Uk politics

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Did the Labour whips know about the Jared O’Mara allegations?

How did Jared O’Mara end up in Parliament, and will he remain there for much longer? Today he was suspended from the Labour whip, and an investigation was launched into the allegations about his online posts and conversations, including an allegation that he used misogynistic and transphobic language to a constituent this year. The suspension happened just before Prime Minister’s Questions, and after the session, Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman said the party had acted today because the latest claims, which O’Mara disputes, related to more recent behaviour.

Lloyd Evans

It’s time to bin Bercow

Jeremy Corbyn wanted to repeat last week’s victory on Universal Credit. He landed no serious blows but he made the government look silly in its handling of the reforms. Mrs May brought up Labour’s record, and the ‘tax credit’ merry-go-round devised by Gordon Brown. Voters were fleeced by one arm of government and reimbursed by another. And the pick-pocket prime minister denied responsibility for the theft while claiming credit for the reparations. Mrs May stressed the indispensable virtue of UC: it helps people ‘back into work’ rather than trapping them beneath the man-hole cover of dependence. Back into work. Corbyn was silent about that. Perhaps he’s aware of a conundrum that underlies his movement.

James Forsyth

Political meddling is putting universities’ independence at risk

If I was the vice-chancellor of Oxford, I’d be thinking about an urgent fundraising campaign that would allow the university to go private. Chris Heaton-Harris’s letter yesterday was dumb. A request for information on who lectures about Brexit and for links to their lecture materials made on House of Commons letterhead was bound to look intimidating. But David Lammy’s letter to Oxford, co-signed by the shadow Education Secretary and the Tory chair of the Education Select Committee, is even more of an assault on university independence. Lammy not only wants Oxford to do more to fix the deficiencies of the school system but also to move to ‘centralised admissions’. Such a move would be a disaster. It would undermine the very nature of the college system.

Stephen Daisley

The eurosceptic right are copying the SNP’s sinister playbook

If democracy is government by the people and meritocracy by the most able, Brexitocracy is rule by charlatans. Anyone who doubts that should survey the limp justifications, weaker than the Labour vetting process, for Chris Heaton-Harris’s letter to vice-chancellors. The Eurosceptic MP wrote to universities and asked if they wouldn’t mind drawing up a list of names for him. Nothing fancy, just everyone involved in teaching about Brexit and copies of their teaching materials. Now, the normal procedure when an MP – a government whip no less – does something completely deranged and massively embarrassing is to cordon them off with yellow hazard tape and hose down the crime scene.

Tom Goodenough

David Davis is stating the obvious on the timing of a Brexit deal vote

David Davis’s revelation that Parliament may not get a vote on a Brexit deal until after Britain has actually left the EU has provoked a flurry of criticism. The Government has been accused of railroading Parliament and treating MPs with ‘contempt’. It’s an ‘undemocratic disgrace’, says Open Britain. Yet Davis is only really stating the obvious that there can’t be a vote on a deal that doesn’t exist. It’s also a simple matter of timing that, under the terms of Article 50, Britain will leave the EU in March 2019 – two years after May pulled the trigger. What isn’t guaranteed – especially given the lack of progress so far – is that a deal will materialise before then, if at all.

James Forsyth

Can the Tories defend the six-week wait for Universal Credit?

Jeremy Corbyn went on universal credit again at PMQs today. Theresa May was better than she was last week. She did muster a defence of the moral basis of the policy, but she still spent the session stuck on the back foot. It is hard to see how the Tories can continue to defend the six-week wait claimants face before they receive their payments. If I was a Number 10 political strategist, I’d also be worried about the roll out of the policy in the run up to Christmas — a time when families often feel the pinch. It was, as it nearly always is, left to backbenchers to raise Brexit.

Tom Goodenough

Will Labour be brave enough to properly deal with Jared O’Mara?

Jared O'Mara is yet to actually speak in Parliament but when – or if – he does take to his feet in the chamber, it seems he will do so without the Labour whip. Following days of allegations about what the MP for Sheffield Hallam has written online, the party has finally acted to temporarily suspend him. It’s something of a surprise it has taken Labour this long to do so. Earlier this week, Guido reported that O’Mara – who ousted Nick Clegg at the snap election – called gay people ‘poofters’ and asked Girls Aloud for an orgy. The allegations have continued; this morning, it was reported that O’Mara made lewd comments about teenage girls attending a concert in another blog.

Steerpike

Laura Pidcock fails to practise what her party preaches

Oh dear. When a Tory MP missed last week's Opposition Day debate on universal credit to referee at a Barcelona match, both the SNP and Labour were quick to go on the offensive – accusing Douglas Ross of failing his constituents. Now it seems that one of Labour's most vocal justice warriors has also fallen foul and missed a debate on universal credit. Laura Pidcock was notably absent from Tuesday's emergency debate on the government's new benefits system. However rather than sickness keeping her away, it was a holiday to Venice.

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Labour’s shameful refusal to suspend Jared O’Mara

Jared O’Mara is yet to make his maiden speech in Parliament, says the Sun – and ‘it might not be a bad thing if it stays that way'. The ‘disgraced’ Labour MP – who ousted Nick Clegg from his Sheffield Hallam seat at the snap election – has said sorry for his ‘crass comments’, which included making jokes about rape and calling overweight people ‘“f***ing pigs”’. But his  ‘patronising “apology’’, in which he pinned the blame on ‘“lad culture and football” — isn’t enough’, isn’t enough, says the Sun. O’Mara is so useless, argues the Sun, that it almost makes the paper ‘wish that Nick Clegg…was still in Parliament’.

Nick Cohen

Freedom of speech and Russia Today

Russia does much worse than suppressing dissident opinion and manufacturing fake news. Putin has aided and abetted the vast crimes against humanity in Syria. The terror sent refugees flooding into the EU, and their presence helped produce Brexit and the rise of a pan-European far right: a double victory for the Kremlin, when you look at how 'patriotic' parties put Russia’s interests before their countries’ interests from France to the Balkans. Sanctions and the vast corruption Putin organises and profits from has produced vast poverty. It’s to be expected but should not be forgotten. Also worth recalling are the murders of opponents, the harassment of opposition parties, the anti-gay laws, and the endorsement of wife beating. All that and the invasion of Ukraine too.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Tory whips in a quandary over Labour social care challenge

If ministers are going to offer any concessions in the row over Universal Credit, they’ve decided to keep them back for a little while longer. This afternoon MPs have been holding an emergency debate on the reform, with Employment Minister Damian Hinds defending the reform and the roll-out, rather than suggesting that the government is going to accept the suggestions of Tory and Labour MPs on delayed payments. The emergency debate was called after Conservative MPs were whipped to abstain on Labour’s Opposition Day debate on the benefit reform last week.

Katy Balls

Just because you’re Labour, doesn’t mean it’s alright Jared

The Women and Equalities Select Committee is a member down today after one of its male intake was forced to resign on Monday over his formerly misogynistic behaviour. However, to the surprise of some feminists, it's not Philip Davies, the man many have spent the past year calling a misogynist, but Labour's Jared O’Mara. The MP for Sheffield Hallam's equality credentials have been cast into doubt after Guido uncovered a series of online messages from him dating back ten years or so. They include calling gay people 'fudge packers' and 'poofters', asking Girls Aloud for an orgy (on the condition the blonde member wasn't in the picture), and claiming fat women don't deserve respect.

Steerpike

Theresa May’s silent treatment

After an unflattering account of Theresa May's dinner last week with Jean-Claude Jucker wound up in the German broadsheet FAZ, tensions between Brussels and Westminster have heightened. The briefing claimed that May 'begged' for help and appeared 'tormented' with 'deep rings' under her eyes. Keen to prove that he was not behind the leak, Juncker yesterday insisted that May 'was in good shape, she was not tired' – insisting the reports were untrue. So, Mr S was intrigued to read Rachel Sylvester's column in today's Times. She claims that on the UK side, those who report meeting May recently describe her as 'stricken and stunned'.

Gavin Mortimer

Better a dead fanatic in Syria than a live one in Britain

Let us give thanks for the straight-talking Rory Stewart. After last week's alarming comments from Max Hill, a QC who appears to believe British Isis fighters just need some TLC, Stewart, a Foreign Office minister, has given a more incisive assessment of the approach that should be taken towards the British jihadists still at large in Syria and Iraq. 'They are absolutely dedicated, as members of the Islamic State, towards the creation of a caliphate,' the Conservative MP told the BBC's John Piennar. 'They believe in an extremely hateful doctrine which involves killing themselves, killing others and trying to use violence and brutality to create an eighth century, or seventh century, state.

Monday

Georgia Mcshane

The Tory party is becoming ‘Labour light’

On the Andrew Marr show yesterday, the Communities Secretary Sajid Javid suggested that the government should 'sensibly borrow more money' and take advantage of the 'record low-levels' of interest rates in order to tackle the UK’s housing crisis. He added that the lack of affordable housing was the 'biggest barrier to social progress in our country today' and that such measures would go some way to re-balancing social inequality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMLiFO3CCI0&t=1s Javid’s remarks also highlighted another crisis: that of the identity of the Tory party. It is true that the UK currently faces a severe housing shortage with the number of homes being built falling far short of the 200,000 target which is generally recommended by housing experts.

Isabel Hardman

Will Universal Credit conform to the normal pattern of policy disasters?

How far is the government going to row back on Universal Credit? This afternoon an emergency debate has been granted on the matter in the Commons tomorrow. Two of the pilot councils in the roll-out of the new benefit have warned that the new system could be a catastrophe once implemented fully, predicting rent arrears in ‘many hundreds of millions of pounds’ and reporting a huge surge in referrals to food banks. Southwark and Croydon Councils warned of ‘major flaws’ in UC, and urged the government to fix the policy immediately. The pressure, which grew last week with Labour’s Opposition Day debate on the roll-out, hasn’t diminished since ministers said they would make the helpline for claimants a free number, rather than one that charged 55p a minute.

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May discovers the perfect answer to difficult Brexit questions

Theresa May has the perfect answer to all difficult questions: we don’t want to give away anything that will harm our position in the Brexit negotiations. No matter whether the information an MP is requesting has anything to do with Britain’s negotiating position: it’s a handy line to use when the answer is in fact ‘I don’t actually know’. The Prime Minister deployed this argument about not wanting to undermine the negotiations several times as she took questions from MPs in the Commons following her statement on last week’s European Council summit.

Steerpike

Watch: John Bercow’s strange Scottish turn

Oh dear. Although John Bercow has a penchant for winding up Conservative MPs in the Chamber, he also has a habit of taking the SNP to task for failing to grasp Westminster etiquette. However, today he adopted a rather different approach. During questions after Theresa May's statement on the EU Council summit, the Speaker appeared to have an odd turn. Calling the SNP's Alan Brown to speak, Bercow attempted a Scottish accent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt2HALDW5a8 Mr S recommends he leaves it to the Scots next time...

James Forsyth

If the Tories want to survive they must build more houses

Too many Tories have a sense of inevitable defeat at the next general election. They can see what the problems are but are fatalistic about their ability to solve them before 2022. Sajid Javid isn’t one of these Tories. He quickly grasped that the election result changed the internal Tory debate about housing policy and has been pushing for more radicalism ever since. On Sunday, he went on Andrew Marr to argue that the government should borrow to build. Javid’s argument is the same he made when he was backing Stephen Crabb for leader in 2016, interest rates are so low that it makes sense for government to borrow to invest in infrastructure. There are those who will be uncomfortable about the idea of the government borrowing even more.

Steerpike

Mhairi Black’s mixed messages

Last week, the SNP proved particularly vocal at PMQs after they went on the offensive over a Scottish Conservative MP missing Labour's opposition say debate on universal credit to referee at a Barcelona match. Although the vote was non-binding – and the Conservatives abstained anyway – Douglas Ross has since promised to hang up his whistle – after next year’s World Cup. Not willing to drop the issue, however, the SNP's Mhairi Black has gone on the warpath in her Daily Record column today.