Uk politics

Sunday

Richard Madeley

Some Tories are far from optimistic about their party’s chances of defeating Corbyn

Sitting next to a former Conservative party bigwig at dinner, I ask if he thinks the Tories will be OK at the next election as long as they deliver a reasonable Brexit. ‘Not a chance,’ he says. ‘We’re totally fucked.’ What, even if May stands down once the deal is done? ‘Even then. The kids want Corbyn. The bloody 30/40-somethings want Corbyn. They don’t care or even understand about all that horrible IRA stuff, or Marxism, or nationalisation. After a couple of years of Corbyn government, they’ll get it. Too late by then. But at least the pendulum will swing back to us three years later.’ This is an extract

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour MP: ‘Better educated’ people voted Remain

After the Conservative MP Chris Heaton-Harris was outed last week for writing to universities requesting details of their Brexit syllabus, the debate on academic Brexit bias is in full swing. Happily Labour’s Barry Sheerman was on hand to clear the matter up with an appearance on Yorkshire Sunday Politics. Sheerman said any anti-Brexit sentiment at universities was down to the fact that ‘better educated people’ back Remain: BS: The truth is that when you look at who voted to Remain, most of them were the better educated people in our country… TI: This is controversial! Massively controversial. BS: Absolutely! It’s absolutely true. You can actually see the pattern. All the

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Jeremy Hunt says Mark Garnier will be investigated over ‘sex toy’ claim

Diane Abbott – Labour will have ‘zero tolerance’ of sexual harassment The Shadow Home Secretary joined Andrew Marr to discuss, among other things, the allegations that have been surfacing about sexual harassment in the House of Commons. Marr bought up the recent case of Jared O’Mara, the Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam who appears to have disgraced himself after several online comments were unearthed: AM: Jared O’Mara – when did the Labour party know about what he’d said? DA: When I heard about it was last Monday. He came to the PLP, he apologised, a lot of people took his apology quite seriously. But then on Tuesday we had more

Steerpike Steerpike

Jon Craig proves a professional on Sky

With the Sunday papers filled with tales of male politicians behaving badly, it’s a report in the Mail on Sunday involving a Brexit minister which is provoking the most outrage. The paper alleges that in 2010, Tory MP Mark Garnier – who now serves as an International Trade Minister – called a former aide ‘sugar t-ts’ and sent her to buy two vibrators for him at a sex shop in Soho. Garnier doesn’t deny the claims made by Caroline Edmondson – but he does insists it was ‘good-humoured high jinks’ which ‘absolutely does not constitute harassment’. Good-humoured or not, Mr S was impressed to see Sky News’ Jon Craig prove the picture

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Economic forecasts are almost always wrong – so why do we take them seriously?

There is a weird psychology behind economic forecasts. We know they are going to be wrong, because they always are. Yet such is our appetite for information – any information – that nevertheless we can’t stop ourselves taking them seriously. The Sunday Times this morning has gone big on a report by serial doomsayers the EY Item Club claiming that the government needs to move quickly to obtain a transitional deal on Brexit or face a collapse in business investment. Even with a deal it predicts that the growth in business investment next year will fall to 1.5 per cent, from 2.1 per cent this year. Maybe. But then again,

Charles Moore Charles Moore

May is repeating Cameron’s mistakes in dealing with the EU

Theresa May’s style of negotiating with the European Union is coming spookily to resemble David Cameron’s. She is in the mindset where the important thing is to get a deal, rather than working out what sort of a deal is worth getting. The EU understands this, and therefore delays, making Cameron/May more desperate to settle, even on bad terms. Eventually, there is an inadequate deal which the British government then has to sell to a doubting electorate. Mr Cameron was punished for this at the referendum he had called. Mrs May is inviting punishment at a general election. This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Notes, which appears in this

Saturday

James Landale

The EU needs to ask itself some searching questions about Brexit

I have come to Greece in search of sanity over Brexit. Ostensibly it is a symposium to discuss relations between Britain and Greece. But it is also an excuse to step away from the minutiae of the negotiations to think about the future of Europe. It was from Greece, of course, that our continent derived its name — from the mythological Europa who was ravished by Zeus and bore a future king of Crete. One contributor notes dryly that Greece is also not a bad place to think about the rise and fall of empires, the follies of politicians, the failings of institutions and what happens to elites when they

Richard Madeley

Politicians’ determination to dissemble is getting worse

Politicians’ determination to dissemble is getting worse. Are they sent on courses teaching obfuscation? Since returning to daily TV I’ve discovered that MPs are more skilled at dodging questions than ever before. Infuriating to listen to at home — but if you’re the questioner being shamelessly blanked or blocked, the response (in my case, at least) is visceral anger. I try not to interrupt someone if they’re actually attempting, however ineptly, to answer a question, but I won’t tolerate duck-diving. I call offenders out on it as soon as I realise they’re trying it on. So far on GMB, I’ve had ill-tempered exchanges with, among others, Nigel Farage and Sir

Steerpike Steerpike

Why lambast Michael Gove for the Weinstein joke – and not Neil Kinnock?

Michael Gove has a good line in risqué jokes, not all of which ought to be broadcast – as he demonstrated this morning when he used an appearance on the Today programme to compare being interviewed by John Humphrys to being in Harvey Weinstein’s bedroom: ‘Sometimes I think going into the studio with you John is a bit like going into Harvey Weinstein’s bedroom. You just pray you emerge with your dignity intact.’ Cue entirely predictable outrage and apology from Gove. Apologies for my clumsy attempt at humour on R4 Today this morning -it wasn't appropriate. I'm sorry and apologise unreservedly — Michael Gove (@michaelgove) October 28, 2017 But while

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories need a positive vision for Britain after Brexit

Political Cabinet on Tuesday was a fascinating occasion, as I say in The Sun, and not just because Andrea Leadsom took the opportunity to tell Theresa May she had a wonderful smile.  The Cabinet were given a detailed presentation on the state of public opinion—and bits of it made for grim reading for them. David Mundell, the Scottish Secretary, summed up the mood of the meeting when he told Theresa May, to chuckles, that his first impression from all the data was that she shouldn’t call an election anytime soon. The problem for the Tories is that the voters are wary of their values and fed up with austerity. A

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Moderate politics is struggling to get a proper hearing

It is interesting how moderate politics cannot get a hearing just now. I do not mean that it is banned — after all, the moderate establishment is still, just, in control — rather that few seem to want to listen. This must explain why Oliver Letwin’s new book Hearts and Minds has so far been pretty much drowned out by endless discussion about whether Mrs May must go. Is it too reasonable in tone for people to want to discuss it? A pity if so, since it is excellent. The book is mercifully short, very clear, and an engaging mixture of memoir and argument. There is a thought-provoking exposition of

Friday

James Forsyth

Will Britain back Madrid for the sake of Brexit?

Theresa May’s official spokesperson has just issued a statement on Catalonia’s declaration of independence that will please Madrid. It makes clear that the ‘UK does not and will not recognise the Unilateral Declaration of Independence’. It says that the declaration is ‘based on a vote declared illegal by the Spanish courts’. It concludes by saying that ‘we want to see the rule of law upheld, the Spanish constitution respected, and Spanish unity preserved’. What is telling about this statement is that it doesn’t even included the kind of diplomatically phrased call for restraint that Donald Tusk’s tweet did. Now, you can say that the UK statement is not that dissimilar to

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: The Czech election shows the march of the populists isn’t over

The Czech election was something of a shock to those who thought the ‘march of the populists in Europe’ is over Andrej Babis – who ‘shares the anti-migrant stance and hatred for EU refugee policy of Hungary’s premier Viktor Orban and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland’s ruling party’ – was the ‘clear winner’, says the FT. What’s more, the paper points out, the ‘far right’ won 11 per cent of the vote in the country’s election. Yet for all the comparisons, ‘the tycoon insists he is no Mr Orban’. Although he was against the euro, Babis says he ‘is not anti-EU’. But this does not mean the Czech Republic’s EU partners won’t need

Steerpike Steerpike

Tom Tugendhat takes a swipe at Boris

If proof was needed that deference is dead in Parliament, look no further than the interview Tom Tugendhat has given to The House magazine. The new chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee uses his first interview since winning the coveted position to make clear he’s ready and willing to be Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary or Defence Secretary should his services be required. However, the part that caught Mr S’s eye relates to the current occupant of the Foreign Office. Tugendhat – who was elected to Parliament in 2015 – appears to launch an attack on Boris Johnson’s modus operandi: ‘He’s certainly got a lot of passion for the United

Steerpike Steerpike

Jared O’Mara discovers there’s no rest for the wicked

It’s been a tough week for Jared O’Mara. The MP for Sheffield Hallam had the Labour whip removed after a series of sexist and homophobic comments were unearthed online. Since then, allegations have been made regarding his behaviour towards women in his home of Sheffield. So, the news that he decided not to hold a surgery today should perhaps come as little surprise. But if O’Mara is looking to try and win over disgruntled constituents, Mr S suspects he could be well-served to put in some extra work at the local club he owns, West Street Live. A quick trawl of its Tripadvisor page reveals a series of reviews that

Thursday

Linden Kemkaran

Critics of grammar schools are wrong

Bright but poor kids have been failed for decades. Since the abolition of grammar school expansion some forty years ago, an educational bottleneck has been created, through which children from disadvantaged backgrounds cannot squeeze. State primary schools are banned from teaching how to pass the 11-Plus test, leading to the creation of an incredibly unfair system. Full disclosure; I live in Kent (grammar school territory) and both my kids were tutored and sat the test: one failed, one passed, no big deal either way as I too had failed the 11-Plus (and the world kept turning). A private tutor was essential if my kids were to stand a chance of understanding the

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

The left’s sinister disdain for Israel betrays their movement’s pro-Zionist origins

In the beginning, the Guardian was a friend of the Jews. Or rather, those Jews who believed that after millennia of persecution in exile, they deserved the right to live freely in their ancestral homeland. The overwhelming majority, in other words. The Zionists. The Labour party liked them, too. Three months before the Balfour Declaration, Britain’s key declaration of support for Jewish national aspirations – the centenary of which will be marked next month – Labour compiled a memorandum of policy priorities. ‘Palestine should be set free from the harsh and repressive government of the Turk,’ it said, ‘in order that the country may form a Free State, under international guarantee, to which such of the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Theresa May can’t just expect employers to solve the mental health crisis

Theresa May made mental health one of her key policy issues when she became Prime Minister, and it was supposed to be a key part of her relaunch after the snap election too. So far, though, the Prime Minister has done a fair bit of talking, and not a huge amount of doing. The big mental health launch in January involved very little money and a lot of worthy words about lifting the stigma. Worthy words are handy, given some people do still encounter a great deal of stigma when they are mental, rather than physically, ill. But the thing about being Prime Minister is that you can do a

Steerpike Steerpike

Corbynite attempt to infiltrate Labour Irish Society falls flat

Oh dear. Since Labour’s surprisingly good defeat in the snap election, the hard left has managed to tighten its grip on the party. As last month’s conference proved, Jeremy Corbyn’s party is intent on socialism for the 21st century. But behind the scenes there are still battles being fought between the moderates and the Corbynistas. On Wednesday night, elections took place for the Labour Party Irish Society executive. Ahead of the event, Corbynistas plotted to try and elect some true believers to the executive in order to return it to ‘its radical roots’, with Squawkbox – the Corbynista website – running an article urging like-minded activists to help transform the society into

James Forsyth James Forsyth

MPs are undermining Britain’s world-class university system

The debate about universities in the last few days has been extremely frustrating. Britain has the two best universities in the world, according to The Times Higher Education rankings, and five of the top 25. This should be a cause for national celebration. Politicians should be seeking to build on this strength, not doing anything to undermine it. But instead, MPs on both the left and the right are behaving in reckless and irresponsible ways. Oxford is the best university in the world. But a former universities minister, David Lammy, the shadow Education Secretary, the Tory chair of the Education Select Committee and 100-odd other MPs want to massively interfere