Politics

Although little was agreed upon in yesterday’s debate on Aleppo with regards to a no-fly zone, one thing the Foreign Secretary did suggest was that the public stage mass protests outside the Russian embassy. What’s more, Boris Johnson queried just why the Stop the War coalition had failed to do this as of yet. So, why has the anti-war group — formerly chaired by Jeremy Corbyn — refrained from getting out on the streets to protest Russia’s actions in Syria? Well, because they are not the West — obviously. Although the group — which one compared Assad to Churchill, and defended Russia’s invasion of Georgia — were very active in opposing Britain’s plans for air

Mr S has an apology to make. On Monday, Steerpike suggested that the news that Paul Weller — a man who wanted to vote for Russell Brand in the last general election — had endorsed Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t such a coup given that Labour need to convince Tory voters of his electability in order to have any chance of gaining power. However, it has now come to Mr S’s attention that the rocker is actually a former Tory. During Weller’s time in The Jam, the singer provoked controversy when he said the band supported the Conservatives: ‘I don’t see any point in going against your own country. All this “change the world” thing is

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 on the Today show just now. And in typical fashion, she did her best to dodge the question. Here’s what she said: ‘Our position is that we need to be open to the idea of reasonably managed migration. And we need to have it as part of a larger negotiation but we are open to

Today it was a case of the ghosts of governments past as George Osborne, Michael Heseltine and Vince Cable were hauled before the Commons Business Committee to discuss the UK’s industrial strategy. What followed was a bit of a love-in as Heseltine commended Osborne for his time in the Cabinet – praising Cameron’s government for working on industrial strategy ‘on a bigger scale than any previous government’. Less popular during the session were the Brexit bunch. Heseltine mocked May’s three Brexiteers – Liam Fox, Boris Johnson and David Davis. When asked by Richard Fuller how important it was for Britain to secure free trade agreements, he jokingly replied that he

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 believed this figure, around the same number that think Elvis is still alive. Even Sir Will Straw, head of the Remain campaign, admitted later that his case was actually damaged by this ridiculous campaign. The Treasury ought to be holding an inquiry into how such a wilfully misleading figure was eve produced by the civil service,

The Tories want to turn us against migrants by dividing people between ‘us’ and ‘them’; well, let me tell you about another bunch of guys who believed in ‘us’ and ‘them’ – the Nazis. Radio presenter James O’Brien made near enough this exact parallel when he quoted from Mein Kampf to show the eerie similarities between Amber Rudd’s speech and the former German chancellor’s words. Of course, Mr O’Brien didn’t need to quote Hitler. He could have cited the former Labour leader, Ed Miliband, who had the same idea; he might be a less famous figure, but he’s marginally more relevant to British politics in 2016. Or instead of reminding