Politics

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

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Paul Mason fails to win an election

Oh dear. Paul Mason has spent the past few months telling anyone who will listen that Jeremy Corbyn can — and will — win an election. Discussing the Labour coup, he claimed that the ‘guardians of elite power inside the Labour party’ were so scared by Corbyn’s electability that they text each other and arranged a coup to thwart him. Alas, it now seems that Mason — too — is suffering problems in this area. His journey from Channel 4 economics editor to a fully fledged Corbynista revolutionary hit a bump in the road last night after he attempted to get elected as a branch delegate to Vauxhall Labour. He was unsuccessful in his

Boris Johnson

Brexit means Brexit and we are going to make a Titanic success of it

Thank you very much. You are perfectly right, I had prepared two speeches. As some of you may know, I do like to have two versions for these occasions. Thank you very much, George, thank you very much Fraser. What an extraordinary few months it has certainly been and there have been times where I have had to admit that, like the loyal and faithful hound, Kim, to whom George has already alluded, like him, like the faithful alsatian belonging to Michael Heseltine, there have been moments since June 23rd where I have genuinely feared. In those very grim days after June 23rd, I genuinely feared that I might be

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Ukip is missing an amazing chance

There was a comedy programme about Nigel Farage on the BBC this week, entitled Nigel Farage Gets His Life Back. Purporting to be a Swiftian satire about how Ukip’s former leader would cope with life beyond the political fray, it was, as usual, a case of the corporation sneering at a man who has a decent claim to being the most successful British politician of the modern age and, by extension, sneering at the four million or so Ukip voters and indeed the 52 per cent of the population who voted Leave. In other words, a very large proportion of the BBC’s licence payers, whom the BBC resolutely despises. All

Christopher Caldwell

What’s wrong with early voting

 Washington The outcome of America’s elections might become clear in the first minutes of vote-counting next Tuesday night. That is because Americans are as moody and fussy about voting as they are about everything else. Their elections depend on who is excited enough to show up at the polls and who is too depressed. Black voters, historically loyal to the Democrats but hard to bring to polling stations, went into paroxysms of enthusiasm over Barack Obama and in the last election voted at higher rates than white voters. Born-again Christians used to bring the Republican party victory after victory, but more recently they have decided the party doesn’t mean what

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Hell is other people’s dogs

I’ve now just about reached that delightful stage in life where you’re no longer exposed to the horrors of other people’s children. This is because my friends’ offspring are mostly either safely away at university or virtually invisible in some far-off room staring at a screen, appearing only briefly to grunt some cursory greeting as they collect their food or drink before retiring once more to their virtual teenworld. But just when I thought it was safe to go back into the water, I’ve discovered that it isn’t, actually, because my friends have started to replace their vanishing children with something much, much worse: their stupid bloody annoying dogs. Like

Wednesday

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Sir John Chilcot says Blair damaged trust in politics

Sir John Chilcot isn’t a man who deals in pithy quotes. His Iraq War inquiry report came in at two-and-a-half million words, and even the executive summary was 150 pages long. Yet Chilcot’s assessment of Tony Blair during his select committee appearance this afternoon was about as damning as he could manage. Asked whether the former PM had damaged trust in politics, Chilcot had this to say: ‘I think when a government or the leader of a government presents a case with all the powers of advocacy that he or she can command, and in doing so goes beyond what the facts of the case and the basic analysis of that can

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs Sketch: Flabby Corbyn flounders with potent weapons

Early bloopers at PMQs. The session began with Theresa May offering Jeremy Corbyn her congratulations on becoming a grandfather. A mistake. The tribute was due elsewhere. But the improvised hilarities that accompanied this blunder burned up several minutes. Corbyn chose to attack on welfare. Over the last week Labour’s sound-bite factory has supplied their leader with some decent phrases. ‘Institutional barbarity’ is their name for giving a timetable to welfare claimants. Changes to invalidity payments are called ‘imposing poverty on the most vulnerable.’ But flabby Corbyn floundered with these potent weapons and failed to deploy them effectively. A bit like his tie. The sleek crimson knot was threaded correctly but

Steerpike Steerpike

Theresa May eviscerates Craig Oliver

This time last year, George Osborne was the Chancellor of the Exchequer and tipped to be the next Prime Minister. One year on and — in the aftermath of the Brexit result — the MP for Tatton is now a backbencher. Happily, Osborne had a chance to reunite with his old Cabinet friends, aka ‘besties’ — as the host of the Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards. Like or loathe Osborne, his speech was sensational. Following a turbulent year in politics, tonight’s gongs made for some interesting acceptance speeches. While Sadiq Khan paid tribute to his mayoral rival Zac Goldsmith for helping him to achieve his large mandate, Boris Johnson

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Theresa May offers a lame defence of Louis Smith

Neither Jeremy Corbyn nor Theresa May are PMQs naturals. The jokes and the ad-libs that have become such a feature of the session don’t come easily to them. In recent weeks, Corbyn has started with a parish notice to try and win the chamber over. Today, he congratulated Labour MP Conor McGinn on the birth of his daughter. But the PM got the wrong end of the stick and congratulated Corbyn on the birth of his grandchild, cue much hilarity. But it was all very in-joke. In many ways, this was the most memorable moment of a distinctly unmemorable PMQs. Corbyn and May clashed over universal credit, but the exchange

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Watch: Theresa May’s embarrassment after PMQs grandad gaffe

Poor old Theresa May. The Prime Minister did her best to try and share some good feeling with those on the opposite benches by congratulating Jeremy Corbyn on the birth of his grandchild. Although it seemed like a rare moment of kindness at PMQs, there was a problem: Corbyn isn’t a granddad. Instead, it was Conor McGinn, the MP for St Helens North , who did have some happy news last week when his wife gave birth to a baby which the brave MP even helped to deliver. Still, Mr S is pleased to report that the PM did eventually manage to regain her composure and turn her gaffe into a jibe

Steerpike Steerpike

Craig Oliver in the firing line at All Out War launch

To the Policy Exchange for the launch of All Out War, Tim Shipman’s tome on the EU referendum. As the Sunday Times political editor welcomed ‘Bremoaners, Brexiteers, esteemed guests and members of David Cameron’s honours list’ to the launch, he spoke of his relief that there were people present who hated each other more than they hated him. As guests including Michael Gove and Stronger In’s Will Straw sipped on Brexit themed cocktails (with Bloody Michael and Jean Claude Drunker among the drinks that didn’t make the cut), Arron Banks attempted to tout his own Brexit book — the Bad Boys of Brexit — to partygoers, including Gove. Looking back on the referendum,

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Labour’s ‘thunderous hypocrisy’ on press regulation

Press regulation – something of a political hot potato – is top of the agenda once again after Culture Secretary Karen Bradley announced the government was considering ditching plans for a follow-up Leveson inquiry. It’s no surprise that this morning’s newspapers have (almost all) welcomed the news. The Sun says David Cameron left behind a press regulation ‘dog’s dinner’ for Theresa May. But the paper praises the efforts of the government to try and clear it up. It says Bradley’s announcement of a consultation on Leveson 2 is an ideal opportunity for the media to make its voice heard and put forward the case against state interference. The Sun also uses the opportunity to

Tuesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Labour goes to war with the government on press regulation

Today in Parliament, press regulation was top of the agenda. The government secured a Commons victory overturning a Lords amendment to effectively implement section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, a Leveson recommendation. The Lords passed the amendment — as part of the investigatory powers bill — last month for victims of hacking by newspapers to be protected from paying the costs of bringing their claims in the civil courts. This afternoon it was overturned — despite Labour’s best efforts to keep it  — with a majority of 37, defeated by 298 votes to 261. The result comes after Bradley was accused of a ‘cover-up of a cover-up’ over Leveson this

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Amber Rudd is right, Orgreave is best consigned to the history books

So, there will be no public inquiry into the Battle of Orgreave in 1984, and no left-wing lawyers making a fortune. Maybe Andy Burnham, who seems to have appointed himself as Shadow Minister for Ancient Grievances, would have got further had he demanded an inquiry that was less overtly political, and looked at the violence of striking miners as well as misconduct by the police, but do we really have to trawl back through all of that? No-one died at Orgreave, unlike in South Wales where taxi driver David Wilkie was killed when a concrete block was dropped on his car while taking a ‘scab’ to work. The striking miners

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Will Straw – I don’t know why I got my gong either

What did Will Straw do to deserve his gong? It’s a mystery which has baffled many – including Mr. S – ever since Straw was handed a CBE for leading the ‘Stronger In’ campaign to a resounding defeat in the referendum. Straw’s inclusion on David Cameron’s resignation honours list was labelled a ‘joke’, while others said it was a clear reward for failure. So the appearance of the head honcho of the Remain campaign at a select committee today seemed like a perfect opportunity for Straw to finally shed some light on what he did to deserve those three letters after his name. Alas, even Straw himself isn’t sure why he got the gong. When asked by Labour’s

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Tory MP compares unpaid internships to the slave trade

As the government considers a ban on unpaid internships, Theresa May has been accused of pursuing a ‘purge of the posh’. Today Alec Shelbrooke appeared on Daily Politics to put forward the case for the ban. Alas, things took a questionable turn when the Tory backbencher decided that there was an apt and fair comparison to be made between unpaid interns and… the victims of the slave trade. Yes, Shelbrooke suggested that doing a week or two’s unpaid work experience was comparable to being a victim of the slave trade. In response to arguments from the IEA’s Kate Andrews that small business and charities may not be able to afford to pay

Ed West Ed West

The new nostalgia for a pre-Brexit world

Among its many treasures, Brexit has spawned a new genre of think piece, the nostalgic ‘what has happened to the Britain I love’ lament in the Guardian. From an Irishwoman here; an Egyptian here; and a German, here. It is sad to see people on the Wrong Side of History clinging to a mythologised, imagined good old days. This must have been a very different Britain to the one I used to read about in the Guardian that was a hot-bed of racism and intolerance. Still, I’m not sure what has changed exactly; apart from the issue of hate crimes, which are hard to analyse because they are not broken down by

Steerpike Steerpike

Michael Heseltine: I strangled my mother’s dog

Oh dear. It seems Michael Heseltine ought to prepare for a visit from the RSPCA in the next week or so. The former Deputy Prime Minister has admitted to a crime, in an interview in this month’s Tatler. The 83-year-old conservative makes the confession that he strangled his mother’s pet dog, by the name of Kim. The incident occurred after Kim, an Alsatian, started biting Heseltine when the politician attempted to stroke him: ‘I went to stroke him and he started biting me. If you have a dog that turns, you just cannot risk it. So I took Kim’s collar – a short of choker chain – and pulled it tight.

Monday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Mark Carney reveals his personal Brexit plan

After days of speculation – and months of simmering tensions – over the Governor of the Bank of England’s future, Mark Carney has finally revealed his exit plan. Following a meeting with the Prime Minister, Carney announced that he will stay on as Governor of the Bank of England only until June 2019 – three months after the UK is expected to leave the European Union. In a letter to the Chancellor, Carney expressed his wish to extend his current five-year term by one year in order to ‘help contribute to securing an orderly transition to the UK’s new relationship with Europe’. While some Brexiteers will no doubt be cheering

Britain doesn’t need to bluff about Brexit

The Government’s insistence that we should not give away our hand in negotiations with the EU has backfired. It is putting us in a weak position because the primary reason for not giving away your hand is when you are bluffing. We are not bluffing. We are in a strong position and should take maximum advantage of it.  When negotiating with someone who may or may not be reasonable, there is unavoidable uncertainty. We should define the worst that can happen and prepare for it. We can’t control how our opponents behave, but we should define all the things we can control and make sure we control them. Whether or