Uk politics

Jeremy Corbyn surfaced last night to do his first round of broadcast interviews since becoming Labour leader. The two key lines were on Europe and Trident, and though the interviewers were interested in these issues, Corbyn also had an interest in being as clear as he possibly could be on them as they play a large part in holding his Shadow Cabinet together. Labour MPs spent a lot of time chatting with one another and debating whether it was the right thing to join the Corbyn frontbench as he assembled it on Sunday night. They reached different conclusions, with some fearing they would be tainted by a hopeless administration that

Even though the Tories got their way on yesterday’s vote on tax credits, in which they managed to get a laws-of-physics-defying majority of 35, they cannot regard this matter as settled. Indeed, there is still a serious threat of a revolt on this matter. George Osborne held individual meetings with each of the handful of Tory MPs who were seriously worried about the policy, which lowers the threshold for withdrawing tax credits from £6,420 to £3,850 and speed up the rate of withdrawal as pay rises. That strategy of wearing down each MP on their own rather than allowing them to work as a group clearly worked as in the

The government has a working majority of 16. But today it managed to win a tricky vote in the House of Commons that its own MPs were threatening to rebel on, and that the DUP had said it wouldn’t help the government on. The measure was on tax credits, and the government got a majority of 35. Why didn’t Labour manage to get its act together? It has a new leader and its whips are just getting to work. I understand the Labour whips sent a panicked text message in the middle of this afternoon asking their MPs if they were on the estate. But this was a bit too late, and not

Have we ever had a more political Chancellor of the Exchequer? I doubt it. The political skills of George Osborne were on full display in July’s Summer Budget. Here he tweaked Labour’s tail particularly violently by pinching the party’s higher minimum wage strategy that all too many within Labour thought would be a winning card at the last election. I still wonder whether he sees the revolutionary potential of his Labour-baiting initiative, the ‘National Living Wage’. With a little more development it could become the most important game changer in Britain’s post-war welfare debate. A little over two centuries ago, with the rise of a dual agricultural and industrial society, those

Given few knew who Jeremy Corbyn was before the summer, chances are that few will know who John McDonnell is either. Well, here’s your quick guide. He was first elected in 1997, having previously served on the Greater London Council as member for Hayes and Harlington (the constituency he represents in Parliament). He is chair of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, and worked as a researcher and official for the National Union of Mineworkers and the TUC. And here’s what else you need to know about the new Shadow Chancellor: 1. John McDonnell is quite the Commons performer. He famously grabbed the mace in the Chamber to express

Naturally, today is not a good day if you’re a Labour moderate. The Blairites’ troubles have been well publicised, but the old right, or moderate, wing of the party, represented by Labour First, is licking its wounds too. The faction did see Tom Watson elected Deputy Leader (which shows firstly that Watson and Corbyn are not from the same part of the party at all, and secondly that ‘moderate’ is quite a wide term), but it tried to encourage members to fight Corbyn every way they could, particularly by blocking him using second and third preferences. Labour First is now trying to stop the Corbynites taking control of the policymaking