Theresa may

At first it looked like Jeremy Corbyn was going to go on the rights of Chagos Islanders at PMQs, but then he shifted tack to Brexit. Corbyn’s questions were quite tightly honed — using Boris Johnson’s comments in a Czech newspaper interview about Britain probably leaving the customs union to needle May. But Corbyn’s own failings give May a way out each time, she just attacks him for not being up to the job. At the end of their exchanges today, you were left with the sense that a better opposition leader could have caused May real problems today, but Corbyn simply isn’t up to it. May received a rare

With Mark Carney stepping down from his role as governor of the Bank of England in 2019, it’s been widely reported that relations between Carney and Theresa May are strained. As James Forsyth writes in The Spectator, the Prime Minister managed to rub Carney up the wrong way with her Conservative conference speech when she appeared to criticise central banks and citizens of the world. At today’s Treasury select committee, Carney denied that May’s comments played a role in his decision to extend his contract by just 12 months. He did, however, appear to take a swipe at May over her choice words. When Andrew Tyrie — the committee chair — pointed out that May

Nigel Farage is once again a thorn in the Prime Minister’s side. After Downing Street dismissed the interim Ukip leader’s offer to help May forge a relationship with Donald Trump, they were left red-faced over the weekend when Farage became the first British politician to meet the president-elect since his victory. Now the Prime Minister is under pressure to rethink her approach to both Farage and Trump. Yet rather than perform a u-turn, she has issued a fresh rejection of Farage’s offer of help. At today’s lobby briefing, when asked whether May would now consider accepting Farage’s help, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said Trump had told May he looked forward to enjoying the same close relationship that Ronald Reagan and

Britain’s position heading into its Brexit talks is far stronger than it was a week ago, I argue in The Sun today. Why, because Donald Trump has changed the dynamics of global politics. Brexit’s critics used to claim that this country would be isolated after it left the EU. But it is hard to make that case when the president-elect of the most powerful country in the world is in favour of it. Indeed, the next US President is more enthusiastic about it than the British Prime Minister. He was for it before June 23rd. Theresa May now has a chance to create a strong relationship with Trump before other

After a few anxious hours this morning when it emerged that Donald Trump had found time to telephone nine world leaders — including Taoiseach Enda Kenny  — but not Theresa May, the Prime Minister has now received the call. In the course of the conversation, the pair agreed the US-UK relationship was ‘very important and very special’, and that building on this was a priority for both. The Prime Minister also tried to lay the groundwork for a US trade deal as she highlighted her wish to ‘strengthen bilateral trade and investment with the US as we leave the EU’. As James notes in this week’s issue of The Spectator, Trump’s enthusiasm for Brexit does provide opportunity

Labour’s election then re-election of Jeremy Corbyn was the equivalent of a suicidal man who, when the noose snaps and gives him a second chance, decides to throw himself off a cliff instead. The Liberal Democrats are too small to get a hearing. The Scottish nationalists will speak only for Scotland. The only arguments that matter in England now are the arguments within the right. But what is the right today? What does it mean to say you are right-wing? You only have to look at the triumph of Donald Trump to guess the answer. He not only beat Hillary Clinton but the old Republican party, which looks like it

When a Prime Minister flies off abroad with a few business-leaders it is seldom worthy of comment. Such trade missions tend to achieve little, beyond generating headlines intended to flaunt politicians’ pro-business credentials. But with the impending departure of Britain from the European Union,-Theresa May’s visit to India this week, accompanied by Sir James Dyson and others, has huge significance. For the first time in four decades, a British Prime Minister can discuss doing trade deals — something which we have until now been forced to contract out to officials in Brussels. Mrs May chose her destination shrewdly. With its rapidly expanding economy and the gradual liberalisation of economic policy, India

What worries government ministers, as I say in The Sun this morning, is not the actual vote on the Article 50 bill—voting against the bill as whole would be akin to rejecting the referendum result—but attempts to tie Theresa May’s hands ahead of the negotiation through amendments to the bill. One senior Cabinet Minister tells me that peers and MPs ‘won’t be able to resist’ trying to amend the bill. Though, it is worth noting that because of public concern about free movement there probably isn’t a Commons majority for staying in the single market, post referendum. Downing Street is adamant that they don’t want an early election, and that

As a general rule, any day the government loses in court is a good day. So yesterday was an especially fine day. A delicious one, too, obviously, in as much as the fist-clenched, foot-stamping, whining of so many Brexiteers was so overblown and ludicrous it toppled into hilarity. People who shouted for months about the urgent need to restore parliamentary sovereignty now reacted in horror to the restoration of parliamentary sovereignty. ‘That’s not what we meant’, they spluttered. We meant governmental supremacy only when it suits us. Well, tough. A certain amount of squealing was only to be expected since, if Nigel Farage has taught us anything, it is that the Brexit-minded