Politics Archives

Friday

11 Sep 2015

Watch: Sadiq Khan on running against ‘charming’ Zac Goldsmith

How is Sadiq Khan feeling about the prospect of taking on Zac Goldsmith, who is favourite to be the Tory London mayoral candidate? Shortly after he was unveiled as the Labour candidate, Sadiq Khan had a chat with Coffee House about his campaign. He seemed confident that he could beat Goldsmith but acknowledged he is a formidable opponent: ‘I like Zac, he’s a charming guy…let’s wait and see what the Tory party do. They still believe in democracy, let them vote for their candidate. Once they choose — it’s gonna be him, we know that — once they choose their candidate, well then see what happens. But, my key thing

Isabel Hardman

How Jeremy Corbyn and Sadiq Khan work together

So, Sadiq Khan will be Labour’s London Mayoral candidate, while Jeremy Corbyn looks likely to become Labour’s leader tomorrow. The two have worked together during their campaigns, with their staff consulting closely on tactics. But they’ve also worked together in the past. In Emma Crewe’s book, The House of Commons: An Anthropology of MPs at Work, Corbyn tells an anecdote about what life was like as a serial rebel: Towards the end of the last Labour administration a phone call between then whip Sadiq Khan and Jeremy Corbyn tended to go something like this: Whip: ‘Hello there Jeremy, just wanted to check how you are planning to vote on Tuesday.’ Jeremy:

Sebastian Payne

Sadiq Khan is Labour’s London mayoral candidate

Sadiq Khan has just been announced as Labour’s London mayoral candidate. At an event at the Royal Festival Hall, the MP for Tooting was announced as the surprising winner by 59 per cent. Turnout in the primary was 77 per cent. Tessa Jowell was the bookies’ favourite and the frontrunner throughout this contest, but Khan may have benefited from the tens of thousands of new members who have joined Labour to back Jeremy Corbyn for leader. The result wasn’t even close — Jowell came second with 41 per cent. Khan’s camp were confident throughout the contest that the new members would be unlikely to back Blairite Jowell and it appears they are

Steerpike

Vivienne Westwood pays an unwelcome visit to David Cameron’s house

While politicians are currently debating the Assisted Dying Bill in Parliament, Dame Vivienne Westwood has decided there is a more pressing matter that ought to be on the news agenda. The eco-minded fashion designer is on her way to David Cameron’s house in a massive tank. Alas, it’s not a friendly visit. Westwood has hired out the fuel-guzzling machine in order to protest about fracking outside Cameron’s Chadlington home, in his constituency village: Dame Vivienne Westwood’s anti fracking tank rides to David Cameron’s house in #Witney. #HeartNews pic.twitter.com/oRRn50ibBg — Thames Valley News (@HeartThamesNews) September 11, 2015 It’s not the first time Westwood has taken part in a bizarre stunt in her quest

Sebastian Payne

David Cameron: Corbyn poses a threat to Britain’s financial security

Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t even been elected Labour leader but the campaign to undermine him begins today. David Cameron will give a speech on the economy, in which he will warn that Corbyn will threaten Britain’s security — a strategy I wrote about earlier this week. According to today’s Times, the Prime Minister will make his first significant attack on a Corbyn-led Labour by focusing on the threat to Britain’s financial security: ‘I have watched with some bewilderment the Labour leadership election of the past few months. ‘Whoever wins . . . this is now a party that has completely vacated the intellectual playing field and no longer represents working people. It is arguing at the extremes

Thursday

10 Sep 2015

Max Hastings

Diary – 10 September 2015

During our annual odyssey around the Scottish Highlands, I read Tears of the Rajas, Ferdinand Mount’s eloquent indictment of imperial expansionism in India. One of Ferdy’s themes is that the British lived in the country without ever attempting to make themselves of it. How far is that true of sporting visitors to Scotland? The SNP’s persecution of landowners gains traction from the fact that guests in shooting and fishing lodges encounter only keepers, gillies, stalkers. We disport ourselves within a social archipelago utterly remote from the mainland of the society in which it lies. In our defence, however, that is what tourists do everywhere in the world, much to the

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 10 September 2015

Presumably Britain has some sort of policy on immigration, asylum and refugees, but instead of struggling to understand it, you can save time by following its media presentation, since that is what seems to concern the government most. Essentially, the line is that Labour lets them all in and the Tories don’t and won’t (‘No ifs, no buts’). When, as at the last election, it turns out that net immigration has been rising under David Cameron, he apologises shyly and sounds tough again. He was sounding very tough until last week, when the photograph of the dead boy on the Turkish beach suddenly turned him all soft. This Monday, his

The Spectator

The fog of law

Not even Jeremy Corbyn lamented the death of Reyaad Khan, who was killed by an RAF drone in Syria after joining the Islamic State. He was a straight-A student from Cardiff who had the freedom to do anything with his life, but chose to turn his back on Britain and join a band of Islamofascists. He had been working hand-in-glove with Junaid Hussain, a talented computer hacker from Birmingham who fled to Syria; the two of them had been making detailed plans for attacks on Britain. But the RAF’s involvement in the strike marks a new chapter in British warfare. The motive for the action was simple: Khan was planning

James Forsyth

Peter Robinson’s departure intensifies Northern Ireland’s political crisis

The political crisis in Northern Ireland has just become much more serious. Peter Robinson has stepped down as first minister and pulled all but one DUP Minister out of the executive. This means that there is now just one Unionist as part of the government there. Robinson’s aim is to make the UK government suspend Stormont. This crisis has been caused by the IRA’s continuing activities. Last month, the Police Service of Northern Ireland declared that the Provisional IRA was involved in the murder of Kevin McGuigan. This week, Sinn Fein’s northern chairman Bobby Storey was one of three republicans arrested for questioning in connection with the matter. Now, Sinn

Steerpike

Coffee Shots: George Osborne pays a visit to Boris Johnson’s bunker

An excerpt from Anthony Seldon’s David Cameron biography claimed that George Osborne finds his Tory leadership rival Boris Johnson ‘plain annoying‘. Happily the pair put any differences aside today as the Chancellor of the Exchequer paid a visit to Johnson’s constituency. The happy duo visited the Battle of Britain Bunker in Uxbridge to see how a £1m investment will help to restore the historic site. This bunker, if you remember, was the one Osborne joking referred to in the Budget when he said ‘I want to thank the member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip for bringing to my attention the dilapidated state of his campaign bunker’. The Mayor invited Osborne to

Sebastian Payne

Liz Kendall says farewell to frontline politics (for now)

Liz Kendall has all but admitted she is not going to be the next Labour leader. At a speech in Westminster this morning, the shadow care minister spoke about the future of the party and referenced ‘whatever happens on Saturday’ — but she was no longer talking about her plans as leader. Kendall urged Labour to stick together after the new leader is elected, specifically if Jeremy Corbyn wins: ‘First, everyone must – and I believe will – accept the result and mandate of the new Leader. They will have won the right to pursue their agenda and must be given the space and scope to do so. If Jeremy Corbyn wins, it would

Isabel Hardman

Cabinet Ministers happy to stay quiet on Europe

The next project for eurosceptic Tory MPs is to get a free vote for government ministers on the EU referendum. They want David Cameron to tell his frontbenchers whether or not they can campaign for a different stance to the one he’ll take (even if he wants to give the impression he might advocate leaving or remaining), and they want him to do it at the Tory conference in a few weeks’ time. One of the reasons the eurosceptics want this is that it will make it easier for them to add the names of senior ministers to their lists of supporters of leaving the EU, and to do so as

Steerpike

Liz Kendall goes ‘Cool Britannia’ with endorsement from Blur musician

Liz Kendall may say she is not the Blairite candidate in the leadership election but her campaign isn’t doing much to suggest otherwise. As well as possessing the most New Labour-esque policies, Kendall appears to be bringing back Cool Britannia. Just as Tony Blair was once the darling of the 90s music movement with musicians like Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher supporting him, Kendall has now won an endorsement from another Brit Pop great. Blur’s drummer Dave Rowntree was the guest of honour at Kendall’s final campaign event this morning, before the election result on Saturday: When Mr S interrupted their Tender embrace to hear why the Girls and Boys had come together at the event, Rowntree came

Isabel Hardman

Does David Cameron really need to worry about Jeremy Corbyn’s stance on military intervention?

Jeremy Corbyn becoming Labour leader will make it much more difficult for David Cameron to bring a vote to the House of Commons authorising British involvement in air strikes against the so-called Islamic State in Syria. That’s the received wisdom, anyway, but is it true? Tom Newton Dunn reported in the Sun this week that ‘dozens’ of Labour MPs were prepared to defy their party whip if it forbade support for action in Syria, which would mean the government would be able to cobble together a majority of Conservative MPs and Labourites, even if a group of Tories defied their whip. Yesterday the Prime Minister told the Commons that the

Sebastian Payne

Why Labour will lose in 2020

If Jeremy Corbyn is elected Labour leader on Saturday, does this mean the party will lose the next general election? Lord Ashcroft has produced a new report, Project Red Dawn, which examines why Labour lost the 2015 general election and what it needs to do to win again. His findings all point to another defeat under Corbyn’s leadership. Ashcroft’s research says the single biggest reason Labour lost was Ed Miliband, who defectors said was not up to the job of Prime Minister. The Tories will undoubtedly do their utmost to paint Corbyn — who has less experience in office than Miliband — in exactly the same light. Defectors to the Conservative party were put off by the

James Forsyth

Merkel’s folly

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/merkelstragicmistake/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Holly Baxter debate Merkel’s offer to Syrian refugees” startat=38] Listen [/audioplayer]Of all the irresponsible decisions taken in recent years by European politicians, few will cause as much human misery as Angela Merkel’s plan to welcome Syrian refugees to Germany. Hailed as enlightened moral leadership, it is in fact the result of panic and muddled thinking. Her pronouncements will lure thousands more into the hands of unscrupulous people-traffickers. Her insistence that the rest of the continent should share the burden will add political instability to the mix. Merkel has made a dire situation worse. On Tuesday last week, Germany declared that any Syrian who reaches the

Dan Hodges

How Gordon Brown’s hit man became Labour’s peacemaker

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/merkelstragicmistake/media.mp3″ title=”Dan Hodges and John McTernan discuss whether Tom Watson can save Labour” startat=772] Listen [/audioplayer]Last week I was talking to a member of the shadow cabinet about Jeremy Corbyn’s impending victory as Labour leader. ‘Forget about coups and resistance movements. There’s only one person who can save the party now — and that’s Tom Watson.’ It’s a common theme: those who had just recently denounced Watson as a fat thug now see him as the party’s only hope of salvation. On Saturday, half an hour before Corbyn’s almost certain coronation, Watson will be unveiled as his party’s new deputy leader. He will appear a rather unlikely saviour. His

Wednesday

9 Sep 2015

Isabel Hardman

Owen Paterson to write policies for Tory leadership hopeful

It’s official: the Tory leadership contest is well and truly underway. No matter that everyone’s interested in the Labour result this weekend and no matter that David Cameron hasn’t even set a date for his departure. This evening, at a drinks reception in a parliamentary lair, Owen Paterson announced that he would be drawing up a set of robust Tory policies for whoever wants to stand as leader to adopt. Speaking to a group of MPs, peers and hacks, the Tory MP said that his think tank UK 2020 – which he said he set up after ‘I was fired’ by the Prime Minister – would work on a series

Steerpike

Is Jeremy Corbyn really more posh than Harriet Harman?

Harriet Harman ended her final appearance at PMQs as the interim Labour leader with a parting shot in the direction of Jeremy Corbyn, who is the odds-on favourite to be the party’s next leader. ‘It was quite surprising to discover I’m not possibly old enough or posh enough to be the frontrunner of this leadership election,’ Harman told Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics. It’s true Corbyn is one year older than Harman, at 66, but is he really more posh than the St Paul’s Girls’ School alumnus? The die-hard socialist certainly has the most privileged upbringing of any of the Labour leadership candidates. Growing up in a seven-bedroom manor house

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Yet more people are executed by the work and pensions secretary

Time’s up for Hattie. Her performance at PMQs had a whiff of embalming fluid about it. This was probably her last performance as Labour’s stand-in boss and she declared it ‘an honour and a privilege to lead this great party’. Mentally everyone corrected that to ‘this once-great party’. Labour is on the verge of sundering into two factions: the Labour party in opposition (i.e. Jeremy Corbyn) and the Labour party in exile (i.e. the rest of them). Magnanimous Cameron hailed Hattie’s three decades on the front bench. He praised her support for women’s rights and said she’d served her constituents ‘with distinction’. Which is half-true. Harman’s offspring enjoyed the ‘distinction’