Uk politics

If you ask most people if they wanted to win £50 million, the answer would be: where do I sign up? That’s why Vote Leave has launched a competition this morning (here’ the link to enter) offering £50 million to anyone who can correctly predict the result of every game in this summer’s European football championship, if no-one scoops the whole prize,£50,000 will go the person who came closest. Why is the prize £50 million? Because that’s what Vote Leave say the UK sends to the European Union each day. Vote Leave hope that this competition will get one of its key messages, the cost of EU membership, out to

The Lincoln-Douglas debate it was not, but we have just had the first prime time TV debate of this EU referendum. With Alex Salmond and Alan Johnson for In and Liam Fox and the UKIP MEP Diane James for Out speaking to an audience of 18 to 29 year olds in Glasgow. Many in the audience wanted to complain about the tit for tat tactics of the two sides in this referendum campaign or to condemn the scaremongering by both sides; interestingly, they seemed very sceptical of the Treasury’s forecasts of economic pain if the UK left the EU. One audience member, though, seemed to object to the idea that

The only MP who doesn’t want Angela Eagle to be the next Jeremy Corbyn is Jeremy Corbyn. He was away today — thank Gawd! — leaving Eagle to take on George Osborne who replaced the PM. Eagle is quality. Her low stature, her kindly, nunnish face and her merry eyes give her a huge advantage in debate because she appears to be without defences. What weapon could this sweet-natured tinky-winky milkmaid possibly wield? A roll of grease paper? A warm scone? A rubber duck? When she strikes, as she does, the blow arrives invisibly. She has a slangy northern tongue that can easily make an Oxbridge toff look like a

In a speech to Policy Exchange today, Steve Hilton—David Cameron’s former senior adviser—will make the case that ‘any intellectual rigorous examination makes it impossible for a Tory moderniser to support staying in the EU’. He argues that Tory modernisation was about trusting people, and that the EU does not; that modernisation was about localism, and that the EU is inherently centralising; and that the EU helps the rich and not the rest. I think there’s much to be said for Hilton’s analysis. (Though, of course, it should be recognised that there are Tory modernisers on both sides of the argument.) But where Hilton is surely right is that the EU

Boris Johnson took in a car factory as part of his day of campaigning for Vote Leave in Yorkshire. The former Mayor did the usual politician’s thing of touring the workshops of Ginetta, pointing at various pieces of equipment and asking the workers what it was that they were doing, before hopping in one of the carmaker’s vehicles – branded with Vote Leave insignia – for a spin. He drove it out of the factory before handing the wheel over to a proper driver, who proceeded to whizz him around in tight donuts in the car park outside, sending up a large amount of smoke from the burning rubber. ‘We’re

Churches are generally ideal venues for public debates. But there’s a slight chance that a speech about the perils of EU membership will be interrupted by a homeless person doing a pee in the corner. At a debate on Christian responses to the EU at St James the Less church in Pimlico last night, Giles Fraser left off quoting his hero Tony Benn on the evil of unaccountable power in order to do his muscular Christian duty and help eject the man, who spluttered invective as he departed. Did I imagine it or did he shout ‘Fexit Brexit’? A bit earlier, his opponent Ben Ryan had set out an optimistic

The quiet Queen’s Speech seems largely to have underwhelmed Tory MPs – though they do predict a number of sticky moments in the Commons over the coming months. Most I have spoken to describe it as ‘pretty bare’, though they also understand why the Prime Minister isn’t trying anything particularly ambitious at this stage ‘Why waste initiatives when no-one is listening?’ asks one. Another anti-Cameron MP describes the content rather more bluntly as ‘uninspiring, managerialist and vacuous’. There will be flashpoints on the Bill of Rights and the Investigatory Powers Bill, something the whips are hard at work on. They hope that on the latter, any funny business by Labour

When are Jeremy Corbyn’s enemies going to get their act together? Today’s Times poll of the Labour membership shows that they would get a rather cold reception if they tried to remove the Labour leader, with 72 per cent telling YouGov that Corbyn is doing well, up from 66 per cent in November. Members are slightly less upbeat about the party’s prospects for actually governing, with 53 per cent believing it will be in government after the 2020 election, and 47 per cent saying Corbyn is likely to become Prime Minister. They also largely think that the 5 May elections went well for the party, with 67 per cent saying