Labour party

In the window of a council house on a working-class estate in Exeter was a sticker bearing the cross of St George and a simple warning: ‘If this flag offends you, why not consider moving to another country?’ For some canvassers working on Labour MP Ben Bradshaw’s 2015 campaign, such a symbol naturally meant the dreaded ‘A’ on the canvas sheet: ‘Against Labour’. In fact, it was a household of solid Labour voters — supporting a party far too often offended by the flag. The truth is that the Labour party has an English problem. While members might just about embrace Britishness, too many feel queasy about Englishness — with

The speeches in the Commons which follow the Queen’s Speech blend together humour with some serious points. They are the Commons as its most clubbable, with lots of in jokes and the like. So, there was a fair amount of chatter about how Jeremy Corbyn – who is not the clubbable sort – would deal with the occasion. At first, the answer was surprisingly well. He was funny, and generous, about the proposer, Caroline Spelman, and the second, Philip Lee. The House was laughing with him, and even Cameron couldn’t help but chuckle at some rather good jokes including those at his own party’s expense. But then Corbyn turned serious,

When are Jeremy Corbyn’s enemies going to get their act together? Today’s Times poll of the Labour membership shows that they would get a rather cold reception if they tried to remove the Labour leader, with 72 per cent telling YouGov that Corbyn is doing well, up from 66 per cent in November. Members are slightly less upbeat about the party’s prospects for actually governing, with 53 per cent believing it will be in government after the 2020 election, and 47 per cent saying Corbyn is likely to become Prime Minister. They also largely think that the 5 May elections went well for the party, with 67 per cent saying

Throughout the EU referendum campaign, Labour figures have been somewhat underwhelmed by the efforts of their party leader to fight for Britain to remain in the EU. However, progress did appear to be made on Monday when Jeremy Corbyn launched Labour’s big EU battle bus. The bright red bus will tour Britain for six weeks as they try and rally support for remain. Alas word reaches Steerpike that behind the scenes things are not so rosy. A little birdy tells Mr S that the Labour leader has raised concerns that the bus is not to his taste and is ‘too corporate’. The Labour leader apparently takes issue with the sheer size of the vehicle

A dramatic day in Wales today. The vote for First Minister ended in a tie between Labour’s Carwyn Jones and Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood. Labour, despite only having 29 out of 60 seats in the Assembly, had not done a deal with any of the other parties to ensure Jones’ election. Plaid then nominated its own leader, who was backed by the Tory and Ukip AMs as well as the Plaid ones, The Assembly has now adjourned. The Assembly has until 2 June, to decide on a First Minister. If it cannot vote someone in, then the Secretary of State for Wales can call fresh elections. Plaid are now saying, according to

Hell, I wait so long to be right about something and then two bits of stuff come along at once. Nine months ago I said Sadiq Khan would become London’s mayor – partly because he was a very good candidate and a likeable bloke – but more because London is one of the world’s most leftie liberal constituencies. Which should tell you about Boris’s campaigning abilities, no? I also suggested that Labour would do better in the local elections than commentators – and desperate PLP recusants – were predicting. They did. In London, Corbyn is an actual asset to Labour. Beyond the vile metropolis, he is no more of a yoke

Although Labour MPs have been encouraged not to brief what happens at meetings of the PLP to lurking journalists, Jeremy Corbyn’s team have no issue briefing out what the leader will say at the meeting before it even occurs. Today hacks were told that Corbyn would use the meeting to clampdown on party in-fighting as members are sick of MPs ‘parading on the media to give a running commentary’. However, what he actually said is another story. The Labour leader toned down his prose considerably — presumably in the quest for party unity — even though his harsher warning was already readable online. Despite this slip-up, the meeting was one of

It’s rare that an election result leaves you with a sense of giddy, disbelieving glee, but there it was in black and white. Galloway, George, Respect (George Galloway) Party, 37,007 votes. Walker, Sophie, Women’s Equality Party, 53,055 votes. Once you took second preferences into account, Walker and her newly formed feminist movement beat Galloway and his band of Islamists by almost 100,000 votes. This result is so striking, and so perfect, because Galloway is one of those old-fashioned socialists whose attitudes towards gender equality are distinctly retrograde: it is the man’s job to further the revolutionary cause and the woman’s to provide dutiful comradely support. Indeed, while he may not be

As the dust settles on Thursday’s election, it becomes ever clearer that—with the exception of London—these were awful results for Labour. They were bad enough to suggest that the party is on course for a third successive general election defeat. But, as I say in The Sun, not disastrous enough to persuade the Labour membership that they need to dump Corbyn. One Tory Minister remarked to me yesterday, ‘Labour have done well enough to keep Corbyn. I can live with that.’ Before adding, ‘Corbyn’s survival is the single most important thing for 2020’. The result that should worry Labour most, though, is the Scottish one. As the third party of

The election results that we’ve had through so far are a pretty potent combination for the Labour party. Diane Abbott said this morning that they show that Labour is on course to win the 2020 general election, while Jeremy Corbyn skirted around what they actually meant for the party in the long-term when he gave his reaction. The potency lies in the party’s devastation in Scotland that points to a long-term structural inability to win a majority coupled with English council results that, by being less bad than expected, deceive about the challenge the party faces in winning in those areas in 2020. The party’s moderates are concerned this morning

Britain goes to the polls this week, as electoral contests take place in London, Scotland, Wales and across England. They’re the elections which James Forsyth described in the Spectator last week as the ones ‘no one has even heard of’. So what will happen on Thursday night and when will the results be announced? Here’s The Spectator’s run-through of the May 2016 elections: London Mayoral election: Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan go head-to-head in the London Mayoral contest. In 2012, Boris and Ken ran a close-fought race, with Boris getting 971,000 first-round votes to Ken’s 889,918. The relatively small margin between the two meant the result didn’t filter through until