Uk politics

Wednesday

James Forsyth

May’s indecision is not helping Tory Brexit tensions

After PMQs today, Theresa May will rush back to Downing Street to chair a meeting of the Brexit inner Cabinet. This meeting will take place against a backdrop of heightened Tory infighting over Europe. This isn’t being caused by the Cabinet, who have been fairly well behaved in recent days, but the backbenches. May’s problem is that both wings of the Tory party think that her policy is, to a certain extent, equidistant between them. So, whenever one side ratchets up the rhetoric, the other feels obliged to follow suit. Since Jacob Rees-Mogg took over as chair of the European Research Group, the main Brexiteer group in the Tory party,

Ross Clark

The Tesco equal pay claim sets a dangerous precedent

I have decided that my work is of equal value to that of Claudia Schiffer and that therefore in future I should be paid the same as her. Why not? Okay, we don’t quite do the same thing, but we both get up in the morning, go out and do what we do as best we can. Yet she is paid more than I am, which is indefensible. That is pretty much the basis of the claim by 100 female Tesco shop floor workers who have launched an action against the supermarket claiming that they should be paid the same as men who work in the store’s warehouses. It is

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: A customs union is the least worst Brexit option

Theresa May has been condemned for her failure to stick up for the NHS during her conversation with Donald Trump last night. The criticism comes after Trump tweeted to say Britain’s National Health Service was ‘going broke and not working’. But while we can be rightly proud of the NHS, we shouldn’t be blind to its problems, says the Daily Telegraph. Politicians have queued up to defend the institution and talk of ‘how much they love it’. ‘Only in Britain is it necessary to fetishise the way we deliver health care’, argues the Telegraph. Nigel Farage is right then to say that the ‘NHS is the nearest thing we have

Steerpike

Beast of Bolsover’s broken birthday promise

PMQs proved a more lively affair than usual thanks to the Beast of Bolsover. Dennis Skinner attempted to ask a question on NHS funding but John Bercow managed to distract from the message by congratulating the veteran Labour MP on his upcoming birthday. The MP for Bolsover will turn 86 on Sunday – not that he’ll be celebrating. In response to the Speaker, Skinner said he had no plans to mark his birthday: ‘Well, I don’t know about that. I don’t celebrate things like that. I don’t think you should celebrate age.’ Perhaps there’s another reason, however, that Skinner doesn’t wish for a song and dance to be made over his

Tuesday

Aine Lagan

Theresa May is what a feminist looks like

Far too often in politics, women on the centre-right find themselves labeled as the ‘wrong’ sort of feminist, or even worse, told their political views aren’t compatible with the main principles of feminism. It is a general attitude which not only affects everyday women but has followed the most successful women in politics, all the way to the top and into Downing Street itself. Yes, even Theresa May, the country’s second female Prime Minister, has to put up with the accusation that her politics undermine her credibility as a feminist. The most recent accuser was none other than Labour MP and Mother of the House Harriet Harman, who yet again

James Forsyth

Pardoning the suffragettes would be wrong

On this, the centenary of some women getting the right to vote, there has been a lot of talk of pardoning the suffragettes. Jeremy Corbyn and Ruth Davidson have both said they back the idea, and the Home Secretary Amber Rudd has said she’ll look into it. But pardoning the suffragettes would be wrong. For many of them deliberately chose to be arrested and to go to jail to highlight the injustice they were fighting. The present has no right to reach back into the past and wipe their convictions, in both senses of the word, from the record. Take Christabel Pankhurst who, in 1905, deliberately assaulted a policeman, albeit only by spitting at him,

Steerpike

Why Osborne was wrong to trash Auntie May

When David Cameron and George Osborne were in government, the pair heralded a new ‘golden era’ where the UK would be China’s ‘best partner in the West’. However, since Theresa May moved into No 10, questions have been raised about the health of this partnership. Osborne ally Lord O’Neill has criticised May for a focus on New Zealand when the priority should be China. Meanwhile, just last week Osborne appeared underwhelmed by May’s trip to China – telling the Today programme that she needed ‘a plan to engage with the rest of the world like China’. Further still, the paper Osborne edits – the Evening Standard – claimed that May had held a

Kate Andrews

Donald Trump has got a point about the NHS

Donald Trump has found himself in the midst of another international spat, fuelled this time by his attack on the UK’s national religion. In an attempt to verbally jab the opposition in his own country, the President has managed to rile up many thousands, if not millions, of people who have deep reverence for Britain’s National Health Service: I’m rarely on the side of Trump’s Twitter provocations, but this one, I’ll admit, isn’t half bad. While Trump is wrong about the protestors’ motivations (giving the tweet ‘top troll’ status), he is right that they march in the wake of a ‘broke’ system. Only extreme ideological dedication to those three little letters

Matthew Lynn

Don’t panic about the stock market plunge

The Dow drops by eleven hundred points, its largest one-day fall ever. Equities around the world crash in sympathy. The bond markets are rattled, picture editors start looking for their stock photos of traders gazing despairingly at their Bloomberg terminals, and anxious-looking analysts turn up on TV warning that a recession might be just around the corner. True, more than one thousand points off the Dow, and two hundred off the FTSE in the space of a few hours might look scary. To anyone trying to trade it minute by minute it can certainly be nerve-jangling. And yet, in truth there is far less to it than first appears. Over

Stephen Daisley

Scotland is paying a heavy price for the SNP’s independence obsession

Say what you like about Nicola Sturgeon but she’s consistent. Every autumn, when she sets out her programme for government, the First Minister makes the same pledge: ‘We will make it a priority to improve the educational outcomes of pupils in the most disadvantaged areas of Scotland… a targeted approach to attainment that will help children across Scotland—especially those in our disadvantaged areas.’ — November 2014 ‘Improving school attainment is arguably the single most important objective in this programme for government. Improving it overall and closing the gap between children in our most and least deprived areas is fundamental to our aim of making Scotland fairer and more prosperous.’ —

Steerpike

Anna Soubry: Hard Brexiteers should be ‘slung’ out the Tory party

The friction in the Tory party shows no signs of calming down. Anna Soubry is the latest Tory MP to cause trouble – again – by calling for Conservative hard Brexiteers to be ‘slung’ out of the party. Soubry said it was time for ‘moderates’ to ‘take control’. She told Newsnight: ‘My frontbench…is in hock to 35 hard ideological Brexiteers, who are not Tories…they are not the Tory party that I joined 40 years, and it is about time Theresa May stood up to them and slung them out…The time has come for the moderates…dare I use the expression, to take control of the party.’ But Soubry wasn’t finished there.

Monday

Steerpike

80-year-old pensioner receives anti-Brexit death threat

Here we go. There’s been a lot of talk in recent months of the vicious rhetoric coming from Brexiteers – but what about ardent Remainers? Zac Goldsmith – the MP for Richmond Park – has taken to social media to share a letter that was sent to an 80-year-old constituent. Signed by ‘the real 48 per cent’, the author of the letter promises: ‘We are coming for you. We are going to kill you.’ This morning my 80-year old constituent received this note. pic.twitter.com/6kJKK3Y0OA — Zac Goldsmith (@ZacGoldsmith) February 5, 2018 Well, Mr S did always think there was something rather sinister about the Remainer claim that Brexit voters would

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May needs to rely on MPs from other parties in order to survive

Theresa May’s MPs are now constantly pressuring her to come up with a ‘vision’ of what she wants to do, whether it be on Brexit or on the domestic front. Those who are more sympathetic to the Prime Minister’s caution, though, argue that her vision is constrained by the parliamentary arithmetic. Why try something that just isn’t going to get through the House of Commons? One answer would be that May wouldn’t lose all that much by trying and failing than she thinks. As I wrote last week, she is currently more in danger of weakening her authority by not trying at all. But another is that the Prime Minister

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s criticism of the Treasury doesn’t go far enough

Treasury civil servants have been getting indignant about the suggestion by Jacob Rees-Mogg that their reports have been biased in favour of EU membership. But are they protesting too much? As it happens we have a recent example of what a genuinely independent study by the Treasury looks like. Between 1999 and 2003, HM Treasury evaluated the five economic tests set by the government to determine whether or not the UK should join the euro. Officials drew on expertise and research from around the world in a spirit of open debate, and published the results in stages, before taking the decision. In a lecture to the Mile End Group at

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Jeremy Corbyn must rein in the thugs

The protest that greeted Jacob Rees-Mogg’s talk at a Bristol university on Friday night shows that something sinister is happening in British politics, according to today’s newspaper editorials. The Times says that while Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘younger admirers’ might be blind to the idea, the Labour party and Corbyn’s ‘personal brand are tainted with an ugly and retrograde thuggishness’. The paper says the experiences of Claire Kober, the outgoing Labour leader of Haringey council, is a case in point. Kober used an interview in the Times on Saturday to document her experiences at the hands of some of Corbyn’s followers. It seems clear, says the paper, that while Corbyn is ‘riding

Steerpike

Security minister’s Private Pike jibe

After a weekend of Tory in-fighting, blue on blue briefing wars and confusion over the government’s Brexit position, it’s safe to say that tensions are running high in the Conservative party. One minister who is particularly rattled by the contents of the Sunday papers is Ben Wallace, The Mail on Sunday reported that the Security Minister – and close ally of Boris Johnson – is on the verge of resigning in order to trigger a leadership contest against May. Only this seems to be news to Wallace. The Conservative MP has taken to social media to note that ‘there is something very Dad’s Army about the Mail on Sunday story

Katy Balls

‘Divide and rule’ is a dangerous game for a Prime Minister with no majority

It’s crunch week for Theresa May. The Prime Minister is under pressure to finally decide what the government’s negotiating position ought to be going into the second round of EU negotiations. In order to work out what the UK’s trade relationship with the EU should be after Brexit, May will meet with her Brexit war Cabinet on Wednesday and Thursday to try and agree a position on post-Brexit trade. There’s hope that this will bring an end to the drift which has led Brussels figures like Angela Merkel to joke about May’s ‘make me an offer‘ approach to the talks. The crux of the issue relates to whether the UK

Gavin Mortimer

The dilemma of dealing with the kids of the Caliphate

They range in age from toddlers to teenagers and all will inevitably have been traumatised by what they have experienced. On the face of it, then, who wouldn’t want to show kindness to the children who, through no fault of their own, have grown up and been born in the Islamic State? But as Commander Dean Haydon, the head of the Met’s counter-terrorism command, warned last week, diligence must come before compassion in the way Europe deals with the hundreds of children waiting to return from Syria and Iraq. ‘We look at them on a case-by-case basis and they may be arrested’, said Haydon. ‘Some terror groups are training children to

Sunday

Steerpike

Toff takeover at Tories’ ‘black-and-white’ ball

After Georgia ‘Toff’ Toffolo won I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here, the Tories have been divided on how best to utilise their celebrity supporter. A proud Conservative, Toff’s offer to share her million Instagram followers with the party was snubbed by CCHQ over concerns she was ‘too posh to win over Labour supporters’. Since then, the Made in Chelsea cast member has complained that MPs spun a trip she made to Parliament for TV work to make it look as though she had come for a meeting. Happily, Conservative MPs will soon have a chance to make amends with the reality star. Writing in her Style column, Toff says

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Amber Rudd defends civil service

Amber Rudd: ‘I have complete confidence’ in the civil service The Home Secretary has defended the civil service after recent comments made by members of her party. Brexit minister Steve Baker and backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg – now the chair of the influential European Research Group – have both criticised the institution. Baker apologised to the House of Commons on Friday for suggesting that there was significant internal pressure from civil servants to stay in the EU customs union, while Rees-Mogg accused officials who drew up a post-Brexit economic analysis of ‘fiddling the figures’. Rudd told Andrew Marr that the British civil service is the envy of the world: AM: [Do]