Uk politics

What make a good minister? Is it how well they perform at the Dispatch Box in the Commons? Or their ability to field questions on Newsnight? Or even their ability to be a good lunch guest for a member of the lobby? The truth is that often we don’t know whether someone has been a good government minister until years after they’ve left the department and the policies they introduced have actually run their course, rather than just enjoyed a bit of media limelight. Take the 1999 Teenage Pregnancy Strategy. Launched in June of that year by Tony Blair, the strategy examined a study by the Social Exclusion Unit and aimed to halve the rate of teenage pregnancies in ten years.

Boris Johnson took in a car factory as part of his day of campaigning for Vote Leave in Yorkshire. The former Mayor did the usual politician’s thing of touring the workshops of Ginetta, pointing at various pieces of equipment and asking the workers what it was that they were doing, before hopping in one of the carmaker’s vehicles - branded with Vote Leave insignia - for a spin. He drove it out of the factory before handing the wheel over to a proper driver, who proceeded to whizz him around in tight donuts in the car park outside, sending up a large amount of smoke from the burning rubber. ‘We’re taking back control!’ Boris pronounced happily as he clambered out of the passenger seat. https://twitter.

Churches are generally ideal venues for public debates. But there’s a slight chance that a speech about the perils of EU membership will be interrupted by a homeless person doing a pee in the corner. At a debate on Christian responses to the EU at St James the Less church in Pimlico last night, Giles Fraser left off quoting his hero Tony Benn on the evil of unaccountable power in order to do his muscular Christian duty and help eject the man, who spluttered invective as he departed. Did I imagine it or did he shout 'Fexit Brexit'? A bit earlier, his opponent Ben Ryan had set out an optimistic vision – not Project Fear but Project Hope. He argued that the European project was never simply about economics: it was based in a Christian moral vision.

The quiet Queen’s Speech seems largely to have underwhelmed Tory MPs - though they do predict a number of sticky moments in the Commons over the coming months. Most I have spoken to describe it as ‘pretty bare’, though they also understand why the Prime Minister isn’t trying anything particularly ambitious at this stage ‘Why waste initiatives when no-one is listening?’ asks one. Another anti-Cameron MP describes the content rather more bluntly as ‘uninspiring, managerialist and vacuous’. There will be flashpoints on the Bill of Rights and the Investigatory Powers Bill, something the whips are hard at work on.

When are Jeremy Corbyn’s enemies going to get their act together? Today’s Times poll of the Labour membership shows that they would get a rather cold reception if they tried to remove the Labour leader, with 72 per cent telling YouGov that Corbyn is doing well, up from 66 per cent in November. Members are slightly less upbeat about the party’s prospects for actually governing, with 53 per cent believing it will be in government after the 2020 election, and 47 per cent saying Corbyn is likely to become Prime Minister.

In normal times, the government clears the decks ahead of the Queen’s Speech. It wants to ensure maximum publicity for its legislative agenda. But these are not normal times: there’s an EU referendum campaign raging. Number 10 are being quite clear, as I write in The Sun today, that with less than six weeks to go to polling day, there won’t be a campaign ceasefire this week. ‘It is too close now’ one senior source tells me. So, why is the Queen’s Speech taking place at all? One IN supporting Minister complains that it is ‘moronic’ to be having it now, as it means that the measures announced it are likely to get caught up in the referendum cross fire.

A while ago, I promised to write about my response to allegations by Andrew Neather that the government had covered up immigration. I got waylaid a bit, but in my Daily Telegraph column today I explain why I’m not convinced by it. To believe that mass immigration was a deliberate policy to screw up the Tories would imply that someone in power had a clue what was going on. No one did. It was a massive accident: the arrival of four million more people over 15 years. But here’s the thing: have the shops run out of food? Has M&S run out of underwear to sell? Has Ryanair started to ration flights? Has there been any rise in crime or anti-immigration sentiment? Have employers run out of vacancies? Not at all.