Politics

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

Saturday

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

The more voters see of Emmanuel Macron, the less they like

On Wednesday night, the two finalists in the French presidential election will meet for a head to head television debate, which will be watched by almost everyone in France. A choice between plague and cholera. This is going to be a dangerous encounter for Emmanuel Macron, and a moment of opportunity for Marine Le Pen. Her supporters are suddenly imagining they could win and have announced a deal to appoint the veteran sovereignist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan as prime minister, if she does. This remains outside of any scenario I can imagine but even as Macron leads, his legitimacy is in doubt and the more voters see, the less they like. Macron’s

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why some Tories aren’t thrilled about the prospect of a May landslide

If the polls are anywhere near right, then Theresa May will be queen of all she surveys on June the 9th. As I say in The Sun today, not since Margaret Thatcher in her pomp will a Prime Minister have been so dominant over her Cabinet. She’ll have her own, sizable majority, her own mandate and the right to implement the policies in her manifesto. This prospect, though, isn’t thrilling everyone in the Tory party. Some ministers worry about the fact that May will have such a free hand, and the direction she might take the government in. Concern has been heightened by the fact that the manifesto is being

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Capping prices to win votes is no substitute for a serious energy strategy | 29 April 2017

Is capping domestic energy prices an equitable way to help the ‘just about managing’, or an electoral gimmick with a whiff of anti-free-market ideology? When it was Ed Miliband’s idea, it was certainly the latter. Now it’s likely to be included in Theresa May’s manifesto, offering a potential £100 saving for millions of homes on ‘standard variable tariffs’, it is defended by the ever-plausible Sir Michael Fallon as a matter of ‘intervening to make markets work better’. And that, after all, is what the Prime Minister said she would do, wherever necessary, in the interests of fairness. In a regulated market, within which the consumer’s ability to choose the most

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Would Le Pen or Macron be better for Brexit?

With Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen through to the final in France, people of a conservative disposition might feel themselves spoilt for choice. You can have either the believer in free markets and open societies or the upholder of sovereignty and national identity. In both cases, the left doesn’t get a look-in. But what if it isn’t like that at all? What if Macron, far from opposing the big state, is just a more technocratic version of the usual dirigiste from ENA? What if Le Pen, far from wanting a nation’s genius expressed in its vigorous parliamentary democracy, is just a spokesman for joyless resentment, looking for handouts for

William Cash

Why the Midlands will matter on June 8th

It is no coincidence that Theresa May chose to hit the campaign trail in Wolverhampton and Dudley last weekend; both are areas where Ukip did especially well in 2015. What is emerging is that the West Midlands – particularly the Labour-held Midlands marginals – will be the key battleground in this coming election. From the creation of the Mercian kingdom by Alfred the Great, to the Battle of Bosworth and Germany’s bombing of Coventry in 1940 – not to mention the 2015 election which led to Brexit – the Midlands has provided the backdrop against which the future of our country has been shaped. The election on 8 June will be no

Friday

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Britain needs Blairite optimism – but it won’t come from Tony Blair

We all have different ways of realising we’re not as young as we were. I still remember the first time England named a cricket captain younger than me: Andrew Strauss (a man I still believe will one day serve as a Conservative parliamentarian incidentally).   Passing that milestone didn’t bother me much, but the relative youth of politicians is a bit harder to take. Put it this way: I’m 41 and the best I’ve managed to achieve professionally is to end up running a centrist think-tank. Emmanuel Macron, on course to run France as a centrist president, is 39.  Macron gets called a lot of things, but many in Britain

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Ukip deputy leader Peter Whittle chased by protesters at chaotic campaign launch

Poor old Paul Nuttall. Today was supposed to be a fresh start for Ukip as the party launched its election campaign event in the run-up to June 8. Instead, it’s descended into chaos. A group of protesters from ‘Stand up to racism’ have gatecrashed the launch event, waving banners and shouting and screaming moments before Nuttall was due to take to the his feet. The demonstrators were booted out of the room in which the event was taking place. But they refused to leave the building: meaning that a group of journalists were left trapped outside. The show has gone on anyway, with Nuttall doing his best to spell out the

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Giles Fraser’s awkward Corbyn interview

Oh dear. With few MPs in the Labour party keen to take to the airwaves and wax lyrical about the pros of their leader as PM, Jeremy Corbyn must have thought he’d got lucky when Giles Fraser appeared on BBC’s This Week to do exactly this. In an interview with Andrew Neil, the Church of England priest tried to explain why only Corbyn could offer real change. “I think he is the person that can do it…there is not anybody quite like Jeremy Corbyn, I don’t think” @giles_fraser tells @afneil #bbctw pic.twitter.com/6WYtOCPytd — BBC This Week (@bbcthisweek) April 27, 2017 AN: Where has Mr Corbyn’s brand of socialism worked? GF: Err… well

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The SNP have lost momentum on independence – and Nicola Sturgeon knows it

The result of the general election in England might be regarded as inevitable, with even Labour MPs telling constituents it’s safe to vote for them because Jeremy Corbyn is not going to become prime minister. But in Scotland, there’s a fierce contest going on between the SNP and the Tories, and this is where the focus of the election might move in the coming days. With a YouGov survey today reporting a surge in support for the Conservatives in Scotland, there was cause for cautious celebration at CCHQ. The poll says that the Tories are on course to gain seven seats in Scotland, including the constituency currently held by Angus

Thursday

Evelyn Waugh

Aspirations of a Mugwump, by Evelyn Waugh

‘Mugwumps‘ are in the news today, after Boris Johnson used the term to describe Jeremy Corbyn. In the 2 October 1959 issue of The Spectator, Evelyn Waugh also used the term, when he wrote a piece entitled ‘Aspirations of a Mugwump’:  I hope to see the Conservative Party return with a substantial majority. I have bitter memories of the Attlee-Cripps regime when the kingdom seemed to be under enemy occupation. I recognise that individually some of the Liberal candidates are more worthy than many of the Conservatives, but any advantage to them can only produce deplorable instability. I have met, seen or heard very few leading politicians; of those I know the Conservatives

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The baffling world of Labour’s election strategy

Why is it so striking that Tony Blair has said that Theresa May will be Prime Minister ‘if the polls are right’? On the surface, this appears to be a statement of the bleeding obvious, given the Tory party national poll lead isn’t exactly within the margin of error. Of course, around election time, politicians do develop the amazing ability to argue that the earth can in fact be flat, and in a normal election Blair might be focusing on talking about how Jeremy Corbyn can in fact become Prime Minister. His refusal to do that may have mildly surprised people. Of course, what the former Prime Minister is really up

Steerpike Steerpike

Boris Johnson’s sister joins the Lib Dems

Well, this is a bit awkward. The Johnson family has a long history of Conservatism. This holds true today, with Boris Johnson is the Foreign Secretary and his brother Jo is a Conservative MP. Up until now, their sister Rachel was broadly supportive of the party — voting ‘nothing but Tory’ in general elections as ‘a matter of family duty’. So, it’s slightly embarrassing for Boris that his sister has now jumped ship. Despite her brother’s big role in shaping the country’s future, the Mail on Sunday columnist has joined the Liberal Democrats. As a Remain campaigner during the referendum, Johnson is thought to have made the decision over concerns about Brexit.

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall confirms he will stand for Parliament

Paul Nuttall has just confirmed he will be standing in the upcoming election. The Ukip leader promised to be ‘leading the party into battle’ on June 8th. Where he stands, we’ll have to wait and see. Nuttall said that he would announce in the next 48 hours which seat he planned to target. In a statement, Nuttall said: ‘As the leader of the party I will be, obviously, leading the party into battle as I have done many times in the past’ Nuttall might now be saying his decision was obvious, but it hasn’t always looked that way. Earlier this week, when journalists tried to pin him down on the question

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Corbyn’s ex-spinner exposes an irreconcilably divided Labour

One of the favourite tenets of Jeremy Corbyn supporters is that their movement is persecuted by the ‘mainstream media’ and that if only there were a fair, left-wing-friendly press in this country, then the public would be flocking to JC’s hugely popular policies. This debate has trudged its way through many acres of print already, but the insight into how Corbyn’s own team dealt with the media from former Labour spinner Matt Zarb-Cousin in an interview this week is very interesting indeed. Zarb-Cousin was, like his former colleague Kevin Slocombe, respected by many lobby journalists as someone who dealt with their queries as efficiently as possible. This is never a

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

The Spectator Podcast: Europe’s new emperor

On this week’s episode of The Spectator Podcast, we discuss whether France is voting for the lesser of two evils in Emmanuel Macron, consider whether Tim Farron made a mistake by bringing God into politics, and look at how the spread of Mayism across Britain could alter the Conservative party. First, following Emmanuel Macron’s stunning victory in the first round of the French elections – taking a seemingly unassailable popularity into the run-off with Marine Le Pen – Jonathan Fenby considers, in this week’s magazine cover story, whether Macron is in fact headed for disaster. He joins the podcast along with Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, to discuss whether the 39-year-old sensation is all he seems.

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Jeremy Corbyn forgets to face the camera

Boris Johnson has stolen the show this morning by calling Jeremy Corbyn a ‘mugwump’. But the Labour leader is making a pretty miserable attempt at trying to recapture the limelight. During a campaign speech in Essex, Corbyn had a golden moment to set out Labour’s pitch to voters. The Sky News camera was rolling, with hundreds of thousands of viewers watching at home to hear what Corbyn had to say. The only problem? Corbyn started his speech with his back to the camera. Thankfully, an aide stepped in to put Jezza right before people got bored of the sight of his back. His blunder might have slightly undermined his introduction to the

Helen Nugent

Scrapping the pension triple lock would be bad news for pensioners – and the Tories

The wrangling over key policy areas in the upcoming general election has begun in earnest. If you’re already tired of the political argy-bargy, don’t worry, there’s only, ahem, six weeks to go. Stay with me though, because there’s one topic in the personal finance arena that really, really matters. The triple lock state pension guarantee. With the Prime Minister understood to be considering replacing the triple lock with a less generous double lock, and the Labour Party on record saying it will keep the triple lock until 2025, this issue goes to the heart of the parties’ attitude to pensioners. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats said in their 2015 manifesto that it should

David Butterfield

Labour is full of mugwumps – but Corbyn is not one of them

Trust Boris to dominate the headlines by reopening that most famous of books, Johnson’s Dictionary. Writing in the Sun, our effortlessly provocative Foreign Secretary swiped at Jeremy Corbyn with this colourful barb: ‘He may be a mutton-headed old mugwump, but he is probably harmless.’ Couched rather incongruously as the reflections of ‘the people’, this comment has left many laughing, but more still scratching their heads. In fact, there’s more to being a ‘mugwump’ than a throw-away jibe. The word comes from the original New Englanders, the Algonquians, for whom mugquomp meant ‘great chief’. It was a term of respect laden with connotations of nobility. But that presumably wasn’t what Boris

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Emmanuel Macron is wrong to think his election victory is a foregone conclusion

France is in a flap and Emmanuel Macron is to blame. On Sunday evening the En Marche! leader looked for all the world like a man who believed he’d already been crowned king. Bounding onto stage with a wink, a wave and a smile to his adoring supporters, after his first round victory, he then partied the night away at a Parisian bistro surrounded by the great and the good of France’s liberal elite. Marine Le Pen, meanwhile, after a brief speech to her supporters in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont, left to start plotting her second round campaign. On Monday evening she appeared on the main news programme to announce

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

There’s more to Boris’s ‘mugwump’ insult than meets the eye

Boris Johnson has entered the election campaign with a bang. The Foreign Secretary was being squirrelled away, some were saying, after a number of ministers apparently suggested to Theresa May that she should sideline Boris to avoid alienating voters. It’s clear that’s not going to be happening. Today, Boris is front and centre calling the leader of the opposition a ‘mugwump’. In the Sun, Boris said that some may think Corbyn is harmless – a ‘mutton-headed old mugwump’ – but they’d be wrong to hold that view. The po-faced will say this is proof that Johnson is up to his old tricks and we shouldn’t fall for it; shadow foreign secretary