Politics Archives

Friday

7 Aug 2015

Why I don’t believe that Ted Heath was gay

The moment Edward Heath sat down in the first class seat next to me on the flight from Scotland to London, shook my hand and said ‘Jonathan, it is a pleasure to meet you’ I determined to flirt with him in order to find out whether the rumours that he was gay were true. I was in my thirties and famous. An undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge, I had been lucky, in 1965, to write and sing Everyone’s Gone To The Moon, which sold just under 5 million copies. That same month in that same year Heath had been elected leader of the Conservative Party. I’ve been fortunate, in my life,

Tim Loughton

Uncomradely conduct: My time as a Labour member, by a Tory MP

Yesterday for the first time I trended on Twitter. Apparently I had been busted registering as a ‘supporter of the Labour Party.’ It seems one of the many people I had told over the previous week had ratted to the Guardian that I had paid my £3 and signed up online entitling me to vote in the forthcoming election for the leader of HM Opposition. This was despite the fact that I had applied on my Tory MP email address and given my reasons for doing so in the helpful, if not hopeful, online box asking why I had taken such a step as ‘to vote for Jeremy Corbyn in

Thursday

6 Aug 2015

Peter Jones

Party-naming with Plato

In order to make a sensible choice of new leader, the Labour party is trying to work out what its ‘core values’ are. Perhaps it would be helpful to begin by thinking about its core name: does ‘Labour’ still correlate with the party’s function any more? In Plato’s dialogue Cratylus, Socrates and chums discuss the significance of the names we apply to the world around us. Does a name give the clue to the real nature of the object to which it is applied, or is it a convention, merely an arbitrary sound or sign? At one level, Socrates argues, names are significant. Anthrôpos, ‘human’, for example, distinguishes humans from animals;

Steerpike

Lynton Crosby offers Nigel Farage some career advice

In an interview with Sky News Australia, David Cameron’s former election strategist Lynton Crosby has today offered his thoughts on the Prime Minister’s rivals. Unsurprisingly, his conclusions are hardly flattering. However, the man who has taken the brunt of Crosby’s ire is Nigel Farage. Crosby claims that Ukip does not have ‘a long-term future’. Furthermore, instead of trying to win a Westminster seat again, Farage would be better advised to look for chat show work in Australia: ‘They are very reliant on the performance of their leader Nigel Farage and even he couldn’t win a seat. Sixth or seventh time he’s tried to win a Westminster seat. I think he might be

Isabel Hardman

The looming Tory rebellions to look out for this autumn

Without wanting to dispel the utter euphoria that Tories are feeling at the current state of the Labour party, they do have a tricky autumn to get through which they don’t seem to be thinking much about. In today’s Times I set out some of the looming Tory rebellions on a range of different policies due for Commons scrutiny this autumn. There is, of course, the possibility that the whips pull many of these votes, which means that there will be problems in Parliament, but not actual rebellions in the Commons. The Tories may be trying to pass various policies that aren’t particularly popular, but they’re being nimble about it,

Steerpike

Sadiq Khan gets in a flap over fried chicken

As the MP for Tooting, Sadiq Khan represents a constituency that is home to the largest Chicken Cottage in Europe. Not that he seemed proud of this fact at last night’s Evening Standard Labour mayoral hustings. While the candidates debated how to deal with the spread of high street gambling shops since Labour brought in the Gambling Act, Khan turned his attention to another guilty pleasure: fried chicken. ‘We’ve got too many chicken shops in our town centres. We’ve got too many pawn brokers in our town centres. We’ve got too many gambling shops in our town centres. Elect me to be the London Mayor and we’ll sort all those

Steerpike

Jeremy Corbyn appears to endorse Diane Abbott for London Mayor (again)

Last week Diane Abbott was caught in a sticky situation after her campaign sent out a text to supporters that was allegedly from Jeremy Corbyn. It claimed that the Labour leadership favourite is backing her to be the Labour candidate to run for Mayor. Although Corbyn and Abbott are close, Corbyn’s team were quick to distance themselves, claiming the ‘text wasn’t authorised’. It was then reported that Corbyn had decided not to formally support a candidate in the mayoral race. So Mr S can’t help but wonder if Abbott’s campaign leaflets have been ‘authorised’? Last night at the Evening Standard‘s Labour mayoral hustings, Abbott had her team hand out campaign literature which carried a

Isabel Hardman

How Jeremy Corbyn could boost David Cameron’s majority

Tories tend to think that Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader will be fabulously useful for their party, returning them an even bigger majority in 2020 and pitching his own party into such turmoil that it struggles to work as an effective Opposition. But one benefit of his leadership to the existing Tory majority has been overlooked, which is the effect it would have on the Democratic Unionist Party. Sources in the DUP point out to me that given Corbyn’s friendship with Sinn Fein, they would be unable to work with Labour to exert pressure on the Conservatives in key votes. This may mean that the eight DUP MPs are more likely

Steerpike

Zac Goldsmith cancels speech at Bow Group summer party

Oh dear. This week the Bow Group sent out invitations to members and supporters announcing that Zac Goldsmith would give the speech at the Conservative think tank’s summer party. ‘Our keynote speech will be from Zac Goldsmith, the Member of Parliament for Richmond Park who is currently seeking the Conservative Party nomination to succeed Boris Johnson MP as Mayor of London. After Zac’s keynote speech, he will hold an extended Q&A to answer any questions from the audience.’ However, some naysayers began to query why the Tory MP was speaking at the event, after the Tory think tank made the news during the election campaign for backing a number of Ukip MPs including Mark

Sebastian Payne

Personalities, backstories and the threat of Zac dominate Labour’s London mayoral race

The Evening Standard hosted a hustings for Labour’s mayoral candidacy last night and it appears the contest is being fought more over clichés than anything else. The six candidates opened by extolling their love of London: Diane Abbott (Stoke Newington MP) claimed London has suffered from ‘too much social cleansing’. Tessa Jowell (former Olympics minister the bookies’ favourite to win) said ‘the engine of our city must be constantly recharged’. Sadiq Khan (MP for Tooting) argued ‘London needs a modern Mayor for a modern city’. David Lammy (MP for Tottenham) said ‘we need a mayor with a serious plan’. Gareth Thomas (MP for Harrow West) acknowledged that his campaign ‘isn’t the best financed, but as you can

Philip Delves-Broughton

How Hillary can win it – for the Republicans

New York [audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/howtofixtherefugeecrisis/media.mp3″ title=”Philip Delves Broughton and Freddy Gray discuss how Hillary can swing it for the Republicans” startat=847] Listen [/audioplayer]Remember the fizz around Gordon Brown’s election campaign in 2010? The excitement he brought to the trail? The eerily intimate connection with the electorate? No, nor can I. But conjure up what you can and mix it with the thrill of a hot afternoon locked in a community centre discussing renovations to the ping-pong room and you’ll have a sense of the vibe around Hillary Clinton’s latest campaign for president. The American media is bored of her and the polls show her support slipping, even against a Republican field

Wednesday

5 Aug 2015

Steerpike

Labour out Conservative MP in #Tories4Corbyn crackdown

Labour’s verification process has been under a lot of scrutiny in recent weeks as more and more Tories have claimed they have successfully joined as a supporter of the party in order to vote for Jeremy Corbyn and ‘condemn Labour to years in the political wilderness’. Labour insist that they have a crack team successfully weeding out non-Labour supporters from the genuine new joiners. This is a point that they seem rather keen to make known. Today the party’s press office has tweeted the Tory MP Tim Loughton to tell him that his application has sadly been declined: Thanks for your donation to the Labour Party @timloughton. However as a

Sebastian Payne

Inside Ukip: now the infighting is over, the Kippers are readying for the battle of their lives

Ukip has been especially quiet over the last few months. Following the party’s disappointing result in the general election, Nigel Farage’s ‘unresignation’ and the briefing wars, the party has purposefully kept its head down. With Farage’s return to the spotlight last week, Kippers are gearing up for the fight of their lifetime. This is what has been going on inside Ukip in recent weeks and what you can expect to see from the so-called ‘people’s army’ over the next few months. Give peace a chance Since the internal turmoil and the ‘break’ Farage was urged to take by his colleagues, much of the party’s tensions have calmed down. Some attribute this to the pressure cooker atmosphere

Steerpike

David Cameron’s former speechwriter is ‘rooting’ for Jeremy Corbyn

After David Cameron’s former speechwriter Clare Foges kicked off her new career outside of No.10 with a blistering editorial in the Times criticising her former employer over a range of issues including the bedroom tax, doubts began to surface that she was not a true blue. Still, even Mr S was surprised to read in an interview with the Evening Standard that the Prime Minister’s old political advisor is ‘rooting for Jeremy Corbyn’. What’s more, the gesture is not simply part of the jovial #ToriesForCorbyn movement: ‘Foges lives alone in Archway where Jeremy Corbyn is her MP (she’s rooting for him because she lives in the area, not as part of a Tory plot).’ Foges —

Patrick French

Sorry, Shashi Tharoor, but Britain doesn’t owe India any reparations

As one of a parade of speakers debating the British empire at the Oxford Union, Shashi Tharoor cannot have expected his short speech to be viewed more than three million times. Reparations, he told his audience, ‘are a tool for you to atone for the wrongs that have been done. Let me say with the greatest possible respect: it’s a bit rich to oppress, enslave, kill, torture, maim people for 200 years and then celebrate the fact that they are democratic at the end of it.’ Tharoor, an MP in the opposition Congress party, was lauded by the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, who said, ‘What he spoke there reflected

Sebastian Payne

Suzanne Evans running to be Ukip’s London Mayoral candidate

Ukip’s deputy chairman Suzanne Evans has announced she is seeking the party’s nomination for the 2016 London Mayor election. Speaking to Iain Dale on LBC this morning, Evans said from the off she is very unlikely to become Mayor, but that she hopes to influence the race and offer Londoners a difference: ‘I have thrown my hat into the ring to apply to be Ukip candidate for Mayor of London and or an London assembly member. Let’s be realistic, I don’t think London is going to have a Ukip mayor any time soon. ‘But I think it’s time for London to have a different view, a different approach. I think there are a growing amount of

Isabel Hardman

War crimes and renationalising the railways: the latest twists and turns in the Labour leadership contest

The Labour leadership contest has taken so many odd turns already that a few more might return it to a vague normal track. But with Jeremy Corbyn announcing last night that he thought Tony Blair could be tried for war crimes over Iraq, and Andy Burnham appearing to tack left on rail re-nationalisation, there are still a few turns to go. Here’s where each of the campaigns have got to: Jeremy Corbyn The frontrunner, miles ahead in all published polling and constituency party nominations, and capable of summoning good crowds to his rallies, or at least to peer excitedly through the windows at his rallies. Last night Corbyn told Newsnight

Sebastian Payne

Today’s Tube strike is about people vs. technology, not unions and Tories

At 6:30pm this evening, London will descend into chaos as the City deals with yet another Tube strike. This time, Transport for London and the RMT trade union are squabbling over the introduction of the Night Tube — services running throughout Fridays and Saturday nights on a few lines. The union isn’t happy about the disruption it will cause to its members’ lives, while TfL feels it has done it utmost to offer a fair deal. Mick Cash, Bob Crow’s replacement as general secretary of the RMT, said on the Today programme that the strike was about putting ‘more and more work onto less and less people’ but insisted he wasn’t against the Night

Tuesday

4 Aug 2015

Steerpike

Jeremy Corbyn causes problems for Newsnight

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership bid has so far managed to inspire a legion of new supporters to join the Labour party. Alas, his unexpected popularity is also causing a problem for some members of the media. After the Guardian launched an in-house investigation into whether their own Corbyn coverage was bias against him, Emily Maitlis, who has interviewed him for tonight’s Newsnight, has written a gushing blog post titled ‘Prepping to meet “the man of the moment”‘. In it, she says that his tendency to veer off from textbook politician answers caused her a problem when preparing for the interview: ‘On the train to Leeds my producer Ed Brown and I are putting together a list

Sebastian Payne

Tory grandees poke fun at Andy Burnham over retiring remarks

One of Andy Burnham’s problems is his occasional pandering towards populism. In an interview with GQ magazine, the Labour leadership contender tries to talk up his credentials as an ordinary bloke and says he doesn’t intend to spend the rest of his life in politics, arguing there should be a limit on how long MPs should remain the Commons: ‘Not necessarily, no. I think modern politics is intense – it’s changed in my 14 years in parliament. I always felt I would give it my all for 20, 25 years. Never put a time limit on it but then maybe finish off my career by doing something different. If you’ve had a seat for 25 years,