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Uk politics

Monday

James Forsyth

Will tonight’s Brexit supper be the dinner party from hell?

Theresa May heads to Brussels this evening for supper with Jean-Claude Juncker, Michel Barnier and Martin Selmayr. The good news for her is that this meeting can hardly be more disastrous than the last time she dined with this trio. Then, a very unflattering account of the meal appeared in the German press and led to May angrily denouncing attempts to interfere in the UK general election. On Thursday, the European Council are almost certain to declare that there has been insufficient progress to move on to trade talks. But what May’s frenetic diplomacy is about is pushing for an indication that sufficient progress is likely to have been made

Steerpike

Matt Hancock’s show of solidarity for May

Although Theresa May has found herself in a more vulnerable position since her disastrous conference speech – which featured a collapsing set, prankster and bad cough – the Prime Minister can take heart that her MPs are willing to put on a show of solidarity. At today’s Autumn Reception of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), Matt Hancock gave a speech on the important progress the group has made on what is one of the more pressing issues of our time. However, midway through his speech one of the backdrop banners fell – and had to be resurrected by an attendee. Not that it put Hancock

Matthew Lynn

The cost of a Brexit ‘no deal’ is diminishing

The exit bill keeps going higher and higher. No progress has been made on the Irish border, and not much on citizens’ rights. The talks are deadlocked, and you need an extraordinary level of optimism to imagine that Theresa May talking directly to Emmanuel Macron or Angela Merkel is gong to make much difference to anything. The EU seems completely unwilling to be flexible on negotiating the terms of our departure from the club. The result? A cliff-edge hard Brexit is looking more likely all the time. That might be a catastrophe or it might not. We will have to see if and when it happens. One point should be

Gavin Mortimer

Babies not bombs are what the Islamists want from their women

Sally Jones was a waste of space. The principal purpose of the former British punk rocker turned Islamic extremist was to titillate the British tabloids, who dubbed her the ‘White Widow’ and gleefully reported her juvenile threats to bring death and destruction to the streets of her native London. She did no such thing before she was apparently killed in a drone strike in June. And where’s the evidence of the role attributed her by the international Counter Extremism Project, who declared that Jones ‘was responsible for training all European female recruits in tactics including suicide missions’? Perhaps she didn’t have time as she was too busy threatening to behead infidels

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: A bungled Budget could pave the way for a Corbyn government

No deal is better than a bad deal – and it’s also better than a Corbyn government, says the Daily Telegraph in its editorial this morning, in which the paper says that if Labour oust the Tories, Britain would ‘become an inward-looking, statist, high-taxing country that would scare away international investors’. The ‘historic opportunity’ gifted by Britain’s departure from the EU would ‘be rendered nugatory’ under Corbyn, whose plan for government is a ‘recipe for impoverishing the nation’. The claims of the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, that PFI contracts can be binned with equanimity are for the birds’, the paper says. And for all Labour’s claims that the railways would

Katy Balls

There’s a progressive argument to be made for tuition fees – why won’t the government make it?

Ever since Labour won over young voters at the last election, the Conservatives have been trying to work out how to do the same. Tory MPs have scrambled around for ideas. Various suggestions have been mooted, ranging from a Tory Glastonbury and a Tory Momentum to lowering taxes for young voters, scrapping historic student debt and drastically reforming tuition fees. With Jeremy Corbyn promising to abolish university fees, the debate surrounding higher education funding has become particularly toxic. Many younger voters feel that tuition fees are very unjust. What started as £1k a year has grown to £9,250 and the above-inflation interest rate only adds to the sense of unfairness.

Sunday

Steerpike

Labour Youth vote to leave Nato

Oh to be young and free and a member of Young Labour. Labour’s youth wing held its annual conference this weekend. On the menu? Votes for 16-year-olds, comradely debate and… a vote to leave Nato. Yes, in a bid to free themselves of American imperialism, the Labour MPs of tomorrow backed a motion calling for the UK to leave Nato. This motion that Labour Youth passed attacking NATO is breathtaking in the scale of its historical inaccuracy. I mean where to bloody start? pic.twitter.com/trOajS0PHY — James Bickerton (@JBickertonUK) October 15, 2017 No doubt fellow Nato-critic Corbyn will be proud… Update: In other news, the latest young Corbynista fashion trend appears to be

Steerpike

Tom Watson’s bid to shed the pounds

For George Osborne, it was the 5:2 diet that was credited for sculpting his political ambitions. His decision to shed the pounds was taken as a sign by the commentariat that he had serious leadership ambitions. So, Mr S was curious to hear that Labour’s Tom Watson is now on a mission to lose weight. Writing in his newsletter, Labour’s deputy leader says he is on a diet – or a ‘lifestyle change’, if you’d prefer: ‘Did I tell you I’m on a diet? I know you’re not supposed to call them that anymore, to be on message they have to be a ‘lifestyle change. Using rudimentary ‘nudge theory’ every time

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Labour’s plan to block a ‘no deal’ Brexit

John McDonnell – Parliament can stop ‘no deal’ Brexit As the next round of Brexit negotiations approaches, the possibility of a no deal outcome has been the dominant topic of discussion today. Warning of dire consequences for the UK economy, the Shadow Chancellor has told Andrew Marr that MPs can force the government to avoid a potential ‘no deal’ scenario by amending upcoming legislation: AM: What happens to the British economy if there is no deal? JM: I’m not willing to countenance that. It’s not a realistic option. It’s not going to happen. I don’t think there’s a majority in Parliament for no deal. I think, on a cross party

Steerpike

Nicky Morgan fails to protect her source

It’s the first rule of journalism to always protect one’s sources. Alas this rule does not appear to apply to politicians. This morning on Peston on Sunday, Nicky Morgan ended up revealing much more than she intended when she tried to come to the defence of the beleaguered Chancellor. Addressing recent calls from within the party for Philip Hammond to be shown the door, the former education secretary said she had been contacted by a ‘very senior Cabinet minister’ who was ‘appalled’ at those behind such manoeuvres. So, who could this ‘very senior Cabinet minister’ be? Morgan appeared to give a rather big clue when she referred to her source

Charles Moore

Nick Clegg’s ingenious solution to the Brexit problem

Nick Clegg has an ingenious solution to the Brexit problem. He wants Parliament to throw out Brexit and then get the Netherlands Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, and Sir John Major to negotiate how the United Kingdom can be recaptured and bound inside the ‘concentric circles’ which he sees as the future of the EU. I call this the Royal Dutch Shell solution to our national destiny. Certainly, if, as Mr Clegg implies, we are not fit to rule ourselves, it would be preferable to be, like Shell, headquartered in The Hague rather than in Brussels. The idea appeals to Mr Clegg because, with a mother who carries the magnificent name

Saturday

James Forsyth

The government needs to know what kind of Brexit deal it wants

Theresa May needs to invite the Cabinet down to Chequers to thrash out the government’s position on Brexit, I say in The Sun this morning. Remarkably, the Cabinet have never had a proper discussion about what the final deal with the EU should be. One senior Cabinet Minister tells me that ‘The million dollar question is the trade-off between regulatory compliance and market access and we haven’t had that discussion yet’. This failure to talk is frustrating Cabinet Ministers, breeding distrust and contributing to the current break down of discipline within the government. As the policy isn’t decided yet, ministers keep trying to push it this way or that. At

Ed West

Warnings of a Romanian migrant surge were right

Remember when Keith Vaz got himself down to Luton Airport a few years back to greet new Romanian arrivals getting off the plane, declaring in his rather pompous way that: ‘We’ve seen no evidence of people who have rushed out and bought tickets in order to arrive because it’s the 1st of January’. This was in January 2014, when Romanians and Bulgarians were granted free movement to Britain for the first time, and on that day there was widespread guffawing among right-thinking people about how we were going to be ‘swamped’; Twitter, even more so than usual, was filled with humour that was ill-disguised class contempt and status competition. We were

Tristram Hunt

A spectre of Spanish revenge haunts Boris Johnson and the Brexit gang

I used to long for mid-October when I could say goodbye to the hot rooms, cold buffets, and warm white wine of party conference season. But ever since I swapped politics for the world of museums, I have happily rediscovered those autumnal weeks of blackberries, spider webs and London returning to life after summer. At the V&A, we opened our new opera exhibition, tracing the art form’s development from Monteverdi’s Venice to Shostakovich’s Moscow. At the British Museum, the Scythians have been reviving the art of ancient Siberia. And around the capital, Frieze Art Fair has been drawing the world’s aesthetes to London. What we don’t yet know is how

Friday

Graham Gudgin

The embarrassing role of economists on Brexit

Just when the Brexit talks were beginning to look humiliating for the UK, the position has begun to be reversed. The absurd EU negotiating framework has stretched the patience of the British side to close to breaking point and preparations are at last being made for the possibility of no deal with the EU. Australians with decades of experience in trade negotiations with the EU tell us that the EU always bargains ferociously and that the only sensible response is a tough one. A negotiating bottom-line of no-deal should have been the British position from the start but going along with the EU’s self-imposed constraints has at least exposed just

Fraser Nelson

In referring to the EU as ‘the enemy’, Philip Hammond has created another reason to sack him 

Is Philip Hammond trying to be sacked as Chancellor? First, he messed up his Budget after admitting he didn’t properly think about the politics of hiking National Insurance. Next, he’s refusing to prepare properly for a ‘no deal’ scenario – putting the Prime Minister at a disadvantage when she’s negotiating (the subject of my Telegraph column today). And this afternoon, another blunder: he has unforgivably referred to the European Union as ‘the enemy’ in what seems to be a bungled attempt to assuage Brexiteers. Here are his remarks to Sky News: ‘My message is this: I understand that passions are high and I understand that people have very strong views

Steerpike

Sadiq Khan’s ‘Uber man’ mix-up

Sadiq Khan revealed yesterday that he had never ‘knowingly’ used an Uber. So Mr S. was curious to find this video clip from 2015 of Khan referring to himself as an ‘Uber man’. During an appearance on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show, Khan was asked whether he was an ‘Uber man or a black cab man’. He replied by saying: ‘I’m both an Uber and a black cab man’ Here’s the video: Today Sadiq Khan said he’s never “knowingly” taken an uber but told us in 2015 he’s “a black cab and an uber man” @VictoriaLIVE @BBCNormanS pic.twitter.com/8jJ3Dh7fiF — Louisa Compton (@louisa_compton) October 12, 2017 So which is it, Sadiq?

Steerpike

Revealed: May’s haul of gifts

Theresa May isn’t having much in the way of luck at the moment. Her planned Tory conference reboot ended in disaster and today’s papers are full of tales of the awkward relationship between the Prime Minister and her Chancellor. But the PM is doing rather well for herself in one way at least – the number of gifts she has been getting from the great and the good in the last few months. In the run-up to June’s bungled snap election, May’s haul included a clock and a medal from the Saudi King. She also got given a fancy fountain pen from another Arab monarch, the King of Jordan. Alas,

Gavin Mortimer

The rank hypocrisy of France’s anti-Brexit rock star

One of France’s most famous rock stars is soon to release a new album and last week he gave fans a taster on Twitter. It was a track from the album called ‘England’, in which he tears into the British for voting to leave the European Union. The country is also damned for its callous indifference towards migrants in Calais: ‘You can die in the Jungle’, he sings on Britain’s behalf. ‘We don’t give a damn about you’. The singer is Bertrand Cantat, once a big shot on the Gallic grunge scene, who made global headlines in 2003 when he killed his girlfriend, the French actress Marie Trintignant. Cantat lost

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Ministers must publish their Brexit impact papers

‘It is now blindingly obvious’, says the Sun, ‘that the EU is making impossible demands.’ Just consider how Brussels is pointing the finger at Britain for the lack of progress in Brexit talks. ‘Anyone can see’ that this standstill is more to do with the EU wanting a ‘monstrous’ payment up front without ‘anything firm in return’, argues the paper – and ‘David Davis would be out of his mind to buckle’. It’s clear, too, that the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, ‘must regret the untenable position ­Germany and France have put him in’. It’s true that the deadlock could break by next week and Barnier and Britain will finally