All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
How come so few big business leaders signed up to David Cameron’s letter in favour of remain? As the Daily Mail reported this morning: High street shops including Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Next and banks such as Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland did not put their names to the letter published today. It had been suggested
First, it was Michael Gove. Next, it was Boris Johnson. Now, a slightly smaller political beast in the form of Bromley council has come out and backed Brexit. The South London council voted last night to say it believed Britain was better off out of Europe. It passed a motion saying: This council agrees that
David Cameron’s rather pointed digs at Boris Johnson in the Commons yesterday surprised his own MPs, who had thought that they were going to be ordered to be pleasant to one another, not attack senior colleagues who had taken different stances on the European Union. At the party meeting with the Prime Minister last night,
Jeremy Corbyn was still stuck in the Commons chamber when the Labour Party held its weekly meeting this evening. He had been due to attend after MPs had complained that he was avoiding them, but this has now been moved to another week. Instead, Hilary Benn and Alan Johnson gave brief speeches on the EU
Poor Boris. Subjected to both the BBC PM programme’s satire and an evisceration by Nick Cohen right here. I just hope that, in time, he will be able to overcome both of these slights. If Boris was at fault it was in perhaps pretending to have an open mind on the issue of in-out. I
Boris Johnson is a slippery fish, but I don’t think Nick Cohen quite captures him in his blog post earlier today. To accuse him of putting career before country in the EU referendum campaign, as Cohen does, is to fall into the trap of viewing politicians too dichotomously, as if they’re all either men and women
The main difference between David Cameron’s statement to MPs on his EU deal and the two statements he has already given on the matter was that this one had added digs at Boris Johnson. Quite a few of them, in fact. The Prime Minister is clearly furious with the Mayor of London for his weekend announcement
I have spent the last nine months setting out the four areas where we need reform and meeting with all 27 other EU Heads of State and government to reach an agreement that delivers concrete reforms in all four areas. Let me take each in turn. First, British jobs and British business depend on being able to
Although the Conservative party is currently divided over the EU, some Tory MPs are still managing to remember to attack the opposition party — rather than their colleagues. Today the Commons returned firmly to ‘Punch and Judy’ politics following Cameron’s EU statement in the Commons. As Jeremy Corbyn gave his reply, Chris Pincher — the MP for Tamworth — couldn’t resist having
Over the weekend a number of Brexit activists walked out of an anti-EU Grassroots Out rally after George Galloway was revealed as the guest speaker. Although the Respect party leader was introduced by his new chum Nigel Farage at the event, even Ukip supporters voiced opposition to his involvement. So when Galloway appeared on today’s Daily Politics,
This weekend saw a host of EU drama unfold, as a number of Cabinet Ministers rebelled against David Cameron on Saturday — declaring that they would campaign for Brexit. Then came another blow to Number 10 on Sunday as Boris Johnson announced that he, too, would be supporting Out. So, did it all get a bit too
I’ll put my hands up and admit it: I’m one of the nasties you’ve read about – a Stepford student. I was one of the original group of stony-eyed students who, our ‘brains bereft of critical faculties and programmed to conform’, conspired to set up a new publication to promote our ‘groupthink’ philosophy. The Stepford
Rather rashly, Boris Johnson published The Churchill factor: How one man made history last year. It was without historical merit, or intellectual insight, but Johnson did not intend readers to learn about Churchill. The biography was not a Churchill biography but a Johnson campaign biography, where we were invited to see our hero as Winston
David Cameron faces MPs today after returning from Brussels with his European Union reform deal. At 3.30 in the Commons, the Prime Minister will give a statement on the outcome of the European Council meeting, and take questions from MPs, including many on his own side who think the deal is a load of tosh.
David Cameron’s decision to hold the EU referendum on 23 June has already caused upset in some camps. While the SNP complain that it clashes with the Holyrood elections, Glastonbury festival goers are put out that they will have to organise a postal vote in order to have their say. Now there is more trouble
If Boris Johnson had behaved and backed David Cameron’s ‘in’ campaign, he would have been foreign secretary by the summer. Instead, he chose to join Michael Gove in the ‘out’ campaign – informing the Prime Minister by text message at 4.40pm shortly before informing the reporters who gathered around his house shortly afterwards. So what does
George Osborne’s plan for this referendum was to turn it into a question of the future versus the past, for both the country and the Tory party. He wanted the voters to see the Out campaign as a bunch of people who wanted to take Britain back to a bygone era. Inside the Tory party,
‘So what’s your alternative?’ demand Euro-enthusiasts. ‘D’you want Britain to be like Norway? Or like Switzerland? Making cuckoo clocks? Is that what you want? Is it? Eh?’ The alternative to remaining in a structurally unsafe building is, of course, walking out; but I accept that this won’t quite do as an answer. Although staying in
The Mayor has not even filed his Daily Telegraph column yet, but Ladbrokes has announced that he is now the favourite to succeed David Cameron. As the above graph shows, his chances have been steadily increasing as George Osborne overplayed his hand: first, by posing as the heir assumptive, and then by various missteps (like praising Google’s tax deal).
This is not about whether you love Europe or not. Actually, I love Brussels, I used to live in Brussels – fantastic city, wonderful place – and I love European culture and civilisation. I consider it to be the greatest civilisation this planet has ever produced, and we are all products or most of us
With Boris Johnson set to back Brexit, the Mayor of London has received a special delivery from Vote Leave ahead of his announcement. Vote Leave’s Cleo Watson arrived at his address this afternoon to drop off some Brexit merchandise: A Vote Leave hat and brolly outside Boris's front door – he can't back out now.
David Cameron used to always remind people who asked him about what Boris would do in the referendum that the London Mayor had never advocated Britain leaving the European Union. But tonight, Boris will do exactly that. He will become the highest profile politician to back Brexit. Boris’s decision shakes up this referendum campaign. The
Almost everything about the EU debate so far has been a fraud. The ‘Remain’ campaign has lied to the public about what David Cameron achieved in his ‘renegotiation’. They have lied about the consequences of leaving the EU, in the hope of terrifying us into staying. And now they are rushing us towards a referendum
David Cameron rehearsed many of his arguments about his deal on the Marr Show this morning, but he also made a fresh appeal to Boris Johnson to back the In side. He said: ‘To Boris, I would say to Boris what I say to everybody else which is we would be safer, we will be
Cabinet ministers are now free to campaign in the EU referendum, and inevitably the pro-Brexit bunch have all given interviews or penned pieces in the press about why they want to leave the European Union. Chris Grayling today tells the Sunday Times that David Cameron’s renegotiation ‘doesn’t go far enough’ and can be overturned by
David Cameron and George Osborne have responded to Michael Gove’s decision to campaign for Out by saying that he has wanted to leave the EU for thirty years. But as Vote Leave are pointing out, Gove has not been an Outer for that long. When he was a journalist, Gove was actually arguing that Britain
It was obvious that Donald Trump would win the South Carolina Republican Primary tonight. Polls are never that far off. Still, it’s a shocking result. In the build-up to the vote, Trump did almost everything a Republican candidate is not meant to do: he blamed George W. Bush for 9/11, he spoke well of Planned
Bernie Sanders’s quixotic tilt at the White House needed an upset in the Nevada Caucuses tonight. But Hillary Clinton won. Now the Former First Lady, after a wobbly few weeks, is very much back in what Americans call the catbird seat. Sanders’s populist success has been staggering, but he has never quite threatened to destroy
Your latest challenge was to compose a Valentine’s triolet. A famous example of the triolet is Frances Cornford’s catty ‘To a Fat Lady seen from the Train’ (‘O fat white woman whom nobody loves/ Why do you walk through the field in gloves’), but it was that ace trioleteer Wendy Cope’s rather more charming ‘Valentine’
Three things give momentum to a campaign for a presidential nomination in the USA and power it to victory: Expectations. Expectations. Expectations. The only truly memorable moment of Bill Clinton’s 1992 Democratic victory was his New Hampshire primary loss: where his second-place finish surprised the political establishment and lent him the ‘comeback kid’ moniker than
At Cabinet this morning, every minister spoke in strict order of Cabinet seniority. This meant that Michael Gove was the first person to make the case for Out. I’m told that his argument to Cabinet was essentially the same as the hugely powerful statement he put out afterwards, which you can read in full here.
For weeks now I have been wrestling with the most difficult decision of my political life. But taking difficult decisions is what politicians are paid to do. No-one is forced to stand for Parliament, no-one is compelled to become a minister. If you take on those roles, which are great privileges, you also take on
As expected, David Cameron has just confirmed that the EU referendum will be on Thursday 23 June. The Prime Minister confirmed – again – in his statement in Downing Street that he will be recommending an ‘In’ vote. The Prime Minister’s statement was largely a reprise of his key themes from last night. He said that
David Cameron’s two hour Cabinet meeting is now over, and the campaign has now started. His Cabinet members are now free to back (or oppose) Brexit, here is a list of who’s saying what. Out camp Michael Gove: The Justice Secretary is to back Out. Entering No.10 he informed reporters that he would be making