Uk politics

Sunday

Steerpike

Watch: Tory conference attendees applaud Boris-bashing in main hall

From our UK edition

The Conservative conference has only just begun and already blue-on-blue warfare has broken out on the main stage. Although No. 10 had been nervous that Boris Johnson’s popularity at the annual event could usurp Theresa May’s, there is little sign of Johnson-mania in the conference hall. Lord (Digby) Jones – the ex-CBI chief and Brexiteer – used his turn on the stage to lay into the former foreign secretary. He said that Boris Johnson’s ‘f--- business’ jibe ‘showed him up for the irrelevant and offensive person he really is’. In response, attendees in the hall applauded while the Cabinet – including one Theresa May – looked on awkwardly.

James Forsyth

Message-free May given tough time by Marr

From our UK edition

The big Sunday of conference TV interview is a chance for a leader to set the tone for their party’s gathering. But Theresa May failed to seize that opportunity this morning. She was, oddly, bereft of a positive message on either Brexit or domestic policy and the interview ended up being dominated by Tory splits on Brexit and the Windrush scandal. On Brexit, May stuck to the line that she doesn’t know what the EU’s objections to Chequers are. This is really stretching things. We know that the EU doesn’t like the Facilitated Customs Arrangement as it feels that it imposes burdens on them and gives the UK many of the benefits of the customs union while leaving it free to cut tariffs on the EU’s competitors.

Katy Balls

Why Tory conference will be a leadership parade

From our UK edition

What does Theresa May want to achieve from this week's conference? No-one seems sure. There are some in No 10 who would be content so long as she survives it without a coughing fit. Others have higher hopes – that she could reset the dial and reinvigorate her flagging premiership. What seems most likely, however, is that the event will descend into a leadership parade that plays a role in deciding who the next Tory prime minister is. This year's conference has already got off to a bad start for the Prime Minister thanks to a massive data breach courtesy of CCHQ's conference app and a bad-tempered appearance by the Maybot on Marr (James has all the gruesome details here). The papers have a few traces of conference announcements.

Saturday

Stephen Markeson

The story behind my famous picture of Margaret Thatcher

From our UK edition

I was surprised and delighted to find Morten Morland’s wonderful imitation of a photograph of Margaret Thatcher peering through the curtains of Number Ten on The Spectator’s cover. It reminded me of one of my memorable experiences as a photographer with the ‘Iron Lady’. I was a staff photographer at the Times for about 15 years covering some very memorable events worldwide. In November 1990, I was called into Simon Jenkins’ office, the editor at that time, who wanted to see me for a 'very important' assignment. The Times had been given the exclusive news that Margaret Thatcher had been ousted as Prime Minister and would be leaving No.10. Simon told me he had been granted the exclusive to interview her in Downing Street at midday.

Steerpike

Angela Rayner rallies against common sense

From our UK edition

Conservative conference weekend is here, prompting the usual effort by Labour to mis-cast the Tories as a party of rich toffs. However, this seems to have backfired for Angela Rayner. This morning she posted a widely shared image of the Conference website, which is selling last-minute tickets at inflated prices: https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1045790543786242056 However, Mr S is delighted to inform Ms Rayner that all is not as it seems. Tickets for the Conservative Party Conference have been on sale since January, at a much-reduced price of £50, and £20 for under 25s. In fact, many students and young professions are sent by their associations with free tickets. The price was doubled on May 1st and raised again close to conference.

Katy Balls

CCHQ gives out Boris Johnson’s phone number

From our UK edition

There had been a general consensus among Conservative MPs that this year's Tory conference would be an improvement on the last so long as Theresa May could get through her speech without coughing. However, it seems the forces that be may have other ideas. With the conference due to kick off tomorrow in Birmingham, CCHQ have found themselves in the news for all the wrong reasons over their conference app. A glitch in the app meant that for at least an hour anyone who used it could access private details of people attending the event. Several Twitter users boasted about getting hold of Boris Johnson's personal mobile number – along with the contact details of Cabinet Ministers, police officers and hacks.

Prue Leith

The young people I meet give me hope for Brexit

From our UK edition

I’m heartedly sick of hearing how feckless and selfish the young are. Maybe I move in enchanted circles, but I keep on meeting young people making a go of it, and frankly if they are the future, we should have no fear of Brexit. At Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Festival, there were (among the Glastonbury refugees selling henna tattoos, yoga classes and herbal remedies) new cheesemakers, butchers, jam- and pickle-makers, restaurateurs, furniture-makers and brewers, all having successful careers out of work they love. England now has more artisan cheeses than France. Last month I helped judge the first year of the British Charcuterie Awards and there were 443 entries, mostly start-ups by young people. I recently met an amazing young woman.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

The Tories need to remember how to fight Labour

From our UK edition

As you'd expect on the eve of Tory conference, everyone in the party is offering plenty of advice for Theresa May. Some are tugging the Prime Minister leftwards, while others are fretting that the Conservatives risk abandoning their values. There's Jacob Rees-Mogg arguing that the Tories need to support the institution of the family, Sam Gyimah worrying that the party has 'lost our way' and is both 'talking business down' and 'ignoring the concerns of voters', Boris Johnson complaining about, well, quite a lot, and Liz Truss saying Labour's latest PPB 'does capture the heart of where we need to be as a party'. And it's not even the real eve of party conference. We've got tomorrow and Sunday's papers to go yet.The debate isn't just about what Theresa May is doing, though.

Steerpike

Revealed: Seumas Milne’s bumper pay rise

From our UK edition

At party conference last week, several Labour front benchers poured scorn on ‘fat cat bosses’ with excessive earnings. Jeremy Corbyn himself promised to end the country’s culture of ‘greed is good.’ It appears, though, that a bit of greed isn’t so bad when it comes to lining your own friends' coffers. The Evening Standard reports today that Corbyn, who earns around £140,000 a year, has given his closest aides whopping pay rises of up to 26 per cent. The average salary of his three best paid advisers is now £94,421, four times the salary of a London nurse. Corbyn’s closest ally, former Guardian hack and champagne socialist Seumas Milne is doing best out of the arrangement and now earns £101,855.

Steerpike

Corbyn crashes Tory conference

From our UK edition

The 2015 Conservative Party conference in Manchester stood out for its ugly scenes – with protesters hurling eggs at attendees. Jeremy Corbyn inflamed tensions further by attending a rally on the eve of that conference which called on Tories to be ‘thrown out of Manchester’. Is a similar series of events on the cards this weekend when members gather in Birmingham? Corbyn notably stayed away from subsequent conferences in 2016 and 2017 which coincidentally were much quieter affairs. But this year the threat of an angry horde of SWP sorts is concerning both CCHQ and the Birmingham police. Mr S is informed that Conservative HQ are aware of the fact PM-in-waiting Corbyn plans to speak at two Labour rallies in the Birmingham area on Saturday afternoon.

Fraser Nelson

Alan Duncan on Boris: ‘publicity is his cocaine’

From our UK edition

It’s no secret that quite a few Tory MPs think Boris Johnson is on manoeuvres and must be stopped. But none are as vocal as his former deputy in the Foreign Office, Alan Duncan. He recently tweeted that 'I’m sorry, but this is the political end of Boris Johnson. If it isn’t now, I will make sure it is later.' I asked him why he had responded in such a way, and we had an interesting conversation that I suggested we put on the record. He agreed, and we met recently in his Westminster home. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation.   FN: You attacked Boris in pretty forthright terms on Twitter. Why?   AD: We are at a very critical moment, where if we get this wrong, we have no Brexit, no government, Corbyn.

Steerpike

Watch: Rod Liddle takes Corbyn to task on Question Time

From our UK edition

Corbynista cheerleader Ian Lavery is used to dishing it out, but on the evidence of last night's Question Time he is not quite so good at knowing what to do when it comes back at him. The Labour MP got a taste of his own medicine after Rod Liddle took him to task over the 'raft of hypocrites' in his party: 'Thornberry, Abbott, Chakrabarti, all of who don't want you to send your kids to private or selective schools but do so for their kids. And for Corbyn and McDonnell who have given support and succour to every possible hostile, violent anti-democrat terrorist regime that they can: IRA, Hamas, Hezbollah, Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela. If you want people like that running your country, vote for Corbyn' https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/status/1045438264906338305?

Steerpike

Militant councillor Derek Hatton rejoins the Labour Party

From our UK edition

When Dawn Butler made eye-catching comments last week at Labour conference praising the Militant-led, hard-left Liverpool council of the 1980s, it was presumed she was either talking off script, or courting the Momentum vote for a potential deputy leadership bid. But could she have been indicating a change of direction for the Labour party instead? It seemed to be confirmed last night, when Derek Hatton, the former deputy leader of the Militant council, announced that he had been readmitted to the Labour Party. The Liverpudlian Trotskyist has been banned from Labour for over thirty years, after Neil Kinnock purged his faction from the Party.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Labour’s conference has made it harder for its unhappy MPs to leave

From our UK edition

Labour's lost centrists weren't just physically absent at the party's conference: they were also absent from the debate. Perhaps those who had turned up from the 'moderate' wing of the party had expected frequent denunciations of 'Blairites' from the main stage, but it didn't come. In fact, even in the fringes, the moderates came up far less as enemies than the unions and Momentum. This is partly because the Labour Party now feels very comfortable in its Corbynite skin and is more interested in ensuring it can deselect those moderates in the most efficient way rather than attacking them. But the moderates themselves are also quiet because they are on what is probably best described as a psychological precipice.

Steerpike

Rupa Huq stretches the truth

From our UK edition

Rupa Huq was the unfortunate Labour front-bencher sent out to explain the party’s latest Brexit policy on Politics Live this afternoon. Armed with the standard party line that Labour can somehow unite Britain on Brexit, she struggled under the strain of a classic Andrew Neil grilling. Moreover, Huq made the following bold claim: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1045275283547348992 A great soundbite, playing nicely into the Media Vs Jeremy, Government-in-Waiting narrative that Diane Abbot struggled with on Wednesday’s Newsnight. Unfortunately, technically speaking it is just not true. Of the 25 most Leave-voting seats, only 11 (not 25 as Huq suggested) are currently represented by Labour MPs, with the other 14 are all Conservative-held.

Steerpike

Theresa May’s spouse rebuke on shaky ground

From our UK edition

After the Prime Minister turned her ire on a lobby hack this week for failing to ask her a serious question, Theresa May has now moved on to would-be journalists in the Tory party. In the latest edition of the House magazine, James Cleverly – the deputy chairman – interviews his boss. In the easy touch, pre-conference interview, Cleverly asks May if she ever seeks work advice from her husband Philip. However, he doesn't get the answer he is looking for with May accusing him of light sexism: 'This is just a thought. I just wondered when you asked me about Philip’s role, whether if I was a male prime minister, you would have asked the same question about their wife?

Steerpike

Watch: Diane Abbott’s BBC bias gaffe

From our UK edition

There’s a burning question being asked everywhere from Liverpool to London: is Diane Abbott capable of getting through a single interview without committing a massive blunder? After another stellar performance on Newsnight, the answer almost certainly appears to be no. When the shadow home secretary was asked by Emily Maitlis if Labour’s Brexit immigration stance risked painting them as the party of the metropolitan elite, Abbott thought she had the perfect combative response: ‘You seem to be reading from a Tory script. I’m telling you that migration is a complex issue and we need to start with the facts. I’m telling you the reason that some parts of the country voted to leave is a complicated question and we have to listen to them and respect them.

Stephen Daisley

Why we should fear Corbyn’s socialism

From our UK edition

Donald Trump was at the UN this week sticking it to the globalist elites and bragging about being the greatest president since Reagan or FDR or one of the other ones. Twitter and the press corps — to the extent there is any difference remaining between the two — were fair taken by the General Assembly snorting in response to this familiar display of MAGAlomania. Of course they laughed. It's the UN, the world’s most prestigious gathering of diplos, kleptos and psychos. They look at Trump, a strongman who can’t even stop his own executive branch investigating him, and think: ‘Amateur’.  Other than that, it was a fairly middling restatement of Trumpian nationalism. Far more telling was the section of his remarks he dedicated to socialism.

John McTernan

The fatal flaw in Labour’s politics

From our UK edition

If we learned one thing from Labour Party Conference it's that capitalism is bad. The union leaders said so, the delegates said so, Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Labour Party, said so – at length. And do you know what? They’re right. Capitalism is bad, very, very bad – at defending itself. As anti-business policy after anti-business policy was announced, despair at the poverty of the response of the business lobby was matched only by grudging admiration for the message discipline of Corbyn and his supporters.

Alex Massie

The dreadful state of British politics

From our UK edition

Conference season always shows our political parties at their worst. It would be a kindness if these things were not televised. These dungeons cannot withstand the intrusion of too much daylight. On the other hand, some things are evident. Chiefly, it is now beyond clear that Brexit has broken both parties. More than that, it has overwhelmed a hopelessly overmatched political class that plainly lacks the ability to make sense of the Brexit fiasco and, just as pertinently, the courage to look reality in the face. This government - this hopeless government, I should say - is kept alive by only one thing: the impossibility of the opposition. In turn, this opposition is given hope by only one thing: the clattering uselessness of this government.