Politics Archives

Wednesday

25 Nov 2015

Steerpike

John McDonnell lectures George Osborne on Chairman Mao (yes, really)

With Diane Abbott recently given the nickname Madame Mao by her colleagues over her behaviour since Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Labour leader, Mr S had thought that Corbyn’s team would be at pains to distance themselves from the Chinese Communist revolutionary. Yet think again, as not only did John McDonnell bring up Chairman Mao today during the today’s Spending Review announcement, he also decided to quote the communist leader at length. McDonnell attempted to make a joke about Mao in response to Osborne’s questionable business relationship with China — the shadow chancellor said that he had brought Osborne a gift of Mao’s Little Red Book: ‘Let’s quote from Mao — rarely done in this

The Spectator

Full text and audio: George Osborne’s 2015 Autumn Statement and Spending Review speech

Mr Speaker, this Spending Review delivers on the commitment we made to the British people that we would put security first. To protect our economic security, by taking the difficult decisions to live within our means and bring down our debt. To protect our national security, by defending our country’s interests abroad and keeping our citizens safe at home. Economic and national security provide the foundations for everything we want to support. Opportunity for all. The aspirations of families. The strong country we want to build. Five years ago, when I presented our first Spending Review, our economy was in crisis and there was no money left. We were borrowing one pound in every four we

Steerpike

Watch: John Bercow tells Corbynista to ‘get a grip’ during Autumn Statement

Last month relations between the Tories and John Bercow hit an all-time low as the Speaker called Sajid Javid ‘incompetent’ for taking too long to an answer a question. Well, David Cameron can at least take heart today that it’s not just the Conservatives who can find themselves on the wrong side of the Speaker. Today Corbynista Clive Lewis was scolded by Bercow for making too much noise during the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. As George Osborne announced the details of the Spending Review only to be heckled by Lewis, Bercow paused proceedings to address the Labour MP: ‘Mr Lewis, get a grip of yourself man — calm. Take up yoga, you’ll find it beneficial man.’ https://vine.co/v/iz2DOg3iqUr While

The Spectator

Key announcements from the 2015 Autumn Statement and Spending Review

Steerpike

Jon Lansman’s Left Futures turns on Jess Phillips over Diane Abbott clash

Jess Phillips made the news earlier this year after the Labour MP told Diane Abbott to ‘f— off’ during a meeting of the PLP. The comment came after Phillips attempted to take Jeremy Corbyn to task over the lack of women in senior roles in his shadow cabinet, only for Abbott to jump to his defence. While Corbyn failed to intervene when the row between the two women escalated, it appears that some of his comrades are now fighting back. Jon Lansman — who helped manage Corbyn’s campaign before founding the hard-left Momentum group — has tweeted a link this morning to an article published on the Left Futures website he edits.

Sebastian Payne

Autumn Statement and Spending Review 2015: what to expect

George Osborne will take to the Dispatch Box at 12:30pm today to deliver this year’s Autumn Statement — a mini-budget on the Treasury’s latest plans for spending and taxation. The Chancellor will also announce the results of the Spending Review, which will outline the cuts to departmental expenditure required to clear the deficit before 2020. Here’s what we already know about the Chancellor’s big announcements today. ‘The biggest housebuilding programme since the 1970s’: Today’s FT reports that housing will be a key component of the Autumn Statement, with the Chancellor promising to build 400,000 new homes in England and shifting public subsidies from renting to buying. After the debacle over cutting tax credits, Osborne will be

Charles Moore

Robert Halfon is many things, but he is not a cabinet minister

Robert Halfon, a Conservative MP, has been threatened with blackmail about some (hetero)sexual allegation. The press, reporting this story, described Mr Halfon as a cabinet minister. He is not. He is only a minister (in his case without portfolio) in the category invented, I think, by Tony Blair, called ‘attending cabinet’. This is a bad development, because it blurs the line between a cabinet minister’s individual authority and the subordinate role of all other ministers. It turns the word ‘cabinet’ into little more than a badge with a few privileges. It won’t be long now before people idly ask ‘What is this archaic thing known as the cabinet?’, rather as

Tuesday

24 Nov 2015

Camilla Swift

The SNP don’t care about foxes. It was all a pack of lies

So, it turns out that the SNP weren’t that bothered about the plight of foxes after all. Back in July, you might remember, David Cameron was forced to backtrack on his plan for a parliamentary vote on relaxing the hunting ban, after the SNP decided to vote against any changes. This, of course, came after Nicola Sturgeon wrote in February: ‘the SNP have a long-standing position of not voting on matters that purely affect England — such as fox hunting south of the border, for example — and we stand by that.’ But now we hear that just a month after blocking Cameron’s proposed changes, the SNP received a £10,000

Ed West

Oldham is a bad omen for Labour, even without the Corbyn effect

Assuming we haven’t been vaporised by Vlad, the Oldham West and Royton by-election takes place next week, and Labour are seriously worried. Ukip’s odds to take the seat have fallen to 11/4 and as this observation from a campaigner explains, much of this seems down to the Corbyn effect. Labour have huge problems with their working class vote from what I have seen. These results were essentially reflected across the board by the 100 other campaigners over the last 2 weeks. Ukip is more popular than Farage though very few actively dislike him. But Corbyn has completely turned off his vote. Ukip are still going to struggle because near 30%

Isabel Hardman

Len McCluskey turns on Jeremy Corbyn

Either Len McCluskey is, in the Corbynista narrative, a Tory, or things are going badly wrong for the man his union endorsed for the Labour leadership. The York Press reports that the Unite leader told an audience in York that Jeremy Corbyn ‘has to come to terms with his leadership’, that he ‘can’t necessarily say the first thing that comes into his head’ and that his comments about shoot-to-kill were ‘inappropriate’. What this shows – unless Len McCluskey really is a red Tory – is that even those union bosses who have been agitating for years for Labour to move left have been shocked by how disorganised and naive his

Steerpike

Listen: Labour MP calls SNP MPs ‘robots’

Today’s Trident debate in the Commons made for a lively affair, as the SNP made their case for the government to veto plans to renew the nuclear deterrent. Not that they were keen on any other parties having their say during the event, with Labour’s John Woodcock and Jamie Reed struggling to find an opportunity to have their voice heard. When Woodcock — who is fiercely pro-Trident — did get the chance to speak he didn’t mince his words, calling the SNP ‘robots’: ‘You see, I would have been happy to take every single one of you robots in getting your instruction, I would have been happy but the thing is Madame Deputy Speaker

Sebastian Payne

Vote Leave and Leave.EU won’t be merging anytime soon

Is peace about to break out between the two Brexit campaigns, Vote Leave and Leave.EU? Today’s Daily Telegraph reports that Arron Banks, the co-founder of Leave.EU, has written to Matthew Elliot from Vote Leave to suggest they should ‘put all these disagreements to one side’. In the letter, Banks says he is happy to merge with the campaigns without any special terms: ‘In terms of uniting Leave.eu and Vote Leave we have no prior conditions and believe that discussions should now take place that reflect the complementary strengths that the two organisations enjoy. ‘I have a simple view of life and this is my unequivocal message moving forward – if you want to leave

Steerpike

Alan Johnson vs Left Unity spokesman: ‘all you’ve done is print leaflets’

With the news that Left Unity — the far-left political party — have suspended plans to stand in elections in order to support Jeremy Corbyn, many Corbynistas have taken the decision as proof of their leader’s positive influence. Alas, it all got a bit much for Alan Johnson, the former Home Secretary, when he appeared on the Daily Politics alongside Left Unity spokesman Simon Hardy. With Left Unity amassing a mere 455 votes across three seats in the general election, Johnson didn’t take Hardy’s criticisms of Labour pre-Corbyn all that well. In fact, when Hardy suggested that Labour had become a ‘shadow’ of the Tories — with Corbyn their only saviour, Johnson

Alex Massie

The SNP’s ‘new politics’ seems to be rather like the old politics it despises

Update, 5.59pm: Natalie McGarry has now resigned the SNP whip over the campaign fund probe. First there were 56. Then there were 55. Pretty soon it seems entirely possible there will be only 54. SNP MPs, that is. Natalie McGarry, the 34 year old MP for Glasgow East, is the latest (that is, second) member of the SNP’s record-breaking 2015 intake to be in discussions with the police. Ms McGarry was a leading member of Women for Independence, one of the plethora of independent campaigning organisations agitating for a Yes vote during last year’s referendum campaign. Unfortunately, it seems as though a substantial amount of money, believed to be in

Isabel Hardman

Labour increasingly nervous about Oldham West and Royton by-election

A number of Labour MPs are campaigning in Oldham today, with fears growing in the party that it could be in serious trouble in the by-election there. Even though Michael Meacher won the seat in May with a 14,000 majority, the fears that I reported last week about white working class voters turning away from Labour and plumping instead for Ukip seem to be growing. No MP who has been there has anything positive to say about what they’ve seen, other than that their candidate, Jim McMahon, is hugely impressive. Some Labourites with a good knowledge of the seat are worried that the party may do well in postal votes, but

Alex Massie

There’s no need to laugh at Jeremy Corbyn; you should pity him instead

Weakness comes in many guises. Last night, for instance, I found myself feeling something close to pity for Jeremy Corbyn. Pictures of the House of Commons may be notoriously unreliable but they can still tell a story. And there it is: Corbyn Alone, Jeremy Agonistes, Jezza Contra Mundum. Mocked by his enemies and abandoned by his notional supporters, the question is no longer whether Jeremy Corbyn is a disaster for the Labour party but, rather, when his leadership will be put out of its misery. Not for a while yet, I fancy, even though he hirples on like a blind, three-legged, cancer-stricken, dog. An object of pity not scorn. Comparisons with Michael

Sebastian Payne

Labour supporters are still backing Jeremy Corbyn in droves

The Tories may be steaming ahead in the national opinion polls but the Labour grassroots are still pleased with Jeremy Corbyn. According to a new poll from The Times and YouGov — who surveyed the Labour membership during the leadership contest and predicted Corbyn’s victory — two thirds of members think the leader is doing ‘well’. He continues to have the overwhelming support of those who backed him during the leadership contest too: 83 per cent of this group say he is doing well. It’s not just the Corbyn backers within Labour who are pleased with his performance — almost half of those who voted for Andy Burnham this summer think the leader is doing

Steerpike

Robert Halfon pulls out of talk to Tory students

Yesterday Mr S reported that Robert Halfon was due to give a talk to young Tory activists on Wednesday — less than two weeks after he confessed to an affair with a… young Tory activist. The Minister without Portfolio went public over his brief affair with Alexandra Paterson, the chair of Conservative Future, after claiming that Mark Clarke — the Tatler Tory currently facing allegations of blackmail and bullying (which Clarke denies) — had planned to film him leaving a hotel with her as part of a blackmail plot. While Steerpike has no doubt that Halfon — who has earned the nickname ‘red hot Rob’ as a result of his antics — would have been on his best behaviour on

Monday

23 Nov 2015

Isabel Hardman

Tory whips woo Labour MPs ahead of Syria vote

As David Cameron confirmed in his statement to the Commons today, he will set out his strategy on attacking Islamic State in Syria on Thursday. MPs will then get the weekend to consider their positions, with a vote expected next week. A number of odd things are happening in preparation for this vote. One is that the Tory whips are being incredibly nice to people they normally ignore: Labour MPs. I understand that there is a briefing scheduled for Wednesday for Labour MPs at the Ministry of Defence, with a similar one for Tory MPs at a separate time. As I said this morning, it looks as though Labour MPs

Steerpike

Lord Sugar to Boris Johnson: ‘you need a whack, mate’

Faced with the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn one day becoming Prime Minister, Lord Sugar said that if elected, we should all move to China. Strong words from the Apprentice star — who quit the Labour Party after the election over its ‘negative’ stance on business, yet he doesn’t seem all that happy with Britain under Tory rule either. Today Sugar told the Mayor of London that he needed a ‘whack’ after the millionaire businessman found himself stuck in traffic. ‘I have been sitting in Lower Thames st for a bloody hour,’ he moaned in a tweet directed at Boris Johnson. ‘What a bloody joke, it’s getting worse.’ It’s thought that the delay was