Tories

Amber Rudd’s proposal to make companies publish lists of how many foreign workers they employ inflicted significant damage to one of Theresa May’s oldest aims: to shake off the Tories’ ‘nasty party’ image. And it also drew expressions of disgust from across the board, with Steve Hilton – David Cameron’s former aide – saying it amounted to ‘shaming’ of foreign workers. Grant Shapps said he would not vote for it. To the many Conservatives who spent years trying to reset the Tories’ image, last week’s conference was an awful setback. This was made worse because Rudd’s proposal wasn’t even in her speech, but in the footnotes. It suggests that May’s

People attack the whole business of having an EU referendum, but one of its pluses was that it invited millions of people who had never before been asked to form an opinion on the European question to do so. They responded thoughtfully — perhaps more thoughtfully than people do in general elections when a sizeable minority vote pretty much automatically for one party or another. We quickly developed a much more educated electorate. The idea, strongly touted immediately after the result, that the voters’ majority view could be set aside by Parliament because they didn’t know what they were talking about has almost completely vanished from political debate, with the

When we came to Birmingham this week, some big questions were hanging in the air. Do we have a plan for Brexit? We do. Are we ready for the effort it will take to see it through? We are. Can Boris Johnson stay on message for a full four days? Just about. But I know there’s another big question people want me to answer. What’s my vision for Britain? My philosophy? My approach? Today I want to answer that question very directly. I want to set out my vision for Britain after Brexit. I want to lay out my approach – the things I believe. I want to explain what

I succeed one of the most successful Home Secretaries of modern times. You may define success as holding the post for longer than any prior Conservative incumbent since World War Two. You may judge it by introducing the Modern Slavery Act … Which has delivered tough new penalties to put slave masters behind bars. Or, you may judge it by the eventual, hard-won deportation of Abu Qatada – and the message that sent. Well, Theresa May is now Prime Minister, and I am honoured to be Home Secretary in her Conservative-only Government. It’s no secret that earlier this year I campaigned on behalf of the Remain side in the EU

Philip Hammond takes to the stage today at Tory party conference to discuss the Conservative’s plans for an economy that ‘works for everyone’ – echoing Theresa May’s first pitch as Prime Minister on the steps of Downing Street. We’ll also hear from Sajid Javid, Andrea Leadsom and Liam Fox in some of the other big speeches of the day. Here’s the full run-through of what’s on today: Conference: 10.30am – 12.30pm: An economy that works for everyone Business secretary Greg Clark Communities secretary Sajid Javid Transport secretary Chris Grayling Chancellor Philip Hammond 2.30pm – 4.15pm: Culture secretary Karen Bradley Environment secretary Andrea Leadsom International trade secretary Liam Fox 4.30pm – 5.30pm:

Ladies and gentlemen, on the 23rd of June the British people voted for change. And this is going to be the biggest change for a generation: we are going to leave the European Union. It was we, the Conservative Party, who promised the British people a referendum. It was David Cameron, a Conservative Prime Minister, who honoured that promise. And now it will be this government, a Conservative government that will lead the United Kingdom out of the European Union and into a brighter and better future. This must be a team effort. And I am proud to count myself part of Theresa May’s team. I don’t know what it

Theresa May’s biggest conference dilemma was what to say about Brexit. She doesn’t want to trigger Article 50 yet, or even say when she will do so. Why, because the government hopes that the longer it waits, the more the rest of the EU will be inclined to have preliminary discussions before the actual negotiations start. But May had to have something to say to conference on Brexit. So, May’s team have come up with an announcement that doesn’t involve Article 50 but does enable her to show ‘momentum’, and to claim she is getting on with things. It is a ‘Great Repeal Bill’ which will repeal the 1972 European

At the moment, the consensus is that Brexit will be Cameron’s legacy, that the thing people will remember about his premiership is that he called a referendum on the EU and lost it. But I don’t think this will necessarily be the case. As I argue in the magazine this week, if Brexit — to use a phrase — turns out to be a ‘success’, then that will allow attention to turn to other parts of Cameron’s career. It will allow people to reflect on how, after three successive general-election defeats, he turned the Tories back into the natural party of government. On how he made them more comfortable with

Theresa May has picked the first defining fight of her leadership—and it is the same one that David Cameron chose. But, as I say in The Sun today, she has picked the opposite side from him: in favour of, not against, more grammar schools. Cameron’s opposition to more grammar schools infuriated many Tories, particularly those who were grammar school educated. They objected to a privileged public school boy telling them that they couldn’t be more of the schools that had done so much for them. May, by backing grammars, is sending out a very different message. She is showing these Tories that she’s one of them, a grammar school girl.

Predictably, Theresa May’s speech on new grammar schools and expanding selection across the education system has attracted some strong criticism from within her own party, particularly from former Education Secretary Nicky Morgan. The controversial nature of the reforms announced today – and let’s not forget the proposal to lift the cap on the proportion of pupils that faith schools can admit from their own religion, which will cause a Commons row for a number of reasons – means the Tory whips are going to be very busy indeed over the next few months. Education reform is a personal priority of Nick Timothy, May’s chief of staff, which means that the

Theresa May received the traditional desk banging reception when she addressed the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers. May pleased Tory MPs by emphasising that they  would have more opportunity to feed into policy making process now through George Freeman and the policy board and the green papers that will—once again—precede white papers. But what most excited Tory MPs was what May said about opportunity and grammar schools. May said that she would give a speech on a 21st century education system soon, explaining how selective schools–in other words, grammars–fit into the mix. Strikingly, she defended an ‘element of selection’ arguing that there is selection already in the system, and it

It’s been over a month since Theresa May stood on the steps of Downing Street. And yet the process of finding out what will define her government is moving slowly. We’ve had snippets of the direction in which it won’t be heading: her decision to put the brakes on Hinkley Point, at least for the time being, shows she won’t be pursuing the Osborne agenda. This has, too, been backed up by reports today that she won’t press ahead with plans for regional mayors with the same fervour as the former chancellor. Yet we’ve had only limited glimpses of what May will be aiming to implement. The catchphrase ‘Brexit means

Thoughtful writing about the Corbyn phenomenon is not just impossible to find, it is impossible to imagine. Admirers live in a land of make believe as closed to the rest of the world as North Korea. They barely know how to explain themselves to outsiders because they cannot imagine any honourable reason for outsiders disagreeing with them. Disputes with ‘Jeremy’  must be the result of ideological contamination – you have become or, perhaps secretly always have been, a ‘Tory’ or ‘Blairite’ – financial corruption  – you have sold out – or racial corruption – you are a ‘Zionist’. My colleague Janice Turner of the Times posted a copy of a

There was a good response to the call for poems on a political theme entitled ‘May day’ but the mood was overwhelmingly bleak despite the efforts of a relentlessly optimistic few, Tim Raikes and Alanna Blake among them. There was much to admire though, including a neat riff from Frank McDonald on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 — ‘Shall Maggie be compared to Theresa May/ Who is more cautious and more temperate?’, a ‘Jabberwocky’-inspired submission from Andrew Bamji and Alex Lynford’s clever Blakean turn. Nicholas Hodgson, Martin John, George Simmers, G.M. Davis, John Whitworth and Michael Copeman were on top form too. The winners are printed below and earn their authors £30

Theresa May’s new government gets to work today, and first to face the heat of the Chamber was the Communities and Local Government frontbench. Unfortunately, the Chamber turned out to be rather cool, as very few Labour MPs had managed to turn up, giving Sajid Javid and his team a rather gentler introduction to their new jobs. One of them, Andrew Percy, told the Chamber that ‘I share the House’s surprise!’ on this appointment as he rose to take his first question. But largely the questions that were asked were not a surprise for the frontbench. Some Tory MPs were anxious for a renewed commitment from the new ministers to