Uk politics

Sunday

Theo Hobson

Brexiters shouldn’t knock Obama too hard. Most Brits still like him

I suppose it’s inevitable that Brexiters will angrily reject Obama’s intervention, especially his line about Britain being left ‘at the back of the queue’ when it comes to trade. But if they let their annoyance spill over into a general criticism of the president, they will harm their own case. For most Brits still rate him very highly. Tim Montgomerie accuses him of extreme arrogance, and widens the critique: the grand stirring rhetoric that won him the presidency not only failed to unite America; it fostered a more extreme and angry political culture. I half-agree: Obama’s exceptional expression of liberal idealism scared his opponents, and provoked them to mobilise. Something

Saturday

Alex Massie

Barack Obama is driving the British right crazy. No wonder they sound like Republicans

Something very strange and rather disturbing appears to be happening to the British right. Or at least to a large and noisy segment of it. It seems to have decided that the Republican party is something to emulate. Of course Ukip has always had a Tea Party tendency but this once-niche persuasion appears to be going mainstream. The reaction to Barack Obama’s remarks yesterday, in which he suggested that Brexit campaigners were not being wholly straight with the British people (I know! Who knew?) has been as remarkable as it has been depressing. How dare Obama insult Britain like this! How dare he threaten the British people! Why has Britain allowed

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Number 10 might be more confident than ever of EU referendum victory, but they’re still trying to load the debate dice

Downing Street is more confident than it has ever been that the EU referendum will be won. It is not just Barack Obama’s full-throated warning against Brexit that is responsible for this, but—as I say in my Sun column this morning—the sense that they have got the argument back onto their home turf of the economy. Indeed, it was striking how much Obama talked yesterday about the economic benefits to Britain of EU membership and the single market. The fact that this was his main message, rather than Western unity against Putin and Islamic State, shows which argument Number 10 thinks is working. The truth is that however spurious George

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Will Barack Obama’s ‘back of the queue’ threat backfire?

Barack Obama’s decision to visit Britain during an election campaign was controversial enough. His writing an article against Brexit in the Daily Telegraph was more controversial still. But to stand in Downing Street and threaten his host country with being dumped ‘at the back of the queue’ for trade talks should it choose to leave the EU is, I think, too much. It’s precisely the comment that could backfire, and spark indignation. And make people ask: who on earth is Obama to come to Britain and speak to us in this way? I’ve just recorded a podcast about this with James Forsyth. Here it is:- It wasn’t what Obama said, as such. Even the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Obama’s threat: vote for Brexit and the USA will put you at the ‘back of the queue’

David Cameron and Barack Obama arrived at the Foreign Office for their press conference today with two clear aims. The first was to impress upon everyone how well they get on, and in a rather cringeworthy manner. Cameron in particular was desperate to mention in almost every sentence the jolly good friendship that he had with his friend Barack. His friend who he is so close to that he doesn’t even need to mention his last name. But still needs to set out all the examples of how they are good friends, just in case anyone is in any doubt. That friend Barack spent a lot of time talking, not

Toby Young Toby Young

There’s nothing ‘racist’ about Boris Johnson’s Obama comments

Nick Cohen is predictably over-the-top in his response to Boris Johnson’s piece about President Obama’s intervention in the Brexit debate in today’s Sun. He begins by claiming he’s approaching this subject ‘with the caution of a lawyer and the deference of a palace flunkey’. He then goes on to reprimand Boris for suggesting Obama has an ‘ancestral dislike of the British empire’ on account of his ‘part-Kenyan’ heritage and links this to his support for the Remain campaign. We’ll come to that comment in a minute, but Cohen goes on to conflate these remarks with the worst excesses of the birther movement: I’m not someone who throws accusations of racism around

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A vote for Brexit is a vote against Toryism

It’s the rage I struggle to comprehend. There is, I am sure, an entirely reasonable case to be made for leaving the European Union, it’s just that, for the most part, we’ve not heard it. Instead, the dominant feature of the Out campaign has been its anger. Many of these people really do seem to think this is some kind of struggle for national liberation. If they didn’t they wouldn’t talk about Britain regaining its ‘independence’. Nor would they suggest that being a member of the EU is somehow incompatible with being a ‘free’ country. This, I am prepared to venture, will be news to the Poles, the Lithuanians, the

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Why Tory MPs are so worked up about forced academisation

Tory MPs remain confident that they will force the government into a U-turn over forced academisation. Though departmental sources are pushing back against reports in today’s Financial Times that ministers are putting the brakes on the reforms, they cannot answer the question of how the changes would actually get through the House of Commons. And though David Cameron put up a spirited defence of the policy at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, Tory MPs have been saying that they have yet to see the evidence base for forcing schools that may be perfectly successful and stable into changing the way they are run. The reasons for the rebellion are partly down

Wednesday

Charles Moore

Simon Danczuk’s ‘dark place’ excuse should be used more widely

If you are caught doing something bad nowadays, what you are supposed to say (the latest exponent is Simon Danczuk MP, the anti-child abuse zealot, after ‘sexting’ a 17-year-old girl) is: ‘I was in a very dark place at the time.’ At present, the phrase is used to half-excuse sexual misbehaviour, drug-taking and the like. I hope it will extend more widely, as in ‘Mr Osborne, why did you create the Office of Budget Responsibility to make economic forecasting independent of the Treasury, and then use the Treasury to concoct an economic forecast to frighten people into voting to stay in the EU?’ A shamed Chancellor: ‘I was in a very

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why is Scottish Labour putting so much effort into its Trident policy?

It’s perhaps not a surprise that Scottish Labour will oppose Trident renewal in the party’s manifesto for the Holyrood elections. The party did hold a symbolic vote on the matter at its conference last autumn, and delegates voted against renewal of the nuclear deterrent, despite Kezia Dugdale’s own preference for multilateral disarmament. And it’s not a surprise that this has enraged trade union GMB Scotland, which is pushing for a vote in favour of the Trident successor programme at today’s Scottish Trades Union Congress conference. SMB Scottish Secretary Gary Smith accused the Scottish Labour party of playing ‘fast and loose with thousands of livelihoods at Faslane, Coulport, Rosyth and across

Alex Massie Alex Massie

All shall have prizes: the SNP launch the most unnecessary manifesto in Scottish political history

The SNP launched their manifesto for the forthcoming election to the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh today. 1,400 party members gathered for morning worship at the Edinburgh International conference Centre. Members of the media were forced to wear security bracelets emblazoned with the slogan “I’m with Nicola” which, given the contempt with which many nationalists view the press, was a nice touch. Your correspondent was not present, partly because he had forgotten the manifesto launch was taking place today but chiefly because none of it mattered in the slightest. The SNP don’t need a manifesto to win this election. They are the masters now and there’s nothing they or their opponents can

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Leave campaigners brace themselves for ‘In’ onslaught

If the number of foreign politicians and international organisations that the government is enlisting in the campaign to stay in the EU is anything to go by, David Cameron and George Osborne are a bit nervous about the outcome of the referendum. This week in particular has seen the Chancellor using not just the might of the Treasury to scare voters about Brexit, or just the might of the President of the United States, but also eight former US Treasury secretaries. In their letter today, the former ministers write that Britain leaving the EU would threaten the Special Relationship. They argue: ‘It would reduce Britain’s very positive influence as an

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Labour MPs fry Corbyn over McDonald’s ban

Although the weekly meeting of the parliamentary Labour party is a private affair, Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman offers journalists lurking in the committee corridor outside a briefing as soon as it has concluded. Today he had to take questions from hacks on whether or not his boss goes to McDonald’s – prompted by the news that the Labour party is banning the fast food outlet from having a stall at its party conference. Both the staff and the burger ban came up at the meeting. It started with an observation from Baroness Armstrong that the Labour leader now has a phalanx of staff with him when he attends these sessions, as opposed

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The deceptions behind George Osborne’s Brexit report

Sometimes, George Osborne’s dishonesty is simply breathtaking. Let’s set aside the way he has positioned himself over the years (if he believed that leaving the European Union ‘would be the most extraordinary self-inflicted wound’ he might have told us – and his constituents – earlier, rather than proceeding with the farce of renegotiation). But it’s his maths, today, which shames his office – and his use of this maths to make the entirely false suggestion that the Treasury thinks Brexit would make you £4,300 worse off. For anyone who cares about honesty in politics, and the abuse (and reporting) of statistics, this is an interesting case study. His chosen date is 2030. By then,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How ministers had to change tack in the EU referendum campaign

George Osborne harnesses the might of the Treasury machine today in the EU referendum campaign, publishing a weighty tome that tweaks 200 pages to warn of the consequences of Britain leaving the EU. He also warns of a ‘profound consequences for our economy, for the living standards of every family, and for Britain’s role in the world’. Those profound consequences include every family being £4,300 a year worse off as a result of Brexit, the Chancellor argues. John Redwood has already dismissed the document – which hasn’t yet been published – as ‘absurd’. But what it does tell us is that the government has accepted that the security argument alone

Saturday

James Forsyth

Boris v Barack on Brexit

The US President flies into town next week to wish the Queen a happy 90th birthday and to encourage Britain to stay in the EU. Obama’s will be the most high profile, foreign intervention in this referendum yet. His message will be that it is in the interests of Britain, the US and the West for us to remain in the EU. But the Out campaign have their ‘Love Actually’ moment ready, as I say in my Sun column today. Boris Johnson will knock back Obama’s advice shortly after the president has spoken, pointing out—as he did in this BBC interview—that it is ‘nakedly hypocritical’ for the US to urge

Friday

Fraser Nelson

The truth about black teenagers, prison and university

A few months ago, David Cameron made an incendiary claim that splashed the Sunday Times and set the news agenda for days: black boys, he said, were more likely to go to prison than university. It was a shocking statement, that quite rightly sparked much discussion. But there was one flaw: his claim was nonsense. I had to submit a Freedom of Information request to find the real story: black men are twice as likely to go to a top (i.e., Russell Group) university than to prison. Include women, and it’s five times as likely. Include all universities, and there’s no comparison – black teenagers have a higher university entry rate than

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Referendum camps try to enthuse voters as official campaign starts

Rather like the 2015 General Election campaign, the EU referendum campaign feels as though it has been going on rather a long time. And yet today is in fact only the start of the official ten-week campaign. There may be some in Westminster who are filled with great excitement at the thought of another ten weeks of bickering about who has the most negative campaign. But the campaigns do have the difficult challenge of motivating those who back them to get out and vote on the day, and endless fighting and negativity about negativity won’t quite do the trick. So today Boris Johnson is giving a speech in Salford in

Thursday

Alex Massie

If you think this photograph is shameful you should probably be ashamed of yourself

Today’s starter for ten: how does this photograph make you feel? Does it make you angry? Does it do more than that? Perhaps your are the kind of person who feels this a truly shameful photograph. Perhaps, if this is the case, you need to get out more. Perhaps you also need a holiday from politics. Now, of course, a referendum – being a binary Yes/No question – is a divisive business. That does not require you to abandon all sense of perspective. If the sight of the Prime Minister in the company of Paddy Ashdown and Neil Kinnock leaves you frothing with disbelief you probably should, as the Irish put it, cop

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Tories expect academy policy U-turn

Tory MPs are increasingly convinced that the government may back down on some of its plans for forced academisation of all schools, I understand. The Commons is currently holding an Opposition Day debate on the plans, confirmed in last month’s Budget. They have upset a good number of Conservative MPs and councillors, not least because they appear to contradict the government’s commitment to localism. A large number of MPs are complaining in the debate about the dangers of imposing the academy model on all schools, and removing the requirement for academies to have parent governors. Nicky Morgan has been arguing that the government doesn’t want to scrap parent governors, but