Politics Archives

Sunday

14 May 2017

To tax the rich, introduce a tax cut

Jeremy Corbyn wants to put up income tax only for people who earn more than £80,000 a year, he says. Anyone below that figure is safe. This reminds me of John Smith’s ‘shadow Budget’ in the 1992 general election. Smith said that the top rate of income tax would rise to 50 per cent for everyone earning more than £36,375 a year (which would be just under £72,000 today). Most people earned much less than the sum chosen, but voters decided they did not like such a clear intention to damage the higher earnings they hoped they might one day achieve. The shadow Budget was said to have lost Labour

Saturday

13 May 2017

Ross Clark

Losing here: Why have the Lib Dems stalled in the polls?

Theresa May’s return to Downing Street on the morning of 9 June will surprise no-one, but there is one thing political commentators will be left to puzzle over: just why did the Liberal Democrats do so badly? Tim Farron’s party should be big winners in this general election. If not matching the 62 seats they won in 2005 or the 57 they notched up in 2010 they should at least be going a long way to reversing the collapse they suffered in 2015 as many of their voters punished them for their role in the coalition and for Nick Clegg’s backtrack on his tuition fees pledge in particular. Conditions are

Brendan O’Neill

Labour’s plan to ban unpaid internships will do more harm than good

Nothing better sums up middle-class millennials’ sense of entitlement than their demand that they be paid for interning. ‘Paid internships now!’ has become the rallying cry of young media people and the Twitterati and now the Labour Party, too. Its throwback manifesto, leaked this week, promises to ‘ban unpaid internships’, on the basis that ‘it’s not fair for some to get a leg up when others can’t afford to’. Self-regarding youths will cheer this, as will their sad-eyed supporters in the press, but the rest of us should raise a collective eyebrow. There are many grating things about the call for paid internships. Here are just three of them. First,

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: Donald Trump’s obituary for Planet Earth

The invitation to submit an obituary for planet Earth drew a smallish but varied and heartfelt entry. The usual culprits were in the frame — asteroids, global warming, hubris, Trump, Brexit… But Basil Ransome-Davies reckons the Martians have got it in for us, which struck me as altogether plausible given how Elon Musk and co. already have their beady eyes firmly fixed on the red planet. He earns an honourable mention as do C.J. Gleed, D.A. Prince and Duncan Forbes. John Whitworth snaffles the bonus fiver and his fellow winners are rewarded with £25 apiece. John Whitworth In an obituary There’s no room for bitchery, So let’s say the earth

Friday

12 May 2017

Steerpike

Theresa May’s recycled battle bus

An eagle-eyed Twitter user has spotted something that could be a metaphor for the last 12 months of British politics. Theresa May’s 2017 general election battle bus is – wait for it – last year’s Remain bus, spray-painted with new ‘strong and stable’ slogans. It looks like the number plate checks out: 1/2 Theresa May's presidential campaign coach. Very smart. Registration number YT12 RLV. Hold on, that rings a bell! pic.twitter.com/xXlGVPxuCH — My Sweet Landlord (@MySweetLandlord) May 12, 2017 2/2 Last year it was the Vote Remain #BattleBus ! Theresa May pushing Hard Brexit on the Vote Remain bus. Says it all really. pic.twitter.com/sp42p4KfO7 — My Sweet Landlord (@MySweetLandlord) May 12,

Isabel Hardman

What politicians mean by a ‘great response’ on the doorstep

It’s that time of the year when politicians start posting pictures of groups of people smiling eerily while holding party placards and claiming that they’ve just had a ‘great response’ on the doorstep. For the uninitiated, this sounds as though the people opening their doors in each street are just thrilled to see said eerily smiling groups of campaigners striding up their garden paths. For those of us who spend election campaigns following politicians of all hues around on doorsteps, we know that a ‘great response’ is more likely to mean that only three people in a very long street were both in and disposed to opening their front doors.

The Spectator

Jeremy Corbyn’s Chatham House speech, full text

Chatham House has been at the forefront of thinking on Britain’s role in the world. So with the General Election less than a month away, it’s a great place to set out my approach: on how a Labour Government I lead will keep Britain safe, reshape relationships with partners around the world, work to strengthen the United Nations and respond to the global challenges we face in the 21st century. And I should say a warm welcome to the UN Special Representative in Somalia, Michael Keating, who is here today. On Monday, we commemorated VE Day, the anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in Europe. VE Day marked the defeat

James Kirkup

It’s time for a real Department of Housing, with a minister to match

‘I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and I intend to spend it’. That was how George W Bush put it after winning his second presidential election in 2004. He’s possibly not the best model for good governance, but the sentiment is worth pondering as Theresa May rolls on relentlessly towards victory. Mrs May will wake on June 9 with money in the bank, politically if not fiscally. She’ll have crushed and possibly split apart the Labour Party, secured her party another five years in office and stamped and stamped and stamped her personal authority on the Conservative Party. With every day that passes, there are more whispers that

Barbara Gentili

Why do the British have such terrible taste in voices?

When it comes to voices, the words of the apocryphal Times headline come to mind: ‘Fog in the Channel; Continent cut off’. It’s one sign of the deep cultural differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’, which maybe made Brexit inevitable. You might not think a taste in voices would have any connection with this cultural divide. But for me, an Italian-born and trained soprano, who speaks opera’s mother tongue, it seems blindingly obvious. It strikes me that Brits in general have very different ideas of what an operatic voice should sound like, compared to the Italians, Spanish, French, Germans and also, interestingly enough, the Americans. My American fellow students at the Royal College

Tom Goodenough

Labour’s manifesto: the newspapers’ verdict

Labour had a day to forget yesterday: the party’s leaked manifesto was plastered all over the newspapers, its leader was a no show at Labour’s poster launch and Corbyn’s car collided with a BBC cameraman. On the plus side, the party has succeeded in snatching the headlines away from the Tories. But is this wall-to-wall coverage a good thing? Here’s what the newspaper editorials are making of Labour’s manifesto: Labour’s plan for government is a ‘misguided bid to turn the clock back’, according to the FT. In its damning editorial, the paper says that its clear the opposition wants to ditch the ‘market economy’ which has ‘delivered prosperity for Britain’ for

Ross Clark

Labour’s manifesto is a fiscal fantasy land – but the Tories would be wrong to ignore it

Labour’s leaked manifesto is, predictably enough, a fiscal fantasy land with lots of spending pledges and rather few tax rises to pay for them – higher taxes for the top five per cent of earners would not necessarily earn an extra penny in revenue if they encouraged more avoidance or flight to tax havens. But does that mean it is all rubbish? Not at all. Conservatives would do well to refrain from the dismissive talk about the manifesto being a suicide note and recognise that there are some good ideas which they should emulate. No conservatives, for example, should be sneering at a promise to scrap the plan to force small

Thursday

11 May 2017

The Spectator

Barometer | 11 May 2017

God forbid Irish police investigated Stephen Fry over a complaint of blasphemy, which is no longer a criminal offence in Britain. — The last prosecution was a private case brought by Mary Whitehouse against Gay News and its editor Denis Lemon over a poem in which a Roman centurion tells of having sex with Jesus after his crucifixion. Gay News was fined £1,000 and Lemon £500; he also received a suspended jail sentence. — The last man in Britain jailed for blasphemy was Bradford trouser salesman John William Gott, who got nine months’ hard labour in 1921 for calling Jesus a circus clown. He died soon after his release. Left-leaning

Peter Jones

Corbyn vs Socrates

Jeremy Corbyn said: ‘It is the job of leadership to hold open the space for dissent, new thinking and fit-for-purpose policy… I have always believed in standing firm and in empowering others to make up their minds and come on board when they are ready.’ This is a rum definition of leadership. But then his parliamentary experience of it was nil. According to the essayist Xenophon, Socrates once crossed paths with one Euthydemus who, having read lots of books by poets and intellectuals, considered himself to be the cleverest young man of his generation and therefore fully prepared to take the lead in developing policy in the people’s Assembly. Socrates

The Spectator

Letters | 11 May 2017

It’s a Unionist revival Sir: Contrary to Alex Massie’s claims, there is no rebirth of Scottish Conservatism in Scotland (‘Queen of Scots’, 6 May). Rather, there is a strident Unionist vote from 2014 that has found its home in the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party — the latter part being the key. Mr Massie makes the error of confusing support for Unionism with support for Conservatism. It is widely acknowledged that Ruth Davidson and the Scottish Conservatives have no discernible policies or philosophy other than opposing a second independence referendum. This was clear in the recent Scottish local elections on 4 May, where their campaign was based solely on ‘sending the

George Osborne

Diary – 11 May 2017

Watching the general election from my newsroom is an out-of-body experience. I’ve been involved in the last five general elections variously as photocopy boy, parliamentary candidate, shadow minister, campaign manager and chancellor. This time I’m reporting on the election as editor of the Evening Standard. I have a lot to learn; but I have a great team to help me. There is something remarkable, magical even, about the way every day tens of thousands of words are written on everything from the implications of the French election to Arsène Wenger, to this summer’s trendiest cocktails; then laid out on pages with striking pictures and adverts; printed on a million copies;

The Spectator

No left turn

It would be easy to dismiss Jeremy Corbyn’s launch of the Labour party’s election campaign this week on the grounds that hardly anyone believes he has the slightest chance of becoming prime minister. But given that David Cameron was given a 0.5 per cent chance of winning a majority, and Donald Trump a 1 per cent chance of the presidency, it would be foolish not to take the main opposition party seriously. At the very least, Corbyn’s ideas need to be examined in order to understand why Labour finds itself in the position it does, and why no party leader to the left of Tony Blair has won a general election

Nick Cohen

The counter-revolution begins, comrades, on 12 June

Think of the Parliamentary Labour Party as a regiment ordered over the top in the First World War. The soldiers know the generals haven’t a clue. They know the battle was lost before it began. The only question in their minds is who makes it back from the slaughter. The projected casualty rates vary. Corbyn’s supporters want to justify the left continuing to cling onto the leadership by getting close to Ed Miliband’s share of the vote in 2015. If they succeed they will keep the Labour party at 30 per cent and give the Tories a majority of 60 or 70. London Labour MPs also feel that the losses

Stephen Daisley

Labour’s manifesto reveals one thing: the Left has run out of ideas

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse for Labour, Noam Chomsky goes and endorses Jeremy Corbyn. ‘If I were a voter in Britain, I would vote for him…He’s quiet, reserved, serious, he’s not a performer,’ Chomsky told the Guardian. But the more you read of Chomsky’s endorsement, the more you wonder if he was put up to it for a bet. He says that: ‘The shift in the Labour party under Blair made it a pale image of the Conservatives.’ Tony Blair, that infamous electoral dud. Chomsky is regularly cited as the world’s ‘top public intellectual’. It’s a slippery phrase. Friedrich Hayek called his ilk ‘the secondhand dealers in ideas’. I

Steerpike

John McTernan: Labour’s draft manifesto is just appalling

With Labour’s draft manifesto out in the open today, politicos and pundits are beginning to cast judgment on whether it offers an innovative set of policies that could transform Britain or if it’s really a socialist disaster just waiting to happen. Alas, Tony Blair’s former director of political operations falls into the latter category. Speaking on the Coffee House shots podcast, John McTernan has branded the draft manifesto — which promises higher tax for 80k earners, the scrapping of current strike laws and the nationalisation of the Royal Mail — another ‘suicide note’ in Labour’s history: ‘It looks like the shortest suicide note in history. Famously, the 1983 Labour manifesto

Steerpike

Watch: Corbyn’s car drives over BBC cameraman’s foot

Jeremy Corbyn’s day is going from bad to disastrous. Labour’s draft manifesto has been leaked and is splashed all over the newspapers. And the Labour leader was a no show at the party’s poster launch. So you might be forgiven for thinking that things couldn’t possibly get any worse for Corbyn. Not so. When the Labour leader arrived at the party’s manifesto meeting, his car – reportedly with Corbyn still inside – ran over a BBC cameraman’s foot. Here’s a video of the injured cameraman being tended to afterwards: This BBC cameraman has just had his leg ran over by the car Jeremy Corbyn arrived in at Labour’s manifesto signing. #GE2017 @5_News