Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Friday

Steerpike

Barry Gardiner: Labour is trying to ‘bail out’ the Tories on Brexit

It's always been the case that politics makes strange bedfellows, but even so, the current cross-party Brexit talks between Labour and the Conservatives have produced the oddest couple in a long time: Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May. One wants to remould the capitalist order, the other simply wants to survive as party leader until Christmas. Yet while they've worked together to break the Brexit impasse, both sides have made great efforts to downplay to their supporters that they are siding with their hated opponents across the aisle. But it appears that Labour's Barry Gardiner wasn't sticking to the script when he appeared on BBC News today.

Robert Peston

The reason for Labour’s dismal local election performance

At the end of today, the Tory party will have had a terrible night – perhaps losing as many as 1,000 councillors in England, compared with a worst-case projection (by Tory peer Rob Hayward) of 800 defeats. But that may not end up being the big news: it is not exactly a revelation that vast numbers of Tory supporters are incandescent that the Prime Minister has failed to deliver Brexit yet. A majority of Tory MPs wanted Theresa May to resign before yesterday's elections; they still want her out. Nothing has changed, as she would say. Much more significant is that Labour too is losing seats.

Fraser Nelson

The LibDems are back – with their strongest advance since 1995

The biggest winners from last night are the Liberal Democrats who have (so far) won 260 seats – their best overall performance since 2003 and the highest number of gains since 1995. And this matters because the rationale of Change UK (the latest name for the Chuka Ununna-Anna Soubry group of breakaway MPs) is that the Lib Dems are bust, useless as a vehicle for centrist Remainers. This may have seemed true in the 2017 general election, but does not seem to be true now. They have taken Chelmsford, Cotswold, Winchester and North Norfolk – amongst others. Meanwhile, ChUK is a disgraceful shambles – unable to agree on a logo or a name, unable to equip would-be candidates with basic material to fight the European Parliament elections.

Steerpike

Watch: Dawn Butler blames ‘biased media projection’ for Labour losses

Today's local election results are not a good look for Labour. After nine years of a Conservative Prime Minister leading the country, and the Tory party currently collapsing over its handling of Brexit, you would expect an opposition party to be triumphing in elections at this stage Yet as the local election results currently stand, the party has actually lost council seats across the country. Fortunately help was on hand last night, to explain why the party was doing so badly.

Steerpike

Boris Johnson gets the vote out

With widespread dissatisfaction across the country with the Tory party's handling of Brexit, a key concern for CCHQ ahead of the local elections last night was turnout, and the risk that their supporters would simply stay at home. So it makes sense that at 8pm yesterday, with only two hours until the polls closed, a full-scale effort was being made to get reluctant voters to head to their polling stations. Joining the effort was Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP and former London Mayor Boris Johnson, who helpfully tweeted out that: 'I just voted Conservative in the local elections. Make sure you do too! You’ve got two hours left to get out and vote!

Katy Balls

Corbyn under pressure to change Brexit stance after disappointing Labour result

It's been a disappointing night for both main parties in the local elections. As predicted, the Conservatives have suffered serious losses and could be on course to lose around 800 council seats by the time all votes have been counted. Perhaps more surprising is Labour's bad turn. The party has suffered a net loss of seats taking a hit in Leave areas like Sunderland, Ashfield and Bolsover. This is not the performance one would expect from a party on course for a majority in a general election. Labour councillors and politicians have been quick to start the blame game.

Tom Goodenough

Tories lose over 1300 seats in local elections

The Tories have lost over 1000 seats as both major parties were hit by a Brexit backlash in the local elections overnight. The Conservatives are down 1323 councillors, while Labour lost 77 representatives compared to 2015. Theresa May said voters had sent the 'simple message' that her party had to 'get on' with delivering Brexit. Labour's shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the results were a clear sign of voter dissatisfaction over Brexit: https://twitter.com/johnmcdonnellMP/status/1124210656146862080?

Thursday

The Spectator

How to lose elections

When a political party is in trouble, we see infighting, leak inquiries, resignations, mass loss of council seats, dismissals and botched attempts to depose the leader. But when a party implodes, something different happens: it loses the ability to defend or explain itself. An imploding party can and will lose any argument, no matter how strong its track record. The Tories entered this terminal stage under John Major after the disastrous local elections of 1995, which were followed by their landslide defeat of 1997. With the party now having had its worst set of election since 1995, it looks very much like they might be entering it again.

Tom Lowe

Could this be the year the Lib Dems make a comeback?

Small issues – the construction of a hated roundabout or an outbreak of pot holes – can matter a lot at local elections. This year however the mood is different. Traumatised by Brexit, voters have been itching to vent their frustrations at the ballot box one way or another. With the two main parties in the stocks, today's polls could be a golden opportunity for the most established small party, the Lib Dems. It would certainly be a long time coming. The party once known as the “yellow peril” lost 750 seats in 2011, then a further 400 in 2015.

Russ Morgan

‘Brexperts’ can earn £80 an hour explaining Brexit to those who are confused

Due to several requests from befuddled citizens, the professional marketplace, Bidvine, are on the lookout for Brexit experts who can assist the public in getting to grips with the ever-changing topic of Brexit. Self-confessed experts could be paid as much as £80 an hour. People struggling to get their heads around Brexit can soon enlist the services of self-confessed ‘Brexperts’ to explain it to them, with those who have much to teach on the topic being able to set their own prices up to £80. The search for experts has been set up by the professional marketplace Bidvine.com in response to multiple requests from users searching for a Brexit breakdown on their site.

Steerpike

Are local election candidates embarrassed by Corbyn and May?

Voters have been heading to the polls for the local elections today, as a long and gruelling campaign for the two main parties is wrapping up. Activists have been touring the doorsteps issuing heartfelt promises to repair potholes and collect bins faster. It’s been a familiar script – the Tories accuse Labour of waste, and Labour accuse the Tories of cutting services. Something that’s been conspicuously absent though, is any mention of the two main parties' leaders. Mr S was curious to see how prominent Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn were featuring in the campaign literature in this election, but after a search of over 50 randomly selected election leaflets, failed to find a single mention of either of them over the past two months.

Robert Peston

Why Theresa May now has nothing to lose

Theresa May is behaving like a prime minister who has worked out that taking cautious steps to cling on to power is a bankrupt strategy. The ruthlessness with which she dispatched her defence secretary Gavin Williamson, who was till recently her closest ally, is one piece of supporting evidence. The point is that when he allegedly told senior armed forces personnel that 'I made her and I can break her', it was not just bluster. As the behind-the-scenes organiser of her campaign to become leader (dispatched to do that job by Cameron and Osborne – who wanted to stop Boris) and as her ruthlessly effective chief whip, he was an invaluable supporter. From which it follows that if Williamson now chooses to become her enemy, he would be formidable. But she doesn't care. Why not?

Steerpike

Watch: David Lidington takes a dig at Gavin Williamson

As defence secretary in charge of Britain's armed forces, Gavin Williamson did not exactly conduct himself with the usual stoicism and calm that comes with the role. But one of the least impressive moments he will be remembered for was his response to the Salisbury attack. After Britain had just deported 23 Russian spies from the country, Williamson was widely mocked for saying in a speech at Policy Exchange that Russia 'should shut up and go away' when asked how the Kremlin would respond. It appears that some of his Conservative colleagues certainly haven't forgotten the gaffe. May's deputy David Lidington was in the House of Commons today, to answer questions about Williamson's sacking last night.

Ross Clark

Theresa May’s promotion of Rory Stewart is a smart move

In sacking Gavin Williamson for an offence he strenuously denies Theresa May has created for herself a potential embarrassment. What if a criminal inquiry were to find the former defence secretary not guilty of any breach of the Official Secrets Act? Yet as no-one seems to have noticed, the mini-reshuffle she carried out in the wake of the sacking has avoided another fast-looming embarrassment. In promoting Rory Stewart to the Cabinet as International Development Secretary  she has averted the loss of a popular and up and coming minister. Last August, when prisons minister, Stewart made a rash promise. He said he would resign if he had not succeeded in reducing violence and drug-taking in 10 target jails within a year.

Melanie McDonagh

Is the Guardian practising what it preaches on climate change?

The Guardian has an advertisement today from Sainsbury’s. Nothing wrong with that; respectable paper, respectable retailer. It’s the nature of the ad that’s interesting: a big bubble saying Save 10p per litre of fuel, surmounted by a picture of a petrol pump nozzle. You can see were the problem lies, can’t you? This is the paper that’s sympathetic to Extinction Rebellion, to Greta Thunberg, to the anti-fossil fuel activists who campaign against the British Museum accepting funding from BP, now giving space to a company flogging petroleum cheap, thereby stimulating consumption.

James Kirkup

At last, an MP brave enough to say: Twitter hates women

It can never be said enough that Twitter is not real life, and that it is a huge mistake to think that what goes on there is representative of politics, society or humanity as whole. I’m not sure about its overall impact on the world, but I sometimes think that British politics and journalism might be better if Twitter did not exist. But it does exist, and it does matter. Debate there helps to shape conversations more widely. And yes, Twitter gives a voice and a platform to people who might otherwise have none. So when Twitter starts denying a voice and a platform to certain people and certain ideas, that matters. It also matters when Twitter makes it possible for certain people with certain ideas to be violently abused for expressing those ideas.

Katy Balls

Will May’s decision to sack Gavin Williamson backfire?

Will Theresa May's decision to sack Gavin Williamson come back to haunt her? That's the question being asked in Westminster this morning after the Prime Minister fired the Defence Secretary alleging that he was behind a leak on Huawei from a meeting of the National Security Council to the Telegraph. The hope in No. 10 was that this decisive action would bring the episode to a close. That now seems rather optimistic. News of Williamson's sacking has made its way onto the front page of every paper – but most of the articles suggest it's not a black and white issue. They all note that doubt has been cast over what evidence No. 10 actually has against Williamson and reference the fact that he has sworn on his children's lives he is not behind the leak.

Lynn Barber

Split personality | 2 May 2019

The news over Easter that Lord Adonis, the counterweight to nominative determinism, was standing as a Labour Remain MEP was greeted with a fair degree of scepticism. Many commented that it would be a novelty for him to stand for anything — in his early twenties he became an SDP councillor in Oxford, but that’s the last time he was elected to anything. His career has been based entirely on patronage, mainly from Tony Blair, who plucked him from journalism (he worked for the Financial Times and then the Observer) to run his policy unit, and then made him a peer so that he could become minister for education. (Adonis is still good friends with Blair, and says: ‘He’s unchanged. He is God’s gift to charisma and dynamism.

James Forsyth

Nigel’s revenge

Something’s been missing from Westminster these past few days. Normally, in an election week, there is a buzz about the place. Politicians feast off their encounters with the voters, coming back from the campaign trail with new theories about what the public really want. But this time, few MPs from any party seem keen to talk about this week’s local elections — or the impact they are likely to have on Brexit, Theresa May’s tenure in No. 10 and the future of British politics in general. This is because they know that the European elections, which are just three weeks away, will have a huge influence on all of these questions. The European elections are the vote that was never meant to happen.

Joanna Rossiter

The Isles of Scilly

‘You can get away from everything,’ said Harold Wilson of the Isles of Scilly, ‘not only in distance but also in time’. During recess, Wilson would frequently catch the sleeper from Paddington to Penzance before making the notoriously choppy crossing to Britain’s most westerly archipelago. There he would unwind in his cottage on St Mary’s — a place where the red box could not easily follow. This family of five islands 28 miles off the nose of Land’s End has always enjoyed a somewhat secretive coterie of admirers — Jude Law and Michael Morpurgo to name but two. Deserted beaches with a Caribbean colour palette are surely part of the draw, as are hedgerows festooned with wild garlic, pink bells and exotic aeoniums.