Uk politics

Monday

Steerpike

John Bercow lectures Gavin Williamson on the perils of press briefings

Ever since Gavin Williamson was appointed Defence Secretary, there has been a briefing war between the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury over defence spending. Keen to prove his defence credentials, Williamson – or Private Pike as the Chancellor’s allies prefer to refer to him – has hardly discouraged backbench MPs from kicking up a fuss over planned cuts to his department. With cost-cutting proposals for the military leaked – including plans to axe 11,000 Army troops and 2,000 Royal Marines – just days ago, this afternoon Williamson was summoned to the Commons to answer an urgent question from Julian Lewis on the reported plans in the review. With Williamson unable to

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Eddie Izzard left out in the cold… again

Here we go again. The results of the latest election for Labour’s National Executive Committee are in and it’s a clear run for Momentum. The three members selected are all Momentum candidates: Jon Lansman, Yasmine Dar and Rachel Garnham. Alas, not everyone is a winner. Or more precisely, Eddie Izzard is not a winner. The comedian-turned-aspiring-politician has missed out on a place on the NEC for the second time – coming in fourth. Really honoured to now represent almost 600,000 members on the national executive of @UKLabour – at last the 21st century version of the Socialist party I joined 44 years ago pic.twitter.com/53ot5DMpjO — Jon Lansman 🟣 (@jonlansman) January 15,

Rupert Darwall

The Tories’ green wheeze won’t win them the next election

Conservative ministers are going through a green fit in an attempt to appeal to voters they lost at the last election. They want to show the world they’re doing good. ‘You know what some people call us – the plastic bag party,’ seems to be the political re-branding calculation. As the former No.10 spin doctor Katie Perrior remarked in the Times last week, the Prime Minister’s enthusiasm for protecting the environment may not be insincere, but it is certainly new. In reality, the May government’s greenwashing is classic displacement activity. Productivity numbers released by the Office for National Statistics earlier this month should be front and centre of every government

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

How to ban newspapers and influence people

How to signal your virtue is one of the most perplexing problems in modern etiquette. It has to be done, obviously. No one can get on in life, or at least on Twitter, without making clear to friends and strangers that they are for good things and against bad things. So pressing has the need for self-promotion become, people stop me in the streets and ask: “How do I do it, Nick? How do I boost my profile and maybe getting a slot on Radio 4, while I’m about it?” I’m tired of being bothered, so I’ll put my reply on the Web. The path of the self-righteous is strewn

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

A digital toolkit for young Tories

OMG. New Conservative chairman Brandon Lewis has announced a ‘digital toolkit’ to help young right-wingers battle the Left on social media. Lewis wants ‘more of our activists and people who support some of the principles we’re outlining… getting out there in the digital world saying so and spreading that message with us’. To that end, he will be supplying Tory students with ‘graphics, Gifs and videos’ to communicate party values and policy positions. Srsly? Srsly. Lulz. I’ve had a sneak peek at one of Lewis’s starter packs. It looks promising… Draw on all the latest online internet memes to get your point across Say things like: ‘Charlie bit your finger?

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Henry Bolton’s critics should tread carefully

Were I a politician observing Henry Bolton’s embarrassment with glee I think I might just stop short of demanding his resignation as leader of Ukip. What point, anyway, in trying to destabilise a party which has destabilised itself to the point at which nearly every credible challenger for the leadership seems already to have left – along with quite a few incredible ones? Why not just sit back and enjoy the sight of an old fool falling in love with young glamour puss and falling flat on his face? Any public figure who goes further might find that it comes back to haunt them. As Lara Prendergast wrote in this

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The economics of fish and chips

When you pay £8 for fish and chips, where does the money go? That’s the question one restaurant has been busy answering after a customer left a two-star review on Facebook. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the food – in fact it was ‘lovely’ and the staff were ‘amazing’. But Debbie Davies still felt the need to complain to Oxton Bar and Kitchen over the price for the meal – £8. Happily, staff at the restaurant were happy to provide clarity: ‘Ok Debbie. Where do I begin? Out of that £8, our nasty government is charging you 20% vat which we collect by law on their behalf, so

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Chris Grayling has questions to answers after Carillion’s collapse

Carillion is set to go into liquidation, putting at risk thousands of jobs and leaving question marks hanging over its involvement in major government projects, including HS2. The firm’s troubles are hardly new: repeated profit warnings have been issued in recent months. Yet still new contracts were handed to the company by ministers. Why? The Times points the finger at the transport secretary, saying that Chris Grayling ‘is at the centre of a mess of his own making, and there is nothing funny about it’. The paper points out that shortly before the contractor won ‘lucrative deals for work on the HS2 rail line’, the ‘unexpected profit warning’ troubled investors

Sunday

Giles Kenningham

Would Winston Churchill have survived public life in the age of Twitter?

It used to be the case that tabloid stings struck the fear of God into politicians and celebrities. Now social media is claiming the scalps of public figures on an almost weekly basis.  Quite simply, life is on the record 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you want to enter public life brace yourself for one long reality TV show. Privacy is dead and thanks to the advent of the camera phone everyone is now a journalist. There is no hiding place. If you’ve got a fondness for tweeting be aware it’s not a place for nuance. As a wise man once said, too many tweets make

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Listen: John McDonnell’s comments about Esther McVey being lynched

The return of Esther McVey to the Cabinet is bad news for John McDonnell and Labour’s claim of a kinder, gentler politics. It has led many hacks and broadcasters to return to remarks he made about ‘lynching’ McVey, at a Remembrance Sunday event back in 2014. But when they do so, Labour complain. The shadow chancellor’s defence is that he was quoting someone else who (he claims) wanted to lynch her – rather than wanting to lynch her himself. Happily, for clarity’s sake, the Sunday Politics today aired the recording: Here is the clip of @johnmcdonnellMP from 2014 repeating comments about 'lynching' Tory MP Esther McVey #bbcsp pic.twitter.com/92MJTbYLX9 — BBC

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Guardian’s tabloid makeover

Here we go. As of Monday, the Guardian is a tabloid – in the physical sense anyway. The paper’s editor Katharine Viner has revealed the new look paper online – complete with masthead: https://twitter.com/KathViner/status/952647642517049344 RIP Berliner…

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Nicola Sturgeon – IndyRef2 decision will be made by the end of 2018

The Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was given the prime interview slot on the Andrew Marr Show this morning. Noting the change in SNP rhetoric since before the 2017 election, Marr pushed Sturgeon for a timeframe as to when Scottish voters could expect to see a second independence referendum: NS: There is a lot of confusion, this is a complex issue… and people want to see the clarity emerge about the state of the relationship between the UK and the EU. At that point, what I’ve said is that we will look at that and determine at that stage if Scotland should then have the right to choose between whatever

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Michael Gove’s green crusade is a smart way to sell Brexit

What is Michael Gove up to? The Environment Secretary seems to be on a tree-hugging rampage at the moment, announcing a new green measure every week. Not content with unveiling the Tories’ 25 year environment plan last week, Gove has given an interview to today’s Sunday Times in which he attacks the water companies for using tax havens. The water companies are interesting enough, given Jeremy Corbyn has called for them to be renationalised. But what’s really revealing about what Gove’s overall mission is comes later in the interview, when he says: ‘Brexit creates opportunities, particularly in my area. Brexit could be the catalyst for some of the biggest, boldest

Saturday

Steven Woolfe

Nigel Farage is wrong and the EU must prepare for no deal

Nigel Farage met Michel Barnier on Monday and is now calling, inexplicably, for a second EU referendum. He wants to rerun the whole thing. Well, I too have just got back from Brussels and no doubt Barnier said the same things to me and my three colleagues as he did to Nigel. That being the case, I think Nigel has lost the plot. I met Barnier on Wednesday along with Digby Jones, John Longworth and John Mills, all experienced and talented businesspeople with a deep understanding of the issues. We had a long discussion with Barnier, put our case for the EU accepting Brexit gracefully and acting with positivity in

James Forsyth James Forsyth

May can’t bend Macron’s ear on Brexit until she knows what the UK wants

Emmanuel Macron and half a dozen of his top team are heading to the UK late next week. I write in The Sun today that they’ll sit down with Theresa May and a handful of senior Cabinet Ministers at Sandhurst for an Anglo-French defence summit. The occasion should be a perfect opportunity for Theresa May to bend Macron’s ear on Brexit. After all, the whole meeting is devoted to the Anglo French security relationship which will be important, and continue, long after Brexit. But May’s ability to lobby Macron will be impeded by the fact the British government still hasn’t decided precisely what Brexit deal it wants. The Cabinet didn’t

Friday

Katy Balls

Corbyn reshuffle: Clive Lewis welcomed back into the fold

After Theresa May’s underwhelming and chaotic Cabinet reshuffle on Monday and Tuesday, Jeremy Corbyn has followed suit and carried out a minor reshuffle of his front bench. With loyal Corbynista Chris Williamson resigning from the shadow cabinet on Thursday following his call to double council tax for large properties, there was speculation that the Leader’s Office were keen to distance themselves from firebrand MPs as they get serious about winning power. However, the list of new appointments suggests that this is not the case. Laura Pidcock has been appointed as shadow minister for Labour. Since entering Parliament in the snap election, the MP for North West Durham has found herself in

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Laura Pidcock’s shadow cabinet buzzkill

Since joining Parliament in the snap election, the Labour MP created a media-storm last year when she declared that she would not be friends with a Tory. Happily, Jeremy Corbyn sees no issues with such a stance and has just promoted Pidcock – appointing her Shadow Minister for Labour. Only it’s a bit complicated. Just a few hours ago, Pidcock expressed her solidarity for her comrade Chris Williamson – who resigned from the frontbench – declaring that she was ‘buzzing’ to have him join her on the backbenches for ‘the struggle ahead’: #Solidarity to @DerbyChrisW, one of the most genuine and principled MPs around – a signpost, rather than a weathercock.

Douglas Murray

If Dawn Butler can’t forgive Toby Young, can she forgive herself?

I am fascinated as well as appalled by the new morality being created in our country. Last night, Dawn Butler MP was on the television again (this time Question Time) making charges against Toby Young and doubling-down on a point she had made earlier in the week on the Daily Politics. The essence of it is that because of Tweets, including one about a Labour MPs breasts from 2009, Toby Young has no right to sit as one member of a 15-member board in 2018. “I don’t think he should have resigned, I think the PM should have been stronger and should have said it was an inappropriate appointment” @DawnButlerBrent

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Watch: Question Time audience member calls out Labour hypocrisy over Toby Young

This week Question Time moved to Islington. David Dimbleby chaired a panel comprised of Dominic Raab, Labour’s Dawn Butler, Gina Miller, comedian Nish Kumar and Piers Morgan. However much of time was spent discussing Toby Young, who resigned from the Office for Students this week. With various derogatory comments made about Young, it fell to an audience member to address the elephant in the room: Labour’s hypocrisy. He said that it was inconsistent of Labour to call for Young’s sacking while they had only suspended Jared O’Mara, the MP for Sheffield Hallam, while the party investigates misogynistic and homophobic comments he is alleged to have made online: ‘Labour and the Tories can

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Justine Greening’s departure is no great loss

You could, I suppose, feel sorry for Justine Greening if you were a nicer person than me, not just for losing her job, but for being in the job after it had been occupied by Michael Gove. Mr Gove had the radical, indeed revolutionary perception that it was a scandal that there should be such a gulf in expectation and outcomes between state and private schools. And he acted on that basis – the best bit of his programme, in my view, being his hardening up of the curriculum, so state school pupils don’t get fobbed off with dud qualifications in dud subjects. Exams are harder, and harder to pass