Uk politics

Monday

Steerpike

Fact check: the Observer’s ‘one million students’ back second Brexit vote report

Here we go. With David Miliband dipping his toe back into UK politics as part of the ‘stop Hard (any) Brexit’ campaign, there appears to be a new momentum to Remain efforts. In this vein, Mr S read the Observer‘s splash this weekend with particular interest. The paper reports ‘one million students join calls for vote on Brexit deal’. So, is this the start of something big? A number that could tip the scales in the facour of Remain in a future vote? THE OBSERVER: One million students join call for vote on Brexit deal #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/NeEq6zpfHC — Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) May 12, 2018 Perhaps not. What the headline doesn’t

Sunday

Robert Ellis

What common ground will Theresa May find with President Erdogan?

When Turkey’s President Erdogan visits Theresa May in Downing Street on Tuesday, he will no doubt be on his best behaviour and control his baser instincts. Otherwise, as he will be met by a Free Turkey Media demonstration organised by English PEN, he could do as he has done earlier – as in Washington and Ecuador – and call on his bodyguards to beat up demonstrators. Of course, if it had been Turkey, they wouldn’t have been allowed to demonstrate, but if they had, they would not only have been beaten up but also incarcerated. Remember the Gezi Park uprising five years ago when over 8,000 were injured, 8 killed

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Michael Gove – ‘Significant question marks’ over PM’s customs partnership

The Environment Secretary Michael Gove has defended Boris Johnson’s criticism of the Prime Minister’s proposed ‘customs partnership’ ideal in a recent Daily Mail interview, and told Nick Robinson that the proposal ‘has flaws’. Gove and Johnson are reported to be in favour of a ‘maximum facilitation’ arrangement (or ‘Max Fac’) which would make use of technology and trusted trader schemes to help ensure a relatively open border with Ireland post-Brexit: NR: You’re on a cabinet working group to deal with this so-called customs partnership. Boris Johnson calls it ‘crazy’. Is he right? MG: …In the interview that Boris gave to the Daily Mail, he pointed out some of the flaws

David Blunkett

David Blunkett remembers Tessa Jowell – ‘always thinking of others’

Dame Tessa Jowell has died aged 70 after suffering a haemorrhage on Friday. The former Labour cabinet minister was diagnosed with brain cancer in May last year. In a post on Alastair Campbell’s personal blog. Jowell’s close friend David Blunkett has written a tube to his former colleague:. ‘Tessa was one of my closest friends for over 40 years. In 1980s local government, Tessa in Camden and myself in Sheffield, we helped to promote an alternative to Old Labour on the one hand and the far left on the other. Before the 1997 Labour victory, we worked on a programme to nurture children from the moment of their birth, but crucially also to

Saturday

Julie Burchill

Chavs of Britain, unite!

Paige Bond is an attractive blonde lady of a certain age – thrillingly, the Evening Standard claimed that she was both 48 and 57 in the same report. As far as one can judge from photographs, she looks lively and confident, so I imagine she was irked to say the least when after applying for a job with an organic grocers, Forest Whole Foods of Hampshire, she mistakenly received an email from one employee of the company to another summing her up in terms which are all too typical of the sort of snoot who believes that espousing over-priced organic food is yet another handy way of looking down on

Douglas Murray

London’s knife crime problem is the talk of the town in New York

New York is as boiling as Naples. Yet walking by Central Park after dinner with friends on Fifth, several couples are heading back to their apartments in black tie. One old gent is even strolling back home in evening tails. It looks glamorous and natural in a way it no longer would in our capital. Everyone in New York asks about the knife crime in London. I tell them it won’t be sorted out because we’ve already decided what the causes can’t be. The next evening I am in conversation before a live audience on Lexington Avenue. It is great fun, and the hugely friendly, mainly young, audience brings some

Friday

Rob Lyons

Sadiq Khan goes to war on junk food. What about knife crime?

Sadiq Khan has been busy. But the mayor of London isn’t snowed under trying to deal with the capital’s knife crime epidemic. Instead, he is facing down a bigger demon: junk food. This morning, Khan has been touring the studios unveiling plans to ban adverts for unhealthy food on London’s tubes and buses. It is clear the mayor has got his priorities all wrong. What’s more, this censorship is bad for free speech. It also does very little to actually deal with what Khan calls the ‘ticking timebomb’ of childhood obesity. The press release announcing the plan tells us that almost 40 per cent of London 10- and 11-year-olds are ‘overweight

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The House of Lords is out of control — it’s time for abolition

The Lords have lost it. They’re out of control. They have taken a wrecking-ball to the government’s plans for Brexit 14 times in recent weeks, putting themselves on a war footing with the people we actually elect. They are behaving like they did in the first decade of the 20th century when they arrogantly vetoed the Liberal government’s People’s Budget. ‘The House of Lords regards all our liberties and political rights as enjoyed and as enjoyable only so long as they choose to let us go on having them’, fumed Winston Churchill back then. Where’s the modern Churchill to put these ermine-robed loathers of the largest democratic vote in British

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

The Tories will regret backtracking on faith schools

The archbishop of Liverpool, Malcolm McMahon, got it right: the Government has broken its manifesto promise on church schools – can we just drop the “faith schools” bit? As he said trenchantly: “In their general election manifesto the Conservative Party made a commitment to the Catholic community that the unfair rule effectively stopping the opening of new Catholic free schools would be lifted. Today the Government has broken this promise, dropped the pledge they made to our country’s six million Catholics and ignored the tens of thousands of Catholics who campaigned on this issue.” That’s telling ‘em. It doesn’t help either, that the Education Secretary, Damian Hinds was so weaselly

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

How London’s gangs could spawn tomorrow’s jihadis

What will happen when the teenagers stabbing each other on the streets of London grow up? Some will go straight, some will go to prison and some will probably follow a similar trajectory to Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. These two evolved from being minor figures on the south-east London gang scene into two of the most notorious Islamist killers in Britain, responsible for murdering Lee Rigby outside Woolwich barracks in 2013. In the aftermath of the murder, Harry Fletcher, a former assistant general secretary of the probation union Napo, explained: “A major concern in recent years has been the crossover between criminal groups and Islamist organisations. It’s mainly gangs in

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Tim Farron just can’t escape gay sex

What does Tim Farron think about gay sex? Like Ken Livingstone’s repeated reluctance to discuss Hitler, the former Lib Dem leader has never really offered his views on the subject. This time a year ago, for instance, he was so busy talking about all the things his party was putting into its general election manifesto that there was just never time for the matter to creep into interviews. He’s never avoided questions on gay sex, or changed his views on gay sex, or offered formulations which sound as though he loves gay people (just not in The Way) but actually mean he doesn’t think they should be having gay sex.

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: John Bercow’s awkward clash with Tory MP

Awkward scenes in the Commons just now where Conservative MP James Duddridge has called for a debate on John Bercow’s replacement as speaker. After being picked by Bercow, the Tory MP told Parliament: ‘Given your manifesto commitment to go by the 22nd June, can we have a debate…about what we want from a speaker, what type of speaker we want before we move to a secondary discussion about who we want to replace you.’ His comments did not go down well with Bercow’s chums on the other benches, with one MP calling the intervention ‘ridiculous’. Unsurprisingly, too, Bercow – who was sitting slumped down in his chair – was not impressed

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brexit is fast becoming a Tory no-win

Theresa May’s Brexit dilemma is becoming more acute. Last week, she failed to garner the support of the Brexit inner cabinet for a so-called ‘new customs partnership’ with the European Union. Even so, May can’t and won’t drop the idea. She’s convinced that it is critical for solving the Irish border issue, and thus unlocking a deal. But the bad news for Mrs May is that opinion has hardened against her scheme (which would see the UK collecting tariff revenue for the EU even after Brexit). Boris Johnson has publicly attacked it as ‘crazy’ and in no way ‘taking back control’. Tellingly, Downing Street didn’t feel it could slap him

Wednesday

Steerpike

Tory Brexiteers and Remainers finally settle their differences

Tory Brexiteers and Remainers might share the same benches in parliament but they don’t always see eye to eye these days. Which makes Mr S pleased to see the likes of Crispin Blunt and Ken Clarke find common cause this afternoon. So what did they finally manage to agree on? Blunt and Clarke – as well as outspoken Brexiteer Peter Bone and the Remainer Tory MP Dominic Grieve – rebelled against the government by voting in favour of Leveson 2. It’s just a pity that they were all on the losing side…

Steerpike Steerpike

Will John Cleese now leave England?

Will John Cleese now leave England? Mr S. only asks because yesterday the former funnyman tweeted this: Unfortunately for Cleese, things in the Commons haven’t gone his way, with MPs voting not to go ahead with Leveson 2. So, is he a man of his word?

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Is time up for John Bercow?

More trouble for the Speaker today. It’s becoming clear that John Bercow is not just unpopular but unlucky as well. He skipped PMQs to attend the funeral of his predecessor, Michael Martin, who was ousted by a mutiny in 2009. Newer members, perhaps believing that insurrection is the correct way to eject an unwanted speaker, may be plotting Bercow’s dethronement already. Unluckier still, he’s just earned a new tabloid nickname, ‘Bully Bercow’, over allegations of “explosive and intemperate” behaviour toward staff, which he denies and are now under investigation. The phrase has a certain felicitous musicality – like Billy Bunter – that may soften the sting of its literal meaning, but

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Corbyn exposes May’s Brexit mess at PMQs

Given the deep Cabinet splits over Theresa May’s plans for Britain’s customs arrangements with the EU after Brexit, there was a very clear line of attack for Jeremy Corbyn to lead with at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. The Labour leader doesn’t always take the most obvious line, but he did today, first asking May about Boris Johnson’s description of the new customs partnership as ‘crazy’. This elicited a rather robotic response from the Prime Minister, who helpfully chanted to the Commons that ‘we are leaving the European Union, we are leaving the customs union’. Corbyn made things still more awkward for his opponent by then switching to quoting Greg Clark’s

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Iran shows that even Trump can get things right

An unexpected downside of Donald Trump’s presidency is the rare occasion on which he makes a wise call. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran deal is wise and demonstrates a clear understanding of Tehran’s motives and tactics. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement, and it was sold as a tough but realistic settlement that would normalise relations with Iran while frustrating its desires to become a nuclear power.  The JCPOA was an attempt to translate Obama’s campaign idealism into hard policy. He won in 2008, in part, by promising a new way forward on American engagement with the world, one humbler and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Brexit compromise that satisfies nobody

The EU referendum result was relatively narrow. 52/ 48 per cent is a very different result from 55/ 45 per cent or 60/ 40 per cent. In these circumstances, seeking some kind of compromise to try and unite the country seems sensible. But the problem is that while there is a coherent case for leaving the EU and a coherent one for staying in, it is hard to see what the coherent case is for leaving the EU only to become a permanent member of the EEA and stay in a customs union with the EU. A compromise along these lines would satisfy nobody. It wouldn’t deal with the sovereignty

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Advice for the current Duke of Wellington

Yesterday, the present (ninth) Duke of Wellington proposed the latest Remainer amendment in the House of Lords, which removes the date of leaving the EU from the Bill. He is the most politically engaged Wellington since the first one, so it was nice to see him. But I wish he had called to mind his great ancestor’s behaviour over the Corn Laws. Wellington strongly opposed repeal, but when Peel backed it in 1846, the Duke urged peers to submit. They could not afford to cut themselves off from the Commons, he told them. He thought the good government of the country more important than any particular Bill. Should peers feel