Jeremy corbyn

Can Labour survive this general election?

‘There are times, perhaps once every thirty years, when there is a sea-change in politics,’ reflected James Callaghan in 1979, conscious he was about to be turfed out of Number 10. He didn’t know the half of it. While Margaret Thatcher’s election did herald the end of the post-war consensus, it kept the Conservative/Labour ‘mould’ intact, despite later attempts by the SDP/Liberal alliance to break it. But with a ‘Brexit election’ now called for 8 June, Labour will be fighting for its very survival. The last great national political realignment was the 1922 general election in which Labour beat the Liberals into second place for the first time. This was

Ross Clark

The five manifesto pledges Theresa May is likely to drop

It isn’t clear what changed Theresa May’s mind on calling an early general election, something which, as recently as 20 March, she was adamant would not happen. But could the trigger have been nothing to do with Brexit at all? An interesting date is 16 March, when Phillip Hammond reversed the proposed increase in National Insurance on the self-employed which he had announced in his Budget only the week before. The fuss seemed to catch Hammond – and presumably Theresa May, too – by surprise. It seemed as if it simply hadn’t occurred to them that they ought to feel bound by David Cameron’s 2015 manifesto, which promised no rise

Nick Hilton

Even a crushing election defeat might not spell the end of Jeremy Corbyn

After the referendum, Jeremy Corbyn said that Labour was ‘very, very ready’ to contest a general election. Which is good news, because that’s precisely the task he now faces. In the world of Corbyn’s most ardent supporters, the snap election has been greeted with something like glee. Their greatest fear – that Corbyn may not survive in the leadership long enough to face the public at large – has been alleviated. Momentum’s Michael Chessum tweeted that there ‘absolutely is a path to victory for Labour… We’ll have to be bold, but it’s there’, while Paul Mason said that ‘a progressive alliance can beat the Tory hard Brexit plan’. That jubilation on the

Jeremy Corbyn backs Theresa May’s plan for a snap election: full text

Jeremy Corbyn has said Labour will support Theresa May’s decision to hold an early election. Here’s his full statement: I welcome the Prime Minister’s decision to give the British people the chance to vote for a government that will put the interests of the majority first. Labour will be offering the country an effective alternative to a government that has failed to rebuild the economy, delivered falling living standards and damaging cuts to our schools and NHS. In the last couple of weeks, Labour has set out policies that offer a clear and credible choice for the country. We look forward to showing how Labour will stand up for the

United Airlines prove Corbyn’s point about bad business

The French have their uses, don’t they? They offer us their food, their wine and their bankers, and they also offer some reassurance. No matter how demented our politics may seem, things are never quite as dramatic, as emotional, as they are over the Channel. The best Britain offers Nigel Farage is an embarrassed slap on the back in the hope he’ll move down the bar to tell his war stories to someone else; the French are considering making Marine Le Pen head of state. As if that wasn’t mad enough, they’re now taking Jean Luc Melenchon, the Gallic Chavez, seriously, or at least seriously enough to ruffle the markets. More proof

Secularism is part of God’s cunning plan

How should Christians relate to the culture around them? That is the question raised by Rod Dreher’s article in the Spectator this week. He’s right that it’s a pretty fundamental question. If we Christians don’t know how to answer it, our message is likely to seem muddled. In common with many leading theologians of the last few decades, he claims that the answer is simple, if we are daring enough to see it. We should defy the false gods of the age, ‘the norms of secular society’. Liberal Christianity has failed to do so, and so has allowed the erosion of its sacred inheritance. We must be counter-cultural little Benedicts. He sums up this position with admirable clarity. He

Ed Miliband needs a second act, not a comedy act

When a shell-shocked Ed Miliband stepped down as Labour leader following the party’s defeat in the 2015 election, he concluded his speech by saying that: ‘The course of progress and social justice is never simple or straightforward. Change happens because people don’t give up, they don’t take no for an answer, they keep demanding change’ The change that party members demanded from the blank slate of Labour’s election defeat turned out to be Jeremy Corbyn; and Miliband slunk back to Doncaster to not ‘take no for an answer’ – from the scenic climes of the backbenches. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Last week, I voiced my frustration that Miliband was appearing

Regressive Conservatism

Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party is coming to resemble a drunk trying to get home on a bike. Most of the time he just pushes it along, but occasionally he mounts the saddle and whirls into action — only to find himself swiftly spread-eagled on the road. Take next month’s local elections. Corbyn launched his party’s campaign trying to bemoan the state of Britain. There are plenty of statistics which he could have trotted out to depict a country underperforming on living standards, debt levels and social mobility. But he chose to cite a supposed decline in life expectancy — which is demonstrably and famously wrong. Life expectancy

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Why Labour must give Ken the boot

Ken Livingstone’s Labour membership card remains valid – but for how long? The former Mayor of London avoided being booted out of the party following his comments about Hitler. But he was told by Jeremy Corbyn yesterday that he faces another investigation into remarks he has made since the party’s decision to suspend him. The newspapers are unanimous: this sorry mess is doing the Labour party no favours at all. We should be grateful, suggests the Daily Telegraph that Ken Livingstone reached for another dictatorial analogy yesterday rather than his usual choice. But his suggestion that being in the disciplinary hearing deciding his future place in the Labour party was

The sorry saga of Ken Livingstone isn’t over yet

The sorry saga of what Labour decides to do about Ken Livingstone isn’t over yet. In the last few moments, Jeremy Corbyn has released a statement saying Livingstone will now face a fresh probe into comments that he made about Hitler since yesterday – when he avoided being booted out of the party for doing exactly the same thing. Corbyn said that it was ‘deeply disappointing’ that Livingstone had refused to apologise for his remarks. He also criticised the former London mayor for continuing to do what he seems to do best these days: talk about Hitler. The Labour leader said: ‘Many people are understandably upset that he has continued to make

Stephen Daisley

The Labour party has become institutionally anti-Semitic

Listen to Douglas Murray and James Forsyth debating Ken Livingstone’s non-expulsion: In the past, Labour has been quick to take a stand against bodies where racism, sexism, and homophobia were allowed to fester. Discrimination was discrimination, and institutions in which it routinely took place were culpable for it. But anti-Semitism now routinely takes place in the Labour party – and party members must acknowledge this. By its own definition, the Labour party is institutionally anti-Semitic.  No fair-minded person can read the failure to expel Ken Livingstone from the party any other way. After careful consideration of his latest calumny, Labour’s National Executive Committee has chosen merely to extend the former London mayor’s suspension for a further year. 

In defence of Ken Livingstone

Listen to Douglas Murray and James Forsyth debating Ken Livingstone’s non-expulsion: We never loved each other, Ken Livingstone and I. We first clashed in public more than a decade ago, and have enjoyed castigating each other ever since. But, now that he has been suspended from the Labour party for a second year in a row, I come not to bury him but to praise him. For there is something valorous, even glorious, about his downfall. It was the MP for Bradford West who triggered his demise. In April last year Naz Shah was exposed for sharing anti-Semitic content on social media. Among these posts was a graphic advising the

Jeremy Corbyn looks lost at the despatch box

Tactics! At long last. Jeremy Corbyn actually used tactics at today’s PMQs. For the first time ever he divided his six questions into two three-ball overs. He spent the initial trio on last week’s terror attacks. Then, after an unsettling delay, he used three more on Mrs May’s fibs about school budgets. She says they’ve been ‘protected’. He says they’ve been ‘cut’. Protected. Cut. Cut. Protected. On it went. Mr Corbyn had a superb ally in the Public Accounts Committee which seems to support his view. The exchange might have been tricky for Mrs May but Mr Corbyn still can’t ram home a simple advantage. Rather than forcing her to

Katy Balls

Jeremy Corbyn undermines Scottish Labour over IndyRef2

After months of mixed messages from Labour over the party’s position on Brexit, this evening Jeremy Corbyn attempted to set the record straight in an interview with Andrew Neil. Speaking on Britain and the EU: the Brexit interviews, Corbyn tried to clarify Labour’s position on Brexit now that Theresa May has formally triggered Article 50. He said that his party would vote in Parliament against a Brexit deal if it does not meet the six tests set out by Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, earlier this week. When it was pointed out to him that a vote against the deal could lead to a ‘cliff edge’ Brexit on WTO terms, Corbyn

David Cameron’s larynx joins the Labour party

Given that Owen Jones, Glenda Jackson and Derek Hatton are just a handful of the figures to recently turn on Jeremy Corbyn, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Labour leader is turning people off Labour. So, Mr S was surprised to learn of Labour’s latest recruit, in today’s issue of the Times. Step forward Clare Foges. Yes, David Cameron’s former SpAd and speechwriter — who earned the affectionate nickname ‘the Prime Minister’s Larynx’ — has joined… the Labour party. Writing in the Times, Foges says that she is as surprised as anyone by her decision: ‘I tapped out the words somewhat guiltily, late at night. This was entering a corner of

Labour can only survive by pretending Corbyn has gone

In spite of everything against them, the Labour party scored an historic victory last night in the City of London. Five Labour councillors were elected in wards that are traditionally contested by ‘independents’ (usually retiree residents who are inclined towards the pomp and ceremony). It was their highest ever total. People will, of course, be quick to point out that the City of London is the 325th smallest authority in England, out of a total of 326. It has 25 wards covering the area that would, in most authorities, be designated to a single ward. Labour also only has 5 Commoners (the antiquated term the City uses in favour of

Lest we forget | 23 March 2017

I never met Martin McGuinness, but I was certainly affected by him from an early age. His decisions, and those of his colleagues on the IRA Army Council, indelibly coloured my childhood. Belfast in the 1970s and ’80s was a grey, fortified city, compelling in many ways, but permanently charged with the unpredictable electricity of violence. Our local news steadily chronicled the shattering of families, in city streets and down winding border lanes that were full of birdsong before the bullets rang out. There were regular, respectful interviews with pallid widows and dazed widowers, and funerals attended by red-eyed, snuffling children tugged into stiff, smart clothes to pay formal respects

PMQs sketch: Come on Eileen, says Corbyn

A bizarre exercise in diplomacy from Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs. He manoeuvred the PM into a tricky corner and then stepped gallantly in to disperse the trouble he’d arranged. She’d been caught violating a manifesto commitment to protect school funding. The statistics proved it too. Corbyn’s back-room elves had devised a clever way to summarise the difficulty. Averaging out the cuts will mean, in effect, that every primary school loses two teachers and every secondary loses six. It was good stuff. Danger for the PM. But Corbyn, for some unfathomable reason, decided not to pursue his advantage and he proceeded to flannel his way out of his opponent’s problem. He

James Forsyth

Jeremy Corbyn finally reads the Tory manifesto

PMQs this week was a rather more even affair than usual. Since the Budget, the Labour leader’s team have clearly spent some time reading the Tory manifesto. Jeremy Corbyn came to the chamber armed with some decent questions about how proposed changes to the national funding formula broke the Tory manifesto pledge to protect the money that followed your child to school. This was a clever subject to go on as the Tory backbenches are not happy about this proposed new national funding formula.  In response, May kept pointing out that the issue of school funding was one that has been ducked for years by government despite a general acknowledgement that