Labour party

Thursday

D. J. Taylor

Boats, goats and landslides

J.L. Carr’s classic novel How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the FA Cup (1975) contains a character named Arthur Fangfoss. Mr Fangfoss is a rural tyrant who, when standing for the local council, limits his election address to a pithy eight words: ‘If elected, I will keep down the rates.’ No such brevity, alas, attends the 2017 manifestos of the UK’s three main political parties. The shortest of them — the Lib Dems’ Your Chance to Change Britain’s Future — weighs in at over 80 pages, while Labour’s For the Many, Not the Few extends to a well-nigh novella-length 23,000 words. The Conservatives’ Forward, Together is not that much shorter and

Monday

Roger Scully

The death of the Welsh Labour party appears to have been exaggerated

Never underestimate the resilience of the Welsh Labour party. Up until now, this year’s general election had looked like it was going to be an historic one in Wales, where the Conservatives have not won since the 1850s, and Labour have come first in both votes and seats every time since 1922. Both Welsh polls conducted since the election was called had given the Tories a clear lead, and put them on all-time high levels of support. But the latest Welsh poll, published today, puts a very different light on things. Labour are now, it appears, back in a clear lead: up nine percentage points in the last two weeks,

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Theresa May forced into ‘dementia tax’ U-turn by Jeremy Corbyn

Theresa May promised ‘the first ever proper plan to pay for – and provide –social care’ in the party’s manifesto. Four days later, that plan has now changed. The Prime Minister has said that there will, after all, be a cap on the amount people have to pay for the cost of their care. So what made May change her mind? Jeremy Corbyn, according to the PM. May said that ‘since my manifesto has been published, my proposals have been subjected to fake claims made by Jeremy Corbyn’. The reaction to the policy, May suggested, meant that the government would ditch the manifesto plan. The Labour leader doesn’t get a lot

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Is Corbyn’s poll boost the start of a Labour fightback?

Optimistic Labour supporters are greatly cheered by the party’s boost in the polls. Labour has now cut the gap to single figures for the first time during the election campaign, with YouGov putting Labour on 35 per cent to the Tories’ 44 per cent. So is this proof that Corbyn’s policies are going down well with voters? And could talk of a Tory landslide be wildly optimistic? Here’s the newspaper verdict: Jeremy Corbyn ‘loves to portray himself as…a man of peace’, the Daily Mail says. So why does he refuse to condemn the IRA? Asked five times yesterday to do just that, the Labour leader refused, ‘offering nothing but weasel words about being opposed

Saturday

Lionel Shriver

Why agonise over things that will never happen?

In attending to Labour’s Free Ice Cream For Everyone manifesto out of ghoulish voyeurism, I violated a personal rule of thumb. Jeremy Corbyn will not be prime minister. This manifesto will not become law. So why agonise over whether renationalising the railways is fully costed? My rule: avoid squandering time on what ‘might’ happen. Half the average newspaper falls into this category. Public speakers promote courses of action that they’re in no position to institute: all talk. The government ‘might’ adopt some policy, about which we never hear again. Were all those ‘promising’ medical studies to have proved out — whose trials on mice ‘might’ have led to miracle cures

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Labour knew about Corbyn and the IRA. Now the country knows

The security services are a rum lot. All that intrigue gets to you eventually, and that’s not counting those who sign up with less than laudable intentions. Harold Wilson was paranoid but not necessarily wrong.  So when Jeremy Corbyn’s MI5 file finds its way onto the front page of the Daily Telegraph, even those not well-disposed to the Labour leader could be forgiven for arching an eyebrow. Are the spooks spooked by the possibility of Britain’s first Marxist prime minister?  For those who came up with Corbyn in 1970s and ‘80s, those heady days of the hard-Left when revolution was ever round the corner, this is obviously the case. Their

Friday

Steerpike

Labour candidate’s campaign leaflet fail

Oh dear. Come June 8, Labour are hoping to take the marginal seat of Blackpool North and Cleveleys from the Tories. However, the party’s local candidate Chris Webb might want to consider re-printing his campaign literature. Mr S was curious to come across Webb’s campaign leaflet. He says that, as a local boy, he would put Blackpool and Cleveleys first. However, this claim is put into doubt by his second promise to… ‘never stop fighting my home town’: With Webb a Remain supporter in a Leave area, perhaps he is on to something after all… I've voted #Remain. Have you? #EUref #LabourInForBritain pic.twitter.com/KVcAOKawDa — Chris Webb MP (@ChrisWebbMP) June 23, 2016

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour’s elections chief expects party to be cut down to 140 seats

Labour’s elections team expects the party to be left with just 140 seats after the election, The Spectator has learned. I understand from two very good sources that this working assumption developed by Patrick Heneghan, the party’s elections director, is based on the party’s private data. This could mean that 89 sitting Labour MPs lose their seats – and means the party considers previously safe constituencies to be at risk.  This internal prediction may well explain why Len McCluskey chose this week to set 200 seats as the sign of a ‘successful campaign’. Falling so far short of that threshold would give those on the Left who have previously supported Jeremy

Thursday

Peter Jones

Power and the middle class

The Labour party’s tagline for the forthcoming general election is: ‘For the many, not the few.’ Aristotle, who understood this as ‘For the poor, not the rich’, thought this a recipe for conflict and proposed a solution of which Mrs May would approve. Suspicious of monarchy, Aristotle favoured two styles of constitution: oligarchy and democracy. The problem was that both systems ran the risk of creating an inherently unstable state. In a democracy, the poor would be in control by sheer weight of numbers; in an oligarchy, the rich would gain control (presumably) by sheer weight of influence. In either case, the two, at opposite ends of the spectrum, would

Toby Young Toby Young

Stupid is as stupid votes

John Stuart Mill is usually credited as the person who first called the Conservatives ‘the stupid party’, but that isn’t quite accurate. Rather, he referred to the Tories as the stupidest party, and he didn’t mean that it was more stupid than every other party in the country, just the Liberals. If you substitute the Lib Dems for the Liberal party, that probably isn’t true any more, and it certainly isn’t true if you include Labour in the mix. No, I think there is now a strong case for passing the crown to Jeremy Corbyn’s party. If you look at Labour’s leaders, this is a very recent development. Harold Wilson

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 18 May 2017

Home The National Health Service was one of the first big victims of a vermiform global ransomware computer infection going by names such as WannaCrypt and WannaCry, which locked computer systems. Hackers demanded $230 a time in Bitcoin to unlock them. Thousands of NHS devices were affected and outpatient appointments had to be cancelled. The Nissan plant at Sunderland was also hit. A 22-year-old from Devon, Marcus Hutchins, who runs the Malware Tech blog from his bedroom, found an effective kill switch that slowed the infection’s spread. Organisations abroad affected included Renault and Telefónica. Baddies had apparently unleashed the worm from software once in the keeping of America’s National Security

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

Diary – 18 May 2017

On the heels of the Today programme’s invitation to discuss ‘cultural appropriation’ (again), the New York Times reported the disheartening fate of a Canadian magazine editor, Hal Niedzviecki. ‘Anyone, anywhere, should be encouraged to imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities,’ he wrote, gamely proposing an Appropriation Prize for the ‘best book by an author who writes about people who aren’t even remotely like her or him.’ After the usual social media shitstorm, Niedzviecki had to resign. The Times correctly quoted me asserting that this cockamamie concept threatens ‘our right to write fiction at all’. You can’t claim exclusive title to a culture as to real estate, territorial incursions into

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Workers Revolutionary Party march on the Daily Politics

Although the Mainstream Media would have you believe that the major political force in this election is the Tories, is it actually the Workers Revolutionary Party who are on the march? Mr S only asks after the WRP’s Frank Sweeney appeared on the Daily Politics to explain why it has to be the Trotskyist group at this election. However, if you don’t have a WRP candidate in your area, Sweeney says settle for Labour (even if they have sold out): ‘The leadership of the Labour party has sold out because of its political outlook. It’s a reformist outlook. If you look at their present manifesto, it’s a Fabian conception that the economic

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Election 2017: Do you believe in miracles?

If you want to imagine the future of British politics, consider the tale of Kristy Adams, the Conservative candidate in Hove. Her campaign is an insult to the electorate, but it is hardly alone in that. After the crash, the expenses scandal, Savile and phone hacking, it became a cliché to say that trust in institutions has collapsed. If the House of Commons is to restore its reputation, candidates must be honest. I don’t mean MPs have to tell us about their sex lives or publish their bank accounts, just be straightforward. Theresa May wants to make this a Brexit election. Taking her at her word, reporters from the Brighton

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Ten Labour MPs that Tories should vote for

The Conservatives are going to win the election — that much we know. The question is what kind of opposition Britain is going to be left with. If a slew of moderate Labour MPs are swept out, the Corbynite grip on the party will strengthen. The leader will not go and Labour will take a great leap forward in its journey to oblivion.  Tories should not relish this outcome. It would do serious violence to our parliamentary democracy, which was not designed to cope with one dominant party and no real opposition. Legislation would not face proper scrutiny, ministers would become less accountable, and the business of government would be less

Quentin Letts

‘Our children are horrified’

Wrexham, North Wales   To window cleaner Andrew Atkinson, Theresa May’s ‘blue-collar Conservatism’ is not just a slogan. It’s what he is. For the duration of the general election, gap-toothed, 32-year-old Atkinson has hung up his chamois leathers and water-fed poles and taken to campaigning on doorsteps in a bid to become Wrexham’s first Conservative MP. The campaign is costing him a fortune in lost jobs. Atkinson is a broad-shouldered lad who left home at 17 to earn a living as a self-employed squeegee wallah (‘glass hygiene technician, please,’ he jokes). He has the square jawline of Buzz Lightyear and an unaffected way with housewives. You half expect them to

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Corbyn is the real heir to Blair

Alastair Campbell once famously punched the Guardian’s Michael White in the face. A commendable thing to do, undoubtedly, as Mr White is the very incarnation of pomposity and self-righteousness. Quite possibly the best thing Campbell has ever done. But the brief spat (White hit back, according to White) was revealing in another way. Robert Maxwell had just drowned by falling off his yacht and Campbell, then working in the lobby for Maxwell’s paper, the Daily Mirror, took exception to White’s glee at this watery end to the proprietor’s life. ‘Captain Bob, Bob, Bob!’ White chortled, so Campbell punched him. He adored Maxwell and was his ‘close adviser’, no matter that

Tuesday

Stephen Daisley

The one question Theresa May should ask Labour voters — in order to win them over

Prime Minister, I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that you have been denounced in the letters page of the Daily Telegraph. One correspondent huffs: ‘I wonder if Theresa May and her small group of advisers closeted in Westminster are aware of the fact that each initiative they introduce in an attempt to win over traditional Labour voters risks having the opposite effect on traditional Conservative voters.’ Another damns your energy price cap as ‘wrong-headed’ and even accuses you of ‘play[ing] into the hands of Jeremy Corbyn’s muddle-headed electioneering economics’. Lord Tebbit echoes these fears: ‘The further Labour goes Left, that would mean the further we go

Matthew Lynn

Labour’s manifesto adds up… to economic ruin

Another day, another tax rise. So far in this campaign, the Labour party has rolled out one hit or another on the wealthy and big business just about every morning. The City is getting a Robin Hood tax on every financial transaction. Companies are getting a one-third increase in corporation tax. Anyone on more than £80,000 will see their income tax go up, and a new levy in high-earners will whack any business paying a star performer more than £330,000. They haven’t slapped a 50pc VAT rate on Range Rovers and Marc Jacobs crocodile handbags – but heck, it is still only Tuesday and there are still three more weeks

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Labour’s manifesto steals from the rich – and gives it back to the wealthy

The consequence of last week’s leak of a draft Labour manifesto is that all eyes today have fallen on what was missing from the draft: the costings. There is a very big assumption in Labour’s figures: that when you raise taxes you get all the extra revenue that you would expect to receive. The reality, of course, is that when you raise taxes you change people’s behaviour which might lead to them paying less tax. With a 45 per cent income tax levy above £80,000 and a 50 per cent rate over £123,000 higher rate taxpayers would have a greater incentive to find some way of avoiding tax – either