Society

It’s an unfashionable thought, but having spent many hours in the university sports hall where constituency votes for Boris Johnson and John McDonnell were counted, I feel freshly in love with democracy. There they all were, local councillors and party workers from across the spectrum; campaigners pursuing personal crusades, from animal rights to the way fathers are treated by the courts; eccentrics dressed as Time Lords. In the hot throng, there were extremists and a few who seemed frankly mad. But most were genial, thoughtful, balanced people giving of their free time to make this a slightly better country. Stuck in Westminster during relentless parliamentary crises, it’s easy to lose

The most vocal opponents of our decision to leave the European Union have been the City and big business. For the last three years, from the CBI to the Bank of England to the FT and countless FTSE chairmen and trade groups, there have been hysterical warnings about the consequences of leaving. As Project Fear steamed forward, they were in the ship’s engine room throwing coal into the furnaces. That was a big bet on the decision being reversed. If leaving could be made difficult enough and if the voters could be cowed into submission, there was a chance of a second referendum overturning the result. And yet, in the

I initially misread the reaction of Labour’s leading Corbynites and social media outriders to the party’s most cataclysmic defeat since 1935. I thought they were arguing Labour lost because of Brexit; that Jeremy Corbyn’s unpopularity was purely due to media vilification; and its manifesto evoked only a positive response on the doorstep simply because they wanted to persuade members they should vote for a continuity Corbynite candidate in the forthcoming leadership election. But as the days passed I realised I was wrong. At least some of them genuinely believe that, as Corbyn himself put it, Labour ‘won the argument’ on 12 December. As newly-elected MP Claudia Webbe’s incoherent defence of the

Stormzy has a song called Shut Up. ‘Oi rudeboy, shut up’, he raps. I wish he’d take his own advice. His predictable political musings are getting boring. His Corbyn cheering went down like a cup of cold sick with the populace. And his chattering-class views are just embarrassing for someone who claims to be grime. It’s time for a temporary vow of silence, Stormzy. His latest ‘controversial’ utterance came at his former primary school. He told a bunch of seven-year-olds there that their new PM, Boris Johnson, is a ‘very, very bad man’. In response to one of the kids who asked him why he doesn’t like Boris — one

It is worth fixing for posterity the feelings which, on polling day, swirled in the breasts of many who wanted a Boris victory. Being a journalist, I normally enjoy the electoral scene with some detachment. I cannot claim to be neutral, since I have never, even in Tony Blair’s pinkish dawn of 1997, wanted a Labour government; but I can take it in my stride. This time, however, millions, including myself, were knotted with fear that anything other than a clear Tory victory would destroy Brexit and make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister. The risks were actually frightening. We sought distractions. Listening to the Radio 4 Today programme that morning, I

Four years ago, during the Labour leadership contest that followed the party’s electoral defeat in 2015, I urged fellow conservatives to join Labour and vote for Jeremy Corbyn. I pointed out that you can become a “registered supporter” of the party – a status that entitles you to vote for the next leader – for the princely sum of £3. I obviously didn’t have Labour’s best interests at heart, but I could see one upside for the party, which is that Corbyn might lay to rest once and for all the crackpot theory that giving the top job to a Marxist is the way to win elections: With Corbyn at

The House of Commons has voted to back Boris Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement Bill, setting the country on course to leaving the European Union at the end of January. The Bill was passed by the Commons by 358 votes to 234, a majority of 124 (substantially higher than the majority the government won at the election). Below are the Labour MPs who rebelled to either vote for the Bill, or abstained: Labour MPs who backed the Brexit deal: Sarah Champion Rosie Cooper Jon Cruddas Emma Lewell-Buck Grahame Morris Toby Perkins Labour MPs who abstained (or were paired): Debbie Abrahams John Cryer Judith Cummins Peter Dowd Julie Elliott Chris Evans Yvonne Fovargue

After four failed attempts and one ousted prime minister, the Withdrawal Agreement Bill has comfortably passed the Commons at second reading. In fairness, this is not the first time this has happened. In the last parliament, Boris Johnson narrowly managed to pass the WAB at second reading – however, the government then pulled it when the programme motion (which set out a speedy timetable to pass the next stages) was voted down. This time it’s a different story. The WAB passed second reading with a large majority of 124  – at 358 votes for to 234 against – while the programme motion passed comfortably at 353 votes to 243 against. This means

Andrew Bailey, announced this morning as the next Governor of the Bank of England, is not, to use a term quoted this morning, a ‘rock star’ banker. He has been sold to the nation as a boring, dependable sort who will steady the horses, the safety-first candidate. It no doubt helps in this impression that he is, in fact, a banker – unlike the labour lawyer now running the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde. But that rather misses out a bigger question about Andrew Bailey: what is his attitude towards the regulation of banks and the wider financial sector in general? This matters somewhat as, under his watch, Britain will

One of the most striking things about the government’s Queen’s Speech was Boris Johnson’s focus on where the country could be in ten years’ time: ‘Mr Speaker, this is not a programme for one year, or one Parliament it is a blueprint for the future of Britain. Just imagine where this country could be in ten years’ time. Trade deals across the world, creating jobs across the UK, 40 new hospitals, great schools in every community, and the biggest transformation of our infrastructure since the Victorian age.’ Rather than simply focus on what his government would do in the five-year term he won last week, the Prime Minister talked about

The Prime Minister took to his feet in the House of Commons earlier this afternoon to lay out his government’s agenda for the next five years. Johnson called the plans ‘a blueprint for the future of Britain’ before embarking on a whistlestop tour of his ambitions. Those seeking to probe the government’s policy agenda in more detail could do a lot worse than reading through this accompanying 151-page briefing document. The PM extolled the virtues of his plan, calling it ‘the most radical Queen’s Speech for a generation’. He told the chamber that his government was committed to ‘building hospitals, renewing our schools, modernising our infrastructure, making our streets safer, our environment

If you wanted an illustration of the different emotional states of the two main parties, you could do a lot worse than to watch the humble address speeches just given by two Tory backbenchers in the Commons following the Queen’s Speech. While Tracey Crouch and Eddie Hughes cracked jokes and had their colleagues in stitches as if at a pantomime, the Labour benches looked as though they were about to go to a funeral. Many Labour MPs who managed to win their seats again are still in a state of numb, angry grief about the friends they lost and about what has happened to their party. The thought of laughing