Politics

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

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

David Attenborough ‘turned away’ from Lord Hall’s BBC speech

With the BBC facing the prospect of cuts as a result of the government’s charter renewal, there has never been a more important time for the corporation to keep its biggest assets on side. So Mr S was curious to hear of an incident involving Sir David Attenborough which occurred at a BBC event this morning. As Lord Hall prepared to reveal details about cuts to the BBC along with the Beeb’s plans to work with UK’s arts and science institutions, journalists and supporters gathered at the Science Museum to hear the speech. Alas when Sir David Attenborough arrived he had no such luck. The former director of programming for BBC Television was prevented by security from entering the hall through a side door,

Sebastian Payne

Mitchell and Cooper present two different paths on dealing with Syria

It’s back to school day in Westminster and one of the first items on the agenda will be David Cameron’s announcement on accepting more Syrian refugees. Exactly how many extra asylum seekers Britain will take in is, according to the Sunday Times, likely to be between 10,000 and 20,000. Someone who is particularly pleased with this is Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary and Labour leadership contender. Cooper first called for 10,000 refugees in a speech on the crisis last week and on the Today programme, she welcomed the PM’s response but urged him to do as much as possible: ‘That would be really helpful if he does…you know I’ve called for it to be 10,000 in the past

Sunday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The plight of Syria’s refugees deserves more than your good intentions and virtue signalling

I suppose it should not be a surprise that the virtue signalling over the appalling plight of Syrian refugees displaced by that country’s monstrous civil war has now reached fresh heights of absurdity. Nor that some of the press coverage of this dreadful crisis is edging towards a post-Diana level of mawkishness. One front page this morning shouts at David Cameron, demanding the Prime Minister SHOW YOUR HUMANITY. I mean, really. Then, on ITV’s Murnaghan programme this morning, Nicola Sturgeon and Yvette Cooper were asked if they would house Syrian refugees in their own homes. Obviously they had to say yes and we may now expect the same question to be asked of every politician in

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Tories’ adoption of the Living Wage is entirely bogus

Was there ever a more unilluminating political idea — for voters rather than practitioners — than triangulation? For those readers so pure and high-minded that they have not followed politics for 20 years, I should explain that triangulation came from Bill Clinton, was imported by Tony Blair, and is now practised by David Cameron. Clinton’s adviser, Dick Morris, put it thus: ‘The President needed to take a position that not only blended the best of each party’s views but also transcended them to constitute a third force in the debate.’ The Tories’ adoption of the Living Wage is the latest example. This concept, almost as mystically bogus as the medieval

Saturday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Tories could be about to drop a manifesto commitment. Good.

Will the Tories scrap the Lib Dems’ silliest vanity project, free school meals for infants? The Daily Mail reports today that they might, amid spiralling costs and with the spending review approaching. Nick Clegg announced this daft scheme at his party’s conference in 2013. It sounded ever so wholesome when the Deputy Prime Minister promised a ‘healthy lunch’ for every child in reception and years 1 and 2. But the scheme – which also cost a lot more than intended to implement – was daft because it didn’t improve life for poor children. Sure, it was a nice ‘retail offer’ to parents who can afford to pay for lunch for their

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why won’t the SNP discipline Paul Monaghan over offensive tweets?

Paul Monaghan, the SNP MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, seems quite keen to become Parliament’s new David Ward by making offensive comments on Twitter. The Jewish Chronicle earlier this week extracted an apology from the MP for tweeting about the ‘proud Jewish race’ who were ‘persecuting the people of Gaza’ – but he’s also tweeted about the Union Flag being a ‘butcher’s apron’ and the ‘queen’s diarrhoea’. Given Emily Thornberry (unfairly, in my view) lost her Labour frontbench job for tweeting a picture of a house with the innocuous comment ‘Image from #Rochester’, Monaghan has had a relatively relaxing experience since these tweets have come to light, simply

Friday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Stay briefed with The Spectator’s free politics emails

Parliament returns from recess on Monday – and so do the Spectator’s free politics emails. The Lunchtime Espresso and the Evening Blend round up all the day’s political developments so that busy politicos don’t miss a thing. They’re pored over by newspaper editors and Cabinet ministers alike, because they’re snappy, fun and not long-winded. The Evening Blend includes a list of the day’s political stories, as well as analysis of what’s happened and what might happen next. We often break exclusive stories in this email too, which means our subscribers are the best-briefed in Westminster, and you get extra gossip and snark from Westminster insiders too. But the best bit of

Sebastian Payne

Nigel Farage: I’d love to share a platform with Jeremy Corbyn

Nigel Farage held another event in Westminster this morning to announce the dates of his ‘Say No – Believe in Britain’ tour, through which he hopes to drum up support for a Brexit. While the venue and message were identical to his press conference in July, the Ukip leader did reveal some details: twelve regional co-ordinators have been chosen, 300 events are planned over the next few months and six million leaflets will be delivered by Christmas. In light of the British Future polling on the toxicity of Ukip’s immigration message, Farage was keen point out he will work with anyone to achieve a Brexit — even Jeremy Corbyn. He said that a Corbyn victory

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Corbyn and the austerity argument

Until recently, the Tory leadership has been reluctant to plan how they would respond to a Corbyn-led Labour party. They just couldn’t believe that Labour were actually going to elect him. At the Cabinet’s pre-holiday get together at Chequers, the conversation about how to take on the new Labour leader was premised on the idea that either Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper would win. But now the Tories are working out how they would tackle Corbyn. (Though, two Cabinet Ministers have told me this week that they expect Cooper to pip Corbyn at the post). The Tory leadership is keen to avoid sounding triumphalist about the prospect of facing the

Tristram Hunt

Welcome to the era of emoji politics, where debate and rationality are suffocated

I break off the family holiday to campaign for my colleague Liz Kendall in the Labour leadership election. In Ipswich and Colchester, I found party members not so smitten by Corbynmania. In both constituencies, more people voted Tory than Labour: it remains unclear to me why heading further left would appeal to them. At every leadership election since the demise of Tony Blair the party has chosen a more left-wing candidate, and while Neil Kinnock might have ‘got his party back’, the country got a Tory government back. What is also evident is the anger among party members who have spent years delivering leaflets and are being called ‘Tories’ for

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour moderates hold talks on dealing with leadership result

Anti-Corbynite planning for the aftermath of what looks like certain victory for the Islington socialist in the Labour leadership contest is still in disarray. Though Chuka Umunna’s intervention calling for ‘solidarity’ earlier this week was a bold move designed to take some of the poison out of the contest, it hasn’t gone down well in some quarters, with those involved in the other campaigns feeling rather frustrated that he is talking as though it’s a done deal (though his attitude on the result is understandable), and others irritated by the suggestion that Umunna could work with Jeremy Corbyn. But as I wrote earlier this week, Umunna’s speech was one of the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron confirms Britain will take ‘thousands more Syrian refugees’

One of the notable things about David Cameron in the months after winning the election has been quite how impatient and keen he is to get on with important reforms. As I wrote last week, the Prime Minister seems to have been invigorated by his victory, rather than lapsing into complacency – and that is largely a very good thing. But on one issue, he hasn’t stayed quite up to speed. Perhaps it’s because it’s not a domestic reform issue, or perhaps it’s because it relates to a question that politicians seem increasingly reluctant to address, which is Britain’s role in the world, but whatever it is, the government has

Steerpike Steerpike

Tom Watson plans results party

The results aren’t in, the votes haven’t been counted, but you can still book a place at Tom Watson’s election results party! An intriguing invite popped up in Mr S’s inbox from none other than the deputy Labour leadership hopeful. Although Watson — who is the odds-on favourite at 1/14 — says he is holding the event regardless of whether he wins or loses, he has taken the bold step of booking out an entire pub come what may. Watson tells supporters about his party prep in an email. ‘So win or lose on Saturday 12 September, after the result is announced, I’m having a party,’ Watson writes. ‘We’ve booked The

Sebastian Payne

Nigel Farage’s immigration rhetoric may harm ‘Out’ campaign, new poll suggests

Nigel Farage and Ukip are convinced they can win the EU referendum by focusing on immigration as the key issue. But other Eurosceptics have been concerned that the kippers will alienate the public — and non-Ukip sympathisers in particular — with their tough rhetoric on this topic and the ‘In’ side will triumph. British Future, a think tank which studies the effects of migration, has commissioned a set of polls which confirms this risk exists. According to the polling conducted by Survation, 58 per cent agree that ‘Ukip risk bringing prejudice into debates on immigration’ — something 44 per cent of those described as ‘leaning Out’ agree with, as well as 74 per cent

Thursday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Spectator’s Notes | 3 September 2015

Was there ever a more unilluminating political idea — for voters rather than practitioners — than triangulation? For those readers so pure and high-minded that they have not followed politics for 20 years, I should explain that triangulation came from Bill Clinton, was imported by Tony Blair, and is now practised by David Cameron. Clinton’s adviser, Dick Morris, put it thus: ‘The President needed to take a position that not only blended the best of each party’s views but also transcended them to constitute a third force in the debate.’ The Tories’ adoption of the Living Wage is the latest example. This concept, almost as mystically bogus as the medieval concept

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour threatens Commons defeat on purdah as Tory whips threaten their MPs

Labour sources have told Coffee House that they are seriously considering voting against government amendments to the EU referendum, which means ministers still face a defeat in the Commons on Monday. There are sufficient numbers of Tory backbenchers who are still dissatisfied with the amendments, which seek to introduce a narrow definition of purdah, to mean the government cannot command a majority on the issue. Tory MPs have also been annoyed by a ‘dear colleague’ letter from the whips. The letter claims that the effect of a Labour amendment to the Bill – which also tries to introduce purdah for the referendum and would force ministers to win a Commons

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Westminster ‘Out’ campaign snaps up key eurosceptic MPs

A cross-party group of MPs, including Ukip’s only MP, is to formally join the Westminster-based ‘Out’ campaign, Coffee House has learned. An ‘exploratory committee’ of MPs which started discussing how to advance the case for ‘Out’ in June, will become the Parliamentary Planning committee for the Matthew Elliot-led Out group, which is to move into new offices in Westminster Tower later this month. The members of the parliamentary planning committee are Steve Baker, Douglas Carswell, Bernard Jenkin, Kate Hoey, Kelvin Hopkins, Owen Paterson and Graham Stringer. More MPs will join the committee in the coming weeks. It will advise the campaign team and build support for this particular Out campaign

Steerpike Steerpike

Ukip candidate blames Syrian boy’s death on his parents: ‘queue jumping costs’

After a young Syrian child was photographed washed up dead on a Turkish beach, David Cameron has been the subject of much vitriol as members of the public and politicians alike urge him to do more to help refugees. However, it is a former Ukip candidate who has attracted the most furore on the topic. Peter Bucklitsch, Ukip’s election candidate for Wimbledon, has taken to Twitter to claim that the boy’s parents are to blame for his death because they tried to take him to Europe. Bucklitsch says three-year-old Aylan Kurdi was ‘well clothed and well fed’, and that he died because ‘his parents were greedy for the good life in Europe,’ adding that ‘queue

Sebastian Payne

George Osborne: criminal gangs ‘killed’ the drowned refugee boy

George Osborne has given the first official comments today regarding the ongoing migrant crisis. The Chancellor told Sky News he was ‘very distressed’ at the picture on the front pages of today’s newspapers and argued criminal gangs are responsible for the death of the drowned boy: ‘(There is no) person who would not be very shocked by that picture – and I was very distressed when I saw it myself this morning ‑ of that poor boy lying dead on the beach. We know there is not a simple answer to this crisis. What you need to do is first of all tackle Isis and the criminal gangs who killed that boy,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

What a Corbyn victory will mean for the Tories

A Jeremy Corbyn victory in the Labour leadership race now seems like a racing certainty. The consequences of this for Labour have been much discussed but in the magazine this week, I look at what it would mean for the Tories. The first, and most obvious, thing to say is that it would make 2020 the Tories’ election to lose — and they would have to make an epoch defining mistake to do so. But some Tories are worried about the prospect of a Corbyn victory. This isn’t just because they fear that bad opposition leads to bad government. But because they fret that Cameron and Osborne’s response to it will