ELECTIONS

Livestream: has Farage finished Labour?

Uk politics

Tuesday

Katy Balls

Theresa May refuses to say she’d now vote Leave

Theresa May struck a defiant tone this afternoon in her first broadcast interview since her disastrous conference speech. Speaking to Iain Dale on LBC, the Prime Minister re-iterated her old claim that she still wishes to lead the party into the next election – even if the number of MPs in her party who support her wish is now in single figures: ID: Is it still your intention to lead the Conservative party into the next election? TM: Iain I’ve been asked this question many times and the answer has not changed, I can tell you that. ID: I just wondered after the events of last week whether it might

Tom Goodenough

Brussels is warming to the British government’s approach to Brexit

Ministers had been holding out some faint hope (at least publicly) that Brexit trade talks could start this month. It was an unlikely prospect. Jean-Claude Juncker warned only a few weeks ago that it would take a ‘miracle’ for that to happen. Now, it’s official that a Brexit miracle hasn’t take place: Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, has said Brussels’ new timetable is based on the ‘hope for sufficient progress’ to be made by the end of this year, rather than in October. This makes it clear the EU is determined to milk its trump card – stalling on talking trade – for all its worth: hardly

Theresa May’s race audit relies on misleading statistics

We know from her unfortunate conference speech that it irks Mrs May to hear Labour claiming a monopoly on compassion, and this week’s racial disparity audit is her latest attempt to prove that she is equally concerned about injustice. The problem is that the disparity audit is based on a colossal intellectual blunder. Disparate outcomes may be the result of discrimination, but there are numerous other valid explanations. When comparing large groups using statistics there are many confounding factors at work. For example, the average age of ethnic minorities is younger than for the white population. This has given them less time to get promotion and increase their earnings. To

Steerpike

Watch: Boris’s bungled bid to get into No.10

Boris Johnson’s leadership ambitions are no secret. But the Foreign Secretary’s latest attempt to get into Downing Street hit a more obvious snag this morning. Ahead of today’s Cabinet meeting, Boris and Liam Fox were filmed walking through Downing Street. When Boris tried to get into No.10, however, he found himself locked out. Mr S is sure the Prime Minister couldn’t possibly be to blame…

Steerpike

Mhairi Black turns on herself

Who would want an MP who had never had a career outside of politics to represent them? That’s the question Mhairi Black has been asking today at SNP conference. Black used her speech at the event to say the SNP must reject ‘career politicians’. Hang on a minute. Given that the 23-year-old SNP politician went straight from a politics degree to a job in Westminster, isn’t she the definition of a ‘career politician’? Mr S hopes she isn’t trying to put herself out of a job…

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Why we must prepare for a Brexit ‘no deal’

Theresa May’s ‘I’m in charge’ message she delivered to Parliament wasn’t only aimed at MPs – it was also directed at Brussels, says the Daily Telegraph. After all, there’s little doubt that Michel Barnier will have looked at Theresa May’s disastrous Tory party conference performance and have concluded ‘she is hanging onto power by her fingertips’. Surely he will have thought, says the paper, Britain’s PM is ‘not in a position to play tough’. If so, Brussels’ politicians would be wise to ‘think long and hard about what life might be like if the negotiations go wrong’. If Brexit goes wrong and the Tories are given the boot, ‘suddenly they

Stephen Daisley

If the Tories are smart, they will stick with Theresa May

It’s over 150 years since John Stuart Mill called the Conservatives the stupid party and in every one of those years they have worked hard to live up to that assessment.  Grant Shapps’ abortive leadership coup is the latest example of Tory idiocy. After Theresa May did herself a mischief in Manchester, Shapps scarpered over to his colleagues and piped up that the emperor had no clothes. To which they replied: ‘Where have you been, Grant?’ Unfazed, Shapps then offered himself up as a replacement, out of selfless devotion to party and country. The party, once it had established who he was again, said ‘nah, you’re all right, mate’. As

Monday

James Forsyth

Theresa May concedes that the European Court of Justice will have a role during the Brexit transition

Most of Theresa May’s statement today was simply a reiteration of what she had said in Florence. But we did get clarity on one crucial point. In answer to a question from Jacob Rees-Mogg, Theresa May explicitly accepted that the European Court of Justice would have a role during the transition. She said that she hoped it would be replaced at some point by a new dispute resolution mechanism. But at the beginning of the transition, the ECJ will be the arbiter. Now, there will be Brexiteers who don’t like this; Jacob Rees-Mogg’s question was seeking an assurance that this would not be the case. But if the transition is

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May needs to promote new ideas, not just new names

Theresa May is threatening a reshuffle – and would be wise to threaten it for as long as possible as the only thing more problematic than naughty ministers you need to move is angry ex-ministers who didn’t want to be moved. Katy looks at who the Prime Minister could move in this post here, and points to a desire for new talent in the government. Promoting the next generation would achieve two things. Firstly it would energise a rather grey government (impressive, given the grey government is opposed by a party led by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell). Secondly, it would give younger, newer MPs who haven’t had their hands

Katy Balls

Why isn’t Theresa May’s conference catastrophe showing in the polls?

After a lacklustre conference and a disastrous speech, Theresa May’s position within her party has never looked more fragile. But she can take heart that her relationship with the public is a different story entirely. In a sign that conference is only a headline event for politicos, it appears May’s shaky performance in Manchester has meant diddly squat. An ICM poll claims the Tories have actually gained a point from the whole debacle. Even if you combine the three different polls done since the conference – they show a swing between the main parties of… zero. Westminster voting intention: LAB: 41% (-1)CON: 41% (+1)LDEM: 7% (-1)UKIP: 4% (-)GRN: 2% (-) via

Isabel Hardman

How powerful can the Tory Universal Credit rebellion really be?

One of the brewing Tory rows of the autumn looks to be over Universal Credit, with Heidi Allen now claiming she has 25 Conservatives prepared to rebel on the matter. They are worried about a number of aspects of the fiendishly complicated reform which is supposed to make the benefit system less, er, fiendishly complicated. Chief among their worries is the six weeks that claimants have to wait for their benefits, which is a long period in itself, but almost a quarter of claimants have had to wait even longer than that to receive their money, leaving many of them unable to buy food. Ministers had been reasonably relaxed about

James Forsyth

Theresa May should appoint a Secretary of State for No Deal

The Brexit talks collapsing would be a bad thing. It shouldn’t be the aim of the UK government, but it should be something that the government is prepared for. After all, there is a non-negligible chance of this happening. Compounding this is that the United Kingdom can’t credibly threaten to walk away from the table unless it is actually ready to do so. Without the ability to walk away, Theresa May will be left having to accept whatever the EU offers. It’s evident that Britain is not currently prepared for a no deal scenario. There needs to be a massive push if the UK is to get itself anywhere near

Nick Cohen

Does the rule of law cover the poor?

Belatedly, the disastrous rollout of Universal Credit has become a media ‘talking point’.  I could do with less praise for Iain Duncan Smith in the debate. He is the man the Tories decided was unfit to lead them, but still fit to manage and, as we are seeing, wreck the lives of the poorest people in the country. He deserves no special indulgence. ‘His intentions were good,’ everyone feels obliged to say. As if motives mattered more than deeds, and what politicians hoped for matters more than what they achieved. Duncan Smith’s achievement was to preside over disastrous and expensive experiments with IT systems that did not work, and then

Ross Clark

The Bombardier dispute could actually bring down May’s government

When governments fall it often comes from an unexpected quarter. Thirty eight years ago, James Callaghan’s government fell not as a direct result of the Winter of Discontent but from the fallout over a failed referendum on Scottish devolution. Over the past week we have heard plenty of speculation about Theresa May losing her job thanks to her cough at Manchester or through Brexit-induced civil war in her cabinet. But could we be missing something more obscure but at the same time more ominous? The more I think about it, the gravest danger to the government comes not from its handling of Brexit, universal credit, inflation or any of the

Steerpike

Culture Secretary investigated for not having a TV licence

Oh dear. As Culture Secretary, Karen Bradley is expected to foster and maintain good relations with both the media and broadcast industries.  So, Mr S was alarmed to hear that Bradley recently found herself on the wrong side of the TV licensing company. Writing on the infamous Tory MP WhatsApp group, Bradley complained to her fellow MPs she was being hounded by TV Licensing for not having a TV license for her constituency office. The MP for Staffordshire Moorlands asked if she was the only one having this bother – only to be greeted by silence.  A DCMS spokesman says Bradley has since explained to TV Licensing that she doesn’t have

Sunday

Katy Balls

Cabinet reshuffle: who can Theresa May sack?

Good news in Downing Street: Theresa May has survived the weekend. After the Shapps plot failed to take off, the new consensus is that the beleaguered Prime Minister should re-assert her authority on an increasingly unruly Tory party by reshuffling her Cabinet. Had the speech gone better, there was talk that she could have done this last week. The Sunday Times reports that a shuffle is now likely to occur after the European Council meeting in two weeks’ time. If May does oblige, there are calls from within the party for her to use a reshuffle to promote younger talent – and to sack the Foreign Secretary. The latter still

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Scottish independence scotched (again)

Sturgeon – It is ‘premature’ to set a date for second independence referendum The SNP are rounding off this year’s party conference season in Glasgow, and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is eager to keep the dream of independence alive. Recent weeks have seen votes in Catalonia and Iraqi Kurdistan, but the chances are that any ‘indyref2’ in Scotland will take place later rather than sooner. ITV’s Robert Peston asked Sturgeon about whether she had made a mistake in pushing for a second referendum so soon after the first: RP: There are some in your party who do believe that one of the reasons you did rather badly or worse

George Trefgarne

The rules of the Tory leadership contest make it a wild card to play

The moment Philip May helped his wife from the stage after her conference speech, it became clear that it is only a matter of when, not if, her leadership of the Conservative Party and occupancy of No.10 comes to an end. What happens next? Who knows, but if you understand the rules, it is just possible a sequence of events has started which will ultimately lead to hundreds of thousands of people participating in a three month election process for a new leader. It might even result in a surprising outcome. In other words, a relatively unknown newer MP, such as Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden); or Bim Afolami (Hitchin and

Toby Young

What is Boris Johnson up to?

I’m writing this from the Conservative party conference where I can report that Boris Johnson, who has just wowed the blue rinses with a barn-storming speech, isn’t preparing a leadership bid. At least, that’s the line from all those closest to him. Without exception, they say if he was planning something they’d know about it and they don’t. It’s a media concoction. He’s a man without a plan. I know, I know. That’s exactly what Boris’s team would say if they had just press-ganged the last of 48 MPs to sign a letter to the chairman of the 1922 Committee, which is the magic number needed to trigger a leadership

James Delingpole

If only the Tories understood how free market economics works

‘I don’t think I’m quite as Austrian as you are,’ a Tory minister said to me the other day. And I knew then that the party is doomed. It wasn’t what he said so much as the way that he said it: in the fond, amused, each-to-his-own tone you might use to dismiss a friend’s enthusiasm for Morris dancing or Napoleonic re-enactment or dogging… But personally, I think free market economics (of the Austrian or any other classical liberal school) is far too important to be left to wonks, think-tankers and out-there right-wing commentators. So did Margaret Thatcher. ‘Hayek’s powerful Road to Serfdom left a permanent mark on my own