Uk politics

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Will the Tories’ new domestic abuse bill make any difference?

From our UK edition

What can Theresa May put in the Queen’s Speech next week? The Prime Minister was always a cautious sort who wouldn’t put anything before Parliament that didn’t have a sure chance of passing - and that was when she had a majority. Now, she firstly needs to propose a set of bills that the DUP will back her on in the Queen’s Speech vote and then again in the Commons when each individual bill goes through - or that Labour will support her on. And her party isn’t in the greatest mood at the moment, which will make for difficult internal battles over the detail of legislation, too.

Stephen Daisley

Independence is the SNP’s day job. Everything else is a distraction

From our UK edition

'Get back to the day job.' The six magic words that delivered the Scottish Tories their best election night in decades. Ruth Davidson recited this incantation endlessly during the campaign and Labour and the Liberal Democrats quickly joined in. As messages go, it was blunt but effective, capturing the public mood that Nicola Sturgeon has allowed herself to be distracted by the independence issue.  After the UK chose to leave the EU despite Scotland's Remain vote, the First Minister planned to parlay opposition to Brexit into support for independence. But her scheme went from no-brainer to harebrained in a breathtakingly short period of time. Like Theresa May's snap election gamble, the opportunism was too naked and overestimated Sturgeon's public support.

Thursday

William Cook

Theresa May has much to learn from Enda Kenny

From our UK edition

Enda Kenny stepped down as Ireland’s Taoiseach yesterday, and his farewell speech, at the National Gallery of Ireland, was an object lesson for British Conservative politicians. Amid the splendour of this palatial building, he delivered a speech which was warm and affable, enlivened with personal revelations and underpinned by heartfelt sincerity. If only our Prime Minister had a smidgeon of his public speaking skills. Kenny was here to re-open Dublin’s newly renovated National Gallery, which has been under wraps these last six years - the entire duration of his time as Taoiseach. Naturally, it was an easy gig. Yet Kenny didn’t get polite applause. He brought the house down, and he did so by articulating what the people in this room were feeling.

Fraser Nelson

Unemployment is at its lowest since 1975. Can someone tell the Tories?

From our UK edition

British government may not be strong and stable but the economy is still the most formidable job creating machine in Europe. And while it's certainly true that much of the rise in employment is down to immigration, British unemployment is also down – figures today show the lowest level since 1975. My old friend Simon Nixon writes in the Times today about Britain becoming the new basket case of Europe, and has been making similar noises since the Brexit vote. He may well he right, but so far this basket is carrying more jobs than at any time in history. Don't expect the Tories to make this point: they've been out to lunch since the Brexit vote, and barely mentioned the economy in the campaign.

Theo Hobson

Embracing liberal Christianity can lead the Lib Dems out of irrelevance

From our UK edition

In a sense it was the Liberal Democrats who did worst in this odd election. For the point of this party is to attract progressives who find Labour too dogmatic. And in the past two years Labour has been taken over by old-fashioned socialist dogma. It was the perfect opportunity to create a huge base of homeless New Labour voters. And then came Brexit, doubling this golden opportunity, for the Liberal Democrats were the main party of Brexit-scepticism. Why was the chance missed? Maybe English voters can only really believe in the two main parties, when it comes to governing. In fact, most of us find one of these parties only intermittently credible. So what’s the point of the Liberal Democrats? They must seek purpose and coherence in an idea, a cause.

Alex Massie

How long can Nicola Sturgeon pretend that nothing has changed?

From our UK edition

Is Nicola Sturgeon, not to put too fine a point on things, losing it? Just six weeks ago this question would have seemed preposterous. But that was before the SNP’s disastrous election result. Yes, disastrous. Sure, everyone expected the SNP to lose votes and seats but no-one really thought they could lose 21; no-one really thought their share of the vote would fall by 13 points or that they would misplace almost half a million voters. No-one thought their result would be so very much worse than expected. No-one includes the opposition points and, pertinently, the SNP itself.  And in response to this, what has Nicola Sturgeon said? Only this: nothing has changed. This is a line that will not, cannot, hold.

Brendan O’Neill

The Grenfell Tower inferno shames London

From our UK edition

It takes a lot to make me feel ashamed of London, my beloved home city. But yesterday’s tower-block inferno did it. The raging fire at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, the disturbing speed with which this home to hundreds was reduced to a smouldering shell of a building, heaps shame on this city. It is positively Dickensian, a hellish scene out of place in 2017, like a violent echo from an older era when safety, especially the safety of the poor, was of little moment. London needs to look in the mirror. This cannot just be chalked up to ‘tragedy’. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was the low social status of the inhabitants of the tower that left them vulnerable to this horror.

Ed West

The future belongs to the Left

From our UK edition

When I was in my early 20s and quite conservative I assumed I was just an anomaly, someone who develops these traits earlier than normal, and conservatism was like baldness or impotence or the other bad things that get you in middle age; most of my friends and contemporaries would catch up at some point, because these things just develop at different speeds. Now in my late 30s I realise it's worse than that and almost none of my friends and acquaintances are going to become more conservative; if anything, they've become more left-wing than they were 20 years ago, as the barometer of what is progressive and therefore acceptable has shifted. Many of them would have been among the 40 per cent of the population who voted for Corbyn last week, and the 50 per cent aged 35-44.

Isabel Hardman

It’s not Tim Farron who is illiberal: it’s society

From our UK edition

Was Tim Farron's resignation as Liberal Democrat leader inevitable? He seems to suggest so, saying in his striking resignation statement that it felt 'impossible' to be a political leader and live as a committed Christian.  He spent much of the election campaign stuck in a strange political special of the Moral Maze, endlessly cross-examined about his beliefs on issues such as gay sex and abortion. He argued that religious beliefs are not relevant in a political context, telling Sky during the campaign that 'the measure of a Liberal is someone who protects other people's rights, no matter what your personal position is'. Many in his party admired him for this. Others, such as Brian Paddick, who resigned yesterday from a position few were aware he held, clearly did not.

Wednesday

Stephen Daisley

The Tories must learn fast to avoid the chilling prospect of Prime Minister Corbyn

From our UK edition

Nick Timothy has penned an honest and reflective piece about the Tory election boorach. It can’t have been easy to write less than a week on from defeat and his departure from Downing Street. The most important point he makes is substantive. Theresa May abandoned the One Nation vision she sketched out on the doorstep of Number 10 upon becoming Prime Minister. It was a blueprint for a modern conservatism that believed in markets but didn’t worship them, that championed liberty but also the freedom to take advantage of its opportunities. It was a communitarian Toryism halfway between Burke and Berlin — the kind of politics advocated by Robert Halfon, sacked by the PM in an apparent effort to make sure she had alienated absolutely every last person who ever rated her.

Fraser Nelson

Jo Swinson favourite to be new Lib Dem leader as Tim Farron quits

From our UK edition

After a fairly disastrous general election campaign, Tim Farron has quit as leader of the Liberal Democrats. You can see why: he wanted to pose as the champion of Remain yet for for the first few weeks he seemed unable to move the conversation beyond his views on gay sex and marijuana. His attempt to rekindle the Brexit wars was a complete flop. The LibDems are an unlikely alliance of evangelical Christians and social liberals, and Farron's appointment embodied a clash that the media delighted in exposing. He said, today, that has decided that the two are impossible to reconcile: "I have found myself torn, living as a faithful Christian and leading a political party in the current environment.

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

Jeremy Corbyn is now bookies’ favourite to be next UK Prime Minister

From our UK edition

Well, this is going well. As the Tories pretend that all will be well under a reprogrammed Maybot, the expectations outside SW1 are rather different. Let's say someone moves against her, the other candidates start to move too – and before you can say Boris the party has formed another circular firing squad. What happens? What if the Tories can't keep it together and there's another general election? The bookies have decided: Jeremy Corbyn is more likely than anyone else to succeed Theresa May. Now the bookies get things wrong almost as regularly as pollsters, but expectation matters a lot in politics – and business. If most Tories think Corbyn is close to power, then this explains their good behaviour.

Lara Prendergast

Theresa May’s mistake? Putting style over substance

From our UK edition

There are many lessons to learn from the utter calamity of the general election, but here is just one: be cautious of any politician who asks you to judge their ideas via their clothes. Theresa May did – and it should have been a warning sign. As she discussed 'boy jobs and girl jobs' on The One Show, she wore pearls and a tweed jacket, to keep the Daily Mail happy. The election was announced, business-like, in a blue-and-white pinstriped power suit. She appeared in Vogue – her favourite magazine – wearing expensive leather trousers, then spent the following weeks having to defend the decision. The chainmail necklace became her talisman throughout the campaign. Then there were the shoes. So many shoes. Kitten-heeled.

Monday

Fraser Nelson

George Bridges resigns as Brexit minister – has the unravelling begun?

From our UK edition

The reshuffle might be over, but the government is still changing shape. It has emerged that George Bridges has quit as a Brexit minister. He was highly rated by David Davis, his erstwhile boss, and had established himself as one of the most able ministers in the government – precisely the sort of person they can’t really afford to lose at this time. So why has he walked out now? We are only given a diplomatic answer: he’d been contemplating moving on for some time, and it seemed like a good time. If this rationale sounds familiar it’s precisely the formula that Katie Perrior deployed when she quit as Theresa May’s communications chief after just nine months in the job.

Isabel Hardman

Why has Theresa May moved one of her best whips?

From our UK edition

The reshuffle announcements keep rolling miserably on, with Theresa May congratulating herself on people bothering to answer the phone to her. One of the new appointments is rather odd. Anne Milton has had a promotion from the whips' office to the Education Department, which must be flattering for the sharp Guildford MP. But it's not clear why May has done it. The best whips are the ones you don't notice, and few outside Tory circles will have had much of an idea of how Milton works. But she is one of the most effective and respected whips in the party. This is valuable to any Prime Minister but especially to one who has managed to exhaust, infuriate and weaken her party in one fell swoop.

Brendan O’Neill

Intolerant liberals have a new target: the DUP

From our UK edition

Memo to London-based liberals: not everyone shares your point of view. Some people — brace yourself for this — have different opinions to yours. Amazing, I know. But true. So please dial down your hysteria about the DUP. Because I know you think it makes you look super-tolerant to bash the supposed rednecks and religious fruitcakes of Northern Ireland who’ve never attended a gay wedding or made a donation to Greenpeace, but it of course does the opposite — it exposes your own intolerance. The fury over the DUP is reaching fever pitch.

Fraser Nelson

Yes, the lowest-paid did best under Cameron

From our UK edition

Was the general election a vote against austerity? I was on the Today programme this morning to discuss this point, and in the course of the interview said that the lowest-paid did best under the Cameron years. This raised some degree of incredulity from Twitter, reported by Huffington Post. What planet am I on? I thought I’d answer. The Cameron years were tough, especially for those on welfare. But the aim was always to make people better-off by moving them into work. David Cameron did cut tax for employers, with corporation tax far lower. Liam Byrne, with whom I was on the Today programme, said that companies hoarded cash – but he didn’t say that they also employed a lot more people than they used to. So while 442,000 public sector positions were cut, 3.

Sunday

The Spectator

Full transcript: John McDonnell says Labour supports leaving single market

From our UK edition

Labour's shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has all but confirmed that the party is committed to leaving the single market. Here's the full transcript of his interview with Robert Peston this morning: RP: I’m joined by the shadow chancellor, one of Jeremy Corbyn’s closest confidants. Very good to see you, John McDonnell. John, first of all, if I could just start with where you go in parliament now. On Friday morning, you were talking in pretty explicit terms about how you thought you could end up in power even without a general election. How would that work? JM: Well, we put forward the proposal which was nothing special.

Saturday

Stephen Daisley

Labour has surrendered to Corbynism

From our UK edition

When I heard the Tories were cutting a deal with a party of bigots and terrorist-sympathisers, I thought, ‘would a national unity government really work?’ It turns out Theresa May is tapping up the DUP rather than the Labour Party. PMQs is accused of ‘yah-boo politics’ as it is; wait till the questions are asked and answered from behind balaclavas. Arlene Foster's party doesn't have the extensive paramilitary history of the Progressive Unionist Party, or Sinn Fein/IRA for that matter, but while Mrs Foster has forcefully rejected violence (she and her family were victims of terrorism during the Troubles) the DUP's past is murky to say the least.

Fraser Nelson

It’s a question of when, not if, Theresa May will resign as Prime Minister

From our UK edition

Only one Cabinet member – Chris Grayling – had a good word to say about Theresa May and even he waited hours to say it. The silence of the others underlines the scale of trouble that the Prime Minister is in with her own party after blowing its majority in pursuit of a personal mandate. If she had won a landslide (which seemed to be there for the taking), she wanted to make it a very personal landslide, asking people to ‘vote for me’ rather than her party. As I say in my Daily Telegraph column today, the defeat must now be owned by her personally. And the silence of her Cabinet is intended to let her dwell upon this fact: she shut most of them up during the campaign, hoping to personalise the glory of victory. They now want her to personalise the misery of defeat.