Uk politics

Saturday

Nigel Jones

Sex scandals ain’t wot they used to be

The death last week of Christine Keeler, a central player in the Profumo scandal which helped bring about the end to thirteen years of Tory rule in the early 1960s, can be seen as another salutary reminder of Britain’s decline. To put it simply: even sex scandals ain’t wot they used to be. British decadence is usually measured by such dull yardsticks as GDP, the fall in value of the pound, withdrawal from the far flung outposts of Empire, and the decision – taken by the then Prime Minister Harold MacMillan just before the Profumo affair broke – to apply for membership of the Common Market, today’s European Union. But

Giles Kenningham

The government must wake up to the danger of fake news before its too late

Fake news has been around for decades. But it was normally the preserve of despotic regimes. Now it’s threatening to undermine democracies across the world. The rise of the internet means that, in the words of Mark Twain, ‘a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes’. You can normally assume newspapers, irrespective of their political stance, have sourced and doubled checked their facts. But with the explosion of social media, we need to adapt our mentality to make sure people start questioning the sources and veracity of their news more. While the government, rightly, commits billions to tackle cyber security to protect

Max Hastings

The great Brexit unsayable

On Monday, we held a dinner party in the Cavendish Room at Brooks’s, one of the most beautiful spaces in London. Our guest list started with Matthew Parris, whom my wife was panting to meet, observing that she agrees with him about absolutely everything except that she is reluctant to become gay. After that, it was merely a matter of ensuring that we included nobody who might profess enthusiasm for Trump, Brexit or — following their treatment of Dwin Bramall, Edward Heath and now Damian Green — policemen. We discussed the problem that scarcely anyone active in British politics dares to tell voters important truths, foremost among these that Brexit

Charles Moore

Cressida Dick’s response to the Damian Green row deserves credit

Because there is a hue and cry against Damian Green, the media underreported the remarks of Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, on Monday. They were notable, though, for their jargon-free English and their clarity. This is what she said about the ex-policemen reviving allegations of having found (legal) pornography on Mr Green’s computer nine years ago: ‘Police officers have a duty of confidentiality. We come into contact with personal information very regularly, sometimes extremely sensitive… We all know that we have a duty to protect that information and to keep it confidential. In my view, that duty endures… after you leave the service, so I believe that what this

The Spectator

Returning jihadis must be brought to justice

At first sight, the evidence presented in David Anderson’s report into the four terror attacks committed between March and June sounds damning. The security service, MI5, had had three of the six attackers on its radar. The Manchester bomber Salman Abedi, who murdered 22 people, had come to the attention of MI5 in 2014. As recently as the beginning of this year, he had been implicated in criminal activity, which MI5 officers now admit might have led to his attack being thwarted had it been investigated. Khuram Butt, one of the attackers at London Bridge, had been under investigation for two years, yet still he and his two accomplices were

Friday

Steerpike

Boris diverges from the party line

As Theresa May attempts to keep her party on side over the terms agreed in stage one of the government’s Brexit negotiations, leading Brexiteers have been sent out to praise the deal so far. Michael Gove began the day on the Today programme – praising the Prime Minister – and Steve Baker has been tweeting his support. Keen to prove that the Foreign Secretary is behind May’s plan, the Chief Whip thought it would be helpful to share picture of the two meeting in the early hours ahead of May flying to Brussels. By doing this there is an implication that Johnson must be signed up to May’s plan –

Katy Balls

A guide to Parliament’s Brexit tribes

There’s relief in No 10 today after Theresa May and Jean Claude Juncker finally reached deal on the Irish border, EU citizens’ rights and the so-called Brexit bill. The European Commission have subsequently recommended that ‘sufficient progress’ has been achieved in time for this month’s EU council meeting – and that the Brexit talks should move on to trade in the new year. In order to get to this point, May has agreed a £40bn Brexit bill, time-limited ECJ role and a promise of no hard border between Northern Ireland and the republic. However, for the government the hard work is only just beginning. The second round of negotiations is

Tom Goodenough

Deal agreed in first stage of Brexit talks

Britain and the European Union will progress to the next stage of Brexit talks following a breakthrough in negotiations overnight. The European Commission said that sufficient progress had been made in discussions on the Brexit divorce bill, the Irish border and citizens’ rights to allow trade talks to get underway. There is no doubt that the deal is good news for the embattled Prime Minister, with some suggesting that her survival depended on progress being made before Christmas. But the agreement will not be without controversy. In particular, a passage in today’s text promising that the government is committed to maintaining ‘full alignment with…rules of the Internal Market and the

Thursday

Steerpike

George Osborne’s freezer lesson

With Jeremy Corbyn too anti-establishment to speak to the Parliamentary Press Gallery over lunch, George Osborne was hauled before lobby hacks today as the alternative opposition. The former Chancellor didn’t disappoint with his address. The former Conservative politician – and now Evening Standard editor – accused the Tories of ignoring the 48pc Remain voters in the country, said Labour would be 20 points ahead of the Tories if they had a competent leader rather than Jeremy Corbyn and hinted at a comeback to politics – saying ‘never say never’. As for his old foe Theresa May, Osborne said that he didn’t think May would have the numbers for a ‘hard Brexit

Nick Cohen

May’s mistake was embracing the lie that Brexit would be easy

Brexit is getting a far easier ride than it deserves. I accept that its promoters live in a world of paranoid irresponsibility. They lament their unjust suffering, and blame everyone but themselves for its many failings. But consider how Britain has bent over backwards to enable their project. We don’t have an opposition willing to oppose Brexit. A Tony Blair or indeed an Ed Miliband would be hammering home the government’s failures. They would by now have ensured that voters, who barely thought about politics from one month to the next, knew that they had been sold a false prospectus. Instead of robust opposition, however, we have the gloriously hypocritical spectacle

Steerpike

Gavin Williamson and Philip Hammond’s awkward outing

It’s fair to say that (not for the first time in recent months) things are a little bit awkward around the Cabinet table at the moment. The latest bust-up is between Philip Hammond and Gavin Williamson, with the pair falling out after an ally of the Chancellor compared the new defence secretary to Private Pike from Dad’s Army. Understandably, that did not go down well: the Ministry of Defence has now reportedly blocked Hammond from using RAF jets following a row about an unpaid bill. Yesterday, things took yet another turn for the worse in the ongoing feud after Hammond appeared to suggest Williamson had failed to get his ‘head around the

Steerpike

David Davis’s Irish problem

It’s safe to say this hasn’t been a good week for the government with Brexit talks unexpectedly stalling on Monday. But if there were to be one Cabinet minister said to be having the worst time, it would be David Davis. At a select committee appearance on Tuesday, the Brexit secretary came unstuck over the so-called Brexit impact assessment reports. Despite once saying he had commissioned a multitude to make sure there were no nasty surprises that could cause an economic shock, Davis now claims there are no reports and that they would be of no use anyway. This has led many to question whether he is really up to

David Butterfield

The Guardian’s tabloid switch is a big mistake

‘Since you’re here…we have a small favour to ask’. These words may ring a bell for you – or just sound the spam alarm, coming as they do at the end of any Guardian online piece. For times are hard in Graunville: in recent years, the Guardian has lost tens of millions annually and, as a result, the paper has got out the begging bowl. Now its editor, Katharine Viner, has announced the latest cost-cutting ruse: lopping the paper down – from January next year – to a tabloid format. This is a great shame. Viner claims that the shrinkage would preserve ‘the same amount of journalism’ and went on to justify the change by saying:

Ed West

Christmas markets without armed police are now a thing of the past

I love the Christmas season, so friendly and wholesome and filled with evocative memories – but don’t the machine guns and anti-terror bollards seem to go up earlier each year? Look at the touching festive scenes in Manchester, and Edinburgh, and we’ll see the police and barriers across the country from Liverpool to Lincoln. It’s not quite Bedford Falls is it? I’ve noticed these ‘diversity bollards’ popping up everywhere, without a word spoken about it; a few weeks ago I spotted them at Hyde Park Corner opposite the Duke of Wellington’s house. How would one explain that to Old Nosey? Well, Britain has nuclear warheads that could literally obliterate any country that threatened us,

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Labour must clarify its Brexit plan

Another day, another Brexit warning: this time it comes from the head of Standard Chartered, who says that Britain’s imminent departure from the EU is already having a negative impact. Bill Winters said that his bank is already ‘preparing for the worst’. The Sun says that the ‘same old commentators’ are repeating themselves constantly with their warnings that ‘Britain’s going to hell in a handcart’ as a result of Brexit. ‘Give it a rest’, the paper urges them. The Sun goes on to concede that yesterday ‘wasn’t a good day for the Government’. David Davis’s ‘impact assessment’ misunderstanding and the ongoing row between the Irish PM and the DUP which rumbles

Wednesday

Katy Balls

Boris left alone to fight for divergence at Cabinet

After the DUP took issue with government’s handling of the Irish border question on Monday, Theresa May had to return home from her lunch with Jean-Claude Juncker empty-handed. What’s more, there’s no indication that a solution is in sight anytime soon. The DUP worry that the wording in the draft text – promising regulatory alignment in relation to the Good Friday agreement – could see Northern Ireland treated differently than the rest of the UK – and result in an Irish sea border. Meanwhile, some Brexiteers worry that agreeing regulatory alignment between the UK and Ireland could mean an end to the clean Brexit they envisaged. So, one could be

Lloyd Evans

Jeremy Corbyn scores six own-goals in a row at PMQs

Ah the joys of political marriages. Theresa May’s pact with the DUP bolstered her at PMQs today, and she delivered her most assured performance since the election. Having an ally who secretly hates you is the ultimate liberation, as David Cameron discovered with the LibDems. May is free to flourish the ultimate get-out clause any time: ‘Them lot made me do it,’ is the best excuse in Westminster. And the DUP are a pretty formidable outfit. Grouped en masse around the microphone they look like a pack of concrete gnomes designed to halt a speeding tank. The Easter Island statues would probably deliver a softer Brexit. Jeremy Corbyn had a

The Spectator

Ignore the motorheads telling us that we all need new cars

The motorheads are at it again. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), the UK auto manufacturers lobby group, lobbed another rusty torque wrench at the government this morning, announcing that UK new car registrations are down 11.2 per cent year-on-year. The decline is led by a collapse of nearly a third in sales of diesel-engined cars. Inevitably, some blamed the fall on ‘uncertainty caused by Brexit’. The SMMT itself doesn’t take this tack: instead it points the finger at ‘months of confusion and speculation about the government’s air quality plans and its policies towards diesel cars’. Its suggested remedy is no surprise: ‘fleet renewal is the fastest way to

James Forsyth

Tory Brexiteers are clearly becoming more concerned

Remarkably, Theresa May made it through PMQs today pretty much unscathed. I cannot, though, report that this was because she launched a brilliant counter-attack or came with a way to break through the current Brexit impasse. Rather it was because Jeremy Corbyn’s questions lacked forensic precision. One suspects that if Robin Cook had been at the other despatch box, May would have had a far tougher time. There was a collective parliamentary failure today because, at the end of the 45 minute session of PMQs, we knew no more about the state of the Brexit negotiations than we did when we went in. When the DUP’s Jim Shannon asked for

Steerpike

Jacob Rees-Mogg: May’s Brexit red lines look ‘a little bit pink’

Theresa May’s Brexit red lines were intended to keep her backbenchers happy, reassuring them that there would be no backsliding on Brexit. The approach worked. But at PMQs today there were signs that some Brexiteer Tory MPs are starting to worry. Jacob Rees-Mogg told the Prime Minister he was concerned her red lines were ‘beginning to look a little bit pink’. He urged her to ‘apply a new coat of paint’ before she next goes to Brussels. Perhaps the PM had better get her paint brush out before she has a backbench rebellion to add to her list of woes…