Politics Archives

Tuesday

4 Aug 2015

Michael Fallon: ‘Iraqi forces are slowly but surely beginning to push ISIL back’

Is the government set to bring bombing Islamic State terrorists in Syria before the Commons soon? The Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has announced that the RAF’s Tornado aircraft will be kept in service until 2017 for air strikes against the Islamic State, to ‘ensure we maintain this crucial operational tempo’. On the Today programme, Fallon explained that the aircraft have ‘proven their worth’ and have helped Iraqi forces in the fight against ISIL: ‘The Iraqi forces are slowly but surely beginning to push ISIL back. They have recaptured Tikrit, there is a campaign going on at the moment to liberate Ramadi. They are recruiting to both the army and to the

Monday

3 Aug 2015

Nick Cohen

The discreet charm of the Labour bourgeoisie

In the early 1960s a satirical combo called the Chad Mitchell Trio sang of the anti-communist paranoia of the John Birch Society (a forerunner of today’s Tea Party, as those among you who study the history of demagogic delusion will know). The reds were so ubiquitous that: There’s no one left but thee and we, (and we’re not sure of thee). You cannot trust your neighbour Or even next of kin If mommy is a commie, then you have to turn her in. Move from the far right to far left – a trip so short it’s like nipping to the shops – and you find that critical coverage of Corbyn

Sebastian Payne

A beginner’s guide to Corbynomics

‘Corbynomics’, aka Jeremy Corbyn’s plans for the UK economy, has entered the Westminster lexicon today. It appears to consist of the work primarily of one man, Richard Murphy. The director of TaxResearch UK, who advises various charities and trade unions on tax matters, has taken credit for the handful of economic policies Corbyn has announced so far, which have been attacked by Labour’s shadow chancellor Chris Leslie today. Jeremy Corbyn has acknowledged that I am the author of much of his economic policy. Not a single journalist has called me about it — Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) August 3, 2015 In case you missed the birth of Corbynomics two weeks ago — the launch event

Charles Moore

There’s nothing hip about Jeremy Corbyn’s beard

Mr Corbyn has a beard. If he becomes leader, he will be the first bearded leader of any main party since Keir Hardie. The beard as a fashion item is now back, generally in shaped and even waxed form. But Mr Corbyn’s one owes nothing to fashion. It is a 1960s political beard, already obsolete when he first brought it into the House of Commons in 1983. Like Lord Hailsham who, as Mrs Thatcher’s Lord Chancellor, continued to wear a bowler hat long after it had disappeared from everything but hunt puppy shows, Orange parades and A Clockwork Orange, Mr Corbyn is undaunted by the passage of time. I must try not

Steerpike

The Guardian launches inquiry into Corbyn coverage: ‘worse than reporting of Vietnam war’

It’s only lunchtime but the Guardian may have already reached ‘peak Guardian’ for the day. The paper has published an article penned by Chris Elliott chronicling an in-house investigation into their coverage of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership bid. They decided to do this after a number of Corbynistas complained that the left-wing paper had shown bias against Corbyn, with one reader going so far as to claim that their reporting of his leadership bid was worse than the paper’s coverage of the Vietnam war: ‘I’ve been a regular reader of the Guardian (Manchester Guardian as was) since 1958. Despite the low point reached in the 60s when you supported the US war in Vietnam

Steerpike

Frances Barber blasts cybernats for insulting Cilla Black

Although Nicola Sturgeon has pledged to tackle her party’s ‘cybernats’ over the online abuse of those who do not support Scottish independence, the SNP leader may need to reassess her current efforts following this weekend’s events. After news broke that Michelle Mone is to be awarded a peerage by the Tories, the lingerie entrepreneur was besieged with insults online from SNP supporters. However, the ‘cybernats’ were not done there. Following the death of Cilla Black at the age of 72, while many rushed to tweet messages of condolence to her friends and family, others simply recalled the late singer’s support of the Better Together campaign — during which Black signed

Steerpike

Breaking: Tory leadership contest underway

Water cannons at the ready: the Tory leadership contest is officially underway. How does Mr S know this? Well, in a clear sign that George Osborne means business, he has changed his Twitter profile picture. Osborne is now in Conservative blue, offering a confident grin as he embarks on his campaign to move into Number 10. The new photo also displays a slimline Osborne in contrast to the old photo, which depicted a more laid back Chancellor. While Mr S will of course keep readers updated as Boris Johnson and Theresa May develop their online presences, Steerpike can’t help wonder why Osborne didn’t opt for this week’s cover image of Octo-Osborne…

Sebastian Payne

Chris Leslie stands up to ‘Corbynomics’ — other should follow his example

Finally, someone in Labour is tearing apart Jeremy Corbyn’s ideas. Overtly criticising what Corbyn stands for is something the leadership candidates have been reluctant to do. You can see why: his popularity with the party’s grassroots could result in a backlash. Therefore, it’s been left to poor old Chris Leslie, Labour’s shadow chancellor, to point out that a party promoting ‘Corbynomics’ is not going to help ordinary folks. On the Today programme, Leslie said: ‘This is a fork in the road for the Labour party. On 12 September we will know what the fate is of the progressive left of centre and there are millions of people whose living standards, whose working conditions depend on

Saturday

1 Aug 2015

Sebastian Payne

Why George Galloway won’t be rejoining Labour anytime soon

George Galloway has announced that he would like to return to the Labour party if Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader. The former Respect MP for Bradford West sees Corbyn as a comrade in arms and would feel at home alongside him. He told LBC this week: ‘I think if Jeremy were to win everyone on the left would rejoin the Labour party. That’s the part of the problem that saw us part solved. I’ve always been a Labour man I consider myself real Labour. I’ve never been a Marxist or a Trotskyist or any other kind of -ist other than a Labour-ist.’ And asked if he would contemplate a return to the Labour

Steerpike

Milifandom founder backs Andy Burnham for Labour leader

Although the Milifandom wasn’t enough to lead Ed Miliband to victory at the polls, the cult movement did at least bring the former Labour leader’s lagging campaign some momentum in the final weeks of the election campaign. So perhaps it’s little surprise that the new Labour leadership hopefuls have been courting Milifandom founder Abby Tomlinson in a bid to win her endorsement ahead of the vote. After meeting with each contender, Tomlinson has announced that she is backing Andy Burnham for leader. She says that she will give her second preference to Jeremy Corbyn — who has won the most union endorsements as well as CLP endorsements. Writing a comment piece in the

Friday

31 Jul 2015

Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Jeremy Corbyn, the ‘British Obama’

Ahead of the election, Ed Miliband’s senior advisor David Axelrod was asked if the Labour politician had as much potential to succeed as his former client Barack Obama. His reply? ‘I think Obama’s a once-in-a-lifetime candidate.’ However, could Labour leadership hopeful Jeremy Corbyn be the candidate to make it two-in-a-lifetime? Mr S only asks after the independent radical left magazine Red Pepper have ran a cover with Corbyn pictured in the style of the famous 2008 Barack Obama ‘Hope’ poster: Ladies and gentlemen: the new Obama (apparently) pic.twitter.com/aevY60bfO4 — Tim Montgomerie 🇬🇧 (@montie) July 31, 2015 Still, unless by ‘hope’ they are referring to what Corbyn brings to the Tories, Mr S suspects he still

Steerpike

Guardian journalist enjoys wild night on David Cameron’s private jet

With the newspapers frequently filled with tales of former public schoolboys misbehaving abroad, Mr S was unsurprised to hear reports that a Westminster School alumnus had enjoyed a rather lively flight from Asia to Britain. Still, given that the man in question was aboard the Prime Minister’s private jet, perhaps he ought to have known better. Step forward Patrick Wintour. Word reaches Steerpike that the Guardian‘s political editor has become the talk of David Cameron’s Malaysia trip after being the life and soul of the party on the flight back to Britain. According to Mr S’s mole the journey got off to a bad start when Cameron failed to call Wintour by his name on board, instead

Alex Massie

The SNP are masters at playing Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

All political parties have their cultish moments but some are more cultish than others. That doesn’t mean all their supporters are kool-aid drinkers, just that, on balance, they’re more likely to be so. This is not, I should have thought, a particularly novel or controversial observation. But, for some reason, suggesting that the SNP’s followers are especially likely to be animated by what one might dub a quasi-religious fervour seems to annoy them. And yet, at other moments, they are keen to point out how the SNP is different from all the other parties. Which is kind of my point too. And, yes, the SNP’s supporters really do behave in

Sebastian Payne

Trade unionists are putting themselves on the path to obscurity

Jeremy Corbyn is the trade unions’ favourite candidate for Labour leader. From the more militant folks at Unite to the moderates at Unison, the comrades are buying into ‘Jez we can’. But this is not only about electing their man, some trade unionists are on a greater mission to stamp out to Blairite ‘virus’ from the party. The author of that controversial remark, Dave Ward of the Communication Workers’ Union, defended it on the Today programme this morning (quotes via PoliticsHome): ‘I stand by what I said yesterday, and the virus that I’m referring to is the policies and the approach of the likes of Peter Mandelson, who seem to continually push these

Thursday

30 Jul 2015

Peter Jones

Jeremy Corbyn’s world

Jeremy Corbyn says he is very excited about his campaign to become Labour leader because lots of young people are becoming involved in it, which ‘must be a good thing’. Aristotle (384–322 bc) would have his doubts. In his Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle pinpoints the sorts of thing that can be said on a large number of topics which will encourage your audience to agree with you. One such topic is the character of the young. In general, he says, the young are pleasure-loving, impulsive and optimistic. Of the desires of the body, he says, they are keenest on sex, and powerless against its demands. But since they are keen rather

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 30 July 2015

Obviously when one attends what the papers call ‘cocaine-fuelled orgies’, one expects to find several members of the peerage present, but I must confess that until all this trouble, I had not heard of Lord Sewel, beyond a vague apprehension that he was a misprint rather than a person. I now discover that he is a Blair peer — a specially ignominious category, rather like Lloyd George’s creations. But I still worry that he has ‘resigned’ from the House of Lords. If we continue to think that our second chamber should be unelected, it should be all but impossible to get rid of a peer once appointed. Otherwise, politics being

The Spectator

Barometer | 30 July 2015

Safe house Lord Sewel is unique in leaving the House of Lords in disgrace. Until the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, only a treason conviction earned you expulsion from the House of Lords, and that only since 1870. At least two peers have been executed for treason, Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, and William Maxwell, 5th Earl Nithsdale, but both well before this date. — Thanks to the 2014 Act it is now possible to have your Lords membership terminated on two grounds: being jailed for a criminal offence with a sentence of more than one year, or failing to turn up for a whole session. But you cannot

The Spectator

House in order

The shaming of Lord Sewel was a classic tabloid exposé. The fact that a peer of the realm (albeit one appointed by Tony Blair) was caught on camera apparently ingesting Class A drugs in the company of prostitutes is a good enough story in itself. The fact that the peer in question was chairman of the Lords privileges and conduct committee while he was doing so makes it very near to red-top nirvana. Since the publication of the story — and scores of lavish accompanying photographs — the peer’s Pimlico flat has been raided by police (who battered down a door to gain access), and Lord Sewel has resigned from

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: the Osborne supremacy and why Labour’s grassroots don’t matter

George Osborne reigns supreme over Westminster — how did he end up with all this power? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Isabel Hardman discusses our cover piece on the Chancellor’s dominance with George Parker from the Financial Times. As the de facto deputy Prime Minister, is the Chancellor a shoe in to succeed David Cameron? How has Osborne won over once-sceptical Tory MPs? And how significant was his image makeover? Former Labour adviser John McTernan also discuss whether the modernisers in the Labour are stuck in the past and why the party is falling in love with Jeremy Corbyn. If Corbyn wins the leadership contest, what will the Blairites do next? How long would he last running the party? And

Steerpike

Andy Burnham: I don’t like biscuits

The Labour leadership candidates have been canvassing the yummy mummies on Mumsnet and today it was Andy Burnham’s turn. Steerpike was shocked to learn from the Q&A that he has never bought mascara, nor opened a bottle of jet black ‘Just for Men’. But there was a much more damaging revelation: Burnham revealed that he doesn’t eat biscuits: ‘I’m told that I have to tell you what my favourite biscuit is. But I’m afraid I’m going to depress you all by saying that I don’t have a sweet tooth and don’t eat biscuits. But give me a beer and chips and gravy any day…’ Until this statement, Mr S had no idea that