Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Saturday

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

The Spectator podcast: Brexit, and the return of political lying | 28 May 2016

To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. Are David Cameron and George Osborne using the same techniques of deceit deployed by New Labour in the run-up to the Iraq war? In his cover piece this week, Peter Oborne argues that’s just what is happening. He says that in their EU campaign, the Chancellor and Prime Minister have put dirty tricks back at the heart of government. But Matthew Parris in his column says that in politics there’s no point complaining about being lied to. That’s the cry of the bad

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Vote Leave’s £50 million question

If you ask most people if they wanted to win £50 million, the answer would be: where do I sign up? That’s why Vote Leave has launched a competition this morning (here’ the link to enter) offering £50 million to anyone who can correctly predict the result of every game in this summer’s European football championship, if no-one scoops the whole prize,£50,000 will go the person who came closest. Why is the prize £50 million? Because that’s what Vote Leave say the UK sends to the European Union each day. Vote Leave hope that this competition will get one of its key messages, the cost of EU membership, out to

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Ed Miliband mistaken for his brother David twice on Question Time

Poor Ed Miliband. Since his defeat in the General Election, the former Labour leader has seen his influence fade — dropping to number 40 in this year’s Doncaster Power list. Now it seems some are struggling to even remember his name. On last night’s Question Time, Red Ed was mistaken for his brother David Miliband twice by his fellow panel member Dreda Say Mitchell. The Brexit-backing novelist mistook him for Labour’s prince across the water while discussing the EU: DM: Are we saying David, as a country we are the fifth largest economy EM: It’s Ed, actually DM: Sorry, Ed Alas Mitchell failed to learn her lesson and went on to refer to him as

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Purdah could give the Brexit campaign the boost it so badly needs

If you’ve become fed-up with half-baked Treasury statistics, the start of the purdah period is welcome news. The ban on Government and Civil Service resources being used to put forward the case for ‘remain’, means there will be no more of those. But with ‘remain’ having pushed ahead in the polls over the last few weeks, will this now help level the playing field? Based on how the Government has tried to press home the advantage of using its huge resources right up until the last moment, it seems that there are certainly jitters about that happening. Its rather cheeky report put out yesterday evening which suggested that Brexit would

The Spectator

The Spectator poll: Are You In or Out? Bob Geldof, Tim Rice & Joey Essex have their say

The Spectator’s EU Poll asked a fairly random group of well-known people how they’d vote in the EU referendum, and this is what they said: Sir Tim Rice, lyricist: ‘In 1975 I voted to stay in the Common Market from a standpoint of ignorance. In 2016 I shall vote to leave the EU, as a rebel without a clue. This is a gut reaction which I trust far more than the barrage of misinformation churned out by both sides of the campaign but overwhelmingly by the Remain camp. At least this time round I know I don’t know anything which is more than can be said for most of the

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 26 May 2016

Leave’s grumpy grassroots Sir: James Delingpole should join us at a Remain street stall. He would soon be disabused of his idea that Remainers are ‘shrill, prickly and bitter’ and Leavers are ‘sunny, relaxed and optimistic’ (‘What’s making Remain campaigners so tetchy?’, 21 May). We can often spot a likely Leaver by their angry expression. As we offer a leaflet with facts about the EU to counter the lies and distortions our acquaintance has imbibed from the Leave campaign, we are lucky to escape with anything less offensive than ‘Piss off’. If a leaflet is taken, we often see it torn up. At the grassroots, Leave is certainly grumpy. David

Peter Jones

Plutarch and the EU

Boris Johnson argues that the current European Union is yet another failed attempt to replicate the golden age of a Europe united under the Romans. But how golden was it? The Greek biographer Plutarch (c. AD 100) thought it brought ‘peace, freedom, prosperity, population growth and concord’ but agreed that there was a price to be paid. In his essay on statecraft, he advised the Greek politician ‘not to have too much pride or confidence in your crown, since you can see the boots of Roman soldiers just above your head. So you should imitate an actor, who puts his own emotion, personality and reputation into a play but obeys the

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 26 May 2016

Obviously there is no such thing as ‘Cameronism’, as there is ‘Thatcherism’; but once upon a time, David Cameron did have a project. It was called Tory modernisation, and his most imaginative adviser on the subject was Steve Hilton. At Policy Exchange, on Wednesday, Mr Hilton spoke, Mark Antony-like, over the dead body of Tory modernisation. On virtually every modernising count — localism, openness to the world, looking to the future, ignoring the interests of the rich — the EU is failing, he said. Yet Mr Cameron is staking his career on it. It is rather as if Mrs Thatcher, in her last years in office, were fighting flat out for nationalisation.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Immigration dominates first BBC EU debate

The Lincoln-Douglas debate it was not, but we have just had the first prime time TV debate of this EU referendum. With Alex Salmond and Alan Johnson for In and Liam Fox and the UKIP MEP Diane James for Out speaking to an audience of 18 to 29 year olds in Glasgow. Many in the audience wanted to complain about the tit for tat tactics of the two sides in this referendum campaign or to condemn the scaremongering by both sides; interestingly, they seemed very sceptical of the Treasury’s forecasts of economic pain if the UK left the EU. One audience member, though, seemed to object to the idea that

John O'Neill

Business investment falling could be good news for Remain

Today’s migration figures (net migration was 333,000 in 2015, up by 20,000 on the previous year) are bad news for the Remain campaign – but there’s a crumb of comfort for them in today’s GDP and business investment figures. This second estimate of GDP growth is unchanged from last month’s, still saying that the economy grew by 0.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2016. But business investment unexpectedly fell by 0.5 per cent. Whatever the reasons for it, Remain can say it’s due to uncertainty over the outcome of the referendum – and dish up more Brexit fearmongering: if businesses are putting off investment because we might leave, what

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron’s biggest challenge will come after the EU referendum

The one thing that can be said with certainty about what will happen at Westminster post-referendum is that David Cameron will find governing even harder than he does now. His majority is already the thinnest of blue lines and opposition from Tory backbenchers has already forced the government to u-turn on a host of policies. This problem will get even worse after the referendum. There are bound to be some irreconcilable Tory MPs who will take every attempt they can to thwart Cameron and Osborne’s legislative agenda. The result: ‘a zombie parliament‘, in the words of one member of the payroll vote, with hardly any bills being passed. Cameron will,

Douglas Murray

Why does the US’s new counter-extremism strategy ignore the only salient issue?

The USA has a new CVE (Countering Violent Extremism) strategy. It is a typically curious document. I wonder in fact if the key to it does not lie in the foreword by John Kerry, which is accompanied by a photograph of the Secretary of State looking strangely stoned. Although in that foreword Secretary Kerry claims that ‘our challenge is dynamic’, he seems to have got that all the wrong way around. Certainly America’s enemies are dynamic. But on the evidence of this document the US government is quite supremely blissed-out. For instance, readers will be unsurprised to learn that in this 12-page document purporting to deal with one of the great

Ella Whelan

Harriet Harman is wrong to say Kardashian’s naked selfies are any different from Page Three

It’s official, Kim Kardashian’s naked selfies have been given the Labour party seal of approval by Harriet Harman. On ITV’s Good Morning Britain, to the delight of a guffawing Piers Morgan, Harman sung the praises of the Kardashian selfies. ‘I am an expert on the Kardashians’, she said, ‘There’s a kind of bravery and pioneering spirit in them’. According to Harman, Kim Kardashian’s naked social-media posts are ‘brave and pioneering’. And yet, in the same breath, Harman went on to criticise Page Three girls, describing them as ‘fodder’ for pervy male readers. The difference between Kim Kardashian and Kelly from Essex, Harman argued, is that ‘the Kardashian girls are controlling

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Today’s migration figures will be much-needed grist for the Brexit campaign

Ever since David Cameron declared he wanted to get net migration down to below 100,000 the migration figures have caused him a headache. Today’s are particularly sensitive given that they’re out just a day before the EU referendum purdah period starts. Confirming net migration more than three times Cameron’s supposed maximum, and half of the rise being EU nationals, the data will help the Brexiteers argue that we need to leave the EU to restore border control. The potency of this argument has resulted in a subtle shift in the Brexit campaigning strategy, which appears to have placed immigration (not the NHS or the economy) at the centre of their argument. The ONS release shows that net

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brexit odds – live updates on percentage chance of UK leaving the EU

With opinion polls showing dazzling range – from Leave being 4 points ahead to Remain 13 points ahead – it’s worth looking at the betting markets. The below is a live chart, which will update every time you revisit this page. It updates several times throughout the day. At the time of writing, the graph underlines a basic point about referenda: no matter what the polls say, the status quo has a huge in-built advantage. Or, at least, a lot of people are betting that voters will stay with the status quo. Mind you, this time last year, the betting markets gave David Cameron a 10pc chance of winning a majority. Greater than the

Steerpike Steerpike

Dr Éoin Clarke’s ‘massive’ Tory spending revelations fail to go nuclear

If only Dr Éoin Clarke could learn from his mistakes. Earlier this month Clarke was left red-faced after his prediction of a shadow cabinet reshuffle failed to materialise. Not to be put off, the clip art-loving Labour activist — who has a PhD in Irish feminism — has been promising a ‘nuclear’ revelation regarding the Tory expenses row for some days now. After Michael Crick’s Channel 4 investigation led to the party admitting that it failed to declare £38,000 of general election expenses, Clarke told his followers that ‘massive revelations’ were on their way. Tweeting his followers on Sunday, Clarke said that a Tory election fraud story would ‘break very soon’ and cause the scandal to go ‘nuclear’. Massive story

Michael Henderson

Northern overexposure

‘The shortest way out of Manchester,’ it used to be said, ‘is notoriously a bottle of Gordon’s gin.’ But that was a long time ago, when ‘Cottonopolis’ was the pivot of the Industrial Revolution, the British empire was expanding and life was cheaper. They tend not to drink gin any more in the bars on Deansgate. It’s cocktails, a tenner a pop. The hub of George Osborne’s ‘Northern Powerhouse’ is a much-changed city. Now they’re queuing to get in, even though the super-duper HS2 rail link may go no further than Crewe, which is in Cheshire, and only southerners think Cheshire is in the north. Andy Burnham is the latest

Peter Oborne

Brexit, and the return of political lying

Sir John Chilcot’s report into the Iraq invasion, due to be published on 6 July, is expected to highlight the novel structure of government created by New Labour following its landslide victory of 1997. As Tony Blair started to make the case for war, he began to distort the shape and nature of British government in several ways — the most notable being the deliberate debasement of the traditional idea of a neutral, disinterested civil service. Under Blair, civil servants were told to concern themselves less with the substance than the presentation of policy. They were informed that their loyalty lay more with the government of the day, less with the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

This referendum has shown us the real Cameron

Westminster has a tendency to get ahead of itself. MPs want to discuss the aftermath of an event long before it has happened. They play never-ending games of ‘What if?’ At the moment, the political class cannot stop discussing, in great detail, what the post-EU referendum political landscape will look like. The speculation is, in and of itself, part of the political process. Much of the talk of the post-vote challenges facing David Cameron is intended to persuade him to pull his punches in the final weeks of the campaign. What no one disputes is that the Prime Minister will find governing even harder after 23 June. His majority is

Noel Malcolm

The power trap

Soon after the date for the EU referendum was set, Timothy Garton Ash published a piece in this magazine under the title ‘A conservative case for staying in’. He was followed by Ian Buruma, attacking the idea that, having left the EU, the British would be more free. And then, after the Obama visit to London, there was Anne Applebaum, assuring us that the US had ‘excellent reasons’ for being opposed to Brexit. Like the little boy at the back of the street brawl in the old Punch cartoon, I want to ask: ‘Is this a private fight, or can any former foreign editor of The Spectator join in?’ Tim