Politics

Although Theresa May is reluctant to say that Brexit means anything other than… Brexit, on Monday we were given a glimpse of what else it could stand for. Mark Field’s Chief of Staff, Julia Dockerill, was snapped carrying some intriguing notes on the topic following a reported meeting with David Davis: is this the first insight into Brexit seen going into No10 from the Brexit/cabinet office women holding was with Mark Field MP ? pic.twitter.com/XXeFGFQIa0 — PoliticalPics (@PoliticalPics) November 28, 2016 No.10 have since insisted that the notes — which included an admission that the UK is unlikely to be offered single market membership — do not represent any government line. However, it’s

After being made Ukip leader yesterday, Paul Nuttall wasted no time in making it clear who he had in his sights: the Labour party. Nuttall said he wanted Ukip to ‘replace Labour’ within five years. And in its editorial, the Times says this threat spells a ‘nightmare’ scenario for Labour. The paper says that while ‘healing’ Ukip’s own ‘wounds’ won’t be easy following a fractious and divisive few months, ‘the rewards could be historic’; it says that a two per cent swing towards Ukip would lose Labour 13 seats, while Labour ‘would lose 19 more’ seats if one in five Labour voters sided with Nuttall’s party. But can Ukip pull it

I like the fact that Theresa May is an Anglican, a good, solid, unashamed, unflashy Anglican, whose allegiance has not wavered since childhood. It reassures me. For the CofE is a place of pragmatic idealism, public service, profound humanism, good humour, self-criticism. Also, it’s just about the only place where class and racial divisions are routinely overcome. But when she actually says anything about her faith, she doesn’t come across very well. She sounds nervous of saying the wrong thing, which is fair enough, as horrid bloggers are waiting to pick and sneer at her words. And (pick, sneer) she sounds a bit pinched and negative about her experience as

Paul Nuttall has won the race to replace Nigel Farage as Ukip leader. Nuttall’s victory was decisive: he picked up 62.6 per cent of the vote, compared to Suzanne Evans on 19.3 per cent and John Rees-Evans on 18.1 per cent. For Nuttall, the hard work starts now. His win today puts an end to the party’s second leadership contest in five months, following Diane James’s short-lived 18-day reign. He inherits a party in a troubled state – and he admitted as much in his leadership speech. ‘Today is the day we put the Ukip jigsaw back together,’ he said. And while Nuttall was keen to continue the unity message he parroted during

Oh dear. Over the weekend many liberal leaders heaped praise on Fidel Castro as news broke that the Cuban dictator was dead. In fact, it was Tim Farron who stood out for actually condemning Castro’s human rights abuses — while describing him as a ‘vastly significant’ leader. So, what of the SNP? Well, today George Kerevan has penned a piece for The National claiming that there are a lot of positive lessons to be learned from Castro’s regime. What’s more, it seems that he doesn’t just mean that time has taught us sending homosexuals to camps for re-education and banning independent newspapers aren’t the most progressive ideas. No, while Kerevan does concede that

The Daily Mail calls those who ‘heaped adulation’ on Fidel Castro over the weekend – including the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell – ‘useful idiots’. The paper says after Castro’s death on Saturday, the Cuban leader’s supporters are ignoring the ‘poverty he inflicted on his people’ as well as his torturing of political opponents and the fact that he ‘failed his people abysmally’. So why, the Mail asks, do those like the Labour leader have such a different view of the former Cuban leader? The paper suggests in its editorial that there is a simple answer: ‘Messrs Corbyn, McDonnell and Co have never grown up since their student days’. Meanwhile,