Politics

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

Wednesday

20 Jul 2016

The moral case against Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters are making much of Owen Smith’s work as a corporate lobbyist for Big Pharma before he entered politics. Whether he behaved unethically is irrelevant. To anyone who knows the culture of the left, his old job description alone can be enough to damn him. Reciting ‘corporate lobbyist’ in many left-wing quarters produces the same effect as reciting Satan’s name in a nunnery. No wickedness is unimaginable once such a demon is conjured from the depths. As I would expect, Corbyn supporters are already implying on the basis of no evidence whatsoever that Smith wants to privatise the NHS. Whether Smith responds in kind will tell you whether moral arguments

Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May ridicules ‘unscrupulous’ Corbyn over Labour job insecurity

In recent weeks, Jeremy Corbyn’s popularity has hit a new low with the Parliamentary Labour Party. Things are so bad that he is unable to assemble a full Shadow Cabinet — instead having to assign some people with more than one position. So, it was an interesting move of the Labour leader to bring up job insecurity and difficult bosses at today’s PMQs. Corbyn suggested that Theresa May had much work to do when it came to making employment rights fairer. Alas, the Prime Minister was unimpressed with Corbyn’s complaints. Channeling her inner Thatcher, May went on to suggest that it was he who was the guilty one when it came to

Steerpike

Osborne’s ally: ‘In mafia terms, George has been disrespected’

Theresa May is midway through her first session of Prime Minister’s question time, and it’s a very different look. She and Philip Hammond look like siblings in the front bench, but Mr S was struck by the sight in the backbenchers. Look at the above screen: who’s that in the bottom-right corner? There’s the newly-sacked George Osborne, making clear that he isn’t going anywhere. The new Spectator is going to press right now, and a line in James Forsyth’s political column jumped out at Mr S. Here’s a sneak preview: Allies of George Osborne are particularly irritated by his treatment, and feel that he was denied the chance to leave

Tom Goodenough

Which Labour MPs are backing Owen Smith?

Owen Smith is now in a head-to-head battle with Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership. We’ll know by September 24th – the day before the Labour party conference starts – who has come out on top. As things stand, Corbyn is the clear favourite: a recent YouGov poll put the party’s current leader 20 points ahead of his rival. But Owen Smith is not going to relinquish without a fight and has already been doing his best to counter one of his main problems – how well-known he is. Smith has been positioning himself as the ‘radical’ yet ‘normal’ alternative to Corbyn in various interviews. He’s also vowed to be

Charlotte Gill

The show’s over for the Women’s Equality Party

In the post-Brexit upheaval, the Women’s Equality Party (WEP) has fallen out of sight. Its members once told us ‘WE can, WE will’, but now WEP isn’t doing anything at all. Not since 24 June when leader Sophie Walker offered her most prophetic statements to date. In Newsweek Europe, she wrote that post-Brexit, we would urgently need ‘women on the table’, and that ‘Britain leaving the EU means more women will get involved in politics’. Little did she know her words would ring true, in the most unexpected way; as weeks later, a woman would not only be on the table, but head of it. And since Theresa May became Prime Minister, it’s

Cindy Yu

Coffee House Shots: Owen Smith’s ‘Mission-bloody-difficult’

Jeremy Corbyn is the clear favourite to win the Labour leadership battle, if yesterday’s YouGov poll is anything to go on. But now that Angela Eagle has dropped out of the race, is it just possible that Owen Smith might unite the anti-Corbyn vote and oust Jeremy? In this Coffee House Shots podcast, Fraser Nelson is joined by Isabel Hardman and YouGov’s Marcus Roberts to discuss what chance Owen Smith has in this race. Marcus Roberts tells Fraser Nelson that: ‘It’s not Mission Impossible – but it is a Mission Bloody Difficult, to put it mildly. What Owen Smith has to do now is to appeal – not just to

Tom Goodenough

Is Owen Smith ‘radical’ or ‘normal’? He needs to be both to defeat Corbyn

Owen Smith has told us he’s both ‘radical’ and ‘normal’. It doesn’t take a genius to work out those characteristics aren’t compatible. Yet, Owen Smith knows he needs to try and be both if he is to defy the huge odds and win this Labour leadership race. And therein lies the problem. Smith is deftly attempting a balancing act between praising Corbyn (his ‘radical’ bit) whilst trying to offer those policies in a more electable package (the ‘normal’ bit). So can Smith manage to do both? It’s going to be a tricky ask but he tried his best just now during his Today interview. After praising Corbyn as someone who

Tuesday

19 Jul 2016

Rod Liddle

If smarmy Owen Smith is the answer, Labour’s asking the wrong question

Jesus H Christ. Is this what it comes down to? A smarmy post-Tribunite nonentity swathed in unrealistic ambition, versus Chauncey Gardener? It is close to pointless wondering who to support between these political titans, Owen Smith or Jeremy Corbyn. If Smith wins, which I doubt very, very, much, he is no more adept to change the nature of the party than is Corbyn. He has not the nous, balls or means to challenge the activist base and thus recapture those Labour votes which, since 2005, have been winnowing away to Ukip, or the Tories, or to nowhere. Nor even that much support within the PLP. There are two big issues

Steerpike

Angela Eagle’s leadership campaign ends with yet another gaffe – ‘porridge!’

Today Angela Eagle has announced that she is dropping out of the Labour leadership race. Her decision comes after a campaign that has seen Eagle struggle to catch a break since it first kicked off — with hacks walking out of her campaign launch to attend Andrea Leadsom’s. So, perhaps it’s fitting that her campaign ended on a similar note. In an interview with Sky News, Eagle performed a routine sound test in which the producer checked the audio quality by asking her what she had had for breakfast. However, the broadcaster actually went live while this was going on. This meant viewers saw the former shadow business secretary repeatedly shout

Isabel Hardman

Angela Eagle pulls out of Labour leadership contest

In the past few minutes, Angela Eagle has pulled out of the Labour leadership contest, citing insufficient nominations in the race with Owen Smith. ‘I’m withdrawing from this race and supporting Owen with all of my enthusiasm and might,’ she told reporters in Parliament’s Central Lobby. This means that Labour now has its unity candidate to fight Jeremy Corbyn, and even those MPs who feel rather politically distant from Owen Smith will have to pull behind him in the name of dislodging Jeremy Corbyn. Supporters of Eagle will be angry that she took all the political heat and abuse for sticking her neck out first and triggering the contest, but

Tom Goodenough

Boris’s charm wins over at awkward press conference

Fresh from banging his head on the door of Downing Street, John Kerry has just been speaking at a press conference alongside Boris. But it wasn’t the US Secretary of State coming to blows during the heated Q and A session at the Foreign Office. John Kerry might be heading home tomorrow, but most of the eyes – and the barbs being flung from the audience of gathered journalists – were aimed squarely at one man: Boris. American journalists in London for Kerry’s visit appeared to see it as their sole opportunity to hammer the Foreign Secretary – and they certainly tried their best to make the most of it. There was

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May’s first Cabinet meeting gives us a glimpse of her leadership style

Theresa May’s first Cabinet meeting wasn’t accompanied by the kind of eye-catching announcement you would have expected from Tony Blair or David Cameron. Instead, the big news is that the new Prime Minister will chair three Cabinet committees on the economy and industrial strategy, exiting the European Union, international trade and social reform. This does rather underline her reputation for being someone who doesn’t like delegating, as well as her interest in the serious machinery of government, rather than media gimmicks. She then underlined her serious reputation further by welcoming colleagues to the coffin-shaped table in Downing Street by saying the following: ‘When I launched my leadership campaign, I said

Brendan O’Neill

Why Labour deserves to die

Who might save the Labour Party? That’s the question dividing dinner parties across London, causing spats at media soirees, getting socially conscious celebs scratching their heads. I have a different question. Why save the Labour Party? Save it to do what? To be what? To think what? The middle-class tussle over the future of Labour has become so obsessed with the stickler of which individual might make Labour electable again — safe, bland bet Owen Smith or ‘working-class northern girl’ Angela Eagle? — that its various factions have forgotten the purpose of a political party: to represent something, to say something, to embody popular opinion. Never have I so strongly

Steerpike

Watch: Lady Nugee’s ‘all male’ Foreign Office jibe fails to add up

Spare a thought for the ladies of Labour. After years spent campaigning for gender equality, they are yet to have a leader who is a woman while the Tories are onto their second female Prime Minister. So, it was an interesting move by Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, today to take a pop at the government’s foreign office team over the lack of women in top roles: ET: We do wish the all-male ministerial team well at this crucial time Alas there was a problem with Lady Nugee’s accusation — as Alan Duncan was on hand to point out: AD: May I thank the honourable lady for her warm welcome

Isabel Hardman

The Labour leadership contest looks set to be savage

Labour MPs are currently nominating candidates in the party’s leadership contest to replace Jeremy Corbyn. The current Labour leader does not need any nominations, but as the challengers, Angela Eagle and Owen Smith do. A deal has been done between the candidates for the one with the least support to step aside from the contest so that the membership has to chose between just Corbyn and one challenger and the moderate anti-Corbyn vote is not split. Owen Smith has enjoyed some good attention and momentum in the past few days, with MPs who had previously supported Eagle bleeding off to his campaign instead. But sources on the Eagle campaign insist

Steerpike

Watch: John Kerry bangs his head on No.10 front door

When David Cameron hummed a bizarre tune last week as he walked through the door of No.10, there was much mystery about what the tune meant. Thankfully, his former communications director later cleared things up — revealing Cameron hummed because he was worried no one would open the door. Whilst everyone laughed at Dave at the time, it seems that he was actually onto something. Today John Kerry emerged from the famous black door this morning to give everyone a big wave. Alas the US Secretary of State hit a snag on his return. After the door failed to open on Kerry’s return, he hit his head on the closed door… and they say

Tom Goodenough

Inflation is up. But don’t panic, it’s nothing to do with Brexit

Inflation is up: between May and June it jumped from 0.3 per cent to 0.5 per cent. But before the doomsayers blame Brexit, it’s worth remembering that these latest Consumer Price Index figures are nothing to do with the EU referendum. Instead, the numbers behind today’s inflation rise were collected in the middle of June, before the Brexit vote took place. So what’s going on? The short answer is that there’s nothing to panic about. The rise was almost wholly brought about by a leap in the cost of air fares – particularly those to European countries. Here’s what the ONS, who released the numbers, said: ‘The 10.9 per cent

Steerpike

David Cameron’s Mr Darcy moment

It’s been a difficult month for David Cameron, who has gone from holding the most powerful office in the country to being a backbench MP. Happily Mr S understands that he is now able to look back fondly on his greatest achievements so far from his time in politics. One of which involves being a Conservative heart-throb. Speaking at the 30th anniversary celebration of Patrick McLoughlin’s time as an MP last week in Chatsworth, Cameron recalled ‘the nicest thing’ that any woman has ever said him. The MP for Witney said that he had previously visited Chatsworth on a summer’s day when he was campaigning for the Tory leadership election: ‘The reason I remember it so

John R. MacArthur

Thanks to Brexit, New Yorkers discovered ‘the inequality thing’

A few days before the vote on Brexit, a crowd of Democratic Party grandees gathered in one of Manhattan’s toniest venues. Old friends and allies happily greeted one another, and as liquor unlocked emotions, one of them turned nostalgic about his stint in the Clinton Administration — a happier time, when the party was unified around the cult of political pragmatism known as triangulation. ‘Yes,’ said a misty-eyed associate who also remembered those days fondly. ‘We didn’t have the inequality thing…. How did we miss it?’ Propriety prevents me from identifying the participants, but the clueless arrogance about ‘the inequality thing’ largely sums up the reaction to Britain’s Leave vote

Tom Goodenough

Can Labour MPs use Trident disarray to oust Corbyn?

Demonstrations of Labour party disunity are ten-a-penny these days. But even so, last night’s Trident debate was still something to behold: 140 Labour MPs went against Jeremy Corbyn to back Trident renewal. Yet it wasn’t numbers but the words Labour MPs said which will have damaged Corbyn the most. Scores of backbenchers accused Corbyn of going against the party’s own manifesto policy on the vote. In one of the most damning speeches, John Woodcock said: ‘What Labour’s current front bench are doing is not principled. It shows contempt for the public, for party members and often in what they say for the truth.’ He went on to say the Trident vote