All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Why is the Labour leadership contest so vile? It has been the bitterest, bitchiest battle that the party has experienced for a good long while, even though the last contest involved two brothers standing against each other in a very ill-humoured manner. Labour MPs are smarting that after years of fighting in the trenches for
This summer a new craze has taken hold of several politicians. Inspired by the frenzy Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘world weary sea dog’ beard has caused amongst women, both Ed Vaizey and David Gauke grew their facial hair in the style of the Labour leadership favourite. Now it appears Ed Miliband may have jumped on the bandwagon. The
Erudite and bespectacled, he was the sort of Arab the Islamic State loathed. Khaled al-Asaad, an 81-year old archaeologist, was for the past four decades inseparable from Palmyra’s ancient ruins. Beheaded in part for his role shielding them from the militants, they strung his headless body up on Graeco-Roman columns he once restored. His remains
Jeremy Corbyn really has made socialism trendy – at least in Scotland. We can take that from the speech that Kezia Dugdale, Labour’s Scottish leader, will make a today focusing on the ‘s’ word – something she is unlikely to have done had Mr Corbyn been languishing in the polls. Indeed, it was only a few
First Russell Brand, and now Rupert Murdoch has joined the list of ‘endorsements Jeremy Corbyn might not actually want’. The News UK media mogul, whose papers backed the Tories in the general election, says that Corbyn is the only Labour leadership candidate who actually believes in something: Corbyn increasingly likely Labor winner. Seems only candidate who believes
Is ‘clean eating’ a trendy new fad or something more dangerous? On the View from 22 podcast, nutritionist Ian Marber discusses this week’s cover feature with Isabel Hardman and Lara Prendergast. How is the advice to eat healthier given out by these self-made personalities actually detrimental to your health? How much of the #eatclean movement is about celebrity? And do
Jeremy Corbyn has hit back at suggestions he has been hanging out in a rather bad crowd. The former Conservative MP Louise Mensch has dug up a press release on her blog that suggests Corbyn invited Dyab Abou Jahjah, a Lebanese extremist who once said the ‘death of every British soldier is a victory’, to
Here is a preview of Martin Vander’s Any Other Business Column in this week’s Spectator, out tomorrow… Asked to name Britain’s greatest living industrial designer, most people might cite Sir Jony Ive of Apple or Sir James Dyson of the bagless vacuum cleaner. I’d certainly shortlist Ive, but I traded in my unreliable Dyson for
Jeremy Corbyn has been having a difficult time of late. The Labour leadership favourite has become increasingly tetchy with the media after facing questions about his links to a Holocaust denier, as well as being the subject of criticism from a host of former Labour bigwigs. However, there is one man who he can rely on to fight his
Britain’s Poles go on strike tomorrow to protest the widespread anti-Polish xenophobia across the country, which is literally everywhere. There are about one million Polish people in Great Britain, and many sectors of the economy depend on them, so in theory they could hold the country to ransom by striking. But they wont, and this
Andy Burnham and Jeremy Corbyn have both pledged to bring back British Rail. Why? In a speech yesterday, Corbyn justified his position: ‘I think the public mood is there, absolutely there, saying, “Bring our railways back into public ownership.” And we’ll all get a better and much more integrated system as a result’. Headline figures from
Why haven’t some Labour MPs ever met Jeremy Corbyn? Mr Steerpike picks up on the discussion between former Miliband aide Anna Yearley, and MPs Barbara Keeley and Lucy Powell about his non-attendance at PLP meetings and the fact that Powell has ‘never, ever met or spoken to him’. This is odd: Corbyn has been a
On Monday, Jeremy Corbyn was questioned by Channel 4 News about yet another Holocaust denier and anti-Semite of his acquaintance. And now the BBC’s World at One has asked Corbyn about another. There are plenty more, and this will be able to go on for quite some time. But Corbyn’s defence was interesting in that it went
Day after day, Labour’s big beasts are being wheeled out one by one. Yesterday it was Neil Kinnock, today it’s David Blunkett’s turn to warn against the impending doom if Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader. On the Today programme, the former home secretary made a coded attack on Corbyn, suggesting the party needs a leader who can win elections: ‘I want
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