Politics Archives

Wednesday

13 Jul 2016

Ed West

The Conservative party has a remarkable instinct for survival

So farewell, then, David Cameron. I suspect we’ll miss him when’s gone, but then he probably entered Downing Street 20 years too early, a product of a culture that fawns over youth and undervalues wisdom. At least Theresa May is a good decade older than him, although Kenneth Clarke, at 76, should have been considered for the role, entering as he is the prime of his political life. After coming up with the great slogan of 2016, ‘Brits don’t quit’, Cameron then quit a few days later; his Tory arch-rival Boris Johnson then quit; Nigel Farage has quit, this time for good, followed by his deputy Paul Nuttall; Andrea Leadsom

Ross Clark

The Fixed Term Parliaments Act has come back to haunt the Lib Dems

The award for most pathetic remark of the week goes to Tim Farron who earlier released a press statement saying this: ‘Just 13 months after the last election the Conservatives have plunged the UK into chaos. It is simply inconceivable that Theresa May should be crowned Prime Minister without even having won an election in her own party, let alone the country. There must be an election. The Conservatives must not be allowed to ignore the electorate, their mandate is shattered and lies in ruins.’ Apart from the long-established principle that we do not automatically have a general election when one Prime Minister resigns and another from their party is elected

Steerpike

Champagne socialists celebrate Corbyn’s NEC victory

After Tuesday’s vote of Labour’s National Executive Committee, Jeremy Corbyn is automatically on the ballot in any leadership contest. So, with the prospect of a Corbyn-led Labour for the rest of eternity (or until he retires) now looking likely, it’s little wonder his team were in the mood to celebrate last night. In fact there was only one thing for it — bubbles! Although Corbynistas tend to take exception to being called ‘champagne socialists’, the Labour leader’s team lived up to the stereotype last night, with his office manager Karie Murphy tweeting a photo of two bottles of Parliament’s finest fizz: Still, with Corbyn now accused of trying to fix the vote — thanks

Tom Goodenough

Owen Smith launches ‘radical and credible’ Labour leadership bid. But is anyone listening?

Owen Smith has officially thrown his hat into the ring for the Labour leadership contest. But the question on many people’s lips is: who is he? A recent poll of Welsh Labour voters showed that 69 per cent had no idea who Smith was. So whilst Angela Eagle’s leadership bid launch might have been overshadowed by events elsewhere in Westminster, she is at least a more familiar face to those in the party who will be picking the new leader. During his Today interview this morning, he was asked whether he was familiar enough to stand a chance. Smith had this to say: ‘Well Angela Eagle has been in Parliament

Tom Goodenough

Will Corbynistas be willing to stump up £25 to back their man?

On the day Theresa May takes control at No.10 in a comparatively seemly transition, the Labour party is in the midst of the biggest crisis in its history. Jeremy Corbyn will be on the ballot paper in what looks set to be a messy and fractious leadership contest. He also looks likely to win: in September, he picked up 59 per cent of the votes and, amongst the party’s membership, little seems to have changed to knock that support. A quick glance at Corbyn’s Facebook page reveals a lot about the huge base of support the Labour leader can count on. A not-wildly-exciting video uploaded last night in which Corbyn

Melanie McDonagh

Why politics and parenthood should be natural allies

When Sadiq Khan was doing the rounds in his mayoral campaign he would, every so often, include some reference to his two daughters. He didn’t make a big deal of it; this wasn’t creepy or boastful in a Donald Trump way but the message was clear: he was an ordinary bloke and having a couple of daughters meant he had skin in the game when it came to issues such as law and order and schools. It also helped make the point that he was a Muslim feminist. He showed that it was quite possible for parenthood to be an asset in politics without its converse, an inability to have children,

Tuesday

12 Jul 2016

James Forsyth

Victory for Corbyn as Labour’s NEC puts him on the ballot

Jeremy Corbyn will be on the Labour leadership ballot. After a contentious meeting that lasted for almost six hours, the party’s National Executive Committee have ruled by 18-14 that as the incumbent his name will appear automatically on the ballot paper and so there is no need for him to gather nominations from MPs and MEPs. This is a massive victory for Corbyn and his wing of the party. He is now favourite to win this leadership election and if he does, the 172 Labour MPs who voted no confidence in him will either have to shut up or split off and form their own party. Crucially, if they leave

Tom Goodenough

Second EU referendum petition gets debate go-ahead. But what’s the point?

Signing a petition calling for a referendum re-run might seem rather futile after the Brexit vote was done and dusted. But it seems that the four million people who did just that and put pen to paper haven’t completely wasted their time after all. The petition, which said that the Government should hold a re-run if ‘the remain or leave vote is less than 60 per cent based on a turnout less than 75 per cent’, has jumped its first hurdle. Putting aside who decided that this precise percentage was the exact bar which needed to be reached, Parliament will now discuss the petition in Westminster Hall on September 5th. In

Isabel Hardman

What might David Cameron do next?

David Cameron has chaired his last ever, emotional, Cabinet meeting this morning, with just a final Prime Minister’s Questions lying between him and freedom. He may want to follow the example of Tony Blair and have a memorable sign off such as ‘and that is that, the end’, though it’s not clear whether he’ll find quite so many MPs keen to give him a standing ovation as he walks out, the Prime Minister who accidentally took Britain out of the European Union. But what Cameron chooses to do next is interesting. He has already said that he wants to stand again as MP for Witney in 2020. Of course, the

Ross Clark

A traditional family life is now a political handicap

‘I’m a gay woman with strong northern working-class roots,’ Angela Eagle told Robert Peston on Sunday. ‘I think I’m the right person for this job at this time.’ In case we didn’t get the point she followed it up this morning by boasting: ‘I’m a northern working-class girl who understands modern life.’ How outrageous that Jeremy Corbyn’s challenger should bring her class, her geographical birthplace and her sexuality into the leadership debate, suggesting that they would make her a more suitable leader than Corbyn. Or maybe it isn’t outrageous that someone should draw on their personal experiences while campaigning for office. I certainly haven’t come across anyone else making the

Katy Balls

Shadow Cabinet thwart Corbyn’s last-ditch attempt to stitch up NEC meeting

So, can Jeremy Corbyn automatically qualify as a candidate in Labour’s coming leadership election? The future of the party might well hang upon this question, being decided today at a meeting of the NEC, Labour’s governing council. With the decision expected to be close — down to just one or two votes — both sides are feeling rather nervous. So nervous in fact that some party members are resorting to underhand tactics. At today’s Shadow Cabinet meeting, I understand there was an attempt to ‘re-level’ the playing field. Jeremy Corbyn’s team made a last-ditch effort to remove Jon Ashworth from the NEC so there would be one less anti-Corbyn voice when it came to deciding whether

Brendan O’Neill

Thanks to the sneerocrats, the political bores are back in power

Never mind bureaucracy. Forget technocracy. Put to the back of your mind the rising lawyerocracy, like those 1,000 puffed-up, demos-fearing lawyers who yesterday insisted that the EU referendum result is not binding. For there’s a worse ‘ocracy than those, one which has an even greater draining effect on politics, one which leeches the life and colour from public debate. And that’s the sneerocracy, the rise of a meme-making, mick-taking, cynicism-stoking Twitterati and commentariat who never — but never — give a politician the benefit of the doubt and whose trade is snide rather than substance. Consider the fall of Andrea Leadsom. I know, I know: the only thing we’re meant

Steerpike

Is Theresa May the Daily Mail’s Manchurian candidate?

News of Theresa May’s coronation as the next Prime Minister is – as you’d expect – emblazoned on the front page of every newspaper today. However, the Daily Mail has gone one step further than its rivals — claiming, pretty much, that it enstooled May itself. And judging by its jubilations, if seems that Paul Dacre sees her as a Manchurian candidate programmed from High Street Kensington. In fact, on reading their article ‘how the Mail backed May from the start‘, one could be forgiven for thinking that the paper’s editor Paul Dacre was moving into No.10 with May come Wednesday: ‘The Daily Mail was the first newspaper to throw

Tom Goodenough

Angela Eagle’s leadership launch goes from bad to worse: ‘I’m not crying now, am I’

There were no great bombshells being dropped elsewhere or dramas unfolding in the Tory leadership race to distract attention away from Angela Eagle during her interview this morning on Today. But the Labour leadership hopeful might have been wishing there had been. It’s a big day for Eagle, with the party’s NEC deciding today whether Jeremy Corbyn will end up on the ballot paper in the leadership contest. Yet after a doomed leadership launch yesterday in which journalists walked out to go and cover Andrea Leadsom’s decision to drop out, things didn’t go much better this morning during her interview with John Humphrys. In a particularly awkward exchange, she was asked whether

Tom Goodenough

‘May Day’: How the papers reacted to our new PM-in-waiting

David Cameron is now in in his last full day in Downing Street and already all eyes are on the woman who will replace him. Theresa May is on the front of every newspaper this morning as she prepares to take over at No.10. Here’s how the papers have greeted Britain’s new PM-in-waiting: The Daily Mail, which backed Theresa May in the Tory leadership race, relishes the prospect of her taking over from David Cameron. On its front page, the paper describes the handover as the ‘Coronation of Theresa’ – making a big show of her promise to heal rifts and make Brexit a success. Don’t expect such uncompromising praise

Monday

11 Jul 2016

Katy Balls

Tom Watson tries to calm tensions ahead of crunch NEC meeting

With Angela Eagle clear that she will run to be the next Labour leader and Jeremy Corbyn willing to contest any such challenge, the Labour party is in a state of stalemate until Tuesday’s meeting of the National Executive Committee. At the crunch meeting, the NEC will announce whether or not Corbyn is automatically on the ballot — with a legal challenge expected whatever the result. So with the result looming, Monday’s PLP meeting proved to be a rather muted affair as MPs wait to learn their party’s fate. Tom Watson’s spokesman described the mood as ‘not the greatest’, while John Mann walked out halfway through complaining that Emily Thornberry was ‘prattling on’. However,

Tom Goodenough

Theresa May vows to ‘make a success’ of Brexit

Theresa May’s speech outside Parliament was all about conciliation: she made a point of paying tribute to Andrea Leadsom and David Cameron before giving a brief summary of what May’s Britain will look like. She said her focus was on uniting Britain and, once again, she spelt out that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ – a phrase she has used again and again, which says absolutely nothing about what she thinks Brexit means. Surrounded by MPs and standing next to her husband Philip, she had this to say outside the Commons: ‘I am honoured and humbled to have been chosen by the Conservative Party to become its leader. I would like to pay tribute to the other candidates

Harry Cole

‘The claws are never far away’: inside the court of Theresa May

There are plenty who have been left bruised by May’s decade and a half at the top of the Conservative party, but even her worst enemies concede that the woman who is to become the next Prime Minister has shown a remarkable durability in high office. She’s the longest-serving Home Secretary in half a century, and has made a success of what’s very often a career-ending job. A long-retired party grandee recalls May, then newly elected to Parliament, approaching him in 1997 to ask what she must do to succeed. ‘Ignore the little things,’ he replied. It’s advice that her critics reckon she has firmly ignored ever since. When he resigned as a Home Office minister, the

Tom Goodenough

David Cameron: Theresa May will be in No.10 by Wednesday

David Cameron has given his backing to Theresa May and he’s also confirmed that by Wednesday evening, he’ll be out of Downing Street for good. The Prime Minister said that tomorrow he’ll chair his last Cabinet and that Wednesday’s PMQs will be his final appearance at the despatch box. During his brief statement just now, Cameron said that he was ‘delighted’ his replacement would be the Home Secretary. Here’s what he had to say on the steps of Downing Street: ‘I think Andrea Leadsom has absolutely made the right decision to stand aside and it is clear Theresa May has the overwhelming support of the Conservative Parliamentary party. I am

Cindy Yu

Coffee House Shots: Labour’s leadership election

Labour’s leadership contest has finally been triggered as Angela Eagle made her bid for the position today. So how will this contest shape up? And will Jeremy Corbyn appear on the ballot paper? Isabel Hardman tells Fraser Nelson: ‘It’s going to be very bloody because Jeremy Corbyn wants to get back on that ballot paper, thinks he’s entitled to. If the NEC, the party’s ruling executive, says that he shouldn’t be back on that ballot paper unless he can get 51 nominations, the wrath from the membership will be enormous.’ If Corbyn prevails in this contest, might the moderates of the party then break away to form their own party? With