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Uk politics

Thursday

Philip Sime

May’s meltdown: the verdict in the German press

Theresa May had hoped her Conservative conference speech would not only paper over the cracks within her own party but also strengthen her Brexit negotiating position ahead of a crucial EU summit later this month. In around two weeks, EU leaders will gather in Brussels to decide whether to commence trade negotiations with the UK. The key player in this decision, as always, will be Germany. However, it would seem that Theresa May’s conference speech has done little to convince the Germans of her political nous. Here’s how the German press reacted to Theresa May’s conference speech: The country’s largest broadsheet, Süddeutsche Zeitung, says Theresa May’s keynote speech should have been an

Tom Goodenough

Theresa May’s disastrous conference speech: the newspaper verdict

Theresa May’s Tory party conference speech was a memorable one if only for all the wrong reasons. A prankster, her faltering voice and a broken sign meant the Prime Minister’s reboot did not go to plan. Here is the newspaper verdict on May’s nightmare speech: The luck that all leaders need has ‘deserted Theresa May’, says the Times. The Prime Minister’s speech was undoubtedly a ‘presentational disaster’. Yet while ‘there will be many who see this ill-starred speech as the last straw’, whether the PM survives ‘cannot be decided on the basis of optics’. Instead, the party needs to consider its options, and ask what it can do once May

Rod Liddle

It’s time to call it a day on this Tory government

Some of you may not like this, but the BBC Ten O’Clock News last night was pretty scrupulous in its coverage of the Prime Minister’s speech, and Laura Kuenssberg – not always my favourite news bunny – delivered a very good piece indeed. She trod the line between sympathy, analysis and an acute feeling in the hall, unspoken, that this party, and this leader are most likely not long for this world. Michael Deacon in the Telegraph got it right, too, with his opening line: ‘Poor woman. Poor, poor woman.’ Yes, quite. None of yesterday’s humiliations were really her fault. An arsehole, a deathlessly unfunny self-publicist gurning for the camera

Wednesday

Lara Prendergast

The Tories aren’t too white. They’re too blue

Why do Tories all look the same? This year, having never been to a party conference before, I went to the Labour one in Brighton, then the Tory one in Manchester. At each, the political weather was what you’d expect. What struck me most, however, was the difference in clothing. In Brighton, I saw women with pink hair and men wearing T-shirts that read ‘Stop the war’ or ‘Never kissed a Tory’; scruffy young Corbynistas rubbing up against nervous-looking Blairites. At the Conservative conference, there was only one tribe — and its uniform was a bland blue suit. I expected to find a mix of styles as at the Labour

Brendan O’Neill

Boris Johnson’s ‘dead bodies’ critics should take a look in the mirror

In what kind of moral universe would it be considered acceptable for the authors of a war, the people who voted for a war, to get on their high horses over those who make daft or jokey comments about that war? For the people who green-lighted the bombing of a foreign nation to haughtily chastise those who dare to say silly things about the bloody consequences of that bombing? In the warped moral universe of political correctness, that’s where. This is the case of Boris Johnson and his thoughtless ‘dead bodies’ comment about Sirte, the Libyan city where Gaddafi was captured and executed in 2011. At the Conservative conference, Boris

Matthew Lynn

Capping energy prices will leave us all worse off

We have a couple of hundred years of economic history to tell us that some things are just a really, really bad idea. Printing loads of money, for example. State control of industries. Punitive taxes. Subsidies. But of all the really terrible polices a government can put in place, the very worst of all is price controls. The trouble is, that also seems to be the most popular idea in British politics right now. Last week, Labour announced what amounts to price controls on credit cards, with a cap on the interest rate that can be charged. It is already in favour of controls on rents. Today, Theresa May stepped

The Spectator

The Conservative party’s existential crisis

Theresa May’s conference speech — interrupted by coughing fits and with part of the set falling apart behind her — served as an unfortunate metaphor for her premiership and party. She is carrying on and in doing so, she demonstrates her resilience and sense of duty but also her frailty. The horrified faces of cabinet members watching as her voice dried up on stage seemed to sum up their wider concerns about whether their party is in a fit state to see off Labour, a party they so recently dismissed as a joke. Now, they are left wondering if their party is falling apart. When that letter "F" fell off

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May’s British Nightmare

Theresa May is not the first political leader to try to pitch the idea of a ‘British Dream’ when most British people aren’t even sure if it exists in our culture. Michael Howard spoke about it in 2004, while Ed Miliband adopted the ‘Promise of Britain’ temporarily while he was trying to find his feet as Labour leader. So it’s not just the first time that a party leader has tried to talk about the British Dream, it’s also not the first time a leader whose authority is shaky has tried to talk about it. As Miliband and Howard showed, the British Dream doesn’t seem to stick as a political

James Kirkup

The torment of Theresa May

It’s always easy and usually wrong to describe single political speeches as pivotal or decisive.  Always remember: almost no-one in the real world watches anything except a few clips on the news the evening the speech is given.   The amount of coverage devoted to leaders’ speeches at party conferences is usually excessive, beyond what most of the readership or audience really want or care about. But this one, this one is different.  This really is the crucible, the decisive moment.  Theresa May’s premiership turns on how this is seen. Coughing, stumbling and victim to a brutally effective visual prank by an apparent ‘comedian’, we have seen a British Prime Minister

Steerpike

Watch: Amber Rudd tells Boris to get on his feet for May

It’s safe to say that Theresa May’s conference speech has not gone to plan after the Prime Minister came down with a bad cough – and a heckler presented her with a P45. Happily she has her Cabinet on her side. Or one Cabinet minister at least. Amber Rudd was caught on camera jumping to her feet to give May a standing ovation to help her during an awkward moment in the speech. The Home Secretary then appeared to order Boris Johnson to do the same: Amber Rudd telling Boris Johnson to stand for May pic.twitter.com/VGYeb5CroR — Mollie Goodfellow (@hansmollman) October 4, 2017 1-0 to Rudd…

Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May presented with a P45 during conference speech

Oh dear. Theresa May’s leader’s speech at conference has descended into farce. As the Prime Minister tried to unify her party, one attendee had other ideas. Simon Brodkin interrupted May’s speech mid-flow and presented her with a P45. Security had to escort him out  with the ‘comedian’ heckled by attendees. That’s the picture of conference sorted then…

Alex Massie

Can Ruth Davidson save the Tory brand?

When a bird as sagacious as Danny Finkelstein writes a column in The Times headlined ‘If the Tories want to win, they’ll send for Ruth Davidson’ you know something is in the water. Ruthmania is getting out of hand. The Fink accepts that his plan for how Ruth can be brought south from Scotland to save the Tory brand – and idea – in England is under-cooked but, when every other plan is impossible, whatever’s left is the best cake available.  Davidson, however, has evidently been the star of this year’s conference. That’s what will happen when you’re the only leading Conservative who could be happy with the general election result.

Steerpike

Alan Duncan’s Brexit tantrum

Alan Duncan caused a stir on Tuesday when he claimed that one of the reasons for the Brexit vote was working class voters throwing ‘a bit of a tantrum’ over immigration. It’s fair to say that the government minister’s comments have gone down like a cup of cold sick with Brexiteers. But is Duncan really one to lecture on Brexit tantrums? Mr S recalls that Duncan was accused of throwing a tantrum of his own during the EU referendum. After Duncan declared himself a Remain-er, Vote Leave’s Matthew Elliott said the Conservative MP had planned to back Brexit but switched to the other side at the last minute after his request

Stephen Daisley

Boris is the first minister to capture the Tories’ problem so vividly

Boris Johnson came to Tory conference to do two things. First, he had to win back the Tory grassroots from the floccinaucinihilipilificating ways of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Moggmentum rises and falls with the willingness of the faithful to indulge blithe theatrical Toryism at the expense of sense and good judgement. Second, he had to address his own reputation for flippancy and remind the party that he can do serious when he wants to.  Whether he succeeded in achieving the former, we will see but he made a good effort on the latter point. It fell to Boris to remind Conservatives of their own fatal conceit — that of assuming the arguments against

Tuesday

Amber Rudd

Amber Rudd’s Conservative conference speech, full text

Conference, Standing here in Manchester it is impossible to forget the sight of this proud city, shrouded in grief, after a pop concert in May. It is impossible to forget the images of the terrified concert-goers … the images of the injured and the dead – some so very young. The toll of those who have been the victims of such violence this year is grim.  It includes those targeted outside Finsbury Park Mosque, and in London Bridge.  It includes the innocent people mown down on Westminster Bridge. It includes Police Constable Keith Palmer who paid with his life in the line of duty, trying to stop that attack. His

Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson shows what it means to be an upbeat Conservative

Boris Johnson’s speech to Conservative Party conference was disloyal to the Prime Minister in the sense that unlike Theresa May, the Foreign Secretary finds it easy to be upbeat and persuasive about the benefits of Conservatism. As this morning’s round of interviews showed, the Prime Minister’s definition of ‘upbeat’ is talking faster. Johnson, meanwhile, uses his command of the English language and confidence in public speaking to cheer up party members who were so desperate for something to take their minds off their current general misery that they were queuing in long lines to get into the conference hall. But members already love Johnson. They know that even when he

Katy Balls

Priti Patel proves she’s a canny operator

Boris Johnson was the star of the conference today after he gave a morale-boosting speech to a packed out hall. But if there had to be a runner-up, Priti Patel came a close second. The International Development secretary pulled out all the stops as she put in some not so subtle groundwork for the leadership. Making the most of the audience provided by Johnson, Patel proceeded to use the word ‘leader’ numerous times. At one point even going so far as to joke that ‘some of our most successful leaders have of course been the smallest’ – in reference to her height. Thanks to the Foreign Secretary, the conference hall was

The Spectator

Liam Fox’s Conservative conference speech, full text

OK. It’s time for some optimism. It doesn’t seem like a year since we last met together in Birmingham. When we did so, my Department had been in existence for little over two months. We had the challenge, but more importantly the wonderful opportunity, to build a new department designed for the trade challenges of the 21st century. It has been a huge honour to be at the centre of such a historic project and to work alongside some of the most talented and energetic people in our country. In a short time, we have achieved so much. We have attracted the brightest and best talent from across Whitehall, the private

Isabel Hardman

Forget the Nasty Party. This is the Knackered Party.

Tory conference is yawning on with neither furious fights nor much evidence that anyone knows how to fix the party’s problems. The most energetic bit of it so far has been Theresa May’s round of media interviews this morning, in which the Prime Minister appeared to have been turned on to 1.5x speed as she nervously gabbled her answers and tried to sound happy. Other spots of colour come from non-MPs, such as Ruth Davidson. The hall isn’t packed, the atmosphere flat, and members and MPs look bewildered and miserable. The Tories are starting to resemble Labour at the end of its last spell in government. The party was exhausted.

The Spectator

David Lidington’s Conservative conference speech, full text

“Yesterday morning, as Lord Chancellor, I joined our country’s senior judges and lawyers in Westminster Abbey to mark the opening of the new legal year. Then we processed together across Parliament Square to Westminster Hall – the heart of our democracy. It was a great occasion, a celebration of the long history and ancient traditions of our legal system. But at heart, what was being honoured was not wigs and robes, nor ritual and protocol, but the living constitutional principles which that ceremony affirmed. The rule of law and the independence of the judiciary underpin our democracy and lie at the heart of our way of life. They are the