Politics

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

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Ed Miliband meets his number one Milifan

These are dark days for the Labour party, following their brutal election defeat and the recent turmoil within the party. For Miliband in particular, the pain of the past few months must be particularly acute. Still, there’s at least one area of politics he can draw comfort from: Milifandom. Abby Tomlinson, the founder of the cult movement, has today met her idol at the Palace of Westminster. There’s life in the movement yet, it seems: https://twitter.com/twcuddleston/status/614044576488247296/photo/1 Currently having lunch with the brilliant founder of #milifandom @twcuddleston to say thanks for starting something so highly improbable… — Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) June 25, 2015 Tomlinson became quite a star during the election, following a spat with Louise

Charles Tannock

Most Tories want to remain in the EU. Here’s why

It is unfashionable to quote polls these days but one recent finding went unremarked even though it is remarkable. It showed that only 15 per cent of members of the Conservative Party want to pull out of the EU. From the noise surrounding the debates on the Referendum Bill you might believe that this is a surprise. In reality the vast majority of Conservatives at all levels of the Party want Britain to stay in a reformed EU. We believe it is now time for the silent Conservative majority to get behind David Cameron and start to make the case for the UK’s continued membership of the EU and the

Steerpike Steerpike

Nick Clegg: I couldn’t get hold of Charles Kennedy before his death

Nick Clegg appeared on LBC this morning to take part in his first interview since his party’s defeat at the polls. With the host Nick Ferrari taking questions from listeners, Clegg was subjected to a mix of abuse and praise from Londoners. However, there was one question in particular which struck a nerve with the former Liberal Democrat leader. A caller by the name of Liam asked Clegg if he had personally spoken to each Lib Dem MP who lost their seat in the election: NC: After the election? Yes I spoke to them all, left messages with them. Liam can I ask why you’re so interested in that? L:

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Europe’s great game

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/angelamerkel-sburden/media.mp3″ title=”Fredrik Erixon and James Forsyth discuss the challenges facing Angela Merkel” startat=36] Listen [/audioplayer]For generations, ambitious politicians have dreamed about having the power to run Europe — but as Angela Merkel can attest, it’s a horrible job. She didn’t want to end up with the continent’s problems on her shoulders, but things have ended up that way. The Greek economic implosion, the seemingly unstoppable wave of immigrants from north Africa, the menace of Russian aggression, the euro crisis — all the multiple, interconnected, crises battering Europe have ended up as Merkel’s problem. The Queen will no doubt leave Germany this week thinking what every other leader in Europe

Oliver Lewis

Ten myths about Brexit

  1. Leaving the EU would hurt the UK’s ability to trade with it.   The fearmonger’s favourite argument. But fear not: the global economy has changed dramatically since Britain joined the EU in 1973, seeking entrance to a common market. The World Trade Organisation has brought down tariff rates around the world; even if we didn’t sign a free-trade deal with the EU, we would have to pay, at most, £7.5 billion a year in tariffs for access to its markets. That’s well below our current membership fee. 2. Three million jobs will disappear.   A bogus figure, heard often from the likes of Nick Clegg. It dates back

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The questions you don’t ask at the BBC

There was a remarkable scene in one BBC Today programme morning meeting in about 1995, as all the producers gathered together to discuss what stories would be on the following day’s show. The big story was the European Union; the splits occasioned by the EU within the Tory party and the battle, on the part of racist neanderthal xenophobes, to keep us out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, from which we had ignominiously exited three years before. The meeting cackled and hooted at the likes of Bill Cash and his assorted fascists on the Eurosceptic right. ‘They think the Germans are determined to dominate Europe!’ and ‘They’re just racists!’ and

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Where Ukip went wrong

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/angelamerkel-sburden/media.mp3″ title=”Freddy Gray, Sebastian Payne and Owen Bennett discuss where Ukip went wrong” startat=685] Listen [/audioplayer]What’s happened to poor Ukip? Not so long ago, they seemed unstoppable. They were revolting on the right, terrifying the left and shaking up Westminster. The established parties tried sneering at them, smearing them, even copying them. Nothing worked. Then came the general election, the centre held, and Ukip seemed to fall apart. Farage failed to win his target seat in South Thanet, the focus of his whole campaign. He resigned, then farcically unresigned, three days later. The ‘Ukip wars’ followed: after an unseemly row over ‘Short money’ — the funding provided by the

Wednesday

Eleni Courea

No, the SNP isn’t planning a ‘republican insurrection’. Here’s why

So is Nicola Sturgeon planning ‘a quiet republican insurrection?’ The Times says so in a thundering leader today: Jacob Rees-Mogg has even outed the party as ‘closet republicans’. And why? Because the SNP is withholding £1.5m of funding that is due to the Queen. Or so we’re told. The truth is a little more complex – and rather different. The money for the royal family does not come from the Crown Estate. It comes from HM Treasury, and under a formula set up in 2011 the Queen’s Budget is pegged to the profits of the Crown Estate (a kind of performance-linked pay, if you will. Very Tory). The Crown Estate is the

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

At this rate Labour won’t even be a debating society in five years time

The phoney war continues. While Labour searches for its next Michael Foot, the party’s stand-in boss, Harriet Harman, seems keen to lose the 2020 election as soon as possible. Some argue Ed Miliband has already performed that task. Either way, defeat is the only thing Labour does efficiently nowadays. Ms Harman attacked the PM’s plan to abolish a policy that many hail as Gordon Brown’s Worst Ever Idea: tax credits. These mean that thousands of Whitehall scribblers deposit cash with workers who then return the money, via thousands more scribblers, to the government which never owned it in the first place. Labour loves the N Korean ambience of this system

James Forsyth James Forsyth

PMQs: some revealing exchanges from Cameron on tax credits, broadband and ‘the vow’

In PMQs today, there was no sense of the drama going on outside in Central Lobby as disability campaigners attempted to enter the Chamber. But the exchanges were far more revealing than usual. Harriet Harman asked Cameron about his plans to cut tax credits. Revealingly, Cameron didn’t deny that tax credits were going to be cut or tell Harman to wait until the Budget on July the 8. I think we can take that as something close to confirmation that tax credits will be cut as part of the government’s effort to make £12 billion of savings from the welfare Budget. Indeed, Cameron even endorsed the idea that tax credits

Steerpike Steerpike

Mrs Clooney causes a stir in Westminster

Amal Clooney has been giving Westminster an unusual touch of glamour this week, with the world’s most famous female barrister putting them away in the Red Lion pub on Monday night. In a pub normally dominated by spotty parliamentary researchers and ale swilling trade unionists, it wasn’t hard for the human rights barrister to cause a bit of a stir. ‘I played it cool,’ says Mr S’s spy in the watering hole. While Steerpike hears the woman that managed to tame Hollywood heart throb George Clooney, has been appearing at the Supreme Court, on Parliament Square, today she has found time to visit the House of Commons to see PMQs: Amal Clooney is in the

Michael O'Connell-Davidson

Labour’s response to #ToriesForCorbyn shows they really have lost the plot

There’s a lot to admire about Jeremy Corbyn. For one, you can’t fault his conviction. While his entire party falls over itself to adopt as many Tory policies as possible, Corbyn remains a stalwart voice of the left. The ideological antithesis of Kendall and the Blairites, Corbyn appears to want to finish the job that Ed Miliband started: bringing Labour back to the left. It’s no wonder, then, that Toby Young and a cadre of other Conservatives want to see Corbyn win. After all, Miliband led Labour to its worst defeat since 1983; he achieved the seemingly insurmountable by appealing to the electorate less than Gordon Brown. To witness that

Sebastian Payne

Alan Milburn finally confronts Labour with the hard truth about Tony Blair

Alan Milburn has told Labour something it does not want to hear: Tony Blair was as great for the party as Margaret Thatcher was for the Tories. At a breakfast with the Centre for Social Justice this morning, the former health secretary argued that  Labour ‘could not have got it more wrong’ at the last election and urged the party to snap out of its ‘self-delusion’ that New Labour and Blair were all bad: ‘Great leaders always have a big purpose. For Churchill it was victory in war, for Thatcher victory against a stifling state. For Blair it was victory against old-fashioned attitudes and institutions that held our country back. Today, to

Steerpike Steerpike

Boris Johnson has his ‘Joe Biden moment’ at LBC debate

Last night Boris Johnson took part in his final State of London debate with LBC host Nick Ferrari, before he finishes in his role as Mayor of London and focuses on work as an MP. Mr S can’t see him forgetting this debate anytime soon, however, after the blundering politician had an awkward encounter with a man in a wheelchair. After a number of audience members stood up in City Hall to quiz Johnson on the lack of affordable London housing, Uber’s threat to black cab drivers, and the noise pollution that could be caused by airport expansion, Ferrari and Boris became involved in a spat about nuclear weapons. When Boris asked the LBC host what

Sebastian Payne

Will the Calais crisis create another EU headache for David Cameron?

The crisis at Calais has once again raised the issue of UK border security. Some of the 3,000-odd illegal migrants residing at the port took advantage of yesterday’s ferry workers strike by attempting to board the delayed vehicles. The immigration minister James Brokenshire told the BBC this morning the situation is ‘hugely regrettable’ and the government will be taking steps to ensure Britain’s border security is beefed up: ‘It is hugely regrettable that we’ve seen these incidents occurring as a result of industrial action in France. ‘We are putting additional resourcing into the port of Dover to enhance screenings and detections there so that we’re looking at this on both sides of the Channel. ‘We have

Tuesday

Sebastian Payne

Tim Farron strengthens his position in the Lib Dem leadership race

While the media has been focused on the Labour leadership contest, the Liberal Democrats are also shuffling closer to choosing their new leader. The ballot papers are being sent out tomorrow and the winner will be announced three weeks from now. The Libs have a choice between Norman Lamb, the former care minister who is energetically defending the Lib Dem’s record in office, and Tim Farron, the party’s former president who is arguing a lot needs to change. Farron and Lamb appeared on the Victoria Derbyshire show today for a gentle debate, both admitting there was ‘not a lot’ they disagree on. Both defended the Liberal Democrats’ decision to enter into coalition with

Steerpike Steerpike

Michael Gove defends his grammar rules

Lord Chancellor Michael Gove was criticised over the weekend for issuing a set of grammar rules for civil servants. The list, which appeared on the Ministry of Justice intranet, warned staff to refrain from beginning sentences with ‘however’ and using the words ‘ensure’ and ‘unnecessary’. It also encouraged civil servants to avoid excessive use of hyphens. Not everyone was enamoured by his guidelines; the Guardian likened him to a Harry Enfield character, while Oliver Kamm claimed in the Times this morning that his grammar rules were simply nonsense. Appearing on today’s World at One, Gove attempted to downplay his guidelines: ‘When I was at the Department for Education, I sent a note round with

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Is Home Rule the only realistic alternative to independence for Scotland?

‘Is Home Rule the only realistic alternative to independence?’ was the question posed at a Spectator debate, sponsored by Brewin Dolphin, in Edinburgh last week. In one sense the question is redundant since, no matter how much some nationalists claim otherwise, there is no reasonable or realistic scenario in which it is possible to envisage the United Kingdom government scrapping the Scottish parliament. Some measure of Home Rule, therefore, is indeed the only realistic alternative to independence? But what is Home Rule? As the panel agreed (not least since this has long been obvious) there is no agreed or even satisfactory definition of Home Rule. Is it, as the journalist

Sebastian Payne

Constituents give Zac Goldsmith ‘permission’ to run for Mayor of London

Zac Goldsmith is in the race to be the Tory candidate for Mayor of London. After announcing his intention to seek the nomination last week, Goldsmith balloted his constituents in Richmond Park for their permission: 79 per cent of those who responded said he should run, while 18 per cent said no. Although the turnout was just under 26 per cent, it’s still a victory for Goldsmith’s brand of direct democracy. In response to his local referendum, Goldsmith said he’d work ‘tirelessly to repay my constituents’ loyalty’: ‘I am hugely grateful to the residents of Richmond Park and North Kingston for taking part in the ballot, and am overwhelmed by the mandate

James Forsyth James Forsyth

‘No’ campaign coordinator pushes idea of two referendums

Dominic Cummings is the man drafted in to put together the putative No campaign for the EU referendum. Cummings has a tendency to surprise and he has done that today with a piece that pushes the idea that the No campaign should say that there would be a second referendum if Britain votes Out. This second vote would be on the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU. Cummings’ thinking is that this would de-risk voting No. People would be simply rejecting the deal that David Cameron had negotiated rather than voting to leave outright. Cummings sums up the advantages of a second referendum for No thus: This approach might allow NO to