Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Friday

14 Oct 2016

Steerpike

Watch: Emily Thornberry’s calamitous Question Time appearance

Emily Thornberry put in a memorable performance on Question Time last night. Unfortunately for the shadow foreign secretary, it was an appearance that will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. Thornberry was heckled after sucking up to Corbyn, and she managed to make the audience groan when she claimed what united Labour was ‘so much more than what divides us’ (Mr S suspects there are many Labour MPs who might disagree with that view). Thornberry also tried to claim Labour were more grown-up than the Tories, saying her party fought ‘in the press’ rather than ‘in closed rooms’. But she saved her biggest clanger for when she was talking

Ross Clark

Boris’s Royal Yacht obsession shows his weakness for vanity projects

I would like to think that the lack of obvious progress on negotiating a post-Brexit deal with the EU is, as Theresa May said this week, part of a strategy – that there is a lot going on behind the scenes but it is not in our interests for the Government to give a ‘running commentary’ on it. But listening to the foreign secretary speaking before the Commons foreign affairs committee I am beginning to wonder. Maybe, actually nothing is going on. Top of Boris’s ‘to do’ list, it seems, is not securing trade deals with the world beyond the EU. It is securing himself a royal yacht on which

Joanna Williams

What the increase in hate crime really tells us about post-Brexit Britain

It’s official: there is 41 per cent more hatred in Britain now than there was before the vote to quit the EU. Home Office statistics out this week reveal the torrent of religious and racist fury that was unleashed on June 23rd. Only a reversal of the democratic will of the people can possibly save us now. Really? We all need to calm down. The recently invented and chillingly Orwellian concept of ‘hate crime’ tells us absolutely nothing about the state of the post-referendum, pre-Brexit nation. Hate crime is defined as ‘any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or

Steerpike

Paul Mason turns on Jeremy Corbyn

Since stepping down as the economics editor of Channel 4 News, Paul Mason has become a key cheerleader for Jeremy Corbyn. Mason has used media appearances — along with his social media — to campaign for the Labour leader and call out MPs who fail to show Corbyn sufficient loyalty. So, Mason today finds himself in a curious position after the Sun published a video which shows him suggesting Corbyn does not have what it takes to be leader. In the video, the former broadcaster confides to a comrade that Corbyn needs to be replaced by someone like Clive Lewis as Jezza ‘doesn’t appeal to the mainstream working class vote’.

Tom Goodenough

Nicola Sturgeon is caught in an independence referendum fix

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 – and there have even been signs of a Momentum-style infiltration of the SNP, raising the prospect of a split in a party whose strength has (hitherto) been in its discipline. So what’s the First Minister to do? Her answer, in the SNP conference, is to assuage the activists and publish a new referendum bill. Her

Constance Watson

Thank goodness ‘Marmitegate’ is over

Back in the halcyon days of EU membership, a case for ‘Remain’ was presented upon these very pages. It explored the potentially disastrous consequences of Brexit on our meals. We toyed with the threat of turning our backs on claret, kissing confit de canard goodbye, and bidding farewell to champagne after 23 June. But in my shortsightedness, and in my greed, I failed to predict that Brexit would mark the funeral march of Marmite. Which it nearly did. Despite a day of utter hysteria, unalloyed panic and bulk buying, #Marmitegate is over. Thank God. To be fair to Brexit, and all who voted for it, no one could have predicted

Mark Nayler

The Spanish left is a defeated force

There aren’t many certainties in the maelstrom of Spanish politics at the moment, but there is one: that the left, for now at least, is a defeated force. A civil war within the PSOE, the traditional Socialist party, resulted in the resignation of its leader Pedro Sanchez a couple of weeks ago. Meanwhile, radical hard-left newcomer Unidos Podemos is suffering its own identity crisis, and has been unable to capitalise on the surge of anti-establishment feeling that brought it to prominence in last December’s general election. Perhaps the only other certainty is that the left’s splintering and infighting cannot fail to benefit the traditional Spanish right, represented by the acting

Thursday

13 Oct 2016

The Spectator

Letters | 13 October 2016

Cathedral going Sir: While I enjoyed much of Simon Jenkins’s analysis of why England’s cathedrals are thriving (‘Why cathedrals are soaring’, 8 October) his article misses the point. As a self-confessed non-worshipper, his understanding of these buildings and their significance lacks a crucial dimension. The raison d’être of our churches and cathedrals is faith and worship. By focusing exclusively on historical and aesthetic elements and ignoring their continuing important spiritual role, Jenkins risks behaving like a restaurant critic who never bothers to taste the food on offer. I would suggest that most people who go to cathedral services do so not to avoid ‘demands’ to pray, but because the intercessions,

Peter Jones

Diogenes vs Theresa May

‘If you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere,’ proclaimed Theresa May in a speech to the Conservative party conference. Oh dear! And her a vicar’s daughter too! ‘Cosmopolitan’ derives from the ancient Greek kosmos ‘world’ plus politês, ‘enfranchised member of a polis, citizen’. It was a word used by the 4th century BC philosopher Diogenes to describe himself when he was asked where he came from. Famous for living ‘like a dog’ (kunikos, whence ‘cynic’) and rejecting all conventional values, it seems that he was claiming to be an example of a man wholly in tune with nature and existing on a higher plane

Ross Clark

Tesco finally meets its match

Only in the bizarre, upside-down, post-Brexit referendum world could Tesco try to portray itself as a victim of bullying by one of its suppliers. Isn’t Tesco supposed to be the nasty corporation which ruthlessly uses its might to squash the people who produce the goods which line its shelves? What about all those farmers, dairies and small-time cookie-makers apparently given a tough time by hard-nosed buyers at Tesco, who always want everything cheaper and for payment terms to be stretched out ever longer? I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for Tesco – I’m certainly not sobbing over my Marmite sandwiches – but the reality is that yes, the supermarket

Alex Massie

Nicola Sturgeon’s cherished Brexit grievance rears its head

Politics is a question of priorities. Push always comes to shove and that’s when you discover what a party really thinks is important. We’ve seen this repeatedly this year. The Labour party, for instance, has decided power is for other people. And the Conservative party has decided that leaving the European Union is something worth risking the Union for. If we have to break-up the United Kingdom to save the United Kingdom, then so be it. A price worth paying, you know. But don’t pretend you weren’t warned about this. Because you were. Repeatedly. There’s a reason, you know, why Ruth Davidson and most of her Holyrood colleagues campaigned for

Nick Hilton

The Spectator podcast: Lights, camera, politics

A decade ago, Donald Trump was best known for his gleeful firing of aspirant entrepreneurs. Now, however, the reality TV star is tackling an even bigger stage. The USA is not alone in this merging of showbiz and politics: two of the three Apprentice presenters in the UK have been elevated to the House of Lords. So, are we living a golden age of televised debate? Or should we be more concerned about the trash politics infecting our most serious issues? These are the questions Douglas Murray tackles in this week’s cover piece and he is joined on the podcast by Xenia Wickett, Director of the US Project at Chatham House. As Douglas

Steerpike

Guardian in a pickle over Seumas Milne’s return

With Seumas Milne on the way out as Jeremy Corbyn’s director of communications, he is widely expected to return to the Grauniad. The columnist and associate editor has been ‘on leave’ from the paper since he moved to the Leader’s Office last October. However, Mr S hears there is a slight hiccup delaying his much anticipated return. While bosses at the top of the paper are keen for Milne to return as a columnist — complete with inside knowledge of the Corbyn regime that would make for essential reading — some have reservations over Milne coming back as an ‘associate editor’. They feel that if Milne were to take on a role overseeing the the editorial line of the

Douglas Murray

Lights, camera, politics: the triumph of showbiz over argument

At the end of Sunday night’s US presidential debate, the moderators snuck in a final question from a slightly shell shocked looking member of the audience. After an hour and a half of brutal, bitter exchanges, a man asked Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump if they could think of ‘one positive thing that you respect in one another’. In the resulting pause and exhalation it felt as though the country had seen itself in a mirror and realised it looked hideous. Unlike some of our MEPs, the candidates for US president only sparred verbally in St Louis. And nobody watching politics from the continent of Europe (Beppe Grillo anyone?) should

James Forsyth

Will Brexit butcher the banks?

The financial crisis defines our age. It helps explain everything from the presidential nomination of Donald Trump to Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party after 30 years on the political fringe. Certainly, the Brexit vote wouldn’t have happened without it. The crash of 2008 created a sense of unfairness that is still roiling our politics, as well as calling into question the competence of the West’s ruling class. The soi disant ‘experts’ were easily dismissed during the EU referendum campaign because nearly all of them had got the economic crisis so wrong. The Brexiteers asked: why should the public listen to the arguments of organisations and businesses that had

Nick Cohen

May’s head on the block

Understand what this government is trying to get away with, and think about how it is trying to get away with it, and you will see it is reconstituting the oldest and dirtiest alliance in Tory-history: the alliance between snobs and mobs. I accept it takes a while to see our new rulers for what they are. Theresa May represents the dormitory town of Maidenhead. Although Eton College is just a few miles down the Thames valley, she could not be further socially and intellectually from David Cameron’s public school chumocracy. As for inciting mobs, what more ridiculous charge could I level against her? May seems to have no need

The Spectator

Sea strategy

From ‘Decisive victory at sea’, The Spectator, 7 October 1916: The only excuse for changing our views of the magnificent rightness of the strategy of continually searching out the enemy, forcing him to action, and destroying him — the strategy on which Britain has been built up — would be that submarines and mines have so changed the conditions that we have to begin to write the rules of our strategy on a fresh page. No sane man, however, is either unaware of the different conditions introduced by submarines and mines or unwilling to make reasonable allowance for them. The question is not whether the method of the British Navy is

Mark Mason

Beautiful city, beautiful game…

The secret to keeping any relationship going is, of course, to see as little of each other as possible. We all know what familiarity breeds, so there’s no point pushing your luck. Imagine my delight, therefore, on discovering a holiday company that specialises in separating you from your other half while you’re away. Well, for a couple of hours anyway. Footballbreak.co.uk offers trips to European cities whose teams play the beautiful game particularly beautifully: Madrid, Munich, Paris and the like. As well as organising your flights and hotel, they also arrange tickets for the match. So while the female(s) of your party swan off to hammer the credit card, the

Rod Liddle

Tory Theresa is Blue Labour at heart

I never really agreed with the central-thesis of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — that ‘42’ is the answer to life, the universe and everything. I have no great animus against the number — it does its job, filling that yawning gap between 41 and 43. But I had never thought it actually-special until the beginning of this week. That’s when I read that the Conservative Party was 17 points ahead in the latest opinion polls, on 42 per cent. A remarkable figure. I suppose you can argue that it says more about the current state of the Labour party than it does about Theresa May’s stewardship of the country.

Martin Vander Weyer

Hard Brexit, soft sterling and a glimpse of the Night Manager across the water

This column comes from Puerto Pollensa in Majorca, my favourite off-season watering-hole. The hotel is full of elderly Daily Mail readers intent on making their gin-and-tonics last longer as they contemplate the news from home. Brexit is highly likely to mean ‘hard Brexit’ — departure without residual access to the single market or meaningful new trade deals with the EU or anyone else — and HM Treasury thinks that could cost £66 billion a year in tax revenues. The FTSE’s new all-time intra-day high was consoling for those with a portfolio tucked away, but an uptick in bond yields suggests equities are due for a sharp sell-off soon. And petrol