Corbyn

As part of an effort to win over younger voters, the government is reportedly considering changes to tuition fees such as cutting interests rates and cracking down on which universities can charge the highest fees. Certainly, at 6.1 per cent, rates for this year are eye-wateringly high – and apply even before the student has graduated. But only 23 per cent of students are now expected to ever pay back the loan in full, before it is written off at the age of 50. Any small tweak to repayments will only benefit these top-earners, as payments are fixed at 9 per cent of income – no matter how much of

Ever since the snap election, Jeremy Corbyn has been in campaign mode – claiming Theresa May’s minority government is on the verge of collapse and that there will be another election within months. Tomorrow, the Labour leader kicks off a summer tour of Scotland, which he claims ‘holds the keys’ to getting his party back in power: ‘We have stayed on an election footing all summer, and nowhere is more important to delivering another Labour government than Scotland. The only way to deliver the truly radical change that Scotland needs is to back Labour in Scotland.’ Much to the upset of the Nats, the 18 seats Corbyn will be targeting

A brief trawl of the Foreign Office’s travel advice for Brits thinking of paying a visit to Sudan will tell you that’s it’s not the best idea – with cholera, the threat of terrorism and clashes between government forces and rebel groups on the menu. What’s more, the British Embassy no longer registers UK nationals in Sudan so help in times of crisis may be limited. However, for Levison Wood, it sure sounds a lot better than living in the UK under a Corbyn government. In an interview with the Telegraph, the Channel 4 adventurer says that if Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister, he would leave the country and… walk to Sudan: ‘For

Oh dear. When Jeremy Corbyn announced this week that a Labour government would focus on the issue of food banks, Mr S is pretty sure he didn’t imagine what would follow. On Tuesday, Mr S revealed the curious tactics of Momentum activists in Hove. Kate Knight — the Hove Momentum and Hove CLP executive officer — took to Facebook to boast of her latest campaign tactic: sticking ‘Jeremy Corbyn’ stickers on all food bank donations. As Steerpike pointed out, the questionable method could also go against election ‘treating’ rules — which dictate that it is a ‘corrupt practice’ for any person to provide food, drink or entertainment to win votes. Now, following Mr

Here they come, Tony Blair and his tragic chattering-class army. The former PM, whose rictus grin and glottal stops still haunt the nation’s dreams (well, mine anyway), is on the march with his pleb-allergic mates in business and the media. Blair and the Twitterati, linking arms, united in their horror at the incalculable stupidity of northerners and Welsh people and Essex men and women and other Brexiteers, their aim as clear as it is foul. They’re here to save us from ourselves. ‘Tony Blair is trying to save Britain from itself’, as one report put it. Excuse me while I pop an anti-nausea pill. Yes, Blair, the political version of

Len McCluskey has been re-elected as General Secretary of Unite. It was something of a messy fight: his rival Gerard Coyne was suspended yesterday – we still don’t know why – and the contest was much narrower than had been expected, with McCluskey winning by just 5,000 votes. The dismal turnout of 12 per cent also suggests that many of those eligible to vote were put off by the parochial rows at the heart of this contest. McCluskey accused a ‘cabal’ of Labour figures, who he described as ‘skilled masters of the darks arts’ of trying to use the election to oust Corbyn. While Coyne suggested that the general secretary of

The dividing lines in this election could not be clearer from the outset. It is the Conservatives, the party of privilege and the richest, versus the Labour Party, the party that is standing up for working people to improve the lives of all. It is the establishment versus the people and it is our historic duty to make sure that the people prevail. A duty for all of us here today, the duty of every Labour MP, a duty for our half a million members – including the 2,500 who have joined in the last 24 hours. Much of the media and establishment are saying that this election is a

As if Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t already getting it from all sides on the home front, the beleaguered Labour leader has come under a fresh line of an attack from a former Bush aide: propping up Donald Trump. Yes, speaking on The Spectator Podcast, David Frum – senior editor at The Atlantic and former Bush administration staffer – accused the 21st century socialist of aiding Trump’s influence on the UK government… by failing to provide an adequate opposition. He said that ‘if Britain had a functioning opposition party… a Leader of the Opposition would be slamming the Prime Minister every day in the House of Commons’ for failing to condemn Sean Spicer’s accusations of British collaboration in

Oh dear. Today Jeremy Corbyn launched his new small business policy with a press conference at the Federation of Small Businesses. Alas things took a turn for the worse when the BBC’s Mark Lobel attempted to ask the Labour leader about the situation in Syria: .@jeremycorbyn refused to answer a question on Syria at a business conference pic.twitter.com/AhLamVC7eC — Sky News (@SkyNews) April 11, 2017 To dramatic effect, Corbyn walked out from behind his podium toward the reporter and snapped: ‘I’m really sorry, this is a Federation of Small Business conference’ — before going on to claim his media team had let it be known there would be no questions on the issue

Last week Mr S revealed that Jeremy Corbyn and Seumas Milne had come up with affectionate nicknames for one another. The Labour leader refers to his director of strategy and communications as TGM, which stands for ‘The Great Milne’. Meanwhile, Milne in turn refers to his boss as TSL — ‘The Supreme Leader’, natch. So, what of the rest of their colleagues? Well, it turns out that Corbyn has a penchant for acronyms and abbreviations — referring to Emily Thornberry as ‘ET’. Only going to confirm Mr S’s suspicions that Team Corbyn really are living on another planet…

Shami Chakrabarti and Peter Whittle would probably furiously deny playing by the same political rules. But this morning on the Andrew Marr Show, the Labour peer and Ukip politician were both using suspiciously similar scripts to try to excuse poor performances by their party leaders in Thursday’s by-elections. First up, Peter Whittle on how Paul Nuttall managed to squander a golden opportunity in Stoke Central. Nuttall was on a trip, of the kind that apparently often happens after a by-election, so he couldn’t explain for himself. Whittle referred to personal attacks on Nuttall. There were plenty of those in the campaign, but these were merely ones that involved uncovering the truth

Even now, even following their historic thrashing in Copeland, Labourites still cannot face the truth. Sure, there are Twitter tears this morning. I’m sure the vibe in Corbyn’s office is skittish and fearful. There’ll be an explosion in ‘What now for Labour?’ articles. But they still do not get the yawning, abyssal depth of the crisis they face. They still don’t see that their party isn’t merely in trouble; it’s finished, over, kaput. Labour is a zombie party, a Frankenstein creature patched together from dead slogans and middle-class anti-Tory angst; a living-dead entity utterly incapable of making a connection with the living. Most Labourites have responded to the loss of

Ken Loach has carved out a name as something of a Corbynista luvvie. The director put together a droning, hour-long promotional film for the Labour leader last year. And Corbyn returned in kind by offering a glowing review of his pal’s recent I, Daniel Blake movie, which he urged people to go and see. This week, Loach stepped up his campaign against the Tories by criticising the Government in a speech at the Baftas, saying the Conservatives ‘must be removed’ from office. Loach also made it clear whose side he was on in the battle between the wealthy and the poor: ‘And in the struggle that’s coming between the rich

Oh dear. To describe today’s Prime Minister’s Questions as bad for Labour would be an understatement. After Jeremy Corbyn was put on the backfoot by Theresa May over the government’s Brexit white paper, he was left lost for words as he stumbled around for questions. To make matters worse, he also managed to mess up an attempt to offer his condolences to the police officer ‘who lost his life’ in Northern Ireland. The snag? The police office in question is not dead. In truth, the police officer is alive after being shot in the arm. Jeremy Corbyn mistakenly offers condolences to family of police officer attacked in NI. Officer wounded but

At PMQs today, Jeremy Corbyn didn’t have a disaster: there was no repeat of yesterday’s shambles. But he didn’t take full advantage of the opening he had. Yes, he went on the NHS—but he didn’t cause Theresa May as much trouble as he could have. There was no reference to the Times’ story this morning claiming that Downing Street is blaming Simon Stevens, the chief executive of the NHS. Nor did he manage to create any daylight between May and the Health Secretary over changes to the four-hour waiting target and Hunt’s warning that people turning up to A&E unnecessarily is a large part of the problem. This isn’t to

Listen to the whole speech here: Whether you voted to Leave or to Remain, you voted for a better future for Britain. One thing is clear, the Tories cannot deliver that. So today I want to set how Labour will deliver that vision of a better Britain. This government is in disarray over Brexit. As the Prime Minister made clear herself  they didn’t plan for it before the referendum and they still don’t have a plan now. I voted and campaigned to remain and reform as many of you may know I was not uncritical of the European Union. It has many failings. Some people argued that we should have