All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Is this a split in the Labour party or something more? At today’s launch, Chuka Umunna was clear that the Independent Group want to attract MPs from parties other than Labour. Tory party sources admit that they ‘would not be surprised’ if some Tory MPs were to join this new group. Right now, the values
Oh dear. When Chuka Umunna announced that he and six other Labour MPs were leaving their party and forming ‘The Independent Group’, as a new separate political faction, he said that the TIGs would have an extremely simple message: ‘Politics is broken. It doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s change it.’ But if politics
Chuka Umunna has quit the Labour party and set up a new political party. Calling itself the Independent Group, Umunna said the party wants to go about ‘building a new politics’. But in a Q and A with journalists, Mr S couldn’t help but notice that Umunna also managed to spell out quite clearly the new
Oh dear. After months and years of speculation, this morning seven Labour MPs announced that they are quitting the party over Jeremy Corbyn’s unsuitability to be prime minister. Chuka Umunna and Chris Leslie are among the MPs to say they are quitting the party and forming an independent group which is proud to be British
There are seven MPs leaving Labour: Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker, Angela Smith, Chuka Umunna, Mike Gapes and Ann Coffey. They have revealed that they will call themselves ‘The Independent Group’. They will publish a full statement of what they stand for this morning. The MPs are setting out their reasons for leaving. Berger
Luciana Berger and six other Labour MPs have just quit the Labour party. Explaining her reasons for quitting Corbyn’s party, Berger said she had come to the conclusion that Labour is ‘institutionally anti-Semitic’. She said she was ’embarrassed’ to stay put in Labour. Here is her damning verdict on the party: I have become embarrassed
A group of Labour MPs are expected to announce they are leaving the party this morning. While the numbers and names aren’t yet confirmed, this has been a very long time coming, with members planning their exit for months, and rumours about it swirling for almost as long. Finally, the question is now not whether
It looks as though the longest rumoured split in a major British political party since the creation of the SDP almost 40 years ago will happen this morning. The reason I think this is because last light I texted the Labour MPs Chuka Umunna, Chris Leslie, Luciana Berger and Gavin Shuker asking them if they
Here we go. After over a year of speculation about a Labour party split, the departure of Labour moderates appears imminent. Over the weekend, speculation mounted that this will be the week a number of Labour MPs quit the party. Now a press conference has been scheduled for this morning on the ‘future of British politics’.
The instant emotion I felt, when I heard the news this morning that colleagues were leaving Labour, was deep sadness. I’ve devoted my life to this party and I’m proud to serve it, I am hugely disappointed about what has happened. This is a sad day for all of us. I think our colleagues have
First, a confession. Because I try not to spend too much time on Twitter, I sometimes miss “the story that everyone at Westminster is talking about” and struggle to keep up with village gossip. Worse, I lose track of the minor characters the ceaseless opera of poisonous soap, or fail to recognise them for what
John McDonnell – We’ve got to be ruthless on anti-Semitism The Shadow Chancellor sat down with Andrew Marr this morning and they broached the topic of anti-Semitism within the Labour party. Figures were released earlier this week showing that the party had received 673 official complaints since April, with 96 individuals having been suspended for
Liam Halligan’s piece on HS2 is spot-on (‘The wrong track’, 9 February). I am surprised to find myself for once on the same side as Andrea Leadsom. Most of the argument about HS2 focuses on cost; I’d like more on the pros and cons. Any projected benefits seem to be based on an assumption that
It was World Hijab Day earlier this month. You probably missed it, but you can imagine the idea: ‘global citizens’ of all faiths and backgrounds were asked to cover their heads for a day ‘in solidarity with Muslim women worldwide’. It is done in ‘recognition of millions of Muslim women who choose to wear the
I’d like to propose a new scientific institution: the IUT, or Institute of Underrated Technology. Rather than trying to invent yet more bloody things, it will instead be devoted to helping us derive greater value from things we can do already using technology which already exists. Innovation is a two-stage process. First you discover something;
The EU has agreed a standard exit clause on almost every treaty it has ever negotiated – so why not the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement? Olly Robbins made a grave error in failing to have such a clause inserted, and Theresa May made a worse one in signing up to a deal that Parliament was never
When Theresa May goes to Brussels next week to bat for changes to the backstop, she’ll do so with a large crack in her bat—I say in The Sun this morning. The symbolic defeat that MPs inflicted on her Brexit plan on Thursday night has significantly weakened her negotiating position. The EU doesn’t want to
Two weeks ago Luigi Di Maio, Italy’s vice-premier and Labour Minister and the top politician of the Five Star Movement (M5S), appointed a new commissioner for the UN cultural organisation Unesco. He chose the dog–whistling, bum-slapping sex–comedy actor Lino Banfi, star of How to Seduce Your Teacher, Policewoman on the Porno Squad and other films.
Over Christmas, I digitised slides from my twenties. In many an unidentified photograph, I didn’t recognise the scene. Where was I? Who are these total strangers? What were we finding so funny? Thus it’s credible that on being confronted with his personal page from a 1984 medical school yearbook, Democratic Virginian governor Ralph Northam wavered:
The sad announcement of John Humphrys’s departure from Today has provoked once again the suggestion that the programme has dumbed down. There is supposed to be too much showbiz. The implication is that news people who, in their own phrase, ‘know their onions’ (almost always, perhaps not coincidentally, men) are being pushed aside by others (usually, perhaps
Jacob Rees-Mogg often describes himself as a straight-talker who gives honest answers, no matter how unpopular they might be. But did his performance on Question Time last night live up to this billing? It was held in leafy Aylesbury, which lies on the proposed HS2 path thereby hitting house prices in the area – which explains
What would Winston Churchill have made of the hysterical debate yesterday, which tried to boil his legacy down to whether he was a ‘villain’ or a ‘hero’? Mr S wonders if the man who liberated Europe might have been amused at the situation, not least by being called a ‘villain’ by a shadow chancellor who thought
The invitation to submit poems in dispraise of Valentine’s Day certainly struck a chord, drawing a large and heartfelt entry that captured the ghastliness well: overpriced dinners, sad, single-stemmed roses, chocolate genitalia, nasty cards – or no cards at all… Valentine’s Day is said by some to have its roots in the Roman pagan festival
To split or not to split? Moderates in the Labour party have long agonised over the party’s hard left direction. But this week, things are coming to a head. The anti-Semitism sore has flared up again – Stephen Bush tells us on the podcast that the witch hunt against Luciana Berger has shocked many moderates
Earlier this week I wrote a blog here accusing children who were planning to take part in today’s Youth4Climate march of wanting to play truant. I realise now that I may have been a little harsh on them. Having read and heard what they have been saying and posting this morning, I fear that some
The thousands of children across the UK on ‘strike’ from school today to protest climate change are admirable. They’re part of a movement, Fridays for Future, which wants more aggressive measures to reduce emissions. It seems clear to me that climate change is real, man-made and requires action. If these kids can do their bit
One of the more interesting developments over the last year is the attempted transformation of John McDonnell from a hard-left activist who joked about “lynching” a female Conservative MP, towards a softer, more jovial, chancellor-in-waiting. It seemed to be going quite well. I appeared with McDonnell on Politics Live last year and he laughed heartily
Winston Churchill can be blamed for many things. He was an essential figure behind the disastrous landings at Gallipoli. It was on his word that the thuggish ‘Black and Tans’ were sent into Ireland. His racial animus towards Indian people did not help Britain to formulate an effective response to the Bengal Famine. He was
Faced with the prospect of the UK’s departure from the EU, some Britons are contemplating urgent measures, whether applying for an Irish passport or migrating to New Zealand. Nothing wrong with either, of course, but the latter is an odd reaction. After all, one of the implications of Brexit is that it restores the fundamental
It is time for Labour and Tory MPs to wake up and see the Brexit reality staring them in the face. Which is — after tonight’s demonstration that the government doesn’t have the votes to push through a Brexit plan of any description with simply its MPs and those of Northern Ireland’s DUP — all
After Theresa May mysteriously evaporated from the Commons following tonight’s government defeat, Downing Street has issued a statement insisting that nothing has changed. The official line is, somewhat tortuously, that the previous set of indicative votes from MPs were the ones that mattered, whereas this one didn’t. A No.10 spokesman said: ‘While we didn’t secure
The government has been defeated by 45 votes tonight. This loss doesn’t force a change in policy on Theresa May, but it is a significant blow to her negotiating strategy. She has been saying to the EU that with legally binding changes to the backstop, she could get the withdrawal agreement through parliament. The EU
The European Research Group has decided it will abstain on the government’s Brexit motion, which MPs will be voting on in the next hour. An ERG source said that there was a ‘collective decision’ at a meeting this afternoon to abstain on the motion if no other amendments to it were passed. Voting has begun,
Winston Churchill is a war hero who saved Britain from the Nazis. At least, that is what many think of a man consistently hailed as one of the greatest ever Brits. Not so Chris Williamson. Instead, the Labour MP agrees with the shadow chancellor John McDonnell that Churchill was a ‘villain’. Speaking on the BBC’s