All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
After the Queen’s Speech in May, a number of Labour MPs including Chuka Umunna and Rachel Reeves enjoyed a group trip to Nandos. Alas the invite didn’t manage to make its way to blunder-prone Lucy Powell who took to Twitter to awkwardly point this out. Now it seems Ed Miliband’s former deputy campaign chief has put
People keep asking me if I think Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic. I don’t. Or at least I think it’s vanishingly unlikely. Why would he be? For all his political unorthodoxy in various directions, his antipathy towards bigotry seems wholly genuine. Indeed, it seems the whole point. I don’t see how it could have such a
Is Jeremy Corbyn’s steaming ahead in the Labour leadership contest? Is he going to win on first preferences alone? The best quantitate answers we have come from two YouGov polls conducted for the Times — one in July and another last week. The first poll put Corbyn 17 points ahead of his nearest rival on first preferences and six points ahead in the final
What will David Cameron do with his final few years in power? On election night, he said he wanted his party ‘to reclaim a mantle that we should never have lost: the mantle of one nation’. This raised the prospect of Cameron trying to succeed where so many of his predecessors failed: in making it clear
I suppose I’d insult Jeremy Corbyn if I compared him to an American. Jews (sorry ‘Zionists’) and Ukrainians rank high in the far-left’s demonology. But Corbyn and his comrades agree that Americans are the worst. So I should say that I mean no offence when I point out that ‘if Corbyn were American’ his campaign
With inflation nailed to the floor, real wage increases are now increasing at the fastest rate in years. Today’s CPI inflation data today shows it moving from zero in June to 0.1pc in July – but this masks a 2.7pc reduction in the cost of food. For those on the breadline, it’s a welcome trend:
Given by most metrics Jeremy Corbyn is on track to win the Labour leadership contest, his policies deserve to be examined and discussed. Based on his speeches and pamphlets, here is a summary of what Corbyn has pledged to do in key policy areas. There is a surprising amount of detail. Economy Corbyn’s economic ideas have been outlined
No, Nicola Sturgeon does not have much reason to be worried about Jeremy Corbyn. But the rest of the country does. To borrow from the tabloids, Corbyn is The Most Dangerous Man in Britain because, though no-one in London seems to appreciate this, he could be the man whose leadership of the Labour party leads to the
A powerful explosion ripped almost instantaneously through a busy intersection in Bangkok’s downtown shopping area yesterday, killing 22 people and injuring more than 100. Some of the victims were foreign tourists, and representatives of the country’s military government quickly stated that the bombs were indeed aimed at foreigners, and designed to undermine one of the country’s economic mainstays:
Why doesn’t the Office of National Statistics want us to know that Mohammed is the most popular boys’ name in England and Wales? Yesterday, it put out its annual survey of the top 10 baby’s names. In 2014, it reported, the most popular boys’ names were Oliver, Jack and Harry. This contrasts somewhat with a
The Labour leadership race is rapidly turning sour. None of the warnings from party grandees are denting Jeremy Corbyn’s support, so talk has turned back to whether candidates should drop out. Yvette Cooper’s campaign has called for Andy Burnham to quit the race. ‘If he isn’t prepared to offer an alternative to Jeremy, he needs to step back and
The expansion of capitalism and free markets in recent decades has led to incredible economic and social progress; the fastest fall in extreme poverty in human history, rising life expectancy and plummeting levels of global hunger. Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-capitalist economic programme seems simply to ignore that history of success. The premise of Corbynomics is therefore that
Yvette Cooper has rounded on Andy Burnham this evening, demanding that the Labour leadership contender oppose Jeremy Corbyn or stand aside. Burnham gave a speech this morning that was widely reported as him snuggling up to Corbyn, in which he praised his rival’s ‘energy’ and said ‘I want to capture that and would involve Jeremy
The dynamics of Labour’s other ongoing election appear to be shifting. While Tessa Jowell remains the favourite to be the party’s candidate for the 2016 London Mayoral election, Sadiq Khan is making some headway. Firstly, Survation has released a new poll that suggests he can beat Zac Goldsmith — the most likely Tory candidate. 50 per
Why is Ed Miliband not intervening to stop Jeremy Corbyn? Some Labourites see the former leader’s silence on the issue as a dereliction of duty, and hope to increase the pressure on him to say something about the importance of not lurching further left. But sources have told Coffee House that he plans to say
The Labour party includes many sensible and intelligent people who want what is best for our country. But all of them are currently gnawing their hands and weeping into their sleeves as they watch their party prepare to take this great leap backwards. I know of Labour politicians who hoped that putting Jeremy Corbyn up
Government departments have started to prepare their staff for job losses ahead of this autumn’s spending review, Coffee House has learned. George Osborne wants ministers to cut as much as 40 per cent from unprotected spending pots, which means that departments are likely to shed staff – or even close. The Energy and Climate Change
If Jeremy Corbyn is elected as Labour leader, how long would he last? Blairities, such as John McTernan, have promoted the idea of an instacoup — taking him out as soon as possible. Or the party might decide further down the line they’ve had enough. In either scenario, there is a formal procedure for removing a leader. Under the 2014 Labour rule book (produced
He may be out of power but Labour’s Prince of Darkness is still attempting to pull the strings. Today’s Daily Telegraph reports that Peter Mandelson suggested to Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall that they should drop out of the Labour leadership contest in order to have the whole thing called off. One source told the paper ‘Lord Mandelson and
In an interview with Labour Uncut, Andy Burnham admitted a dark secret: that throughout the 90s he lived in fear that his early-career journalism gigs — from his time working for B2B magazines — would wind their way onto Have I Got News for You. He recently repeated his reason for not going on the programme
With MPs being awarded a 10 per cent pay rise this summer, politicians have been left having to defend their annual salary of £74,00o from sceptics who point out that the boost comes at a time when their constituents face tough cuts. Still, Mr S wonders whether that number is too small an estimate after one takes into account all
Strange things have been happening in Scottish politics of late, and Jeremy Corbyn’s speech in Glasgow on Friday was one of them. I’m a Labour supporter, and can safely say it was the most electrifying and energetic rally I have ever attended. Labour’s problem in England may well be a failure to win in the market
So, funnily enough, Gordon Brown’s speech about his party’s leadership election hasn’t been that well-received by some quarters of Labour. There are some interesting people who are inevitably claiming he’s a Tory, but what’s more interesting is the way it has gone down with Labour MPs. Clive Lewis, for instance, seems to be quite keen
Gordon Brown has just given one of his saving-the-world-at-the-last-minute speeches. He was speaking just as the ballot papers for his party’s leadership election are being sent out, and in keeping with his other saving-the-world-at-the-last-minute speeches, particularly the one he delivered shortly before the Scottish referendum, it was a barnstormer. His main theme was the importance
What are the best political positions for Labour and the Conservatives to take to win back more voters? The Tories want to maintain and extend their victory, while Labour is trying to work out how to unite the left and encourage more people to turn out for the party. These two parties used to focus
Who would win the Labour leadership contest if it were decided by the number of Twitter followers? Jeremy Corbyn 94,200 Andy Burnham 85,400 Yvette Cooper 72,800 Liz Kendall 35,900 And the nascent Tory leadership battle? Boris Johnson 1.43m* George Osborne 135,000 Theresa May 0† *For @MayorofLondon; his personal handle has another 73,200. †She doesn’t tweet.
Should we have celebrated VJ Day? Hearing the hieratic tones of the Emperor Hirohito on Radio 4 the other day, announcing the unthinkable — the surrender of the great imperial power to the secular, gas-guzzling, unheeding West — seemed like a profanity. So much came to an end with that surrender that it is not
Some years ago, Taki and Jeffrey Bernard each wrote the other’s obituary. When Jeffrey died on 4 September 1997, The Spectator published Taki’s version. Radio 4 are today broadcasting Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, and so it seemed a good time to revisit the piece: In real life Jeffrey Bernard was much the same as he was in
The Times today reports that leading Muslim clerics in the UK are warning that ‘religious sectarianism is on the rise in Britain’s Muslim community and threatens to spill over into violent crime and terrorism’. An investigation by the paper ‘found a sharp but largely hidden rise in sectarian tensions between the minority Shia community and
Who could Jeremy Corbyn invite into his shadow cabinet if elected Labour leader? Some frontbenchers are suggesting today that he could find two thirds of his shadow ministerial positions unfilled as MPs refuse to serve under his leadership. But who might say yes to an offer from the veteran socialist. These are the runners and
If the Labour leadership has taught us anything it is that, as Kent Brockman once observed, democracy simply doesn’t work. The people’s party has asked the people, and the people are going to drive them off a cliff. One or two journalists have speculated about whether the Tory Right could ever do something similar. To
The American presidential race seemed more like a playground fight than a clash of politics this week as would-be Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton drew her claws on her Republican counterpart Donald Trump. The rumpus was sparked by Trump’s comments on Megyn Kelly’s tough approach towards him during a recent Republican Party debate. ‘You could
With the registration period now closed, Labour members are sitting tight, waiting for their ballot papers to arrive. A period of quiet, sober reflection now begins, as members decide who they want to see face off the Tories. But not everyone is seeing it that way. The Scottish Labour Young Socialists – who say they are ‘fighting
At least Andy Burnham is keeping us all on his toes with his leadership campaign. If you’d stopped paying attention to the Labour leadership election for a couple of hours, you might be forgiven for thinking that the Shadow Health Secretary thinks it is a bad idea to attack Jeremy Corbyn. This is what he