Politics Archives

Thursday

15 Oct 2015

OK: I’m convinced: one EU referendum might not be enough

We now have to take seriously the possibility that in the EU referendum Britain will vote to leave. I had hardly contemplated that. At the time (in January 2013) I saw the Prime Minister’s pledge to consult the electorate as a tactical move, designed to conciliate his party. It may well have helped David Cameron hold off the Ukip at the last general election, and secure the winning edge his party achieved. But those of us who supposed (as did I) that the electorate would never vote to leave, so a referendum was a pretty low-risk gamble with our membership of the EU, may wonder now if we were right.

Alistair Jackson

The Met have found no evidence for an abuse network linked to No10. It’s time they admitted it

Almost exactly three years ago, Tom Watson stood up in parliament and demanded the Metropolitan police investigate ‘clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No. 10’. It was an incendiary claim which, because it was made during Prime Minister’s Questions and broadcast on live television, set hares running on social media and beyond. We know, now, that the police found no evidence to support an allegation of rape made against Leon Brittan by a woman known as ‘Jane’. But the question remains: what about that link to No. 10? I have spent much of the past three years looking into this. Working for BBC Panorama means following the

Hugo Rifkind

Can the Great British public be made to care passionately about the EU referendum?

It’s early days, I know, but the Outers have convinced me. Britain will not collapse into chaos and penury if we leave the European Union. The Inners, meanwhile, have convinced me, too: there is no great, looming danger if we stay. Thus I have a question. What are we going to spend the next 18 months talking about? I don’t see it. I may be wrong, and often am. Here and now, though, I do not see the looming spark which will ignite the dry tinder of the Great British public into giving a toss. Which I think is something that people who are passionate about this argument, on either

Rod Liddle

What the Great British Bake Off really says about Britain

There was an interesting news item on the television the other day. A transgendered chap was hoping to become the world’s first dual-purpose father and mother to a baby. He had frozen his semen before the surgeons came along with their secateurs and staple gun. I turned to my wife and said: ‘One day the chill wind of Odin will blow down from the icy north and cleanse our nation of all purulence and disease.’ She said nothing by way of reply — but a moment or two later announced that she was going to bed, and would be sleeping in the spare room. She had a distressed expression upon her

Wednesday

14 Oct 2015

Isabel Hardman

‘I was trying to out-Osborne Osborne’ admits McDonnell as Labour MPs rebel on fiscal charter

Over 20 Labour MPs rebelled against their party whip and abstained on the government’s fiscal charter this evening. The Labour party claimed there were 20 abstentions, but the Tories claimed the number was closer to 28. This is the full list of abstentions which didn’t include authorised absences (some of whom would have been would-be rebels who were encouraged to find a speech to make or ailing relative to visit in another part of the country at the last minute) from the Labour whips office: Fiona Mactaggart Rushanara Ali Ian Austin Ben Bradshaw Adrian Bailey Shabana Mahmood Ann Coffey Andrew Smith Simon Danczuk Jamie Reed Chris Evans Graham Stringer Frank Field Gisela

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: The clash of the victims

Corbyn’s PMQ’s strategy is now clear. Hopeful emailers send their lifestyle details to Labour HQ and a computer sifts the figures to find the voter likeliest to cause the prime minister’s cheeks to blush purple with shame. Today’s lucky winner was Kelly, (no surname given), a single mum on £7.20 per hour who works for 40 hours a week while caring for a disabled sprog. Did the prime minister know how much the tax credit deductions will cost her? Cameron hadn’t a clue so he talked about the rising minimum wage and falling council rents. Corbyn gave the answer: Kelly loses £1,800 a year. The question assumes that we all

Sebastian Payne

John McDonnell will meet his seven economic advisers…soon

The status of Labour’s council of seven economic advisers is becoming a little clearer. Following Danny Blanchflower’s revelation that John McDonnell didn’t consult him about the fiscal charter, another adviser has said the team has yet to meet — and it wasn’t even the shadow chancellor’s idea. On the World at One, Ann Pettifor, director of Prime Economics and one of Labour’s seven economic advisers, echoed Blanchflower’s belief that McDonnell’s U-turn on the fiscal charter was all about politics: ‘I think that clearly what John McDonnell was doing was thinking of the politics of it – and the politics of it is that Mr Osborne is trying to frame the Labour as being reckless with the finances and

Isabel Hardman

Jean-Claude Juncker accused of saying that the UK doesn’t need the EU

The ‘Out’ campaign in the EU referendum has seized on comments made by Jean-Claude Juncker where he appears to say that Britain doesn’t need the European Union. He ‘appears’ to say it in the sense that the key word is rather muffled – and his team are insisting he said Britain does need the EU. You can listen to his comments in the European Parliament below, and it’s worth listening as it’s not clear whether he said ‘personally I don’t think that Britain needs the European Union’ or ‘personally I do think that Britain needs the European Union’. https://soundcloud.com/spectator1828/jean-claude-juncker-says-that-britain-does-not-need-the-eu His aides are insisting that he meant that Britain does need the

Steerpike

Sandi Toksvig puts politics to one side for QI role

Earlier this year Sandi Toksvig stepped down from her role on Radio 4’s The News Quiz to launch a career in politics as part of the newly-formed Women’s Equality Party. Speaking about her decision to leave the BBC for politics, the presenter-turned-politician said that she had had enough of making jokes about politicians and instead wanted to participate in politics, with the aim to field party candidates in the 2020 election: ‘I have made jokes over and over again about politics and, do you know, this election I’ve had enough, and I have decided that instead of making jokes about it, I need to participate. So I am involved in the

James Forsyth

PMQs: Angus Robertson has become the Prime Minister’s stress ball

Jeremy Corbyn’s second outing at PMQs was better than his first. Rather than having all six questions determined by the email-writing public, he now uses a question from a member of the public to introduce a topic and then asks his own follow ups. Corbyn combined this with a few old-style put downs—mockingly declaring that ‘The Prime Minister is doing his best, and I admire that’ and saying, ‘could I bring the Prime Minister back to reality’— to turn in a more effective performance. But Corbyn still isn’t using PMQs, his best parliamentary platform, to change the political weather. Yes, the follow-up about tax credits was pointed but it hasn’t

Steerpike

#Piggate makes an appearance at PMQs

Although Jeremy Corbyn has decided to adopt a more civil approach when it comes to PMQs, the message appears to have not yet reached all Labour MPs. After a fairly polite exchange between Corbyn and Cameron today, it fell upon Labour’s Kevin Brennan to lower the tone with a pig jibe. Speaking about Lord Ashcroft’s David Cameron biography Call Me Dave — which made headlines last month over a section suggesting that Cameron had once enjoyed intimate relations with a pig, Brennan asked the Prime Minister when he had found out about Lord Ashcroft’s non-dom status as the account in the book had differed to Cameron’s version of events. While Lord Ashcroft claims he

Sean Kemp

Even a ‘Never Kissed a Tory’ t-shirt wouldn’t have helped Nick Clegg during PMQs

There are only two occasions in my life where I have had lengthy, in-depth debates about where grown adults should sit. One was planning my wedding. The other was PMQs. The reason for the second discussion was raised by Nick Clegg on Newsnight yesterday when he said that sitting mutely next to David Cameron at the weekly session may have been his worst mistake (for clarity I suspect he meant in presentational terms rather than his biggest mistake in government as a whole). There is quite a bit of validity to this point. Most people still get their political news from the evening broadcasts, and every Wednesday they saw Clegg sitting

Steerpike

Nick Clegg reveals his biggest coalition regret (and it isn’t tuition fees)

It’s fair to say that during Nick Clegg’s time in the coalition, the former deputy Prime Minister appeared to make a number of catastrophic mistakes when it came to the wellbeing of his party. However, when asked in an interview on Newsnight what he would list as his biggest regret, the former deputy Prime Minister chose not to dwell on policy blunders such as the Liberal Democrat’s disastrous tuition fees U-turn. Instead Clegg said his ‘biggest mistake’ was sitting next to David Cameron at PMQs: ‘I think maybe my biggest mistake was sitting where I did at PMQs and maybe I should have sat somewhere else.’ Clegg says that his seat of choice next to

Sebastian Payne

Does John McDonnell bother speaking to his economic advisers?

Jeremy Corbyn faces a major test of his leadership today as the government’s fiscal charter will be voted on in the Commons. John McDonnell has U-turned and decided the party will oppose the bill but plenty of Labour MPs are expected to rebel by abstaining on the vote. Although the bill will pass without Labour’s support, the size of this rebellion will reveal how poisonous the atmosphere among Labour MPs has become. The U-turn has made Labour look like a bit of a joke. The shadow chancellor has tried to explain why he has changed his mind but the question remains: why did he back the charter in the first place? One group who could have advised him not

Tuesday

13 Oct 2015

Ryan Coetzee

No, our campaign to stay in Europe will not be ‘Project Fear’

Britain Stronger in Europe launched yesterday at a packed event in East London introducing a range of our Board members including Karren Brady, June Sarpong, Richard Reed, and Caroline Lucas. Since then, I’ve been asked repeatedly what sort of campaign we plan to run. In particular, people ask: 1. Will ours be a re-run of the ‘project fear’? 2. Is ours the campaign of ‘the establishment’? I will deal with each, but first, here’s a description of the campaign we will run: we will make a positive, patriotic case that it is in our national interest to remain in Europe because Britain is stronger in Europe and we will provide

Isabel Hardman

Labour MPs prepare to rebel for first time against Corbyn: but it won’t change anything

John McDonnell has tried to explain why he U-turned on the fiscal charter this afternoon, saying that he has only ‘changed my mind on the parliamentary tactics’, not the principles of the matter. He told Sky News: ‘I have changed my mind, but I haven’t changed my mind on the principles of what the charter is standing for which is we need to tackle the deficit and we will tackle the deficit. Labour will tackle the deficit – we are not deficit deniers, I haven’t changed my mind on that. ‘But I have changed my mind on the parliamentary tactics. Originally what I said to people was look that charter

Dan Hitchens

British universities have a duty to defend the ‘unsafe’ space

In the ever-noisier debate about campus censorship, one party has been noticeably silent: the universities themselves. Last week, the journalists Julie Bindel and Milo Yiannopoulos were forbidden to debate (on the topic of free speech) by Manchester Students’ Union. Manchester University made no comment. The week before that, Oxford’s SU banned from Freshers’ Fair copies of a student magazine designed to ‘publicise ideas people are afraid to express’; again, the university stood back. Nor did Warwick University intervene when the secularist Maryam Namazie, in the same week, was disinvited by Warwick SU. (After an outcry, they shamefacedly un-disinvited her.) Universities seem to assume that students should be left to sort

Alex Massie

The EU referendum will offer just a pale imitation of the Scottish independence referendum

The trouble with remakes is they almost always disappoint. This is so even, especially, when they have larger budgets, bigger ‘names’, and higher production values. Something gets lost and for those in the know the first, original, movie will always remain the best. So it is with referendums. The plebiscite on Britain’s membership of the EU is already, it is quite apparent, shaping up as a bloated re-run of the Scottish independence referendum. There are, for sure, differences between them and we shall come to some of those in due course, but a lay observer paying attention to these matters will notice that many of the lines remain the same.

Fraser Nelson

The SNP bow out of the shambolic EU ‘in’ campaign

After the chaotic launch of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign (didn’t they work out that having the acronym BSE is not a good idea?) the Scottish National Party has made its mind up: it’ll stay well clear of this. John Swinney, the SNP Deputy First Minister, has just been on BBC Radio Scotland laying out his reasons. Yes, he doesn’t like the idea of being part of a campaign that might involve the Conservative Party – but it’s about more than that. As the SNP can see, the ‘in’ campaign is turning out to be a rebadged version of ‘Project Fear’, the campaign that almost destroyed the union in

Sebastian Payne

Shambolic Diane Abbott laughs off Labour’s fiscal charter U-turn in bizarre interview

John McDonnell’s U-turn on backing the government’s fiscal charter is just the sort of inconsistent positioning some in Labour fear will destroy the party’s reputation under Jeremy Corbyn. No one from the shadow treasury team was willing to speak on the Today programme about the U-turn so it was left to seasoned media performer Diane Abbott, now the shadow international development secretary, to defend the party’s position. In a rather bizarre interview, Abbott claimed that Labour was not in a shambles: ‘No, no, no, I think we’re in the right position to oppose Osborne’s mismanagement of the economy’. Before declining to explain why McDonnell has changed his mind on backing the charter: ‘He will be explaining that to the House of Commons tomorrow so

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