Politics

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

Saturday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What will be in May’s manifesto?

On Tuesday, Theresa May stood outside Downing Street and said that she was calling an early election so that she could get the ‘job done’ and take Britain out of the European Union. The Prime Minister claimed that without a snap vote, opposition parties would try to change Britain’s course because ‘the Government’s majority is so small’. But this doesn’t mean the Tories will stick with the 2015 Conservative manifesto. Both May and Philip Hammond have offered a glimpse of what old election promises they may bin in the 2017 manifesto. In an appearance in Maidenhead, May said that the government’s commitment to spending 0.7pc of national income on foreign

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Theresa May is over her first election hurdle

Theresa May is over the first hurdle of the election campaign, I say in The Sun today. There has been no public backlash to her going back on her word and opting for an early election after all. It has not done the damage to the May brand that I thought it risked. This is testament to how popular she is. In an anti-politics age, where voters are quick to think the worst of politicians, she has been allowed to change her mind. Ministers marvel at how she has got away with such a flagrant u-turn. ‘If I had tried that, I never would have heard the end of it’,

Matthew Lynn

We should jump at the chance to pay off the EU in euros

Thirty billion? Fifty billion? Eighty billion, and we have to cover the cost of Jean-Claude Juncker’s martinis for the next decades, plus pick up the dry cleaning for every member of the European Parliament. The debate over Britain’s final exit bill for leaving the EU looks set to be among the most acrimonious issues as we negotiate our departure. But hold on. The first-class brains over in Brussels have made a slip. They are demanding that all the bills be settled in euros, rather than pounds. And yet they seem to have forgotten that their currency remains uniquely vulnerable to a catastrophic collapse. In fact, Philip Hammond should take that

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Jean-Luc Mélenchon is the dark horse in the French election

The lovely Dordogne village of St Pompon that is my holiday hide-away has only 350 voters, but is a perfect predictor of presidential elections. It voted heavily for Jacques Chirac against Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002, marginally for Nicolas Sarkozy against Ségolène Royale in 2007, and 59-41 for François Hollande against Sarkozy in 2012. So I’d love to tell you who’s going to win this time on the strength of the chatter at the Good Friday market. But the only national event the locals seemed interested in was a mountain bike championship just up the road. In gentle spring sunshine, the presidential contest seemed so far away that no one

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Those who want a clear Brexit will need to make sure it is in the manifesto

Mrs May’s decision to call a snap general election is not very welcome, and I had thought she would think it too risky, but it makes sense — obviously because of Jeremy Corbyn and, a bit less obviously, because of public attitudes to her. She has brilliantly convinced people that she is a straightforward, unpolitical person who doesn’t descend to political games. This is untrue. She is, however, a person without childish vanity, celebrity hunger or media obsession. She benefits from a big cultural change, which descends from Mrs Thatcher, via all sorts of others — Angela Merkel, Ruth Davidson, Nicola Sturgeon. Women are now seen as stronger, more real

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Caption contest: Corbyn appeals to the youth

Although children can’t vote, Jeremy Corbyn today found time to visit Brentry and Henbury Children’s Centre — as he promised that a Labour government would put a stop to ‘super-sized’ school classes. Alas, this message was distracted from slightly thanks to the faces Corbyn pulled as he read Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt to the children. Captions in the comments.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Tories don’t need silly pledges to scare off Labour in this election

We are coming to the end of the first week of an election campaign that few were expecting when this week began. The parties are drawing their battle lines: the Tories are warning of a happy Vladimir Putin and a ‘coalition of chaos’ involving the SNP, Labour and the Lib Dems, while Labour is making this an anti-establishment election (though what precisely the Establishment is up to and which naughty coffee chains it involves remains vague, even for the party’s MPs promoting that message on the airwaves). The Lib Dems, meanwhile, had long worked out their pitch as the anti-Brexit party. Of course, not all Labour MPs are talking about

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Len McCluskey’s victory finally gives Corbyn something to smile about

Len McCluskey has been re-elected as General Secretary of Unite. It was something of a messy fight: his rival Gerard Coyne was suspended yesterday – we still don’t know why – and the contest was much narrower than had been expected, with McCluskey winning by just 5,000 votes. The dismal turnout of 12 per cent also suggests that many of those eligible to vote were put off by the parochial rows at the heart of this contest. McCluskey accused a ‘cabal’ of Labour figures, who he described as ‘skilled masters of the darks arts’ of trying to use the election to oust Corbyn. While Coyne suggested that the general secretary of

Jack May

Crosbyism is back, ready to bore us into voting Tory

Forget the phrases ‘long-term economic plan’ and ‘propped up by the SNP’, which came to define the 2015 election. Lynton Crosby, political mastermind and Conservative campaign director extraordinaire, has a new approach. It’s called ‘strong and stable leadership’ and its poster-girl is Theresa May. After having triggered the starting gun of the election earlier this week, the Prime Minister began her campaign with a speech in Bolton. It was pretty short, but it set the tone for the campaign over the next 50 days. ‘Strong and stable leadership,’ she said, over and over again. Expect to hear the same speech churned out throughout the campaign, with the odd news element sprinkled in for flavour, or

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Nigel Farage will always have more power outside Parliament

It’s easy to mock Nigel Farage over his decision to turn down an ‘easy win’ in Clacton or some other Westminster constituency in preference for the hard graft of the European Parliament and its excruciating regime of expenses and allowances. Easy, but quite likely wrong.  Whether or not he ever sets foot in Parliament, Farage can already claim to have changed British history. His role in the Brexit referendum result is debateable; his role in bringing about that referendum isn’t.   Just in case the story needs retelling, Farage did it by forming a connection between two issues: Europe and immigration. Until that linkage was made, Ukip was an ignorable

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Theresa May doesn’t trust enough people for a power ‘circle’. A triangle, maybe

The fact that nothing leaked about Mrs May’s snap election tells you much of what you need to know about her. It shows how iron is her discipline and how close her inner circle (so close, in fact, that it is a triangle rather than a circle). It suggests that she takes neither her cabinet nor her party into her confidence. It shows that if she wins the general election, her control of her administration will be much tighter than that of Margaret Thatcher (which was surprisingly loose) and even than that of David Cameron (which was surprisingly tight). Finally, it shows that if she loses, or gets a result

Steerpike Steerpike

The curse of May? Prime Minister loses yet another spin doctor

Theresa May’s surprise call for a snap election on Tuesday led many to praise the Prime Minister for running such a tight ship — with no leaks to the press ahead of the announcement. However, is May now paying a price for having such a small inner circle? As Charles Moore notes in this week’s Spectator, May’s inner circle is so close, in fact, that it is a triangle rather than a circle (with May’s two co-chiefs of staff and her husband Philip the only ones in the know). With only a handful of people aware of the decision in advance, it’s striking that May has lost two senior members

Helen Nugent

Government rows back on plans to raise probate fees

‘In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.’ This famous quote, attributed to Benjamin Franklin, holds as true today as it did at the time of writing in 1789. Given that versions of this sentiment date back to the early 18th century, and continue to be in use in 2017, it seems that death and taxes are two of mankind’s main preoccupations. And so it came as no surprise that a government plan to hike probate fees paid by bereaved families met with fierce opposition. Under the proposed changes, probate fees had been due to rise from £155 or £215 to up to £20,000 for some

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Pope is planning to retire, say allies – but only once he’s appointed enough liberal cardinals

Allies of Pope Francis are saying that he’s planning to follow the example of Benedict XVI and retire. But he’ll only do so once he’s appointed enough liberal cardinals to make sure that the next conclave doesn’t elected a conservative who will interpret Catholic doctrine more strictly than he does. This, at least, is what allies of the Pope have been telling colleagues – claiming that they’ve heard it from the pontiff himself. (Francis himself is a notorious chatterbox and so are some of the cardinals close to him.) The Pope, now 80, apparently wants to hold three more consistories at which he will bestow the red hat on bishops who share his vision

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Len McCluskey’s hollow victory

Len McCluskey has seen off a challenge to be elected to a third term at the helm of Unite. And what a seeing off it was. When the votes starting to come in, and reportedly showed the top two contenders neck-and-neck, McCluskey’s rival was promptly suspended. Gerard Coyne was stripped of his duties as West Midlands regional secretary – although it’s not clear what he’s supposed to have done wrong or who his accusers are. Coyne has been a thorn in the side of the McCluskey hierarchy for some time. The Guardian points out that he was given a written warning in 2016. His offence? Speaking at an event hosted by moderate Labour MPs

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Emmanuel Macron’s refusal to talk about Islamic extremism could cost him dearly

Last night, an Islamic terrorist opened fire with an assault rifle on a police van on the Champs Élysées in Paris, killing one policeman and wounding two others before he was shot dead. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack and according to the French newspaper, Le Parisien, the gunman was a 39-year-old called Karim C, also known as Abu-Yusuf al-Baljiki, who in 2003 had been sentenced to twenty years in prison for the attempted murder of three men, two of whom were policemen. At the same time as the police came under fire, Marine Le Pen was being interviewed on French television. Initially there were plans to hold another

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Jeremy Corbyn does pose a threat to the Tories

Theresa May is riding high in the polls and there’s much talk of a Tory landslide – but that doesn’t mean the Government should rest on its laurels, says the Daily Telegraph. It’s vital, the paper says, that the PM does her best to ‘create a sense of urgency among the voters’; ‘They have to understand the dangers of not coming out to support her,’ the paper adds. Of course, some might laugh at the prospect of Corbyn making it to Number 10 – yet it’s just that sense of ‘impossibility’ that the Labour leader ‘hopes to exploit’. After all, a Corbyn government ‘would make the country poorer’ – something

Thursday

Henry Jeffreys

Anti-social media

On Tuesday morning I was thinking to myself how oddly pleasant social media seemed. Then Theresa May dropped her election bomb. Immediately the posts started appearing: ‘Tory scum’ and ‘Tories launch coup’, then came the memes and I thought: I can’t take another two months of this. I’d only just tentatively returned to Twitter and Facebook following Brexit and Trump; now I find myself wanting to suspend my accounts again. I think back nostalgically to general elections of yesteryear. I vaguely remember some fellow students being pleased about Blair winning in 1997 but most of us were more excited about seeing Teenage Fanclub at Leeds Metropolitan University. The polls of

The Spectator

Barometer | 20 April 2017

Back to the Foot year This year’s election has been likened to that of 1983 when, under Michael Foot’s leadership, Labour scored its worst result since 1918. What happened? — Labour’s vote share fell 36.9% to 27.6% and their seats from 261 to 209. — The Conservatives also lost vote share, down 1.5% to 42.4%. But their seats increased from 359 to 397, giving them a majority of 140, against just 43 in 1979. — This was the first of two elections fought by the Liberal/SDP Alliance. They gained an impressive 25.4% of the vote, up 11.6% on the Liberal performance in 1979. But this translated into just 11 seats.

Andrew Marr

Diary – 20 April 2017

We are all drama queens, really, we political hacks; and so we were all thoroughly delighted by Theresa May’s Tuesday coup. I have long been arguing that we would have an election this year, and I had been beginning to feel lonely. But one big thing I got wrong: it had seemed to me in January that a Brexit election would shatter much party discipline, since the voters would be principally interested in where candidates stood on the Great Issue and both Tories and Labour were deeply divided about it. However, by framing the current contest in the way she has, May has deftly but brutally carved away the long