Jeremy corbyn

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 11 May 2017

Home After spectacular local election results, Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said: ‘I’m taking nothing for granted over the next five weeks. I need support from across the United Kingdom to strengthen my hand, and only a vote for me and my team will ensure that Britain has the strong and stable leadership we need.’ The Conservatives increased their number of council seats by 563. Labour lost 382 and Ukip lost all 145 it held, but gained a single one, Padiham and Burnley West, Lancashire, from Labour. In Scotland, the Conservatives became the second party to the Scottish National Party and gained seven seats in Glasgow (where Labour lost control of

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 11 May 2017

Jeremy Corbyn wants to put up income tax only for people who earn more than £80,000 a year, he says. Anyone below that figure is safe. This reminds me of John Smith’s ‘shadow Budget’ in the 1992 general election. Smith said that the top rate of income tax would rise to 50 per cent for everyone earning more than £36,375 a year (which would be just under £72,000 today). Most people earned much less than the sum chosen, but voters decided they did not like such a clear intention to damage the higher earnings they hoped they might one day achieve. The shadow Budget was said to have lost Labour

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The counter-revolution begins, comrades, on 12 June

Think of the Parliamentary Labour Party as a regiment ordered over the top in the First World War. The soldiers know the generals haven’t a clue. They know the battle was lost before it began. The only question in their minds is who makes it back from the slaughter. The projected casualty rates vary. Corbyn’s supporters want to justify the left continuing to cling onto the leadership by getting close to Ed Miliband’s share of the vote in 2015. If they succeed they will keep the Labour party at 30 per cent and give the Tories a majority of 60 or 70. London Labour MPs also feel that the losses

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Labour’s manifesto reveals one thing: the Left has run out of ideas

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse for Labour, Noam Chomsky goes and endorses Jeremy Corbyn. ‘If I were a voter in Britain, I would vote for him…He’s quiet, reserved, serious, he’s not a performer,’ Chomsky told the Guardian. But the more you read of Chomsky’s endorsement, the more you wonder if he was put up to it for a bet. He says that: ‘The shift in the Labour party under Blair made it a pale image of the Conservatives.’ Tony Blair, that infamous electoral dud. Chomsky is regularly cited as the world’s ‘top public intellectual’. It’s a slippery phrase. Friedrich Hayek called his ilk ‘the secondhand dealers in ideas’. I

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Corbyn’s car drives over BBC cameraman’s foot

Jeremy Corbyn’s day is going from bad to disastrous. Labour’s draft manifesto has been leaked and is splashed all over the newspapers. And the Labour leader was a no show at the party’s poster launch. So you might be forgiven for thinking that things couldn’t possibly get any worse for Corbyn. Not so. When the Labour leader arrived at the party’s manifesto meeting, his car – reportedly with Corbyn still inside – ran over a BBC cameraman’s foot. Here’s a video of the injured cameraman being tended to afterwards: This BBC cameraman has just had his leg ran over by the car Jeremy Corbyn arrived in at Labour’s manifesto signing. #GE2017 @5_News

The Spectator

Leaked draft of Labour 2017 manifesto – full text

Labour’s draft manifesto for the general election has been leaked; here’s the full text: Manifesto: For the many not the few Creating an economy that works for all Our economic strategy is about delivering a fairer, more prosperous society for the many, not just the few. We will measure our economic success not by the presence of millionaires, but by the ability of people to make ends meet. Labour understands that wealth creation is a collective endeavour – between investors, workers, public services, and government. Each contributes and each must share equitably in the rewards. This manifesto is about rebalancing the economy and re-writing the .rules of a rigged system,

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What’s in Labour’s leaked manifesto?

Labour is meeting today to finalise its manifesto. The only sticking point? A draft manifesto has already been leaked. The party’s plans to woo voters are splashed across the Daily Telegraph and the Mirror. They’ve also been leaked to the BBC. Make no mistake: this is a huge embarrassment for the party and does nothing to dispel the Tory attack line that Labour would be at the forefront of a coalition of chaos if it wins come June 9th. After all, if it can’t get its manifesto launch right, how can Labour be trusted to govern? So what does the manifesto say? There are few surprises. But for Corbyn’s supporters,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Twelve months of May

Normally, the first anniversary of a prime minister taking office is the occasion for a lot of opinion polls and assessments. But by going to the country early, Theresa May has pre-empted that. By the time she has been in No. 10 a year, the voters will already have delivered their verdict via the ballot box. Still, it is worth assessing what May has done so far. When she arrived in No. 10, her team had three main priorities. They wanted to complete the modernisation process by making the Tories more appealing to the so-called ‘just about managing’ classes, and to those outside the party’s heartlands. They were determined to shore

Wednesday

Rod Liddle

Jeremy Corbyn is starting to sound like a decent Labour leader

I didn’t see a ferret, reverse or otherwise, during Labour’s campaign launch or after. I heard some quite silly, grandstanding, questions from Laura Kuenssberg. And I heard a Labour leader who sounded a bit like…..well, a decent Labour leader. None of this is to deny the patent catastrophe of Corbyn’s leadership of the party hitherto, or to suggest that I agreed with everything he said. But he spoke from the heart, passionately, with a conviction I do not hear in Theresa May’s frankly automaton repetitiveness. And much of what Corbyn had to say about tax avoiders, inequalities and hardship will play very well with his core vote north of the

Tuesday

Steerpike

Watch: Jeremy Corbyn dodges Brexit question seven times

Jeremy Corbyn said this morning that Brexit was ‘settled’. Now, it seems, he isn’t quite so sure. The Labour leader was quizzed repeatedly on whether the UK would definitely leave the EU behind if he becomes Prime Minister on June 9th. Seven times, Corbyn refused to answer. Instead, Corbyn insisted that he would ‘get a good deal from Europe’ – but wouldn’t say what would happen if he didn’t. Here’s what he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg: LK: …My question is if you’re prime minister we will leave come hell or high water whatever is on the table at the end of the negotiations? JC: We win the election we’ll get

Steerpike Steerpike

Listen: Labour MP squirms over Corbyn election leaflet photo

Labour MP Sarah Champion was ‘giddy with excitement’ ahead of Jeremy Corbyn’s launch of the party’s election campaign this morning. Afterwards, she tweeted to say that the event was ‘stunning’. So it might be a fair bet to assume she’ll be proudly urging voters to back Jeremy Corbyn all the way to Downing Street? Not so. In an awkward interview on the World at One, Champion – who ‘unresigned’ back to her job on the shadow cabinet after quitting last year – was asked whether Corbyn would be appearing on her election leaflets. Champion’s response was to say that she was planning to but didn’t know whether it would actually happen.

The Spectator

Jeremy Corbyn launches Labour’s election campaign, full text

It’s great to be launching our campaign in Greater Manchester where you showed the way for the rest of the country by electing a Labour mayor, Andy Burnham.Andy will be a great mayor – but just think how much more he will be able to achieve if he is working with a Labour Government committed to the many not the few. We have four weeks. Four weeks to take our message to voters to convince them Britain can be better. It can be transformed. It doesn’t have to be like this. We can transform Britain into a country that – instead of being run for the rich – is a one

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Corbyn wins some rare praise

Jeremy Corbyn wins an unlikely supporter today: the Sun newspaper, which throws its weight behind the Labour leader’s plans to axe hospital car park charges. The paper’s support might come as a surprise for Corbyn – particularly as its editorial goes on to criticise the health secretary Jeremy Hunt for talking ‘tough’ on scrapping charges but doing little in practice. It isn’t all good news for Corbyn though. The Sun says Corbyn ‘gets half Marx’ because of the ‘barmy’ tax on private health insurance he plans to fund it with. The Sun argues that it simply ‘never occurs to Labour to make a saving elsewhere’. Instead, it ‘aways involves more tax’, according to the

Monday

Tom Goodenough

The Tories hit their highest poll lead since 1983

The Tories have just hit a new high in the polls: 49 per cent, handing them a 22-point lead over Labour. This margin is virtually uncharted territory for the Conservatives, with ICM pointing out that the party’s current lead has only been bettered once in the last 34 years of polling – back in May 1983. As ever, it’s less good news for Labour: the party sits on 27 per cent, according to ICM – a number which precisely matches the share of the national vote they picked up in last week’s local elections. If – and it’s a big if – this means the pollsters have pinpointed Labour’s share of

Saturday

Hugo Rifkind

Labour’s election strategy – vote for us and watch us lose | 6 May 2017

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 it as such. Where politicians match our prejudices, this theory goes, we give them enormous leeway and spring to their defence. When they don’t, we supposedly deem them ‘mad’ or ‘radical’ or, yes, ‘crap’, in a spirit of sheer defensiveness. It’s a neat theory, this, and very occasionally I even find myself wondering if it

Friday

Steerpike

Caitlin Moran repents for choosing Corbyn

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 she had done more research into what sports bra to choose than into Corbyn’s policies: As Corbyn voters are now discovering, it’s worth keeping abreast of who you support.

Steerpike Steerpike

Thornberry’s BBC gaffe: ET can’t phone home

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 dire results. The only sticking point? ET could not phone home. Alas, her phone wasn’t working so she couldn’t stay in touch with Labour HQ. Thornberry spent several minutes attempting to get her mobile to work before a worried Huw Edwards stepped in to ask her what was wrong: ‘It’s not even my iPhone. I don’t

Thursday

Nick Hilton

The Spectator Podcast: Queen of Scots

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 in the last two years. Are the Tories the Unionist force du jour in Scotland? And can they make significant gains off the SNP, in a country that has had a frosty relationship with their English siblings? Ruth joins the podcast to discuss their campaign, along with Fraser Nelson. As Alex Massie writes in his cover piece: “…the

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Labour’s election strategy – vote for us and watch us lose

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 it as such. Where politicians match our prejudices, this theory goes, we give them enormous leeway and spring to their defence. When they don’t, we supposedly deem them ‘mad’ or ‘radical’ or, yes, ‘crap’, in a spirit of sheer defensiveness. It’s a neat theory, this, and very occasionally I even find myself wondering if it

Wednesday

Richard Coles

My brush with the pro-Corbyn Twitter mob

When my old friend – a lifelong Labour supporter – told me he was voting Tory at the election, I posted a message on Twitter: That was that, I thought. But then the replies started piling in. One of the first responses came from someone who thought my friend would regret his decision if he ever needed the NHS. ‘He’s an NHS consultant’, I replied. Even that didn’t stop the disbelief: many of those responding struggled to believe that someone working for the NHS could possibly vote Conservative. Was my friend real, they demanded to know. Admittedly not everyone thought I was making it up. Others seemed convinced that my