Conservative party

The left’s great illusion in praising Labour’s ‘moral clarity’ under Corbyn

Danny Dorling is one of the warmest and most intelligent left wing intellectuals of our day; an egalitarian, who proposes radical and practical solutions. He is a worthy target, in other words. Oxford University’s professor of Geography has also produced  an essay entitled: ‘Why Corbyn’s moral clarity could propel him to Number 10.’ It is the most cowardly exposition of the left’s great illusion that I have read. More to the point, virtually every supporter of the new Labour leadership will believe it. He makes two claims: Corbyn and the far left are moral; and they can win power. Allow me to take them in reverse order. The assertion that

Dr Éoin Clarke’s ‘massive’ Tory spending revelations fail to go nuclear

If only Dr Éoin Clarke could learn from his mistakes. Earlier this month Clarke was left red-faced after his prediction of a shadow cabinet reshuffle failed to materialise. Not to be put off, the clip art-loving Labour activist — who has a PhD in Irish feminism — has been promising a ‘nuclear’ revelation regarding the Tory expenses row for some days now. After Michael Crick’s Channel 4 investigation led to the party admitting that it failed to declare £38,000 of general election expenses, Clarke told his followers that ‘massive revelations’ were on their way. Tweeting his followers on Sunday, Clarke said that a Tory election fraud story would ‘break very soon’ and cause the scandal to go ‘nuclear’. Massive story

James Forsyth

This referendum has shown us the real Cameron

Westminster has a tendency to get ahead of itself. MPs want to discuss the aftermath of an event long before it has happened. They play never-ending games of ‘What if?’ At the moment, the political class cannot stop discussing, in great detail, what the post-EU referendum political landscape will look like. The speculation is, in and of itself, part of the political process. Much of the talk of the post-vote challenges facing David Cameron is intended to persuade him to pull his punches in the final weeks of the campaign. What no one disputes is that the Prime Minister will find governing even harder after 23 June. His majority is

Hilton: Brexit would be the crowning achievement of Tory modernisation

In a speech to Policy Exchange today, Steve Hilton—David Cameron’s former senior adviser—will make the case that ‘any intellectual rigorous examination makes it impossible for a Tory moderniser to support staying in the EU’. He argues that Tory modernisation was about trusting people, and that the EU does not; that modernisation was about localism, and that the EU is inherently centralising; and that the EU helps the rich and not the rest. I think there’s much to be said for Hilton’s analysis. (Though, of course, it should be recognised that there are Tory modernisers on both sides of the argument.) But where Hilton is surely right is that the EU

Tom Goodenough

Today in audio: Fallon says Putin would ‘Vote leave’

Vladimir Putin’s name has popped up again in the Brexit debate. This time, however, it wasn’t the Prime Minister suggesting that the Russian president would favour Britain leaving the EU, but the Defence Secretary. Michael Fallon said Putin would ‘Vote Leave’ and he also told a Commons select committee that ‘there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that a British exit from the European Union would be applauded in Moscow’. He added that it would be a ‘payday for Putin’: Michael Fallon went on to say that being in the EU ensured that Russia had ‘paid the price’ for its intervention in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister gave a

The Boris, Cameron ruck over EU

David Cameron and Boris Johnson are the two biggest beasts in the Tory jungle. But they are currently involved in an increasingly undignified scrap over Brexit. As I say in The Sun today, it is hard to see how it ends well for both of them or the Tory party.  As one Cabinet Minister lamented to me recently, ‘it is a personal fight’ between Cameron and Boris and that ‘the Conservative party is on a hiding to nothing.’ Boris and Brexit is the itch that Cameron can’t resist scratching. When Iain Dale asked him about Boris going Out, Cameron—in effect—accused the former Mayor of putting his personal ambition ahead of

Why today is crucial for determining Theresa May’s chances in the next Tory leadership race

Theresa May knows all about the pitfalls of speaking at the Police Federation but she is also well aware of how the conference can provide the perfect platform for underlining her leadership credentials. Back in 2012, the Home Secretary was booed, laughed at and made to speak in front of a sign which described government budget cuts as ‘criminal’. Last year, she accused the Federation of ‘crying wolf’ about finances. But her most memorable address to officers gathered at the annual Police Federation came in 2014, when she left the stage in silence – having stunned those gathered with her criticism of the police. She said that some in the

Tory unity after the referendum is looking increasingly difficult

One of the big questions about the EU referendum campaign is whether the Tory leadership is running its campaign in such a way as to make it impossible to stitch the party back together again after the result on 23 June. The Prime Minister’s colleagues concerned with party management who work in Number 10 and the whips’ office are certainly very agitated about the mood in the party, with a number of pro-Brexit ministers appearing to conclude that they have burned their bridges irreparably. This has led their colleagues to worry that there will be a large group of ministers and backbenchers after a ‘Remain’ vote who still try to

Camilla Swift

How Jeremy Corbyn kept down the bids at this year’s big Tory fundraiser

This piece is from the new issue of Spectator Money, out on Thursday 19 May. The magazine will come free with your next copy of The Spectator, and will also be available to read online at www.spectator.co.uk/money. The Conservative party’s Black and White Ball is a lavish, billionaire-laden affair. Tickets can cost up to £1,500, with guests who shell out the full £15,000 for a group of ten rewarded with the presence of a cabinet minister on their table. But even if that sounds a bit steep, selling tickets isn’t the main objective. What really makes money is the post-dinner auction, at which Russian oligarchs bid tens or hundreds of thousands

Why the Queen won’t be the centre of political attention next week

In normal times, the government clears the decks ahead of the Queen’s Speech. It wants to ensure maximum publicity for its legislative agenda. But these are not normal times: there’s an EU referendum campaign raging. Number 10 are being quite clear, as I write in The Sun today, that with less than six weeks to go to polling day, there won’t be a campaign ceasefire this week. ‘It is too close now’ one senior source tells me. So, why is the Queen’s Speech taking place at all? One IN supporting Minister complains that it is ‘moronic’ to be having it now, as it means that the measures announced it are

Is the Brexit campaign ‘morphing into Ukip’?

Is the Brexit campaign ‘morphing into Ukip’? That’s what Sir John Major will say he fears is happening later. In a speech at Oxford University, he’ll argue that those calling for Britain to leave the EU are ‘fuelling prejudice on immigration’. He’ll also say that: ‘As the leave arguments implode one by one, some of the Brexit leaders morph into Ukip and turn to their default position – immigration. I urge them to take care, this is dangerous territory that – if handled carelessly can open up long-term divisions in our society’. So does he have a point? It’s definitely credible to see how some elements of the leave camp

The English right’s Putinesque conspiracy theories

The right, as well as the left, is home to the kind of flaming conspiracy nut who, in Bertie Wooster’s words, make ‘strong men climb trees and pull them up after them’. In another life, the activists for Vote Leave might have joined the thousands of hollowed-eyed onanists who post abuse under newspaper articles from their parents’ spare rooms, or become columnists for the Mail; fringe figures, best ignored. But just as on the left of politics the fringe is becoming the mainstream, so on the right, brooding paranoids, who cannot face a hard fact or uncomfortable argument squarely, are moving in to take over the Conservative Party. Vote Leave

These results have made Labour’s problems worse

As the dust settles on Thursday’s election, it becomes ever clearer that—with the exception of London—these were awful results for Labour. They were bad enough to suggest that the party is on course for a third successive general election defeat. But, as I say in The Sun, not disastrous enough to persuade the Labour membership that they need to dump Corbyn. One Tory Minister remarked to me yesterday, ‘Labour have done well enough to keep Corbyn. I can live with that.’ Before adding, ‘Corbyn’s survival is the single most important thing for 2020’. The result that should worry Labour most, though, is the Scottish one. As the third party of

What will Labour moderates do now?

The election results that we’ve had through so far are a pretty potent combination for the Labour party. Diane Abbott said this morning that they show that Labour is on course to win the 2020 general election, while Jeremy Corbyn skirted around what they actually meant for the party in the long-term when he gave his reaction. The potency lies in the party’s devastation in Scotland that points to a long-term structural inability to win a majority coupled with English council results that, by being less bad than expected, deceive about the challenge the party faces in winning in those areas in 2020. The party’s moderates are concerned this morning

Tom Goodenough

The Spectator podcast: Erdogan’s Europe

To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. Has Erdogan brought Europe to heel? In his Spectator cover piece, Douglas Murray argues that the Turkish President has used a mixture of intimidation, threats and blackmail to do just that and throw open the doors of Europe to Turkey. Douglas says Erdogan is a ‘wretched Islamist bully’ who has shown just how the EU works. But in pushing Europe around, is Erdogan now more powerful than Merkel, Juncker and Cameron? And how does the Turkish PM’s resignation this week changed the country’s

A toe-curling tragedy

Zac Goldsmith spent almost every day out on the stump during his London mayoral campaign dressed in the formal dark suit he inherited from his father, and had recut on his death in 1997. At least that is what a member of his team told me as I was out observing proceedings one day. I think that detail was offered as a bit of journalistic ‘colour’ to show Zac’s sense of filial duty, but that was the only sense in which his painfully understated campaigning could be said to have owed anything to Sir James Goldsmith’s bombastic, manic style when he ran the Referendum party. Some political campaigns are failures;

May 2016 elections: The Spectator guide

Britain goes to the polls this week, as electoral contests take place in London, Scotland, Wales and across England. They’re the elections which James Forsyth described in the Spectator last week as the ones ‘no one has even heard of’. So what will happen on Thursday night and when will the results be announced? Here’s The Spectator’s run-through of the May 2016 elections: London Mayoral election: Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan go head-to-head in the London Mayoral contest. In 2012, Boris and Ken ran a close-fought race, with Boris getting 971,000 first-round votes to Ken’s 889,918. The relatively small margin between the two meant the result didn’t filter through until

The Spectator podcast: When the right goes wrong | 30 April 2016

To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. Is crazy all the rage in today’s politics and are conservatives going a little bit mad? That’s the topic for this week’s Spectator cover piece in which Freddy Gray argues that in America and in Britain, the right is tearing itself apart. Whilst Brits might be busy pointing and laughing at Donald Trump, all over the world conservatism is having a nervous breakdown, says Freddy. And the EU referendum is starting to prove that British Conservatives can be as barmy as everyone else.

The Spectator podcast: When the right goes wrong

To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. Is crazy all the rage in today’s politics and are conservatives going a little bit mad? That’s the topic for this week’s Spectator cover piece in which Freddy Gray argues that in America and in Britain, the right is tearing itself apart. Whilst Brits might be busy pointing and laughing at Donald Trump, all over the world conservatism is having a nervous breakdown, says Freddy. And the EU referendum is starting to prove that British Conservatives can be as barmy as everyone else.

Freddy Gray

A right mess | 28 April 2016

[audioplayer src=”http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/261189280-the-spectator-podcast-the-wrong-right.mp3″ title=”Freddy Gray and Tom Slater discuss the state of the right” startat=22] Listen [/audioplayer] Is Boris Johnson turning into the thinking man’s Donald Trump? Just like the Donald, he’s got funny hair, charisma, and an appetite for women. He may not be as rich as Trump — although we were all impressed by his latest contribution to the Exchequer — but he makes up for that by having a much bigger vocabulary. He’s also able to get away with saying outrageous things because people think he’s entertaining. And in his efforts to persuade Britain to leave the European Union, Boris seems to be appealing to the same anti-politics