Politics

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

Thursday

1 Oct 2015

Sleaze, cronyism and the SNP: the New Politics is charmingly familiar

The great thing about the ‘new politics’ – or at least the new politics we have lately been privileged to endure here in Scotland – is that it’s just as fetid and grubby as the old politics it replaced. The band may change but the music remains the same. Consider the twin controversies swirling around the SNP. Neither, on its own, is enough to torpedo Nicola Sturgeon but, combined, they represent the largest challenge to her authority the First Minister has yet encountered. First there is the curious case of Michelle Thompson, the MP for Edinburgh West. Mrs Thomson was previously managing director of the ‘Business for Scotland’ group arguing for

Isabel Hardman

Owen Paterson interview: My plan to find the next Tory leader

One evening early in this autumn term in Parliament, Tory MPs crowded excitedly into a parliamentary office for drinks and nibbles. It wasn’t a particularly unusual event: there were many more people than could fit in the room, though MPs surged in and out like the tide as the division bell rang. But in between votes, the host gave a speech that marked this out from all the other drinks events that MPs throw for one another. That host was Owen Paterson, and he told the room, which was made up mainly of right-leaning eurosceptic Conservatives, that he would be writing a set of policy papers for a future leadership

Steerpike

Don’t kill yourself over Jeremy Corbyn – yet, Austin Mitchell tells Labour members

After Jeremy Corbyn opted to use a speech which dated back to the eighties at this year’s Labour conference, commentariats and party members alike were quick to question whether the left-wing messiah was really offering the ‘straight talking’ politics he promised. Happily Austin Mitchell, the outspoken former Labour MP, has come to Corbyn’s defence. Writing on his personal blog, Mitchell says — with trademark tact — that party members should not ‘commit suicide or take a pick axe to Corbyn’s head’ when it comes to the state of the party. Instead, he says that rather than any leadership issues, the problem lies with the pesky media: ‘Labour Party members wondering if they should commit suicide now

Sebastian Payne

What Nigel Lawson’s new role at Conservatives for Britain means for Eurosceptics

Eurosceptic Tories have a new voice to herald their cause: Nigel Lawson. The former Chancellor and Spectator editor announced in an op-ed he is becoming the president of Conservatives for Britain, a group working with the Matthew Elliott-Dominic Cummings Out campaign. Lawson explains his explains his red lines for Britain remaining in the EU and suggests the government is unlikely to achieve them: ‘I am not party to the negotiations between ministers and the EU but it is clear that now is the time for David Cameron and George Osborne to set out some red lines. My priorities would be fourfold: the end of the automatic supremacy of EU law over UK law; the ability for

Rachel Cunliffe

Uber is useful, convenient and safe. How can TfL justify cracking down on it?

Oh, Transport for London. How could you? That was my reaction when I read the plans to crackdown on Uber in the capital. And it seems over 80,000 people agree with me, judging by a petition that was launched on Tuesday. For a city which is meant to be the centre of global commerce, with Boris Johnson who supposedly loves markets as its mayor, London really isn’t doing too well. First the night tube service, which was meant to start on the 11th of September, got delayed thanks to pressure from the unions, and now Transport for London (TFL) is protecting taxi drivers from innovation and competition. Lest anyone think this is actually about public

Douglas Murray

Europe’s ever-looser union

Europhiles have warned us for years of the dangers of Britain leaving the EU. But all the while a different spectre has crept up on their other flank: which is that even if the UK votes to stay in the EU in 2017, we might be one of the only countries left. It’s a radical thought, but if they’d like to consider it, the Europhiles should look at what is happening across the continent. Pro-EU countries are proving harder and harder to find. The eastern European countries may still be financial net receivers, but they are now having to weigh up their honey pot against the demands that come with

James Forsyth

Is it all over for Boris?

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/boris-nickyandthetoryleadership/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss who could be the next Tory leader” startat=38] Listen [/audioplayer]Five months ago, allies of Boris Johnson were ready to launch his bid to become leader of the Conservative party. The election was imminent and even David Cameron was fretting that the Tories were going to lose. A sympathetic pollster had prepared the numbers that made the post-defeat case for Boris: he extended the Tories’ reach, and a party that had failed to gain a majority for 23 years desperately needed a greater reach. There was a policy agenda ready to magnify this appeal, too: compassionate conservatism, based around adopting the Living Wage. Boris

Hugo Rifkind

Does Jeremy Corbyn believe in compromise, or just in compromise for other people?

One of my favourite things about Jeremy Corbyn, beyond the beard (I do like beards) and the way he was photographed in the Times the other day unabashedly wearing sandals with socks (spunky; no quarter given) is his embrace of dissent as a virtue. Which is a virtue born of necessity, obviously, on account of the way that there are only about six people in the Parliamentary Labour Party who don’t disagree with him on everything, and they’re not safe on telly, either. Still, though. I like it. The doctrine of collective ministerial responsibility — the notion that everybody in a government thinks the same thing, and if one of

James Forsyth

She could be a contender

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/boris-nickyandthetoryleadership/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss whether Nicky Morgan could be the next Tory leader” startat=38] Listen [/audioplayer]Nicky Morgan has been Education Secretary for 15 months now. Yet her office looks like she has just moved in. She has some family photos on the desk, a small collection of drinks bottles by the window and a rugby ball in her in-tray. But, unlike other cabinet ministers, she has made no attempt to make her office look like her study. This is not someone who sees their office as a home away from home. When Morgan was made Michael Gove’s successor last year, it seemed an unusual appointment. She’d

Matthew Parris

These days, compassion is for hacks and Lib Dems

There’s a hard, hard mood out there among the public and I don’t think our newspapers get it at all. Could it be that the general populace are now more cynical than their journalists? At Tim Farron’s closing speech to his Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth last week, I sat through nearly an hour of one of the biggest cartloads of sanctimonious tosh it’s been my fate to endure in decades. And who do you suppose was lapping this up as avidly as any misty-eyed Lib Dem conference-goer? The hardened hacks, the sketchwriters, analysts and reporters. The press are old-fashioned: they love this emotional stuff. But the 21st-century public have

Andrew Roberts

Premier league

At a large Tory breakfast meeting that David Cameron spoke to recently, the tables were named after all of the Conservative premiers of the past: the good, the bad and Ted Heath. So there were the Lord Salisbury, Harold Macmillan and Margaret Thatcher tables, for example. (I was delighted to be on the Winston Churchill table; the people on the Neville Chamberlain one looked suitably ill-favoured.) As Cameron — who was sat at the David Cameron table, appropriately enough — looked around the huge room that morning, he could be forgiven for wondering where he will wind up in the pantheon of past premiers. For as Cameron nears his tenth

Wednesday

30 Sep 2015

James Forsyth

Tom Watson has no intention of practising Corbyn’s ‘kinder, gentler’ politics

If Jeremy Corbyn’s speech yesterday was the musings of a left-wing activist, Tom Watson’s today was that of someone who is interested in winning elections. Watson made clear to the conference delegates that what matters is getting back into office and set about explaining how he thought Labour could do that. He told the hall, that if they weren’t interested in representing small business owners, then they wouldn’t be in government again. He said that after its ‘summer of introspection’, it was time for Labour to get back to making its case to the country again. It was a strikingly different tone to Corbyn’s yesterday. Watson clearly has no intention

Brendan O’Neill

No, Britain doesn’t need to pay reparations for the slave trade

A Jamaican official has called on David Cameron to ‘personally atone’ for the slave trade, and especially for his ancestors’ involvement in it. I hope Cameron tells this guy to do one. The PM has nothing to apologise for, far less self-flagellate for. He bears no more guilt for the slave trade than Justin Bieber does, or Mother Teresa, or Barack Obama, or any of the other millions of people born years after the slave trade ended. The pressure on Cam to weep publicly over the sins of his forefathers, to atone for a wrong he did not commit, is an ugly, medieval spectacle. Cameron’s trip to Jamaica is being

Isabel Hardman

Corbyn’s Trident comments spark end-of-conference row in Labour

Jeremy Corbyn has really pushed the button on the tensions in his party over Trident renewal. The Labour leader insists that he is just being honest when he says that he would never use nuclear weapons. But what he has done is to put his party in an impossible position. Either it respects his huge mandate and makes scrapping Britain’s nuclear deterrent official policy. Or else it votes to force the resignation of the leader. At first glance, this sounds rather confusing, and Corbyn’s team and John McDonnell have been spinning that Jeremy is just being honest about a long-held personal position. Why is this the implication of a man

Allan Mallinson

Corbyn has said he would never use our nukes. What kind of deterrent is that?

When pushed this morning by Today presenter Sarah Montague on whether there would be any circumstances that he would use the nuclear option, Jeremy Corbyn said: ‘No.’ In other words, Britain under his premiership would no longer have a nuclear deterrent. Deterrence requires not just the capability to strike – a capability that cannot be pre-emptively neutralised or destroyed (hence the need for submarine-launched weapons) – but also the will to use it. Or at least the question-mark in the mind of a would-be aggressor. We’ve been here before. The Rt Hon Jim Hacker (Yes, Prime Minister) wasn’t as certain as Jeremy Corbyn that he wouldn’t use Trident, but he

James Forsyth

Next year’s Labour conference will be even more Corbynite

Sitting in the hall during Jeremy Corbyn’s speech, one couldn’t help but be struck by how much the audience agreed with what he is saying. Corbyn was speaking to them, and they loved it. Now, as long as the Labour activists represented in that hall think Corbyn is their man then it will be almost impossible for the Parliamentary Labour Party to remove him. This week, Corbyn has done little to reach out to the country. But he has consolidated his position in the party. In casual conversations, the date at which people think a coup could be launched against him keeps slipping back. Next year, I suspect that Labour’s

Sebastian Payne

Podcast special: Labour conference review

Labour’s conference is rolling to a close today and it hasn’t been the explosive event some predicted it might be. In this View from 22 special, Isabel Hardman, James Forsyth and I discuss the highs and lows of the past days in Brighton and the impact it has had on the party. How big was the divide between the Corbyn-friendly activists and the MPs and politicos? And will next year’s conference see the promised fireworks? You can subscribe to our View from 22 political specials through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week, or you can use the player below:

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn: I wouldn’t use nuclear weapons anyway

Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t want nuclear weapons. We all know that. We also know that because he has a huge mandate (a phrase bandied about so much at this conference that it’s starting to feel like a refrain in Are You Being Served?), he’s keen to turn his views into official party policy on this area at least. But we now also know that if his party determined that it would remain committed to Trident, and if Jeremy Corbyn were Prime Minister, he wouldn’t ever use his weapons anyway. Which makes it entirely pointless to fund them at all. On the Today programme, the new Labour leader was asked if he

Steerpike

Do as I say (not as I do): a Guardian Corbynista lectures Blairites

The Fabian Society’s question time event at Labour party conference made for a lively debate. Tony Blair’s former staffer John McTernan joined Tim Montgomerie, Labour’s Kate Green and the Guardian‘s Ellie Mae O’Hagan to discuss the future of the Labour party now Jeremy Corbyn is leader. With McTernan criticising Corbyn for a leader’s speech which ‘gave no indication’ that the party had just lost an election, it fell on O’Hagan — who works for the Centre of Labour and Social Studies — to fight Corbyn’s corner. To kick her argument off, the Guardian writer — and Corbyn champion — explained that after the election result she had realised that in order for Labour

Sebastian Payne

Watch: what Labour activists make of this year’s conference

There may have not been fireworks at Labour’s conference in Brighton but the attendees appear to have enjoyed themselves. In the very lengthy queues for Jeremy Corbyn’s speech, I surveyed the activists to find out what they have made of the conference — you can watch what they said above. Those attending for the first time (a significant chunk of those here) generally said it has all been wonderful, while conference veterans were more split between those who think it’s been inspirational and others who have sensed divides rumbling along under the sheen of the new leadership. Judging by the continuous standing ovations Corbyn received for his speech, it’s a fair to say