Uk politics

Monday

Brendan O’Neill

The curious reaction to a niqab-wearing homophobe

Are we allowed to criticise the niqab yet? This question crossed my mind as I watched that viral clip of a niqab-clad woman hurling homophobic invective at a Pride marcher in Walthamstow in London. Surely now it will become acceptable to raise questions about this medieval garment (banned in several Muslim countries) and about the views and attitudes of those who wear it? On one level, the footage of the niqab-wearering lady spouting anti-gay hate wasn’t very surprising. Shocking, yes, but not surprising. It’s not as if someone who covers themselves from head to toe in archaic black cloth (which, as Qanta Ahmed has said, is not in the least

Sunday

Ben Sixsmith

Can the Brexit party survive Brexit?

You have to admit that Brexit party MEPs have a fun job. Imagine turning up to work to insult your colleagues, ridicule your duties and still collect a pay cheque. As I am fortunate enough to enjoy my work, though, I don’t think it is jealousy that makes me find at least some of their posturing obnoxious. “Every day MEPs get a “media briefing” from the EU,” Martin Daubney MEP informs us: No, in fact. If anything, the EU is offering evidence against bias. First, these words came not from an EU employee but British philosopher John Gray. Second, Gray does not call Brexit “far right” and specifically criticises the

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

Can the Gaukeward Squad overcome its inner turmoil?

Usually after a big government reshuffle, the happiest-looking people are the ministers, whether they’ve survived the axe or are celebrating a promotion. But at the end of this week, the most cheerful MPs appear to be the ones who left government, whether of their own volition or after being sacked by Boris Johnson. They’ve been spotted at the cricket and are happily announcing their holiday plans with their family on social media in a way that most politicians shy away from, for fear of appearing to have too much fun. But who is really in the best situation: those in the government, or those now on the outside? In my

Katy Balls

Inside Dominic Cummings’ first meeting with government aides

When Boris Johnson was interviewed by The Spectator ahead of becoming Prime Minister, he said that on Brexit, his ‘determination burns with a magnesium brightness to get it done and to deliver’. Less than a week into his premiership and that commitment is echoed by senior No. 10 staff – many of whom come from Vote Leave. With speculation mounting that an early election is now inevitable as Brussels refuse to take Johnson’s Brexit demands seriously, special advisers and government officials gathered on Friday evening to hear from Johnson’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings – referred to by No. 10 staff as the CEO. I understand the Friday 6pm meeting is

James Forsyth

Boris Johnson’s political strategy is the same as his Brexit strategy

Boris Johnson is running an outside / in campaign, I say in The Sun this morning.. If he’s to get the UK out of the EU by October 31st—the defining pledge of his leadership bid—then he’s got to get the public to put pressure on parliament. The new Prime Minister needs MPs to think that they’ll pay an electoral price for standing in his way. That’s why he is in full campaign mode: firing out popular policies, touring the country and making big speeches. A sizable poll bounce would mean that MPs would be far less likely to try and throw obstacles in Boris Johnson’s way. After all, what’s the

Katy Balls

The leadership result that has Labour worried

As the Westminster rumour mill goes into overdrive over the likelihood of an early general election, talk has turned to how the main parties would fare in an Autumn trip to the polls. Crucial to that question is how the Liberal Democrats would do. Just a year ago, the Lib Dems were the subject of pity and widespread mockery. They were scarred by their time in coalition with the Tories. They failed to make much ground during the 2017 snap election, ending up with just 12 MPs, and seemed destined for extinction. In theory, they should have hoovered up Remain voters. Instead, they hoovered up derision and obloquy. Sir Vince

Friday

Steerpike

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s style guide

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s frontbench debut made it clear he won’t be a typical member of the Cabinet. Fresh from making waves in Parliament, the new leader of the house of Commons has now released his own style guide for staff. On the banned list are full stops after Miss. or Ms., commas after and, and double spaces after full stops.  Rees-Mogg also tells staff to refer to non-titled men as ‘esquire’ – and ensure that they only use imperial measurements, something which Mr S. is sure will go down well in Brussels. And as for using the words ‘very’, ‘lot’, ‘got’ or ‘speculate’? Don’t even think about if you’re a member

Katy Balls

Leo Varadkar ramps up the rhetoric on Boris’s Brexit demands

Since entering No. 10, Boris Johnson has made clear that any route to a Brexit deal must involve ditching the backstop that currently sits in the withdrawal agreement. If that’s not possible, he intends to take the UK out of the EU without a deal. The backstop was the major stumbling block for Theresa May passing that deal – something she failed to do three times – and her government had sought to secure a time limit to make it more palatable to MPs. Brussels refused to play ball. With Johnson asking for more drastic changes, will he have any luck? So far, the signs are not particularly positive. While

Stephen Daisley

Boris Johnson has sent a troubling message to Scottish Tories

The sacking of David Mundell as Scottish Secretary has left Ruth Davidson’s Tories reeling. The response is not tribal or even ideological; Brexiteers and Remainers alike regard his replacement Alister Jack as a good sort. What most are still struggling to fathom is the thinking behind Mundell’s punting. Of course, he is an opponent of no deal — Jack, by contrast, has taken the pledge and says he could support a crash-out Brexit — but he was seen as hard-working and effective in the Scotland Office. He knew the brief, had the experience and was well-briefed in the tactics of the SNP.  Scottish Tories are so unsettled by the move,

Thursday

Steerpike

The top five moments from Boris’s Commons debut as PM

Theresa May’s clashes with Jeremy Corbyn were usually dull affairs. Now that Boris Johnson is Prime Minister, Mr S. is looking forward to some livelier bust-ups in Parliament. Boris didn’t disappoint in his first encounter with the Labour leader. Here are five of the best bits from Boris’s government debut: Corbyn’s ‘terrible’ Brexit ‘metamorphosis’: Boris wasted little time in going for Corbyn over his mixed-up Brexit position, accusing him of undergoing a “terrible metamorphosis” from “long-standing Eurosceptic” into reluctant Remainer. Boris said the change of heart matched Corbyn’s “turgivisating career”: Boris on Corbyn’s mullah chums: Boris also took a pop at Corbyn over his paid appearances on Iran’s Press TV. He

Brendan O’Neill

The anti-Boris demo was a screech of middle-class rage

Last night’s ‘F**k Boris’ demo in London really was an extraordinary spectacle. It felt almost historic. For what we had here was a gathering of radicals raging against a new Tory PM for threatening to upend the political status quo. Yes, these supposedly edgy, rebellious, pink- and blue-haired haters of Conservatism were essentially pleading with Boris not to be so revolutionary. It was bizarre. There may have been music and dancing and weed — the soulless whiff of that deadening drug was everywhere — but this was fundamentally a conservative protest. Small-c, natch. It was a plea to keep Euro-technocracy intact and not to cave in to the demands of

Steerpike

Seven of the most hysterical reactions to PM Boris Johnson

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is already delighting his supporters, but not everyone is happy about Britain’s new leader. Boris’s first speech in Downing Street and the Cabinet bloodbath that followed has led to a fair bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth, not least on Twitter. From independent group MPs and David Lammy to the New York Times – and even a popular children’s author – PM Boris is a prospect that is filling some with horror. Here are seven of the most hysterical reactions to Boris’s big win: Mike Gapes: Alt-right is a ‘far-right, white supremacist, white separatist, anti-immigration and sometimes anti-Semitic movement’, according to Wikipedia. So Mr S. thinks

Katy Balls

Coming soon: Boris Johnson’s tour of the union

When Boris Johnson stood in the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre and gave his victory speech, he spoke of his DUDE strategy for government: 1. Deliver Brexit; 2. Unite the country; 3. Defeat Corbyn; and 4. Energise the country. When it comes to step two, Coffee House understands plans are afoot to action an attempt to unite the country by putting Boris Johnson on a whistle-stop tour of the union. While the details are yet to be finalised – including at what point this summer – the idea is that Johnson will shortly visit England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Johnson’s Brexit plan means that he has been accused by critics

Stephen Daisley

Who’s afraid of Jo Swinson? Corbynistas

When I was fresh out of university, I applied for a job as a parliamentary aide to Jo Swinson. The MP for East Dunbartonshire was full of promise and more to my political tastes then than the clunky managerialism of new PM Gordon Brown. She rejected me. If nothing else, this shows Swinson has sound judgement. After all, I would have made a terrible Lib Dem staffer. I was – and remain – in favour of the Iraq War, the war on terror, tuition fees, first past the post, nuclear power and erecting a statue of Tony Blair in every parish in the land. For many years, that was the

Wednesday

Noah Vickers

‘Britain’s new nadir’: How the world’s papers reacted to Boris’s victory

Love him or hate him, Boris Johnson is big news. His victory in the Tory leadership race – and imminent appointment as Britain’s next PM – has filled newspapers around the world this morning. Brexit aside, it’s rare these days for British politics to make the front pages of papers outside of the UK. But Boris is something of an exception. From the United States, to France, Italy and Spain, here is what the world’s press makes of prime minister Boris. Across the Atlantic, the New York Times warns that the Brexit situation has escalated into a ‘nightmare’ and that Johnson’s ‘policy swerves, lack of attention to detail and contradictory

James Delingpole

Ministers of Sound: why this is the best Cabinet for years

This really ought to be called the Ferrero Rocher cabinet: truly with these appointments the Prime Minister is spoiling us. Sure I’ve got the odd quibble – Amber Rudd, for example, seems far too closely associated with the values of the discredited old regime to be welcomed back into the fold so soon; and I’d really been rooting either for Liz Truss or Jacob Rees Mogg to become Chancellor. But really this is nitpicking. Not since Margaret Thatcher, I doubt, has there been quite such an overwhelmingly sound Cabinet. Indeed, I’m not sure that even Maggie herself managed to accumulate such soundness around one table when she first became PM;

Nick Cohen

Boris is a weak man posing as a tough guy

Boris Johnson is taking over the Conservative party like a gangster taking over a crime syndicate. Don’t let ideological labels mystify you. “Remainer,” “Leaver”,” “no dealer” – these are just words to confuse the credulous and stop them seeing their country clearly. Power is the only word that need concern you. Power, rather than ideology, is what runs together resignations and sackings, which have seen at least a dozen ministers go – a number that makes Harold Macmillan’s ‘Night of the Long Knives’ look restrained. Penny Mordaunt and Liam Fox were – and to the best of my knowledge remain – ardent Brexiters: Fox, indeed, was campaigning for Britain to

Isabel Hardman

Will Ben Wallace be allowed to turn on the defence spending taps?

Ben Wallace also has an Iran-shaped problem in his Defence in-tray. One of the complaints about the British government’s handling of the tanker crisis is that the Navy’s capacity is too thin. It is a long-established complaint from defence chiefs that there isn’t enough money for the Armed Forces, and they are now expecting Johnson to show his true blue Tory credentials by turning on the spending taps. Jeremy Hunt pledged during the leadership contest to double defence spending, and there has been a regular drumbeat from Tory backbenchers on the need to push spending up. The Joint Committee on the National Security has warned that ‘the cornerstones of UK

Steerpike

Dominic Grieve: Boris Johnson is a ‘charlatan’

Boris Johnson has only been in Downing Street for a few hours but already Dominic Grieve is trying to stir up trouble. Asked to sum up the new Prime Minister, Grieve responded: ‘He’s a charlatan. I mean that is the clear evidence of his career and the way he has operated politically. And that is one of the things that has offered me so much disquiet ‘ Grieve also mocked Boris’s first speech as Prime Minister, saying that now Boris is leader he can take Britain to the ‘sunny uplands’. Grieve said: ‘Well, I don’t share his optimism about his opinion of himself’ Mr S. is sure that Grieve’s verdict

Isabel Hardman

Dominic Raab has to handle a stand-off with Iran and his own civil servants

It’s not an easy time to become Foreign Secretary, as Dominic Raab is about to find out. There is, of course, the crisis in relations with Iran, which threatens to escalate further in the coming days. Raab is taking over shortly after Jeremy Hunt announced a European-led mission to protect shipping in the Gulf, which may not necessarily accord with Boris Johnson’s own foreign policy instincts. One of the reasons that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was able to seize the British-flagged tanker was that Britain had turned down the US’s suggestion of co-operation to protect boats, for fear of appearing too cosy with Donald Trump. Johnson has no such qualms