Politics

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Thursday

15 Jun 2017

The Spectator’s Notes | 15 June 2017

Before knowing the result of the election, I composed my Chairman’s message in the newsletter of the Rectory Society. In it, I noted that Theresa May was the third prime minister in a row to have been brought up in a parsonage house. The first was Gordon Brown, son of the Scottish manse. The second was David Cameron, inhabitant of an old rectory owned by his stockbroker father. And now there was Mrs May, only child of a High Anglican vicar in Oxfordshire. ‘Whatever our political views,’ I went on, ‘I feel we [in the Society] should be proud of the fact that the buildings we love continue to produce

Nick Timothy

Diary – 15 June 2017

Nobody inside CCHQ was prepared for election night’s 10 p.m. exit poll. Lynton Crosby’s last text to me predicted that we were going to ‘do well’, which according to our expectations would mean a Conservative majority of more than 60. A late projection, based on data from the ground and Jim Messina’s modelling, suggested we would win 371 seats, giving us a majority of 92. In the end, the Conservatives got their highest share of the vote since 1983, and more votes than Tony Blair managed in any of his elections, yet still we ended up with a hung parliament. Skilful leadership may deliver stability, but the absence of an

The Spectator

The thin blue line

The lessons to be learned from the Conservatives’ poor showing in the election could fill more pages than the national curriculum. Don’t unleash on the public a manifesto which has not even been tested among senior ministers. Don’t think you can get through a seven-week election campaign by endlessly repeating the same mantra, especially when you are being ridiculed for it. Don’t underestimate how quickly public opinion can change. Sell yourself, your party and its ideas, rather than just attacking your opponent. Yet there is a serious danger that Theresa May and the rest of the Tory party could pick up the wrong message. There is a growing narrative that

Melanie McDonagh

Tim Farron’s tormentors ought to be ashamed of themselves

The resignation of Tim Farron has left a bad taste in the mouth, don’t you think? There were a number of reasons why he was an unconvincing leader: the puppyish demeanour, the want of eloquence, style or confidence – even if you agree with him about Brexit, but they weren’t the reasons why he resigned. He was quite clear: the reason was “I have found myself torn between living as a faithful Christian and serving as a political leader,” he said in a televised statement. To be a political leader – especially of a progressive, liberal party in 2017 – and to live as a committed Christian, to hold faithfully

Steerpike

Tory MP takes a dig at Theresa May

Oh dear. Although Conservative MPs are supposed to be rallying around their beleaguered leader as Theresa May attempts to form a minority government, not everyone has received the memo. Step forward Tim Loughton. The Conservative MP – who ran Andrea Leadsom’s short-lived leadership campaign – has taken to social media to vent his frustration that the Queen’s Speech has been delayed until Wednesday. Given that the new date means Her Majesty will have to miss Ascot, Loughton laments that it was bad enough the 2017 Conservative election campaign isolated the majority of pensions without adding the Queen to the list: State Opening in Royal Ascot week-having pi**ed off most pensioners with our

Katy Balls

Brexit negotiations will not be delayed, says David Davis

Although Philip Hammond has cancelled his Mansion House speech tonight as a result of the Grenfell Tower fire, government business will continue as normal. With the Queen’s Speech scheduled for Wednesday, it’s been confirmed that formal EU negotiations will commence on Monday: ‘David Davis, Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, and Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s Chief Negotiator, agreed today to launch Article 50 negotiations on Monday, 19 June.’ Now negotiations were always expected to begin next week. But following the surprise election result of a hung Parliament, there had been concern it could be delayed. After all, it is slightly strange to begin negotiations before a Queen’s Speech.

William Cook

Theresa May has much to learn from Enda Kenny

Enda Kenny stepped down as Ireland’s Taoiseach yesterday, and his farewell speech, at the National Gallery of Ireland, was an object lesson for British Conservative politicians. Amid the splendour of this palatial building, he delivered a speech which was warm and affable, enlivened with personal revelations and underpinned by heartfelt sincerity. If only our Prime Minister had a smidgeon of his public speaking skills. Kenny was here to re-open Dublin’s newly renovated National Gallery, which has been under wraps these last six years – the entire duration of his time as Taoiseach. Naturally, it was an easy gig. Yet Kenny didn’t get polite applause. He brought the house down, and he

Will Heaven

Why didn’t Theresa May meet Grenfell Tower survivors?

We can’t yet be sure what caused the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower. Early speculation, some of it expert, some of it not but based on eyewitness testimony, points to the cladding on the outside of the building, which was added during a recent £8.6m makeover. This, it seems, may have turned an ugly but safe concrete tower into a death trap. Nor do we have any idea how many people were killed in the blaze. Commander Stuart Cundy of the Metropolitan Police said at 11 a.m. today: ‘Sadly I can confirm the number of people that have died is now 17. We do believe that that number will increase.’ There

Fraser Nelson

Unemployment is at its lowest since 1975. Can someone tell the Tories?

British government may not be strong and stable but the economy is still the most formidable job creating machine in Europe. And while it’s certainly true that much of the rise in employment is down to immigration, British unemployment is also down – figures today show the lowest level since 1975. My old friend Simon Nixon writes in the Times today about Britain becoming the new basket case of Europe, and has been making similar noises since the Brexit vote. He may well he right, but so far this basket is carrying more jobs than at any time in history. Don’t expect the Tories to make this point: they’ve been out

Theo Hobson

Embracing liberal Christianity can lead the Lib Dems out of irrelevance

In a sense it was the Liberal Democrats who did worst in this odd election. For the point of this party is to attract progressives who find Labour too dogmatic. And in the past two years Labour has been taken over by old-fashioned socialist dogma. It was the perfect opportunity to create a huge base of homeless New Labour voters. And then came Brexit, doubling this golden opportunity, for the Liberal Democrats were the main party of Brexit-scepticism. Why was the chance missed? Maybe English voters can only really believe in the two main parties, when it comes to governing. In fact, most of us find one of these parties

Katy Balls

May calls the DUP’s bluff and sets a date for Queen’s Speech

The state opening of Parliament will take place on Wednesday. It had been due to take place on Monday, but was delayed by Theresa May’s efforts to strike a deal with the DUP to back her minority government. Given that no deal has been made, May appears to be calling Arlene Foster’s bluff: vote with us or face a Corbyn-led government. Angered MPs will be pleased that May is finally getting back on the frontfoot in these negotiations after misplaying her hand initially. There’s a feeling the balance of power has been with the DUP from the beginning. By announcing that the Conservatives would govern in conjunction with the DUP,

Alex Massie

How long can Nicola Sturgeon pretend that nothing has changed?

Is Nicola Sturgeon, not to put too fine a point on things, losing it? Just six weeks ago this question would have seemed preposterous. But that was before the SNP’s disastrous election result. Yes, disastrous. Sure, everyone expected the SNP to lose votes and seats but no-one really thought they could lose 21; no-one really thought their share of the vote would fall by 13 points or that they would misplace almost half a million voters. No-one thought their result would be so very much worse than expected. No-one includes the opposition points and, pertinently, the SNP itself. And in response to this, what has Nicola Sturgeon said? Only this:

Brendan O’Neill

The Grenfell Tower inferno shames London

It takes a lot to make me feel ashamed of London, my beloved home city. But yesterday’s tower-block inferno did it. The raging fire at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, the disturbing speed with which this home to hundreds was reduced to a smouldering shell of a building, heaps shame on this city. It is positively Dickensian, a hellish scene out of place in 2017, like a violent echo from an older era when safety, especially the safety of the poor, was of little moment. London needs to look in the mirror. This cannot just be chalked up to ‘tragedy’. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was

Ed West

The future belongs to the Left

When I was in my early 20s and quite conservative I assumed I was just an anomaly, someone who develops these traits earlier than normal, and conservatism was like baldness or impotence or the other bad things that get you in middle age; most of my friends and contemporaries would catch up at some point, because these things just develop at different speeds. Now in my late 30s I realise it’s worse than that and almost none of my friends and acquaintances are going to become more conservative; if anything, they’ve become more left-wing than they were 20 years ago, as the barometer of what is progressive and therefore acceptable

Isabel Hardman

It’s not Tim Farron who is illiberal: it’s society

Was Tim Farron’s resignation as Liberal Democrat leader inevitable? He seems to suggest so, saying in his striking resignation statement that it felt ‘impossible’ to be a political leader and live as a committed Christian. He spent much of the election campaign stuck in a strange political special of the Moral Maze, endlessly cross-examined about his beliefs on issues such as gay sex and abortion. He argued that religious beliefs are not relevant in a political context, telling Sky during the campaign that ‘the measure of a Liberal is someone who protects other people’s rights, no matter what your personal position is’. Many in his party admired him for this.

Isabel Hardman

Labour’s happy surprise

‘Science,’ wrote Jules Verne, ‘is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.’ Perhaps this is why politics, which claims to be a science, is so littered with tremendous errors at the moment. It wasn’t just the pollsters and the pundits in Westminster who called this election wrong. People embedded in constituencies couldn’t even correctly predict their own results. These days, politics seems a lot more like alchemy than a real science. On the night before polling day, a group of Labour MPs compared notes about how things were looking in their patches. It was

James Forsyth

The Maybot 3000

Had Theresa May won the election with the landslide she expected, she’d have fired several of the cabinet with her trademark brutality. They knew who they were. And last Monday, three of them took the opportunity to tell the Prime Minister where she had gone wrong. In the first meeting of the political cabinet since she blew her party’s majority, Philip Hammond asked why there had been no economic message in the campaign. Andrea Leadsom said that while May had repeatedly claimed the election was all about Brexit, she had never said what Brexit was actually for. The most pointed contribution, though, came from Sajid Javid, who lambasted the high-handed

Freddy Gray

Corbyn copy

Since the election, Jeremy Corbyn has been parading himself as prime-minister-in-waiting. ‘Cancellation of President Trump’s State Visit is welcome,’ he tweeted this week, ‘especially after his attack on London’s Mayor and withdrawal from #ParisClimateDeal.’ The message was clear: unlike ‘Theresa the appeaser’, Jeremy is willing and able to tell that climate change-denying Islamophobe across the water to get stuffed. Jez we can, Jez we can. There may be another reason why Corbyn is glad to think that Trump might not come to these shores, and that’s because the more the British see of the dreaded Donald, the more they might recognise how much he and the Labour leader have in

James Delingpole

I don’t blame millennials for voting for Corbyn

On the morning after the election I was drinking coffee with one of my heroes, Sir Roger Scruton. We talked about the moment during the 1968 Paris évenéments when Scruton, who had been fairly apolitical up to that point, suddenly discovered he was a conservative. He had watched the educated children of privilege wantonly destroying the property of their social inferiors in the name of something or other, and realised: ‘Whatever they are for, I am against.’ That was the reason he has spent so much of his life since trying to develop a philosophy of conservatism as thorough, persuasive and enticing as the variations on Marxism so compelling to

Jonathan Fenby

The Macron miracle

Paris While Theresa May flounders in a mess of her own making, Emmanuel Macron is striding out on to the sunlit uplands of French politics. Six decades after Charles de Gaulle set up the Fifth Republic, his seventh successor is charging ahead with his attempt to restore a quasi-monarchical authority to the occupant of the Elysée Palace. After three hollow presidencies, the 39-year-old hope of the European reformist centre is bent on turning the clock back in terms of presidential power with a broad-based electoral appeal, positioning himself above the sclerotic political world that has alienated most voters and blocked structural change in France since the 1980s. This has involved

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