Politics Archives

Tuesday

31 May 2016

Majority of voters are backing Brexit, according to latest EU referendum poll

The latest EU referendum poll indicates that voters have swung considerably towards backing Brexit. 52 per cent of people surveyed said they were planning on voting for Britain to leave the European Union, compared to 48 per cent who are voting in. The ICM poll, carried out for the Guardian, is significant for two reasons. Firstly, it flies in the face of the prevailing view that remain has surged ahead. In recent weeks, those campaigning for Britain to stay put in Europe appear to have enjoyed a significant margin of support over the leave campaign. A poll of polls compiled by WhatUKThinks last week suggested an almost exact opposite to the figures

Nick Cohen

The left’s great illusion in praising Labour’s ‘moral clarity’ under Corbyn

Danny Dorling is one of the warmest and most intelligent left wing intellectuals of our day; an egalitarian, who proposes radical and practical solutions. He is a worthy target, in other words. Oxford University’s professor of Geography has also produced an essay entitled: ‘Why Corbyn’s moral clarity could propel him to Number 10.’ It is the most cowardly exposition of the left’s great illusion that I have read. More to the point, virtually every supporter of the new Labour leadership will believe it. He makes two claims: Corbyn and the far left are moral; and they can win power. Allow me to take them in reverse order. The assertion that

Steerpike

Caitlin Moran promises to run for Parliament if Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister

Although George Osborne is currently lagging behind Boris Johnson in favourability polls, he can take heart that an intervention by an unlikely figure could hamper his rival’s leadership appeal in certain Tory circles. Caitlin Moran — the Times columnist who led a 24-hour boycott of Twitter in 2013 — has pledged to run for Parliament if BoJo ever becomes Prime Minister. Yes, Moran, who was one of Russell Brand’s loudest cheerleaders — describing his turn on Question Time as ‘brilliant’ — during the comedian’s ‘revolution’, has her sights set on the Commons if Boris is successful in his leadership bid. Speaking at the Hay Festival, she said that while she prefers to work from the sidelines

Helen Nugent

Investors and savers are nervous about a Brexit vote

Is anyone else bored to tears of the mud-slinging and vitriol which has come to characterise the Remain and Leave campaigns? With more than three weeks to go until the European Union referendum vote, the Brexit argy-bargy is increasing in volume on a daily basis. Today’s shrill story comes from leading figures in the Vote Leave camp. Writing in The Sun, Tories Michael Gove and Boris Johnson and Labour’s Gisela Stuart (dubbed ‘The Three Brexiters’ by the red-top – there’s a fetching photoshop job if you want to check it out) say they want to be able to scrap VAT on fuel to help the poorest households. Immediately, Chancellor George Osborne hit back

Steerpike

The Guardian fails to practise what it preaches in the EU debate

Oh dear. Over the weekend, the Guardian ran an editorial on the EU referendum entitled ‘this campaign must show more respect for both facts and voters’. In the article — published on Saturday — the paper criticised the Vote Leave campaign for ‘recklessness’. They called on the Brexit camp to put an end to ‘deceptions’ such as the claim that we send the EU £350m a week: ‘It is now more than a fortnight since Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage began chugging around Britain in search of photo opportunities in their Vote Leave campaign battle bus. From day one in Truro, the bright red double-decker, which was built in Poland by a German company, has been

Tom Goodenough

Boris ignores some basic points when he argues Brexit would cut fuel prices

Would Brexit mean cheaper fuel bills for Brits? That’s the claim made by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove today, who say that leaving the EU would let ministers get rid of VAT on gas and electricity. With all the bunkum being banded around over the referendum, it’s fair to say that the Brexit campaign do partly have a point on this. Under EU law, the UK is not allowed to charge less than five per cent VAT on fuel and power supplies. Boris argues as much in The Sun today: ‘Fuel bills will be lower for everyone,’ he says. So it seems that leaving the EU would hand back an

Monday

30 May 2016

Andrew Green

Post-Brexit Britain could cut net migration by 100,000 a year. Here’s how

The absence of an outline of a post-exit immigration regime is a serious gap in the Referendum debate. That need not be so. There is a fairly clear way ahead: to minimise disruption, while achieving control of numbers. The key element that needs to be controlled is migration for work (which accounts for the bulk of net EU migration). This could be sharply reduced if EU immigrants were subject to the same requirement for work permits as now currently apply to non-EU workers: the aim would be to reduce the overall scale of immigration without losing the economic benefit of highly skilled immigration. By doing this, net migration – 330,000

Steerpike

Angela Merkel and David Cameron fail to work out who’s in the driving seat

At times in David Cameron’s EU renegotiations, it’s seemed as though the Prime Minister struggled to be in the driver’s seat. Now evidence has come to light that confirms Cameron’s power struggle with one of Europe’s main leaders. Speaking at the Hay Festival, Neil MacGregor — the former director of the British Museum — let slip the difficulties he encountered when Angela Merkel and Cameron arranged a visit to see an exhibition he on German history from the past 600 years. Of all the objects in the exhibition, MacGregor thought the VW Beetle would make a great prop for a photo opp for the two leaders. Alas, it wasn’t to

Sunday

29 May 2016

Steerpike

Mervyn King hits out at ‘wildly exaggerated claims’ in referendum ‘debate’ – ‘the government has to take some responsibility’

Although Mark Carney has warned that a Brexit is the ‘biggest domestic risk to financial stability’, his predecessor Mervyn King takes a somewhat different approach when it comes to the impending EU referendum. The former Bank of England governor used an appearance today at the Hay Festival to hit out at the ‘wildly exagerated claims’ made in the run-up to the vote. ‘I wondered who would be the first to lower the tone,’ King joshed when asked whether he thought Britain should stay or go. While he declined to give his voting preference — on the grounds that it could make life difficult for Carney — King did let his disappointment

John O'Neill

Nadine Dorries leads calls for Cameron’s resignation

The knives have been out for David Cameron today. The Sunday Telegraph splashed on Priti Patel saying that he is too rich to care about immigration; the Sunday Times on a letter to the PM, signed by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, calling his failure on the migration target ‘corrosive of public trust in politics’. And the Sunday Times quoted a Tory MP saying ‘I don’t want to stab the prime minister in the back — I want to stab him in the front so I can see the expression on his face… You’d have to twist the knife, though, because we want it back for [George] Osborne’. Yikes! The morning’s papers were just the start. Backbencher Andrew Bridgen has been

Douglas Murray

The week in EU deceptions

This has been another fine week for EU deceits, lies and misrepresentations. The chutzpah of the week award must go to Nicky Morgan who earlier this week ‘slammed’ Boris Johnson. Last month the former Mayor of London had urged gay people to vote to Leave the EU and specifically not to believe the lie that gay rights only exist in Britain because of the EU. As Boris pointed out, such rights come from ‘our courts and Parliament’ and not from Europe. Although this is a sectional argument, Boris was responding to an argument that can be heard across wider society. That argument claims that if Britain left the EU all

Saturday

28 May 2016

James Forsyth

How Vote Leave plan to persuade the electorate that there are real risks to staying in the EU

The IN campaign’s plan for victory in this EU referendum is relatively simple. ‘Do you want the status quo or the riskt alternative?’, is how one Cameron ally sums it up. To date, Remain—aided by the various government dossiers—have been pretty effective at pushing this message. That is why they are ahead in the polls. So, Vote Leave know that they need to push the risks of staying in, up the agenda. I write in The Sun this morning that their message in the coming weeks will be that ‘wages will be lower and taxes will be higher if stay in the EU’. Their argument will be that the continuing

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

27 May 2016

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

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

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

26 May 2016

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

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.