Uk politics

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Labour struggles with empty frontbench after series of resignations

‘Well this does seem like an upside down house,’ remarked Nick Gibb at Education Questions today. ‘We have the frontbench on the backbenches and the backbenches on the frontbench.’ The session was in fact rather weirder than that. It wasn’t just that Labour’s former frontbenchers such as Tristram Hunt and Lucy Powell were asking questions from a few rows back, or that Angela Rayner, the new Shadow Education Secretary, was only a few days into her new job following the appointment and swift resignation of Pat Glass. It was also that Rayner had to ask nearly all of the Opposition’s questions herself, because most of the frontbenchers sitting next to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nigel Farage’s departure means Ukip can seize its post-referendum opportunity

Nigel Farage’s departure comes at the best possible time for Ukip. The party could be hoovering up votes from Labour’s heartlands which voted for Out in surprisingly large numbers in the referendum. But since that result, figures in Ukip had been feeling dismayed that their party seemed angry and disorganised, unable to reach out to those Labour voters. Farage spent most of the referendum campaign behaving badly, almost trying to sabotage his own side, before conceding that Remain had won just hours before it became clear that Leave had won. Now there is an opportunity for the party to re-brand as ‘Newkip’, taking a more optimistic stance. Douglas Carswell, who

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Philip Hammond repeats Theresa May’s threat to EU immigrants

Appallingly, Philip Hammond has just echoed Theresa May’s threat to use the two Britain’s million European Union immigrant workers as bargaining chips in negotiation with Brussels. He said it would be “absurd” to say – as Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, Dan Hannan and Vote Leave members have said – that no EU national will be deported no matter what. Here’s the exchange on the Today programme. Philip Hammond: “Neither EU nationals in Britain nor British nationals in EU countries will find any change to their circumstances over the next few years.” Nick Robinson: “Crucial words, though, isn’t it: “over the next few years. You could simply say, couldn’t you: they’ll all here, they’re

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Is Theresa May really threatening to deport Europeans?

Does Theresa May really understand Brexit? Speaking to Robert Peston today, the Home Secretary seemed to be entertaining the idea of deporting European nationals staying in Britain. Or, almost as bad, using them as collateral in some negotiation with Brussels: a deeply worrying and, to me, revolting suggestion. But coming from the Home Secretary, we have no choice but to take it seriously. Robert Peston: Now, there’s a lot of anxiety among migrants who’ve come here from the rest of the EU about whether they’ll be allowed to stay. There’s also quite a lot of anxiety among Brits living in the rest of Europe. What would you say to them? May: What

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Brexit test

Stephen Crabb made a passionate plea this morning for Tories to stop thinking in terms of Remain and Leave when it comes to picking a leader. He warned that if people carry on doing this, it will lead to the party splitting. But all things being equal, I do think it would be best for the next Prime Minister to be a Leaver. After all, David Cameron resigned because he had campaigned for Remain and the country had voted to leave and he thought that made it impossible for him to chart the country on the new course it must now follow. There are two main reasons for thinking a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Michael Gove’s leadership pitch: the brutal man of principle

Every candidate comes into a leadership contest needing to answer questions about their flaws and experience. But the questions that Michael Gove is having to answer about his own bid are of altogether a different order. The Justice Secretary spent the first chunk of his interview with Andrew Marr this morning having to explain not just why he decided to chuck Boris Johnson, but also why he did it in such a brutal way. “You are our Frank Underwood” Andrew to @Gove2016 @HouseofCards #marr https://t.co/9Qv9NUIIi5— The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) July 3, 2016 Marr repeatedly pressed him, not so much for his reasons for turning on the Mayor, but for an

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Andrea Leadsom’s scratchy job interview on the Marr show

Is Andrea Leadsom a serious contender to become Prime Minister? A few days ago, she was almost about to sign up to Team Boris, and even held talks with Team Crabb & Javid. Which made sense: she has been in parliament for just six years, and has been a junior minister for an even shorter time. But to those Tories unable to forgive Michael Gove for knifing Boris, she is the only viable Brexit candidate. Until Leadson turned up on the Brexit debates, she was virtually unknown. Now, we’re being asked to assess her as a Prime Minister. Her appearance on the Marr show today was a chance to do that: it as a job interview,

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

In praise of Stephen Crabb and Sajid Javid

Stephen Crabb has a 3pc chance of winning the Conservative leadership, according to to the bookmakers. Yes, the same ones who said there was a 10pc chance of David Cameron winning a majority and a 7pc chance of Brexit. The seemingly impossible is happening all the time in politics. The obstacles to his joint bid with Sajid Javid are obvious: lack of government experience, lack of MPs’ support (he has 21 so far) and having supported Remain. This is the type of leadership bid aimed at putting down a marker. But for those who believe that this race ought to be as much about ideas as personalities, it’s worth considering

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Michael Gove is going to lose, and lose badly

There is a slap Michael Gove game on the internet, and it’s very popular. All you have to do is slap him in the face. I must admit I was tempted when I read his synthetically pious toss about how he had felt forced to stand as leader, deep sense of regret, false humility leaking out of every pore. I always liked Michael, but he has not behaved terribly well, has he? And now he’s going to lose, heavily. Meanwhile, students are saying they are “too depressed” to take their exams because of the Brexit vote. And – for those of you who are collecting whining Remain idiocies – howzabout

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Why Labour has gone eerily quiet – and what happens next

Labour has gone oddly quiet today, and that’s not just because the party is enjoying the mayhem in the Conservative leadership contest. After a very well-organised week of resignations, the rebels have now decided to sit back and wait for Jeremy Corbyn to come to terms with what the party he leads now looks like. The leader today appointed Angela Rayner as Shadow Education Secretary, which was a matter of necessity as it is Education Questions in the Commons on Monday, and the party didn’t have anyone to face Nicky Morgan. But the Labour frontbench generally looks like a Swiss cheese after the mice have been at it. There are

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne admits he’ll miss his own surplus target

Finally George Osborne has seen an upside to Britain voting to leave the European Union. The Chancellor used this morning to abandon another one of his own economic targets, blaming it on Brexit. He has long been warned by experts such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies that he is likely to fail to deliver a £10bn surplus on the public finances by 2020, and today he admitted as much. The Chancellor said: ‘Now, as the governor of the Bank of England said yesterday, the referendum result is as expected likely to lead to a significant negative shock for the British economy. How we respond will determine the impact on

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The big question that Michael Gove still has to answer

Michael Gove had two clear aims in his leadership campaign launch speech. The first was to explain what the hell he’d just done, which he did using emotive language and a trembling voice. Sounding almost like a Shakespearean hero struggling with destiny, the Justice Secretary insisted that he had ‘never thought I’d be in this position’ and that ‘I did not want it, indeed I did almost everything not to be a candidate for the leadership of this party’. He then told the audience that he lacks charisma, which is indeed something that those who are Gove sceptics are worried about when it comes to persuading the country to vote

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory party braced for deep divisions during leadership contest

The Tory party is waking up this morning reeling from one of its most dramatic days since, well, last week, when the Prime Minister announced he was resigning. MPs from across the party are amazed at what they largely see as not just an act of treachery from Michael Gove but also a breach of how politicians generally behave towards their friends and their party, which is generally with loyalty. Many of them wonder how on earth the Justice Secretary can really reunite the Conservative party at the end of a bitter referendum battle when he has just injected a great deal of bitterness into the leadership contest. Meanwhile, those

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

Perhaps, after all, sexual morality does still matter in politics

This is not something that we are keen to discuss, for we are pretty sure that we have become far less puritanical, and that this is a good thing. But try this experiment. Imagine a slightly different version of Boris: funny, human, brilliant, a bit chaotic-seeming, and so on – but without any hint of sexual scandal. There would still have been question marks over such a Boris becoming PM – especially after his opportunistic Brexit decision. But they would have faded as the prospect of a charismatic, nation-enthusing leader emerged. Some would have called this Boris fundamentally untrustworthy, citing episodes of bullying and aggressive ambition, but such qualms would have

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Team Gove explains why he dropped Boris

Michael Gove’s newly-formed campaign team have been ringing around shocked Tory MPs in the past couple of hours to explain why the Justice Secretary pulled out of running Boris Johnson’s Tory leadership campaign to launch his own bid, I understand. Dominic Raab, who had also been signed up to the Boris campaign, has been telling colleagues that Boris had proved to be flaky, and that he had not been offering key jobs to figures such as Andrea Leadsom when he had been supposed to – hence Leadsom’s own declaration this morning. They were also disappointed with the quality of people around Boris – a comment that has infuriated other Tory

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

This must be what happens when you put journalists in charge

Are we learning, rather painfully, what happens when you let journalists take over? Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are political hacks, by instinct and experience, so perhaps it is not surprising that Brexit is starting to look and feel like a post-modern sequel to the novel Scoop.  Deadlines, panic, laziness, brilliance, incompetence, disaster, highs, lows, sheer bloody madness — this is the new politics. Triumph snatched from the jaws of disaster, and then days later the reverse. It makes for great copy, and is (go on, you can admit it) very funny. But is it any way to run a country? What sort of professional other than a journalist would pull off a great political coup, put himself on the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The official candidates to be Tory leader and their pitches to the party

The 1922 Committee has announced the final line-up in the Tory leadership race, after an extremely dramatic morning. The official contenders are as follows: Stephen Crabb Liam Fox Michael Gove Andrea Leadsom Theresa May Conservative contest rules mean that MPs only need two nominees at this stage, and there will be tectonic shifts taking place in the party as supporters of Boris Johnson move, either to Michael Gove or other candidates. It is fair to say after talking to a number of Boris supporters that some of them are currently so white hot with fury at what Gove has done in turning on his colleague at the last minute that

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Chaos and fury in Team Boris as support bleeds to Gove

Boris Johnson is about to go ahead with his leadership campaign launch without the man who has pulled so much of it together. MPs entering the event are baffled by this morning’s shock announcement by Michael Gove that he will run for leader himself: he was the man who invited them. Others, such as Dominic Raab, have already announced they have switched to the Gove campaign. Funnily enough, behind the scenes there is utter fury in the Boris camp. One prominent supporter points out that the Justice Secretary repeatedly insisted that he didn’t want the top job. ‘How can anyone believe a word Gove says on anything ever again?’ they

Wednesday

Charles Moore

It’s time for George Osborne to go – and go now

This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Notes in the new issue of The Spectator, out tomorrow. George Osborne says he can stay in the government in some capacity (‘a decision for the next prime minister’). Monday’s Financial Times reported ‘Friends say a move to the Foreign Office would be the only other job that would appeal.’ No doubt they are right, but have Mr Osborne and his friends not noticed that what ‘appeals’ to him has nothing whatever to do with what the country needs? Unlike David Cameron, who said immediately and firmly that he will go, the Chancellor does not seem to understand that he has got it

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Corbyn hit by further resignations

In the past week, David Cameron has had to resign after losing the referendum on Britain’s European Union membership, and yet is still heading into Prime Minister’s Questions in a stronger position than his opposite number, who has not resigned. Jeremy Corbyn is now a Labour leader whose MPs have overwhelmingly stated that they have no confidence in him. His Shadow Education Secretary Pat Glass, who was only appointed at the start of this week, has just resigned saying that the ‘situation is untenable’. Emma Lewell-Buck has also stood down as a shadow minister, saying she is ‘heartbroken at state of party and recent events’. That Labour is so unstable