Labour party

Friday

Isabel Hardman

What politicians mean by a ‘great response’ on the doorstep

From our UK edition

It’s that time of the year when politicians start posting pictures of groups of people smiling eerily while holding party placards and claiming that they’ve just had a ‘great response’ on the doorstep.  For the uninitiated, this sounds as though the people opening their doors in each street are just thrilled to see said eerily smiling groups of campaigners striding up their garden paths. For those of us who spend election campaigns following politicians of all hues around on doorsteps, we know that a ‘great response’ is more likely to mean that only three people in a very long street were both in and disposed to opening their front doors.

The Spectator

Jeremy Corbyn’s Chatham House speech, full text

From our UK edition

Chatham House has been at the forefront of thinking on Britain’s role in the world. So with the General Election less than a month away, it’s a great place to set out my approach: on how a Labour Government I lead will keep Britain safe, reshape relationships with partners around the world, work to strengthen the United Nations and respond to the global challenges we face in the 21st century. And I should say a warm welcome to the UN Special Representative in Somalia,  Michael Keating, who is here today. On Monday, we commemorated VE Day, the anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in Europe. VE Day marked the defeat of fascism and the beginning of the end of a global war that claimed seventy million lives.

Tom Goodenough

Labour’s manifesto: the newspapers’ verdict

From our UK edition

Labour had a day to forget yesterday: the party’s leaked manifesto was plastered all over the newspapers, its leader was a no show at Labour’s poster launch and Corbyn’s car collided with a BBC cameraman. On the plus side, the party has succeeded in snatching the headlines away from the Tories. But is this wall-to-wall coverage a good thing? Here’s what the newspaper editorials are making of Labour’s manifesto: Labour’s plan for government is a ‘misguided bid to turn the clock back’, according to the FT. In its damning editorial, the paper says that its clear the opposition wants to ditch the ‘market economy’ which has ‘delivered prosperity for Britain’ for a generation.

Ross Clark

Labour’s manifesto is a fiscal fantasy land – but the Tories would be wrong to ignore it

From our UK edition

Labour's leaked manifesto is, predictably enough, a fiscal fantasy land with lots of spending pledges and rather few tax rises to pay for them –  higher taxes for the top five per cent of earners would not necessarily earn an extra penny in revenue if they encouraged more avoidance or flight to tax havens. But does that mean it is all rubbish? Not at all. Conservatives would do well to refrain from the dismissive talk about the manifesto being a suicide note and recognise that there are some good ideas which they should emulate.

Thursday

The Spectator

No left turn

From our UK edition

It would be easy to dismiss Jeremy Corbyn’s launch of the Labour party’s election campaign this week on the grounds that hardly anyone believes he has the slightest chance of becoming prime minister. But given that David Cameron was given a 0.5 per cent chance of winning a majority, and Donald Trump a 1 per cent chance of the presidency, it would be foolish not to take the main opposition party seriously. At the very least, Corbyn’s ideas need to be examined in order to understand why Labour finds itself in the position it does, and why no party leader to the left of Tony Blair has won a general election in over 40 years.

Nick Cohen

The counter-revolution begins, comrades, on 12 June

From our UK edition

Think of the Parliamentary Labour Party as a regiment ordered over the top in the First World War. The soldiers know the generals haven’t a clue. They know the battle was lost before it began. The only question in their minds is who makes it back from the slaughter. The projected casualty rates vary. Corbyn’s supporters want to justify the left continuing to cling onto the leadership by getting close to Ed Miliband’s share of the vote in 2015. If they succeed they will keep the Labour party at 30 per cent and give the Tories a majority of 60 or 70. London Labour MPs also feel that the losses can be contained.

Stephen Daisley

Labour’s manifesto reveals one thing: the Left has run out of ideas

From our UK edition

Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse for Labour, Noam Chomsky goes and endorses Jeremy Corbyn. 'If I were a voter in Britain, I would vote for him...He’s quiet, reserved, serious, he’s not a performer,' Chomsky told the Guardian. But the more you read of Chomsky's endorsement, the more you wonder if he was put up to it for a bet. He says that: 'The shift in the Labour party under Blair made it a pale image of the Conservatives.' Tony Blair, that infamous electoral dud. Chomsky is regularly cited as the world's 'top public intellectual'. It's a slippery phrase. Friedrich Hayek called his ilk 'the secondhand dealers in ideas'. I certainly wouldn't buy a used ideology from Noam Chomsky.

Steerpike

Watch: Corbyn’s car drives over BBC cameraman’s foot

From our UK edition

Jeremy Corbyn's day is going from bad to disastrous. Labour's draft manifesto has been leaked and is splashed all over the newspapers. And the Labour leader was a no show at the party's poster launch. So you might be forgiven for thinking that things couldn't possibly get any worse for Corbyn. Not so. When the Labour leader arrived at the party's manifesto meeting, his car - reportedly with Corbyn still inside - ran over a BBC cameraman's foot. Here's a video of the injured cameraman being tended to afterwards: This BBC cameraman has just had his leg ran over by the car Jeremy Corbyn arrived in at Labour's manifesto signing. #GE2017 @5_News pic.twitter.

Matthew Lynn

The last thing Brexit Britain needs is Labour’s old-fashioned socialism

From our UK edition

Big hikes in corporation tax. A sweeping programme of nationalisation. Large increases in the minimum wages, a 20-1 cap on executive pay, and, just in case it gets lost in that blizzard of promises, hefty tax increases on anyone earning more than £80,000 a year. Even in a normal year, the leaked Labour party manifesto has more than enough in it to make anyone in business or industry feel just slightly nervous. But hold on. This is hardly a normal time for the British economy. We know Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell would like to pretend it simply wasn’t happening, but 2017-22 will also see the most crucial, and in many ways scary, challenge the UK has faced since the first full bracing blast of Thatcherism in the early 1980s.

The Spectator

Leaked draft of Labour 2017 manifesto – full text

From our UK edition

Labour's draft manifesto for the general election has been leaked; here's the full text: Manifesto: For the many not the few Creating an economy that works for all Our economic strategy is about delivering a fairer, more prosperous society for the many, not just the few. We will measure our economic success not by the presence of millionaires, but by the ability of people to make ends meet. Labour understands that wealth creation is a collective endeavour - between investors, workers, public services, and government. Each contributes and each must share equitably in the rewards. This manifesto is about rebalancing the economy and re-writing the .rules of a rigged system, so that the economy really works for all.

Tom Goodenough

What’s in Labour’s leaked manifesto?

From our UK edition

Labour is meeting today to finalise its manifesto. The only sticking point? A draft manifesto has already been leaked. The party’s plans to woo voters are splashed across the Daily Telegraph and the Mirror. They’ve also been leaked to the BBC. Make no mistake: this is a huge embarrassment for the party and does nothing to dispel the Tory attack line that Labour would be at the forefront of a coalition of chaos if it wins come June 9th. After all, if it can’t get its manifesto launch right, how can Labour be trusted to govern? So what does the manifesto say? There are few surprises. But for Corbyn’s supporters, this is a Christmas and birthday wishlist rolled into one. For those in the centre ground, there’s much less on offer to win their vote.

James Forsyth

Twelve months of May

From our UK edition

Normally, the first anniversary of a prime minister taking office is the occasion for a lot of opinion polls and assessments. But by going to the country early, Theresa May has pre-empted that. By the time she has been in No. 10 a year, the voters will already have delivered their verdict via the ballot box. Still, it is worth assessing what May has done so far. When she arrived in No. 10, her team had three main priorities. They wanted to complete the modernisation process by making the Tories more appealing to the so-called ‘just about managing’ classes, and to those outside the party’s heartlands. They were determined to shore up the Union — to see off Nicola Sturgeon’s renewed drive for Scottish independence.

Wednesday

Rod Liddle

Jeremy Corbyn is starting to sound like a decent Labour leader

From our UK edition

I didn’t see a ferret, reverse or otherwise, during Labour’s campaign launch or after. I heard some quite silly, grandstanding, questions from Laura Kuenssberg. And I heard a Labour leader who sounded a bit like…..well, a decent Labour leader. None of this is to deny the patent catastrophe of Corbyn’s leadership of the party hitherto, or to suggest that I agreed with everything he said. But he spoke from the heart, passionately, with a conviction I do not hear in Theresa May’s frankly automaton repetitiveness. And much of what Corbyn had to say about tax avoiders, inequalities and hardship will play very well with his core vote north of the Wash. I still wouldn’t vote for him and still less for his grim and sinister sidekick McDonnell.

Lloyd Evans

Theresa and Philip bored the nation with their strong and stable relationship

From our UK edition

How was last night’s TV squirm-athon? The sacrificial victims handled it pretty well, at first. Theresa May and her unknown husband, Philip, were roasted live on a BBC sofa. The idea, presumably, was to make them seem relaxed, normal, unexciting, not too posh, at ease with themselves and, above all, genuine. Dull Phil sported a bland shirt, no tie, and a forgettable jacket. With his gnomish pallor and his thick-rimmed spectacles he resembled Sir Ian McKellen entering a Woody Allen lookalike contest. Mrs May was in headmistress mode. Her wandering lips – each has a life of its own – were painted in hard-Brexit scarlet. She wore a black-and-white tunic that looked like a pixellated chess board.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Watch: Jeremy Corbyn dodges Brexit question seven times

From our UK edition

Jeremy Corbyn said this morning that Brexit was ‘settled’. Now, it seems, he isn’t quite so sure. The Labour leader was quizzed repeatedly on whether the UK would definitely leave the EU behind if he becomes Prime Minister on June 9th. Seven times, Corbyn refused to answer. Instead, Corbyn insisted that he would ‘get a good deal from Europe’ - but wouldn't say what would happen if he didn't. Here’s what he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg: LK: ...My question is if you’re prime minister we will leave come hell or high water whatever is on the table at the end of the negotiations? JC: We win the election we’ll get the good deal with Europe.

The Spectator

Jeremy Corbyn launches Labour’s election campaign, full text

From our UK edition

It’s great to be launching our campaign in Greater Manchester where you showed the way for the rest of the country by electing a Labour mayor, Andy Burnham.Andy will be a great mayor – but just think how much more he will be able to achieve if he is working with a Labour Government committed to the many not the few. We have four weeks. Four weeks to take our message to voters to convince them Britain can be better. It can be transformed. It doesn’t have to be like this. We can transform Britain into a country that - instead of being run for the rich - is a one where everyone can lead richer lives.And I mean richer in every sense.

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Corbyn wins some rare praise

From our UK edition

Jeremy Corbyn wins an unlikely supporter today: the Sun newspaper, which throws its weight behind the Labour leader's plans to axe hospital car park charges. The paper’s support might come as a surprise for Corbyn - particularly as its editorial goes on to criticise the health secretary Jeremy Hunt for talking ‘tough’ on scrapping charges but doing little in practice. It isn’t all good news for Corbyn though. The Sun says Corbyn ‘gets half Marx’ because of the ‘barmy’ tax on private health insurance he plans to fund it with. The Sun argues that it simply ‘never occurs to Labour to make a saving elsewhere’.

Monday

Tom Goodenough

The Tories hit their highest poll lead since 1983

From our UK edition

The Tories have just hit a new high in the polls: 49 per cent, handing them a 22-point lead over Labour. This margin is virtually uncharted territory for the Conservatives, with ICM pointing out that the party’s current lead has only been bettered once in the last 34 years of polling - back in May 1983. As ever, it’s less good news for Labour: the party sits on 27 per cent, according to ICM - a number which precisely matches the share of the national vote they picked up in last week’s local elections. If - and it’s a big if - this means the pollsters have pinpointed Labour's share of the vote at 27 per cent, the outcome would be disastrous for the party come June 8th. Replicated nationally, the Tories would win a thumping majority of 172.

Steerpike

Listen: Vince Cable says he would find it difficult not to vote for Labour MP

From our UK edition

Tim Farron has said the Lib Dems won’t be forming a coalition with Labour. But it seems Vince Cable didn’t get the memo. Cable has been taped suggesting that Lib Dem voters should back Rupa Huq, Labour’s candidate in Ealing Central. Here’s what he said: ‘I’ll just give one example - there’s Rupa Huq, who’s the candidate in Ealing. Purely but coincidence I found myself - I think it was on 'Any Questions' or one of those programmes in Warwick a few months ago, and I gave her a lift back home to Ealing. We talked for a couple of hours and it was very clear that on almost every issue our views were almost identical.

Saturday

Hugo Rifkind

Labour’s election strategy – vote for us and watch us lose | 6 May 2017

From our UK edition

The crapness of Corbyn’s Labour is a phenomenon. It fascinates me. Frankly, it does my head in. For there is a theory, you see, that Corbyn’s Labour isn’t really crap at all. That it is all a conspiracy. That journalists such as me, who I suspect are ‘neoliberal’ or something, merely construct a narrative demonising it as such. Where politicians match our prejudices, this theory goes, we give them enormous leeway and spring to their defence. When they don’t, we supposedly deem them ‘mad’ or ‘radical’ or, yes, ‘crap’, in a spirit of sheer defensiveness. It’s a neat theory, this, and very occasionally I even find myself wondering if it might be true.