Politics

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

Thursday

30 Jun 2016

Steerpike

Is Michael Gove the Brutus to Boris Johnson’s Caesar?

Boris Johnson managed to surprise commentariats and colleagues alike today when he used his supposed leadership launch to announce that he was actually bowing out of the race. Johnson’s allies feel that he was forced into the decision after his fellow Brexiteer Michael Gove announced just an hour earlier that he would stand in his own right. With Johnson believing that Gove was helping rally support for his leadership bid, this has been viewed by many as the ultimate betrayal. Although the former Mayor of London is yet to directly comment on his one-time friend’s betrayal, was there in fact an oblique reference to it in his speech? There was one line in particular that spiked Mr S’s attention: ‘A

Isabel Hardman

The official candidates to be Tory leader and their pitches to the party

The 1922 Committee has announced the final line-up in the Tory leadership race, after an extremely dramatic morning. The official contenders are as follows: Stephen Crabb Liam Fox Michael Gove Andrea Leadsom Theresa May Conservative contest rules mean that MPs only need two nominees at this stage, and there will be tectonic shifts taking place in the party as supporters of Boris Johnson move, either to Michael Gove or other candidates. It is fair to say after talking to a number of Boris supporters that some of them are currently so white hot with fury at what Gove has done in turning on his colleague at the last minute that

Geoffrey Alderman

Why Jeremy Corbyn is absolutely right not to resign as Labour leader

Jeremy Corbyn is absolutely right not to resign as Leader of the Labour Party. Those calling for his resignation – including those members of the Parliamentary Labour Party who supported the vote of no confidence against him – betray an astonishing misunderstanding of what the project called ‘The Labour Party’ is all about. Here’s the history lesson they all need to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest. The project now called ‘The Labour Party’ owes its origin to a conference called in London in 1899 to discuss the palpable erosion of trade-union rights as a result of a succession of legal judgments. Out of that conference something called ‘The Labour

The Spectator

Boris Johnson: I will not be the next Tory leader

Boris Johnson has ruled himself out of the Tory leadership race. Here is his full speech: Last week the people of this country voted to take a new path and a new direction for Britain in a decision that I passionately support. And it is vital now to see this moment for what it is. This is not a time to quail, it is not a crisis, nor should we see it as an excuse for wobbling or self doubt. But as a moment for hope and ambition for Britain. A time not to fight against the tide of history but to take that tide at the flood and sail

Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson: Next Tory leader ‘cannot be me’

‘My friends, you have waited for the punchline of this speech’ said Boris Johnson after 11 minutes of what sounded very much like a leadership speech. ‘That having consulted colleagues and in view of the circumstances in parliament I have concluded that person cannot be me.’ Theresa May has been slightly ahead of Boris in the surveys of Tory members and voters so far. Now she is the front runner. But it is worth remembering that Gove always receives a rapt reception at party conference and many Conservatives went into mourning when he was moved from the education brief. Gove has also been the key driver in government of the

Steerpike

Jeremy Corbyn sparks anti-Semitism row… at Labour’s anti-Semitism inquiry press conference

Given that Jeremy Corbyn set-up Labour’s anti-Semitism inquiry to examine the extent of the problem in the party, he will have been hoping that it would help resolve the crisis. In fact, given that Shami Chakrabarti’s inquiry concluded today that the Labour Party is not overrun by anti-Semitism or other forms of racism (though there is an ‘occasionally toxic atmosphere’) you could be forgiven for thinking it’s done exactly that. Alas things haven’t gone quite to plan today thanks to… Jeremy Corbyn. Speaking at the press conference, Corbyn concluded: ‘Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those

Isabel Hardman

Chaos and fury in Team Boris as support bleeds to Gove

Boris Johnson is about to go ahead with his leadership campaign launch without the man who has pulled so much of it together. MPs entering the event are baffled by this morning’s shock announcement by Michael Gove that he will run for leader himself: he was the man who invited them. Others, such as Dominic Raab, have already announced they have switched to the Gove campaign. Funnily enough, behind the scenes there is utter fury in the Boris camp. One prominent supporter points out that the Justice Secretary repeatedly insisted that he didn’t want the top job. ‘How can anyone believe a word Gove says on anything ever again?’ they

Steerpike

Boris Johnson’s water cannon splurge comes back to haunt him

Today Boris Johnson has found himself attacked on all sides with his leadership bid now seen to be over before it even began. With his fellow Brexiteer Michael Gove running against him for leader, Theresa May has used her own leadership launch to pour cold water on BoJo’s ability to lead the country. The most cutting remark came when she was asked about her ability to lead negotiations with countries like Germany. At which point she brought up Boris’s track record on… buying water cannons: ‘I seem to remember the last time he did a deal with the Germans, he came back with three nearly new water cannons.’ Mr S suspects that

Emily Hill

Why Michael Gove is the leader shy Tories need

In February The Spectator’s Emily Hill explained why Michael Gove was the leader the Leave campaign needed – and why he is the right leader for shy Tories. Here’s her article: Lately, people only have to look at me to splurge their deepest, darkest secret. Last May, they did a terrible thing. They voted Tory. Now they’re contemplating greater deviance: voting to leave the EU — if only, they say, the campaign was fronted by someone they could believe in. And who do they want? The answer surprised me. Theresa is no temptation, as it turns out, nor even Boris. No, it’s Michael Gove they fancy. Westminster types might read this and

The Spectator

‘I’m Theresa May and I’m the best person to be Prime Minister’

‘My pitch is very simple, I’m Theresa May and I think I’m the best person to be Prime Minister’, she said. here’s the rest of the speech: I want to start by paying tribute to the Prime Minister. It’s easy to forget how far the Conservative Party and our country have come since David Cameron was first elected leader in 2005. Thanks to David we were elected into government for the first time in 18 years, we won a majority in the House of Commons for the first time in 23 years and in difficult times we stabilised the economy, reduced the deficit and helped more people into work than

Tom Goodenough

Theresa May launches her Conservative leadership bid

Theresa May has launched her Conservative leadership bid this morning. Her scheduled announcement came just moments after Michael Gove announced that he was also entering the race in a surprise move, having broken ranks with Boris Johnson’s own campaign. In her speech, which you can read in full here, the Home Secretary said: ‘My pitch is very simple. I’m Theresa May and I think I’m the best person to be Prime Minister of this country’ May spoke at length of her reasoning for wanting the top job during her 16-minute speech. On Brexit, she said the country had emerged from a ‘bruising and divisive campaign’. Admitting she called for Britain to ‘Remain’,

James Forsyth

Gove goes for it

In the most dramatic development yet in the Tory leadership race, Michael Gove has announced that he is running. As late as last night, Gove was working with Boris Johnson and everyone in the Tory party assumed that the pair were running as a joint ticket. But Gove has now decided to run himself, saying that he ‘wanted to help build a team behind Boris Johnson so that a politician who argued for leaving the European Union could lead us to a better future. But I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Boris cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead.’ One prominent Boris backer

Michael Gove

Michael Gove: why I’m standing for the Tory leadership

The British people voted for change last Thursday. They sent us a clear instruction that they want Britain to leave the European Union and end the supremacy of EU law. They told us to restore democratic control of immigration policy and to spend their money on national priorities such as health, education and science instead of giving it to Brussels. They rejected politics as usual and government as usual. They want and need a new approach to running this country. There are huge challenges ahead for this country but also huge opportunities. We can make this country stronger and fairer. We have a unique chance to heal divisions, give everyone

James Forsyth

Gove running for the Tory leadership

Michael Gove has just released a statement saying that he’s running for the Tory leadership, and not supporting Boris Johnson. Here’s the statement: STATEMENT BY MICHAEL GOVE MP Immediate Release The British people voted for change last Thursday. They sent us a clear instruction that they want Britain to leave the European Union and end the supremacy of EU law. They told us to restore democratic control of immigration policy and to spend their money on national priorities such as health, education and science instead of giving it to Brussels. They rejected politics as usual and government as usual. They want and need a new approach to running this country.

Tom Goodenough

The Spectator podcast: The Tory leadership contest turns nasty

To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. A week after Britain backed Brexit, politics shows no sign of slowing down. David Cameron has resigned, Michael Gove has pulled out of Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign before launching his own. And Boris has decided not to run in the contest. We now have a final slate of five candidates vying for the top job. In his Spectator cover piece this week, James Forsyth says the Tory party is in a ‘deeply emotional state’. But he also points out that the leadership candidates who

Fraser Nelson

The pollster who called it wrong. Again

A few hours after voting started in the European Union referendum, Populus released its final opinion poll showing a ten-point lead for Remain. This carried weight because the founder of Populus, Andrew Cooper, was also pollster for the official Remain campaign. His findings had been passed to 10 Downing Street earlier, leading David Cameron and his team to become very confident. There were reports that the Prime Minister was not even going to stay up for the result: he intended to go to sleep early and wake up to victory. The vote for Brexit, by 52 per cent to 48 per cent, confounded the financial markets and wrongfooted most opinion

James Forsyth

So will it be Boris?

The Tory party is in a deeply emotional state. Remain-supporting MPs cry tears of rage when they discuss the referendum. Bitter emails and text messages have been exchanged. Leave-supporting MPs have been accused of unleashing dark forces that they cannot control, of putting immigrants in Britain at risk. Yet the leadership candidates who have so far emerged seem strangely united in their vision for post-Brexit Britain. All want to heal the divide between rich and poor that the referendum has exposed. It is tempting to concentrate only on the division in the party, the fear that David Cameron’s resignation has injected even more poison into the Tory system than either

Iain Martin

Sturgeon’s bluff

It ought not to be a surprise that Alex Salmond, Scotland’s former First Minister, has declared that the vote to leave the European Union is the trigger for a second referendum on Scottish independence. Salmond thinks everything is an excuse for another go. If a new Bay City Rollers album suffered poor reviews south of the border, or an English football pundit failed to declare Archie Gemmill’s wonder goal for Scotland against Holland in the 1978 world cup the best ever, Salmond would be right there on the UK’s television screens, chortling at the brilliance of his own wit, before intoning gravely that this insult is surely the final straw

The Spectator

Reasons to be cheerful | 30 June 2016

Noel Malcolm It may sound both Pollyannaish and paradoxical to say this, but leaving the EU will enable us to have stable, friendly, cooperative relations with all our EU neighbours. Being cooped up in a dysfunctional system, where so much depends on backroom arm-twisting and competing for favours in a zero-sum game, doesn’t produce stable friendships. For those of us who feel (as I do) like real Europeans, it will be so much better to be the friendly next-door neighbour than the unwanted in-law in the quarrelling family home. Noel Malcolm is a Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Tony Abbott I was one of those overseas worthies

Nicholas Farrell

La bomba Britannica

In Italy, media coverage of the triumph of Brexit has been wall-to-wall as Italians worry about the collateral damage and wonder if they too dare… So far La bomba Britannica has hit the Milan stock market much harder than the London one. On Friday, Milan fell by 12 per cent against the FTSE-100’s 3.5 per cent. Italy’s banks — too numerous, too small, undercapitalised and saddled with alarming levels of toxic debt — took the biggest hit. New eurozone rules that ban government bailouts for big depositors have turned them into sitting ducks. Shares in Monte Paschi di Siena (bailed out once already in 2013 by Italy’s central bank) fell