Jeremy corbyn

Stoke-on-Trent is an unsettled place, figuratively and literally. The ground under the city is riddled with shafts from coal and ironstone mining. Some of its most beautiful buildings are propped up by metal supports to prevent subsidence and the council once worried that homes earmarked for demolition would instead demolish themselves, collapsing into the mines below. The ceramics industry has retreated, leaving a moonscape where pottery kilns used to fill the city with smoke and glow. When I visited Stoke as a housing reporter in 2011, shortly after the demise of the housing market renewal programme, it was clear that the city felt abandoned by all politicians. There were families

It’s difficult to escape from Donald Trump’s interview with Michael Gove in the Times this morning. The president-elect’s view that he wants a quick trade deal with Britain is not only leading a number of newspaper front pages, it’s also stirring up excitement in the editorials. Here’s what the newspapers are saying: In its editorial, the Times says its interview with the ‘refreshingly candid’ president-elect should reassure us about the prospect of a Trump presidency. Take Syria, for instance: it’s true that Trump ‘clearly grasps’ the scale of the crisis there. It’s also ‘reassuring’ to hear Trump commit to a strong Nato. And the fact he wants early talks with Theresa May on

‘I’m really interested about the similarities between me and Donald Trump,’ joked Jeremy Corbyn this morning on Marr. ‘Is it the hair or something?’ When the Labour leader expounded upon his Trump-esque analysis of the system that is rigged against the people, it turned out that the main difference between him and the American president was that he wants a series of constitutional reforms including overhaul of the House of Lords and more political representation of the North. Which doesn’t sound like the kind of thing you can shout at a rally, whether or not you have ludicrous hair. Corbyn managed to dodge questions on how far Labour would pursue

At PMQs today, Jeremy Corbyn didn’t have a disaster: there was no repeat of yesterday’s shambles. But he didn’t take full advantage of the opening he had. Yes, he went on the NHS—but he didn’t cause Theresa May as much trouble as he could have. There was no reference to the Times’ story this morning claiming that Downing Street is blaming Simon Stevens, the chief executive of the NHS. Nor did he manage to create any daylight between May and the Health Secretary over changes to the four-hour waiting target and Hunt’s warning that people turning up to A&E unnecessarily is a large part of the problem. This isn’t to

For a man prepared to stick to his principles over decades, no matter how unpopular they make him, Jeremy Corbyn has changed his mind a remarkable number of times today. His latest stance on freedom of movement is as follows: ‘Labour is not wedded to freedom of movement for EU citizens as a point of principle, but I don’t want that to be misinterpreted, nor do we rule it out.’ This makes the party’s infamous ‘controls on immigration’ mug from the 2015 election look like such a simple, wholesome proposition. Here is the evolution of Corbyn’s stance: Last night: Labour is not wedded to freedom of movement for EU citizens

In the past week, a report predicted Labour will win less than 20pc of the vote in the 2020 election, Britain’s ambassador to the EU resigned over Brexit ‘muddled thinking’ and the Red Cross claimed there is a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in UK hospitals. So, surely Labour’s top command have much to talk about? Alas not. It turns out that — despite recent events — Jeremy Corbyn has only communicated with his deputy Tom Watson by text of late. Speaking on Ridge on Sunday, Watson disclosed that the pair have only messaged twice since Christmas — once to say ‘merry Christmas’ and the other over the death of John Berger, the art critic: ‘By text, yesterday.

Today’s Fabian Society paper on the state of the Labour Party — and what a state it is — has put Labourites and the leftish Twitterati into a spin. Aptly titled ‘Stuck’, the paper says just over half of the people who voted Labour in 2015 support the party today. And if an election were called right now Labour could expect to win a measly 200 seats: 40 fewer than in 2015 and 70 fewer than in 2010. Most strikingly, Labour has lost four times as many Leavers as Remainers. Clearly sensing their party’s hostility to the idea of leaving the EU, the inhabitants of those Labour heartlands in the

Another day, another Tudor throwback. This time, Jeremy Corbyn has accused Theresa May of acting like Henry VIII by avoiding a vote in Parliament over the triggering of Article 50. ‘She cannot hide behind Henry VIII and the divine rights of the power of kings on this one’, he told the Guardian this week. ‘The idea that on something as major as this the prime minister would use the royal prerogative to bypass parliament is extraordinary – I don’t know where she’s coming from.’ We’ve been here before. Our politicians are addicted to Tudor comparisons: only last August, the Labour MP Barry Gardiner accused Theresa May of seeking ‘to diminish

The Copeland by-election will be a fascinating test of whether Brexit can open up more votes for the Tories in the north – the topic of my Daily Telegraph column today. Labour is slowly abandoning its working class voters, with their unfashionable views on human rights and immigration. This was happening under Ed Miliband, and the forces wresting traditional Labour voters away from the Labour Party were laid out in detail by a strikingly prescient report by the Fabian Society entitled ‘Revolt on the Left‘. It identified the various groups of voters moving away from Labour: typically the low-waged and less prosperous pensioners. Those in work tended to resent those