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Pierre Poujade was a French shopkeeper who, in the mid-1950s, led quite a powerful right-wing revolt in favour of the little man against the elites. The leader of his party’s youth branch was Jean-Marie Le Pen. The word ‘Poujadiste’ is not usually intended as a compliment in France or here, and the late Christopher Soames
Newspapers everywhere are in trouble, with advertising revenues down about 20 per cent a year. Local newspapers are worst hit and many are on the brink of collapse, sacking staff and pages. But there can be no more depressing sign of their distress than to see newspaper owners selling front pages to political parties. Look
Well, then. It turns out that the revival of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party is a real thing. Last year, the party won 31 seats at the Scottish parliament elections, supplanting Labour as the second force in Scottish politics. This week, it became the second largest party in local government across Scotland. The Tories
It was tempting to view Theresa May’s Downing Street broadside against the European Commission as purely a piece of domestic political theatre. After all, Jean-Claude Juncker is a more convincing bogeyman than Jeremy Corbyn. Yet having made further enquiries, I think that May was also keen to send a message to EU capitals with her
The crapness of Corbyn’s Labour is a phenomenon. It fascinates me. Frankly, it does my head in. For there is a theory, you see, that Corbyn’s Labour isn’t really crap at all. That it is all a conspiracy. That journalists such as me, who I suspect are ‘neoliberal’ or something, merely construct a narrative demonising
The latest competition asked for an acrostic sonnet in which the first letters of each line spell AT THE SPECTATOR. You weren’t obliged to make the theme of your poem this magazine and its contributors but many of you did, to great effect. The tone was mainly affectionate, along the lines of Paul Carpenter’s opening:
Will executive pay pop up in Theresa May’s manifesto? An objective of her snap election is to secure a larger majority on the basis of a smaller burden of manifesto promises than she inherited from David Cameron. But in her only leadership campaign speech last July, her reference to ‘an irrational, unhealthy and growing gap
Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s main Brexit negotiator, tweeted on Monday: ‘Any #Brexit deal requires a strong & stable understanding of the complex issues involved. The clock is ticking — it’s time to get real.’ This was on the same day as media reports — allegedly leaked by associates of Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission
Labour is now five weeks away from the election hammering it signed up to when Jeremy Corbyn was elected and re-elected leader. Sadly, the local elections are only a taste of things to come. Labour’s national vote share will be lower, the Tories’ higher and many of the PLP’s best talents will be ejected from Parliament. The
This weekend, France will again go to the polls in the final round of voting. The choice is between Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron. And while the polls look very much in Macron’s favour, many fear that Le Pen could still be in with a chance. Not so much because of the votes she
Amid the tidal wave of allegations of ‘historic’ sexual abuse by so-called VIP paedophiles, yet another high-profile police investigation has stalled. Wiltshire Police, who are looking into claims made against the late Sir Edward Heath, revealed two weeks ago that they had released the only other two people arrested, saying they face no further action. Despite
When I was a reporter in the Scottish Parliament 15 years ago, the Tories had stopped being hated. They were pitied, which was worse. Voting Tory was not seen as a giant evil but a harmless English perversion – roughly in the same bracket as cross dressing, or cricket. The party looked dead, a joke
The local elections have given us the clearest demonstration yet of how UK politics is being realigned. The Ukip vote has collapsed and is moving in large numbers to the Tories. Combine this with the erosion of the Labour vote under Jeremy Corbyn, and places where you never thought the Tories would win are turning
Andy Street has won the race to become the new West Midlands mayor in a huge triumph for the Conservatives. Street’s victory was narrow – by only a few thousand votes out of the half-a-million or so cast – but his success is extraordinary for the Tories on a day of sweeping wins for the party across the
Twenty years ago this week Tony Blair came to power with a thumping majority, claiming Labour to be ‘the political arm of none other than the British people as a whole’. As a phrase it sounds mildly deranged but it wasn’t totally cut off from reality. New Labour had claimed support among a cross-section of the
Labour’s dismal showing so far in the local elections was predicted by many. However, the results still appear to have come as a nasty surprise to some former Corbyn cheerleaders. Step forward Caitlin Moran. The columnist has taken to social media to apologise publicly for backing the beleaguered Labour leader: Moran then went on to claim that
Oh dear. It’s not turning out to be a great week for Diane Abbott. On Tuesday, the shadow home secretary found herself in a tight spot after she got her numbers completely wrong when trying to explain Labour’s new police policy, in an interview with LBC. With her party today suffering a disappointing result in the
The story of a council election decided by drawing straws isn’t the most remarkable thing to happen in Northumberland today, not by a long way. Pegswood. Cramlington. Morpeth. These aren’t the names of places that normally figure much in national political reporting or debate. That’s because they’re in Northumberland, or more accurately, south Northumberland, where
Ukip is a party dwelling on its past glories rather than its future this afternoon. The party’s leader Paul Nuttall has very few crumbs of comfort from the results so far: Ukip has lost every single one of the seats it had previously held. It has, just moments ago, snatched a single seat from Labour in Lancashire. Yet
Labour’s performance in the local elections is going from bad to worse. The party has, for the first time in four decades, lost overall control of Glasgow Council. Not too long ago, the city’s council would have been a banker for Labour. Under Jeremy Corbyn, it’s a different picture. Labour needed to win 43 seats
Poor old Emily Thornberry. Labour is having a torrid time in the local elections and during her appearance on the BBC this morning, things took a turn for the worse for the shadow foreign secretary. Thornberry – who Mr S previously revealed is known as ET by Jeremy Corbyn — was there to try and defend Labour’s
The results from the local elections are in — and we’re beginning work out what it means for the parties with regards to next month’s general election. While the Conservatives have much cause for (cautious) celebration, Ukip looks on the brink of extinction, Labour has had a dismal showing – and the Liberal Democrats are having a ‘neutral‘
The Tories are up 540 seats, have gained control of 11 councils and enjoyed success in the Tees Valley, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and West of England mayoral races. Conservative candidate Andy Street has won the West Midlands mayoral contest. Labour’s vote has plummeted, with the party losing 360 seats as well as control of six councils. Labour’s Steve Rotherham won
Prince Philip has died at the age of 99. When he retired four years ago, Harry Mount reflected on his meeting with the Duke of Edinburgh and his sense of public service. A friend of mine’s father — who knows Prince Philip — calls him ‘a kind of semi-deity’. I realise that’s laying it on a
The Duke of Edinburgh is finally to retire in the autumn, after more than 70 years of public service, just after his 96th birthday. Philip – a former first lieutenant in the Navy – is one of the last prominent figures in British life to have served in the second world war; he’s also possibly
The recent Welsh poll showing a ten-point Conservative lead in voting intentions for the forthcoming general election (and also, though much less reported, the first ever Conservative lead in devolved voting intentions in Wales), came as a shock to many. The next Welsh poll, out next week, will tell us whether this first one was
The news that Prince Philip will be retiring from his royal duties from August is a terrible blow. It’s entirely fair, of course. The Prince, after all is 95, and will be 96 by the time he retires. He has done far more than his share of Royal duties; last year he had 219 official
After the Brexit rows of the last few days, Donald Tusk—the President of the European Council—has intervened and urged everyone to calm down. ‘These negotiations are difficult enough as they are. If we start arguing before they even begin, they will become impossible. The stakes are too high to let our emotions get out of hand.
Today voters go to the polls to vote in the local elections — with the results beginning to emerge in the early hours of Friday morning. The event has been somewhat overshadowed by Theresa May’s decision to go for an early general election. However, the results will give us some indication of what to expect
The most intriguing aspect of today’s local elections is the contest for the new West Midlands Mayoralty. In normal times, you’d have this marked down as a shoe-in for Labour—they have 21 of the region’s 28 MPs and control six of its seven local authorities. But these aren’t normal political times and the Tories have
I love election days. Some of that is just the simple, wondrous glee that democracy deserves but doesn’t get enough of. Really, whatever its flaws and frailties, a collectively-agreed and universally accepted set of essentially voluntary arrangements where we all get a say on hiring and firing our rulers is pretty damn glorious. To
On this week’s episode, we look at the rebirth of the Scottish Conservatives, ask whether it’s helpful to call Marine Le Pen a fascist, and consider what the future holds for Britain’s opposition parties. First, in this week’s magazine, Alex Massie profiles Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, who has overseen an extraordinary regeneration for her party
I still feel bad about the beggar I ignored years ago. Fear of being mugged while fumbling for money has often kept me walking past beggars. But on that occasion I felt safe since I was with friends. Wimpishly, I took my cue from them. Later we compared notes – we’d all felt a strong
It was the best line of the night. The best line of the campaign, in fact. It might even prove to be the best political line of the year, though it’s unlikely to be acknowledged as such, because of who uttered it. It was Marine Le Pen. Fixing Emmanuel Macron in a surprisingly friendly glare