uk politics Archives

Saturday

4 May 2019

What a May / Corbyn Brexit deal would look like

The local election results showed that both main parties are paying a price for the Brexit impasse. This, as I say in The Sun this morning, means that the cross-party talks have a better chance of succeeding than they did. Those in the talks are more optimistic than they have been about getting some kind of agreement, if not a full-blown deal. But they know that things could change very quickly. I understand that the compromise being drawn up goes as follows. The UK would initially enter into a ‘comprehensive customs arrangement’ with the European Union. This would be very similar to a customs union. But the two parties would

Friday

3 May 2019

Tom Lowe

The key battlegrounds to watch in the 2019 local elections

The Tories are braced for a drubbing in today’s local elections, but with the bar set so low will things be as bad as expected for the party? In the lead-up to the vote, Conservatives have been somewhat sheepish on the doorsteps – hardly a surprise, perhaps, given the fallout from Brexit. So will Tory voters stay away? Or will they switch sides to Labour? The mood across Britain is certainly febrile, and after three years of chaos in Westminster, it could be the smaller parties – the Greens, Ukip and the Lib Dems – who see the biggest gains. Here are the results to watch out for: Midnight Broxbourne: The

James Forsyth

How the Tories can turn their dire election results around

The local election results are dire for both the Tories and Labour. The Tories have lost over a thousand seats—and that is with the Brexit Party not standing in these elections. If Nigel Farage’s new party had been on the ballot paper, who knows how bad the Tory loses would have been. But at the same time, Labour—after nine years in opposition and coming from the low base of 2015—are going backwards. They have, so far, lost council seats. The two main parties are, in national projected vote share, tied on 28 per cent of the vote. This is a reminder of just how much of an ugly baby contest

Isabel Hardman

Ministers shouldn’t be able to escape their mistakes

There is little doubt that Rory Stewart is amply-qualified for his belated promotion to the cabinet. The new International Development Secretary also has a background that means he understands what his brief actually does, and its value. But his move from the Ministry of Justice has also prompted a round of complaining that Stewart will not be held accountable for a pledge that he made. When he became prisons minister, Stewart set himself a deadline of 12 months in which to reduce levels of drug use and violence in 10 struggling prisons. If he failed, he promised, he would resign. At the time, it seemed rather obvious that Stewart would

Steerpike

Baldrick quits Labour

Things are going from bad to worse for Jeremy Corbyn. Labour has had a dismal night in the polls, losing nearly 100 councillors when the party had hoped to make gains at the Tories’ expense. And now Tony Robinson – the actor best known for playing Baldrick in Blackadder – has said he is quitting Labour after nearly 50 years. Here is his verdict on the party: Can things get any more miserable for Jeremy Corbyn? As an exasperated Blackadder might say, I think the phrase rhymes with Clucking Bell…

Brendan O’Neill

Tommy Robinson and the double standards of political violence

So it’s acceptable now to assault electoral candidates? That’s the pretty scary take-home message from the Tommy Robinson ‘milkshaking’ incidents. Journalists and even politicians have been going wild for the bloke in Warrington who threw his milkshake in Robinson’s face yesterday as he was out campaigning as an independent for the upcoming Euro elections. It’s the second time this week Robinson was milkshaked. It will no doubt become a trend. ‘Milkshake a fascist.’ Videos of the incidents have gone viral and even Tory MPs have cheered the strawberry-flavoured assaulters. Johnny Mercer said the attacks made him ‘#lovebritain’. He later apologised, perhaps realising it isn’t a good idea for a member

Joe Burgis

The local elections convinced me that reversing Brexit is wrong

On Thursday morning I left the house earlier than usual. I rode round the corner, through the driving Mancunian rain to a church hall. The people inside looked glad to see me. One asked for my address and then handed me a piece of paper. He ushered me to the centre of the hall where there were four shabby booths. I made my way to the nearest and cast my vote. Given the magnitude and impact of recent democratic exercises, the local elections might seem relatively inconsequential. But the act of voting remains significant, no matter the scale of the ballot. The experience is reminiscent of going to confession –

Steerpike

‘Why don’t you resign?’: Theresa May heckled at Welsh Tory conference

The Tories are reeling after a dismal performance in the local elections overnight and things aren’t getting any better for Theresa May today. The Prime Minister has just taken to her feet at the Welsh Conservative conference but as she did so she was shouted down by a heckler calling for her to go: ‘Why don’t you resign? We don’t want you’ Oh dear. Still, this isn’t the worst thing that has happened to May when she has delivered a Tory conference speech…

Robert Peston

The reason for Labour’s dismal local election performance

At the end of today, the Tory party will have had a terrible night – perhaps losing as many as 1,000 councillors in England, compared with a worst-case projection (by Tory peer Rob Hayward) of 800 defeats. But that may not end up being the big news: it is not exactly a revelation that vast numbers of Tory supporters are incandescent that the Prime Minister has failed to deliver Brexit yet. A majority of Tory MPs wanted Theresa May to resign before yesterday’s elections; they still want her out. Nothing has changed, as she would say. Much more significant is that Labour too is losing seats. And even though the

Katy Balls

Corbyn under pressure to change Brexit stance after disappointing Labour result

It’s been a disappointing night for both main parties in the local elections. As predicted, the Conservatives have suffered serious losses and could be on course to lose around 800 council seats by the time all votes have been counted. Perhaps more surprising is Labour’s bad turn. The party has suffered a net loss of seats taking a hit in Leave areas like Sunderland, Ashfield and Bolsover. This is not the performance one would expect from a party on course for a majority in a general election. Labour councillors and politicians have been quick to start the blame game. After Labour lost ten seats in Sunderland, the party’s council leader Graeme

Tom Goodenough

Tories lose over 1300 seats in local elections

The Tories have lost over 1000 seats as both major parties were hit by a Brexit backlash in the local elections overnight. The Conservatives are down 1323 councillors, while Labour lost 77 representatives compared to 2015. Theresa May said voters had sent the ‘simple message’ that her party had to ‘get on’ with delivering Brexit. Labour’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the results were a clear sign of voter dissatisfaction over Brexit: Labour’s council leader in Barnsley, Stephen Houghton, echoed McDonnell’s message: ‘We have been out and about across the borough and the message we are getting loud and clear is all about Brexit, and the residents are telling us they

Thursday

2 May 2019

Ross Clark

Theresa May’s promotion of Rory Stewart is a smart move

In sacking Gavin Williamson for an offence he strenuously denies Theresa May has created for herself a potential embarrassment. What if a criminal inquiry were to find the former defence secretary not guilty of any breach of the Official Secrets Act? Yet as no-one seems to have noticed, the mini-reshuffle she carried out in the wake of the sacking has avoided another fast-looming embarrassment. In promoting Rory Stewart to the Cabinet as International Development Secretary she has averted the loss of a popular and up and coming minister. Last August, when prisons minister, Stewart made a rash promise. He said he would resign if he had not succeeded in reducing

Melanie McDonagh

Is the Guardian practising what it preaches on climate change?

The Guardian has an advertisement today from Sainsbury’s. Nothing wrong with that; respectable paper, respectable retailer. It’s the nature of the ad that’s interesting: a big bubble saying Save 10p per litre of fuel, surmounted by a picture of a petrol pump nozzle. You can see were the problem lies, can’t you? This is the paper that’s sympathetic to Extinction Rebellion, to Greta Thunberg, to the anti-fossil fuel activists who campaign against the British Museum accepting funding from BP, now giving space to a company flogging petroleum cheap, thereby stimulating consumption. Indeed, on its front page, the Guardian gives coverage to the report from the Committee on Climate Change which is described as “a

Katy Balls

Will May’s decision to sack Gavin Williamson backfire?

Will Theresa May’s decision to sack Gavin Williamson come back to haunt her? That’s the question being asked in Westminster this morning after the Prime Minister fired the Defence Secretary alleging that he was behind a leak on Huawei from a meeting of the National Security Council to the Telegraph. The hope in No. 10 was that this decisive action would bring the episode to a close. That now seems rather optimistic. News of Williamson’s sacking has made its way onto the front page of every paper – but most of the articles suggest it’s not a black and white issue. They all note that doubt has been cast over

Wednesday

1 May 2019

Katy Balls

Gavin Williamson sacked, but denies guilt on Huawei leak. What went on?

Gavin Williamson has been sacked from government following an investigation into the Huawei leak from a meeting of the National Security Council – replaced by Penny Mordaunt. Announcing the decision, a Downing Street spokesperson said Theresa May had asked Williamson to leave government having ‘lost confidence in his ability to serve in the role of Defence Secretary’: ‘The Prime Minister has this evening asked Gavin Williamson to leave the Government, having lost confidence in his ability to serve in the role of Defence Secretary and as a member of her Cabinet. The Prime Minister’s decision has been informed by his conduct surrounding an investigation into the circumstances of the unauthorised

Steerpike

Theresa May: ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ stance was ‘abstract’

Theresa May once said that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’, but did she really mean it? The Prime Minister was asked to clarify those comments in front of MPs this afternoon. May said that while she stuck by what she said at Lancaster House in January 2017, she was actually ‘talking in the abstract’: ‘I stand by the references I have made in the past, that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’, but I happen to think we have a good deal. When I first made that reference, I was talking in the abstract. We now are no longer talking in the abstract. We are

Lloyd Evans

Theresa May flounders horribly at PMQs

Best mates on Brexit, deadly foes on everything else. The highly suspicious search for a Lab/Con Brexit accord was suspended today as the party leaders exchanged blows at PMQs. These covert ‘talks’ are clearly a blackmail effort contrived in Downing Street. By threatening her MPs with a Labour-backed Customs Union, Theresa May hopes to secure their support for her thrice-rejected withdrawal agreement. It might just work. The EU wasn’t mentioned at PMQs but the Labour leader found alternative sources of distress. ‘Things are getting worse,’ he crowed at the Prime Minister as he ran through a hit-parade of sob-stories: inequality, malnutrition, rising crime, falling police numbers and care-home failures. There’s

Isabel Hardman

Pointless PMQs shows up the government’s powerlessness

Most MPs’ minds are elsewhere at the moment, with the local elections on Thursday and the European elections looming at the end of the month. Many of them were physically elsewhere at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, which took place in a sparsely-populated Chamber with little atmosphere. A low rumble of bored chattering accompanied Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn’s exchanges, which lacked the usual political fire and fury of sessions held right before a poll. Neither of them really bothered to engage in exchanges, instead reeling off poorly-planned lines about social mobility, life expectancy and social care. The Prime Minister produced one of the worst jokes of her premiership when she

David Butterfield

Cambridge’s slavery inquiry will raise more questions than it answers

Can the past hold the present to ransom? Can we be culpable for our predecessors’ actions? Knotty questions of this kind have long been debated in British universities. But now these abstractions are finding new and controversial expression. Yesterday, the University of Cambridge made headlines by launching an academic investigation into its historical relationship – direct or otherwise – with the slave trade. The panel will spend two years scrutinising whether Cambridge profited from ‘the Atlantic slave trade and other forms of coerced labour during the colonial era’. For academics, the enquiry will certainly be interesting. But serious problems inevitably arise when historical discoveries are deemed to have moral consequence for the present.

Steerpike

Liz Truss shows solidarity with Diane Abbott

Liz Truss and Diane Abbott are an unlikely pair. One is a champion of free markets while the other is a true Corbynista. However, of late the Chief Treasury to the Secretary has managed to find common cause with the shadow home secretary. Speaking at a Freer think tank event last night with fellow freedom lovers James Cleverly and Steve Baker in the audience, Truss spoke of the importance of fighting over-interference of the state into people’s daily lives – and that includes Abbott’s recent decision to disobey London transport rules and drink an M&S mojito on the overground: ‘When we try to micromanage people’s lives, we take away the