Politics

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

Thursday

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

In the EU debate about control, today’s NI migrant stats are particularly toxic

Statistics revealing the number of foreign workers in the UK are an age-old headache for the Government of the day. But with only six weeks to go until the EU referendum, today’s publication of National Insurance figures showing how many people from Europe are working here could prove particularly toxic. We now know that last year 626,000 EU migrant workers registered for NI numbers. But whilst there was a small drop from the last set of stats, the Brexit campaign will be keen to capitalise on the apparent gulf between that figure and the overall net migration to the UK last year, which had been estimated at only 323,000. In

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The anti-corruption lobby want to revive colonialism

I am no tax expert, but when 300 economists, particularly if led by Jeffrey Sachs and Thomas Piketty, all agree about something — as 364 did that Mrs Thatcher, in 1981, was messing things up — one can be confident they are mistaken. The 300 want this week’s global anti-corruption meeting to clamp down on tax havens. This is, among other things, an attack on Britain, because they call on us and the United States to deal with ‘all countries for which they are responsible’. This ignores the fact that some such places — Jersey and Guernsey, for example — are not governed by Britain, though they share the same Queen;

Steerpike Steerpike

Bus battle! Row brewing over Labour’s ‘corporate’ EU bus

Throughout the EU referendum campaign, Labour figures have been somewhat underwhelmed by the efforts of their party leader to fight for Britain to remain in the EU. However, progress did appear to be made on Monday when Jeremy Corbyn launched Labour’s big EU battle bus. The bright red bus will tour Britain for six weeks as they try and rally support for remain. Alas word reaches Steerpike that behind the scenes things are not so rosy. A little birdy tells Mr S that the Labour leader has raised concerns that the bus is not to his taste and is ‘too corporate’. The Labour leader apparently takes issue with the sheer size of the vehicle

Steerpike Steerpike

Can Lord Finkelstein revive the reputation of Andrew ‘0.5 per cent’ Cooper?

Mr S always enjoys reading Danny Finkelstein’s column (even when he borrows jokes from Steerpike) and Wednesday’s column was no exception. In the piece — titled ‘the most reliable polls are at the end of a phone’ — Finkelstein highlights the difficulties pollsters experience, arguing that contrary to popular opinion they do often get it right. But why write a column about the technicalities of polling? As far as Mr S can tell, the true purpose of the piece is to restore the reputation (and, perhaps, position) of his old flatmate Andrew Cooper — after his embarrassing general election run. Although Cooper served as Cameron’s chief strategist, he had a fall from grace as the PM

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

The Spectator podcast: Boris needs you!

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. Boris Johnson has kickstarted his battle bus tour of Britain which he hopes will convince people to vote out of the EU. But before he hit the road, he made a direct pitch to Spectator readers in an exclusive interview. The former mayor of London set out his Brexit battle lines, as he spoke to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson, saying: ‘It is unquestionably true that I’ve changed. But so has the EU. And of the two of us, it’s the EU that

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Will Labour never learn?

By now, Labour should be rather good at post-defeat inquests. Plenty have been conducted over the years and the drill has become familiar. The party goes into an election promising a certain vision of the future only to find out that it leaves the voters cold. A senior figure is then commissioned to state the obvious, and the report is sent back to the leader’s office, where it is filed and ignored. Then the party embarks upon a fresh misadventure — and the cycle of defeat begins again. This week Labour is digesting its worst result in Scotland since 1918, having lost not only to the nationalists but to the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Boris needs you!

Boris Johnson is nodding along as he reads Karl Marx. To be more precise, he is standing in the Spectator boardroom reading a letter that Marx and Engels wrote to this magazine in 1850 complaining about being pursued by Prussian government spies in London. He then admires a picture of the youthful Taki chatting up Joan Collins at a New York nightclub in 1957. When he was editor of this magazine, he called it ‘the best job in London’. But now he says that being mayor of London was even better. Less fun, perhaps, but more fulfilling. After eight years at City Hall, he is turning his mind to what

Mary Dejevsky

Carry on campus

Town halls and unringfenced government departments are feeling the pinch, but one corner of British public life is conspicuously flush. Visit almost any university in the land and you will find a small city bursting with Portakabins, scaffolding and cranes. If you dare to raise your eyes from the mud puddles, you will see vast hoardings displaying images of glass palaces. Higher education is in the throes of its biggest building boom since the 1960s. Whether it is wise or not, whether the financial and academic calculations add up, are questions rarely asked, so loud is the self-congratulation of those pioneering the expansion. University College London recently clinched what has

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Vaping’s appeal isn’t about the nicotine. It’s about the gadgets

Probably you never visited the flats of middle-class student drug dealers in the 1990s, because crikey, neither did I, and look, let’s just move along. Even so, were there ever to be found a Platonic form of such a place, or, as the beer adverts might put it, If Heineken Did the Flats of 1990s Middle-Class Student Drug Dealers, then I now know precisely what such a place would look like. It would look like a vape shop. To be more specific, it would look like the vape shop I visited a few weeks ago in north London. It was perfect down to the last detail. Paraphernalia all over the

Stewart Dakers

The death of the funeral

Funerals ain’t what they used to be. Today’s emphasis is more on celebrating a life past than honouring the future of a soul. While I am not averse to a celebratory element, the funeral is morphing into a spiritually weightless bless-fest. This was brought home to me last week at the funeral of Enid, a lady I knew only through our mutual attendance at bingo in the community centre. I was uncomfortable from the moment we gathered outside the church, where my sombre suit set me apart from the Technicolor crowd of family and friends. The atmosphere was more akin to a wedding, even a hen do, than a funeral,

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Have we sacrificed a quarter’s growth to answer the European question?

Has the shadow of Brexit already cost us a slice of GDP — and if so, is it a blip or an omen? The Office for National Statistics says UK growth was 0.4 per cent in the first quarter of this year, down from 0.6 per cent in last year’s final quarter. And we can’t blame the neighbours, because the eurozone upped its game from 0.3 per cent to a positively breathless 0.6 per cent — with even France trotting in ahead of us at 0.5 per cent. We still look stronger on the jobs front, mind you, with our unemployment rate, at 5.1 per cent, well down on a year ago

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood has created drama in Wales

A dramatic day in Wales today. The vote for First Minister ended in a tie between Labour’s Carwyn Jones and Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood. Labour, despite only having 29 out of 60 seats in the Assembly, had not done a deal with any of the other parties to ensure Jones’ election. Plaid then nominated its own leader, who was backed by the Tory and Ukip AMs as well as the Plaid ones, The Assembly has now adjourned. The Assembly has until 2 June, to decide on a First Minister. If it cannot vote someone in, then the Secretary of State for Wales can call fresh elections. Plaid are now saying, according to

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