Uk politics

Sunday

Katy Balls

The latest Labour bullying row highlights the moderates’ dilemma

From our UK edition

Although it's the Conservatives nowadays who are best known for in-fighting, this weekend we were offered a reminder of the divisions in Labour. At a meeting of the National Policy Forum (NPF), a row broke out between the Momentum contingent and the moderates. The subject of the row was – once again – Ann Black, the veteran activist who was ousted as chair of the Disputes Panel last month (and replaced with Corbyn favourite Christine Shawcroft) after the Corbynistas won a majority on the National Executive Committee. Black was expected to defeat union representative Andi Fox to be elected as chair of the policy forum, which sets Labour policy for future general elections. However, it appears Jeremy Corbyn’s allies had other ideas.

Charles Moore

What Prince Charles should say to the Commonwealth

From our UK edition

The Queen is Head of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is headquartered in London, in the splendour of Marlborough House. The Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Lady Scotland, is British (and also Dominican). Britain is about to take the chair of the Commonwealth for the customary two years, and so the next Heads of Government Conference — probably the last to be attended by the Queen — will take place in London in April. At the same time, Britain is leaving the European Union. So it would seem that circumstances combine to favour a push by the British government to make the Commonwealth work much more actively in our favour. Being a Brexiteer, I am tempted by this idea; but in fact I fear it could all go horribly wrong.

Saturday

James Forsyth

There’s a Brexit deal to be done on security

From our UK edition

Theresa May was pushing at an open door in her Munich speech when she warned against ‘rigid institutional restrictions’ harming security cooperation after Brexit, I say in The Sun today. Member states are reluctant to follow the Commission’s tough line on this as they know how valuable the UK’s contribution in this field is. I understand that when the Commission told the 27 that the UK would have to be treated like other third countries on security after Brexit, several member states pushed back. They argued that it must be possible to find sensible compromises. Security is where it is most clearly in the interests of EU member states to find an accommodation with the UK in these negotiations.

Friday

Katy Balls

Theresa May and Angela Merkel’s curious conference

From our UK edition

There was a cold front in Berlin today as Theresa May took to the stage for a joint press conference with Angela Merkel. The Prime Minister is in Germany to discuss post-Brexit security – with a speech scheduled tomorrow in Munich – but all anyone wanted to talk about today was Merkel's Davos joke. The German chancellor is said to have regaled hacks at the meeting of the global elite with an anecdote about May having no idea what she wants from Brexit. Asked in the Q&A today whether she understood Merkel's frustration that she is still unable to say what Britain wants, May insisted the government had a clear position – but added that 'this isn't just a one-way street'. For her part, Merkel appeared none-the-wiser as to May's Brexit wish list.

James Forsyth

Labour deny that Jeremy Corbyn was a paid informant during the cold war

From our UK edition

The case of Jeremy Corbyn and the Czechoslovakian diplomat has taken another turn today. The officer who met Corbyn has alleged that Corbyn took money from them and was a paid informant. The Labour leader’s office has vigorously denied the charge, citing the director of the Czech security force archive who has said that their records don’t back up this version of events. There’s clearly a contradiction between the accounts of Corbyn and the Czechoslovakian diplomat—and the Labour leader is entitled to the presumption of innocence on this point. Corbyn, though, would undoubtedly be the most anti-Western figure ever to become Britain’s Prime Minister.

Steerpike

Gavin Williamson’s diplomatic incident

From our UK edition

Since Gavin Williamson was appointed as Defence Secretary, the Conservative MP has been in a rush to prove his credentials. From battling the Treasury over proposed military cuts to posing with rescue dogs, Williamson certainly seems a man in a hurry. However, with speed comes mistakes. Today's Financial Times reports of a diplomatic gaffe committed by Williamson this week. Ahead of Theresa May's speech this weekend in Germany on a new security relationship with the EU, the Prime Minister has been doing her best to charm European leaders – recently hosting Emmanuel Macron. However, this week Williamson dismissed the importance of one of France in defence matters.

Steerpike

Tory MP’s Glastonbury blunder

From our UK edition

George Freeman doesn't have the best record with regards to the Glastonbury music festival. The Conservative MP found himself the subject of light mockery this summer over his plans for a 'Tory Glastonbury'. Freeman organised the Big Tent Ideas Festival to try and reinvigorate his tired party. Now, he has tried to take aim at Glastonbury for failing where his festival will succeed. On hearing that plastic bottles will be banned at next year's Glastonbury festival, Freeman asked: 'why not THIS year?' He went on to say that – by comparison – there won't be any plastic bottles at this year's Big Tent (so there): Only there's a problem. The reason there is no plastic bottle ban at this year's Glastonbury is that...

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Why Corbyn cannot be allowed the key to No10

From our UK edition

Jeremy Cobyn has been condemned by a former head of MI6 for reportedly meeting a Communist spy in the House of Commons. Richard Dearlove says that the Labour leader – who denies the accusations as a ‘ridiculous smear’ – was either ‘incredibly naive or complicit’. The Sun condemns Corbyn in its editorial this morning, saying that it is clear the Labour leader undoubtedly has ‘questions to answer’ over the alleged contact. His reported meeting is further evidence of Corbyn’s ‘shocking judgement’, according to the Sun, which says there is no doubt he was ‘wrong’ to meet with a Czech diplomat at the height of the Cold War, whatever was being discussed.

Thursday

Steerpike

Sarah Champion does a Leadsom

From our UK edition

Here we go again. During the last Conservative leadership campaign, Andrea Leadsom came under fire for suggesting that having children made her a better choice to be prime minister than Theresa May. In an interview with the Times, the mother of three said having children meant she had 'a very real stake' in Britain's future. The furore over Leadsom's comments was a contributing factor in her decision to pull out of the contest. Now it seems that Sarah Champion has taken a lesson from the Leadsom rule book. In an interview with the House magazine, the Labour MP suggests that tackling child sexual abuse has taken a back seat since Theresa May became Prime Minister – lamenting that David Cameron had more of an interest because he is a...

Steerpike

Ukip’s woes go from bad to worse

From our UK edition

Poor old Ukip. The party is already in dire straits, with its collapsing vote share, lack of funds and a laughing stock for a leader. You might think that things couldn't get any worse for Ukip. But you'd be wrong: the party’s troubles look to have just increased dramatically. Ukip has just been ordered to shell out for part of a £670,000 legal bill brought about as a result of a libel action made by three Labour MPs against Ukip MEP Jane Collins. The court order says: Ukip is already said to have little left in the bank, with reports that the party could struggle to afford to pay for another leadership contest if Bolton does get the boot. It is not known how much exactly Ukip will have to cough up as a result of this ruling, but Mr S.

Katy Balls

How should the Tories attack Corbyn on foreign policy?

From our UK edition

How should the Tories attack Jeremy Corbyn on foreign policy? Today's Sun splashes on a story about the Labour leader and a Czechoslovakian communist spy. The paper claims that Corbyn briefed a communist spy – masquerading as a Czechoslovakian diplomat – during the cold war. Gavin Williamson has been quick to denounce Corbyn's behaviour as a 'betrayal of this country'. As for Corbyn's response, his spokesman says he did meet with a diplomat but insists he 'neither had nor offered any privileged information'. The story has divided opinion online with Corbyn's critics quick to cite it as further proof that he hates the West and Corbyn's fans quick to slam it as another MSM smear.

Steerpike

Government’s Carillion fail

From our UK edition

Oh dear. With the government already in the firing line over the decision to hand Carillion contracts despite profit warnings, ministers are attempting a damage limitation exercise as they deal with the fall-out of the company's collapse. So, Mr S suspects whoever wrote today's 'update' for Carillion workers will live to regret it. A 'news story' appeared on the government website this afternoon with an update for Carillion workers. The problem was that the update simply comprised of: 'Blaah' Somewhat unsurprisingly, the article has since been removed.

Stephen Daisley

The SNP should reinvent itself

From our UK edition

The SNP, you'll be distressed to learn, are having a time of it. The party is embroiled in a deputy leadership contest that could have been designed by their worst enemies. Angus Robertson, who lost his Moray seat last June, has resigned, depriving the party of one of its most formidable and respectable advocates. His departure couldn't have come at a worse moment. The SNP has tried Scots' forbearance for constitutional agitation and now has a reputation for banging on about independence that more justly belongs to Ruth Davidson's Tories. After more than a decade in power, the SNP government shows signs of wear and tear and perhaps some structural damage too.

Siobhan Fenton

Could direct rule solve Northern Ireland’s political crisis?

From our UK edition

Power-sharing talks at Stormont have dramatically collapsed again. This is a shock to many in Northern Ireland, where an apparent thawing in the relationship between the DUP and Sinn Fein led to speculation that the announcement of a deal was imminent. Instead, the stasis continues. Northern Ireland has now been without a functioning government for just over 13 months, since Sinn Fein first plunged Northern Irish politics into limbo by pulling out of their pact with the DUP in January 2017. The reason for their decision to back out of the power sharing agreement was Arlene Foster's apparent complicity – which she has denied – in the botched 'cash for ash' scandal.

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Boris has been rumbled

From our UK edition

Boris Johnson painted Brexit as a source of ‘hope not fear’ in his speech yesterday. The Foreign Secretary said that Britain’s departure from the EU was not a ‘great V-sign from the cliffs of Dover’. ‘That’s how you do it!,’ says the Sun in its editorial in which it urges other members of the Cabinet to follow Boris’s lead. His barnstorming speech ‘laid out the exciting case for a truly global Britain’ and was the same ‘vision’ which persuaded 17.4million Brits to back Brexit in the first place. ‘Too often’ other Ministers ‘treat our exit like a problem to be managed rather than an opportunity to be seized’.

Nick Cohen

Europeans are Britain’s new minority

From our UK edition

If you ran the marketing department of a progressive organisation, which wanted to advertise its inclusiveness, how would you do it? My guess is that you would run down the checklist of identity politics and first make sure your advertising had a perfect gender balance. Showing men and women equally would not be enough, however. There would need to be racial balance: black and brown faces among the white. You would want to tick confessional boxes and feature a Muslim and a Sikh. Perhaps you would want to show a transgender man or woman, just to be on the safe side. At the end of it all, you would sit back and think, ‘there I have covered every base, no one can object now’. The advert is aired and you are a hit by a complaint you never expected.

Ed West

Children’s cinema is conservative – and brilliant

From our UK edition

The Oscars promise to be truly unbearable this year, with vomit-inducing levels of sanctimony followed by the usual gibberish from the commentariat. The results and speeches and even clothes will be subject to endless politicised scrutiny, and whatever the film industry does to stay Woke, the Buzzfeed headline will inevitably be ‘and people aren’t happy about it’. I’m not sure actors really appreciate how their moralising, once simply tedious, is now grotesque; how there’s something almost darkly funny about members of the film industry presenting themselves as an ethical authority on anything, now they’ve been exposed as modern-day Borgias.

Wednesday

Ed West

A tale of two Brexits

From our UK edition

At one point during Boris Johnson’s speech today he asked the audience: ‘We all want to make Britain less insular, don’t we?’ Silence. Media-training experts use an initialism to try to get journalists and other talking-heads to come across well on television – BLT. Does the audience believe you? Do they like you? Do they trust you? The Foreign Secretary has never had a problem with the middle one, perhaps the most important of the three, but during the EU referendum there was certainly an issue with belief, since some of the more nationalistic rhetoric of the campaign clearly sat ill at ease with this ‘esoteric product of millennia of Eurasian toff miscegenation’, as Rod Liddle once described him.

Ross Clark

Why are animals more important than unborn children?

From our UK edition

Most of the time I feel perfectly at ease in my own country, and that would be the case had we voted Brexit or Remain, Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn. But just occasionally Britain seems to me an utterly alien place – bizarre even. Today, Jeremy Corbyn launched his manifesto for pets. He wants to ban foie gras, make it mandatory for motorists to report that they have run over and killed cats, and pass a law giving tenants the right to keep a pet. I don’t suspect that he will encounter a great deal of opposition on these things – bar a token protest on the last from buy-to-let investors. Fox hunting aside, no political party in recent times has come to much harm by doing something to help furry, feathery or scaly animals.

Alex Massie

Boris’s Brexit vision is an answer to a non-existent problem

From our UK edition

The thing to understand about Brexit and Remain voters is that Brexit is only part of the problem. Many Remainers cast their votes with only moderate enthusiasm. They were not motivated, most of them, by any great enthusiasm for the European project. But they took what they considered to be a prudent, pragmatic, view of the national interest. They wanted a moderate, quiet life; and the status quo, however irritating it might sometimes be, was at least a known quantity and therefore preferable to the great unknown that must be unleashed by Brexit. Remain was a proper, old-fashioned, Tory choice.  And therefore, of course, rather unfashionable.