Uk politics

Thursday

Steerpike

Chris Williamson’s Carillion confusion

From our UK edition

Chris Williamson has been on Russia Today (where else?) lambasting the government for outsourcing to private firms. The Corbynista favourite said that ‘public services are being used as a cash cow to generate private profit’ – and, in the wake of the collapse of Carillion, it was time to ‘remove the private sector from all public services’. He went on to say: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqmloGB2G-4 ‘The way in which the privateers make their margins is by screwing down the workforce that they employ, cutting back on their terms and conditions and diminishing the quality of service to the general public.

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: It’s not too late for May to save her skin

From our UK edition

In the wake of a doomed cabinet reshuffle, Theresa May is on the brink. The Spectator’s cover piece this week calls on the Prime Minister to lead or go, and Tory MPs are said to be close to triggering a leadership challenge, amid reports of a rising number of letters of no confidence in the PM. But it is not too late for May to save her skin, argues the Sun. After all, Theresa May has shows an ability to constantly defy her critics. This is demonstrated in her ability this week to finally come around to talking up Brexit as a ‘golden opportunity’ for Britain, says the Sun. ‘At last’, the paper says. ‘For months, May has looked unable to do or say anything meaningful on any issue’, let alone Brexit.

Steerpike

Jilly Cooper: Presidents Club outcry was ‘absolutely ridiculous’

From our UK edition

This is going to end well. The Financial Times' report on allegations of inappropriate behaviour at a Presidents' Club charity dinner is the paper's most-read story of all time. The investigation revealed hostesses at the event were groped, sexually harassed and propositioned. However, one writer has been left wondering what all the fuss is about. Step forward Jilly Cooper. The bonkbuster writer has told Londoner's Diary that she thought it 'was absolutely ridiculous' – 'it was just men having fun... behaving badly'. 'The girls knew what they were going in to, didn’t they? The fuss they made about it with everything going on. Also, Great Ormond Street Hospital sending that money back was a shocking, shocking thing. I’m old, darling.

Tony Lodge

Gavin Williamson is right: Britain’s energy supply is threatened by Russia

From our UK edition

Gavin Williamson’s warning that the Russian Bear is sizing up the UK’s energy infrastructure is important as it brings long overdue attention to a troubling drift in UK energy policy. Britain’s electricity market is increasingly slanted in favour of importing more electricity from Europe and against securing investment in new power plants at home. Billions of pounds of domestic energy plant investment have consequently been put at risk, which will undermine the future security of supply and risk price rises. It is important to appreciate our growing reliance on imported electricity, as well as the fact that current planning will quadruple this dependency with consequences for prices, competition and security of supply.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Julian Smith finds Brexit diplomacy a piece of cake

From our UK edition

Julian Smith has his work cut out as Chief Whip. As well as trying to stop Tory MPs firing off letters to 1922 Committee chairman Graham Brady, Smith must try and keep both Tory Remainers and Tory Brexiteers in line. In a bid to do this, Smith met with the European Research Group – the all-powerful Brexit wing of the Conservative party – this week to try and ease concerns that the government is about to water down the version of Brexit it is seeking. Now Jacob Rees-Mogg is chair of the ERG, the group is seen to have greater potential for trouble. So, what was his strategy? Serving cake. A Victoria sponge cake was brought out to keep the rebels at bay – reports that the cake was homemade are yet to be confirmed or denied.

Lloyd Evans

David Lammy’s shambolic PMQs appearance should worry Corbyn

From our UK edition

Theresa May is in China so the Westminster bunfight has been replaced by dull politics. Journalists hate dull politics. But normal people welcome a few days respite from the cocktail of gossip, malice and envy known as ‘democracy’. David Lidington took the PM’s place. Decent chap. Reliable second-eleven all-rounder. Against him was Labour’s Emily Thornberry who tried to trip him up three times. And three times he refused to be tripped. It was fun to watch. Dainty, unpredictable. Quite a change. She recalled their last despatch-box tussle in 2016 when the Tories had an opinion-poll lead of 17 points. Mr Lidington had likened Labour’s infighting to a pirate film written by the Carry On team. ‘Ooh,’ crowed Labour’s front bench.

Steerpike

Watch: Minister resigns at the despatch box

From our UK edition

A government minister has just dropped a clanger in the House of Lords – by resigning for missing a question. Lord Bates told peers that he was 'ashamed' for not being there to answer a query from Labour’s Baroness Lister. An emotional Bates told the Lords: 'I am thoroughly ashamed at not being in my place, and shall therefore be offering my resignation to the Prime Minister...' His announcement was greeted with cries of ‘no, no’, and Lord Lamont even did his best to try and stop Bates in his tracks.

Isabel Hardman

Tory leadership crisis: where are the whips?

From our UK edition

Despite having to answer questions about whether or not she is a 'quitter', Theresa May must be reasonably glad that she's got a few days' escape from her domestic agenda while she is visiting China. But being away does mean that she has left her party to stew without her, and it's not clear that those around her are doing much to calm things down. Over the past few days, I've spoken to a range of Conservative backbenchers and ministers who either privately or publicly hold concerns about the way May is leading (or isn't, as the case may be). All agree that things are rather critical for the Prime Minister, and have a number of thoughts about how she might survive. But barely any of the MPs I spoke to have had any sort of contact from the Tory whips.

James Forsyth

Theresa May must lead or go

From our UK edition

The Brexit ‘inner cabinet’ met on Monday. It was meant to be an important meeting, one which made some real progress on deciding what kind of economic relationship with the EU the UK is seeking. Senior civil servants had been told that the crucial topic of the Irish border would be on the agenda. This is one of the hardest parts of the Brexit equation to solve, and the answer will reveal plenty about the kind of trade deal the UK is seeking and the trade-offs it is prepared to make. But when the agenda for the meeting was circulated on Friday night, Ireland was not there. This left only data and security — the two least controversial of the nine questions that the Brexit cabinet is meant to address.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Baroness Trumpington: Theresa May is terribly boring

From our UK edition

Oh dear. Theresa May's bad week just got worse. On top of Tory MPs taking to social media, the airwaves and the papers to criticise her, it now seems that Conservative peers are going public with their grievances. In the new issue of Tatler magazine, Baroness Trumpington – who retired from the Lords last year – offers a rather frank assessment of the Prime Minister. When asked about May, the 95-year-old Lords stalwart and former land girl offers a trade mark V-sign to the interviewer: 'As I ask a question about Theresa May, Lady Trumpington flicks her fingers at me from across the table in her Chelsea care home, making the V-sign. She does it again, as if to make sure I’ve got the message.

Steerpike

John Humphrys has the last laugh at Oldie of the Year

From our UK edition

John Humphrys has had a rough time of late. Not only has the Today programme anchor voluntarily taken three pay cuts – with his salary thought to have been cut from £649,000 to under £300,000 – he has received little credit for it. Humphrys has come under flak from all sides after a conversation in which he joked about a female colleague's warnings over the gender pay gap at the BBC was leaked to the Sun. The comments irked Tracey Crouch – a government minister – so much that she refused appear on Today. So Mr S is pleased to report that Humphrys has finally found a safe space. The BBC anchor was a last-minute addition to the winners' list at today's Oldie of the Year awards. Announcing the winners.

Isabel Hardman

Are Labour MPs in line for their own Haringey-style showdown?

From our UK edition

The centrist faction in the Labour Party has been pretty quiet since the snap election, with most MPs who opposed Jeremy Corbyn trying to focus either on Brexit or local issues and avoiding confrontations with the leadership at all costs. But today's news from Haringey suggests that this isn't likely to hold. The council's leader Claire Kober has quit after almost a decade in charge, blaming 'sexism' and 'bullying' from Momentum members who have been campaigning against a regeneration plan that they are ideologically opposed to. Kober is also furious with the Labour's National Executive Committee for trying to interfere in local democracy too, after it instructed Haringey Council to abandon the regeneration plan, known as the Haringey Development Vehicle.

Alex Massie

Tory attacks on the Brexit impact report will help Corbyn

From our UK edition

The good news is that the latest civil service analysis of the most likely impact of Brexit is more optimistic than previous civil service estimates of Brexit’s consequences for the British economy. The bad news is that they’re still pretty gloomy. The best case scenario, modelled for officials at the Department for Exiting the EU, envisages a two per cent hit to GDP by the 2030s. The worst, trading in a 'No deal is better than a bad deal' environment, suggests an economy eight per cent smaller than would otherwise be the case.  As Brexit bonuses go this seems on the thin side. No wonder the reaction to Buzzfeed’s scoop on the latest analysis is an exercise in proving the reality of confirmation bias.

Steerpike

Stepford students come for Jacob Rees-Mogg

From our UK edition

Here we go. First the Stepford students at LSE submitted a motion to ban the university’s free-speech society, next City University students tried banning newspapers at the institution famed for its journalism school, then Lincoln University's Student Union suspended the Conservative Society’s social media use after young Tories dared to suggest that the powers-that-be were intolerant of free speech. And now, it's the turn of Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Moggster is due to speak at Queen Mary University of London this week: However the university's Socialist Worker Student Society takes a different view – they say: 'This is our campus, and we won't have politicians who are against the welfare and freedom of our diverse student and staff body.

Katy Balls

Len McCluskey calls on Labour MPs to vote down the Brexit deal

From our UK edition

The Conservatives are currently in such disagreement over what the government approach to the second round of Brexit negotiations should be that the vote on the final deal seems a long way off indeed. However, it's clearly on the mind of the Opposition. At a Resolution Foundation panel event this morning, Len McCluskey – the leader of Unite and top Corbyn ally – said he hoped Labour MPs voted down any Brexit deal the Tories come back with: 'My personal hope and belief is that in late Autumn of this year the [Brexit] deal that comes back to parliament will be rejected, Theresa May will resign, and it will lead to an early general election in 2019.

Katy Balls

Theresa May’s good news: poll finds Prime Minister is the least worst option

From our UK edition

Finally some good news for Theresa May. After a tawdry few weeks in which Conservative MPs have taken to Twitter, newspapers and the airwaves to criticise the Prime Minister, May's premiership looks on shaky ground. Reports on the number of letters calling for a confidence vote in May are said to be getting perilously close to the magic number required. But any MPs considering firing off a letter to Sir Graham Brady – the chair of the 1922 committee – would be well-advised to look at the latest YouGov/WPI poll first. In a survey of Conservative voters (which took place 28-29 January), over two thirds back Theresa May to remain as Prime Minister.

Steerpike

What the BBC won’t tell you about the leaked Brexit forecasts

From our UK edition

The leaked government Brexit forecasts have this morning been reported by the BBC just as its leakers intended: as embarrassing proof that Brexit is bad for the economy. If it had any vague interest in being impartial, perhaps the Beeb would have bothered to make the rather obvious point: not only have we seen such forecasts before, but the new figures are more optimistic than HM Treasury’s last effort. The government’s April 2016 analysis said that the economy would be 3.8 percentage points smaller than it otherwise would have in 15 years if we were to stay in the EEA; that has now been revised down to a 2pc hit. With a free trade deal outside the single market, the Treasury’s initial guess was a 6.2-point hit; it has revised that to 5 points.

Steerpike

Angela Merkel’s Theresa May jibe

From our UK edition

Theresa May's not having a good few weeks. With Tories scrambling to either criticise their leader or covertly campaign to be the next leader, May's premiership appears to be on shaky ground once more. Add to this a backlash from Conservative Brexiteers and a government Brexit forecast leak and it's safe to conclude things aren't about to get better anytime soon. Now it seems she can't even rely on her European allies for support. ITV's Robert Peston reports that May was the punchline to a joke Angela Merkel told hacks at Davos. He says that the German chancellor had journalists in stitched when she told a story about May's negotiating position: 'Merkel said that when she asks Mrs May what she wants the shape of the UK's relationship with the EU to be, Mrs May says "make me an offer".

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Eurosceptics are wrong to ‘rage over the Brexit transition’

From our UK edition

Michel Barnier’s Brexit transition deal offer – under which Britain will continue to pay into the EU’s budget and have no say on rules – has not gone down well with some Brexiteers. The Daily Telegraph says that this suggestion means that the date of when Brexit will happen has effectively been pushed back until December 31st 2020. The paper says that it was right for Theresa May to initially lay out a request for a two-year transition deal during her Florence speech last year. But since the PM made that speech, Britain has been too ‘meek’ in obeying the EU and allowing Brussels to ‘call all the shots’. This makes it no surprise that ‘Brexit-supporting Conservatives’ are getting jittery in the wake of Barnier's proposal.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May’s caution about appearing weak has made her even weaker

From our UK edition

Can Theresa May really solve the latest crisis affecting her leadership? Previously, her survival owed a great deal to Conservative backbenchers, who vowed to protect her against a badly-behaved Cabinet, but everyone is restless now. So what can she do? The Prime Minister isn't going to have a personality transplant, but this doesn't mean that she is destined to continue doing absolutely nothing. She may never be able to conjure up small talk with her own MPs, but she has in the past shown that she can make bold decisions (the snap election was, admittedly, a bad example of this) and have a reforming zeal. The absence of any activity or vision for the domestic agenda is what has agitated Tory MPs quite so much in recent weeks.