Uk politics

Are we learning, rather painfully, what happens when you let journalists take over? Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are political hacks, by instinct and experience, so perhaps it is not surprising that Brexit is starting to look and feel like a post-modern sequel to the novel Scoop.  Deadlines, panic, laziness, brilliance, incompetence, disaster, highs, lows, sheer bloody madness — this is the new politics. Triumph snatched from the jaws of disaster, and then days later the reverse. It makes for great copy, and is (go on, you can admit it) very funny. But is it any way to run a country? What sort of professional other than a journalist would pull off a great political coup, put himself on the

The 1922 Committee has announced the final line-up in the Tory leadership race, after an extremely dramatic morning. The official contenders are as follows: Stephen Crabb Liam Fox Michael Gove Andrea Leadsom Theresa May Conservative contest rules mean that MPs only need two nominees at this stage, and there will be tectonic shifts taking place in the party as supporters of Boris Johnson move, either to Michael Gove or other candidates. It is fair to say after talking to a number of Boris supporters that some of them are currently so white hot with fury at what Gove has done in turning on his colleague at the last minute that

Boris Johnson is about to go ahead with his leadership campaign launch without the man who has pulled so much of it together. MPs entering the event are baffled by this morning’s shock announcement by Michael Gove that he will run for leader himself: he was the man who invited them. Others, such as Dominic Raab, have already announced they have switched to the Gove campaign. Funnily enough, behind the scenes there is utter fury in the Boris camp. One prominent supporter points out that the Justice Secretary repeatedly insisted that he didn’t want the top job. ‘How can anyone believe a word Gove says on anything ever again?’ they

Labour MPs have passed a motion of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn 172 votes to 40. There were 216 votes cast (out of 229 Labour MPs). This means that the Labour leader will continue to serve without the support of a majority of his MPs. Unless he decides to resign, he will lead Prime Minister’s Questions for the Opposition tomorrow as normal. I have spoken to the key plotters against the Labour leader, and though they considered not turning up to tomorrow’s session, they have decided that the most important thing for backbenchers to be doing is to be holding the government to account, even if their frontbench is incapable

A quick update on the BBC TV News. At ten o clock last night the programme ran a report from its idiotic northern correspondent, Ed Thomas, which attempted to suggest that the Leave campaign was responsible for nasty things being said to immigrants. Thomas is an appallingly partisan correspondent and presumably has his job because he is only person within the BBC with a vaguely northern accent. He chose to interview two neanderthals. Then over to the inestimable Laura Kuenssssberg, who referred to the UK’s ‘likely’ exit from the EU. No, Laura: exit. We have to keep watching these patently parti-pris buggers. The subtle and not so subtle way they

Labour MPs are today voting on the motion of no confidence on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. The rebels expect the vote to pass with 2:1 support from the parliamentary party. But what they do not know is whether the party membership has really shifted enough for Corbyn to lose when it moves to a new contest. Corbynite sources are adamant that he will win again, and reports of disillusionment amongst activists, while striking, are only anecdotal. But Labour MPs who oppose Corbyn’s leadership now see the coup us unstoppable, and believe that if necessary they will have to hold repeated votes and leadership contests in order to dislodge him. They think