Uk politics

Friday

Ed West

The best way to learn about socialism is to experience it

I think it’s fair to say that Theresa May did not have a cracking conference, but the sympathy vote might even help her. I certainly felt sorry for the Prime Minister, and instinctively don’t like the nasty playground teasing from the Men of Twitter. (She does have diabetes, too, which can’t help.) But she has to go nonetheless, not because she’s unlucky but because she has a tin ear; why else would she choose to raise such issues as racial discrimination in mental health, sores that can’t be healed but which invariably paint the Tories as the ‘Nasty Party’ – a Ratnerism she coined. Ditto with tuition fees. As for

William Cook

Will banks really leave Britain after Brexit?

In the run-up to last year’s referendum, some grave-faced pundits predicted that Brexit would prompt a mass exodus of bankers from London to Frankfurt. Nonsense, said the Leavers. Everything will be fine. As with almost every aspect of the campaign, there was virtually no common ground. Depending on which side you listened to, either the Square Mile would become a wasteland or Brexit would make no difference whatsoever. So, fifteen months later, who should we believe? I’ve been talking to German bankers and it’s no surprise to find that the word on Threadneedle Street is a lot more nuanced. Project Fear wasn’t entirely fanciful, they tell me, but the timescale

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Whether Theresa May survives depends on two things

Is Theresa May now doomed after her conference speech went so badly wrong? Tory MPs were yesterday so shocked by all the mishaps that it took them a few hours to realise that underneath all the things that weren’t May’s fault – such as the P45 stunt and the set falling apart – were a lot of things that the Prime Minister really was responsible for. The speech was not the bold, re-energising address that May needed to give. It contained pale policies which seemed pale red, not true blue. There are ministers who see this as an opportunity to move against their leader. There are Boris allies who have

Will Heaven

Theresa May’s staff broke all of Machiavelli’s rules

Theresa May must have woken up this morning wondering, for a split second, if yesterday was all just a very bad dream. The front pages will hammer home the reality of her situation – she was ‘luckless’, says one of the kinder headlines. But I wonder: how much did yesterday’s shambolic performance have to do with bad luck, and how much to do with woeful preparation? May’s ordeal, and especially her excruciating coughing fits, reminded me of a passage in Jonathan Powell’s The New Machiavelli, a sort-of memoir about his time as Tony Blair’s chief of staff. The book is also a reworking of The Prince and other texts by Machiavelli:

David Butterfield

The Spectator’s support for free trade is nothing new

Free trade hasn’t always been a British tradition. When the first issue of The Spectator hit the newsstands in July 1828, the country was firmly under the thumb of the Corn Laws. Introduced in 1815 to protect the vested interests of the land-owning classes, these measures propped up the price of British grain, artificially high since the disturbance of the Napoleonic Wars. Protectionism was proving profitable: in June that year, the palatial London Corn Exchange was opened; in July, Parliament readily approved the Duke of Wellington’s Corn Bill, which introduced a sliding scale of duties that continued to prohibit free access to foreign grain. As an organ of Radical politics

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

The Tories had an election-winning conference – for Jeremy Corbyn

If Labour’s party conference in Brighton suggested the party was in a celebratory mood, that sense of triumphalism has been vindicated by the shambolic gathering of Conservatives in Manchester. The comparison between the two parties has been starker than ever: the buoyant Corbynistas laying out Marxism to unwavering applause, whilst bickering Conservatives can’t even sell their policies to a paying audience. If the Labour party looked in rude health last Wednesday, they look an even more attractive proposition after the Maybot suffered an all too human malfunction during her headline address yesterday. A circular that went out to Labour party members after the Prime Minister’s speech was clearly drafted before

Steerpike Steerpike

Listen: Ed Vaizey says ‘quite a few’ MPs want May to resign

Oh dear. After yesterday’s calamitous leader’s speech, Theresa May’s position looks a little less secure than it did prior to her party’s conference. Although Cabinet ministers are said to have called her to say she ought to stay in post, others take a different view. Ed Vaizey has just spoken to BBC Radio Oxford. Asked about May’s future, the Cameroon said that ‘quite a few want her to resign’. As for himself? EV: One of the things I would say is that I thought the Tory party conference was a great opportunity to reboot the party and therefore reboot the country and give it a clear sense of direction. That

Steerpike Steerpike

Newsnight’s Tory conference meltdown

After Theresa May’s leader’s speech fell victim to pranks, health issues and technical glitches, the Prime Minister has received a rough ride in the media. Last night’s episode of Newsnight was no exception – the programme promised to ‘make sense’ of the ‘hitches’ in May’s speech: A few hitches in Theresa May's speech today… We'll be making sense of it all on the programme tonight #CPC17 pic.twitter.com/N8ElbQDvj2 — BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) October 4, 2017 Alas Newsnight producers soon discovered that they weren’t immune to technical glitches themselves. There were several hitches in the cutaway packages – with Theresa May even labelled as ‘Jeremy Corbyn’ at one point: Happily, viewers were

Philip Sime

May’s meltdown: the verdict in the German press

Theresa May had hoped her Conservative conference speech would not only paper over the cracks within her own party but also strengthen her Brexit negotiating position ahead of a crucial EU summit later this month. In around two weeks, EU leaders will gather in Brussels to decide whether to commence trade negotiations with the UK. The key player in this decision, as always, will be Germany. However, it would seem that Theresa May’s conference speech has done little to convince the Germans of her political nous. Here’s how the German press reacted to Theresa May’s conference speech: The country’s largest broadsheet, Süddeutsche Zeitung, says Theresa May’s keynote speech should have been an

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Theresa May’s disastrous conference speech: the newspaper verdict

Theresa May’s Tory party conference speech was a memorable one if only for all the wrong reasons. A prankster, her faltering voice and a broken sign meant the Prime Minister’s reboot did not go to plan. Here is the newspaper verdict on May’s nightmare speech: The luck that all leaders need has ‘deserted Theresa May’, says the Times. The Prime Minister’s speech was undoubtedly a ‘presentational disaster’. Yet while ‘there will be many who see this ill-starred speech as the last straw’, whether the PM survives ‘cannot be decided on the basis of optics’. Instead, the party needs to consider its options, and ask what it can do once May

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

It’s time to call it a day on this Tory government

Some of you may not like this, but the BBC Ten O’Clock News last night was pretty scrupulous in its coverage of the Prime Minister’s speech, and Laura Kuenssberg – not always my favourite news bunny – delivered a very good piece indeed. She trod the line between sympathy, analysis and an acute feeling in the hall, unspoken, that this party, and this leader are most likely not long for this world. Michael Deacon in the Telegraph got it right, too, with his opening line: ‘Poor woman. Poor, poor woman.’ Yes, quite. None of yesterday’s humiliations were really her fault. An arsehole, a deathlessly unfunny self-publicist gurning for the camera

Wednesday

Lara Prendergast

The Tories aren’t too white. They’re too blue

Why do Tories all look the same? This year, having never been to a party conference before, I went to the Labour one in Brighton, then the Tory one in Manchester. At each, the political weather was what you’d expect. What struck me most, however, was the difference in clothing. In Brighton, I saw women with pink hair and men wearing T-shirts that read ‘Stop the war’ or ‘Never kissed a Tory’; scruffy young Corbynistas rubbing up against nervous-looking Blairites. At the Conservative conference, there was only one tribe — and its uniform was a bland blue suit. I expected to find a mix of styles as at the Labour

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Boris Johnson’s ‘dead bodies’ critics should take a look in the mirror

In what kind of moral universe would it be considered acceptable for the authors of a war, the people who voted for a war, to get on their high horses over those who make daft or jokey comments about that war? For the people who green-lighted the bombing of a foreign nation to haughtily chastise those who dare to say silly things about the bloody consequences of that bombing? In the warped moral universe of political correctness, that’s where. This is the case of Boris Johnson and his thoughtless ‘dead bodies’ comment about Sirte, the Libyan city where Gaddafi was captured and executed in 2011. At the Conservative conference, Boris

Matthew Lynn

Capping energy prices will leave us all worse off

We have a couple of hundred years of economic history to tell us that some things are just a really, really bad idea. Printing loads of money, for example. State control of industries. Punitive taxes. Subsidies. But of all the really terrible polices a government can put in place, the very worst of all is price controls. The trouble is, that also seems to be the most popular idea in British politics right now. Last week, Labour announced what amounts to price controls on credit cards, with a cap on the interest rate that can be charged. It is already in favour of controls on rents. Today, Theresa May stepped

The Spectator

The Conservative party’s existential crisis

Theresa May’s conference speech — interrupted by coughing fits and with part of the set falling apart behind her — served as an unfortunate metaphor for her premiership and party. She is carrying on and in doing so, she demonstrates her resilience and sense of duty but also her frailty. The horrified faces of cabinet members watching as her voice dried up on stage seemed to sum up their wider concerns about whether their party is in a fit state to see off Labour, a party they so recently dismissed as a joke. Now, they are left wondering if their party is falling apart. When that letter "F" fell off

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Theresa May’s British Nightmare

Theresa May is not the first political leader to try to pitch the idea of a ‘British Dream’ when most British people aren’t even sure if it exists in our culture. Michael Howard spoke about it in 2004, while Ed Miliband adopted the ‘Promise of Britain’ temporarily while he was trying to find his feet as Labour leader. So it’s not just the first time that a party leader has tried to talk about the British Dream, it’s also not the first time a leader whose authority is shaky has tried to talk about it. As Miliband and Howard showed, the British Dream doesn’t seem to stick as a political

James Kirkup James Kirkup

The torment of Theresa May

It’s always easy and usually wrong to describe single political speeches as pivotal or decisive.  Always remember: almost no-one in the real world watches anything except a few clips on the news the evening the speech is given.   The amount of coverage devoted to leaders’ speeches at party conferences is usually excessive, beyond what most of the readership or audience really want or care about. But this one, this one is different.  This really is the crucible, the decisive moment.  Theresa May’s premiership turns on how this is seen. Coughing, stumbling and victim to a brutally effective visual prank by an apparent ‘comedian’, we have seen a British Prime Minister

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Amber Rudd tells Boris to get on his feet for May

It’s safe to say that Theresa May’s conference speech has not gone to plan after the Prime Minister came down with a bad cough – and a heckler presented her with a P45. Happily she has her Cabinet on her side. Or one Cabinet minister at least. Amber Rudd was caught on camera jumping to her feet to give May a standing ovation to help her during an awkward moment in the speech. The Home Secretary then appeared to order Boris Johnson to do the same: Amber Rudd telling Boris Johnson to stand for May pic.twitter.com/VGYeb5CroR — Mollie Goodfellow (@hansmollman) October 4, 2017 1-0 to Rudd…

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May presented with a P45 during conference speech

Oh dear. Theresa May’s leader’s speech at conference has descended into farce. As the Prime Minister tried to unify her party, one attendee had other ideas. Simon Brodkin interrupted May’s speech mid-flow and presented her with a P45. Security had to escort him out  with the ‘comedian’ heckled by attendees. That’s the picture of conference sorted then…

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Can Ruth Davidson save the Tory brand?

When a bird as sagacious as Danny Finkelstein writes a column in The Times headlined ‘If the Tories want to win, they’ll send for Ruth Davidson’ you know something is in the water. Ruthmania is getting out of hand. The Fink accepts that his plan for how Ruth can be brought south from Scotland to save the Tory brand – and idea – in England is under-cooked but, when every other plan is impossible, whatever’s left is the best cake available.  Davidson, however, has evidently been the star of this year’s conference. That’s what will happen when you’re the only leading Conservative who could be happy with the general election result.