Politics

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

Friday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tories warn Cameron against taking revenge on eurosceptic ministers

Eurosceptics may have only a few days before their ministerial colleagues can join them in campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union. But they’re currently very unhappy at the sort of briefing they’ve been hearing about what might happen to those ministers after the referendum. The official line is that the Prime Minister will not sack anyone because of the position they take on Europe. But noises off suggest that this isn’t quite true: James reported in his Sun column last week that the Prime Minister has taken to telling colleagues ‘I’ve said I would have Outers in my Cabinet after the referendum. But I haven’t said they’ll be the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tories playing ‘petty, grubby’ politics with Trident, Lord West warns

The Tories risk playing ‘petty, grubby’ politics by planning to delay the Commons vote on Trident renewal, former head of the Navy Lord West has warned Coffee House. A group of former senior military figures, ex-ministers and MPs are writing to David Cameron and George Osborne next week to urge them to push ahead with the votes on the ’main gate’ decision on the new submarines as soon as possible, after reports that the Conservatives were planning to delay until closer to Labour’s autumn conference. David Cameron this week said ‘we should have the vote when we need to have the vote and that is exactly what we will do’,

Steerpike Steerpike

Is Seumas Milne’s Guardian ‘leave’ coming to an end?

When Seumas Milne — the Guardian associate editor and columnist — was hired as Jeremy Corbyn’s director of communications, Labour released a statement in which they made it clear that Milne would remain on ‘indefinite leave’ from the paper while he worked for the party. The arrangement raised eyebrows at the paper and proved to be a point of contention as Milne has made it clear that he takes issue with the Guardian‘s political coverage. Now it appears that things are coming to a head. The Times reports that senior executives at the Guardian are to urge Milne to step down from his role. They want him to take voluntary redundancy, as they seek to make 100 journalists redundant in

Thursday

Peter Jones

Cleisthenes and the EU

One feels that Sir Stuart Rose, leader of the EU referendum ‘In’ campaign, should really try a little harder. First he says that ‘the stats prove’ that being ‘in’ the EU is better than being ‘out’. Presumably the ‘out’ stats date from before 1973. Then he says that we do not know what the future will hold ‘out’ of the EU. So he knows about the future ‘in’ the EU, does he? So did Greece — once. The ancients generally felt it to be better to stick with the devil you knew. Nevertheless, Athenian history provides many telling examples of radical decision-making that transformed Athenian life. By stabilising the Greek

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 11 February 2016

Here is a thought for all those Tory MPs calculating their personal advantage in the forthcoming EU referendum: unless the vote is an absolutely overwhelming Remain, the next leader of the Conservative party — whose day is no longer so far off — will come from the Leave camp. This will happen, obviously, if Leave wins, but also if Leave loses but does well, because most party supporters will only back someone who feels their pain and can reconcile them afterwards. Another thought: why would Nigel Farage want Britain to vote Leave? Then he would be redundant. Study him in the light of this thought and you will see that it explains

Douglas Murray

Leaving the EU isn’t an ‘unknown’; it’s a return to the known

I see that Hilary Benn has been doing his bit for ‘Project Fear‘. According to Mr Benn one of the best reasons for staying in the EU is that ‘President Putin would shed no tears if Britain left the European Union.’ So what? Caliph al-Baghdadi may laugh like a drain if we stay in.  Anyone can play that game. According to Mr Benn, ‘the weakness of European solidarity’ caused by Brexit would be particularly damaging at this time, ‘just when strength needs to be shown in the continent.’ To which one might ask, how did that ‘solidarity’ and ‘strength’ go vis-a-vis Crimea and Ukraine? It is true that the EU was

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Googlewhacked? Why humiliating the search giant isn’t enough

It was never going to be an enjoyable experience trying to defend Google in front of the Public Accounts Committee following the recent row over their tax arrangements. But the company’s European President Matt Brittin came in for a particularly torrid time as he was quizzed by Meg Hillier today. As well as appearing to forget how much he was paid, Brittin refused to give anything away about the company’s tax arrangements in other European countries. He also got laughed at for telling the committee their Dublin office was set up for business rather than tax reasons. Brittin told MPs when asked about his salary: ‘I don’t have the figure.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Short Money debate is due to heat up today

A row about the way opposition parties are funded is set to erupt in the Commons today. Labour’s Chris Bryant has an urgent question in the Commons today on Short money, which, as Coffee House readers already know, is causing a rather big row among all the Opposition parties. The government’s plans to cut the money, which funds the parliamentary activities of opposition parties and allows them to do their job in representing the number of voters across the country who backed them in the General Election, have already caused some behind the scenes problems, but it looks as though the row is going to get a little more serious

Steerpike Steerpike

Is John McDonnell distancing himself from George Galloway?

Since Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, the party has been dogged by rumours that George Galloway could rejoin the party. The Respect party leader — who was expelled in 2003 following his outspoken comments on the Iraq war — has called for his expulsion to be rescinded. Corbyn has refused to rule out such a move, while Galloway claims that he speaks to Corbyn’s director of comms Seumas Milne — who he describes as his ‘best friend’ — on a regular basis. However, in a sign that not everyone may be so on board with such a move, Corbyn’s close comrade John McDonnell has made a hire that is unlikely to sit

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

How Bernie trumps Hillary

‘Anybody here got any student debt?’ asks Bernie Sanders halfway through his speech at a rally in a small university on Monday. He then starts conducting a fake auction. ‘What are some of the numbers you got? You? 35,000. You? 55,000? Who else? A young lady here… 100,000 dollars. You win! I don’t know what you win, but you win!’ The students all hoot and chant. ‘Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!’ Sanders cracks an avuncular smile, then starts talking again about how rich the rich are. It’s hard not to like Sanders. It’s hard not to ‘Feel the Bern’, as the mantra goes. He is 74 years old, and angry at the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Lies, damned lies and the EU

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thenextrefugeecrisis/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson discuss the PM’s argument for staying in” startat=763] Listen [/audioplayer]It is normally in the final, frantic days of a campaign that a multitude of dubious claims are made. But when it comes to the EU referendum, this has begun before the date of the vote has even been set. We’re told that anti-terrorism measures would be damaged by a British exit from the European Union, that migrant camps would sprout up in the garden of England and Six Nations rugby would never be the same again. The strangest claim of all isn’t Sir Charles Powell’s clairvoyant suggestion that Margaret Thatcher would vote to

Marina Wheeler

A court of injustice

Last week Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, tabled proposals which the government hopes will form the basis of the UK’s renegotiated relationship with the European Union. Politically, the proposals may be just the job: a new commitment to enhance competitiveness, proposals to limit benefits to migrants, recognition that member states’ different aspirations for further integration must be respected, and creation of a ‘red card’ mechanism to block EU legislation. Legally, however, they raise more questions than they answer. This ought to have been an opportunity to look at the Court of Justice of the European Union, whose reach has extended to a point where the status quo is

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

How is it where you live? A tale of two nations and a message for George

Upbeat or downbeat? I asked last month whether the mood where you live is energised by enterprise or demoralised by public-sector retreat — or both. Replies poured in while the news mostly got worse. Governor Carney warned that ‘the UK cannot help but be affected by an unforgiving global environment and sustained financial market turbulence’ as shares took another dive. BP and Shell announced profit falls and job cuts. The Brexit debate took off, but the migrant benefits row overwhelmed any sensible discussion of economic pros and cons, on which voters must so far be utterly confused. Then again, it wasn’t all bad: like-for-like retail sales surged by 2.6 per

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Cameron’s new tactic to steal Corbyn’s mascot

Housing is Jeremy Corbyn’s second favourite subject (after drainage lids). Back in the 1970s the grateful proletariat hailed his long years of service as Commissar For Council Accommodation in the People’s Republic of Haringey. At his retirement, chanting school-girls tied garlands of lilies around his brows and presented him with a commemorative Rent Book in a frame. Marching bands played. Fireworks fizzed and thundered. Private landlords were burned in effigy. What Corbyn learned from his housing career was to grind his enemies into submission with tedious blasts of numbers. But Cameron likes a good statistic himself and when Corbyn accused the government of building one new council house for every

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Is Cameron considering holding the Trident vote in the Autumn?

One of the more intriguing exchanges at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was between Julian Lewis and David Cameron on Trident. The chairman of the Defence Select Committee asked the following: ‘The debate and vote on the Trident successor submarine should have been held in the last Parliament, but was blocked by the Liberal Democrats. Given the fun that the Prime Minister had a few moments ago at the Labour party’s expense over Trident’s successor, it must be tempting for him to put off the vote until Labour’s conference in October. However, may I urge him to do the statesmanlike thing and hold that vote as soon as possible because everyone

James Forsyth James Forsyth

PMQs: Has Labour given up on opposition?

A walk in the park for David Cameron at PMQs this week. Jeremy Corbyn asked six questions on housing, but they were all too long and lacked any edge: they were the opposite of forensic. Cameron simply batted them away and rattled off a list of what he had done and the supposed failings of the last Labour government. Even Corbyn’s tactics of sourcing questions from the public backfired on him this week. As he talked about an email he had received from Rosie the House fell about — assuming it was a reference to Rosie Winterton, the chief whip, who is known not to be her leader’s biggest fan.

Steerpike Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Jeremy Corbyn’s badge of honour

As Labour peers prepare to join forces with Liberal Democrat peers this week to challenge the trade union bill in the House of Lords, Jeremy Corbyn is doing his bit at PMQs. The Labour leader has taken the bold step of wearing a ‘heart unions’ badge.  It’s in support of an official ‘Heart Unions’ week, which aims to ‘promote the positive work and role of trade unions in workplaces and in the wider community’. While Mr S is yet to spot any more ‘heart unions’ badges being worn in Westminster, staff at the Morning Star — Corbyn’s paper of choice — are at least fully involved. They took to Twitter yesterday to

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Would Jeremy Corbyn prefer George Galloway to be Mayor of London?

If a dirty mind is a perpetual feast, then a filthy mind is an open sewer. You see where the manure is coming from. More to the point, you know where it is going. When Galloway faced a challenge for the Bradford West seat from the Labour candidate, Naz Shah, he thought the best way to respond was to denounce a woman’s tales of abuse. He reduced Shah’s forced marriage at the age 15, to a ‘slander of her own family, community and city’ and an appeal to ‘racist stereotypes’. When he declared Bradford an ‘Israel free-zone,’ Muslim and white anti-Semites paid attention. And when he began his campaign to be London mayor by saying that the Labour candidate Sadiq

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How Jeremy Corbyn is preparing for PMQs

What will Jeremy Corbyn lead on today at Prime Minister’s Questions? The Labour leader could ask David Cameron about the junior doctors’ strike, about Europe, or about party funding, given Labour is currently fighting the Trade Union Bill, and given it was the Tory Black and White Ball this week. But almost as interesting as what Corbyn will raise is how he’ll do it. The Labour leader has clearly grown in confidence since he started doing these sessions, and even though he’s no William Hague when it comes to jokes or rhetoric, he is asking good, detailed questions, and is slowly getting better at following up. This means that Cameron

Tuesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

US election 2016: New Hampshire primary – as it happened

New Hampshire The Spectator’s deputy editor Freddy Gray is currently in New Hampshire. Here’s his report from the evening as the results of the primary came in. 3.13am Things slowing down now, folks. Thanks for reading. Story of the night is Bernie Sanders, just, and the Donald’s mind-blowing win a close second. A goofy 74 year old socialist just destroyed Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, and is tearing the Democratic party apart. And a 69-year-old billionaire is eviscerating the Republican party. Trump looks invincible, but the Cruz campaign is not to be underrated. Hillary has had a bad night, but she may have just about saved her candidacy with a stronger than usual