Politics Archives

Friday

3 Feb 2017

Steerpike

Wanted: good press for Diane Abbott

As Diane Abbott continues to receive flak today for missing the Article 50 vote thanks to ‘a migraine’ (with #PrayForDiane doing the rounds among Labour MPs), the shadow home secretary is in need of some good press. Alas, with Abbott ducking questions from an ITV reporter last night, she doesn’t appear to be keen on mending press relations herself. Happily help may soon be at hand. Abbott is advertising for a communications officer. The lucky applicant must ‘be at ease in a high pressure environment and have a proven track record in press work and be able to work flexible hours’. Surely a contender for toughest job in Westminster?

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: The verdict on the Government’s Brexit White Paper

What does the Government’s Brexit White Paper – which was unveiled yesterday – actually tell us? ‘Nothing and everything’, says the Guardian, which accuses ministers of dishing up a document stuffed with ‘platitudes and empty rhetoric’. But for all the lightness of detail, the White Paper reveals a bigger truth: a ‘troubling form of politics, where ministers can pursue their interest without compromise’. The Guardian says the published document offers ‘no scrutiny’ and nothing but ‘contempt’ for Parliament. What’s also obvious, the paper says, is that Theresa May is in ‘thrall to her own headbangers’ – something made clear in the passage in the White Paper which leaves open the

Thursday

2 Feb 2017

Matt Ridley

Diary – 2 February 2017

‘A Bill to confer power on the prime minister to notify, under Article 50(2)…’. When it comes to the House of Lords, some of those trying to amend or delay the bill will be paid pensioners of the European Commission. Peers are obliged to declare any interest that ‘might be thought by a reasonable member of the public’ to influence the way they discharge their parliamentary duties — unless it is an EU pension. In 2007, a Lords subcommittee said that because their contracts oblige them to support the EU, an EC pensioner who made ‘intemperate criticism of the commission’ would have contravened their obligations under the Treaty of Rome ‘and

Steerpike

Labour MP: Diane Abbott ‘bottled it’ over Article 50 vote

Oh dear. With Diane Abbott currently off work with ‘a migraine’, the shadow home secretary is facing a growing work headache. After missing the Article 50 vote due to illness, questions have been raised over Abbott’s ability to speak at a Westminster Hall debate just three hours before falling so ill she could not vote. But surely her comrades have her back at this difficult time? Apparently not. Labour’s John Mann has taken to the airwaves to lambast Abbott for ‘bottling it’ over Brexit: ‘It’s quite extraordinary. We have some very, very ill people who turned up to Parliament to vote yesterday, who are so sick they’ve not been able

Isabel Hardman

Is the government trying to avoid scrutiny of its Brexit policy?

Is the government trying to avoid scrutiny of its Brexit policy? That’s the charge that MPs on the Labour and SNP benches are levelling at ministers today as the White Paper on leaving the European Union is published. Keir Starmer told the Commons this afternoon that he and his colleagues were being hampered in their attempts to ask decent questions and properly scrutinise the government’s approach because they had been handed the document just minutes before David Davis gave his statement on the publication. The SNP’s Stephen Gethins complained that the whole situation was a ‘mess’ and that Parliament was being mistreated. These complaints were echoed from the benches behind

Ross Clark

The Bank of England is (slowly) overcoming its Brexophobia

It has been clear for some time that the pre-referendum warnings made by Bank of England governor Mark Carney were wide of the mark. Last May, he said that a vote for Brexit would pose an ‘immediate and significant threat’ to the UK economy, increasing unemployment, hitting growth, possibly to the point of recession. Today, however, the bank effectively admits that it was still being far too gloomy about the economy even last November. It upgraded its forecast for economic growth in 2017 from 1.4 per cent (as announced in the Autumn statement) to two per cent – saying that consumer spending has been stronger than expected and that the

Steerpike

Diane Abbott gives Article 50 a miss

Last night, 47 Labour MPs rebelled against a three-line whip and voted against the triggering of Article 50. Embarrassingly for Jeremy Corbyn, three Labour whips — meant to enforce discipline — were among the rebels. But on the bright-side, he can still count on his comrades… right? Perhaps not. Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, was notably absent from the vote. Her office have since explained that she had taken ‘ill’ and so couldn’t be in the Commons to support Corbyn, her dear friend and close ally. While Mr S would never doubt Abbott’s word, Steerpike notes that Abbott spoke at a debate in Westminster Hall just three hours prior to the vote.

James Forsyth

No. 10 is learning how to deal with the Donald

Imagine if Donald Trump declared that Islam had ‘no place’ in his country, or proposed banning the burqa ‘wherever legally possible’. There wouldn’t be enough space in Trafalgar Square for all the protestors. British ministers would be forced to the Commons to make clear their disagreement with the President of the United States. And there would be millions more signatures on the petition demanding that his state visit invitation be rescinded. The Trump White House, of course, hasn’t said either of these things. They are the on-the-record positions of two heads of governments in the EU. Robert Fico, prime minister of Slovakia, has declared that Islam has no place in

Hugo Rifkind

This is not a strong government – so why isn’t the opposition opposing it?

‘For heaven’s sake, man, go!’ A week after the Brexit referendum, and that was David Cameron at the despatch box, on Jeremy Corbyn. It might be in the Tories’ interest for Corbyn to be leading the opposition, said Cameron, but it wasn’t in Britain’s, and he should push off sharpish. At the time, it sounded a lot like deflection. As in, wind your neck in, Hamface. You’re the one who just lost a referendum and your own career, so don’t go blaming it on wild-eyed Grampa Simpson over there, just because he was too busy making jam to do enough press conferences. Latterly, though, I have begun to realise that

Wednesday

1 Feb 2017

Katy Balls

Labour’s Article 50 rebels expose Corbyn’s lack of authority

The government’s Brexit bill has been given the green light by Parliament. On Wednesday evening, MPs voted in favour by 498 votes to 114 to give Theresa May the power to trigger Article 50 and begin formal Brexit talks. A separate SNP amendment to stop the bill from progressing was also defeated, by a comfortable majority of 236. The bill will now pass to the committee stage where there could be more scope for rebellion as MPs try to add amendments. While there could still be Tory rebellions down the line, it was only Ken Clarke who broke rank and voted against the government. It was a different story for opposition parties: not even the

Lloyd Evans

Jeremy Corbyn offers up another dismal showing at PMQs

Mrs May has spent the week meeting naughty presidents. Today she was made to pay for it. Parliamentarians were queuing up to scold her for missing a great opportunity to bleat, pout, whine and nag on the world stage. She’s been to America where she failed to lecture Donald Trump on his meanness to Muslims and his impatience with climate change dogma. She was also supposed to bring up his waterboarding habit and his rapacity with women. Then she went to Turkey where her haranguing of President Erdogan was insufficiently shrill. Labour MPs seem to want the PM to traverse the globe like an irascible fitness instructor, bull-horn in hand, barging into

Tom Goodenough

Sir Ivan Rogers paints a more optimistic picture of Brexit

Sir Ivan Rogers has earned himself a reputation as something of a Brexit bogeyman. Admittedly the UK’s former ambassador to the EU didn’t help matters with his pointed 1,400 resignation email in which he attacked the Prime Minister for her ‘muddled thinking’. That broadside was interpreted as a dyed-in-the-wool Europhile doing his best to be disruptive; it also resulted in the tabloids calling him ‘Ivan the terrible’. To make matters worse, Rogers – who has now retired from the civil service – was also fingered as the one to blame for David Cameron’s dismal deal he secured in the run-up to the referendum. As Katy Balls pointed out, in Tim

James Forsyth

If Corbyn couldn’t Trump Theresa at today’s PMQs, when can he?

Today should have been a good PMQs for Jeremy Corbyn. He had the chance to denounce Donald Trump and embarrass Theresa May over his actions, as Prime Minister she is—obviously—constrained in what she can say about the US president. But May had come well prepared and ended up besting Corbyn. She hit at his fundamental weakness, when she declared ‘he can lead a protest, I’m leading the country’. Perhaps, the most substantive moment of the session came when Corbyn asked for a guarantee that the NHS wouldn’t be opened up to US companies as part of a US / UK trade deal. May replied, ‘The NHS is not for sale’.

Gavin Mortimer

François Fillon’s presidential campaign may be about to unravel

François Fillon’s bid to become president of France has suffered another serious blow with more allegations of financial impropriety in today’s Le Canard Enchaîné. Last week the investigative weekly, France’s equivalent of Private Eye, claimed that Fillon’s Welsh wife, Penelope, had been paid €500,000 over eight years for fictitious employment. In today’s paper it is alleged she actually received €900,000 with further accusations that a decade ago Fillon hired two of his five children as parliamentary assistants while he was a senator, the pair of them earning 84,000 euros. The former Prime Minister romped to victory in November’s election to select a centre-right candidate to contest April’s election, and much

Douglas Murray

My pick for the pious political hypocrite of the week award

I would like to propose Labour MP Tulip Siddiq as the winner of the pious political hypocrite of the week badge for her response to President Trump’s temporary immigration halt. From today’s Guardian we learn that Ms Siddiq is one of a number of Labour MPs who have warned that the UK Prime Minister’s allegedly ‘feeble’ response to President Trump’s recent immigration order risks making UK Muslim communities feel ‘disenfranchised and disillusioned.’ Apparently the consequences of this failure could be ‘played out on our streets’ and ‘turning a blind eye to the reality of this ban we run the risk of losing the trust of an entire generation of young British Muslims.’ Now

Katy Balls

Liam Fox comes to the defence of his ‘headless chickens’

Of all the departments focussing on Brexit, it’s Liam Fox’s department that most regularly bears the brunt of unwanted publicity — whether it’s the Secretary for International Trade’s claim that UK businesses are lazy or reports of staffing issues and niche reading lists. Today in an appearance at the International Trade Select Committee, Fox tried to set the record straight. He began by requesting an apology from Gus O’Donnell, the former Cabinet secretary, who has said setting up the new department was a mistake. Given that O’Donnell wasn’t at the hearing, he wasn’t able to oblige. But Fox wasn’t done there. He accused the media of being ‘ill-informed’ about the work his department does, and

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Parliament’s ‘marathon of Brexit whingeing’

MPs will finally vote tonight on the triggering of Article 50, and for wavering Parliamentarians, the Sun has some advice. It says that yesterday’s debate was a ‘marathon of Brexit whingeing’ which saw MPs recycle ‘reheated Project Fear doom-mongering’. Instead, they should listen to their colleague Tory MP Julian Lewis, whose contribution consisted of just nine words: ‘The people have decided. I’m going to vote accordingly’. ‘That is now all it boils down to,’ the Sun says. The Daily Telegraph is more optimistic about Parliament’s contribution to the Brexit debate. It says that yesterday’s marathon session, which ended at around midnight, was one of those rare moments where a House

Tuesday

31 Jan 2017

Isabel Hardman

Brexit Bill debate: MPs are confused about their job description

The debate over the Bill allowing the government to trigger Article 50 has been surprisingly good-natured, so far, given the stakes. There have been some impressive speeches from all sides, and even some humour. We have learned very little about what the Bill entails and have been largely unsurprised by what each MP has said: Labour is in a very miserable place and shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer laboured this point with great feeling. Ken Clarke opposed the referendum, opposes leaving and isn’t going to change his mind. Nicky Morgan and Michael Gove are unlikely to consider sharing office facilities any time soon (the europhile former Education Secretary intervened on

Steerpike

Harriet Harman still Browned off

It’s tough being a woman in the Labour party. As well as having little chance of becoming party leader, it seems that those who do get close to power are often not treated with the same courtesy as their male counterparts. At least that’s what Harriet Harman thinks. Speaking at a Press Gallery lunch to promote her memoir A Woman’s Work, Labour’s former deputy leader recalled the occasions on which she had fallen victim to seemingly sexist behaviour during Gordon Brown’s premiership. After being elected deputy leader, Harman had thought she would get to sit next to the Prime Minister at Cabinet: ‘You’re elected deputy leader, amazingly — against all the

Steerpike

When Ken Clarke failed to stand up to fascism

This afternoon, Ken Clarke made a particularly lively contribution to the Article 50 debate when he announced that his party had become ‘Eurosceptic and mildly anti-immigrant’. As the Remain campaigner complained that ‘no serious’ country actually holds referendums, he claimed even Enoch Powell would be surprised by how hostile to immigration the Conservatives have now become. While the latter point will come as news to many Tories, Mr S couldn’t help but recall that the Tory grandee’s record on immigration can hardly be described as pristine. When Clarke was studying at Cambridge university in 1961, he invited Sir Oswald Mosley to address the Cambridge Tories. While Clarke hoped an appearance from the founder of the British Union of Fascists