Politics

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

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

‘Kiss a ginger’ day falls flat in the Commons

This week John Bercow suggested a Labour MP was in need of an ASBO after she jeered Theresa May a little too enthusiastically during PMQs. Now, the Speaker has encountered another issue with unruly Labour MPs in the Chamber. Today Chris Bryant left the Speaker lost for words when he wished Bercow a ‘happy kiss a ginger day’. Bercow had to take a break to discover what this day was about — before letting Byrant down gently: ‘This kiss a ginger activity is probably perfectly lawful but I’ve got no plans to partake in it myself. I have not the slightest idea what the honourable gentleman was suggesting so the matter had

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Watch: Andrew Neil skewers Oxford professor over hate crime claim

With the Home Secretary’s conference speech officially recorded as a ‘hate incident’ after an Oxford University physics professor complained to the police, the academic today appeared on the Daily Politics to explain just why he had spoken out. In an interview with Andrew Neil, Joshua Silver said Amber Rudd’s speech — in which she spoke of her wish to ensure foreign workers ‘were not taking jobs British workers could do’ — was ‘picking on foreigners’: AN: Why’s it picking on foreigners to suggest that British people should need to get on in life? JS: Well, she did say… there were briefings that she was going to keep lists of foreigners. AN: No actually

Ross Clark Ross Clark

If Amber Rudd doesn’t like being investigated for a ‘hate incident’, she should change the law

At last October’s Conservative party conference, Amber Rudd revealed a rather silly proposal that companies operating in the UK should be obliged to publish data on the number of foreign workers they employ. It was rightly condemned and Rudd later said that the information would not be published, only used by the government to identify areas of skills shortages among British workers. But a ‘hate incident’? That is exactly how, it transpires, the police recorded it. When you read the inevitable headline in a few months’ time that ‘hate incidents have soared’, you may just want to reflect that one of them was a speech by the Home Secretary. It turns

Steerpike Steerpike

Revealed: Nigel Farage meets with Trump’s man in Brussels

Oh dear. As Theresa May prepares for a charm offensive on her upcoming trip to meet the President-elect, there is once again reason to suggest that Nigel Farage’s help could be required in forging good UK-US relations. Mr S has been passed a snap of Farage meeting this morning with Trump’s soon-to-be man in Brussels, Professor Ted Malloch. Malloch is the favourite to become Trump’s new ambassador to the EU, and was interviewed by the President-elect’s transition team at Trump Tower earlier this month. Perhaps Farage can give May an introduction?

Steerpike Steerpike

Feeling the Brexit pinch? Jamie Oliver heads to Davos

Last week the nation was dealt some devastating news when Jamie Oliver announced that he was closing not one but six branches of his restaurant chain Jamie’s Italian. While the chef-turned-campaigner put the decision down to the ‘tough market’ after the Brexit vote, other theories have since materialised — from the restaurant’s banality to Tanya Gold’s scathing review. Yet before one begins to feel too bad for struggling Oliver post-Brexit, Mr S has reason to believe that the chef might not be feeling the pinch after all. Steerpike can reveal that Oliver is on the attendee list for… Davos. Yes, next week the chef is scheduled to join the global elite to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Theresa May, left-wing Tory

Curbs on executive pay, restrictions on foreign takeovers and workers on boards. Not Jeremy Corbyn’s plan for Britain, but ideas raised by Theresa May and put forward for discussion at her cabinet committee on the economy and industrial strategy. Not for 40 years have the Tories had a Prime Minister so firmly on the left of the party. May joined the Tories before Margaret Thatcher became leader and in many ways she represents a bridge back to the pre-Thatcher era. That is why comparisons between Britain’s two female prime ministers don’t reveal much — they come from very different traditions. Since Thatcherism took over the party, many Tories have looked

Anne Jolis

A priest at the door

It was October 2010 the night the priest came to our door. The knock startled Tim’s dullard beagle into a howl just as Tim’s mother was serving up dinner. She and her husband had flown in from New York a few weeks earlier to care for their dying son. Tim and I had moved to London the year before. Our friends — newsroom colleagues — visited sometimes, though only with advance notice. Tim’s brain tumour had severely blunted his wit. I was prone to crying jags. As a couple, we did not inspire drop-ins. Tim’s mother told us to start eating and went to answer the knock. The beagle ricocheted

Wednesday

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Mark Carney strikes a different tone on Brexit

Mark Carney made himself some enemies during the referendum. It wasn’t only his gloomy prophecies that caused trouble. His willingness to speak out in the first place was enough to anger those who thought he should keep shtum on a politically-loaded topic like Brexit. Today, though, we saw a different Carney. Gone was the gloominess, and in place of his warning that the referendum was ‘the most significant’ risk to Britain’s financial stability, came the verdict that Britain was largely out of that particular storm. He told the Treasury select committee that: ‘Having got through the night, if you will, and the day after, the scale of the immediate risks

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Jeremy Corbyn can’t beat the robot May at PMQs

‘Nice to get such a warm welcome,’ said Jeremy Corbyn as jeers and hoots greeted him at PMQs. Ironic applause, as Corbyn knows. His enemies love him and his colleagues can’t stand him. ‘And a happy new year,’ he added. He could do with one of those himself. Yesterday, even before the dawn had broken, he managed to sink his own re-launch. On Radio 4’s morning show he hinted that he might favour unlimited fines for anyone earning a penny more than himself. A few hours later, having noted that fat-cat council leaders and millionaire trade unionists had failed to endorse this policy, he dropped it and talked about pay

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Jeremy Corbyn dodges disaster but fails to inspire at PMQs

At PMQs today, Jeremy Corbyn didn’t have a disaster: there was no repeat of yesterday’s shambles. But he didn’t take full advantage of the opening he had. Yes, he went on the NHS—but he didn’t cause Theresa May as much trouble as he could have. There was no reference to the Times’ story this morning claiming that Downing Street is blaming Simon Stevens, the chief executive of the NHS. Nor did he manage to create any daylight between May and the Health Secretary over changes to the four-hour waiting target and Hunt’s warning that people turning up to A&E unnecessarily is a large part of the problem. This isn’t to

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: John Bercow scolds Labour MP for her anti-social behaviour

Although PMQs turned out to be a muted affair on the Tory benches, Labour MPs were on boisterous form when it came to the NHS. In fact, one MP was so vocal in her frustration that it led to a ticking off from the Speaker. Step forward Paula Sherriff. After Tracy Brabin asked Theresa May to do more to preserve her constituency’s A&E service, Paula Sheriff was reprimanded for jeering the Prime Minister a little too enthusiastically: ‘If you were behaving in another public place like this you would probably be subject to an anti-social behaviour order.’ It seems Bercow’s war with the SNP over their unstatesman-like behaviour has now spread

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Jeremy Corbyn’s day to forget

Jeremy Corbyn’s botched relaunch yesterday was successful in only one way: it kept the Labour leader in the headlines throughout the day. Unfortunately his various u-turns on immigration – as well as his unexpected maximum pay cap, which he also rowed back on – ensured this blanket coverage was for all the wrong reasons. And today’s newspaper editorials also make miserable reading for those hopeful that Corbyn might have managed a fresh start in 2017. It was a ‘day-long carnival of  jaw-dropping buffoonery’, says the Sun, which picks apart Corbyn’s various outings yesterday. The paper says this platform offered an opportunity for Corbyn to deal with the subject of immigration which has

Rob Crilly

Will we see a different Donald Trump at today’s press conference?

When Donald Trump steps from his golden elevator in Trump Tower to address the assembled ranks of the world’s media later today, it will be 167 days since his last press conference – the one, you’ll remember, when he encouraged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. After November’s election he did say he would announce how he planned to reconcile his business interests with holding the post of world’s most powerful man on December 15. But that was cancelled and since then the accusations, concerns and questions have simply piled up. Another bombshell came last night when reports emerged that US intelligence officials believe Russia may have collected compromising information about the President-elect. But whether sensitive American hacks

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn attacks the government for ‘disarray’ while tripping over his own policies

For a man prepared to stick to his principles over decades, no matter how unpopular they make him, Jeremy Corbyn has changed his mind a remarkable number of times today. His latest stance on freedom of movement is as follows: ‘Labour is not wedded to freedom of movement for EU citizens as a point of principle, but I don’t want that to be misinterpreted, nor do we rule it out.’ This makes the party’s infamous ‘controls on immigration’ mug from the 2015 election look like such a simple, wholesome proposition. Here is the evolution of Corbyn’s stance: Last night: Labour is not wedded to freedom of movement for EU citizens

The Spectator

Full text: Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit speech

Listen to the whole speech here: Whether you voted to Leave or to Remain, you voted for a better future for Britain. One thing is clear, the Tories cannot deliver that. So today I want to set how Labour will deliver that vision of a better Britain. This government is in disarray over Brexit. As the Prime Minister made clear herself  they didn’t plan for it before the referendum and they still don’t have a plan now. I voted and campaigned to remain and reform as many of you may know I was not uncritical of the European Union. It has many failings. Some people argued that we should have

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why isn’t Labour focusing its efforts on the NHS crisis?

Jeremy Corbyn will shortly give his speech on Labour’s position on freedom of movement, hopefully clarifying whether that is his pre-briefed position that the newspapers published this morning, or his position as set out in his Today programme interview. It was initially briefed that he was ‘not wedded’ to the idea of freedom of movement, but then said Labour would not stop any EU citizens from coming to the UK. To add to the confusion over this policy announcement which appeared to be moving the Labour party to the right on immigration, the Labour leader then did the equivalent of shouting ‘look at that massive left-wing squirrel over there!’ in

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Can Jeremy Corbyn reinvent himself as a Trot Trump?

‘Populism’ is a useless word. By definition, anyone who wins an election is more popular than his or her opponents are. According to this logic, John Major and Barack Obama must have once been ‘populists’, which does not sound right at all. When we use ‘populist’ today, we should mean something more than popular. The label covers movements of the nationalist right, which claim to speak on behalf of ‘the people’ against immigrants, cosmopolitans, and multinational institutions. Their most distinctive feature is their contempt for the checks and balances of complicated democracies. From Law and Justice’s Poland to Trump’s America, they attack judges, journalists, opposition politicians and parties as ‘enemies

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

A maximum wage: Corbyn’s stupidest idea yet

Is there nothing Jeremy Corbyn can’t screw up? This week his advisers whispered to the press that their leader was about to do a Donald, be more populist, try to connect with the man and woman in the street who might think of him as a bit stiff and aloof and stuck in the Seventies. And how does he kick off this project? By slagging off footballers, the most idolised sportspeople in Britain, cheered by vast swathes of the very people Labour no longer reaches but wishes it could. The money paid to footballers is ‘grotesque’, said Corbyn today, in his best irate vicar voice. Cue media coverage of Corbyn’s moaning

Pádraig Belton

There may be trouble ahead for Northern Ireland

It now seems obvious that Northern Ireland’s power sharing executive has fallen. Because of the way the country’s devolved government is set up, when deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness fell on his sword (or semtex) yesterday, the First Minister – Arlene Foster – goes as well. So the two-headed monster tumbles down and Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire, takes over until new elections. This is the situation we’re in now. Admittedly it isn’t quite direct rule—the Northern Ireland Assembly hasn’t gone away. But elections to it needn’t be immediate, and they probably won’t be. And more importantly, the founding architecture of the last 18 years of peace in the North—a

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Is sexism really stopping more women from becoming MPs?

The reliably irritating Women and Equalities Select Committee under its unfailingly irritating chair, Maria Miller, has come up trumps again, with a proposal for increasing the number of women MPs. The committee initiated an inquiry in the summer of 2016 into gender representation in the Commons and it has now concluded that all political parties should set out how they intend to increase the proportion of women in Parliament by 2020. If they don’t, it says the Government should set a domestic target of 45 per cent of all representatives in Parliament and local government by 2030. The goal, it says, should be backed by law setting a statutory minimum