Uk politics

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Telling anti-vaxxers they’re idiots won’t work

From our UK edition

Boris Johnson declaring war on anti-vaxxers is the sort of thing that no-one will disagree with unless, of course, they are the ones peddling dangerous myths about the effects of these preventative treatments on children. The Prime Minister today announced a crackdown on misleading claims about vaccinations, with plans for a summit with social media firms on how to stop vaccine myths spreading on their networks, and a push for GPs to promote catch-up vaccinations for children who've missed out. The phenomenon of parents refusing to allow their children to be inoculated against deadly diseases has unfortunately become so widespread that the UK is now no longer measles-free. But how can the government change this?

Steerpike

‘Shame!’: Journalist heckled at Corbyn speech

From our UK edition

Jeremy Corbyn has just given a speech attacking Boris Johnson as 'Britain's Trump'. But while the Labour leader is happy to dish out criticism, it seems his supporters don't like it when the tables are turned. A journalist found that out the hard way when he told Corbyn: 'It's clear that you do not have the cross-party support in Parliament to be a caretaker prime minister..' His comment was met with cries of 'Shame!' from those in the audience. It seems that for some Corbynistas, the truth hurts...

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn’s no-deal plan is unusually smart politics

From our UK edition

On the surface, Jeremy Corbyn's pitch to become caretaker prime minister of a government of national unity after overthrowing Boris Johnson looks like a messy failure. The Liberal Democrats have said they won't back him, two of the Tories who he wrote to have backed away too, and the Independent Group for Change (which he didn't write to) have said this evening that they will 'not support nor facilitate any government led by Jeremy Corbyn'. Instead, everyone is talking about the possibility of a government led by Ken Clarke. The former Tory chancellor today said he wouldn't object to taking over if it was 'the only way' to stop a no-deal Brexit.

Thursday

Bernard Connolly

How to make sense of Jeremy Corbyn’s pitch to Remainers

From our UK edition

What is Jeremy Corbyn up to? The appeal in his letter to Remainers in the Commons to turf Boris Johnson out, and magically transform the Leader of the Opposition into an 'interim' Prime Minister – one who would block not just a no-deal Brexit but any Brexit at all, looks like something out of a Bulgakov novel. But there is a sensible – at least from Corbyn's point of view – purpose behind it. Few of the various ex-Labour and ex-Conservative independent MPs are likely to support the appeal. Many Corbyn-despising Labour MPs will not back it. A couple of Tories might decide to end their parliamentary careers endorsing it. But Corbyn's appeal will effectively dissuade most moderate Tory Remainers from voting against their own Government.

Alexander Pelling-Bruce

Why October 10th is Boris Johnson’s best bet for a snap election

From our UK edition

Boris Johnson thrives on risk. His political life so far has consisted of a succession of gambles that have paid off: leaving the Commons to be Tory mayoral candidate in a Labour-voting city; choosing Leave in the referendum against the odds and the establishment; resigning as foreign secretary; and then becoming Prime Minister when many thought he was a busted flush. These decisions are the marks of a man from whom we ought to expect the unexpected. And there is good reason for him to now make the ultimate bet and call a snap election. It's now widely assumed that Jeremy Corbyn will table a motion of no confidence soon after Parliament returns from summer.

Steerpike

Tory MP: PM Corbyn better than no-deal Brexit

From our UK edition

When Jeremy Corbyn put forward his proposal to MPs to help him become prime minister in order to block a no-deal Brexit, the response from the Lib Dems was clear: no. But the Labour leader's plan has had a warmer reception in an unlikely place – on the Tory backbenches. Guto Bebb told his fellow MPs that if they wanted to stop Britain leaving the EU without a deal, they should take Corbyn's idea seriously: 'I certainly take the view that a short-term Jeremy Corbyn government is less damaging than the generational damage that would be caused by a no-deal Brexit' Mr S thinks Bebb might have some difficulty persuading his Tory colleagues about that...

Katy Balls

Corbyn’s Brexit offer puts Jo Swinson under pressure

From our UK edition

The recurring story of the summer recess is the plot to form a government of national unity in order to thwart any No. 10 plans for a no-deal Brexit. Anti no-deal MPs have discussed voting down Boris Johnson's government when Parliament returns in September and then using the two week grace period that follows to form a government of national unity. There are several catches to this plan – one potentially big flaw is that people in No. 10 believe Johnson can simply refuse to stand down, wait the two weeks out and then decide the date of the election that would follow. However, the biggest problem is that to even get to that point, anti no-deal MPs need to find a leader that a majority of MPs can rally around. Today Jeremy Corbyn attempted to pitch himself as that person.

Steerpike

If Boris is Pericles, does that make Rees-Mogg Cato the Younger?

From our UK edition

Who is Boris Johnson’s political hero? ‘Obviously Winston Churchill,’ said the Prime Minister yesterday. But Boris also named another figure from antiquity who has inspired him: Pericles of Athens. ‘He believed in the importance of the many, not the few,’ said Boris, helping himself to Labour's slogan. Boris and Pericles have a few things in common, notes Mr S. Not least a love of speaking and having a younger girlfriend: Pericles’s partner was 25 years his junior, while Carrie and Boris Johnson have a 25-year age gap. So if Boris is Pericles, which other Greco-Roman figures are today’s politicians following in the footsteps of?

William Cook

Alexander Waugh is the Brexit party’s most illustrious candidate

From our UK edition

At the next General Election, the lucky constituents of Bridgwater and West Somerset will find an illustrious name on their ballot papers. The Brexit party have unveiled their latest prospective parliamentary candidates, and the candidate they’ve chosen to contest this seat is Alexander Waugh. Alexander Waugh is a first-rate writer – a shrewd critic, an astute biographer and an occasional contributor to The Spectator. He’s also the grandson of one of England’s greatest novelists, Evelyn Waugh, and the son of one of England’s finest journalists – the late, great Spectator columnist Auberon Waugh. Alexander’s writing invites comparison with his father’s writing, and his grandfather’s.

Wednesday

Steven Fielding

The real reason Corbynites turned on Caroline Lucas and the Greens

From our UK edition

Caroline Lucas's plan for an all-female emergency Cabinet to stop a no-deal Brexit is a fantasy, with no prospect of success. But if the plan is daft, it has provoked a revealing reaction from Jeremy Corbyn’s loyal outriders. Instead of laughing it off, many have taken it deadly seriously. Most have focused their attack on the ethnicity of the women Lucas chose to enlist: they were all white. Reasonably enough, they asked why shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, was overlooked. Recognising her mistake, Lucas apologised. But instead of giving Lucas – probably the most politically correct member of the Commons – the benefit of the doubt, the Corbynite response has been nasty and vituperative.

Robert Peston

Jeremy Corbyn’s mystifying Brexit stance continues

From our UK edition

A Labour party that goes into the looming general election campaigning for a new Brexit referendum, which Jeremy Corbyn says it will do, will delight Boris Johnson and fill EU leaders with despair. Because Johnson will think millions of British people will recoil at the idea of a general election followed by a referendum in quick succession. And Johnson will also be delighted that he would face a warring opposition, since Lib Dems, Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru are clear the UK must stay in the EU, whereas Corbyn’s Labour isn’t sure. Also EU leaders will be despondent that the UK under Corbyn’s plan may still not have made up its mind whether to stay or go by next spring, when the EU has to set its new budget.

Isabel Hardman

Why Philip Hammond could just be making things easier for Boris Johnson

From our UK edition

Is Philip Hammond's intervention today really a problem for Boris Johnson? The former Chancellor comment piece in the Times declares that he's kept quiet for all of three weeks, but that 'now it is time' to speak out and warn the new Prime Minister that he risks betraying the British people if he goes for a no-deal Brexit. There has been a sufficiently energetic response from Number 10 sources to suggest that they are rattled by Hammond. But those sources insist that everyone in Westminster had already priced in such a complaint, and that the public will see Hammond and his acolytes bickering over process and trying to stop Brexit, which will just make voters more enraged with the Remainers in parliament.

Ross Clark

Who is Philip Hammond to lecture Boris Johnson on Brexit?

From our UK edition

There is a role in British public life known as the Elder Statesman – a former cabinet minister who dispenses wisdom to those currently in office based on their own experiences and observations. There are two qualifications for such a position: firstly, that you leave a decent period between leaving office and setting yourself up in the role, so that it is clear you are not simply trying to settle old scores; and secondly that you are prepared to take an objective approach to your own time in office, admitting to mistakes, saying how you would now approach the problems that you faced in office, with the benefit of hindsight. Philip Hammond fails on both grounds.

Tuesday

Ian Acheson

Boris Johnson is right to talk tough on crime. But can he deliver?

From our UK edition

Remember #rorywalks? This was the hashtag created to follow the progress of Tory leadership candidate Rory Stewart as he travelled around Britain meeting people in places detached from mainstream politics. One encounter that sticks in my mind happened when he met a couple from east London, who told him that they wouldn’t start a family because their local area was too unsafe to bring a child into the world. Whether apocryphal or not, it is clear that there are parts of Britain where criminality and incivility has become normal, battering the morale of our most vulnerable citizens.

Isabel Hardman

Could we be heading for a Coupon election?

From our UK edition

He might be the only MP to have accidentally posted a screenshot of emails about 'GE2019' on Instagram, but Damian Hinds is far from the only one spending their summer planning to fight in a poll later this year. All the parties are gearing up for a campaign. We've even had glimpses of how Boris Johnson would fight such an election, with today's ComRes poll for the Telegraph suggesting that 44 per cent of voters would back Boris Johnson if he suspended parliament to get Brexit done. There are quibbles about the way the questions were asked in this poll, but it's an important one because it chimes with the thinking in Downing Street about how to win a 2019 snap poll. Johnson will pitch himself as the man of the people fighting a recalcitrant parliament that's actively blocking Brexit.

Steerpike

Watch: Boris Johnson’s Kinder Surprise

From our UK edition

Boris Johnson appeared shell shocked today when he discovered the lengths to which inmates at HMP Leeds go to to exploit prison security. During a tour of the prison, the PM was shown an X-ray scan of the plastic innards of a Kinder egg lodged inside an inmate who was caught sneaking contraband. Johnson recoiled in horror as he realised the full extent of the smuggling operation, asking the prison guard: 'A Kinder egg? So is that inside? He’s ingested it? He's plugged it?' https://twitter.com/joepike/status/1161271612727091200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw The boost to prison spending promised by Boris Johnson will no doubt help officers crack down on bad eggs...

Steerpike

The truth about Spreadsheet Phil’s bid to block no deal

From our UK edition

Philip Hammond's former top advisor has confirmed what many in Westminster have known for some time. Writing in the Guardian, ex-special advisor Poppy Trowbridge came out all guns blazing, calling Boris Johnson 'reckless' and accusing him of 'mistaken posturing and trash talk'. In the article, entitled 'Boris Johnson talks tough but still hasn’t said what he’s doing to get a Brexit deal', she laments the failures of May's withdrawal agreement and writes in support of spreadsheet Phil's bid to stave off no deal. But the Chancellor's former SpAd also admitted the extent of Hammond-era resistance to Brexit.

Steerpike

Eight contenders for the top job in a national unity government 

From our UK edition

'Only a government of national unity can deliver us from no deal,' according to Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee. But who should lead it? In these turbulent times, Mr S considers eight challengers who might fancy their chances for the top job as national unity leader: Caroline Lucas Caroline Lucas faced embarrassment yesterday after floating the idea of a national unity government headed by an all-woman cabinet. Her proposal was quickly shot down by critics for not being diverse enough and Lucas was forced to make a grovelling apology. But Lucas insisted in her apology that 'fresh thinking' is still needed. Might she have herself in mind?

James Kirkup

It’s time David Cameron returned to fix his Brexit mess

From our UK edition

In private moments of exasperation with rebellious Tory MPs, prime minister David Cameron used to complain that “too many of my colleagues think they’re here as tribunes of the people”. For him, as for Conservatives since the days of Edmund Burke, MPs should be representatives autonomously exercising judgment, not delegates meekly obeying instructions. Well congratulations Dave. Thanks to your brilliant decision to risk EU membership – and the entire British political settlement on a coin-toss, MPs are all tribunes now. There are some serious caveats about the ComRes poll on the front of the Daily Telegraph today: the question looks loaded and the “don’t know” figure is very high.

Monday

Katy Balls

No. 10 seeks to restore Tory reputation for law and order

From our UK edition

It's law and order week in No. 10. After a series of announcements over the weekend, on stop and search and a promise of more prison places, Boris Johnson has today announced a review of sentencing guidelines for rapists and murderers. More announcements and appearances are expected as the week goes on to further hammer home the message that this is a Government that's tough on crime. With 80 days to go until the UK is to leave the EU, No. 10 is focussed on three main areas: Brexit, health and law and order. It follows that these three topics are also what the Tories are expected to campaign on in an early election. Under Theresa May, the Conservatives' reputation as the party of law and order has suffered.