Jeremy corbyn

Today’s PMQs was an opportunity for Jeremy Corbyn to embarrass the government and align himself with public anger over how little tax some multinationals pay. But he missed this opportunity. By going on HMRC’s deal with Google in isolation, he allowed Cameron to point the finger of blame at the last Labour government. Indeed, Cameron even dragged Corbyn into defending the record of the Blair and Brown governments on corporate taxation. A far more effective tactic would have been to contrast the British deal with the French and Italian ones. Why have these governments managed to get more tax out of Google than our own? Another problem with Corbyn at

Haven’t had a chance to follow the day’s political events and interviews? Then don’t worry: here, in the first of a daily feature, we bring you the best of today’s audio clips in one place for you to listen to. Stuart Rose has been giving a series of interviews as the In campaign steps up its efforts to encourage the public to vote to stay in the EU in the upcoming referendum. On the Today programme this morning, he admitted to being a eurosceptic but said it was a ‘risk’ to leave the EU because the British public did not know what they would be getting: He had less success

Given last year’s election was so much about the possibility of the SNP and Labour working together in government, Labour figures will be smiling ruefully at Nicola Sturgeon’s interview on the Andrew Marr Show today, in which she stuck the boot into the party she once suggested a ‘progressive alliance’ with. The Scottish First Minister is of course thinking more about fighting Labour in this year’s Holyrood elections than about the Westminster Parliament, and so she wanted to paint her main challengers as weak and confusing. She told the programme that the party would end up ‘without a shred of credibility’ if it held a free vote on Trident renewal,

Angela Eagle wasn’t told about a controversial plan to ban companies who do not pay a living wage from paying out dividends to shareholders before Jeremy Corbyn floated it in a speech last week, Coffee House understands. I have learned that the Shadow Business Secretary was not consulted over the proposal, which is believed to have triggered the resignation of the Labour leader’s Head of Policy and Rebuttal, Neale Coleman. Corbyn floated the idea in his speech to the Fabian Society on Saturday, saying ‘another proposal would be to bar or restrict companies from distributing dividends until they pay all their workers the living wage’. It is normal for the Shadow

A new face at PMQs becomes samey after a few months. Corbo reached that point some time ago and Cameron can now contain him without breaking a sweat. He’s not threatened by the Labour leader for the simple reason that Corbyn lacks any forensic guile. To prepare, mount or press home an attack is beyond his powers so he just reads out his set questions in a low verbal moan, like next door’s Hoover. Today they tussled over the scrapping of bursaries for trainee nurses. Cameron said this reform makes it easier to fill the wards with bustling sisters and swishing matrons. No, said Corbyn. It’s harder. Amazingly, some light

Labour’s report on its election defeat is finally out, and it says there are four reasons for its defeat: Failure to shake off the myth that we were responsible for the financial crash and therefore failure to build trust in the economy. Inability to deal with the issues of ‘connection’ and, in particular, failing to convince on benefits and immigration. Despite his surge in 2015, Ed Miliband still wasn’t judged to be as strong a leader as David Cameron. The fear of the SNP ‘propping up’ a minority Labour government. These are not surprising, and the report’s narrative verdict on how the party lost is far more interesting. It charts

Since Sadiq Khan was elected as Labour’s mayoral candidate, he has made an effort to distance himself from Jeremy Corbyn. Although Khan was one of the Labour MPs to help Corbyn get onto the ballot, after Khan won the nomination he turned on the Labour leader — suggesting that Corbyn’s refusal to sing the National Anthem showed he could be unfit to be Prime Minister. Now it seems that Khan just can’t help himself even when he is trying to attack the Tories. His team have released an attack ad on Zac Goldsmith — the Tory candidate for mayor — in the form of a mocked-up CV. The ‘CV’ lists the reasons Goldsmith is

No amount of reports in the press that Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet-making is farcical and his party is divided should distract us from the fact that he is winning. I don’t mean that he will become prime minister, or even (though this seems quite possible) that he will survive as leader until the general election. It is just that he is gradually bringing more and more of Labour under his control, and grinding down his opponents. Besides, his public positions are coherent — in the sense of being internally consistent — and he is quite accomplished at adhering to an undeviatingly hardline, left-wing ideology while sounding mild and decent. Taxed,

Whatever you do, don’t allow your six-year-old to be caught short at Crewkerne station. With the rain pouring and the wind howling, my daughter needed the loo. But it was locked. And no staff anywhere to be seen. So I pressed the ‘Help’ button on one of those machines that have replaced stationmasters. ‘How can I assist you?’ responded a warm South Asian voice. ‘Er, we need someone to open the loo at Crewkerne.’ ‘Where exactly are you?’ she came back, sounding lost. ‘You know, in Dorset, after Yeovil. On the Exeter line. How far away is the help centre?’ I was thinking Bristol, maybe Swindon. ‘Oh, we are in