Politics

By the time Labour party conference begins on Sunday in Liverpool, the party will have announced its new leader. And it is likely to be its old leader, Jeremy Corbyn. For those who have nailed their colours to Owen Smith’s mast, it is quickly becoming clear that Corbyn is about to consolidate power. As a result, there will need to be a mass rethinking of the anti-Corbyn strategy. Most analysis of Theresa May’s decision to fight for grammar schools has focused on the internal politics of the Conservative party, but the debate has also inadvertently played into Jeremy Corbyn’s hands. Finally, after more than a year in the job, Corbyn has a domestic

The big question in Labour’s leadership contest is not whether Jeremy Corbyn will win, but how much he’ll win by. There is, it seems, an inexhaustible supply of Corbynistas standing ready to join the party – so the moderates who had hoped that a formal leadership challenge would be a vehicle of deposing him have had to think again. Neil Kinnock said this weekend that he’ll probably never live to see another Labour government. So Labour’s only hope, for now, is that the 67-year-old Corbyn might change. During his interview on Today this morning we’ve been offered a taste of what his leadership will look like if (or, rather, when)

As Brexiteers begin to worry that Theresa May could be leaning towards a soft Brexit, a number of Remain-ers are keen to make sure that Brexit doesn’t occur at all. The latest issue of the New European — the pro-Remain newspaper — claims that these die-hard  Europhiles now need a figurehead to lead the charge. So, who could be the person for the job? It turns out that they reckon a candidate who has supported six lost causes and counting might be the man for the job. Step forward Eddie Izzard. The comedian turned campaigner appears on the front of the paper in a striking image that appears to be a cross between Barack Obama’s Hope and

Nigel Farage has just delivered his speech at Ukip conference, in which he declared that he had put ‘absolutely all of me’ into Britain leaving the EU. ‘I literally couldn’t have worked any harder, or couldn’t have been more determined – it’s been my life’s work to get to this point. I want my country back, but now folks I want my life back,’ he said. He went onto claim that Ukip had ‘changed the course of British history’ and suggested that the party had ‘brought down a prime minister’ and had ‘got rid of a chancellor’. On Theresa May’s premiership, he suggested there was a ‘great political battle ahead’, before raising concerns that she

Interest rates are on track to be cut for a second time before Christmas despite the economy’s surprising resilience since the EU referendum, the Bank of England has indicated. The Bank’s message that stronger growth may not dissuade rate-setters from a second post-Brexit vote cut was made in the minutes to this month’s meeting, when they decided to leave policy unchanged, The Times reports. Last month the Bank announced its biggest package of measures since the launch of quantitative easing at the height of the recession seven years ago. Rates were cut by a quarter-point to 0.25 per cent, a £100 billion cheap funding scheme was extended to lenders, a

Diane James is the new Ukip leader. The party’s home affairs spokesman won with 8,451 votes. She beat Lisa Duffy into second place by nearly 4,000 votes. Bill Etheridge came third, Phillip Broughton fourth and Liz Jones fifth. James was the frontrunner and her victory was expected given that Steven Woolfe and Suzanne Evans were both barred from running. But James ran one of the least inspiring leadership campaigns in recent political memory. She didn’t announce any new policies and avoided debate at every opportunity. James, as anyone who watched her in the BBC’s young people’s EU debate during the referendum campaign will know, is not as accomplished a media performer as Nigel Farage. She will