Uk politics

Tuesday

Steerpike

Jeremy Corbyn gives Piers Morgan the cold shoulder

From our UK edition

Although Jeremy Corbyn has seen a huge rise in popularity since the snap election, the Labour leader hasn't forgotten those who were with him from the beginning. At next week's party conference, Corbyn loyalists will be rewarded with a platform to speak on – while those who questioned his abilities will do without. It seems the same approach is in practise when it comes to public figures. At this month's GQ awards, Piers Morgan attempted to join in a conversation Corbyn was having Arsenal’s Spanish right back, Hector Bellerin. Alas, the Labour leader didn't share the sentiment and took swift action to prevent Morgan from joining the chat: 'Later, fellow Arsenal fan Jeremy Corbyn came over to speak to him.

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Boris is speaking for the majority of Brits

From our UK edition

Boris Johnson has come in for plenty of criticism since setting out his Brexit blueprint in a 4,000 word article in the Daily Telegraph. But the Sun says the Foreign Secretary has done the PM a favour in speaking up for ‘the 52 per cent who voted Leave and the many more won over since’. ‘Theresa May must listen’ up, the paper says - and she should also 'ignore the siren calls from Cabinet Remainers’ who want to reverse the referendum result. The attacks levelled at Boris are ‘designed solely to discredit him and trash the optimistic vision’ of Brexit he has set out. Instead of getting angry at Boris, the PM should remember the fact that ‘The EU has more to lose if talks collapse’.

Monday

Douglas Murray

Are refugees welcome to plant bombs on our trains?

From our UK edition

It’s all a long time ago now isn’t it?  All of three days since someone put a bomb on a London Underground train and then stepped out of the carriage.  Thankfully the detonator went off without managing to trigger the main bomb, which isn’t a mistake we can hope for every time.  30 people were injured on the District Line on Friday morning.  But if the bomb had done what it was meant to do then those 30 people wouldn’t have been treated for relatively light injuries.  Instead, bits of their remains would have been gathered together in some order and put into the dozens of body bags ordered for them and others at Parsons Green station. It remains strange how fast we pass over all of this.

Ross Clark

Ryanair’s chaos prediction is coming true – but Brexit isn’t to blame

From our UK edition

So, the worst has happened, just as Ryanair said it would. The budget airline has had to cancel thousands of flights – around 50 of them, every day, for the next six weeks. It follows an ominous warning that was made by chief executive Michael O' Leary last month: “What is increasingly likely to happen is that there will be no flights. Mrs May and the Brexiteers will be trying to explain that to you in 12 months’ time, why getting a car to Scotland or a ferry to Ireland are the only options on offer.” Except, that is, while last month’s warning concerned Brexit, this week’s cancellations concerned a cock-up of Ryanair’s own making.

Stephen Daisley

Scepticism about Scottish devolution is growing fast

From our UK edition

A report suggesting that the £414m Scottish Parliament building could reach the end of its 'useful life' by 2060 - after just 45 years - provides the perfect metaphor for the state of devolution in 2017: a parliament that has been noticeably reluctant to use its powers in the last decade slapped with a ‘use by’ date. Irony can be awfully cutesy at times. The Scottish Parliament's problems don't begin and end with its building though. A poll by Panelbase gave voters an opportunity to declare themselves scunnered with the whole enterprise of devolution. Asked if, instead of independence or the status quo, they would rather shutter Holyrood tomorrow, 19 per cent of Scots said they are up for a return to direct rule from Westminster.

James Forsyth

The biggest Cabinet Brexit split

From our UK edition

The Cabinet remains divided on one of the most fundamental Brexit questions. Everyone in the Cabinet does accept that Britain is leaving not just the EU but the single market too. But there remains a split over whether Britain should be aiming for an EEA minus deal with the EU or a CETA plus one. This might sound techy but it is fundamental to Britain’s future. Free movement makes it a political non-starter for Britain to stay in the single market. However, several of the most senior members of the Cabinet, backed by the institutional Treasury, think that Britain should stay as closely aligned to the single market as possible. They want Britain to shadow the EU’s regulatory structures and transpose European Court of Justice judgements.

Steerpike

Hacks banished from the floor at Labour party conference

From our UK edition

Oh dear. Since Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader, he has had an at times difficult relationship with the 'Mainstream Media'. From hacks being booed at press conferences to Corbyn avoiding questions, it's safe to say that the media feel a little bit unloved. Now, it seems Labour's high command is keen, too, that party members have limited interaction with the MSM. At this year's party conference in Brighton, the press will not be granted access to the floor. Instead journalists will have to watch proceedings from the balcony. This means that the media will be away from the action - and unable to interact with delegates on the floor.

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Boris’s ‘naked pitch’ for the top job

From our UK edition

Has Boris Johnson launched a military coup? Based on ‘some of the chatter coming out of the Westminster Bubble’, you’d be forgiven for thinking his Brexit intervention was just that, says the Sun. It’s time for everybody to ‘calm down’, the paper urges. Yes, some of those who have questioned the timing of the article - published in the run-up to Theresa May’s major speech on Brexit this Friday - may have a point. But Boris is nonetheless ‘entitled to a view on what Britain might look like after we leave the EU’. The Tories need to quit the fighting amongst themselves and realise that the only ones to benefit from this squabbling are ‘Jeremy Corbyn and his union paymasters’.

Steerpike

Old habits die hard for Russell Brand

From our UK edition

Oh dear. Although Russell Brand once said he had never voted, and never would, as a result of his 'absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery and deceit of the political class', he went on to change his tune when her urged his fans to vote Labour in the 2015 election – and later endorsed Jeremy Corbyn. So, Mr S was curious to discover that Brand has now returned to his old tricks. The comedian-turned-left-wing revolutionary tells the Sunday Times that he didn't vote in the EU referendum as he was on 'holiday': 'How did he vote in the referendum? He mumbles: “I was on holiday.” He didn’t vote over Brexit? “No,” he says sheepishly.

Sunday

Roger Scully

Brexit poses fresh problems for Welsh devolution

From our UK edition

Twenty years ago Wales (barely) said Yes to devolution. Despite a Welsh Assembly being supported by the wildly popular new Prime Minister Blair and opposed by the very unpopular Conservatives, the public gave the most grudging endorsement to partial self-rule. A lot of water has flowed under many Welsh bridges since then. Public opposition to devolution fell away surprisingly quickly after 1997; the latest evidence, which I will be presenting in Cardiff on Monday, confirms that a clear majority in Wales now support devolution. There is little political opposition either. The Conservatives swiftly accepted the referendum result; since returning to power at Westminster they have overseen two Wales Acts transferring additional responsibilities to the National Assembly.

Steerpike

Why is the UK’s supposedly impartial statistics watchdog joining the Boris-bashing?

From our UK edition

Okay, it’s a rainy Sunday, but surely the new chief of the UK Statistics Authority has better things to do than send angry tweets to the Foreign Secretary? Alas not. Today Sir David Norgrove, the newish chairman of the UK Statistics Agency, tweeted out a letter declaring himself 'surprised and disappointed' that BoJo has 'chosen to repeat the figure of £350 million per week, in connection with the amount that might be available for extra public spending when we leave the European Union'. He says that this 'confuses gross and net contributions…. It is a clear misuse of official statistics'. https://twitter.

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Amber Rudd says Boris is ‘back-seat driving’ over Brexit

From our UK edition

Amber Rudd - Boris should not 'back-seat drive' over Brexit The Home Secretary took to Andrew Marr's sofa in the wake of the Friday's failed terrorist attack on a London Underground train at Parson's Green station. However, the topic swiftly turned from security to Boris Johnson's latest 4,000 word essay published in the Telegraph on Saturday. The Foreign Secretary laid out his vision for Brexit - days before the Prime Minister is due to make a crucial speech in Florence. Rudd defended Boris' intervention, but made clear that she did not want the Foreign Secretary to be in charge of the UK's negotiations: https://youtu.be/mWielrQPErY AM: Do you think that this article generally was a helpful intervention or an error of judgement? AR: I have the great good fortune to work with Boris.

Patrick West

Banksy’s Brexit mural has helped halt Dover’s decline

From our UK edition

When people come to Dover, it’s usually to pass through. The magnificent castle on the cliffs may be a tourist attraction in its own right, but for the most part, Dover has been a place people go through on their way to or back from the Continent. It’s never been much of a seaside destination. The rise of cheap flights, the end of duty-free and the advent of the Channel Tunnel diminished its status as a port, and the 2008 crash hit it hard. The number of vagrants, street drinkers and empty shop premises in the centre bear witness to a town that has seen better times. Yet things are looking up. Back in May, to the surprise of Doverians and the world’s media, a new Banksy mural was unveiled on the side of an old amusement arcade in York Street.

Saturday

James Kirkup

Boris’s nasty politics would hurt the Tories and Britain

From our UK edition

I used to have a lot of time for Boris Johnson. Sometimes whole days, in fact: from 8am until 8pm, I'd ring and text and email him, politely urging him to tell me what he planned to write his exquisitely expensive Telegraph column about, and when he'd deign to send it to me. It was, as others who've had the joy of calling him a colleague can attest, maddening. But he always filed, in the end. I don't claim that working acquaintance with Boris gives me any unique insight into his soul. In fact, familiarity only makes his real character more obscure. My overall impression of a man famous for being talkative and flamboyant is that the real Boris Johnson, the man concealed beneath onionskin layers of artifice and performance, can be quite guarded and even a bit shy.

Fraser Nelson

Finally, Boris Johnson has overcome his stage fright. Let’s hear more from him

From our UK edition

In my Daily Telegraph column yesterday, I asked where Boris Johnson had gone. We never hear from him now, I said, unless there’s been some tragedy overseas or some risqué joke backfiring in Bratislava. Since becoming Foreign Secretary, the most gifted communicator in the Tory party had been mute – a baffling waste of talent. While he sulked, Brexit was being defined by its enemies. The narrative has become one of tedious negotiations and no one in government seemed able (or even interested) in saying what the point of Brexit was. Boris helped inspired a nation to vote for Brexit, and gave a wonderful, liberal and globally-minded definition of it – a very different version to that offered by Nigel Farage with his despicable posters.

James Forsyth

Can Theresa May satisfy both Boris and the EU?

From our UK edition

We are only six days away from Theresa May’s big Brexit speech in Florence. But it is far from certain what will be in it, as I say in The Sun today. The biggest domestic challenge for May, insiders say, is squaring Boris Johnson. I’m told that ‘there is quite a lot of nervousness about that’. ‘Boris has been the most hard-line’ of the Cabinet Brexiteers an insider tells me. One of those involved in the negotiations between the two camps predicts ‘it is going to be a tetchy week.’ Boris’s issue is money. He is opposed to paying a big exit payment to the EU and he’s told Number 10 that he wants that £350 million for the NHS.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn is getting better at political point-scoring

From our UK edition

This week marks two years since Jeremy Corbyn was announced as the Labour leader. When he took over, he promised to shake up the way Prime Minister’s Questions was done, to make it more about the voters and less about the political point-scoring. But interestingly, he has now settled into a rather effective political routine. Corbyn now runs through a series of policy areas on which the Tories look weak, almost regarding Theresa May’s answers as incidental to the process rather than the prompt for him to probe more and point out that she hasn’t answered the question at all. This is probably a wise move, given Theresa May tries to make her answers as incidental and irrelevant as possible.

Isabel Hardman

These late night sittings will make Parliament much less productive

From our UK edition

One of the most noticeable things about MPs as they amble around Westminster today is how tired so many of them look. They’ve been kept up late the past two nights by unusually long sittings of the House of Commons, with the final three-line whipped votes not taking place before 10pm on both days. On Monday, it was the second reading of the EU Withdrawal Bill, and last night a prolonged debate on the Finance Bill meant everyone had to hang about until later to vote on Andrea Leadsom’s plan to make the Conservatives appear to have won the election outright after all by guaranteeing the government a majority on all public bill and secondary legislation committees.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Why social care could be heading for the long grass once again

From our UK edition

How are ministers going to deal with the social care crisis? This could be a weekly question on Coffee House for the next few years, along with what is Labour’s policy on Brexit and when will Theresa May decide to stand down. As I wrote last week, the different parties are all claiming they want cross-party talks but not really doing much talking to one another. Now, I understand that ministers are planning to do a lot more talking before they make any sort of decision on how to create a long-term financial settlement for the sector. As she started to unpick her disastrous manifesto proposal for a ‘dementia tax’, Theresa May promised a ‘consultation paper, a government green paper’ on social care funding.

Brendan O’Neill

The EU Withdrawal Bill is a victory for British parliamentary democracy

From our UK edition

Everyone needs to calm down about the EU Withdrawal Bill. The way anti-Brexiteers are talking about it you’d think Henry VIII himself had risen from his burial vault, sword in one hand, Anne Boleyn’s head in the other, come to crush parliament and the plebs beneath his velvet boot. The Tories’ use of ‘Henry VIII powers’ to incorporate, amend or ditch EU-born laws means they’re ‘acting like Tudor monarchs’, Brexit panickers claim. Please. There’s a chasm-sized moral difference between Theresa May’s executive antics and those of the Tudors: she’s acting on the command of 17.4m people, the largest democratic throng in British history, where they acted from personal kingly whim.