Politics

What is the extent of British involvement in Iraq? Philip Hammond today said it was simply to provide humanitarian assistance, but the suggestion that ministers could send Tornado jets to help with the relief operation has confused some. Even though sources have told the BBC that the jets will not be involved in air strikes, Jack Straw has immediately read the report as a sign that the UK could be heading towards ‘more active intervention’. He told ITV: ‘That’s a start. If you’re going to have more active intervention with aeroplanes striking at ISIS columns or drones, you need a lot of intelligence and the next stage is to send Tornados.

Baroness Warsi’s interview with the Sunday Times and Independent on Sunday is, unsurprisingly, not just about her discomfort with the government’s policy in the Middle East. The Independent on Sunday uses her jibe at public school Tories as its top line, while the Sunday Times splashes on the peer’s warning that the Tories have left it a ‘little too late’ to attract more votes from ethnic minorities. Her criticisms, aimed as a parting shot at her colleagues, may be discounted for being just that: nothing more than a sour parting shot from someone who found that a number of people who worked with her were only too pleased to see

The recent call for off-putting party political broadcasts on behalf of the Tories, Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens or Ukip drew a surprisingly small entry. But the Green party loomed large and Basil Ransome-Davies wasn’t alone in revealing the ruthlessness that lurks beneath its tree-hugging veneer: ‘The reality is, some of us have been trained to kill with our bare hands. And who knows, that may be necessary unless we can educate the electorate to our level of awareness. It may be the only way to save the planet.’ He earns an honourable mention. Adrian Fry, who recruited Jimmy Savile as Tory spokesman (can’t get more repellent than that), also

That Nigel Farage was planning to stand in South Thanet was one of the worst kept secrets in politics. But Ukip turns out to be the worst secret keeper in politics, too, with confirmation of the party leader’s intentions dribbling out on a Friday afternoon at the end of a rather newsy week. The meticulously well-sourced Jim Pickard at the FT reports local Ukip activists confirming that Farage is on their shortlist of candidates to run under the party’s banner. But the party’s spokeswoman has been stonewalling him, presumably because the Friday afternoon of an unusually newsy August week isn’t quite the right time for exciting Ukip constituency fireworks. The

FOB, FOG or FOT? Which one are you? In this week’s Spectator, Harry Mount examines the machinations of the Friends of Boris as they set their star man up for a return to Parliament and a future Tory leadership bid against the Friends of George and the Friends of Theresa. It’s worth reminding all three contenders, though, that these long-drawn out contests between party big beasts rarely lead to those big beasts actually taking the leadership. David Davis, Michael Portillo, Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine could all tell a few tales on that front. After years of moving against one another, spying and trying to convert friends of one contender into being