Labour

Why has Labour chosen today to call for Gavin Williamson to resign as Education Secretary? This morning, shadow education secretary Kate Green released a statement saying ‘it is time for Gavin Williamson to go’, arguing that his ‘record throughout this pandemic has been shambolic’ and ‘he has bounced from one crisis to another without learning from his mistakes or listening to the parents, pupils and hard-working education staff who have been left to deal with the fallout’. It is unlikely that he will stay in the job when Boris Johnson carries out his next reshuffle It’s true that Williamson has had probably the worst pandemic out of any minister and

This weekend former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn launched his ‘Project for Peace and Justice’. Ostensibly, the organisation has been set up to campaign for a ‘fairer society’ via worldwide progressive networks. It does sometimes seem though as if the group’s real purpose is to act as a branding exercise for Jeremy Corbyn himself, with the message ‘Founded by Jeremy Corbyn’ plastered all over the organisation’s website. Rather giving the game away, the Twitter handle of the group is the ‘@Corbyn_Project’. The speakers at this weekend’s online launch did not exactly dispel the notion that this was all about Corbyn either. Mr S was particularly struck by a speech by the Labour MP

Keir Starmer’s keynote speech at the Fabian conference today was focused almost completely on foreign policy. The thrust of the Labour pitch was that Starmer is ‘pro-American but anti-Trump’. Given Corbyn’s tendency to see the United States at the Great Satan, this marks a huge shift in Labour’s foreign policy outlook. However, the speech was also classic Starmer and not in a good way: correcting the most obvious mistakes from the Corbyn era but going absolutely no further. I should take a moment to applaud Starmer for at least pivoting Labour back to a foreign policy position that is sensible and won’t stand in the way of the party trying

Seventh time lucky? Richard Leonard, who has resigned this afternoon, was the sixth Scottish Labour leader since the SNP elbowed the party out of power in 2007. His tenure was the second-longest since devolution began, mostly because Labour is in such bad nick north of the border that no one else wants the job. The Yorkshire-born Scot secured the leadership in 2017 in part by allowing the impression to get about that he was a Corbynista. In truth, he hails from the harder edge of the soft-left and in his three years at the helm of Scottish Labour he did not shift the party significantly to the left. He leaves

What’s the Labour party’s biggest weakness at the ballot box? After the last election, Brexit and Corbyn were credited by Tory MPs with helping them win the biggest Conservative majority since Margaret Thatcher. But now the UK is out of the EU and Keir Starmer in charge, there’s an argument that it’s now the economy that is their biggest weakness.  A YouGov poll over the summer found that while Starmer’s personal approval ratings are promising, only 19 per cent of voters believe that Labour to be best at handling the economy, compared with 37 per cent who say the Tories are. Given that six in ten voters view the economy as their

Inevitably, Keir Starmer’s main intervention today has been on Covid, with the Labour leader calling for more restrictions within the next 24 hours. But he made this demand as part of his first major policy speech as leader – and there was more in it than just Covid curbs. Starmer has decided he wants to spend the next few months talking about several topics the Labour party has veered away from over the past decade or so. Chief among them is the economy, with the leader and shadow chancellor keen to use the time they have now before the next election to start making it normal for Labour to bring

Every party keeps on file a list of rash things politicians in other parties have said that can be used against them at a later date. Way back when I was directing Ukip’s 2014 European parliamentary campaign, I built up a ‘helpful contributions’ folder containing print-outs of gaffes and embarrassing admissions made by pro-EU MPs and MEPs. Conservative Campaign Headquarters probably has at its disposal a far more sophisticated and comprehensive digital system for logging the own-goals of its adversaries. But one thing is certain, someone will imminently be inputting an entry marked something like ‘Duffield, R. – Labour’s plan to re-join the EU’. Because Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP

There is a thought in some Westminster circles that Keir Starmer has lost the next general election already. Whether it be because of Brexit or Brexit and a bunch of other stuff, including leftover Corbyn baggage, Starmer is doomed as he stands. I believe this view is naïve and the smarter Tories I know don’t buy it for a second. Labour could still win the next election, particularly if the Conservatives get complacent. Yet if they do end up losing their fifth general election in a row, I already know why that will be. There was a moment in the 2015 Labour leadership contest that stands out for me, as

It shouldn’t have been a difficult task to hold the government to account today on schools and lockdown, as the Prime Minister currently weighs up shuttering the school gates till Covid cases decline. Labour leader Keir Starmer though seems to have managed to develop an even more confused policy today. This morning, Labour suggested that schools should remain open even if the country went into lockdown. This was followed by a hasty U-Turn this afternoon, with the party then calling for schools to be closed. After such a big change, Mr S had presumed that Labour would at least have a basic grasp of their new policy. Unfortunately though, in

On New Year’s Eve at 11 p.m., the United Kingdom departed both the single market and the customs union, making the end to the country’s former membership of the EU complete. It was a moment to celebrate for Brexiteers; the commemoration of sadness for some Remainers. Or should I say ‘Rejoiners’ — there is no remaining now, Great Britain having departed the European Union. Many Rejoiners have set out their stalls already. ‘When they tell you to “move on” DO move on — to the long, strong, campaign to rejoin,’ tweeted Simon Schama, the historian and noted fan of the UK’s membership of the EU, ‘However hard the road, however

Part of the soap opera appeal of politics comes from the idea that it is a competitive sport based on fine margins – with a result that will be determined by the relative performances of the teams and their captains. Under the British first-past-the-post system two major parties slug it out in an epic tussle across hundreds of seats and then one of them wins. Sometimes things are so closely fought that neither party has an outright majority, in which case one or more of the minor parties gets to choose which should be propped up. From this point of view, every policy shift or zinger soundbite thrown by Boris

Keir Starmer has announced he is whipping his Labour MPs to vote for Boris’s Brexit deal in the House of Commons today. There are two likely reasons behind this decision: firstly, to make himself seem like a Labour leader who is a grown up, after Corbyn’s teenaged politics; secondly, to demonstrate that Labour accepts Brexit in order that it may win back Leave voters in red wall seats at the next general election. But there is a big problem with this calculation. While all of Starmer’s Brexit options are difficult ones, he may be about to enact the worst of the lot. A no-deal situation would have allowed Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer has been leader of the Labour party for just eight months. But that hasn’t stopped analysts defining what it is that ‘Starmerism’ represents. To some, it is an empty space where ideas should be: technocratic, electorally-driven but otherwise strategically rudderless. Others – most obviously implacable Corbynites – even detect elements of free-market individualism. So what does Starmer really stand for? Commentators seem addicted to attaching the suffix ‘-ism’ to leading politicians’ names to capture what they are ultimately all about. Too often however this ‘-ism’ gives leaders’ actions a fake coherence. Margaret Thatcher certainly had a clear vision of where she wanted to go when elected Conservative leader

The verdict of the Twitter jury is in, articulated in a single, now viral tweet by broadcaster Matthew Stadlen:  ‘Keir Starmer would have been – and would be – a far better Prime Minister than Boris Johnson during this pandemic.’ It is a theme that Starmer has naturally been keen to develop, leading him to make excoriating criticisms of Boris Johnson in a press conference at the weekend. The Starmer thesis is that Johnson is so anxious to be liked that he ducks out of taking tough decisions until it is too late. The Labour leader cites examples that include the lateness of the original lockdown, an allegedly late-in-the-day decision

Plenty of Labour figures who voted Remain are now urging the government to complete a trade agreement with the European Union before the end of the transition period. ‘There isn’t a choice between a fantasy deal and no deal,’ says Liam Byrne. ‘It’s this deal versus no deal, and we will not have a manufacturing industry left unless there is a deal.’ Although there is still a battle within the shadow cabinet on what to do should a UK-EU trade agreement come to parliament, the consensus seems to be that Keir Starmer would whip the party to vote for Johnson’s deal. This marks a big shift in Labour’s Brexit strategy

Sir Keir Starmer will start setting out his vision for the Labour party in the new year, Coffee House understands. The Labour leader will ‘move onto another level’, according to party sources, talking about what life under a Starmer government might look like, and encouraging his frontbenchers to make policy announcements. Up to this point, Starmer has had a strangely slow start as leader because he has been largely in reactive mode, responding to the government’s own response to the pandemic. This has made it easier for him to avoid awkward confrontations in his party over policy, with the stand-off over anti-Semitism being the only real ruction. He has focused largely