Politics

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

Thursday

1 Jun 2017

Emily Thornberry creates chaos

Back in April, the idea of Jeremy Corbyn holding ‘transition talks’ with Sir Jeremy Heywood — the Cabinet Secretary — was enough to provoke mild amusement. But in a sign of how much things have changed with just seven days to go until polling day, Labour’s plans for government are now top of the agenda. With a YouGov poll today claiming that the Tory lead is down to a mere three points, the pair were asked whether Labour would be ready to do a coalition deal – or even try to persuade Sinn Fein MPs to attend the House of Commons in order to support them. Corbyn declined to answer these

Nick Hilton

The Spectator Podcast: General shambles

On this week’s episode we look ahead to the General Election, now just days away, and ask whether Theresa May might conceivably have blown her chances, or if Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister is still as unlikely as ever. And, for some light relief, we also be consider the role that handwriting plays in our digital society. First, the British public will be heading to the polls in just a week’s time, so we took a moment to reflect on the campaign so far. In his cover piece this week, James Forsyth decries the state of this election, saying that it has left Theresa May, particularly, in a weakened state. James joins

Julie Burchill

Did Jeremy Corbyn forget to unlock Diane Abbott’s talent?

Reading Jeremy Corbyn’s latest election document on the perennially hot potato of race, it was hard to know whether to shudder or snigger. Hearing that only Corbyn ‘can be trusted to unlock the talent of black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people’, my dirty mind was irresistibly drawn to the story told in the recent biography of the Glorious Leader of how he ‘showed off’ a naked Diane Abbott to the rest of Chess Club – sorry, his comrades in the socialist struggle – way back in the street-fighting, free-loving 1970s. According to a helpful nark in Rosa Prince’s book Comrade Corbyn: ‘One Sunday autumn morning…we were out leafleting. And for

Patrick West

Sticking up a ‘Vote Labour’ placard is an exercise in virtue signalling

To judge by the number of Labour placards outside people’s houses at the moment, you’d be forgiven for thinking the party is heading for a romping victory. Sure, you will see some ‘Vote Conservative’ placards dotted about here and there. But for the most part, putting up political posters is now predominately a left-wing pastime. This is certainly the case in the urban heartlands of England’s three big cities, London, Birmingham and Manchester, where the rare Conservative posters that have made an appearance are often defaced or torn down. Perhaps surprisingly, ‘Vote Labour’ posters are most conspicuous in the wealthier parts of our cities. In Crouch End, a prosperous part of North London, you can’t

James Kirkup

Ignore all the bluster, the Tories will still win

This is the first general election since 1997 where I have not primarily been employed as a journalist, covering the story of the campaign and its participants. Of course, I’ve still been writing about it, but from a certain distance. I miss some of the peculiar entertainments of the political circus, and some of the freaks and wild animals that provide those entertainments. But by and large, it’s rather nice to be watching things from a little way off. Especially because that distance allows me to say things like this: a lot of journalists, and a lot of politicians (especially Conservative ones) have gone stark raving mad and are talking

Steerpike

Did the BBC take David Dimbleby’s right-wing bias criticism to heart?

This week, David Dimbleby set the cat among the pigeons when he used an interview with the Radio Times to complain of right-wing media bias against Jeremy Corbyn: ‘I don’t think anyone could say that Corbyn has had a fair deal at the hands of the press, in a way that the Labour party did when it was more to the centre, but then we generally have a rightwing press.’ But has Dimbleby’s employer taken his comments a bit too literally? Mr S only asks after last night’s BBC Election Debate appeared to have such a left-wing audience that even left-wing pundits took to social media to query whether it really had

Ross Clark

‘Can Britain’s digital economy be a global leader?’

Recently, The Spectator held a roundtable discussion on the digital economy, featuring Matt Hancock, minister for digital and culture, Garrett Ilg, President EMEA, Adobe; Pete Cummings (Adobe), Vicky Ford MEP, George Freeman MP, Richard Fuller MP, Chris Green MP, Isabel Hardman (The Spectator), Charlotte Holloway (Tech UK), Stephen Metcalf MP, Valerie Mocker (Nesta), and Charlie Pickles (Reform). This is what resulted. Britain is one of the most digitally engaged countries in the world. We don’t have a Google, we don’t have Silicon Valley, but our industry is highly innovative in using technology to transform its operations. As consumers, too, we are strong participants in the digital economy. Eighty per cent

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Should the Tories be panicking?

A YouGov poll suggesting we could be heading for a hung parliament caused a furore in Westminster yesterday – but should we believe it? The Times defends the estimate in its leader this morning, saying that while it’s right to treat the poll with ‘scepticism’, it says ‘the figures are based on interviews with many thousands of people and (uses) sophisticated statistical techniques’. The results might be ‘surprising’, the paper concedes, but that’s ‘precisely why they need to be scrutinised’. Admittedly, there are a few ‘caveats’: ‘the model takes only a snapshot’ – and voters ‘can still change their minds’. But one thing is clear: ‘the direction of travel’. The

James Forsyth

Weak and wobbly

When Theresa May decided to go for an early election, she transformed the nature of her premiership. Up to that point she had been the steady hand on the tiller, righting a ship of state buffeted by the Brexit referendum. By going to the country to win her own mandate, she sought to become more than that. She wanted her own sizeable majority and, in so doing, invited comparison with the two prime ministers who have done the most to shape modern Britain: Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. She was asking to be judged against their electoral triumphs. At the start of this campaign, May looked comfortable in this company.

Chris Mullin

Corbyn for PM?

‘The news that Harry Perkins was to become prime minister went down very badly in the Athenaeum.’ Thus begins my novel A Very British Coup, written 35 years ago and, with the narrowing gap in the opinion polls, suddenly topical again. Since Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader it has been reprinted twice and, earlier this year, an e-book promotion sold 2,500 copies in a single day. The hero of my novel, Harry Perkins, is a former Sheffield steel worker who was brought to life in a subsequent TV adaptation by that wonderful actor Ray McAnally. The platform on which he was elected was more radical than Corbyn’s, although some of

Martin Vander Weyer

BA’s disaster plan failed as soon as the smoke started coming out of its servers

The science of ‘disaster recovery planning’, together with the related art of ‘crisis PR’, is a core discipline of 21st-century management, both in the corporate world and for agencies of the state. Business schools teach it; consultants sell it; hospitals role play it; the Cabinet Office runs a college in Yorkshire devoted to it; every company board worth its salt has a risk committee demanding bulletproof evidence of it. So a disaster on the scale of the computer breakdown that caused much distress to British Airways passengers last weekend is not just unusual: it is completely bizarre, and nothing said by BA chief executive Alex Cruz has come close to

Andrew Watts

Duchy original

The Cornish nationalist party Mebyon Kernow (‘sons of Cornwall’) is not contesting any seats in the general election. Its leader of 20 years, Dick Cole, said its members were ‘exhausted’ after their local election campaign — it retained four councillors at ‘County Hall’ (Cornish nationalists always put County Hall in inverted commas, to avoid the inference that the Duchy is a mere county), and were only six votes shy of getting as many seats as Labour. It did not have the resources to fight an election so soon after 2015, when all its candidates lost their deposits. You might find it less surprising to learn that Mebyon Kernow is not

Hugo Rifkind

Jeremy Corbyn’s one true virtue

Enough of all these vital, apocalyptic, existential elections. They don’t half wear you out. The Scottish referendum was vital and apocalyptic, so they said, because the wrong decision would have seen Britain crack like a plate, and Scotland spiral off into insane debt, and residual Britain fade in geopolitical importance. Or, on other side, Tory rule for a millennium, which no Scot could ever want. Hmmm. Then the 2015 election was vital and apocalyptic, too, because Ed Miliband… Ed Miliband… Hang on. What was the big problem with Ed Miliband? There definitely was one. Ah yes, his dad hated Britain. Also he was incompetent. Didn’t even know how many kitchens

Wednesday

31 May 2017

James Forsyth

Chaotic BBC debate fails to move the dial

The BBC’s seven-way election debate proved that you can’t have a proper debate with seven people in it. It was a shouty, bity affair in which no one really stood out. This meant that Theresa May pretty much got away with her decision not to turn up. Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t as good on this programme as he had been on the Sky / Channel 4 election programme on Monday night. It was also a problem for him that Caroline Lucas was delivering essentially the same argument as him, but in a more compelling way. Tim Farron, again, tried his northern funny man routine. He had some good quips; his line

The Spectator

After Theresa May’s missteps, a Corbyn victory is no longer inconceivable

On the eve of the US presidential election, experts at Princeton university decided that Donald Trump had a 1 per cent chance of being elected. Before the last general election, Populus, the opinion poll firm, gave David Cameron a 0.5 per cent chance of winning a majority. Much is made of the need to look at ‘the data’ when considering political arguments, but so often it is a wildly inaccurate guess with a decimal point at the end to give an aura of scientific specificity. So when we read that Jeremy Corbyn has just a 17 per cent chance of becoming prime minister, this does not mean that the election

Steerpike

Battle of the pollsters: Jim Messina blasts YouGov for ‘another stupid poll’

Today Westminster has been abuzz with speculation over the general election result after YouGov analysis suggested the Conservatives are on course for an electoral upset which could see them lose their majority. The YouGov team have been busy defending the numbers behind the headline, with Joe Twyman appearing on today’s Spectator’s Coffee House Shots podcast. However, despite their best efforts, some are unwilling to accept YouGov’s findings. Step forward Jim Messina. The former Obama adviser — who did the Tory’s micro-targeting campaign in 2015 and is involved again this year — has taken to social media to brand the YouGov poll ‘stupid’: Spent the day laughing at yet another stupid poll

Steerpike

Russell Brand has endorsed Labour again – and the Tories should be worried

Back in the 2015 general election, Owen Jones became the subject of much mockery thanks to a column he wrote suggesting that Tories had reason to worry after Russell Brand endorsed Labour in the election. Given that Brand went on to claimed he had actually ‘f–ked up the election’ by inviting Ed Miliband to his house, Jones’s claim failed to ring true. But is it a case of second time lucky? As the Corbynites get excited today over YouGov analysis that suggests the Tories will lose seats come June 8, Brand has come out and endorsed the Labour leader. The comedian-turned-revolutionary-turned-comedian has penned a blog for the Huffington Post backing Jeremy Corbyn in this election: ‘A Labour government

Steerpike

Will the BBC election debate prove ‘a bridge too far’ for Corbyn?

Oh dear. Although a YouGov poll out today suggests a hung Parliament is a very real possibility in this election, Mr S suspects that some Corbynites are still getting slightly ahead of themselves. With Jeremy Corbyn making a last-minute decision to take part in tonight’s debates, Paul Mason has taken to social media to praise his comrade’s decision. The former Channel-4-economics-editor-turned-revolutionary tweeted a video clip of the wartime film A Bridge Too Far. In this, Lt. General Horrocks — played by Edward Fox — briefs his XXX Corps on Operation Market Garden: ‘Now, gentlemen, I’m not saying that this will be the easiest party that we’ve ever attended, but I still wouldn’t

James Forsyth

Corbyn piles pressure on May by agreeing to BBC debate

Jeremy Corbyn has just announced that he will be doing the BBC Election debate tonight. This means that all the UK-wide party leaders will be there apart from Theresa May. Corbyn’s move is clever politics. He has little to lose, and by turning up, he’ll be able to accuse May of being both too scared to defend her record and of arrogantly taking the voters for granted. It will enable him to continue his attack on her leadership style, an attack that has more of a chance of succeeding following her social care U-turn. May being asked about why she isn’t doing #BBCDebate is the televisual equivalent of haemorrhoids for

Tom Goodenough

Listen: YouGov’s Joe Twyman defends shock election poll

Can we trust the pollsters? Bruised by Brexit and caught out by Trump, the psephologists claim they’ve finally learnt their lesson. If so, that’s a big problem for the Tories: today’s YouGov poll predicts that the party is on course for an electoral upset which could see them lose their majority. YouGov have been busy defending the numbers behind the headline this morning, and the company’s Joe Twyman has been doing just that on the Spectator’s Coffee House Shots podcast. So, given YouGov failed to get it right in 2015, why should we believe them this time? And will the pollsters end up tweaking their assumptions? Here’s Joe Twyman: ‘We are