodenough

Andy Street’s West Midlands victory is a big blow to Corbyn

Andy Street has won the race to become the new West Midlands mayor in a huge triumph for the Conservatives. Street’s victory was narrow – by only a few thousand votes out of the half-a-million or so cast – but his success is extraordinary for the Tories on a day of sweeping wins for the party across the country. Labour are already trying to spin this election as being hard-fought from the outset. The shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said that it was ‘always going to be close’. But make no mistake: this is an embarrassment for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party. Street beat Labour’s Sion Simon on what should have been the

Ed West

The Tories have got something right – but what?

Twenty years ago this week Tony Blair came to power with a thumping majority, claiming Labour to be ‘the political arm of none other than the British people as a whole’. As a phrase it sounds mildly deranged but it wasn’t totally cut off from reality. New Labour had claimed support among a cross-section of the public, including over 60 per cent of DE voters and a clear majority of those in the C2D category. Today, the Conservatives have a 17-point lead among working-class voters, despite there being a squeeze on health and education spending, and the party offering not much in the way of optimism or charisma. What went right, then? Of

Steerpike

Caitlin Moran repents for choosing Corbyn

Labour’s dismal showing so far in the local elections was predicted by many. However, the results still appear to have come as a nasty surprise to some former Corbyn cheerleaders. Step forward Caitlin Moran. The columnist has taken to social media to apologise publicly for backing the beleaguered Labour leader: Moran then went on to claim that she had done more research into what sports bra to choose than into Corbyn’s policies: As Corbyn voters are now discovering, it’s worth keeping abreast of who you support.

Steerpike

Watch: Diane Abbott gets her figures wrong… again

Oh dear. It’s not turning out to be a great week for Diane Abbott. On Tuesday, the shadow home secretary found herself in a tight spot after she got her numbers completely wrong when trying to explain Labour’s new police policy, in an interview with LBC. With her party today suffering a disappointing result in the local elections, Abbott appeared on ITN to try and put a positive spin on the news. Alas things took a turn for the worst when Abbott was asked about the scale of Labour’s defeat — and came up short: Shadow home secretary @HackneyAbbott with yet another numbers #gaffe after she massively underestimates @labour’s local elections

James Kirkup

Where I’m from in Northumberland, the Tories don’t win – until now

The story of a council election decided by drawing straws isn’t the most remarkable thing to happen in Northumberland today, not by a long way. Pegswood. Cramlington. Morpeth. These aren’t the names of places that normally figure much in national political reporting or debate. That’s because they’re in Northumberland, or more accurately, south Northumberland, where Labour has dominated for my entire lifetime until now. The first half of that life was spent in Northumberland, and I still call the place home even though I’ve lived somewhere else for more than 20 years. I grew up in the glorious rural north of the county, but I went to school in Morpeth;

Tom Goodenough

Is the end nigh for Ukip?

Ukip is a party dwelling on its past glories rather than its future this afternoon. The party’s leader Paul Nuttall has very few crumbs of comfort from the results so far: Ukip has lost every single one of the seats it had previously held. It has, just moments ago, snatched a single seat from Labour in Lancashire. Yet even the most optimistic Kipper would struggle to put a spin on the performance so far. The line that there are still results to come through is rapidly wearing very thin. Instead, when Nuttall broke his silence earlier he talked of the party’s ‘electoral success over recent years’ and how the party had forced the

Tom Goodenough

Local elections: Labour lose control of Glasgow council for first time in 40 years

Labour’s performance in the local elections is going from bad to worse. The party has, for the first time in four decades, lost overall control of Glasgow Council. Not too long ago, the city’s council would have been a banker for Labour. Under Jeremy Corbyn, it’s a different picture. Labour needed to win 43 seats on the council to keep control. But having stood only 43 candidates in this election, they needed every single one to come through. That hasn’t happened and the party’s performance in Glasgow is likely to be the nadir in a dismal local election campaign. Labour’s pain isn’t the only story to come out of the results

Steerpike

Thornberry’s BBC gaffe: ET can’t phone home

Poor old Emily Thornberry. Labour is having a torrid time in the local elections and during her appearance on the BBC this morning, things took a turn for the worse for the shadow foreign secretary. Thornberry – who Mr S previously revealed is known as ET by Jeremy Corbyn — was there to try and defend Labour’s dire results. The only sticking point? ET could not phone home. Alas, her phone wasn’t working so she couldn’t stay in touch with Labour HQ. Thornberry spent several minutes attempting to get her mobile to work before a worried Huw Edwards stepped in to ask her what was wrong: ‘It’s not even my iPhone. I don’t

Tom Goodenough

Local elections: West Midlands win caps off a day of stunning successes for the Tories

The Tories are up 540 seats, have gained control of 11 councils and enjoyed success in the Tees Valley, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and West of England mayoral races. Conservative candidate Andy Street has won the West Midlands mayoral contest. Labour’s vote has plummeted, with the party losing 360 seats as well as control of six councils. Labour’s Steve Rotherham won in Liverpool’s mayoral contest; Andy Burnham won in Greater Manchester. Ukip has lost every seat it was defending. The party has gained one seat across the whole country – in Lancashire, from Labour. The Lib Dems have lost 24 seats but have seen their share of the national vote jump by seven per cent. The SNP are

Thursday

4 May 2017

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 4 May 2017

Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s main Brexit negotiator, tweeted on Monday: ‘Any #Brexit deal requires a strong & stable understanding of the complex issues involved. The clock is ticking — it’s time to get real.’ This was on the same day as media reports — allegedly leaked by associates of Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president — criticised Theresa May for her naivety about Brexit talks at the dinner she gave Mr Juncker last week. These tactics are intended to affect our general election. By throwing Mrs May’s campaign slogan adjectives ‘strong and stable’ back in her face, Mr Verhofstadt was goading her at the decisive moment of her political

The Spectator

The art of the deal

If elections were decided on voter enthusiasm rather than on plain numbers, Marine Le Pen would win this weekend’s battle for the French presidency. But it seems likely that Emmanuel Macron’s more numerous but less passionate supporters will prevail — more for dislike of her than admiration of him. It is when he ends up in the Elysée that his problems will start. Can a president without a party command support in the National Assembly? Who will he appoint to his government? How quickly might it unravel? Domestic woes will likely consume Macron, with foreign policy a luxury he might not be able to afford. Reports of his hostility to

Roger Scully

Why Wales decided to forgive the Tories

The recent Welsh poll showing a ten-point Conservative lead in voting intentions for the forthcoming general election (and also, though much less reported, the first ever Conservative lead in devolved voting intentions in Wales), came as a shock to many. The next Welsh poll, out next week, will tell us whether this first one was just an outlier or the more solid harbinger of an historic realignment in Welsh politics. But why should it be such a surprise that the governing party of the UK, with around a twenty-point opinion poll lead across Britain, should have a lead half that size in one particular part of Britain? The astonishment is

James Forsyth

Donald Tusk steps in to relieve Brexit tensions

After the Brexit rows of the last few days, Donald Tusk—the President of the European Council—has intervened and urged everyone to calm down. ‘These negotiations are difficult enough as they are. If we start arguing before they even begin, they will become impossible. The stakes are too high to let our emotions get out of hand. Because at stake are the daily lives and interests of millions of people on both sides of the Channel. We must keep in mind that in order to succeed, today we need discretion, moderation, mutual respect and a maximum of good will.’ Diplomatically, Tusk has chastised both sides of this dispute. He has called for

Katy Balls

The Spectator guide to the local elections

Today voters go to the polls to vote in the local elections — with the results beginning to emerge in the early hours of Friday morning. The event has been somewhat overshadowed by Theresa May’s decision to go for an early general election. However, the results will give us some indication of what to expect on June 8th. Below is a guide of what to look out for and when: 3am Welsh council results What to look out for: Any signs of the demise of Labour in Wales — this could take the shape of the Tories and/or Liberal Democrats winning seats from Welsh Labour. Conservative-held councils in England What to

James Forsyth

The West Midlands will tell us how big May will win in June

The most intriguing aspect of today’s local elections is the contest for the new West Midlands Mayoralty. In normal times, you’d have this marked down as a shoe-in for Labour—they have 21 of the region’s 28 MPs and control six of its seven local authorities. But these aren’t normal political times and the Tories have run a vigorous campaign with a strong candidate, the former John Lewis boss Andy Street. Labour, by contrast, have an underwhelming candidate, the MP turned MEP Sion Simon—whose greatest distinction is his time as a restaurant reviewer for this magazine. Labour have run a distinctly low-energy campaign in the West Midlands, relying on the local

James Kirkup

What journalists know, but can never admit: election campaigns don’t matter

I love election days. Some of that is just the simple, wondrous glee that democracy deserves but doesn’t get enough of. Really, whatever its flaws and frailties, a collectively-agreed and universally accepted set of essentially voluntary arrangements where we all get a say on hiring and firing our rulers is pretty damn glorious. To hell with cynicism: whatever you think of your local candidates or the political class as a whole, the simple act of voting is great, just great. We should remember – and say – that more often. But my enjoyment of polling day goes beyond lofty stuff like that. I’ve just emerged from 20 years as a

Nick Hilton

The Spectator Podcast: Queen of Scots

On this week’s episode, we look at the rebirth of the Scottish Conservatives, ask whether it’s helpful to call Marine Le Pen a fascist, and consider what the future holds for Britain’s opposition parties. First, in this week’s magazine, Alex Massie profiles Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, who has overseen an extraordinary regeneration for her party in the last two years. Are the Tories the Unionist force du jour in Scotland? And can they make significant gains off the SNP, in a country that has had a frosty relationship with their English siblings? Ruth joins the podcast to discuss their campaign, along with Fraser Nelson. As Alex Massie writes in his cover piece: “…the

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