Politics

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

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory eurosceptics fear government sneakiness on EU postal votes

One of the major features of the EU referendum campaign is the suspicion on the part of Tory eurosceptics that their party in government is trying to screw them over. The latest theory centres around the dates when the postal votes are sent out and when the government is forced by official rules governing election campaigns to shut up. The postal votes in the EU referendum are being sent out between 27 May and 3 June, and the official ‘purdah’ for the campaign also begins on 27 May. Given Leave campaigners are expecting a considerable bulk of the votes in this referendum to be cast by post, a number of Tory MPs

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Watch: George Osborne grilled about his great deception over Brexit

The Chancellor gave evidence to the Treasury select committee today, and he was challenged about The Spectator’s analysis of his systematic attempt to mislead over the cost of Brexit. A loss of £4,300 per household, he said: a figure that he fabricated using three tricks. He disguised an increase as a decrease: the Treasury study suggests that GDP would be a 29 per cent bigger in 2030 with Brexit and and 37 per cent bigger with no Brexit. So the choice is between two significant rises. By no stretch of the English language is this a ‘fall.’ Osborne conflated household income with the very different notion of GDP, so he could arrive at a higher (and

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Cameron’s ‘anti-corruption summit’ will be a diamond-encrusted joke

The ugly mug of international sleaze reared up at PMQs today. Mike Kane got things going by calling Nigeria ‘fantastically corrupt’. This was his diplomatic welcome to the West Africans arriving for tomorrow’s ‘Anti-Corruption Summit 2016.’ The purpose of the jamboree is to confirm London’s position as the epicentre of dirty money by holding an honesty seminar for the world’s most dishonest people. The knees-up will take place in the soup-kitchen surroundings of Lancaster House just behind the Ritz. After breakfast, participants will collect their passes from the near-derelict Duke’s Hotel, St James’s Place. Anyone eager to avoid the queue will have pre-bought their ID on the black market. With Piccadilly

Katy Balls Katy Balls

George Osborne admits the Treasury is planning for Brexit

The last time George Osborne appeared before the Treasury Committee he had to face questions on his disastrous Budget. So given the low bar, you could be forgiven for thinking that today’s session on EU spending would have been a walk in the park in comparison. However, the Chancellor was put through his paces by the committee — chaired by Andrew Tyrie — as several pro-Brexit MPs, including Jacob Rees Mogg and Steve Baker, took the opportunity to air their grievances with the Remain campaign. It was Osborne’s doomsday Treasury Brexit report — which claimed that British households would be left £4,300 worse off — that gave him the biggest headache.

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: David Cameron teaches Tim Farron a lesson at PMQs

Although Jeremy Corbyn did his best to press David Cameron on a range of issues at today’s PMQs, perhaps the most notable aspect of his performance was what he didn’t say. A number of commentators were surprised that the Labour leader did not ask Cameron to apologise for the extremism remarks he made about Sadiq Khan, who is now London’s mayor. Happily, one party leader was happy to put this to the Prime Minister — even if they weren’t best placed to ask it: Tim Farron: I heard the Prime Minister on two occasions this afternoon congratulate the new Mayor of London Sadiq Khan — and I would like to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Has Jeremy Corbyn forgotten how to ask a proper question at PMQs?

Jeremy Corbyn’s questions at PMQs weren’t so much a dog’s dinner as a miserable casserole of leftovers. The Labour leader didn’t appear to have bothered to craft the lines he delivered from the dispatch box. This meant that the questions he asked the Prime Minister were rambling, and strangely managed to continue long after the actual question had been asked. Take this example: ‘Mr Speaker, I support a wage rise, obviously, the point I am making is that it is not a living wage! It is not a living wage, as is generally understood. Um, Mr Speaker, ummm, saying yes seems to be one of the hardest words for the Prime

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

My summer party is always very exclusive – and this year is no exception

The swallows have long returned and the summer party season is almost upon us – so I must get organising. Without wishing to be immodest, I think it is widely acknowledged among the UK’s beautiful people that my alfresco July event – it is so much more than a party – is always the highlight of the year. Naked transgendered dwarves, sprayed gold, pass from celebrity to celebrity with trays of delectable morsels balanced on their shaven heads. There is an unending supply of the most expensive champagne and vast pools of scrumptious dips. You can’t come, I’m afraid – it’s only for A-list celebrities, people who have holdings in Panamanian bank accounts and one

Tuesday

Vince Cable

Was it wise for Cameron to bring up the ‘fantastically corrupt’?

David Cameron was today caught describing Nigeria to the Queen as ‘fantastically corrupt’. But after the Panama Papers leak, the Prime Minister may want to choose his words more carefully: after all, that accolade could easily belong closer to home. Your average dodgy Nigerian oil baron and big-time British fraudster have much in common; a shared love of champagne, a doctor in Harley Street and… a little company based off-shore in a tax haven whose sole purpose is to hide stolen fortunes. And in most cases, that tax haven is one of ‘ours’ – either a British Overseas Territory or a Crown Dependency. Half of the companies featured in the Panama Papers were

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Britain is selling less to Europe but the EU is still hugely important

Britain’s trade deficit – the gap between what the UK imports and exports – is now at its biggest since the financial crash in 2008. The latest figures out today show that the difference between the two is now £13.3bn for the first four months of 2016. That’s a jump from £12.2bn at the end of 2015. So what do the figures actually mean? City analysts have described the trade deficit as ‘truly horrible’. The British Chambers of Commerce said the gap between imports and exports was ‘unacceptably large’. It’s not only those from the business world having their say on the latest figures though. As ever, these statistics are

Steerpike Steerpike

David Cameron to the Queen: ‘the leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries will attend my anti-corruption summit!’

Oh dear. David Cameron’s done it again. It seems the Prime Minister can’t quite master the art of checking whether there are any cameras recording before he makes an indiscreet comment. Reuters report that Cameron has been caught on camera telling the Queen that the leaders of some ‘fantastically corrupt’ like Nigeria and Afghanistan will attend his anti-corruption summit. ‘We had a very successful cabinet meeting this morning, talking about our anti-corruption summit,’ Cameron tells the Queen. ‘We have got the Nigerians – actually we have got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain.’ When Cameron went on to describe Nigeria and Afghanistan as ‘possibly two of the most corrupt countries

Steerpike Steerpike

Revealed: Emma Watson named in latest Panama Papers leak

Of late, Emma Watson has been taking a more active role in both UK and American politics. The Harry Potter actress recently attended the White House correspondents’ dinner, and just yesterday called on London’s new mayor Sadiq Khan to put a statue of a suffragette outside Parliament. However, should she wish to continue to move in political circles, Watson may face questions about her use of an offshore company. Yesterday, more details of the now infamous Panama Papers were released online in a searchable database. The database provides information regarding the many offshore companies named in the confidential documents which were first leaked earlier this year. On looking through the database, Mr S has come across Emma

Steerpike Steerpike

Yes, Minister! Sir Humphrey Appleby writes to Theresa May over Investigatory Powers Bill

Theresa May’s Investigatory Powers Bill is proving to be one of the most unpopular pieces of proposed legislation in this Parliament. While the Home Secretary has described the bill — which is currently in the committee stage — as ‘world leading’, a new campaign against it claims that all it will do is inspire dictators. But Mr S has word that a big name in politics has now offered his support for the Home Secretary’s bill. Yes, Minister writer Jonathan Lynn has passed onto Steerpike a letter dictated to him by none other than Sir Humphrey Appleby: A letter from Sir Humphrey Appleby to the Home Secretary Dear Home Secretary You are fortunate

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Little Englanders, it’s time to give Sadiq Khan a break

Hell, I wait so long to be right about something and then two bits of stuff come along at once. Nine months ago I said Sadiq Khan would become London’s mayor – partly because he was a very good candidate and a likeable bloke – but more because London is one of the world’s most leftie liberal constituencies. Which should tell you about Boris’s campaigning abilities, no? I also suggested that Labour would do better in the local elections than commentators – and desperate PLP recusants – were predicting. They did. In London, Corbyn is an actual asset to Labour. Beyond the vile metropolis, he is no more of a yoke

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

IDS’s claim about Germany’s hidden EU renegotiation role is hugely damaging for ‘Remain’

Yesterday, David Cameron was all talk of ensuring peace in our time and preventing world war three by staying in the EU. But today, as the EU debate rumbles on, he’ll have come crashing back to earth after reading the front page of The Sun. The paper quotes Iain Duncan Smith as saying that Germany was secretly in control of David Cameron’s EU renegotiation throughout. The former Work and Pensions secretary, who quit the cabinet in February, is set to add in a speech this morning that: “There was a spare chair for them – called the German Chair. They have had a de facto veto over everything.” IDS goes

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Andrew Tyrie takes ‘Lord Elliott of loserville’ to task for mucking Parliament around

As the Treasury Committee looks into the economic costs of the UK’s EU membership, several leading Brexit figures have been summoned to speak before the panel. However, Vote Leave’s Matthew Elliott’s continual absence has cast a shadow on proceedings. The Vote Leave chief executive has turned down an invitation to speak before the committee not one, not two, but three times. His absence has repeatedly been mentioned during the EU sessions, with Andrew Tyrie, the committee chair at one point repeating Arron Banks’s description of Elliott as ‘Lord Elliott of loserville’. As a result of these difficulties Tyrie had to summon Elliott to attend yesterday’s session under parliamentary order. Unsurprisingly he received a hostile reception

Monday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Sadiq Khan boosts party morale as Corbyn forgets his lines at PLP meeting

Although Labour MPs have been encouraged not to brief what happens at meetings of the PLP to lurking journalists, Jeremy Corbyn’s team have no issue briefing out what the leader will say at the meeting before it even occurs. Today hacks were told that Corbyn would use the meeting to clampdown on party in-fighting as members are sick of MPs ‘parading on the media to give a running commentary’. However, what he actually said is another story. The Labour leader toned down his prose considerably — presumably in the quest for party unity — even though his harsher warning was already readable online. Despite this slip-up, the meeting was one of

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Yes, there really has been a Tory revival in Scotland. Only a fool can deny that.

For people who profess to be utterly uninterested in the fortunes of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party, SNP parliamentarians and the usual ragbag collection of independence supporters seem terribly keen to demonstrate that the so-called Tory revival witnessed on Thursday is no such thing. Hence this entertaining poster that’s been doing the rounds on social media today. And it is true what it says: Margaret Thatcher was much more popular in Scotland than popular imagination – especially in Scotland – cares to remember. She and her party were certainly always more popular than the Scottish National Party. Why, even after eight years of her government  – after Linwood, after

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Sadiq Khan’s victory has caused a Great Smug to settle over London

London is going through one of its periodic fits of smugness right now, for which the only real parallel is the US after the election of Barack Obama first time round. I refer, obviously, to the election of Sadiq Khan as the first Muslim mayor of a major European capital. ‘Doesn’t it do us proud?’ one of my friends observed. A nice young colleague told us she had wept – wept – twice in the course of the weekend. ‘He took a bus to City Hall,’ she marvelled. ‘It was a victory over bigotry,’ another friend observed, the bigotry obviously being Zac Goldsmith’s campaign, for raising the whole Islamic extremism

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How much of a threat will Sadiq Khan be to Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership?

Sadiq Khan starts his first day as Mayor today, and has spent more of his weekend distancing himself from Jeremy Corbyn than he has been talking about London. He made a series of pointed references to the need for his party to win elections and that ‘we only do that by speaking to those people who previously haven’t voted Labour’. And the Labour leader didn’t attend Khan’s swearing-in ceremony at Southwark Cathedral due to ‘capacity problems’, which is probably an excuse those in charge of seating in the Cathedral don’t hear that often. It is clear that Khan doesn’t think there is much merit in appearing close to Corbyn in

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Today in audio: Boris vs Dave

With the May elections over, the EU referendum campaign is now in full swing. David Cameron started the day warning that Brexit could put peace in Europe at risk. In his speech at the British Museum this morning, the PM also asked whether leaving the EU was a risk worth taking. Here’s what he said: Boris hit back by making his case for voting out, saying that negotiating on behalf of the EU is like ‘trying to ride a vast 28-man pantomime horse’: He also sung ‘Ode to Joy’ in German: And Boris even appeared to forget the name of the city which, until a few days ago, he was