Politics Archives

Thursday

16 May 2019

His dark materials | 16 May 2019

If you have heard of Alexander Nix, you probably think he’s a villain. He is the former head of Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics company that helped Donald Trump win the presidential election. Nix and his colleagues have been accused of all sorts of other dastardly deeds: conniving with the Kremlin to hack democracy, ‘dark messaging’ people with racist ads on Facebook in the run-up to Brexit, and more and worse. Nix lost his job after a Channel 4 investigation into Cambridge Analytica in March last year — the exposé won a Bafta last weekend. By May, Cambridge Analytica and its parent company SCL had gone into administration, and Nix had been widely condemned as a Machiavellian crook. A year has passed, and Nix is ready to talk.

David Butterfield

Pub names

An easy one: what links Jack Straw’s Castle, The Labouring Boys and The Jolly Taxpayer? No, not the parliamentary expenses scandal of yesteryear, but the weird and whimsical world of British pub names. It was in 1393 that Richard II ordered brewers to announce their beery business by a prominent sign. Colourful names quickly abounded, invented by publicans and patrons alike. The intervening six centuries have given ample scope for praise and play. The commonest names across the UK’s 50,000 or so pubs gesture to royal heraldry: The Red Lion, Crown, Royal Oak and White Hart make up the top four; Rose and Crown, Queen’s Head and King’s Arms come close behind.

Laura Freeman

Snog a Tory

Ew! Are you squeamish? Are you grossed out by meat, by fish, by eggs, by scales and suckers and shells and bones? We live in fastidious times. Now we pick, we prod, we send dietary requirements by return of post. ‘Super excited to see you guys! Btw I’m vegan, non-gluten, non-soy, no-nuts. Sorry to be a pain!’ Last year, Sainsbury’s launched chicken pieces in ‘no touch’ pouches for millennials who won’t handle raw meat unless it’s sans teeth, eyes, taste, everything. And at Somerville College, Oxford, students were served octopus terrine at a matriculation dinner, and a fresher complained that they had been ‘surprised’ by the dish.

Rod Liddle

The Brexit party delusion

The echo chamber is the defining characteristic of this berserk and entertaining political age: squadrons of foam-flecked absolutists ranting to people who agree with them about everything and thus come to believe that their ludicrous view of the world is shared by everybody. It is true, for example, of the Stalinist liberal Remainers — that tranche of about one third of the remain vote who will tell you proudly that they have never met anyone who voted leave and that therefore either nobody did vote leave — or they voted leave but we shouldn’t take any notice of them because they are worthless.

Wednesday

15 May 2019

Richard Ekins

Do our Supreme Court judges have too much power?

In our tradition, courts do not and should not stand in judgment over parliament. It is for parliament, in conversation with the people, to choose what the law should be and the duty of courts is to uphold those choices. In the years before the UK decided to leave the EU, some judges reasoned that the constitution had evolved to the point where parliamentary sovereignty was redundant. They suggested it was time for judges to assert a power to quash laws they thought were unjust or unprincipled. Their view was always legal nonsense, and it is very unlikely that a British court will attempt to strike down a statute anytime soon.

Lloyd Evans

Jeremy Corbyn’s hypocritical appetite for bad news

It’s that time of year. The Sunday Times Rich-List is out. To most of us it’s a negligible frivolity. To the hard left it’s hard porn. Their trembling fingers swipe through its glossy pages. Their ravening eyes gaze with confused adoration at the wrinkled oligarchs and their marmalade-coloured wives. At PMQs today Jeremy Corbyn captured this covetous ardour by deriding Theresa May for accepting donations from ‘hedge-fund tycoons’. She replied that income inequality has fallen since 2010. ‘Labour,’ she said, ‘want to bring people down. Conservatives want to raise people up.’ Corbyn moved to the issue of starvation among poor children.

Steerpike

Full text: Geoffrey Cox’s Onward speech – ‘if I can raise any humour tonight it’s going to be gallows humour’

When Geoffrey Cox stood on stage at Conservative conference and gave a speech to introduce Theresa May, the newly appointed Attorney General managed to steal the show. Cox managed to bring the house down with his Mufasa-inspired routine – quoting poetry as he called on members to get behind the Prime Minister. At Tuesday night's Onward event – to celebrate the Conservative think tank's first year – Cox cut a more sombre figure.

Steerpike

Peter Bone: Tory members want May to resign before the EU elections

Oh dear. With Theresa May's government seemingly on its last legs, it appears that party discipline has all but disappeared on the Conservative benches. The signs of discontent were clear at PMQs today when Tory MP and Brexiteer Peter Bone was given the chance to ask a question, but instead used the opportunity to pass on the views of his local Conservative members to the Prime Minister. Noting how they had been committed to the party for over twenty years and had been knocking on doors for the party 'week in, week out', Bone said that they now wanted a no-deal Brexit, and: 'More importantly, they've lost confidence in the Prime Minister, and wish her to resign before the European elections. Prime Minister what message do you have to say to these dedicated and loyal Conservatives?

Nick Cohen

Do Brexit Party supporters know who they are really voting for?

When people challenge my opinions I shrug, said Vladimir Nabokov. When people challenge my facts, I reach for my dictionary. Brendan O’Neill, formerly of the Revolutionary Communist Party and Living Marxism, now of Spiked, has had me reaching for mine. He accuses me of lying, a charge which might send a less liberal journalist than me to his lawyers. He says my charge that his comrades and the Brexit Party's European Parliament candidates Claire Fox, James Heartfield and Alka Sehgal Cuthbert are cavalier about the abuse of children “are lies, straight-up, low-down lies,” “character assassination”, and an act of desperation by the remain side. The desperation is all his.

Katy Balls

What the Brexit Party’s success means for the Tory leadership contest

As Theresa May promises to bring her Withdrawal Agreement back next month for a fourth vote, few in Government believe it has much – if any – hope of passing. However, May's decision to announce its return has increased speculation that she will be forced to stand down next month – whether her deal passes or not. When that time comes, the contest to find her successor will begin. Cabinet ministers have been minded to put off that contest for as long as possible, in part due to the fact that a Brexiteer like Boris Johnson or Dominic Raab is likely to fare best if the contest occurs before the UK has left the EU. As I say in today's i paper, the success of the Brexit Party has only enhanced that view in recent weeks.

Steerpike

Lead Change UK candidate backs the Lib Dems

After a series of dreadful polls, self-inflicted blunders, and a resurgence of the Lib Dems, the Remainer party Change UK / Independent Group has struggled to justify its existence as we get closer to the European elections. The party was formed, after all, on the presumption that the Lib Dems (who did remarkably well in the local elections) were a spent electoral force, unable to carry the Remainer torch. Now it appears that even Change UK's candidates in the European elections are wondering if there's any point. Today, in a remarkable statement, the top of Change UK's candidate list in Scotland, David Macdonald, has announced that people should back the Lib Dems instead of his own party.

Douglas Murray

Why do some remainers think ageism is acceptable?

Doubtless there is little cross-over between the readership of The Spectator and that of the New European. Not just because sales figures show that almost nobody reads the strange paper set up after the 2016 Brexit vote, but because while The Spectator includes a wide array of different views, the business model of the New European appears to be based simply on whipping up as much prejudice, grievance and malice as it is possible among those who voted ‘Remain’ in 2016. When people talk about the ‘politics of hate’ such a publication must surely be what they have in mind? But occasionally the publication and its contributors do something so disgusting that it isn’t possible to completely ignore them.

Tuesday

14 May 2019

Nicole Lampert

Labour’s anti-Semitism problem is losing its power to shock

A Labour activist – since elected a councillor – sharing neo-Nazi material declaring that 'the Jews declared war on Germany in 1933'. A video of a Labour MP rousing a rabble with the incendiary suggestion that 'Zionism is the enemy of peace'. An activist for the self-proclaimed anti-racist party suggesting a march on their local synagogue. The secretary of Jewish Voice for Labour telling a crowd of pro-Palestinian marchers that Jews are ‘in the gutter’. In isolation, all of these are jaw-dropping and deeply alarming. That they all happened – or emerged – in a short period of time following years of similarly scandalous behaviour means that a certain ennui about Labour anti-Semitism has set in.

Katy Balls

May sets date for return of Withdrawal Agreement – will it be enough to prevent a 1922 rule change?

After weeks of cross party talks between the Conservatives and Labour, Downing Street have finally announced that Theresa May's beleaguered Brexit deal will once again be put to a vote. A No. 10 spokesman said: 'This evening the Prime Minister met the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons to make clear our determination to bring the talks to a conclusion and deliver on the referendum result to leave the EU. We will therefore be bringing forward the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in the week beginning the 3rd June. It is imperative we do so then if the UK is to leave the EU before the summer Parliamentary recess. Talks this evening between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition were both useful and constructive.

Brendan O’Neill

The desperate bid to slur the Brexit Party

The Bermondsey by-election of 1983 is widely regarded as one of the nastiest, most scurrilous election campaigns in British history. Peter Tatchell, queer-rights activist and bona fide national treasure, stood for the Labour Party against Simon Hughes, who stood for the Liberals. Tatchell was the target of a ceaseless campaign of smears, innuendo, hatred and homophobia. It came from all sides: the tabloids, the hard right, Liberals themselves. Of all the tactics used against Tatchell, perhaps the lowest, the most awful, was the attempt to depict him as a paedophile, or at least a friend of paedophiles. Incredibly, the tabloid press sent young boys to Tatchell’s apartment, presumably in the hope that he would invite them in.

Steerpike

‘Stand your ground in the European elections’ – Amber Rudd’s Onward address

With Theresa May set to leave office this year, the race is on to find her successor. Cabinet ministers are at pains to emphasise their leadership credentials. On Tuesday evening, Amber Rudd used a speech at think tank Onward’s first birthday party to share her views on the current situation. The Work and Pensions Secretary joked - to a crowd that included Rory Stewart, James Brokenshire and Geoffrey Cox - that the current Tory leadership was male dominated before going on to lay out her view on the European elections and what the Tory tactic ought to be: ‘Over the past year my own circumstances have changed so much. For example, getting in a cab is now a more personal experience. “Amber Rudd?” “Yes that’s me.” “Is the Bodyguard real?

James Kirkup

What the next Tory leader needs to know about inequality

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has launched an impressive new commission on inequality. What’s most impressive about the project is not the Nobel-winning array of commissioners, it’s the fact that the IFS is trying to broaden public and political understanding of what inequality is. And in so doing, it also describes a political trap that many Conservatives seem keen to fall into. Start with the definition. Here’s the Deaton Commission’s opening publication: “…inequality is not just about money. Inequality exists in the stresses and strains on family life, which shape the environment in which children grow up.

Robert Peston

Is British politics broken?

I have been fairly quiet for a bit because I have been struggling to say anything useful about what is going on – or perhaps, more accurately, what is not going on. You see we are living through, and in, the mother of all paradoxes: a time when everything and nothing is happening. On a day to day basis, little of moment takes place: Tory MPs huff and puff that Theresa May must be evicted from Downing Street but bicker about how and when she can be forced out. The prime minister and the leader of the opposition agree that people are fed up with all the Brexit uncertainty but their talks about a compromise are an epic of fatuousness.

Steerpike

Change UK: party of the one per cent

Over in the states, the Republicans are often disparagingly called the 'party of the one per cent', referring to their alleged support for the richest tier of the country's wealthy elite. But it appears that in the UK, another party could take their throne when it comes to representing the smallest section of society possible. New polling released today by Kantar shows that the Remainer party Change UK has slipped down the rankings even further since its launch in February. When those polled were asked how they would vote in the next general election, only one per cent said they now support Change UK / The Independent Group: https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1128258417733316608 By comparison, the Greens are polling at three per cent, the SNP at five per cent and Ukip at four.

Nick Cohen

The twisted truth about Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party

Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party pretends to stand for the traditional values of old England: Parliamentary sovereignty, patriotism and decency. However little the uninitiated thought of Farage, they would expect his candidates to condemn the IRA murdering children in Warrington and to take a strong line against child pornography. Not so. Or rather, not always. Claire Fox (top of the list of Brexit Party candidates for the North West), James Heartfield (one of the party's candidates in Yorkshire and the Humber) and Alka Sehgal Cuthbert (a candidate in London) are all former members of the Revolutionary Communist Party and its successor organisations.