Politics

Now that Michael Gove has returned to the backbenches, the former Justice Secretary can take heart that his new role will at least save him some awkward meetings, say for example, with the Queen. In an upcoming BBC documentary on Brexit, Nick Clegg blames Gove for the Sun’s ‘the Queen backs Brexit’ splash. Published in March, the paper reported that the Queen clashed with Nick Clegg — then Deputy Prime Minister — over Europe at a lunch in 2011 at which Her Majesty declared the EU was ‘heading in the wrong direction’. Although Gove has previously denied being behind the story — which the palace complained to Ipso about — Clegg would care to disagree. In the

When asked to fill in my nationality – and when the option’s available – I always specify ‘English’. Partly because I don’t have an ounce of Scottish or Welsh blood, but mostly because the very name ‘United Kingdom’ has lost all meaning. We are disunited. Brexit v Remain, North v South, Corbyn v Everyone. And – we are informed by those in the know – Old v Young. The Brexit vote appeared to confirm what moaning millennials have long believed: that the baby boomers had it all and squandered it on themselves, leaving the young to fight to the death for a ratty bedsit in Walthamstow. How dare the wrinklies vote

Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith have faced off in their first hustings of what has already proved to be a bitter leadership campaign. That disunity and turmoil was on display on stage in Cardiff last night. The Labour leader hit back at Smith’s dig about the ‘fractured’ state of the party by saying it was hard to preach about unity when Smith and others had ‘resigned from the shadow cabinet’. This was business as usual then. So whilst Corbyn and Smith made it clear they will never see eye to eye, what did they have to say on what they actually stand for? Whilst their clashes on stage only reveal the

It is beginning to look like a bit of a trend this year: the Conservatives get themselves into a tight spot, only for Labour to trump them quickly. Just as the Tories seemed to be descending into a bitter leadership crisis on the weekend after the referendum, half the shadow cabinet resigned. Now, just as David Cameron was being mauled from all quarters over the cronies in his resignation honours list (including from the presumably not soon-to-be Lord Hilton), Jeremy Corbyn has directed attention to himself by ennobling Shami Chakrabarti, formerly of human rights group Liberty. The appointment is embarrassing three times over. Firstly, because he said last year: ‘Labour

After Brexit, satire is well and truly dead. Now we have Boris Johnson answering questions at press conferences about how he’ll explain to Hillary’s face that he once said she looks like a nurse in a mental institution. We have an unelected prime minister who got the job largely because another woman baited her about not having children. We have Andrea Leadsom: a non-entity who is swiftly revealed to be exceedingly stupid and tactless and is then rewarded with a serious cabinet role. And we have no opposition, except Jeremy Corbyn with a leadership style entirely lacking in leadership or style. This stuff just writes itself. How can you be funny

Although Jeremy Corbyn has previously suggested that he is against the creation of new peers, the Labour leader appears to take a different approach when it comes to the chair of his anti-Semitism inquiry. After weeks of speculation that Corbyn was poised to give Shami Chakrabarti — who recently found that the party was not overrun with anti-Semitism — a peerage, today the news has been confirmed in the official resignation honours list: In a statement on the decision, Labour say they are ‘delighted’ to confirm Chakrabarti’s appointment to the House of Lords. They refrain, however, from addressing concerns that this suggests a conflict of interest. It’s particularly awkward timing given that