Politics Archives

Thursday

20 Aug 2015

Harry Mount

Antigua

‘Tourism, tourism and tourism,’ said my Antiguan cab driver, when I asked what the country’s main industries were. Still, it’s easy to avoid the other tourists, even though the island’s just over 100 square miles. Take a quad-bike tour — arranged by my hotel, the Sandals Grande Antigua Resort — and you can go from one end of the island to another in a morning, without seeing another tourist. Instead, you’ll see fields of sweet potatoes, dotted with sprawling tamarisk trees; jagged cliffs and pale-yellow beaches, fringed with luminous, aquamarine water. You’ll also come across remnants of old sugar plantations; in the early colonial years, slavery was Antigua’s biggest moneymaker.

Tim Montgomerie

Capitalism’s true enemies

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thecleaneatingcult/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and Freddy Gray discuss the future of capitalism” startat=1326] Listen [/audioplayer]Friends of capitalism feared that the events since 2007 — the financial collapses, bailouts, deficits and austerity — would produce a massive swing to the left, but it hasn’t happened. Voters have consistently chosen sensible, middle-of-the-road parties that undertook to steady the ship rather than sail in completely different directions. In reacting to the biggest crisis to engulf the free enterprise system for decades we’ve learnt that the spirit of the anti-capitalists is willing but their flesh is weak — and also that they’re simply aren’t enough of them. They can’t even read the books that

Wednesday

19 Aug 2015

Sebastian Payne

Jeremy Corbyn: suggestions I’m anti-semitic are ‘disgusting and deeply offensive’

Jeremy Corbyn has hit back at suggestions he has been hanging out in a rather bad crowd. The former Conservative MP Louise Mensch has dug up a press release on her blog that suggests Corbyn invited Dyab Abou Jahjah, a Lebanese extremist who once said the ‘death of every British soldier is a victory’, to speak in Parliament. On the World at One, Corbyn responded to the accusation he invited Jahjah to speak in Parliament: ‘Sorry who? I saw the name this morning and I asked somebody who is he?’ He went to dismiss the idea that he is racist or anti-semitic: ‘My views are that the Holocaust was the most disgraceful and vile

Martin Vander Weyer

Come on, Prime Minister: a peerage for our peerless folding bike designer

Here is a preview of Martin Vander’s Any Other Business Column in this week’s Spectator, out tomorrow… Asked to name Britain’s greatest living industrial designer, most people might cite Sir Jony Ive of Apple or Sir James Dyson of the bagless vacuum cleaner. I’d certainly shortlist Ive, but I traded in my unreliable Dyson for a brutally efficient German machine called a Sebo and I’ve always thought Sir James was overhyped. I might also mention Dumfries-born Ian Callum, the director of design for Jaguar cars responsible for the sleek F-Type. But surely the top prize must go to Andrew Ritchie, the former landscape gardener whose one perfect product, the Brompton

Steerpike

Russell Brand comes to Jeremy Corbyn’s defence

Jeremy Corbyn has been having a difficult time of late. The Labour leadership favourite has become increasingly tetchy with the media after facing questions about his links to a Holocaust denier, as well as being the subject of criticism from a host of former Labour bigwigs. However, there is one man who he can rely on to fight his corner; step forward Russell Brand. Although Ed Miliband had to pay a late night visit to the comedian-turned-revolutionary’s £2 million apartment in order to win his endorsement during the general election, Brand has come out for Corbyn all on his own accord. Joining a long list of celebrity Corbynistas — who so far include Charlotte

Ed West

Could a strike by Poles bring down Britain?

Britain’s Poles go on strike tomorrow to protest the widespread anti-Polish xenophobia across the country, which is literally everywhere. There are about one million Polish people in Great Britain, and many sectors of the economy depend on them, so in theory they could hold the country to ransom by striking. But they wont, and this is the beauty of open orders. Firstly, they won’t because so many eastern Europeans work in areas where they have so few working rights. That’s why big business likes them, and why many working-class natives resent their arrival. So if your Polish worker goes on strike, you can just sack him and hire a Romanian

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn is far less popular with Labour MPs than he is with members. Is that a problem?

Why haven’t some Labour MPs ever met Jeremy Corbyn? Mr Steerpike picks up on the discussion between former Miliband aide Anna Yearley, and MPs Barbara Keeley and Lucy Powell about his non-attendance at PLP meetings and the fact that Powell has ‘never, ever met or spoken to him’. This is odd: Corbyn has been a member since 1983 and has managed to find time to befriend Ukip’s Douglas Carswell, who cheerily offered to introduce Yearley to Corbyn in the tearooms at some point. It’s not unusual, though: on Sunday night Tory backbencher Mark Field was singing the praises of the friendly Corbyn on Westminster Hour. But when I was discussing

Douglas Murray

The left is rapidly losing its moral authority on racism

On Monday, Jeremy Corbyn was questioned by Channel 4 News about yet another Holocaust denier and anti-Semite of his acquaintance. And now the BBC’s World at One has asked Corbyn about another. There are plenty more, and this will be able to go on for quite some time. But Corbyn’s defence was interesting in that it went to the heart of the political inequality of our time: that is the assumption that the motivations of the left are good even when they do bad things, while the motivations of their opponents on the right are solely bad even when they do good things. If you doubt that, imagine the outcry now on

Sebastian Payne

David Blunkett is the latest Labour grandee to attack Corbyn. But is this the right strategy?

Day after day, Labour’s big beasts are being wheeled out one by one. Yesterday it was Neil Kinnock, today it’s David Blunkett’s turn to warn against the impending doom if Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader. On the Today programme, the former home secretary made a coded attack on Corbyn, suggesting the party needs a leader who can win elections: ‘I want someone who can be radical, can have a very clear vision of where Britain will be in five years’ time and above all can actually do something about winning. See, I’m speaking really as an activist: I’ve been a member for 52 years. 30 years of those years we’ve been in opposition.’ In light of Blunkett’s

Steerpike

Lucy Powell’s Mean Girls moment: ‘I have never, ever met Jeremy Corbyn’

After the Queen’s Speech in May, a number of Labour MPs including Chuka Umunna and Rachel Reeves enjoyed a group trip to Nandos. Alas the invite didn’t manage to make its way to blunder-prone Lucy Powell who took to Twitter to awkwardly point this out. Now it seems Ed Miliband’s former deputy campaign chief has put her foot in it once again. Last night Powell engaged in some gentle bitching about Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of social interaction with her. After Miliband’s former political secretary Anna Yearley (who says she will be voting for Liz Kendall) tweeted that Corbyn’s bad attendance record at Parliamentary Labour Party meetings would make it interesting for him to chair one if elected, Powell

Tuesday

18 Aug 2015

Hugo Rifkind

Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite but he is reaping what he sowed

People keep asking me if I think Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic. I don’t. Or at least I think it’s vanishingly unlikely. Why would he be? For all his political unorthodoxy in various directions, his antipathy towards bigotry seems wholly genuine. Indeed, it seems the whole point. I don’t see how it could have such a big blind spot. If the question gets asked, however, and angrily, I don’t think he’s blameless. My own political awakening came with the pending Iraq war in 2003. I was against it, noisily. I remember quite clearly the first anti-war march I attended, probably in late 2002. Everybody had the same placard, handed out by

Sebastian Payne

Can we trust the Labour leadership polls?

Is Jeremy Corbyn’s steaming ahead in the Labour leadership contest? Is he going to win on first preferences alone? The best quantitate answers we have come from two YouGov polls conducted for the Times — one in July and another last week. The first poll put Corbyn 17 points ahead of his nearest rival on first preferences and six points ahead in the final round. In the second poll, Corbyn was 31 points ahead on first preferences and 14 points in the final round. Can these polls be trusted? Given that YouGov, like all the other pollsters, called the general election incorrectly, scepticism is rife in Westminster about any polling. On the World at One today, Peter Kellner of YouGov pointed out his company correctly

Fraser Nelson

What Christian Guy’s appointment says about David Cameron’s No.10

What will David Cameron do with his final few years in power? On election night, he said he wanted his party ‘to reclaim a mantle that we should never have lost: the mantle of one nation’. This raised the prospect of Cameron trying to succeed where so many of his predecessors failed: in making it clear that conservatism actually delivers the fairness, the poverty reduction and the social cohesion that Labour can only talk about. Cameron has spoken about this agenda over the years, but there’s seldom much of a follow-up – raising questions about how serious he actually is. But today, we seen a signal of harder intent: he has

Nick Cohen

Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party: one of them must go

I suppose I’d insult Jeremy Corbyn if I compared him to an American. Jews (sorry ‘Zionists’) and Ukrainians rank high in the far-left’s demonology. But Corbyn and his comrades agree that Americans are the worst. So I should say that I mean no offence when I point out that ‘if Corbyn were American’ his campaign for the leadership of the Labour Party would make sense. In the United States, or any other presidential democracy, the winner of a party’s nomination selects his or her team from among their supporters. If they win power, they appoint their own cabinet. The executive and legislature are separate. Whatever deals they must cut with

Sebastian Payne

Cheat sheet: what Jeremy Corbyn stands for

Given by most metrics Jeremy Corbyn is on track to win the Labour leadership contest, his policies deserve to be examined and discussed. Based on his speeches and pamphlets, here is a summary of what Corbyn has pledged to do in key policy areas. There is a surprising amount of detail. Economy Corbyn’s economic ideas have been outlined in a document: The Economy in 2020. His approach for ‘growth not austerity’ is one of his most comprehensive policy areas. Corbynomics, which we’ve looked at in the past, is based on raising taxes and using the proceeds to invest in the economy. He has promised to ‘cut some of the huge tax reliefs and subsidies on offer

Alex Massie

Yes, Jeremy Corbyn actually is the most dangerous man in British politics

No, Nicola Sturgeon does not have much reason to be worried about Jeremy Corbyn. But the rest of the country does. To borrow from the tabloids, Corbyn is The Most Dangerous Man in Britain because, though no-one in London seems to appreciate this, he could be the man whose leadership of the Labour party leads to the end of Britain as we know it. Now I know people in England have tired of Scots banging on about the constitution. And I know that some things don’t have to be viewed through the prism of the constitution. Nevertheless, it’s a much more important issue than anything anyone says about trains. Or the health

Sebastian Payne

Andy Burnham: it’s not ‘three against one’ with Jeremy Corbyn

The Labour leadership race is rapidly turning sour. None of the warnings from party grandees are denting Jeremy Corbyn’s support, so talk has turned back to whether candidates should drop out. Yvette Cooper’s campaign has called for Andy Burnham to quit the race. ‘If he isn’t prepared to offer an alternative to Jeremy, he needs to step back and leave it to Yvette’, a spokesman said last night. On the Today programme this morning, Burnham hit back at this idea, arguing that ‘some of the language needs to be more considered than it is’ and defended his position in the race: ‘I find this call disappointing but actually quite strange, given that all the other leadership camps

Monday

17 Aug 2015

Isabel Hardman

Cooper vs Burnham: ‘A panicked, desperate stunt straight out of the Ed Balls playbook’

Yvette Cooper has rounded on Andy Burnham this evening, demanding that the Labour leadership contender oppose Jeremy Corbyn or stand aside. Burnham gave a speech this morning that was widely reported as him snuggling up to Corbyn, in which he praised his rival’s ‘energy’ and said ‘I want to capture that and would involve Jeremy in my team from the outset’. Cooper and Liz Kendall have both urged their supporters to use their second and third preferences on their ballot paper to block Corbyn by supporting any of the other three candidates, but Burnham has not joined them. A spokesman for Cooper said that ‘if [Burnham] isn’t prepared to offer

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband won’t say anything until after the Labour leadership contest is over

Why is Ed Miliband not intervening to stop Jeremy Corbyn? Some Labourites see the former leader’s silence on the issue as a dereliction of duty, and hope to increase the pressure on him to say something about the importance of not lurching further left. But sources have told Coffee House that he plans to say nothing at all until 12 September, when the new leader is announced. His spokesman says: ‘His view is that the precedent was set by Neil Kinnock and Gordon Brown. He thinks it is right that the debate about the new leaders should not involve the outgoing leaders. It is right that the candidates speak for

Douglas Murray

At least Labour is still a party worth crashing

The Labour party includes many sensible and intelligent people who want what is best for our country. But all of them are currently gnawing their hands and weeping into their sleeves as they watch their party prepare to take this great leap backwards. I know of Labour politicians who hoped that putting Jeremy Corbyn up for the leadership would shine a light on him and his ilk and thus chase out for ever the IRA/Hezbollah wing of their party. Alas for them the infection turned out to be what the body most welcomed, and so here the sensible members of the party sit, sadly mulling their electoral mortality. In such