Uk politics

Wednesday

James Forsyth

‘Old Boris’ is back

From our UK edition

Boris Johnson has been down in the mouth in recent months. The ‘old Boris’ appeared to have been worn down by the cares of the office. Also, for a politician who loves to be loved, it has been difficult adjusting to his more divisive post-referendum status. But today was far more of the old Boris. He returned to his 2016 case for Brexit in a speech that was full of his trademark optimism and humour, including a slightly off-colour joke about dogging. Today had been billed as Boris reaching out to the 48 per cent—and there was a bit of that. But the real audience for this speech were the fellow members of the Brexit inner Cabinet.

Brendan O’Neill

The cult of youth undermines democracy

From our UK edition

Should a young person’s vote count for more than an old person’s? Perhaps people under the age of 25 should get two votes and people over 50 just one. After all, the under-25 person will have to live with the consequences of political decisions for far longer than the over-50. On something like Britain’s relationship with the EU, shouldn’t the voice of those who have just entered adulthood carry more weight than the voice of those who occasionally find themselves thinking: ‘I wonder how much a stair-lift costs’? To most of us, this is a horrific idea. An ugly, misanthropic proposal.

The Spectator

Full text: Boris Johnson’s Brexit speech

From our UK edition

The other day a woman pitched up in my surgery in a state of indignation. The ostensible cause was broadband trouble but it was soon clear – as so often in a constituency surgery – that the real problem was something else. No one was trying to understand her feelings about Brexit. No one was trying to bring her along. She felt so downcast, she said, that she was thinking of leaving the country – to Canada. It wasn’t so much that she wanted to be in the EU; she just didn’t want to be in a Britain that was not in the EU. And I recognised that feeling of grief, and alienation, because in the last 18 months I have heard the same sentiments so often – from friends, from family, from people hailing me abusively in the street – as is their right.

Steerpike

Janan Ganesh, citizen of… Washington, DC?

From our UK edition

Theresa May's decision to launch a verbal attack on 'citizens of nowhere' backfired in the snap election when metropolitan voters turned on the Prime Minister over fears her Brexit vision was an inward one. Happily, citizens of nowhere have since found some champions of their own. Citizen-of-nowhere-in-chief Janan Ganesh, the Financial Times columnist, kindly wrote a column titled 'how to be a true citizen of nowhere': 'True, we tend to come from nowhere. I live in one continent, was born in another, but originate from a third. So I am not even from where I am from. I grew up in an ambiguous social class in one of those zone four neighbourhoods that are neither metropolitan nor Metroland. We have no identity to, as Sebastian’s protagonist puts it, “resign from”.

Ed West

Children’s cinema is conservative – and brilliant | 14 February 2018

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.

Gavin Mortimer

Britain must learn from France’s approach to jihadis

From our UK edition

Gavin Williamson, Britain's defence secretary, and Florence Parly, minister of the French armed forces, share the same opinion, that it would be in their countries' best interests if their jihadists never set foot on their soil again. The Defence Secretary has said of two captured members of the Isis gang dubbed 'The Beatles': 'I don’t think they should ever set foot in this country again'; while France's armed forces minister said recently that her country's jihadists 'have shown no mercy so I don't see why we should show them any'. Few in France disagree with Parly's comments, except the jihadists themselves, who have suddenly become all contrite after years of nothing but contempt for their country.

Tuesday

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson’s Valentine’s speech is a chance to prove his critics wrong

From our UK edition

It's been a quiet day in Westminster with the main excitement involving a suspicious package containing white powder that was delivered to an office in Parliament. The powder was later found to be non-harmful but police are investigating the incident. Tomorrow the relative calm will end when Boris Johnson gives his big speech. Titled 'a United Kingdom', the Foreign Secretary is to give the first in a series of government speeches that together form Downing Street's 'roadmap to Brexit'. Boris's aim is to reach out to those who voted Remain and reassure them that Brexit Britain will be a country that reflects their liberal values. The last time Johnson wanted to give a big speech on Brexit No 10 slapped him down and a 4,000-word essay wound its way into the Daily Telegraph.

Steerpike

CCHQ vs the Moggster

From our UK edition

Last week Theresa May came under fire from grassroots activists not over her weak and wobbly leadership but over reported proposals to limit the say local party members have when it comes to selecting candidates. So, it's rather unfortunate for the Prime Minister that the man currently favoured by the membership as her successor is with the grassroots on this one. Speaking on the ConservativeHome Moggcast, Jacob Rees-Mogg criticised plans to centralise power on candidate selection as 'undemocratic'. He offered a cautionary tale of his own – had central office had their way the Moggster would not be in Parliament today.

Monday

James Forsyth

The Oxfam scandal will unearth some difficult facts for ministers

From our UK edition

When the media talk about government outsourcing, they normally concentrate on Capita, G4s or, recently, Carillion. But when it comes to aid, the government outsources too. The majority of the UK’s aid budget is sent directly to the country concerned. Just over a third of it is spent through partner organisations. The bulk of this money goes through organisations such as the World Bank. But some of it is spent with charities such as Oxfam. The UK government gave Oxfam £31.7 million in 2016 which isn’t a huge amount in government terms but is considerable in charity terms. This means that the scandal engulfing the aid world, which started with the revelations about the behaviour of certain Oxfam employees in Haiti, also involves the use of public money.

John Redwood

Can long-term forecasters answer these questions?

From our UK edition

I find it difficult to believe some in the media are taking these latest economic forecasts for 15 years outside the EU seriously. They have all the hallmarks of the approach that the Treasury used to get the short-term forecast for the aftermath of a Brexit vote so hopelessly wrong. The first thing to stress is the forecasts which state the UK as a whole will lose 2 percent of GDP if we stay in the single market, 5 percent if we leave with a trade deal, and 8 percent if we leave without a trade deal are not saying we will be between 2 to 8 percent worse off in 15 years time. This is an estimate of slower growth, not an absolute decline. If we carry on growing on average at 2 percent per annum over the 15 years, we will be 34.

Katy Balls

Why May might not be so bad for May

From our UK edition

As Brexit tensions continue to simmer in the Conservative party, the May local elections look to be the next big danger point for Theresa May. MPs who are losing patience with the Prime Minister fear that any move now would be near impossible to justify to the public when the Tories remain neck-and-neck with Labour in the polls. The thinking goes that disappointing results in the local elections could provide the perfect cover to oust May from her position. It's true that disappointing results look likely. In London, the Tories expect a bloodbath, with elections analyst Lord Hayward predicting that the party could lose more than half of their London boroughs.

Steerpike

Andrea Leadsom receives anti-Brexit death threat

From our UK edition

Boris Johnson will have his work cut out on Wednesday when he attempts to give a speech uniting Remainers and Brexiteers. Last week, Brexiteers started received death threats from the mysterious 'real 48 per cent'. Zac Goldsmith was the first to go public when an 80-year-old constituent received one in the mail. Now Andrea Leadsom is the latest to receive the poison pen letter: https://twitter.

Nick Cohen

Europeans are Britain’s new minority | 12 February 2018

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.

Melanie McDonagh

The Oxfam scandal is the start of the charities’ MeToo moment

From our UK edition

It would be interesting, wouldn’t it, to sit in on the meeting today between Oxfam executives and Penny Mordaunt, International Development Secretary, who has got off to a cracking start in her job by giving short shrift to the weaselly equivocations by Oxfam after the sex scandals involving its country director and other staff in Haiti and now Chad. But the intelligent money must be on a MeToo rush of individuals recalling what they’ve seen in other charities, in other countries, on exactly the same lines. My husband worked for a British charity in receipt of lots of US government money during and after the conflict in Kosovo.

Steerpike

Burns burns Soubry

From our UK edition

Oh dear. This week Boris Johnson will give a speech intended to unite the country over Brexit – and, most importantly, reassure Remain voters that Brexit Britain is a country that can and will reflect liberal values. Offering a trailer for the speech on Westminster Hour was the Foreign Secretary's PPS Conor Burns. Speaking to Carolyn Quinn, the Conservative MP hailed BoJo the man to restore 'hope and optimism' in the country. Only he stopped short of saying Johnson's optimism would be enough to win over chief Conservative Remainer Anna Soubry. CQ: Mr Johnson's big Brexit speech is billed as an appeal for unity on Valentines' Day. Restoring love between Remainers and Leavers - even Jacob Rees-Mogg and Anna Soubry do you think? CB: Restoring hope and optimism.

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: It’s time to bin the foreign aid target

From our UK edition

The Oxfam sex abuse scandal rumbles on, with the Times reporting that the charity knew about the questionable conduct of two men before they were posted to work in Haiti. The paper says it is time for a serious shake-up in the way in which international aid is meted out to avoid a repeat of this story. It is clear that there ‘is now a serious disconnect between the priorities set by the foreign secretary and the policies which flow from the wealthier international development department’s ability to effect change’, says the paper. This is because of DFID’s ‘much bigger budget’ – a result of the government’s ring-fenced commitment to spend 0.7 per cent on foreign aid.

Sunday

Steerpike

Andrew Marr’s on air gaffe

From our UK edition

Oh dear. Andrew Marr has found himself in the firing line this morning after the presenter congratulated a Tory minister on her interview... live on air. Penny Mordaunt appeared on the programme to answer questions on the unfolding Oxfam scandal and her plans as the recently appointed DfID Secretary. After putting in a confident showing, Marr – thinking the cameras had stopped rolling – went to congratulate her and offer a thumbs up. Only the exchange was broadcast live on air: Did Andrew Marr just turn to @PennyMordaunt at the end of this interview on @MarrShow and whisper “that was very good”!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/gXjQnAFxbL — Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) February 11, 2018 One for the MSM conspiracy theorists...

Saturday

James Forsyth

Where the Brexit inner Cabinet is heading

From our UK edition

There have been two meetings of the Brexit inner Cabinet this week. But as I say in The Sun this week, the government is still making its way towards a detailed, negotiating position. Indeed, in one of the meetings this week, Theresa May emphasised that the ministers didn’t need to come to a decision that day. That may have led to a more constructive conversation. But as Jeremy Heywood delicately pointed out, taking these decisions won’t get easier with time. With the crunch EU council meeting next month, the UK doesn’t have much more time either. The longer the UK waits, the harder it will be to build diplomatic support for its preferred solutions. The Brexit inner Cabinet remains divided on the best way ahead.

Friday

Katy Balls

Michel Barnier’s spiky press conference – ‘the transition is not a given’

From our UK edition

David Davis's decision to describe a leaked EU paper suggesting Brussels could impose sanctions on Britain in a transition period as 'discourteous' had repercussions in Brussels today. In a solo press conference on Britain's transition period, Michel Barnier cut a prickly figure as he warned that a transition period immediately after Brexit in 2019 is 'not a given'. Issuing Britain with a gentle ticking off, Barnier insisted that he was not being 'vindictive' as he raised concerns over May's position. He said he has planned an update on the future relationship but this could not take place due to timetable constraints 'on the UK side'.

Steerpike

Lead Remainer suggests Cambridge vice-chancellor ‘should go back to Canada’

From our UK edition

Since leaving government, Lord Adonis has busied himself as a chief cheerleader for the campaign to stop Brexit. The Remain champion is on a mission to overturn the EU referendum result – criticising Brexit figures such as Nigel Farage for  kickstarting a 'deeply xenophobic and misogynistic' movement. However, this doesn't mean Adonis thinks everyone should be welcomed to the UK with open arms. Speaking at Cambridge University, the Labour grandee hit out at Cambridge vice-chancellor Stephen Toope over his £365,000 salary. In an interview with Varsity, the former transport secretary suggests Toope came to the UK 'because somehow he was going to be paid more than for a Canadian university'.