Jeremy corbyn

Thursday

Taki

High life | 22 June 2017

A famous epigrammatic nugget of wisdom appears in The Leopard, Lampedusa’s great novel about a noble Sicilian family’s fortunes: ‘If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.’ I thought of the novel as I was driven up to Gstaad during last week’s heatwave. Disembarking in Geneva, I felt I was back in Nairobi, circa 1970, on my way to Mombasa and a romantic interlude among the elephants and wildebeest. The old continent now looks like Africa, especially in airports and public spaces. But things will have to change if we want things to stay the same, I told myself again and again. In the

Dot Wordsworth

Narrative

Laura Kuenssberg was right. Even my husband agreed, and he often throws soiled beermats from an unknown source (which he uses to stop his whisky glass making rings on the furniture) at her — at least, when she is on television. She had just used the word narrative and then felt obliged to say ‘if you want to use that terrible phrase’. I don’t, but a lot of people do. I’m afraid the word has escaped from the jungle of structuralism, post-structuralism and Marxist theory. It is one of those notions that are often employed, in France particularly, as an alternative to cobblestones in the class struggle. Narrative, after snoozing

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Labour and the Lib Dems are as much to blame as the Tories for Grenfell Tower

I haven’t been in Camden this afternoon, so I can’t vouch for there being no marches of activists holding banners with the words ‘Labour Out’ and ‘Corbyn Must Go’, but somehow I doubt there are – and I certainly haven’t seen them on the news. But why not? Last week we saw no end of left-wing activists out on the streets trying to exploit the Grenfell Tower tragedy for their own party political purposes – trying to present it as a case of callous Tories treating the lives of the poor as worthless as they slash their way through budgets with abandon.   Yes, Kensington and Chelsea is a Conservative-controlled borough

James Kirkup James Kirkup

If Jeremy Corbyn can rise from the depths, why can’t Theresa May?

When John Curtice speaks, listen. That’s one thing we learned in the general election. This week we hosted John at the Social Market Foundation, where he explained just what actually happened on June 8. Among his many observations was that Jeremy Corbyn really had done something unprecedented: he changed the way voters saw him, for the better. In John’s view, no one has ever done this before. Public opinion of Corbyn was settled: he was useless. And voters, once they’ve decided you’re useless, don’t change their minds.  But they did. They still don’t think Corbyn is brilliant, but they don’t dismiss him the way they used to. The great Curtice brain holds no other example

James Bartholomew

To a young Corbynista

Dear John, I really hope you won’t be offended by this letter from your uncle. I have nothing but respect for you and I would hate to damage the friendly relationship we have had since I first met you when you were six years old. I understand from your aunt that you voted Labour in the latest election and that you are a ‘Corbynista’. In fact even your aunt herself — a lifelong Tory as far as I know — has been saying how nice Jeremy Corbyn is and how much better he handled the Grenfell Tower tragedy than Theresa May did. Of course, you can vote for whoever you

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Harry Potter and the millennial mind

Which Hogwarts house would you be in? There are four options, and everybody fits into one. The brave and chivalrous are put in Gryffindor. Patient and loyal types head to Hufflepuff. Ravenclaw is for the witty and intelligent. The cunning and ambitious — and potentially evil — are destined for Slytherin. In the Harry Potter books, a pugnacious talking hat, known as the ‘Sorting Hat’, carries out the selection. If you are like me and under 35, you probably didn’t need that explaining. Almost every young person who can read has read Harry Potter — 450 million copies have been sold worldwide. Not to do so was an act of

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Corbyn regains his confidence – but his Brexit troubles aren’t far away

Today’s exchanges between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn in the Commons following the Queen’s Speech showed how much difference confidence makes to a leader’s performance. While Corbyn will never be a scintillating orator – speaking for far too long and ending with a sentence that seemed to be aimed more at entering the Guinness Book of Records than at making any sense – he made the most of the opportunity that such a threadbare speech presented him with. The election result may not have delivered him into government, but it has made him look like far more of a winner than the woman who called the poll. The Labour leader

Tuesday

Ed West

Labour is now the party of the middle class

I’m not sure I’ve ever been so pessimistic about this country’s future, and I’m not usually a barrel of laughs to start with. Aside from the terrorism, and the recent tragedy in North Kensington, there are real black clouds in the distance. Investors are being put off Britain, a problem that pre-dates Brexit but is surely aggravated by it. There seems little hope that the Tories will follow Philip Hammond in pursuing a more moderate line in Europe. (Would the catchphrase ‘Stop, Hammondtime’, galvanise the public, I wonder? Kids still like MC Hammer right?). Meanwhile the opposition – even moderate members – are now calling for people’s private property to

Monday

Ysenda Maxtone Graham

Please can the bullying of Theresa May stop?

We all remember it from school, whether as perpetrator, or assistant of perpetrator, or victim: the moment when everyone turns against another pupil and it becomes legitimate to be vile to her. When she is ‘down’, it becomes more and more enjoyable to torture her and to find endless new aspects of her to be woundingly vicious about, every hour of every day. It has been like this for Theresa May in the last week. She’s the outcast in the playground, knowing that if she so much as opens her mouth to say something, she’ll receive a torrent of withering sarcasm. Please can it stop? It leaves a nasty taste

Sunday

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Hammond undermines May over Brexit ‘no deal’

Philip Hammond – No deal would be ‘a very, very bad outcome’ One day before Brexit negotiations get underway, Philip Hammond took to the Andrew Marr Show and announced that if the UK achieved no deal with the EU it would be a ‘very very bad outcome’. This appears to be somewhat at odds with Theresa May’s repeated assertion that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’… Marr: Do you think no deal is better than a bad deal? Hammond: Let me be clear that no deal would be a very, very bad outcome for Britain. But there is a possible worse outcome, and that is a deal that

Saturday

Ross Clark

Theresa May’s problem is that she is far too British for her own good

While I was rummaging through data on what Treasury officials had spent on their credit cards, back in George Osborne’s day, I came across a series of curious payments. The Treasury had been paying RADA for coaching sessions. Ministers – I presume it was them rather than civil servants – were being trained by actors. Maybe they should have done the same at the Home Office, because the failure of the then Home Secretary to perform in public could very rapidly turn out to be her undoing.   Her failure to express empathy during the election campaign was already being dragged up in election post-mortems.  But what has happened since the

Friday

Ross Clark

Trying to turn Grenfell Tower into a morality tale about the rich and poor stinks

Who would want to be a political leader in the wake of a disaster such as that of Grenfell Tower? If you show up and hug the victims you run the risk of being accused of opportunism and obstructing the emergency services in their work; if you stay away from the site you will be accused of callousness – even if you are spending your time working on the practical issues relating to the event. But there is a very strong emerging narrative: that Jeremy Corbyn got it right by turning up and sharing the grief of the victims, and that Theresa May got it horribly wrong by restricting her

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Those who died at Grenfell Tower were the victims of bad government

Had the Grenfell Tower tragedy befallen one of the millionaire high-rises built along the Thames recently, it would still be a catastrophe that shocked the country and the world. But what makes this disaster so numbing and sickening is to see, in the faces of the dead, some of the most vulnerable people in our society. People who were, in effect, in the care of the state – that is to say, in our collective care. If we pay taxes and vote, we’re part of a system that’s supposed to devote the greatest attention to those in greatest need of government help. And on Tuesday night, dozens of them were

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 15 June 2017

Divining Rod Sir: Please congratulate Rod Liddle on being the only commentator who accurately forecast the uncertain general election result (‘This is the worst Tory campaign ever’, 27 May). His prediction of the ‘stickiness’ of the Labour vote and the likelihood that Ukippers would return to the Conservatives in the south, where they mostly were not needed, were especially prescient. Mr Liddle goes to show that instinct, common sense and a sceptical nous are worth more than all the pseudoscience of polling. Well done him. Poor old us! Dr Barry Moyse North Petherton, Somerset Our lefty deplorables Sir: An astonishing 41 per cent of the British electorate voted for Jeremy

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 15 June 2017

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, spent the week confronting the consequences of the general election that she had called to bring ‘stability and certainty for the future’. It had instead surprisingly left the Conservatives with no overall majority. They won 318 seats (a loss of 13) and Labour 262 (a gain of 30). The Scottish National Party won 35 (a loss of 21), with the Conservatives gaining 12 extra seats in Scotland, even capturing Stirling. Labour won an extra five seats in Scotland. Angus Robertson, the SNP leader at Westminster, lost his seat, as did Alex Salmond. Nick Clegg, the former Lib-Dem leader, lost his seat, but Sir Vince Cable won

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

The Spectator Podcast: Rebooting the Maybot

On this week’s episode, we examine the fallout from last week’s shock election result, and ask what’s next for both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn. And, to give you a brief respite from all the politics, we also speak to one of the world’s greatest living pianists. First up: In this week’s magazine, James Forsyth describes the repercussions of the hung parliament within the Conservative party, and the attempt being made to ‘reboot the Maybot’. But can the Prime Minister be patched back to health? Or is she so defective that she’s set to be junked? James joins the podcast, along with Andrew Rawnsley, Chief Political Commentator of The Observer. As

Will Heaven

Why didn’t Theresa May meet Grenfell Tower survivors?

We can’t yet be sure what caused the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower. Early speculation, some of it expert, some of it not but based on eyewitness testimony, points to the cladding on the outside of the building, which was added during a recent £8.6m makeover. This, it seems, may have turned an ugly but safe concrete tower into a death trap. Nor do we have any idea how many people were killed in the blaze. Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police said at 11 a.m. today: ‘Sadly I can confirm the number of people that have died is now 17. We do believe that that number will increase.’ There

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Are conservatives a bunch of neanderthals? Some on the left seem to think so

How tragic that the country – and indeed the world – is being dragged rightwards by a bunch of Neanderthal conservatives who relish ignorance and despise experts. That, in as many words, was the argument advanced here by Nick Cohen on Monday, as well as by many others on the Left. Nick wrote: ‘…in Britain and America one trend is clear: the better-educated you are the less likely you are to vote for the right. Like Mill, I am not arguing that educated people are always clever. Intellectuals have always included fanatics and cranks among their number. But I can say this: in a country where ever more people are going

Ed West Ed West

The future belongs to the Left

When I was in my early 20s and quite conservative I assumed I was just an anomaly, someone who develops these traits earlier than normal, and conservatism was like baldness or impotence or the other bad things that get you in middle age; most of my friends and contemporaries would catch up at some point, because these things just develop at different speeds. Now in my late 30s I realise it’s worse than that and almost none of my friends and acquaintances are going to become more conservative; if anything, they’ve become more left-wing than they were 20 years ago, as the barometer of what is progressive and therefore acceptable

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour’s happy surprise

‘Science,’ wrote Jules Verne, ‘is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.’ Perhaps this is why politics, which claims to be a science, is so littered with tremendous errors at the moment. It wasn’t just the pollsters and the pundits in Westminster who called this election wrong. People embedded in constituencies couldn’t even correctly predict their own results. These days, politics seems a lot more like alchemy than a real science. On the night before polling day, a group of Labour MPs compared notes about how things were looking in their patches. It was