Politics Archives

Wednesday

3 Aug 2016

Steven Woolfe excluded from Ukip leadership race

Steven Woolfe has been barred from standing for Ukip leader. The party’s national executive committee has ruled that he didn’t submit his nomination papers in time and so is ineligible. Woolfe’s exclusion from the race is a major blow for Ukip donor, and Leave.EU founder, Arron Banks who had thrown his weight behind Woolfe. Woolfe also had the support of several of those closest to Nigel Farage. This group will not take Woolfe’s exclusion lying down, and will try and find a way to stop the contest or somehow get his name onto the ballot. I wouldn’t even rule out a split if the NEC won’t back down; Banks

Henry Williams

Old is the new young, which is great news for idlers like me

While many have seen Theresa May’s accession to Prime Minister as striking a blow for feminism, she has also struck a mighty blow for indolence. With George Osborne and David Cameron pushed towards the exit, those of us in our mid-30’s who are still at the thinking-about-doing-something-at-some-point stage of our lives can rest easy a while longer. This has always been a difficult age. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I will never be a rockstar, given that I am well past the maximum age for the 27 club, (at my age Keith Richards was firmly in the Swiss blood transfusion clinic). I also know that even

Tom Goodenough

Ukip’s leadership race kicks off. Who are the candidates hoping to replace Nigel Farage?

The final shortlist for who will replace Nigel Farage has been unveiled – and the frontrunner Steven Woolfe has been excluded. Ukip’s NEC said Woolfe was left off the list after being deemed ‘ineligible as a result of a late submission’, having missed the party’s nomination deadline by seventeen minutes. It’s a decision which is sure to cause ruptures within the party. So who are the candidates who have made it on to the list? Diane James is the new favourite to replace Nigel Farage after Steven Woolfe was kept off the ballot paper. The party’s justice and home affairs spokeswoman has capitalised on the various blunders which afflicted Woolfe to find

Steerpike

Paul Mason’s Brexit Bulletin fails to make the cut

It’s not a good time to be a member of the MSM, aka mainstream media. A quick look at alternative news outlets like the Corbynista Canary will tell you that reports from the MSM are frequently inaccurate. What’s more, the Guardian now appear to have joined the cause. On Monday, the paper published an article by Piers Robinson suggesting Russia Today, al-Jazeera and Press TV should not be off-limits as while they may be biased so is much western media. So, what are the alternatives? Mr S was intrigued last month when Paul Mason — the former Channel 4 economics editor turned revolutionary — announced to much fanfare that he would be launching a public service ‘Brexit Bulletin’. The daily

Tuesday

2 Aug 2016

Mike Smithson

The perks and pitfalls of Twitter for political gamblers

On Sunday morning Channel 4’s Michael Crick put out the following Tweet about Steven Woolfe, the Manchester-born barrister and MP who was then the hot odds-favourite to become the next UKIP leader. I hear Steven Woolfe has failed to be nominated for leader of Ukip. His form came in 20 minutes late, I'm told. — Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) July 31, 2016 As a political gambler this was massive news with the potential for relatively risk-free profits. For at the time Woolfe was rated as 72 per cent chance on the online Betfair betting exchange which, unlike traditional bookmakers, offers the opportunity to bet that a particular outcome will not happen.

Zoe Brennan

Theresa May, the thinking woman’s woman

Who is Theresa May? Ken Clarke famously described her in an unguarded moment as a ‘bloody difficult woman’. Her favourite fashion designer, Vivienne Westwood, thinks she’s ‘awful’. And it has variously been said that she is ‘fundamentally unknowable’, ‘aloof’, ’reticent’, ‘self-contained’ and ‘sphinx like’. When she was officially appointed Prime Minister, reporters scrambled to write pen-portraits of this woman suddenly sprung to highest office, an extraordinary elevation which seemed to fluster her no more than the weekly Waitrose shop. Fleet Street’s finest were able to reveal surprisingly little. The Daily Mail’s Robert Hardman dutifully trooped off to the PM’s village, Sonning, in Berkshire. There, he reported, she is a regular church-goer,

Tom Goodenough

Coffee House Shots: Ukip’s leadership contest

Ukip’s leadership race has barely begun but the contest has already delivered plenty of drama. The frontrunner Steven Woolfe missed out on entering his nomination in time after a ‘Computer says no’ moment, and it’s also emerged that Woolfe failed to declare a drink-driving conviction when he ran for office in 2012 – potentially breaching electoral rules. But whilst we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out whether Woolfe actually makes it on to the ballot paper, a number of other candidates are also vying to take over from Nigel Farage: Ukip MEPs Jonathan Arnott and Bill Etheridge and Diane James amongst them. So who will come out on top? In this edition

Steerpike

Ukip leadership hopeful raises £8 with crowdfunding campaign

While Ukip won’t announce its leadership shortlist until Wednesday, Bill Etheridge is expected to be one of the names that makes it onto the ballot. Thanks to his hardline policies — which range from a referendum on the death penalty to a ban on halal meat — Etheridge is likely to get plenty of press attention without having to campaign too hard. Perhaps that’s for the best given that his campaign for finances doesn’t appear to have got off to a flying start. The Ukip MEP set up a crowdfunding campaign two weeks ago to try and rally donations for ‘Billieve in Bill’. However, so far there has only been one donation and Etheridge has raised a

Martin Vander Weyer

Theresa May’s new ministry of posh

Apart from Boris, where have all the posh boys (and girls) gone in Theresa May’s government? The answer, curiously, is the new department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Secretary of state Greg Clark is impeccably classless, being the product of a Roman Catholic secondary school in Middlesbrough where his father and grandfather were milkmen. But his ministerial team consists of three Old Etonians — Nick Hurd, Jo Johnson and Jesse Norman — plus Margot James (Millfield) and convent girl Baroness Neville-Rolfe. Reassuringly, however, all five have business experience — and more so than Clark himself, who has quietly climbed the greasy pole as an all-purpose policy wonk. Ex-civil-servant Lucy

James Forsyth

The European Commission chooses not to play Brexit games

Jonathan Hill’s post-referendum resignation as the UK’s EU Commissioner was a deeply regrettable act. Even after the referendum, the UK remained a member of the EU and thus entitled to a commissioner. The UK government has nominated Sir Julian King, the Ambassador to Paris, as Hill’s replacement. Today, the Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has said that he would, subject to European Parliament’s approval, like King to be the Security Commissioner. This is a grown-up, mature decision. King has been offered a proper job, not a small one designed to punish the UK for Brexit. The role also recognises the reality that UK-EU co-operation on anti-terrorism measures will need to continue

Tom Goodenough

Theresa May’s Labour land grab starts today

Whilst Labour tangle themselves up in civil war, the Prime Minister is making a move for the party’s economic territory. On her first day in Downing Street, Theresa May said her Government would stick up for everyone, not only the ‘privileged few’. Today, she’ll start work making good on that promise when she chairs the first meeting of her Cabinet committee on the economy and industrial strategy. So what does that all mean? It’s obvious the sentiment suggests an attempt to beat Labour at its own game. From the politician who coined the description of the Tories as the ‘nasty party’, May is doing her best to show the Conservatives

Steerpike

Steven Woolfe finds himself in a tight spot

It’s only Tuesday and Steven Woolfe must already be wishing this week was over. After missing the nomination deadline on Sunday, Woolfe will learn today whether his leadership application will be accepted. If that weren’t enough, he is also in the firing line over his lapsed Ukip membership and the Huffington Post‘s revelation that Woolfe broke electoral rules in 2012 by failing to reveal a drink-drive conviction when he stood to be a Police and Crime Commissioner. Still, should Woolfe’s leadership hopes live to survive another day, Mr S understands that he will have to dig deep in order to win round party bean counters. Ukip MEPs are encouraged to regularly donate a portion of their lofty EU

Monday

1 Aug 2016

Philip Sime

Is Theresa May using Hinkley Point to hold the French hostage over Brexit?

Plans to build a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset suffered a surprise setback on Friday after the Government said it wanted to ‘review’ the decision before it gave the go-ahead. But what are EDF – the French company which had approved funding for the project – and the French press making of the Hinkley hold-up? With the Brexit vote having tested Franco-British relations somewhat in recent weeks, Theresa May’s decision to review the building of Britain’s first new nuclear power plant in two decades isn’t helping matters – with the French press reacting with consternation to the delay. France 24 reports that senior EDF executives were planning to

James Forsyth

Theresa May is right not to mess with David Cameron’s resignation honours

Downing Street has made clear today that Theresa May will not move to prune down or veto David Cameron’s resignation honours list. This is the right decision. Whatever you think of the list, it wouldn’t be right for a new Prime Minister to seek to amend the resignation honours list of their predecessor. If this started to happen, it would make politics even more bitter and factional than it is today. Imagine if this Downing Street transition was not from one Tory to another but a Labour PM being replaced by a Tory who immediately vetoed all the honours proposed by the outgoing Labour Prime Minister. Now, this doesn’t mean

Tom Goodenough

Cameron’s ‘gongs for chums’ list sparks fury. But don’t expect Theresa May to block it

His time in No.10 might have come to an end last month but it’s David Cameron who is on the front pages of several newspapers this morning. The former PM’s resignation list of honours has sparked outrage since it was published by the Sunday Times yesterday. And today the fallout shows no sign of dampening down. Many of the usual suspects have attacked Cameron but what’s interesting about the criticism is its unanimity. Labour MP Tom Watson said it was ‘cronyism, pure and simple’; and many Tory MPs seem to agree. Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said those who were going to be rewarded were the ‘people who brought politics into disrepute’.

Sunday

31 Jul 2016

Steerpike

Steven Woolfe misses Ukip leadership deadline

Although the Tories have recently undergone a leadership election and Labour are in the midst of one, it’s Ukip’s leadership contest that is shaping up to be the most shambolic. While Suzanne Evans was ruled ineligible to stand for leader, the frontrunner in the race — Steven Woolfe — has been dogged by reports that he too is ineligible after he failed to renew his party membership when it expired. However, this snag may now be the least of Woolfe’s problems. The leadership favourite has managed to miss the deadline for submitting his nomination. Although applications were due in by noon on Sunday, Woolfe’s application did not successfully go through until 12.17pm. Woolfe’s spokesman insists

Katy Balls

Cameron is making sure his premiership is remembered for cronyism

For the past few weeks there have been reports circulating that David Cameron’s resignation honours list has been held up over ‘ethical concerns’ regarding his nominees. Today the Sunday Times offer a glimpse as to why this may be by publishing the ‘leaked list‘ on its front page. It does not make for an inspiring read. Although David Cameron was criticised for awarding Sir Lynton Crosby a knighthood for ‘services to politics’ in the new year honours, at least Crosby actually won an election. The same cannot be said for the majority of the Remain campaigners, donors and aides who allegedly make up the bulk of the roll call. Among the Remain foot soldiers who

Darius Guppy

In praise of walls

After the verdict of the referendum had been announced, the most interesting comment was delivered by Nigel Farage. The vote had represented not only a victory against an undemocratic and faceless bureaucracy in Brussels but ‘against the big merchant banks and big businesses’. Worryingly, neither the majority of the Brexiteers nor their Remainer counterparts – at least among the political and journalistic classes – have grasped what the former Ukip leader understood instinctively; that Brexit is in fact a sub-plot in a much larger, overarching narrative: the battle between international finance and the one force that can realistically check its relentless and apocalyptic march – the nation state. Understand this and

Saturday

30 Jul 2016

Steerpike

Is Theresa May’s chief of staff behind the Hinkley Point jitters?

This week relations between Britain and China were placed under strain after the government delayed approval for the Hinkley Point nuclear plant. Under David Cameron and George Osborne, Britain’s first new nuclear power station — of which China General Nuclear has a one-third stake — had been expected to get the green light this month. However now Theresa May is in charge, the government appear to have got cold feet. Announcing that no decision will be made until autumn, Greg Clark — the business, energy and industrial strategy secretary — said the government will now ‘consider carefully all the component parts of this project’. So, while May has never been the biggest fan of

James Forsyth

Decision time approaches for Theresa May

Parliament is off for the summer, and the exodus to the beaches has begun. But Theresa May isn’t heading off there. She has serious work to do this summer, she has to work out what she wants out of the UK’s EU exit deal. As I say in The Sun this morning, May is just being honest when she says that she has an ‘open mind’ on what the deal should look like. But she doesn’t have long to decide what she does want. Indeed, I understand, that the Mays have already scrubbed one planned summer break to allow her to work on this. May is right to want the