Politics

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

Tuesday

Sebastian Payne

Nicky Morgan attacks Labour for lack of women in top jobs

Nicky Morgan delivered a speech to Tory conference that was lacking in new policies or announcements, but strong on equality. Wearing her other hat as Minister for Women and Equalities, Morgan went on the attack and lambasted Labour for its policies — in particular the lack of women in senior posts: ‘Equality for us isn’t about quotas, pink vans or separate train carriages. Instead, it’s about that core Conservative philosophy which says the fact that you happen to be a woman, to be gay, to be from an ethnic minority, should never be a barrier to you achieving your all. ‘And unlike the Labour Party we practise what we preach. Because women are

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory MPs grumpy about ‘arm candy’ photo rota

One of the fun jobs that new Tory MPs have to perform at conference is joining the special rota to follow David Cameron around. This isn’t a new rota, but it seems to have especially annoyed a number of the rather impressive 2015 intake, particularly some of the female MPs who think they are being used as arm candy. The rota involves walking with the Prime Minister between buildings so that when he is photographed, he has an entourage of supportive MPs with him, and so that they get their chance to have a picture of them walking with the PM in the national media. The photo above, of new

Sebastian Payne

George Osborne: Corbyn is not the cause of Labour’s problems

George Osborne was interviewed by Kath Viner, editor of The Guardian, this afternoon and offered some interesting thoughts on Jeremy Corbyn. The Tories have generally kept schtum about the rise of the new Labour leader, focusing instead on the message that he is a danger to Britain’s national/economic security. Echoing the thoughts of Labour’s Jon Cruddas, the Chancellor said Corbynmania is not about the man himself: ‘I don’t think it’s actually about personalities in this sense which is, you know, Jeremy Corbyn is not the cause of the Labour party’s problems, he is a symptom. He was elected by the great majority of Labour members — not just the new people who joined,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Has Boris just set an impossible bar for Cameron’s EU renegotiation?

Boris Johnson’s speech today was the best that I have ever heard him give. It was a potent cocktail of political vision, humour and optimism. But the most significant line it was about Europe. He declared that: ‘It should be up to this parliament and this country – not to Jean-Claude Juncker – to decide if too many people are coming here’ It is impossible to read this as anything other than a demand that freedom of movement rules are fundamentally altered as part of the UK’s renegotiation with the EU. Now, Number 10 are clear that they aren’t seeking to challenge the principle of freedom of movement, they know

Sebastian Payne

Podcast special: Boris Johnson’s conference speech

Boris Johnson’s speech to the Conservative conference in Manchester has gone down a storm. Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and I discuss the return of Boris in this View from 22 podcast special — looking at how the Mayor of London managed to articulate conservative themes through humour, his jibes at George Osborne and David Cameron and what his successful address means for his chances of becoming Tory leader. You can subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week, or you can use the player below:

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson’s bid to get back in the leadership contest

The Tory conference this year is so stage-managed that not only did the party manage the no mean feat of sending out a check-against-delivery text of Boris Johnson’s speech before he stood up, but the Mayor then stuck to that text almost entirely. That text contained new jokes, rather than recycled ones, and was the better for it. He made quite clear that he wasn’t giving up on the leadership contest, and that a difficult first term doesn’t mean he’s not a serious option to lead the party in the future. The reason Boris managed to show he was a serious option to lead the Conservative party was that he

Steerpike Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Robert Peston left out in the cold

This week it was reported that Robert Peston is leaving his role as the BBC’s economics editor to join ITV as their political editor. As part of the new job, he is expected to be the host of a Sunday morning politics programme which the broadcaster hopes will rival The Andrew Marr Show. Unsurprisingly the news does not appear to have gone down too well with some members of the Beeb. Stephen Walker, the BBC Northern Ireland Political Correspondent, has shared a photo of a sign outside a BBC press area at Tory conference which has been ‘edited’ to ban Peston from entering. Poor Robert. pic.twitter.com/j84K4fxcFX — Stephen Walker (@StepWalkTV) October

The Spectator

Full text: Boris Johnson 2015 Conservative conference speech

Thank you Zac, and thank you for just showing once again that you have exactly the qualities of originality and drive that will help you win in London in May. https://soundcloud.com/spectator1828/boris-johnsons-tory-conference-2015 I tell you when I knew we were going to be all right in that amazing election and it wasn’t the Ed stone — the heaviest suicide note in history — or the mysterious second kitchen. It was when I was walking one of those furiously contested high streets in North West London where one week the Tory posters went up, only to vanish next week in favour of Labour posters, and we were busy restoring the Tory posters when

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Theresa May’s immigration speech was as tawdry as it was contemptible

London, eh? What a ghastly place. A seething, impenetrable, web of humanity. A vast, choking, metropolis that is, once again, one of the dark places of the world. A vision of hell, frankly. That, at any rate, would appear to be what Theresa May, the Home Secretary, thinks. If she did not think this, if she did not consider the capital a multi-coloured blot on the face of modern Britain, she would not, I assume, have alleged this morning that “When immigration is too high, when the pace of change is too fast, it’s impossible to build a cohesive society.”  There is, she added, “no case, in the national interest, for

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Theresa May lambasts her own record on immigration. Why?

What on earth is Theresa May playing at? As Home Secretary she vowed to cut net immigration down to the ‘tens of thousands,’ only to see it increase to a record high of 330,000. A bit embarrassing: the slogans that used to adorn Tory conferences boasting ‘immigration down’ have been quietly removed, and replied by the fictional achievement ‘deficit eliminated’. If I were her, I’d just drop the whole thing. Instead, she chooses this conference to inform us that the immigration she has presided over is bad for Britain, bad for our social cohesion. In her words: ‘When immigration is too high, when the pace of change is too fast, it’s impossible

Sebastian Payne

Michael Gove: ‘social progress has always been a Conservative cause’

Michael Gove may have left the Department for Education but he hasn’t lost his reforming zeal. In his Tory conference speech, the Justice Secretary revealed that his inspiration in pursuing criminal justice reforms is Winston Churchill — and not because of his role leading Britain through some of its darkest hours: ‘The man who was, perhaps, our greatest Prime Minister was also a truly great Home Secretary. He argued that there should be “a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every

Steerpike Steerpike

Tory MP goes off message in radio interview: ‘George Osborne is too smooth’

Although Tory conference has so far been a rather dull affair with senior politicians sticking to the party line at all times, one of the new intake of Tory MPs did manage to spice things up last night. In an interview with Iain Dale on LBC, Heidi Allen gave surprisingly honest answers when asked who she would like to be the next Tory leader. Although George Osborne is the favourite to succeed David Cameron, Allen has concerns that he is ‘too smooth’ for the job: HA: I have to be honest I couldn’t really picture him as a future leader but I thought he did a really good job today actually. ID: Why not?

Steerpike Steerpike

George Osborne takes a dig at Jeremy Corbyn at Tory conference

Although Cabinet Ministers are said to be on strict instructions to refrain from insulting or mocking Jeremy Corbyn in their conference speeches, the Chancellor of the Exchequer couldn’t resist taking a dig at the Labour leader on Monday night. As Corbyn was speaking to a packed crowd of protesters across town, Osborne found room in his speech at the Enterprise Forum Business Reception to make a joke at the expense of the Labour leader over his appearance at the fringe protest event. At first, Osborne appeared to compliment Labour in his speech, praising the party for working out that they were not pro-business enough in the last election: ‘What was of course interesting about the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The chaos of Libya returns to haunt David Cameron

‘Were we right to stop a massacre? Yes, we absolutely were,’ said David Cameron on his Radio 4 Today programme interview. But the real question is different: were we right to depose Gaddafi, given the chaos (and bloodshed) that has followed in Libya? Are things so much better for the citizens of Benghazi (and the 80,000 souls in Sirte) now that Islamic State has moved in? The Prime Minister stopping a potential massacre at Benghazi was fairly uncontroversial. But should he have then pressed on to topple the Libyan and created the vacuum now being filled with sectarian warfare and the migration crisis? https://soundcloud.com/spectator1828/david-cameron-on-libya-6 We know quite a lot about all this due to the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Theresa May has ‘quite a lot of explaining to do’ on immigration before the leadership contest

Theresa May will today claim that high levels of immigration make it ‘impossible to build a cohesive society’. The Home Secretary will tell the Tory conference that it’s not just about building more schools and homes to deal with immigration, but about driving those numbers down too: ‘Now I know there are some people who say, yes there are costs of immigration, but the answer is to manage the consequences, not reduce the numbers. But not all of the consequences can be managed, and doing so for many of them comes at a high price. ‘We need to build 210,000 new homes every year to deal with rising demand. We

Sebastian Payne

Conservative conference 2015: Tuesday fringe guide

Every morning throughout party conference season, we’ll be providing bur pick of the fringe events on Coffee House. The Tories’ jive in Manchester rolls on today and the fringes are filled with many of the same faces from yesterday, talking about obliquely-titled events. Nicky Morgan and Sajid Javid are popping up all over the place, but there are plenty of other speakers worth scouting out. Title Key speaker(s) Time Location Lifelong learning and training: turning rhetoric into reality Nick Boles 10:30 Novotel Centre, Rylands Suite How can this government deliver genuine competition in the energy market and keep bills low? Amber Rudd 12:00 ConHome marquee Skills to pay the bills: preparing young people

Monday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Jeremy Hunt: if only Brits worked as hard as the Chinese 

‘That sounded so much better in my head,’ said Rachel from Friends in Series 2. I suspect Jeremy Hunt is now thinking the same. He meant to say that British workers need to improve their productivity, and be weaned off work subsidies. But instead, it came out like: ‘We have to proceed with these tax credit changes because they are a very important cultural signal. My wife is Chinese, and if we want this to be one of the most successful countries in the world in 20, 30, 40 years’ time there’s a pretty difficult question that we have to answer which is essentially: are we going to be a

Sebastian Payne

Matt Hancock: we should govern for those who voted Miliband, not the egg throwers

Matt Hancock has a list of three things the Tories need to do to win again in 2020. At a Westbourne Communications fringe event, the Cabinet Office Minister (one of the few senior Tories to appear at fringes today) said the Tories should use their mandate from the 2015 election to prove they are the party of government and can be trusted to run the country over the next decade. This is how he believes they can do it: 1. Making sure we deliver effectively: Hancock said the government must show in five years time that the country is going in the right direction and some of the ‘deep seated problems’ have been

Sebastian Payne

Greg Clark’s softer approach to building more houses in a ‘Conservative way’

The most striking thing about Greg Clark’s speech to Tory conference today was how different his rhetoric was on house building to George Osborne. Osborne likes to talk of confrontation, of standing up to small ‘c’ conservative voters who block development, and of winning a battle with the shires (see today’s Mail front page). But Clark tried to use more conciliatory language, speaking wistfully of the ‘joy’ of his own homes: ‘ Close your eyes and picture all the homes you’ve lived in – then what you see is the story of your life. For me it began with my mum and dad’s bungalow where I grew up. Then the thrill

Steerpike Steerpike

George Osborne’s Tatton brag leaves him out of the loop

The Chancellor of the Exchequer set out his vision for a brighter Britain in his conference speech today, explaining that the party are laying the groundwork for a strong economy in the future. To show his commitment to doing just that, the MP for Tatton opted to use an example that proves how he puts the country above all else, even his wealthy constituents: ‘I am very lucky to represent a constituency just a dozen miles to the south of here full of pretty villages and market towns in the flat and lush Cheshire plain. The great writer Elizabeth Gaskell used to live there, and she drew on her life in nineteenth