Politics

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

Thursday

Nicholas Farrell

Italy’s Brexit moment

Though he is a big fan of the European Union, Barack Obama brings bad karma to it. So perhaps he should not have chosen Greece and Germany, the two countries which illustrate so poignantly why the euro is doomed, for his last foreign tour. His farewell visit is, if not a kiss of death, surely a bad omen for the EU and most immediately for one of those present in Berlin to bid him goodbye: Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, who has called an all–important referendum on constitutional reform for 4 December. If he loses, as looks ever more likely, it could cause a run on Italy’s sclerotic banks that could

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The economic consequences of Philip Hammond

What are now called ‘fiscal events’—the Budget and the Autumn Statement—have become the biggest dates in the Westminster calendar. The Chancellor lights up the landscape with political pyrotechnics. There are attempts to bribe prospective voters through tax and spending changes, a litany of pork-barrel projects designed to help individual MPs, and fiendishly complicated schemes no one expects. But with the Treasury under new management, this will all change on Wednesday. Philip Hammond is the least political Chancellor Britain has had for quite some time. The two longest-serving incumbents of recent times, George Osborne and Gordon Brown, doubled up as electoral strategists whose fiscal policies were informed, above all, by political

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

My husband’s ‘gay affair’ with Gove

A few weeks ago I discovered that while he should have been focused on the fight of his life during the referendum campaign, David Cameron was instead obsessing over whether or not his justice secretary, Michael Gove, had had an affair with my husband, Dom Cummings, campaign director of Vote Leave. The story was in the Mail on Sunday, who eked it out across two consecutive issues. On week one it kept Dom and Michael’s names under wraps (for ethical reasons, it said) but revealed the source of the thrilling bit of gossip to be an aide of Cameron’s called Gavin Williamson (now Chief Whip). Williamson had, said the MoS,

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Jeremy Corbyn flops again at PMQs

People say Corbyn’s getting better. I wonder. He seemed out of touch today. Soaring employment, falling inflation, the booming stock-market, the Trump ascendancy, the implosion of Isis, the Aleppo siege? He ignored the lot. He brought up the exiled Chagos Islanders whose right to return has been denied for decades. Having mentioned them, and enjoyed a flush of reflected sanctity, he dropped the issue entirely. Poor old Chagos. Its scattered natives are used to being abandoned by false-friend statesmen but this seemed particularly cynical. Corbyn’s main brainwave today was to deploy all his rhetorical skill, all his mastery of the political arts, to lure Mrs May into accidentally disclosing her red-lines

James Forsyth James Forsyth

PMQs: Jeremy Corbyn’s failings give Theresa May a way out

At first it looked like Jeremy Corbyn was going to go on the rights of Chagos Islanders at PMQs, but then he shifted tack to Brexit. Corbyn’s questions were quite tightly honed — using Boris Johnson’s comments in a Czech newspaper interview about Britain probably leaving the customs union to needle May. But Corbyn’s own failings give May a way out each time, she just attacks him for not being up to the job. At the end of their exchanges today, you were left with the sense that a better opposition leader could have caused May real problems today, but Corbyn simply isn’t up to it. May received a rare

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May on the SNP’s hypocrisy over Brexit

Oh dear. Although the SNP like to pride themselves on being the ‘real opposition’, they tend to struggle when on the receiving end of criticism. And so it was the case today at PMQs as Theresa May responded to a question from Angus Robertson over the government’s Brexit plans: AR: Will the Prime Minister confirm today to the country whether the UK is likely to leave the EU customs union post-Brexit, yes or no? TM: The right honourable gentleman doesn’t seem to understand that the customs union is not just a binary decision. But let’s put that aside, let’s look at what we need to do which is to get the

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Google’s commitment is good news for Britain. But it doesn’t have much to do with Brexit

Google’s decision to employ an extra 3,000 people in London is undoubtedly great news for Britain. But it’s nonsense to try and tangle the company’s plans as being all – or, indeed, anything – about Brexit. Of course, it was only a matter of time before Google’s announcement was glimpsed through the Brexit prism. Everything is these days. Some have said the new jobs promised by Google and the firm’s £1bn investment is ‘despite’ the outcome of the referendum. In their coverage of the announcement, Bloomberg said tech firms had been left wondering ‘whether they’ll still be able to hire workers from overseas…after the country leaves the bloc’. This suggested Google’s announcement was something of a

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Oxford Dictionaries is playing politics by picking ‘post-truth’ as its ‘word of the year’

The BBC was recently exposed for buying more copies of the Guardian than of any other paper. I imagine they must get through quote a pile of Guardians at Oxford Dictionaries, too. How else could they have come up with the idea of making ‘post-truth’ their word of the year? The trouble with the concept of ‘post-truth’ is that it is itself untrue. It implies that there was a golden age of scientific reason which has now passed. There wasn’t. People have always been prone to superstition, prejudice and to making emotional judgements. They still are, but if anything, scientific evidence is treated with far more reverence than it ever

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

Donald Trump’s victory shows why liberals must go back to basics

It is time to bother thinking about the tricky terms ‘liberal values’ and ‘liberalism’. ‘Liberal values’ is what unites us in Western democracies; it means a broad, vague belief in equality, human rights, the rule of law. Liberalism, on the other hand, is a political and cultural agenda. It claims to express liberal values in terms of a concrete political programme. Or let’s put it this way. There is a ‘basic liberalism’ that unites us (or almost all of us). It says that all human lives matter, that racism is bad, that people should be free to choose how to live, and so on. And there is a ‘sharp liberalism’

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Britain’s ‘dangerous’ prisons and Brexit ‘indecision’

The decision by prison staff to walkout yesterday before returning to their posts following a court ruling leads many of the newspaper editorials today. There is some sympathy for the difficult job being done by jail staff – but the papers say that officers leaving their posts isn’t the answer. Elsewhere, yesterday’s Brexit memo which suggested the government’s plan for leaving the EU is in a shambles is also a talking point in the newspapers. Here’s what the papers are saying today: The Sun says the action taken yesterday by prison staff to walkout was ‘shameful’. The paper says that it’s clear there is ‘dangerous chaos’ in Britain’s jails but ‘crippling prisons’

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Government on manoeuvres over Article 50 vote

Yesterday the BBC’s Norman Smith reported that the government have prepared a short three line bill to begin the process of leaving the EU. This is to be used in the event that they lose the Article 50 appeal and the Supreme Court insist on a Parliamentary Bill before Article 50 is triggered. I understand that the government have also been mooting the idea of holding a snap vote on an Article 50 motion ahead of the court case. Last week, the whips’ office sounded out figures in both their own party and opposition parties over how they would vote if they ran a snap vote on Article 50 — potentially as a ten minute rule. The

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

Am I the victim of a homophobic SNP hate crime?

My editor has received a letter of complaint. The SNP MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh writes: Dear Fraser, I read Douglas Murray’s blog on Friday “Where’s the proof that Donald Trump is homophobic?” with great interest. It’s fantastic to see the Spectator embracing the zeitgeist and embracing “post-truth” politics in its own right by now ignoring facts when publishing comment. I’m particularly happy to directly answer Douglas Murray’s questions, when he asked: “Where does this endlessly repeated claim that Donald Trump is so anti-gay as to make grown men cry actually originate? What is the source of the claim? Or the evidence?” The evidence is in an interview from Channel 4 News

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Falling inflation marks another nail in the coffin for Project Fear

So, another post-Brexit horror story fails to materialise. When the stock market failed to crash and the economy failed to slump, the continuing Remain campaign hit on another fear: inflation. When the CPI rose in September to one per cent, it was predicted to be merely the beginning of a trend which would see prices surge as a result of the fall in the pound. Instead, the CPI fell back slightly last month to 0.9 per cent. It may well rise again in the coming months, but it is already clear that it is going to be hard to maintain the narrative of a Brexit-inspired inflationary spiral. At 0.9 per

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Mark Carney takes issue with Theresa May at Treasury select committee

With Mark Carney stepping down from his role as governor of the Bank of England in 2019, it’s been widely reported that relations between Carney and Theresa May are strained. As James Forsyth writes in The Spectator, the Prime Minister managed to rub Carney up the wrong way with her Conservative conference speech when she appeared to criticise central banks and citizens of the world. At today’s Treasury select committee, Carney denied that May’s comments played a role in his decision to extend his contract by just 12 months. He did, however, appear to take a swipe at May over her choice words. When Andrew Tyrie — the committee chair — pointed out that May

Steerpike Steerpike

Liam Fox throws the book at civil servants

Although Theresa May is adamant that she will trigger Article 50 come what March, today’s Times splash suggests otherwise. A ‘leaked’ memo from Deloitte to the paper claims that the government is behind schedule with Brexit preparations and is heavily short-staffed — requiring another 30,000 civil servants in order to get the job done. So, what are the current batch of civil servants getting up to? Well, over in the Department for International Trade, Mr S understands that reading is high on the agenda. Word reaches Steerpike that Liam Fox has instructed his civil servants to read Rising Tides: Facing the Challenges of a New Era — a book that aims to explain ‘how to

Helen Nugent

Tax, bonds, national insurance and pensions

A slowdown in the UK economy will affect tax receipts and leave Philip Hammond with scant opportunity for giveaways at next week’s autumn statement, according to The Guardian. Publishing new forecasts for GDP growth to slow next year as the Brexit vote takes effect, the consultancy firm PwC said the Chancellor could afford some spending on big projects such as housing and roads if he changed the Government’s fiscal rules. But he would not have the money for large net tax cuts and would most likely keep tight control on spending by central and local government. Bonds The worldwide bond sell-off gathered pace yesterday as expectations that Donald Trump will unleash a massive fiscal

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: May’s ‘flawed’ plan and the ‘short-sighted’ rejection of Farage

Theresa May used her first big speech on foreign policy last night to spell out the need for globalisation to change. She adopted a softer approach than she did in her conference speech, when she went on the warpath against the liberal elite, says James Forsyth. Yet she remained clear: this year’s political upheaval shows something needs to give. It’s hard to fault that thinking, but while many would agree with the Prime Minister, does May have the answers for what this change should look like? No, says the Guardian, which slates Theresa May for having no answers to the key questions left following Donald Trump’s election victory. The paper says the Prime Minister

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

May tells business: We have got to change globalisation, to save it

Theresa May’s first big foreign policy speech as Prime Minister is a call to reform globalisation, to save it. As with her conference speech, she argues that there’ll have to be changes to the way it works if popular support for it is to be maintained. Her argument is that ‘when you refuse to accept that globalisation in its current form has left too many people behind, you’re not sowing the seeds for its growth but for its ruin.  When you fail to see that the liberal consensus that has held sway for decades has failed to maintain the consent of many people, you’re not the champion of liberalism but

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Theresa May doubles down on Farage’s diplomatic offer

Nigel Farage is once again a thorn in the Prime Minister’s side. After Downing Street dismissed the interim Ukip leader’s offer to help May forge a relationship with Donald Trump, they were left red-faced over the weekend when Farage became the first British politician to meet the president-elect since his victory. Now the Prime Minister is under pressure to rethink her approach to both Farage and Trump. Yet rather than perform a u-turn, she has issued a fresh rejection of Farage’s offer of help. At today’s lobby briefing, when asked whether May would now consider accepting Farage’s help, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said Trump had told May he looked forward to enjoying the same close relationship that Ronald Reagan and

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Philip Davies and Tristram Hunt go to war over the white working class

Once upon a time Labour was seen to be the party of the working class while the Conservatives that of the Old Etonians. However, in recent years the Labour party has been accused of losing touch with its working class voters. So, Mr S was intrigued to see Philip Davies and Tristram Hunt debate one another on the Victoria Derbyshire show. Although the pair were set to talk about Trump’s victory, it soon turned into a class war as Davies accused the Labour MP of being a member of the metropolitan elite. While Hunt claimed Trump was a ‘dangerous character’ who was ‘dangerous to trade because of his views on trade’, Davies