Uk politics

Sunday

Douglas Murray

al-Baghdadi, luvvies and affordable housing: the worst predictions of the EU referendum

From our UK edition

It’s that time of the week again, when I promised to round up the worst contributions to the Brexit debate. The Prime Minister got the week off to a good start by claiming that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the famed head of ISIS, is a supporter of ‘Vote Leave’.  In fact the putative world Caliph has yet to come out for either side in the UK referendum, though the attacks in Paris last November suggest that the EU’s weak external borders and absent internal borders have been working out nicely for the terrorist chief.  As a result the smart money is on al-Baghdadi coming out for ‘Remain’, though I’m sure nobody in the ‘Leave’ camp would make such a tasteless claim.

Saturday

Theo Hobson

Even religious polemics can’t inject any life into the Brexit debate

From our UK edition

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.

James Forsyth

The Boris, Cameron ruck over EU

From our UK edition

David Cameron and Boris Johnson are the two biggest beasts in the Tory jungle. But they are currently involved in an increasingly undignified scrap over Brexit. As I say in The Sun today, it is hard to see how it ends well for both of them or the Tory party.  As one Cabinet Minister lamented to me recently, ‘it is a personal fight’ between Cameron and Boris and that ‘the Conservative party is on a hiding to nothing.’ Boris and Brexit is the itch that Cameron can’t resist scratching. When Iain Dale asked him about Boris going Out, Cameron—in effect—accused the former Mayor of putting his personal ambition ahead of the national interest which is about the most serious charge you can make of a politician.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Government accepts rebel amendment on Queen’s Speech to stave off defeat

From our UK edition

So Number 10 has yielded and decided to stave off the Queen’s Speech rebellion by accepting the rebel amendment to it, thereby stopping the first defeat of a government on its legislative programme since 1924. A spokesman said: ‘As we’ve said all along, there is no threat to the NHS from TTIP. So if this amendment is selected, we’ll accept it.’ So job done, rebellion gone. But it is still a bloody nose for the government from eurosceptics, who are forcing the Prime Minister and the rest of the executive to support something that regrets that they failed to table a bill exempting the NHS from something they have been insisting for over a year is already exempt from the trade agreement.

Isabel Hardman

Queen’s Speech row: whose fault is it?

From our UK edition

Tory eurosceptics are threatening to cause the first government defeat on a Queen’s Speech since 1924 by joining forces with Labour MPs over an amendment expressing regret that there is no bill exempting the NHS from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. It’s the second time the eurosceptics have worked with Opposition MPs to try to force an embarrassing and historic defeat on a major government event: the last one was on the Tampon Tax after the March Budget (which turned out to be the least embarrassing bit of the aftermath of that Budget, as it happens). But why are Tory eurosceptics joining in with this opposition game-playing?

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Tory MPs mull cautious Queen’s Speech

From our UK edition

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.

Isabel Hardman

What David Cameron is trying to tell us with this Queen’s Speech

From our UK edition

What is the point of today’s Queen’s Speech? The government’s legislative programme for the year is being briefed as light and safe, given the ructions in the Tory party over Europe and David Cameron’s tiny majority. But it is also being briefed as a social justice speech, one focused on getting on with the important reforms to improve the life chances of disadvantaged people. The main story is the reforms to the prison system, which will be carried out by Michael Gove and include ‘in-cell technology’ such as iPads to help prisoners learn independently (a far cry from the ‘book ban’ over which Gove’s predecessor Chris Grayling tussled with the criminal justice establishment).

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Labour MPs are stuck in a miserable stalemate – and some want out

From our UK edition

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.

Alex Massie

Jeremy Corbyn should not be allowed to rewrite the history of his support for the IRA

From our UK edition

Something remarkable is happening in British politics right now. Something rotten and disgusting too. Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Her Majesty's loyal (sic) opposition, is trying to rewrite history. Here is what Corbyn said to Robert Peston at the weekend: "I do make the point that if you are to develop a peace process in the Middle East or anywhere else in this world for that matter, you have to have serious conversations and negotiations with all the forces involved. [...] Listen, the Northern Ireland parallel is sometimes a bit overplayed by nevertheless it is an important one. The successive British governments thought there was a military solution in Northern Ireland.

Monday

James Forsyth

Which polls are you going to believe?

From our UK edition

Today’s ICM phone and online polls are a reminder that the polls aren’t going to offer much certainty about the result of the EU referendum. ICM’s traditional phone poll has IN ahead 47 to 39, and with the don’t knows excluded up 55% to 45%. This would suggest that IN is on course for a fairly comfortable victory. But its online poll has Out up 47 to 43, and with the don’t knows excluded ahead 52% to 48%. Phone polls are generally regarded as slightly superior to online ones, they are certainly more expensive. So, I suspect that most people in Westminster will take these polls as a sign that IN is probably ahead. Interestingly, Number 10 briefed out some of its own thinking on the current polls to the Sunday papers.

Isabel Hardman

Tory unity after the referendum is looking increasingly difficult

From our UK edition

One of the big questions about the EU referendum campaign is whether the Tory leadership is running its campaign in such a way as to make it impossible to stitch the party back together again after the result on 23 June. The Prime Minister’s colleagues concerned with party management who work in Number 10 and the whips’ office are certainly very agitated about the mood in the party, with a number of pro-Brexit ministers appearing to conclude that they have burned their bridges irreparably. This has led their colleagues to worry that there will be a large group of ministers and backbenchers after a ‘Remain’ vote who still try to move against the Prime Minister.

Camilla Swift

How Jeremy Corbyn kept down the bids at this year’s big Tory fundraiser

From our UK edition

This piece is from the new issue of Spectator Money, out on Thursday 19 May. The magazine will come free with your next copy of The Spectator, and will also be available to read online at spectator.com/money. The Conservative party’s Black and White Ball is a lavish, billionaire-laden affair. Tickets can cost up to £1,500, with guests who shell out the full £15,000 for a group of ten rewarded with the presence of a cabinet minister on their table. But even if that sounds a bit steep, selling tickets isn’t the main objective.

Isabel Hardman

EU debate takes ludicrous twist as Ken scolds Boris for Hitler comments

From our UK edition

You know you’ve not necessarily added a great deal to your argument when Ken Livingstone is telling you off for invoking Hitler. Boris Johnson finds himself in that rather awkward position today, with the former Mayor being scolded by another former Mayor for claiming at the weekend that Hitler was among ‘various people’ who tried to create a European superstate and that ‘the EU is an attempt to do this by different methods’. Livingstone insisted that while ‘what I said was perfectly true’ (that was that Hitler supported Zionism ‘before he went mad and ended up killing 6 million Jews’, in case you’d forgotten) that Boris had got his facts wrong, and that ‘there was never a plan for a United States of Europe under Hitler.

Theo Hobson

The Brexiteers have brought romance back into politics

From our UK edition

I recently got round to reading Francis Fukuyama’s famous book The End of History and the Last Man. As well as heralding the triumph of liberal democracy, he explains that a snake will always lurk in the garden, for human nature is not entirely won over by the gospel of equality. He introduces us to the term megalothymia, the desire to distinguish oneself from the rest, be the best. It’s expressed in capitalism, sport and other cultural pursuits. It is also likely to be expressed in politics: leaders will probably emerge who don’t have any new ideology, but want to rock the liberal democratic boat. They are motivated by a sort of primitive lust for adventure.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Why the Queen won’t be the centre of political attention next week

From our UK edition

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.

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Immigration: a (belated) response to Andrew Neather

From our UK edition

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.

Thursday

Dot Wordsworth

Sadiq Khan’s virtues

From our UK edition

The new Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said he wanted ‘the most transparent, honest and accessible administration London has ever seen’. It sounds lovely, especially if the Underground is cheap too. Mr Khan’s are a very 21st-century triad of virtues, though honest might sound old-fashioned. It would once have appeared on a housemaid’s reference: ‘Diligent, sober and honest’, i.e. not lazy, drunken and thieving. We now grow sceptical of politicians who begin replies by saying ‘To be honest’ (as if this was a rare departure). Honesty once measured outward respectability, as reflected in a Tudor description of Eton as ‘an honest Colege of sad Priestes, with a greate nombre of children’.

Isabel Hardman

Vote Leave loses its temper over ITV referendum event

From our UK edition

If the Leave campaign in the EU referendum was resembling Project Grouch a few weeks ago, today it is rather closer to Project Apoplexy. Vote Leave exploded late last night after ITV announced that it would be holding a live referendum event with David Cameron and Nigel Farage. The campaign group first accused the broadcaster of a ‘stitch-up’, furious that it had capitulated to Number 10’s demands that there be no blue-on-blue fighting on the programme, and picked Nigel Farage, who is not just the member of rival campaign Leave.EU but also a turn-off to the sort of swing voters the Leave bunch actually need to appeal to.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Tory eurosceptics fear government sneakiness on EU postal votes

From our UK edition

One of the major features of the EU referendum campaign is the suspicion on the part of Tory eurosceptics that their party in government is trying to screw them over. The latest theory centres around the dates when the postal votes are sent out and when the government is forced by official rules governing election campaigns to shut up. The postal votes in the EU referendum are being sent out between 27 May and 3 June, and the official ‘purdah’ for the campaign also begins on 27 May.

Fraser Nelson

Watch: George Osborne grilled about his great deception over Brexit

From our UK edition

The Chancellor gave evidence to the Treasury select committee today, and he was challenged about The Spectator’s analysis of his systematic attempt to mislead over the cost of Brexit. A loss of £4,300 per household, he said: a figure that he fabricated using three tricks. He disguised an increase as a decrease: the Treasury study suggests that GDP would be a 29 per cent bigger in 2030 with Brexit and and 37 per cent bigger with no Brexit. So the choice is between two significant rises. By no stretch of the English language is this a ‘fall.’ Osborne conflated household income with the very different notion of GDP, so he could arrive at a higher (and scarier) figure.