Uk politics

Monday

Brendan O’Neill

Morrissey’s Brexit love affair makes him the last true rock’n’roll rebel

From our UK edition

Morrissey, Smiths frontman turned solo crooner turned novelist, has long taken pleasure in rattling the establishment. From mocking the monarchy on the 1986 Smiths album The Queen is Dead, to his lovely ballad about how much he wanted Margaret Thatcher to die, to his frequent foot-stomping over the meat industry, the music industry and industry in general, this Mancunian contrarian, this gobby quiff-sporter, has never been shy about shooting off his mouth at powerful people who irritate him. Now he’s at it again. Only this time he’s saved his ire for the new establishment: the PC, sex-panicking, Brexitphobic bores who make up the 21st-century chattering class.

Steerpike

Philip Hammond’s driverless car U-turn

From our UK edition

On Sunday, Philip Hammond took both No 10 and No 11 by surprise with his interview on the Andrew Marr show. As well as announcing that there are 'no unemployed people', he promised to launch Budget week by posing in a driverless car, on a visit to the West Midlands today. Given that it doesn't take much to work out that a beleaguered Chancellor about to deliver his budget pictured in a driverless car is not a metaphor for success, people soon took to social media to ask who had approved such an idea. It turns out no-one. As the Times reports today, aides had explicitly ruled out such a stunt. There was a plan for the chancellor to see a driverless car today but not for him to sit in one.

Fraser Nelson

The collapse of coalition talks in Germany makes a ‘no deal’ Brexit a little more likely

From our UK edition

The Cabinet is expected to resume talks about Brexit today, reportedly nudging towards a £40 billion offer ahead of a meeting on Friday – but is there much point? Germany still has no government with Angela Merkel’s coalition talks having collapsed. The chairman of the Free Democratic Party ended talks with Merkel last night and her old coalition partners, the Social Democrats, refuse to enter a deal as this would confer opposition status on the populist AfD and thereby augmenting the progress they made in the recent federal elections. All of a sudden, Merkel’s fourth term has been thrown into question, and there’s talk of her doing a Theresa May and holding a snap election. 'It is a day of deep reflection on how to go forward in Germany', Merkel said.

Sunday

Steerpike

Martin Freeman’s Labour loyalty issues

From our UK edition

Although Jeremy Corbyn has seen a number of celebrity supporters come and go, Martin Freeman has at least proved loyal. The Hobbit actor has spoken in favour of the Labour leader – and appeared in party broadcasts. Indeed on the Andrew Marr show this morning, Freeman once again endorsed Corbyn. Only this time he added a caveat – making clear he supported Corbyn primarily because he was the leader of the Labour party as given that Labour is his 'team', he would support whoever held that role: AM: You quite like Jeremy Corbyn as a man, don't you? MF: Yes, generally I think most people do, a lot of Tories quite like him as a decent person – they can get their head around that.

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: John McDonnell says Labour’s nationalisation programme is no ‘magic card trick’

From our UK edition

Philip Hammond - 'We are delivering homes at record numbers' Philip Hammond is set to deliver his second budget on Wednesday, which many believe will be make or break for his future at No. 11 Downing Street. He faces a difficult balancing act with challenges on many different fronts, including how to address the UK's housing crisis. The Chancellor defended the government's record on housing, though he acknowledged that the government did need to intervene in an area that he referred to as a 'priority': https://youtu.be/6PxmBzYSkjs AM: Almost everybody agrees that there is a housing crisis in this country. Sajid Javid was sitting in that chair a few weeks ago and he said we need really big thinking on this... Have you turned him down? PH: ...

Steerpike

Philip Hammond bungles his Marr interview

From our UK edition

Oh dear. As Budget day looms, there is growing concern among the Conservatives that Philip Hammond may be about to do something stupid. However, few expected him to step into disaster before Wednesday. In an interview on the Andrew Marr show this morning, the Chancellor created a pre-Budget row as he bungled his way through the exchange - dropping a series of clangers. First off, Hammond managed to turn one of his party's top achievements into a toxic issue. Asked about unemployment – which is at a 42-year low – Hammond claimed that ‘there are no unemployed people’: https://twitter.com/MarrShow/status/932193412429647872 'Where are these unemployed people? There are no unemployed people.' Mr S suspects that he 1.

Toby Young

Can Boris Johnson’s dad avoid saying anything inflammatory on I’m A Celebrity?

From our UK edition

Crikey Moses! Stanley Johnson has been cast as the token pensioner in the new series of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! At 77, he will be 27 years older than the next oldest person in the jungle-based reality show, 50-year-old ex-footballer Dennis Wise. He cheerfully admits he has never watched the programme before, which comes as no surprise. If he had known what he was letting himself in for, would he have signed up? I don’t just mean the routine indignities, such as chewing on turkey testicles or washing down a plate of live cockroaches with a beaker of blended emu liver. Or the discomfort of enduring a three-week camping holiday in an inhospitable environment with few mod cons and not enough food.

Saturday

Stephen Daisley

Jeremy Corbyn’s takeover of Labour is all but complete

From our UK edition

Oh Jeremy Corbyn, your takeover of Labour is all but complete. Left-winger Richard Leonard has triumphed in the Scottish Labour leadership, defeating moderate rival Anas Sarwar. The Yorkshireman and former GMB official becomes the party’s sixth leader in ten years and takes over from Kezia Dugdale, who abruptly quit the post in August for the backbenches and Bush Tucker Trials. The outcome, announced at Glasgow’s Science Centre this morning, was hardly surprising. Sarwar’s campaign was arguably doomed from the start.

Alex Massie

Scottish Labour’s new leader is unlikely to trouble Davidson or Sturgeon

From our UK edition

In the end, it wasn’t even close. Richard Leonard now takes ownership of the black spot handed to every leader of the Scottish Labour party. He defeated Anas Sarwar, the son of the former MP Mohammed of that ilk and the early presumed favourite in the race, by 12,469 votes to 9,516. Mr Leonard is the party’s sixth leader in a decade. Sarwar began the contest with several disadvantages, the first of which being that he was relatively well-known. That was sufficient to win him the support of most of his Holyrood colleagues but a grave handicap in terms of a party membership craving something - anything - new. His background hardly helped either.

James Forsyth

The month that will determine Theresa May’s future

From our UK edition

Three events in the next four weeks will determine Theresa May’s future as Prime Minister, I say in The Sun today. If May goes 0 for 3 on the Budget, the Damian Green inquiry and the EU Council then she’ll truly be on the skids. But if the Budget doesn’t unravel, Damian Green is cleared and she gets ‘sufficient progress’ to move on to trade and transition in December then she’ll be in the strongest position she’s been in since the election. The Budget on Wednesday is the first of these tests. As I write in the magazine this week, so many Tory political tensions abound right now that it’ll be almost miraculous if it doesn’t go wrong. Not all of the blame for this can be pinned on Philip Hammond’s political tin ear.

Pádraig Belton

Northern Ireland’s political deadlock is starting to bite

From our UK edition

Brexit is proving such a distraction that few seem to have noticed the creeping start to direct rule in Northern Ireland. While much of the coverage in the newspapers focused on the EU withdrawal bill, the Northern Ireland Budget Act – which shifts Stormont's most important power, the task of setting Northern Ireland's budget, to London – tiptoed its way through parliament this week.  The thing about direct rule is that once you have started, it's hard to stop. It will also do little to heal the country's fractured politics: the DUP will push for more; they will also seek the appointment of direct rule ministers as quickly as possible.

Charles Moore

Is tax avoidance always wrong?

From our UK edition

In the argument about tax avoidance, people feel very strongly, yet it is hard to define wrong behaviour. We all know that tax evasion, being illegal, is wrong. But what tax behaviour is legal, yet wrong? Take a deliberately trivial example. Safety riding hats carry no VAT if they are sold as children’s hats. No law says that only children may buy or wear them, and no law limits their size. So it is commonplace for adults, without any dishonesty, to buy children’s riding hats for themselves to avoid the VAT. I struggle to see this as immoral. Is it just a matter of scale, then? Is it all right to avoid 20 per cent of the cost of a riding hat but all wrong to avoid 40 per cent of the cost of dying by passing wealth on early or through trusts? If so, why?

Rachel Johnson

Why I feel sorry for Damian Green

From our UK edition

I have to admit, I feel a bit sorry for Damian Green about the porn found on his work computer. What if someone else had downloaded it? What if it had been planted as kompromat via some Russian malware? Especially as what’s on telly can be far more alarming. I was sofa-side on Monday night, crying through Gabriel Gatehouse’s Newsnight package on the massacre of Rohingya Muslims, which showed dead babies and interviewed their mothers and widowed fathers. I was so distressed that my husband changed to Channel 4 for relief. On our wide HD flatscreen were close-ups of no fewer than six hairless adult female pudenda. It was his turn to scream, and he bolted from the room. Later I found him lying motionless on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

Friday

Steerpike

Labour’s Christmas attack

From our UK edition

Christmas is meant to be the season of goodwill. Alas, no-one at Labour HQ appears to have got the memo. The Labour party have released their Christmas cards – with a distinct Conservative vibe this year. Corbyn's party has used the festive opportunity to make fun of Theresa May's conference speech where the letters fell from the board behind her – meaning the slogan of 'building a country that works for everyone' soon became confused. Yours for a mere £8...

Katy Balls

Theresa May’s weakness proves costly in the Brexit negotiations

From our UK edition

So much for that Friday feeling – Theresa May's day out at the European social summit has proved a slog. First, an increasingly angry Irish Taoiseach threatened to block the progress of Brexit talks over the Irish border – telling hacks that he couldn't 'in any honesty' say that an agreement is close. Then, Donald Tusk issued a stern warning that 'much more progress' will have to be made in order for him to even consider letting the talks progress to trade in December. The European Council president said that while 'good progress' on citizens’ rights is being made, he needs to see 'much more progress' on Ireland and on the financial settlement.

Steerpike

Nigel Farage’s communication problem

From our UK edition

Nigel Farage found himself in the news over the weekend after his former aide claimed she was told to keep her 'relationship' with Farage secret at all costs – to help save Brexit. In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Annabelle Fuller alleged that she and Farage had a relationship dating from 2004 until October last year – describing it as grossly inappropriate and damaging to her mental wellbeing. In response to the claims, the former Ukip leader neither confirmed nor denied the story – simply saying that he had 'always tried to help her, recognising that she had ability, and prevented her from being fired on several occasions.' So, given the state of play, Mr S was curious to learn that Fuller is still listed as Farage's go-to woman on his website.

Nick Cohen

Putin’s cranks and creeps are winning the day

From our UK edition

Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters announce themselves to be the leftist of the left: a band of brothers, who have saved the Labour Party from neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism. Yet they happily align with the most right-wing imperialist power in the neighbourhood. All around Corbyn, questions about Russian influence in the US election and the Brexit referendum are exploding. Instead of using the opposition front bench to investigate and denounce, Corbyn and McDonnell show no interest in fighting the right at home or abroad. They prefer instead to join a queue that includes Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen and wait in line to plant damp kisses on Vladimir Putin’s firm hand.

Steerpike

Emily Thornberry fails the socialism test

From our UK edition

Oh dear. After a fortnight of government shambles, Jeremy Corbyn can enjoy the weekend safe in the knowledge that his party is... still neck and neck with the Tories. On last night's Question Time, Emily Thornberry offered an insight into why her party – and it's plan for 21st century socialism – may be failing to catch fire. Asked by a member of the audience what country was the best advert for Corbyn's brand of socialism, the shadow foreign secretary struggled to come up with an answer: QT audience member: I'd like to hear of an example where Corbyn and McDonnell's economic ideas have worked. DD: Okay, you can name one country and then we have to stop ET: I would suggest that Labour is a social democratic party pretty much from the centre of Europe.

Alex Massie

The Tory Brexit contradiction

From our UK edition

It has not been a great few weeks for David Davis, the government’s designated Brexit Bulldog. In the first place, his ambition to succeed Theresa May as leader of the Conservative party and prime minister looks and feels increasingly at-odds with the temper of the times. I suppose parading buxom lasses in figure-hugging t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan 'It’s DD for me' was meant as just a bit of nudging, winking, fun. The kind of thing you could get away with in simpler times. But it was naff a decade ago and seems something a little worse than that now. Perhaps it’s unfair to draw too many conclusions from a single episode, but it remains hard to shake the thought it was in some sense a character-revealing moment. Not brilliant, but certainly unsound.

Steerpike

David Lidington is saved by the bell

From our UK edition

The Westminster sleaze scandal has resulted in many awkward conversations having to be had across Parliament. However, at yesterday's Press Gallery lunch, David Lidington was on hand to let it be known that this in itself is nothing new. Back when the Tories were in Opposition, the Conservative MP was tasked with updating Ann Widdecombe, then shadow home secretary, on which sexual offences that would be covered by a new piece of legislation: 'I went through cottaging, cruising, incest, bestiality,' he told a room full of lobby hacks. Widdecombe's reaction? 'Her eyebrows were getting higher as her jaw dropped lower'. Happily the pair were saved by the bell when Ann's phone started ringing with La donna e mobile ringing out.