Politics Archives

Thursday

26 May 2016

Immigration dominates first BBC EU debate

The Lincoln-Douglas debate it was not, but we have just had the first prime time TV debate of this EU referendum. With Alex Salmond and Alan Johnson for In and Liam Fox and the UKIP MEP Diane James for Out speaking to an audience of 18 to 29 year olds in Glasgow. Many in the audience wanted to complain about the tit for tat tactics of the two sides in this referendum campaign or to condemn the scaremongering by both sides; interestingly, they seemed very sceptical of the Treasury’s forecasts of economic pain if the UK left the EU. One audience member, though, seemed to object to the idea that

John O'Neill

Business investment falling could be good news for Remain

Today’s migration figures (net migration was 333,000 in 2015, up by 20,000 on the previous year) are bad news for the Remain campaign – but there’s a crumb of comfort for them in today’s GDP and business investment figures. This second estimate of GDP growth is unchanged from last month’s, still saying that the economy grew by 0.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2016. But business investment unexpectedly fell by 0.5 per cent. Whatever the reasons for it, Remain can say it’s due to uncertainty over the outcome of the referendum – and dish up more Brexit fearmongering: if businesses are putting off investment because we might leave, what

James Forsyth

Cameron’s biggest challenge will come after the EU referendum

The one thing that can be said with certainty about what will happen at Westminster post-referendum is that David Cameron will find governing even harder than he does now. His majority is already the thinnest of blue lines and opposition from Tory backbenchers has already forced the government to u-turn on a host of policies. This problem will get even worse after the referendum. There are bound to be some irreconcilable Tory MPs who will take every attempt they can to thwart Cameron and Osborne’s legislative agenda. The result: ‘a zombie parliament‘, in the words of one member of the payroll vote, with hardly any bills being passed. Cameron will,

Douglas Murray

Why does the US’s new counter-extremism strategy ignore the only salient issue?

The USA has a new CVE (Countering Violent Extremism) strategy. It is a typically curious document. I wonder in fact if the key to it does not lie in the foreword by John Kerry, which is accompanied by a photograph of the Secretary of State looking strangely stoned. Although in that foreword Secretary Kerry claims that ‘our challenge is dynamic’, he seems to have got that all the wrong way around. Certainly America’s enemies are dynamic. But on the evidence of this document the US government is quite supremely blissed-out. For instance, readers will be unsurprised to learn that in this 12-page document purporting to deal with one of the great

Ella Whelan

Harriet Harman is wrong to say Kardashian’s naked selfies are any different from Page Three

It’s official, Kim Kardashian’s naked selfies have been given the Labour party seal of approval by Harriet Harman. On ITV’s Good Morning Britain, to the delight of a guffawing Piers Morgan, Harman sung the praises of the Kardashian selfies. ‘I am an expert on the Kardashians’, she said, ‘There’s a kind of bravery and pioneering spirit in them’. According to Harman, Kim Kardashian’s naked social-media posts are ‘brave and pioneering’. And yet, in the same breath, Harman went on to criticise Page Three girls, describing them as ‘fodder’ for pervy male readers. The difference between Kim Kardashian and Kelly from Essex, Harman argued, is that ‘the Kardashian girls are controlling

Tom Goodenough

Today’s migration figures will be much-needed grist for the Brexit campaign

Ever since David Cameron declared he wanted to get net migration down to below 100,000 the migration figures have caused him a headache. Today’s are particularly sensitive given that they’re out just a day before the EU referendum purdah period starts. Confirming net migration more than three times Cameron’s supposed maximum, and half of the rise being EU nationals, the data will help the Brexiteers argue that we need to leave the EU to restore border control. The potency of this argument has resulted in a subtle shift in the Brexit campaigning strategy, which appears to have placed immigration (not the NHS or the economy) at the centre of their argument. The ONS release shows that net

Fraser Nelson

Brexit odds – live updates on percentage chance of UK leaving the EU

With opinion polls showing dazzling range – from Leave being 4 points ahead to Remain 13 points ahead – it’s worth looking at the betting markets. The below is a live chart, which will update every time you revisit this page. It updates several times throughout the day. At the time of writing, the graph underlines a basic point about referenda: no matter what the polls say, the status quo has a huge in-built advantage. Or, at least, a lot of people are betting that voters will stay with the status quo. Mind you, this time last year, the betting markets gave David Cameron a 10pc chance of winning a majority. Greater than the

Steerpike

Dr Éoin Clarke’s ‘massive’ Tory spending revelations fail to go nuclear

If only Dr Éoin Clarke could learn from his mistakes. Earlier this month Clarke was left red-faced after his prediction of a shadow cabinet reshuffle failed to materialise. Not to be put off, the clip art-loving Labour activist — who has a PhD in Irish feminism — has been promising a ‘nuclear’ revelation regarding the Tory expenses row for some days now. After Michael Crick’s Channel 4 investigation led to the party admitting that it failed to declare £38,000 of general election expenses, Clarke told his followers that ‘massive revelations’ were on their way. Tweeting his followers on Sunday, Clarke said that a Tory election fraud story would ‘break very soon’ and cause the scandal to go ‘nuclear’. Massive story

Michael Henderson

Northern overexposure

‘The shortest way out of Manchester,’ it used to be said, ‘is notoriously a bottle of Gordon’s gin.’ But that was a long time ago, when ‘Cottonopolis’ was the pivot of the Industrial Revolution, the British empire was expanding and life was cheaper. They tend not to drink gin any more in the bars on Deansgate. It’s cocktails, a tenner a pop. The hub of George Osborne’s ‘Northern Powerhouse’ is a much-changed city. Now they’re queuing to get in, even though the super-duper HS2 rail link may go no further than Crewe, which is in Cheshire, and only southerners think Cheshire is in the north. Andy Burnham is the latest

Peter Oborne

Brexit, and the return of political lying

Sir John Chilcot’s report into the Iraq invasion, due to be published on 6 July, is expected to highlight the novel structure of government created by New Labour following its landslide victory of 1997. As Tony Blair started to make the case for war, he began to distort the shape and nature of British government in several ways — the most notable being the deliberate debasement of the traditional idea of a neutral, disinterested civil service. Under Blair, civil servants were told to concern themselves less with the substance than the presentation of policy. They were informed that their loyalty lay more with the government of the day, less with the

James Forsyth

This referendum has shown us the real Cameron

Westminster has a tendency to get ahead of itself. MPs want to discuss the aftermath of an event long before it has happened. They play never-ending games of ‘What if?’ At the moment, the political class cannot stop discussing, in great detail, what the post-EU referendum political landscape will look like. The speculation is, in and of itself, part of the political process. Much of the talk of the post-vote challenges facing David Cameron is intended to persuade him to pull his punches in the final weeks of the campaign. What no one disputes is that the Prime Minister will find governing even harder after 23 June. His majority is

Noel Malcolm

The power trap

Soon after the date for the EU referendum was set, Timothy Garton Ash published a piece in this magazine under the title ‘A conservative case for staying in’. He was followed by Ian Buruma, attacking the idea that, having left the EU, the British would be more free. And then, after the Obama visit to London, there was Anne Applebaum, assuring us that the US had ‘excellent reasons’ for being opposed to Brexit. Like the little boy at the back of the street brawl in the old Punch cartoon, I want to ask: ‘Is this a private fight, or can any former foreign editor of The Spectator join in?’ Tim

Matthew Parris

If I were in charge of Leave, here’s what I’d say…

It may be too late. But with only about three weeks before our referendum on EU membership I am itching to take the leadership of the Leave campaign. I could do them a power of good. Two serious objections may be raised to my bid. First, I couldn’t chair a parish meeting, let alone a snakepit of warring Leave enthusiasts. Secondly, I certainly don’t think Britain should leave the European Union. Setting these disqualifications aside, however, as a former speechwriter and politician I see so clearly the strategic direction the Leave campaign should set if they are to stand an outside chance of winning — and a much greater chance

Wednesday

25 May 2016

Lloyd Evans

PMQs Sketch: Osborne managed to fight off Labour’s pocket Boadicea

The only MP who doesn’t want Angela Eagle to be the next Jeremy Corbyn is Jeremy Corbyn. He was away today — thank Gawd! — leaving Eagle to take on George Osborne who replaced the PM. Eagle is quality. Her low stature, her kindly, nunnish face and her merry eyes give her a huge advantage in debate because she appears to be without defences. What weapon could this sweet-natured tinky-winky milkmaid possibly wield? A roll of grease paper? A warm scone? A rubber duck? When she strikes, as she does, the blow arrives invisibly. She has a slangy northern tongue that can easily make an Oxbridge toff look like a

Damian Thompson

Pope used Argentinian ‘ghostwriter’ for controversial document on the family, claims Vatican expert

The leading Vatican commentator Sandro Magister – a conservative Catholic detested by the Pope’s entourage – this morning published an article that will severely embarrass Francis as he tries to clear up confusion over the Church’s teaching on Communion for the divorced and remarried. Magister, stripped of his Vatican accreditation last year after leaking a draft of the Pope’s encyclical on the environment, claims that Francis employed a ‘ghostwriter’ for key sections of Amoris Laetitia, his 200-page official response to last year’s Synod on the Family. Magister provides chapter and verse – that is, side-by-side comparisons of Amoris Laetitia, published in April, and the writings of the Pope’s friend Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández, Rector of the Pontifical

Steerpike

David Cameron’s new enterprise tsar proves to be a problematic hire

Oh dear. Today at PMQs, George Osborne could not resist boasting about the government’s new enterprise tsar, Sir Alan Sugar. When asked whether he could confirm reports that The Apprentice star would be assisting the government, the Chancellor replied that this was the case — after Sugar had recently told Labour they were ‘fired’. However, for all their glee at the celebrity appointment, Mr S suspects Cabinet members should refrain from getting too excited. When Andrew Neil asked Matthew Hancock on the Daily Politics why he thought Sugar was such an expert on business, the minister seemed lost for words: AN: I just wonder why you politicians are so obsessed with

James Forsyth

PMQs: After a strong start, Angela Eagle lost her way

It was George Osborne v Angela Eagle at PMQs today, with David Cameron at the G7 in Japan. Eagle, who is a far better despatch box performer than Jeremy Corbyn, started off by contrasting Osborne’s handling of Google’s tax affairs with the French authorities raiding the company’s Paris office. She then went on to do what Jeremy Corbyn won’t, or can’t do, exploiting Tory divisions over the EU referendum. She asked Osborne if he agreed with Priti Patel or Len McCluskey on the EU and workers’ rights. But after this Eagle lost her way, her questions turned into mini-speeches and Osborne batted them away with increasing ease. By the end of

Steerpike

Watch: Angela Eagle teases Osborne for banishing Brexiteers from the frontbench

With David Cameron away, it fell on George Osborne to field questions from Labour’s Angela Eagle today for PMQs. While Osborne had plenty of gags up his sleeve, it was Eagle who managed to provide her party with the biggest laugh of the session. Needling the Chancellor over the EU division in his party, Eagle pointed to the fact there was only one Brexiter present on the Conservative front bench: ‘Instead of providing the leadership the country needs, they’re fighting a bitter proxy war over the leadership of their own party. I notice that no Out-er… all the Brexiteers have been banished from the bench.’ After much heckling, it became apparent

Tuesday

24 May 2016

James Forsyth

Hilton: Brexit would be the crowning achievement of Tory modernisation

In a speech to Policy Exchange today, Steve Hilton—David Cameron’s former senior adviser—will make the case that ‘any intellectual rigorous examination makes it impossible for a Tory moderniser to support staying in the EU’. He argues that Tory modernisation was about trusting people, and that the EU does not; that modernisation was about localism, and that the EU is inherently centralising; and that the EU helps the rich and not the rest. I think there’s much to be said for Hilton’s analysis. (Though, of course, it should be recognised that there are Tory modernisers on both sides of the argument.) But where Hilton is surely right is that the EU

Tom Goodenough

Today in audio: Fallon says Putin would ‘Vote leave’

Vladimir Putin’s name has popped up again in the Brexit debate. This time, however, it wasn’t the Prime Minister suggesting that the Russian president would favour Britain leaving the EU, but the Defence Secretary. Michael Fallon said Putin would ‘Vote Leave’ and he also told a Commons select committee that ‘there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that a British exit from the European Union would be applauded in Moscow’. He added that it would be a ‘payday for Putin’: Michael Fallon went on to say that being in the EU ensured that Russia had ‘paid the price’ for its intervention in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister gave a