Uk politics

Jeremy Corbyn caused a social media flurry on Thursday after it was revealed that he is the cover star of the new issue of GQ magazine. Sticking to his socialist values, the Labour leader managed not to fall in the trap of other comrades (like Owen Jones) who put on designer gear for the glossy magazine shoot – opting to wear an M&S suit. So, what did Corbyn have to say? Well, the Labour leader discusses Corbynista slang – and specifically the term ‘centrist dad’ which is used to describe someone stuffy and out of touch – often a Blairite. However, Corbyn claims that he is a ‘centrist dad’ just one

‘Just heartbreaking’, wrote the Labour MP Tulip Siddiq this week as she shared a picture of the daughter of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian mum who is currently imprisoned in Iran on trumped-up charges of espionage. Tulip has, quite rightly, dedicated much time to trying to free Zaghari-Ratcliffe. It’s a pity though that she doesn’t go to the same lengths to lobby Bangladesh, another repressive country, over the hundreds of people that have been secretly detained there in recent years. Unlike Iran, Bangladesh also happens to be a place where the Labour MP appears to have considerable clout: her aunt, Sheikh Hasina, is the prime minister; her uncle, Tarique Siddique, is Hasina’s security adviser; and her first cousin,

In the historic heart of Luxembourg, around the corner from the Grand Ducal Palace, there is a site which demonstrates why Britons will never be good Europeans. The Maison de l’Union Européenne houses the information centre for the various European institutions here in Luxembourg, and even British Remainers will find its attitudes entirely different from their own. The vision it presents is pan European, an entire continent without borders. These are the ‘citizens of nowhere’ that Mrs May warned us about. Since the referendum, British attitudes towards the EU have polarised. Either it’s a great force for good, and leaving will be a disaster (say some Remainers) or it’s a

‘At last’, says the FT, Britain has ‘accepted it must pay its dues to Europe’. ‘It has been a tortuous journey’ to get to this stage and ‘months have been wasted’ along the way. Yet while progress has been made at last, the government has still failed ‘to explain to the public the…cost of leaving’. It’s also the case that while the Brexit divorce offer is now more acceptable to the EU, the bill is ‘only one of three areas in which agreement is needed to unlock talks on the future relationship’. Avoiding a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland remains the trickiest of these problems to find a

Tim Farron is not the ideal person to explain Christianity’s relationship to liberalism. When he resigned as leader of his party, after a poor election result, he complained about the culture’s anti-Christian bias. It’s a complicated enough issue, without sour grapes being added to the brew. He now says that British liberalism has become empty because it has departed from its Christian roots. Despite outward conformity to liberal principles, there is now ‘no unifying set of British values.’ Look under the surface and people are selfish, tribal and intolerant of difference. True liberalism is rare, and, he implies, it is part of a deeper commitment than secular people are capable

Today was a reminder of the lost art of how to construct a series of questions at PMQs. Emily Thornberry started off by asking Damian Green if he was prepared to be held to the same standard as he held government ministers when he was in opposition. Sensing a bear trap, a clearly wary Green rose to answer—and you could see he was dreading the prospect of five questions on the Cabinet Office’s investigation into his personal conduct. But Thornberry’s follow-up was cleverer than that. She instead asked him a question about retention rates among nurses that he had asked John Prescott 17 years ago. Predictably, Green had no answer.

The PM is in the middle-east on her ‘strong and stable leadership’ tour. Replacing her at PMQs stood Damian Green, a hesitant, avuncular figure who seems ill-suited to front-line politics. He’s uncomfortably tall, and he dips his chin as he speaks to make his troubled, slender jowls less conspicuous. His hair has quit the fray and left a dignified grassless dome as its memorial. His demeanour is all antiquarian gentleness. He might be the head of parchments at a museum of medical history. How he reached the cabinet is a mystery. His opponent, Emily Thornberry, is a resourceful court-room performer who started the session by getting the jury (that is,

The most important thing coming from No 10 this morning is not anything they have said – but instead what they haven’t said. Following a report yesterday that the UK’s Brexit divorce bill has been agreed as being somewhere in the region of £45bn, the government have not tried to deny it nor pour cold water on the sum. Sensing an opportunity, the Opposition today tried to capitalise on the news. Labour have tabled an amendment to the EU withdrawal bill that would commit the government to giving MPs a vote on the Brexit financial settlement. It would also require the sum to be assessed by the OBR and the