Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

Isabel Hardman

MPs should take more responsibility for disasters like Syria

Should there be an independent inquiry into the cost of doing nothing in Syria? That's what MPs on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee think in any case, as they publish a report today that looks at the consequences of parliament's decision not to intervene in the conflict in 2013. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has already told MPs on that committee that an independent inquiry isn't possible, but their report argues that 'the government needs to understand the role the UK's inaction has had and learn the lessons from it for the future'. If a short inquiry and report can achieve this, the committee offers a grim preview of what such an inquiry might find, pointing to the 400,000 deaths and the mass exodus of 11 million Syrian people from their homes.

Ross Clark

Why GDP growth has nothing to do with the World Cup or the warm weather

We don’t hear much of the phrase 'despite Brexit' any more – it is just a little too obvious. Instead, pro-remain news sources have decided to apportion good economic news on the weather and the World Cup. This morning, the ONS announced that GDP growth in the three months to the end of July had risen to 0.6 per cent, the fastest for a year and doing much to make up for a sluggish first quarter. The Guardian was quick to identify what it saw as the reason, giving the news the headline: 'UK Growth Picks up to 0.6 per cent after World Cup and heatwave boost.' The BBC followed suit, saying: 'UK growth helped by World Cup and warm weather', and the FT: 'The UK’s scorching summer fuelled a recovery in retail and construction.' That is, of course, a consensus.

Fraser Nelson

The new Swedish lesson: populism can be kept at bay by listening to voters | 10 September 2018

The world's press was all geared up to write "Rabble-rousing Sweden Democrat breakthrough" but Sweden's voters have not obliged. The populists were aiming for first place, but remain in third place, behind the conservatives. The Christian Democrats (led by Ebba Busch Thor, pictured, above) and the Centre Party gained more seats between them (16) than the Sweden Democrats did (13 seats, to a total of 62). The governing Social Democrats had their worst result for decades, but have still ended up the largest party by far. Swedes woke up to find parliament looking like this:- V: LeftParty (ie, former Communists). S: Social Democrats. MP: Greens. SD: Sweden Democrats (in the middle because no one will enter an alliance with them). L: Liberals. C: Centre Party.

Sunday

Steerpike

Boris Johnson back to old tricks

It's been a busy weekend for Boris Johnson. After the former foreign secretary came under fire over his private life, Johnson appeared to make life more difficult for himself by penning an article for the Mail on Sunday in which he suggested that Theresa May's Brexit strategy was akin to wearing a suicide vest. Various Tory MPs were quick to see red and vow to bring BoJo down. But Mr S can't help but ask: did Johnson's strategy go to plan after all? Back in 2013, he used a Telegraph article to reveal a great trick he had learned from an Australian friend (AKA Lynton Crosby): the dead cat strategy.

Fraser Nelson

Sweden leaders’ debate shows how far language over immigration has moved

Sweden’s general election campaign ended with the Sweden Democrats in a huff and boycotting SVT, the state broadcaster, because it issued a statement distancing itself from comments made by Jimmie Åkesson in the leaders’ debate that it broadcast. Having a supposedly neutral state broadcaster pass judgement is the perfect gift for Åkesson, who said it demonstrates an establishment stitch-up and institutional bias. But actual debate itself offered a fascinating glimpse into how much the debate has shifted in Sweden - with leaders of all parties offering immigration-related facts that make a British listener gasp. We had seven party leaders, most of whom expressing views that they’d have denounced as racist not so long ago.

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Javid calls for ‘measured language’ after Boris’s ‘suicide vest’ comment

Sajid Javid: Boris Johnson should use ‘measured language’ Boris Johnson has been dominating the headlines today for a variety of reasons. The news that he and his wife Marina Wheeler are to divorce is juxtaposed alongside his comments in the Mail on Sunday that the government's Brexit stance has ‘wrapped a suicide vest around the British constitution – and handed the detonator to Michel Barnier’. His remarks have prompted outrage in some circles, most notably from his former Foreign Office colleague Sir Alan Duncan. Andrew Marr asked Home Secretary Sajid Javid if this was the right way for Johnson to conduct himself: https://twitter.

Stephen Daisley

Labour MPs are conferring legitimacy on anti-Semitism

Former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has been roughed up enough lately and I am loath to add to the calumnies but something he keeps saying bothers me. ‘The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.’ Sacks has dropped this aphorism into speeches and articles for the past few years and no wonder: it’s a pithier version of the Niemöller verse, a shorthand for the metastatic nature of prejudice. First of all, I’m not convinced it’s true. They always come for the Jews but they don’t always come for the Communists or the Catholics or the trade unionists, not least because the Communists and the Catholics and the trade unionists are sometimes busy coming for the Jews themselves. There is a more fundamental objection.

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson sparks a fresh outbreak of Tory civil war

Well, that didn't take long. Just one week into the new parliamentary term and a case of civil war has broke out in the Conservative party over Boris Johnson. The former foreign secretary makes the front of most Sunday papers – with some running more than one P1 story about him. Following the news that Johnson is divorcing his wife Marina Wheeler, his 'close friendship' with a female former Tory aide makes three papers. The Sunday Times reports that a sleaze dossier – linked to No 10 – on weaponising Johnson's private has been doing the rounds over the past week. However, the author of the document points out that they no longer work for Theresa May and says they drew this up after the EU referendum.

Saturday

James Forsyth

The greatest obstacle to a Brexit deal

The UK and the EU are playing a dangerous game of chicken over the Irish border, I say in The Sun this morning. There has been almost no progress on this issue over the summer and without a deal on it, there can’t be a withdrawal agreement. One of those involved in the negotiations on the British side tells me, the EU ‘believe we will blink first’. But that won’t happen. One Brexit red line that Theresa May is adamant she’ll never cross is her insistence that no British PM could sign the EU’s proposed text on the Irish border, which would see Northern Ireland become part of the customs territory of the EU. Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, is prepared to produce a de-dramatised version of the backstop.

Douglas Murray

The Swedish Prime Minister has gambled with his country’s future

The Swedes are going to the polls in one of the most significant bellwether-elections in Europe this year. The international press has been taking an unusual interest in these elections because the Sweden Democrats look set to do fairly well, perhaps coming second if not first. Readers of The Strange Death of Europe will know that I spent some time with members and leaders of that party during research for the book. Nothing that has happened since then (summer 2016) has changed the way I view the party or the political establishment’s attitudes towards it. However, one thing that has happened on the eve of this election could easily have been predicted.

Friday

Owen Bennett

Welcoming in Tommy Robinson would be the end of Ukip

Is Tommy Robinson a political martyr? Some Ukip supporters think so, and want the former English Defence League leader to be allowed to join their party. A motion set to be debated at Ukip's conference this month could now decide the issue, with the party's ruling body debating this weekend whether it should be up to its members to have the final say on whether Robinson should be welcome in Ukip's ranks. If the ban on Robinson's membership is lifted, then the smallest fig leaf separating the party from the EDL will have finally been removed. Under Ukip's latest leader, Gerard Batten, this seems to be the direction in which the party is travelling.

Steerpike

Everyone who hates Chequers – a beginner’s guide

In August, this author teased Dalibor Rohac, who wrote in the Washington Post: ‘Theresa May is the world’s most underrated leader.’ Since, Mr S has given it some thought, and sends his apologies. Why? Because Rohac was right – Mrs May is a ‘genius’. In just two months, she has brought unity to Western politics. Everyone hates the Chequers agreement. Since the plan was agreed in July, reams of political figures have spoken out against it. This is Steerpike’s encyclopedia of enmity; a record of those who have denounced May’s proposed negotiating strategy.

Isabel Hardman

Vince Cable tries to solve the Lib Dems’ existential crisis

Vince Cable's announcements about shaking up the Liberal Democrats don't exactly inspire confidence in the party as an energetic force in British politics. Despite pitching themselves squarely as the anti-Brexit party, and despite there being growing talk of a group of voters - and MPs - who feel politically homeless, the Lib Dems are struggling to attract attention or offer a sense of purpose. The Lib Dem leader's plan to open up the party's membership to a 'new class of supporters who pay nothing to sign up to the party's values' has sparked a fair bit of criticism from those who think this would leave the Lib Dems vulnerable to entryism, as happened when Ed Miliband enacted similar reforms in the Labour Party.

Harry Mount

Boris’s gloating critics should be ashamed of themselves

Am I the last person in the metropolitan elite bubble who likes Boris Johnson? You’d certainly think so, going on the reaction to the sad news of his divorce from his wife, Marina Wheeler, after 25 years of marriage. Every divorce is a whirlpool of misery for all those involved: parents, children, family and close friends. And yet the coverage of Boris’s sad news bubbles on a seething undercurrent of gloating and delight. ’Twas ever thus with Boris. For all his huge fan club, there have always been MPs who are jealous of his popularity; who were angry with him, when he edited The Spectator, that he didn’t accept their stultifyingly dull pieces on ‘Whither the euro?’ Boris is completely aware of all this.

Melanie McDonagh

Karen Bradley’s bid to break Stormont’s deadlock could pay off

Karen Bradley, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, would not, perhaps, win prizes for her in depth knowledge of sectarian politics in her patch – in an interview for the House magazine she said she had never realised that nationalists don’t vote for unionists, and vice versa (though that, actually, may change, given how Sinn Fein’s pro abortion, pro gay marriage gives Catholic voters the creeps) – but she’s on the ball in one respect.

Steerpike

Northern Ireland secretary: I didn’t realise nationalists don’t vote for unionist parties

Oh dear. Although Karen Bradley is widely regarded as Theresa May's closest ally in the Cabinet, Mr S hadn't realised the lengths the Cabinet minister was willing to go to to take the heat from her boss. In an interview with the House magazine, the Northern Ireland secretary has confessed that prior to being handed the brief she didn't know much about... Northern Ireland. In fact, she didn't know that 'people who are nationalists don’t vote for unionist parties and vice-versa': 'I freely admit that when I started this job, I didn’t understand some of the deep-seated and deep-rooted issues that there are in Northern Ireland.

Thursday

Max Jeffery

Four things we learnt from Raab and Robbins’ committee appearance

After the long summer recess, it was back to school for Dominic Raab and Olly Robbins as they appeared together before the European Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday. The meeting couldn't be described as ideal timing for either thanks to an unfortunate set of circumstances. With the government's Brexit plan slammed by Brexiteers and Remainers alike, Raab and Robbins – the Government’s two most senior negotiators – had to defend a plan which has been heralded as less popular than the poll tax. The second underlying tension of yesterday’s meeting was the tricky relationship between the Brexit Secretary and the PM’s Europe advisor.

Paul Nizinskyj

It’s now or never for Labour moderates

You have to hand it to Labour – they certainly know how to make an entrance. In the week that parliament returns, it was announced on Monday that the full slate of Corbynista candidates had been elected to Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC). This included Pete “Trump fanatics” Willsman, who was given a hero’s welcome by activists as he arrived at Labour HQ the following day. This was caught on camera with one activist bellowing through a microphone: “Jews are not oppressed...Jews are not discriminated against. They don't suffer economic discrimination." Apart from sending chills down the spines of British Jewry, the main outcome of this NEC election is likely to be introduction of the much-threatened mandatory reselection for MPs.

Steerpike

Jacob Rees-Mogg: Why I support Boris Johnson as a future leader

Will Theresa May’s troubles ever end? Jacob Rees-Mogg has put the PM under more pressure today, telling LBC that he would have preferred Boris Johnson lead negotiations with the EU. The ERG Chair said: ‘Two years ago, in the Conservative Party leadership campaign, I supported Boris Johnson, because I thought he would deliver Brexit extraordinarily well. I haven’t seen anything that would cause me to change my mind on that. I think that had he become Prime Minister, we would have negotiated from a greater position of strength, and would be heading towards a clearer, cleaner Brexit, rather than the muddle of Chequers.

Steerpike

Westminster dog of the year: Corbyn misses out

Mike Amesbury hoisted Corbyn into the air and patted him on the head. The shadow employment minister was at the 2018 Westminster Dog of the Year competition with his Cockapoo (who his son named Corbyn), and had just won the so-called ‘pawblic vote’. However it was Alex Norris, another Labour MP, who finished on the top of the podium with his dogs Boomer and Corona. Andrew Mitchell’s Scarlet came second, and Cheryl Gillan’s recue dog Goosebury came third. The annual event is hosted by Dogs Trust in Victoria Tower Gardens. Adrian Burder, Chief Executive of the charity, explained that the event provides an opportunity to ‘raise awareness of key dog welfare issues.