Politics Archives

Thursday

24 Nov 2016

Zurich’s wild side

On the green edge of Zurich, where this neat and tidy city melts into neat and tidy countryside, an icon of Zurich’s hedonistic heyday has been reborn. The Atlantis Hotel reopened last December, restoring an old landmark to the city and reconnecting prim and proper Zurich with its rebellious past. If you’ve only ever been to Zurich on business, you may find it hard to think of this staid city as rebellious, but bear with me: Zurich really does have a wild side, and in the 1970s and 1980s the Atlantis was where it could be found. From Eric Clapton to Elton John, from Freddie Mercury to Frank Zappa, the

James Forsyth

Britain’s winning hand

On the morning after the European Union referendum, Britain looked like a country in crisis. The Prime Minister had resigned, Scotland’s first minister was talking about a second independence referendum and the FTSE was in free fall. In several EU capitals, there was an assumption that, when the Brexit talks began, Britain would be the new Greece: a country that could ill afford to reject any deal offered by the EU, no matter how humiliating. In the days following the vote, Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, declared that Britain had just ‘collapsed — politically, economically, monetarily and constitutionally’. Five months on, Britain is in a stronger position than Rutte

Martin Vander Weyer

Soothing mood music from Hammond and May disguises challenges ahead

Theresa May likes to give a kitten-heeled kicking to conference audiences, even when they are police officers or her own party delegates. But at the CBI gathering at Grosvenor House in London on Monday, she was out to make friends with soothing (if essentially hollow) remarks about Brexit, and promises of the lowest corporate tax rates in the G20 and an extra £2 billion a year for research and development to help the UK stay close to the forefront of technology and bioscience. Assembled fat cats may still have been irritated by her commitment to binding annual shareholder votes on executive pay, but at least she backed away from putting

Andrew Gilligan

No Khan do

Let’s try a thought experiment, shall we? If a senior adviser to my old boss, Boris Johnson, had celebrated John Smith’s heart attack, mocked Gordon Brown for talking about his dead son and referred to senior members of the Labour party as ‘scum’, how long do you think that person would have kept their job? Thankfully, however, this particular mini-Trump, the former reality TV star Amy Lamé, was appointed (as London’s ‘night czar’) by a Labour mayor, and her -targets were all Tories, so it’s fine. As, apparently, are Lamé’s years of virtue-signalling on social media for higher spending and taxes while arranging to receive her own City Hall salary

Wednesday

23 Nov 2016

James Forsyth

Philip Hammond’s productive afternoon

For most people being Foreign Secretary would be a great job, but Philip Hammond never looked like he particularly relished that role. What he has always wanted to be is Chancellor and today in his first major parliamentary event in the role he crisply set out what he thinks is wrong with the UK economy. He said that to make a success of Brexit, Britain would have to deal with its productivity gap, the housing challenge and address the regional imbalances in the economy. Cabinet colleagues say that Hammond talks more passionately about productivity than any other subject. Judging by today, he views investment in economically productive infrastructure as the

Fraser Nelson

Brexit to cut immigration by 80,000 a year – and other OBR observations

Once, journalists trawled the Red Book (ie, the Budget statement) for stories. Now, the Office for Budget Responsibilities does this for us. There will be plenty in it for Brexiteers and Remainers. The former will be delighted that the OBR pretty much trashes the main assumptions made in HM Treasury’s now-notorious dossier on jobs, recession, house prices etc. But then again the OBR estimates a Brexit effect on the deficit: £3bn this year, peaking at £15.4bn in 2018/19. This has delighted Remain campaigners who now, at long last, have ammunition to write about the costs of Brexit – especially if you add the figures together and come up with a £50-odd billion Brexit effect.

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Does peace in Syria depend on the World Cup?

Corbyn did quite well today. He got all frothed-up about the NHS and put some real oratorical venom into his closing attack. It began as an incomprehensible ‘battle of the budgets’ between the Labour leader and Mrs May. They were like a pair of drunken sailors comparing scars. The PM claims to have added a £2 bn premium to the NHS’s requested total of £8 bn. No you haven’t, said Corbyn, you cut it by £4.5 bn. The full tally of reductions, according to him, stands at £22bn. Mrs May upped the stakes and said half a trillion (£0.5 trn) was being spent on health during the lifetime of the

Steerpike

Watch: Shadow Treasury minister fails to get to grips with her brief

As Labour struggle to be relevant, Rebecca Long-Bailey — the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury — managed to secure a prime spot in the BBC’s coverage of the Autumn Statement. Alas, brains at Labour may now be wishing she’d given the interview a miss. Long-Bailey appeared flustered as Andrew Neil asked her several questions about her own party’s economic position — and how it related to the rest of the world. AN: What other government does balance the books around the western world? RLB: I think it’s difficult to pin point particular governments that have a zero per cent deficit… AN: Germany is one. Things then took a turn for

Isabel Hardman

John McDonnell’s response showed how irrelevant Labour has become

No-one envies the person whose job it is to respond for the Opposition to an economic statement that has just been made to the House of Commons. But perhaps John McDonnell’s job today was rather less terrifying given few people were seriously worrying about what he had to say. The House of Commons was rather quiet as the shadow chancellor spoke. There was no obvious organised heckling of McDonnell from the Tory benches. Previously George Osborne’s Treasury Support Group of dozens of backbenchers would arm themselves with special insults to fling at Labour to wrong-foot the frontbencher responding to an autumn statement or budget. Today those MPs didn’t seem to

Ross Clark

The government’s latest growth forecast isn’t worth the paper it’s written on

Facebook and Barack Obama have said they both want to tackle ‘fake news’ on the internet. The battle should start with government economic forecasts. Does anyone really believe the figures for economic growth up to 2020 made by the Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) and pumped out by Philip Hammond in his Autumn Statement? Growth for next year, claims the OBR, will be 1.4 per cent, down from 2.2 per cent. In 2018 it will be 1.7 per cent, followed by 2.1 per cent in 2019 and 2020 and two per cent in 2021. How very precise. And how utterly improbable. What is the point in making these forecasts when

Isabel Hardman

Philip Hammond delivers a politically placid autumn statement

Philip Hammond started his autumn statement to the House of Commons by saying his style would be rather different to George Osborne’s. Yet the Chancellor still had a rabbit to pull out of his hat at the end — albeit one designed to show he wasn’t a political meddler like previous holders of his job by saying there would no longer be two economic statements involving changes to fiscal policy ‘for the sake of it’ — and even continued Osborne’s practice of announcing money to restore a historic building. While his statement still had a clear political message about helping the ‘Jams’, telling the Commons that ‘the announcements I have

Steerpike

Diane Abbott and Tom Watson’s turf war at PMQs

It’s a big day in the Commons with the Autumn Statement. Perhaps that’s why seat tensions ran so high at PMQs among Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. After arriving in good time, Diane Abbott — dressed in a showstopping silver jacket — secured a prime seat next to the dear leader. Alas when Tom Watson arrived, Labour’s deputy leader thought that he should be the one who gets to sit next to Corbyn. The shadow home secretary was less than keen to give up her spot — leaving Watson awkwardly standing as a heated discussion ensued before everyone eventually agreed to budge up. ‘Taking a lady’s seat?! Labour really do have

Brendan O’Neill

Brexit-bashers like Blair and Branson are the real enemies of the people

Here’s a tip for judges, businessmen, peers, politicians and former PMs who don’t like being called ‘enemies of the people’: stop behaving like enemies of the people. This week it is reported that Tony Blair is polishing his toothy grin to make a comeback into British politics, potentially as thwarter, or just tamer, of the ‘catastrophe’ of Brexit. It’s also reported that Richard Branson, the Brexit-bashing billionaire, has offered ‘tens of thousands’ of pounds to a gang of the great and good who want either to reverse the result of the referendum in which us dumb plebs made such a grave error, or at least insist that a second referendum be

Tom Goodenough

The Autumn Statement as it happened

Philip Hammond offered up few surprises in his Autumn Statement. As predicted, he said the minimum wage will go up (slightly), fuel duty will be frozen, letting agency fees will be banned and George Osborne’s welfare reforms will be partly softened, with the ‘taper rate’ for Universal Credit slowed down. But he did save room for one rabbit in the hat: this year’s Autumn Statement will be the last, the Chancellor announced. Instead, from 2018 there will be a ‘Spring Statement, Hammond said – and the main budget will take place in the Autumn. It was also revealed that the OBR’s updated forecast for next year suggests Britain’s economy will grow by 1.4

Tuesday

22 Nov 2016

Steerpike

May and Hammond’s chequered history

Ahead of tomorrow’s Autumn Statement, speculation has been growing about what policies the government have up their sleeves. However, another thing to look out for is strained relations between the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. Speculation has been growing in Westminster for some time that Theresa May and Philip Hammond don’t particularly see eye-to-eye. So, with that in mind, Mr S was intrigued to read an article by Rachel Sylvester in today’s Times. In a piece titled ‘our control-freak PM has met her match’, Sylvester looks at relations between the pair before May became Prime Minister. She says that an MP tells her Hammond regularly told Osborne he could not stand the then

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson vs the virtue signallers

As the government ‘consider’ inviting Donald Trump for a state visit, the president-elect was top of the agenda at today’s Foreign Office questions. With the Westminster establishment riled over Trump’s latest tweet claiming Nigel Farage would make a ‘great’ UK ambassador to the US, Simon Burns hit back — suggesting Boris Johnson return the favour and request Trump send Hillary Clinton to fill the role of US ambassador to the UK. Continuing the theme of putting people forward against their will for jobs that either aren’t available or don’t exist, Labour’s David Winnick said that it was Brandon Dixon — the Hamilton actor who made an anti-Trump speech over the weekend — who

Helen Nugent

Broadband, Brexit, credit cards and spending

Philip Hammond will provide more than £1 billion to improve broadband speeds for up 2 million homes and businesses as part of an infrastructure plan to be detailed in the Autumn statement tomorrow. The Guardian reports that, following calls from businesses for more support for the digital economy, the Chancellor will back a £400 million digital infrastructure fund. The Treasury hopes this amount will be matched by private sector investors. The Chancellor will also offer local authorities the opportunity to pitch for a percentage of a £740 million fund to trial superfast 5G mobile networks, linking them to fibre-optic systems to provide greater wireless capacity. Sir Mike Rake, chairman of BT, told the

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Theresa May’s ‘betrayal’ of workers

Theresa May’s decision to row back on her pledge to put workers on company boards receives a mixed reception in the papers today. The Sun and the FT are among those to say it’s good that the PM has opted to change her mind. But the Guardian isn’t happy: calling the PM’s u-turn a ‘betrayal’. Here’s what the newspaper editorials are saying this morning: The Sun heaps praise on Theresa May for her change in thinking about making companies have representatives of workers on their boards – a move it describes as ‘hasty and aggressive’. It says the PM is right to back down from an idea that would have

Ross Clark

Will Philip Hammond be arrested after the Autumn Statement?

So, austerity is to end. Or that is what the briefings for Wednesday’s Autumn Statement seem to indicate: Philip Hammond will loosen the purse strings, relax his fiscal targets and give the economy a big public spending-induced buzz – if indeed buzz is quite the right word for what happens when governments spend money. There is just one problem with what Hammond appears to be proposing. No, not that it almost certainly won’t be enough to please Ed Balls, Yanis Varoufakis, the unions, the Guardian and everyone else on the left who accused George Osborne of trashing the economy by making ‘cuts’ – or, more accurately, by refusing to grow

Monday

21 Nov 2016

Steerpike

Diane James’s exit proves costly for Ukip

Here we go again. First Steven Woolfe quit Ukip following a row with his MEP colleagues and now it is the turn of Diane James, the former party leader. James has released a statement announcing that she will sit in the European Parliament as an independent — adding by way of explanation that her relationship with the party has become ‘increasingly difficult’. In reply, Nigel Farage has accused her of ‘irrational selfishness’. Of course, none of this is hugely surprising. James lasted in the role of leader for just 18 days — claiming at the time that despite her election she had no support among the party’s executive. What’s more, Steerpike understands