Politics Archives

Monday

12 Jun 2017

Macron’s landslide

En Marche, a party created 14 months ago by Emmanuel Macron, is on course for a clear majority in the French elections – after the collapse of the socialist party. His party looks on course to win 70pc of the seats in the National Assembly – an astonishing outcome, one of the many election results that would have been dismissed out of hand by political experts a few months before it happened. It offers further proof that ‘Macronmania’ is taking hold of the French. The electorate returns to the polls next Sunday for the second round but it’s predicted that Macron will handsomely win the 289 seats needed for a majority in the

Sunday

11 Jun 2017

The Spectator

Full transcript: John McDonnell says Labour supports leaving single market

Labour’s shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has all but confirmed that the party is committed to leaving the single market. Here’s the full transcript of his interview with Robert Peston this morning: RP: I’m joined by the shadow chancellor, one of Jeremy Corbyn’s closest confidants. Very good to see you, John McDonnell. John, first of all, if I could just start with where you go in parliament now. On Friday morning, you were talking in pretty explicit terms about how you thought you could end up in power even without a general election. How would that work? JM: Well, we put forward the proposal which was nothing special. It was forming

The Spectator

Full transcript: Graham Brady says there is ‘no appetite’ for Tory leadership contest

Here’s the full transcript from Andrew Neil’s interview with Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 committee, on the Sunday Politics show: AN: Graham Brady, you think Mrs May should soldier on, why? GB: Well, there’s no other party that is in a position to form a government. Clearly these aren’t the circumstances that either the Prime Minister or I or any of my colleagues would have wanted to be dealing with at the moment but they are the circumstances the electorate has presented us with and I think it’s our duty to make the best of that. It’s our duty to try to offer a government as resilient as

The Spectator

Theresa May’s Cabinet reshuffle in full – Michael Gove returns to the fold

Theresa May’s Cabinet reshuffle in full: Michael Gove makes a Cabinet return as Environment Secretary; Damian Green is promoted to ‘First Secretary of State’, replaced as Work & Pensions Secretary by David Gauke, who is replaced as Chief Secretary to the Treasury by Liz Truss, formerly Justice Secretary. David Lidington replaces Truss; Andrea Leadsom is the new Leader of the House of Commons Liam Fox is reappointed as Secretary of State for International Trade; Justine Greening stays put as Education Secretary; Sajid Javid will remain Communities Secretary; Alun Cairns keeps his job as Secretary of State for Wales; Gavin Williamson remains Chief Whip; Jeremy Hunt stays put as Health Secretary; Chris Grayling stays as Transport Secretary; Priti

Katy Balls

Corbyn: I’m ready for a second election

With Theresa May currently AWOL, Jeremy Corbyn has been making the most of her absence this morning. As Tory ministers attempt a damage limitation exercise, the buoyant Labour leader appeared on the Andrew Marr show to say his party is ‘ready and able to form’ a government. Corbyn was in good spirits as he declared his party’s election result ‘incredibly good’ – even if they did fall well short of gaining power. Confident of momentum building behind his party, Corbyn said he thought there was a good chance of another election wither ‘later this year or early next year’ – concluding that this ‘might be a good thing’. He insisted his party

James Forsyth

Fallon: Cabinet have told Theresa May she has to change

Theresa May might still be in office, but she is not in power in anything like the way she was before. On the Marr Show, Michael Fallon made clear that the Cabinet had told Theresa May to drop her two chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, and that they had told her that there would have to be more collective decision making from now on. Fallon’s interview made clear that May now serves at the pleasure of the Cabinet. I suspect that as soon as they think she can be removed without prompting another election, she will be. But one thing helping May stay in Number 10 is

Philip Sime

Is the UK heading for a soft Brexit? The German press now thinks so

Senior figures in Europe have spent the last few days pondering how Theresa May’s bungled election gamble will affect the upcoming Brexit negotiations. To the surprise of many, May, who campaigned to remain in the EU, had apparently set the UK on course for a hard Brexit, which involved leaving the single market behind. There was also the famous line that: ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’. Now though, May’s botched election leaves a question mark over her Brexit strategy. These shifting political sands have not gone unnoticed on the continent, where politicians and bureaucrats are sharpening their pencils ahead of the start of Brexit negotiations. Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung today reports

Steerpike

George Osborne: Theresa May is a ‘dead woman walking’

George Osborne has been enjoying himself in the last few days – no more so than on the sofa of the Andrew Marr show this morning. The former Chancellor, who was sacked by Theresa May, revealed for the first time the PM’s parting words to him when she gave him the boot: ‘She said I needed to get to know my party better. So..’ Osborne didn’t stop there with dishing up revenge for the PM. Here’s his analysis of how long May has left in Downing Street: George Osborne says Theresa May is a “dead woman walking” — and it’s just a question of when she will gohttps://t.co/YtRxj7tGtH #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/HxDgilFpwn—

Katy Balls

The first post-election poll shows why Theresa May is staying put – for now

The Sunday papers make grim reading for Theresa May. There’s talk of a leadership challenge from Boris Johnson and – embarrassingly – some include mention of No 10 making a ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement with the DUP. Given that the DUP have since denied that this is the case (instead, talks are ongoing), it does not bode well. However, there is a small glimmer of hope for May personally in the form of the first post-election YouGov poll. While 48pc of those surveyed say she ought to resign following the disastrous result, on the question of who would make the best Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May are now tied. Incredibly,

Douglas Murray

When did British voters start rewarding anti-Semitism?

One of the interesting things about ‘diversity’ is that it allows almost anything to happen. Consider Naz Shah, the MP for Bradford West. As I have said before, there is something strange about Bradford, because the city has managed in recent years to elect representatives of three parties. These include the Labour party (Naz Shah), the Liberal Democrat party (David Ward) and the Respect party (George Galloway). Fascinatingly all seem interested in similar themes. Why might that be? But back to Naz Shah. In the last Parliament it was this Labour MP who plunged her party into crisis. The public exposure of her anti-Semitic, racist comments on social media led

Saturday

10 Jun 2017

Nick Timothy

Nick Timothy: Why I’ve resigned

Yesterday, I resigned as the Prime Minister’s adviser. Clearly, the general election result was a huge disappointment. What lay behind the result will no doubt be the subject of detailed analysis for many months. My immediate reaction, however, is this. The Conservatives won more than 13.6 million votes, which is an historically high number, and more than Tony Blair won in all three of his election victories. The reason for the disappointing result was not the absence of support for Theresa May and the Conservatives but an unexpected surge in support for Labour. One can speculate about the reasons for this, but the simple truth is that Britain is a

Steerpike

Jeremy Corbyn’s growing ambitions

Jeremy Corbyn may have lost the election, but in many peoples’ eyes he’s still the big winner. After the Labour leader surprised pollsters and pundits alike by securing over 40pc of the vote, Corbyn’s position looks more secure than ever. Over the weekend, Mr S understands Corbyn took a well-deserved break from politics and headed to his allotment to tend his vegetables. While there, an excited Corbyn chatted to fellow gardeners about the election. Buoyed by the result, Steerpike understands Corbyn suggested he could have another go at winning power come September. Let’s see what the Tories make of that…

Stephen Daisley

Labour has surrendered to Corbynism

When I heard the Tories were cutting a deal with a party of bigots and terrorist-sympathisers, I thought, ‘would a national unity government really work?’ It turns out Theresa May is tapping up the DUP rather than the Labour Party. PMQs is accused of ‘yah-boo politics’ as it is; wait till the questions are asked and answered from behind balaclavas. Arlene Foster’s party doesn’t have the extensive paramilitary history of the Progressive Unionist Party, or Sinn Fein/IRA for that matter, but while Mrs Foster has forcefully rejected violence (she and her family were victims of terrorism during the Troubles) the DUP’s past is murky to say the least. Still, Labour

Steerpike

Theresa May finally does her bit for ousted Tory MPs

So farewell, Nick and Fi. As Theresa May’s once formidable co-chiefs of staff walk out of No 10 for good following the disastrous election result, the Prime Minister has appointed Gavin Barwell as their replacement. If Barwell sounds familiar, that’s because he is the former housing minister who lost his seat in Croydon Central on Thursday. The author of ‘how to win a seat in a marginal’, Barwell will have to shelve any plans for a sequel (suggested title: ‘how to lose a marginal seat’), as he moves into No 10. Barwell’s appointment will be seen as an attempt by May to finally show some contrition and reach out to those MPs

James Forsyth

May’s two chiefs of staff quit as she tries to placate the Cabinet

Theresa May’s two chiefs of staff Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill have resigned. The pair have good claim to be the most powerful special advisers in British political history, their hold on Mrs May was even greater than that of Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell on Tony Blair. Yesterday, one Tory who knows the trio well wondered whether May would be able to function without them. But May will now have to. If Timothy and Hill had stayed, it would have prompted a leadership challenge. A growing number of Cabinet Ministers have been clear since Thursday night that the departure of her chiefs of staff was required if Mrs May

James Kirkup

In praise of Nick Timothy

First, some caveats. This article isn’t about Fiona Hill. That’s not a comment on her. It just reflects the fact that, for reasons set out here, I can’t claim to offer reasonable journalistic assessment of a friend. This is nothing to do with Nick Timothy’s personal conduct, management style or dealings with colleagues and others. It’s not my job to judge whether someone is nice or nasty. And too much is written about this stuff anyway. If we’d all paid less attention to office gossip and more to the country we live in, we might not have got the election so wrong. This isn’t about the justice or wisdom of

Philip Sime

‘From Cool Britannia to Poor Britannia’: Europe’s press ridicules Theresa May

The people with whom Theresa May will soon be negotiating over Brexit have been looking on in astonishment at her self-immolation. Here’s a selection of the media coverage on the continent. France Against all the odds, France’s new President, Emmanuel Macron, looks set to win an impressive majority in the upcoming parliamentary elections. So from chaos to stability – yet Britain has taken the reverse journey. This juxtaposition is detected by France’s press. Le Monde seeks to predict how the new formation of the House of Commons will impact the upcoming Brexit negotiations. The centre-left newspaper suggests that Theresa May’s government will be held hostage by the ‘ultra-conservative’ and ‘Europhobic’ DUP

Fraser Nelson

It’s a question of when, not if, Theresa May will resign as Prime Minister

Only one Cabinet member – Chris Grayling – had a good word to say about Theresa May and even he waited hours to say it. The silence of the others underlines the scale of trouble that the Prime Minister is in with her own party after blowing its majority in pursuit of a personal mandate. If she had won a landslide (which seemed to be there for the taking), she wanted to make it a very personal landslide, asking people to ‘vote for me’ rather than her party. As I say in my Daily Telegraph column today, the defeat must now be owned by her personally. And the silence of

James Forsyth

The Cabinet will now assert themselves

One upshot of May’s election fail is that the Cabinet will now be far more influential, as I say in The Sun this morning. They are determined to force her to listen to them more and not just rely on her two chiefs of staff. ‘She needs to realise she can’t do this all on her own’, complains one Secretary of State. ‘She needs a bit of help’. The Cabinet are brutally clear about how the Tories losing their majority is May’s fault. ‘Her limitations have been fully exposed in public’, one tells me. But May’s position is safe for now. Why? Because the Tories don’t want another election. They

Will Heaven

How the dementia tax – a ‘nasty party’ policy – lost Theresa May her majority

Pundits and pollsters have spent the last year trying to explain what the Brexit vote meant. Was it right-wing or left-wing? Was it about immigration or sovereignty? Was it a bit racist? They’ll do the same for this election – trying to pinpoint where it all went so humiliatingly wrong for Theresa May. But to me one answer, even so soon after shock result – and before we’ve been able fully to analyse the results – stands out by a mile: the dementia tax. There are five reasons, I’d argue, why it ruined Theresa May’s election campaign and may have been the key factor in destroying her parliamentary majority. 1. It was a ‘nasty