Tom Goodenough is online editor of The Spectator.
It’s no surprise that the Tories held their seat overnight in the Witney by-election. Yet what seems remarkable (at least on the face of it) is the extent of the swing back towards the Lib Dems. The party saw its share of the vote jump from seven per cent two years ago to nearly a
Sir Philip Green might not be a ‘Sir’ for much longer. MPs have just backed a motion calling for him to be stripped of his title. For now, he remains a ‘Sir’, as the vote today doesn’t have any immediate effect, and MPs are powerless to actually take his title away. Only the Honours Forfeiture
Donald Trump grabbed the headlines in last night’s debate by refusing to say whether he’d accept the result in the presidential election if he lost. But who actually came out on top in the showdown between Clinton and Trump? On Coffee House, Freddy Gray says Trump failed to land the knockout punch he needed –
Polls have made miserable reading for Jeremy Corbyn ever since he won his first leadership election last year. And the bad news for the Labour leader is that they seem to be getting worse. The latest Ipsos Mori survey out today hands the Tories an 18 point lead, giving them a 47 per cent share
Labour’s current turmoil gifts Ukip an open goal. Or at least it should do. But instead of taking the opportunity to snatch disaffected Labour voters away, the party seems at pains to trip itself up. Steven Woolfe ended up in hospital after an ‘altercation’ with a fellow Ukip MEP, while Diane James stepped down as
Nicola Sturgeon is in a bit of a fix. After saying that the Scottish independence referendum was a once-in-a-generation event she is calling for a second one just two years after the first. But polls show Scots have no appetite for this vote. Unlike the SNP activist base, which is itching for another fight –
More than 17 million people voted for Brexit. Yet for some, that mandate isn’t quite enough. Today, the High Court is hearing a legal challenge on whether the Government should be allowed to pull the Article 50 trigger without the direct say-so of Parliament. The Commons might have spent hours debating Brexit over the last
Labour wants to ask the Government 170 questions about its plan for Brexit. Yet when it comes to answering questions themselves, it seems the party is much less willing to give an answer. Emily Thornberry, in her new guise as shadow foreign secretary, was quizzed on how Labour would handle migration from the EU after Brexit
Can someone please tell HM Treasury that the referendum is over? During that campaign, it made history by producing a claim that Brexit would make people £4,300 worse off per household. It was nonsense, debunked here at the time. It was not just a porkie, but a historic porkie: polls showed just 17 per cent
Amber Rudd’s proposal to make companies publish lists of how many foreign workers they employ inflicted significant damage to one of Theresa May’s oldest aims: to shake off the Tories’ ‘nasty party’ image. And it also drew expressions of disgust from across the board, with Steve Hilton – David Cameron’s former aide – saying it
Jeremy Corbyn’s reshuffle is a clear show of intent. Having won re-election as Labour leader, Corbyn is shoring up his authority and sending out a message to critics by ousting some of those who may have helped placate the Parliamentary Labour party. Unsurprisingly, his ongoing reshuffle isn’t going down well with everyone. Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop had this
It’s day three of Ukip’s latest leadership contest and the party has found itself splashed across the front pages of today’s papers for all the wrong reasons. Following the bust-up in the European Parliament which left Steven Woolfe in hospital, Nigel Farage has promised to launch a Ukip investigation into what happened. That hasn’t stopped the debacle from
Theresa May has brought the curtain down on this year’s Tory party conference with a speech in which she made a snatch for the centre ground. The Prime Minister pledged to stick up for the working class and went on the attack against the ‘sneering elite’, who May said looked down on others. But how
Theresa May has gone out of her way to repeatedly reassure people that Brexit means Brexit. But where the Prime Minister has been less eager to offer words of comfort is on the status of EU nationals living and working in Britain. That stony silence has been one of the big themes of the Conservative
Diane James is standing down as Ukip leader after only 18 days in the job, blaming ‘personal and professional reasons’ and a lack of ‘sufficient authority’ within the party for her decision to quit. James said she didn’t have the backing she needed among fellow Ukip MEPs and party officers, but insisted she would still ‘concentrate fully’ on her
Under David Cameron, it was sometimes tricky to tell who was in charge at the DWP. Iain Duncan Smith favoured a softer approach to welfare reform while over at the Treasury, George Osborne’s interventions were more nakedly political. It all came to a head in March when IDS resigned after Osborne announced £4bn of cuts
Theresa May hasn’t been Prime Minister for 100 days yet but already she’s achieved what few other Tory leaders before her have done: get her eurosceptic backbenchers on board. In doing this, May will have made the likes of David Cameron green with envy. So how did she succeed in this task? It seems her
Theresa May has done enough, for now, to put Brexit into its box. The Prime Minister hasn’t offered up much, but the piecemeal announcements she has made at the Tory party conference – including setting out a rough Article 50 timetable – have helped stave off uncertainty. Crucially, they’ve also kept the Brexit band happy:
The Conservative party conference is now in full swing, with a host of top cabinet ministers taking to the stage in Birmingham today. Defence secretary Michael Fallon, Justice secretary Liz Truss and Home secretary Amber Rudd will all be speaking this morning. While Jeremy Hunt and Education secretary Justine Greening are up this afternoon. Here’s
Philip Hammond is the unlikely headline act of the day at the Conservative party conference. The Chancellor used his speech to row back on his predecessor George Osborne’s plan to cut the deficit and also promised to up spending. But Hammond also had some words of warning about Brexit. He said that while the referendum
