Jeremy corbyn

The left’s hatred of ‘Tory scum’ is both stupid and self-defeating

Plenty has been written about the hatred some on the left feel towards their ‘enemies’, something on display at the moment in Manchester, with journalists being called ‘Tory scum’ for covering a party conference. I’ve bored for Britain on the subject of political hatred of the left, but less has been written about how self-defeating it is. For example, one of the best things that could happen to the Tories is for the Labour faithful to convince themselves that Corbyn was defeated only because of a biased, Tory-dominated press. This means that, rather than brutally analysing their weaknesses after Corbyn goes, they’re more likely to retreat into their own comfort

In pictures: the most Tory things at Conservative conference

The Conservatives are wrapped in the quiet cocoon of Manchester Central today and the conference has a subdued vibe — many activists might be staying away until the anti-austerity protests are over. But the halls are packed out with the exhibitors, shops and merchandise you’d expect for a party that has won its first majority in 23 years and is in celebratory mode. Here are some of the most Tory things in Manchester (click on the pictures to enlarge). One of the more interesting additions to the exhibition hall this year is the Conservative Party Archive. The Tories now have a whole stand dedicated to the party’s vast archives at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. As

Jeremy Corbyn: the most unpopular new opposition leader in the history of polling

Labour’s conference in Brighton might not have been the disaster some expected but it hasn’t done much for Jeremy Corbyn’s standing with the public. A new YouGov/Sun poll shows the Labour leader’s personal rating is minus eight — the lowest since polls of new opposition leaders began with Hugh Gaitskell in 1955. As the chart below shows, Corbyn is eight points lower than Michael Foot in 1980 and Iain Duncan Smith in 2001. This rating also puts him 34 points behind Ed Miliband in 2010. This poll follows a trend: Ipsos MORI’s first tracker for Corbyn put him on minus three in their net satisfaction ratings — five points behind

Steerpike

Charlotte Church feels the heat on Question Time

Last night’s episode of Question Time saw David Dimbleby relocate to Cardiff to join Charlotte Church, Charles Moore, Stephen Crabb, Labour’s Stephen Kinnock and Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood for a Welsh debate. While questions were raised about the future of Plaid Cymru after a lacklustre election result, the first topic on the agenda touched on whether Jeremy Corbyn could still be Prime Minister now he has said that he would never, ever use a nuclear weapon. With Kinnock struggling to defend Corbyn’s comments while also sticking to his own views supporting nuclear weapons as a deterrent, it fell to Corbynista Church to praise the Labour leader’s comments as ‘commendable’: ‘I think that it’s commendable. I think that if nuclear warfare

Cicero on Labour taxes

Heidi Alexander, Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow health secretary, has emphasised how important it is ‘to weave into [Labour’s] language, our narrative and our political mission a fundamental respect for taxpayers’ money, something that is clearly missing given our current reputation for profligacy’. Cicero would be cheering her on. Cicero’s de officiis (‘On Duties’) was composed in 44 bc, the year in which he was assassinated on Marc Antony’s orders. The work, the second to be printed in the Gutenberg revolution after the Bible, was immensely influential during the Renaissance and Enlightenment. In it, he envisaged a community bound by partnership (societas) and trust, whose leaders obeyed the law and had the

Diary – 1 October 2015

Party conference season is the most pointless waste of money, time and liver quality ever devised. I attended these sweaty, drunken gatherings for ten years during my newspaper-editor days and achieved nothing constructive other than clarity over which is the best way to treat a monstrous hangover. (Answer: my late grandmother’s recipe of vine tomatoes on toast, laden with thick Marmite and gargantuan grinds from a pepper mill.) But they were fun, so long as I adhered to the golden rule: always leave the bar before 2 a.m., thus avoiding the moment when enough alcohol emboldens other delegates, and indeed one’s own staff, to tell you what they really think

Will Spain learn?

One of the unforeseen consequences of the reunification of Europe after the Cold War has been a resurgence of independence movements in western Europe. Emboldened by a greater sense of security and influenced by the rebirth of independent nations to the east, separatist parties have begun to challenge the boundaries of nation states which a quarter of a century ago we took for granted. Scotland’s near miss — a 45 per cent vote for ‘yes’ — inspired the leader of Spain’s Catalonia region, Artur Mas, to launch his own vote on secession. This week, forbidden by Madrid from calling a referendum, he called regional elections in which pro-independence parties formed

Portrait of the week | 1 October 2015

Home In his speech at the Labour party conference, much of it taken from material that had been on the internet for some time, Jeremy Corbyn, its new leader, told the British people that most of them shared his values, such as ‘fair play for all, solidarity and not walking by on the other side of the street’. ​Mr Corbyn urged: ‘Let us build a kinder politics, a more caring society together.’ Supporters of the Class War movement with fiery torches and pig masks attacked the hipsterish Cereal Killer Café in Brick Lane, east London​.​ The Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate apologised after an RAF sergeant was

Steerpike

Don’t kill yourself over Jeremy Corbyn – yet, Austin Mitchell tells Labour members

After Jeremy Corbyn opted to use a speech which dated back to the eighties at this year’s Labour conference, commentariats and party members alike were quick to question whether the left-wing messiah was really offering the ‘straight talking’ politics he promised. Happily Austin Mitchell, the outspoken former Labour MP, has come to Corbyn’s defence. Writing on his personal blog, Mitchell says — with trademark tact — that party members should not ‘commit suicide or take a pick axe to Corbyn’s head’ when it comes to the state of the party. Instead, he says that rather than any leadership issues, the problem lies with the pesky media: ‘Labour Party members wondering if they should commit suicide now

James Forsyth

Is it all over for Boris?

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/boris-nickyandthetoryleadership/media.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss who could be the next Tory leader” startat=38] Listen [/audioplayer]Five months ago, allies of Boris Johnson were ready to launch his bid to become leader of the Conservative party. The election was imminent and even David Cameron was fretting that the Tories were going to lose. A sympathetic pollster had prepared the numbers that made the post-defeat case for Boris: he extended the Tories’ reach, and a party that had failed to gain a majority for 23 years desperately needed a greater reach. There was a policy agenda ready to magnify this appeal, too: compassionate conservatism, based around adopting the Living Wage. Boris

Matthew Parris

These days, compassion is for hacks and Lib Dems

There’s a hard, hard mood out there among the public and I don’t think our newspapers get it at all. Could it be that the general populace are now more cynical than their journalists? At Tim Farron’s closing speech to his Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth last week, I sat through nearly an hour of one of the biggest cartloads of sanctimonious tosh it’s been my fate to endure in decades. And who do you suppose was lapping this up as avidly as any misty-eyed Lib Dem conference-goer? The hardened hacks, the sketchwriters, analysts and reporters. The press are old-fashioned: they love this emotional stuff. But the 21st-century public have

Rod Liddle

At least these rioters hate the right people

I was unable to join the violent protests held by Class War at the Cereal Killer Café in London last week because I had to stay at home to supervise our gardener. Yes — I know what you’re about to say. It is indeed ridiculous that one should have to stand over workmen to ensure that they are doing a decent job. But there is a patch of lawn towards the rear of our grounds which the blighters always skimp on, believing that it is too far from the house for us to notice. So I stand down there, with a cheerfully expectant expression, as the surly little man goes

Corbyn’s Trident comments spark end-of-conference row in Labour

Jeremy Corbyn has really pushed the button on the tensions in his party over Trident renewal. The Labour leader insists that he is just being honest when he says that he would never use nuclear weapons. But what he has done is to put his party in an impossible position. Either it respects his huge mandate and makes scrapping Britain’s nuclear deterrent official policy. Or else it votes to force the resignation of the leader. At first glance, this sounds rather confusing, and Corbyn’s team and John McDonnell have been spinning that Jeremy is just being honest about a long-held personal position. Why is this the implication of a man

James Forsyth

Next year’s Labour conference will be even more Corbynite

Sitting in the hall during Jeremy Corbyn’s speech, one couldn’t help but be struck by how much the audience agreed with what he is saying. Corbyn was speaking to them, and they loved it. Now, as long as the Labour activists represented in that hall think Corbyn is their man then it will be almost impossible for the Parliamentary Labour Party to remove him. This week, Corbyn has done little to reach out to the country. But he has consolidated his position in the party. In casual conversations, the date at which people think a coup could be launched against him keeps slipping back. Next year, I suspect that Labour’s

Podcast special: Labour conference review

Labour’s conference is rolling to a close today and it hasn’t been the explosive event some predicted it might be. In this View from 22 special, Isabel Hardman, James Forsyth and I discuss the highs and lows of the past days in Brighton and the impact it has had on the party. How big was the divide between the Corbyn-friendly activists and the MPs and politicos? And will next year’s conference see the promised fireworks? You can subscribe to our View from 22 political specials through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week, or you can use the player below:

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Watch: Eamonn Holmes’s awkward football exchange with Jeremy Corbyn

After Jeremy Corbyn gave his conference speech yesterday, the media-shy Labour leader has undertaken a publicity blitz this morning. While his day got off to an okay start on the Today programme, things quickly went downhill with an appearance on Sky News. Eamonn Holmes began the interview by heaping praise on Corbyn, likening him to a religious figure. He then decided to focus on football — and Corbyn’s love of Arsenal: ‘Every young lad has a dream of appearing in the FA cup final, and scoring the winning goal, and I was looking at you and the love there was for you in the room, and you were basking in it –

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn: I wouldn’t use nuclear weapons anyway

Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t want nuclear weapons. We all know that. We also know that because he has a huge mandate (a phrase bandied about so much at this conference that it’s starting to feel like a refrain in Are You Being Served?), he’s keen to turn his views into official party policy on this area at least. But we now also know that if his party determined that it would remain committed to Trident, and if Jeremy Corbyn were Prime Minister, he wouldn’t ever use his weapons anyway. Which makes it entirely pointless to fund them at all. On the Today programme, the new Labour leader was asked if he

Steerpike

Do as I say (not as I do): a Guardian Corbynista lectures Blairites

The Fabian Society’s question time event at Labour party conference made for a lively debate. Tony Blair’s former staffer John McTernan joined Tim Montgomerie, Labour’s Kate Green and the Guardian‘s Ellie Mae O’Hagan to discuss the future of the Labour party now Jeremy Corbyn is leader. With McTernan criticising Corbyn for a leader’s speech which ‘gave no indication’ that the party had just lost an election, it fell on O’Hagan — who works for the Centre of Labour and Social Studies — to fight Corbyn’s corner. To kick her argument off, the Guardian writer — and Corbyn champion — explained that after the election result she had realised that in order for Labour