Yvette cooper

Still making headlines, it seems, is one of the more trivial scandals to have dogged the Labour government in its first 100 days in office: to wit, the police protection given to the pop singer Taylor Swift. File firmly under circuses, you might think, rather than bread. For those who need catching up, the American pop star was given a VVIP police escort around London during the UK leg of her Eras tour – a swishy blue-light motorcade of the sort usually reserved for members of the royal family and foreign heads of state, and the reassuring knowledge that should some loon seek to lob a brick at her, or

Can you tell the difference between an extreme misogynist and a moderate misogynist? Hating women has always seemed, to me anyway, a rather extreme position on its own. The label ‘extreme misogynist’ is surely repetitive. A moderate misogynist is an oxymoron. But then the Home Office announced this week that ‘extreme misogyny’ could be added to the list of ideologies the government monitors to tackle terrorism. I’ve been racking my brain, trying to figure out how the police would tell the extremists from the moderates. Does the extreme misogynist hold women in contempt all week long, while the moderate reserves his disdain for weekends? Does a mild misogynist simply begrudge

As the Ukraine crisis rages, Labour has chosen to focus on the issue of visas for fleeing Ukrainian refugees. Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper went for her opposite number Priti Patel on it in Parliament yesterday, demanding ‘clear answers’ for those ‘urgently seeking sanctuary or to rejoin relatives.’  It looks like Patel will now be forced to give a ministerial statement today, updating the government’s position on the issue: a win for Cooper and those demanding more action. Still Mr S couldn’t help but think back to Cooper’s own record when it comes to refugees. In 2015, she was one of a number of politicians and celebrities who volunteered to

They seem like completely unrelated questions: ‘Is sex work real work?, and ‘Who will replace Yvette Cooper as chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee?’ Yet the two are deeply linked. Sex work first. If you’re not familiar with the phrase ‘sex work is work’, get used to it, because you’re going to be hearing it a lot more in public debate in the next few years. The phrase has been around since at least the 1970s, but is now being used with growing frequency and energy by people on the self-appointed ‘progressive’ side of politics. As a result, ‘sex work is work’ is looking like being a new dividing

Yvette Cooper’s bill, requiring the Prime Minister to seek an Article 50 extension to avoid no deal, has passed by 1 vote—going through all its Common stages in a single evening.  The passage of this bill at such speed even though Theresa May has said she’ll ask for an extension, is another demonstration of how committed the anti no-deal majority in parliament is. But before these anti no-deal MPs pat themselves on the back, they should realise the limits to their action. Parliament is sovereign, but it isn’t sovereign over the EU27; and it is they who’ll decide whether to grant the UK an extension to the Article 50 process.

Is a no-deal Brexit about to be taken off the table? This is the expectation in Westminster after Yvette Cooper tabled an amendment to prevent the UK leaving the EU without a deal. The amendment paves the way for legislation that would mean ministers had to extend Article 50 if a no-deal Brexit looked likely. The Labour leadership are considering backing it – though there is some debate about whether Article 50 ought to be extended in three month batches rather than than the nine month period currently specified in Cooper’s bill. Brexiteers are so worried the amendment will pass that some – including Jacob Rees-Mogg – have gone so

Tory activists last week were heard to refer to Mrs May as ‘Mummy’. No Corbynista calls their hero ‘Dad’. The human race is guided by myth as much as by logic, and mythology explains people to themselves more vividly than economics. The agony expressed in the liberal intelligent press is understandable. The sensible people who all voted Remain direct much of their fury against the Corbynistas who have taken over the Labour party. Fair enough. Interestingly, however, they attend so closely to what Tony Benn liked to call ‘the ish-oos’ that they ignore the bigger mythological picture. Last summer the country voted — very unwisely according to the sensible 48

Yvette Cooper was the surprise star of PMQs today after she made the Prime Minister squirm with a stinging question about Theresa May’s election U-turn: ‘The Prime Minister yesterday said she was calling a general election because Parliament was blocking Brexit. But three quarters of MPs and two thirds of the Lords voted for Article 50 – so that’s not true, is it. A month ago she told her official spokesman to rule out an early general election, and that wasn’t true either, was it. She wants us to believe she is a woman of her word. Isn’t the truth that we cannot believe a single word she says?’ While

Over the weekend, Boris Johnson managed to plunge himself into another Cabinet row by announcing on Peston on Sunday that he thinks students should be excluded from the net migration numbers — because they are ‘of massive benefit to this country’. As is becoming a pattern, No 10 were quick to slap him down — with the Prime Minister’s spokesman insisting at lobby that ‘students will continue to be part of the figures’. Not that this stopped MPs having some fun with the comments today at Home Office questions. Andrew Tyrie kicked proceedings off by asking — in a convoluted manner — whether Rudd agreed that students should be removed from the tens of

Although Jeremy Corbyn has managed to tempt some MPs who resigned from his shadow cabinet back to the frontbench, there are still many with ministerial experience who are too proud, principled or outspoken to return. So, with that in mind, today’s select committee elections offered a way for moderates to make their mark without having to compromise their values. After Keith Vaz was forced to resign from his coveted role as chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, several former Labour ‘heavyweights’ entered into the race to succeed him. Although Chuka Umunna had widely been tipped as the favourite, it was a case of Chuka can’t. In a sign of his limited popularity in the House

This time last year, as images of refugees fleeing Syria dominated the news, a host of charitable figures offered to do their bit and take refugees into their home. Exasperated that David Cameron was not allowing enough refugees into Britain, Sir Bob Geldof, Yvette Cooper and Nicola Sturgeon were among those who publicly vowed to lead by example. Since then, things appear to have hit a few stumbling blocks. For one, Yvette Cooper claimed — in an interview with Nick Ferrari — that we should listen to the Tory government as they have said that ‘they don’t want people to take them into their home’. Happily times may now be a’changing. The Local Government Association, which represents more than 370