Politics Archives

Thursday

2 Feb 2017

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

Isabel Hardman

Today’s Brexit debate is likely to be a tame affair

MPs are now debating the government’s European Union (notification of withdrawal) Bill, with a warning from Theresa May and Brexit Secretary David Davis that to try to block the legislation would be to thwart the will of the British people. The Prime Minister said last night that ‘I hope when people look at the Article 50 bill they will recognise that it is a very simple decision – do they support the will of the British people or not’, while Davis will ask MPs whether they ‘trust the people or not’ as he opens the Second Reading stage of the Bill. There is a funny symmetry here between the bill that

Steerpike

Derek Hatton turns on Corbyn

Oh dear. Although Jeremy Corbyn faces plenty of opposition on the right of his party, up until now he has managed to keep those on the left of Labour on side. But his decision to issue three-line-whip on MPs to vote in favour of Article 50 means that this could all be about to change. Derek Hatton, the ‘socialist firebrand’ who joined Labour with the Trotskyist group Militant (before being expelled), has been one of Corbyn’s most vocal supporters. However, in a column for the Liverpool Echo, he has turned on the Labour leader — expressing doubts over his future: ‘I can’t believe Corbyn is arguing for Labour MPs to vote with the

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Brexit’s day of reckoning and why Trump’s critics are wrong

At last, says the Guardian, MPs will finally have a proper say today on Brexit. David Davis has said the debate comes down to a simple question: do we trust the people? But for the Guardian, it’s a mistake for MPs and peers not to try and ‘get in the way’ of pushing the triggering of Article 50 back beyond Theresa May’s ‘self-imposed deadline’ of the end of March. It’s clear that the outcome of last June’s referendum left Parliament reeling: ‘casually drafted regulations’ backed up the vote and ‘with no leave process mapped out, the Commons failed to muster the resolve to force its way into the process of

Monday

30 Jan 2017

James Forsyth

Boris’s very diplomatic response to Trump’s visa ban

Boris Johnson came to the House of Commons to answer questions on the Trump visa ban with the opposition benches in full outrage mode. The policy is wrong, ill-considered and a blunt instrument. But those in the Chamber who see it as a sign the US is on the road to fascism are getting things out of proportion. As Johnson said you can see it as ‘divisive and wrong’ without resorting to 1930s parallels or wanting to disinvite Trump from his State visit. There were a series of irate questions from the Labour benches. Yvette Cooper demanded that Johnson ‘for the sake of history, for Heaven’s sake have the guts

Steerpike

Nicholas Soames barks at female MP

Although Nicholas Soames recently urged the Foreign Secretary to show more kindness and understanding when dealing with one’s opponent, he appears to take a different attitude himself. Winston Churchill’s grandson was today reprimanded by the Speaker after it emerged that he had barked at a female SNP MP as she spoke in the chamber. The incident occurred as Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh responded to Boris Johnson’s statement on President Trump’s visa ban. Ahmed-Sheikh later raised a point of order: ‘I understand that the right honourable member for Mid Sussex, who has always afforded me courtesy and respect, was making woof woof sounding noises to what I was saying — which I find extremely

Katy Balls

No 10 throw Boris a hospital pass

As the Trump visa ban row rumbles on, No 10 is under pressure to cancel President Trump’s state visit after nearly a million UK citizens signed a protest on the issue. The Prime Minister’s spokesman has dismissed the suggestion today — but re-confirmed that the government does not agree with Trump’s policy, which sees citizens from seven countries temporarily banned from entering the US. However, the most striking aspect of today’s lobby briefing came when No 10 appeared to throw the Foreign Secretary a hospital pass. Setting Boris Johnson up for a difficult afternoon, the Prime Minister’s spokesman suggested that the decision to invite Trump to the UK for a state visit was first

Helen Nugent

Savers, price rises, branch closures and small businesses

There’s some good news for savers this morning following the news that the amount of money protected in the event of a bank or building society collapse has risen. The protection level has been increased by £10,000 to £85,000 in the wake of the weakening of the pound against the euro since the vote to leave the EU. The BBC reports that the amount of compensation payable is set at €100,000 across the European Union, so significant currency moves can alter the level for UK savers. Price rises Who wants Weetabix? In the latest round of price increase sparked by the fall in the pound, the cereal company Weetabix has

Hamish Macdonell

The SNP now want a ‘semi-detached’ Scotland. Could it work?

The SNP appears to be on the verge of changing one of its core beliefs – full membership of the European Union. Senior party figures have revealed, in a piece in the Times today, that there is a desire in the higher echelons of the SNP to ditch this long-standing tenet of party policy. Instead, they want the party to adopt a Norway-style model. This would see an independent Scotland outside the EU but inside the single market, after Brexit. Scotland could then join the EU at a later date, if it wished to do so but it would not immediately join the back of the queue for EU membership,