Uk politics

Monday

Katy Balls

How much bother will the Gaukeward squad cause Boris Johnson?

How much bother will the Gaukeward squad cause Boris Johnson? Barring one of the biggest political upsets of the past three years, Boris Johnson will be announced on Tuesday as the new leader of the Conservative party – and the next prime minister. Talk has already turned to the problems (and defections) he could encounter in his own party in his first days in office. Philip Hammond set the tone on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday when he took some pleasure in explaining he couldn’t be sacked by Johnson as Chancellor. The reason? He would resign first. It’s a common refrain amongst the anti-no deal Cabinet ministers. David Gauke

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

How Tom Watson reinvented himself to become the new challenger to Corbyn

Tom Watson has had more reinventions than Kylie Minogue has had mid-performance outfit changes. His performances over the years have ranged from baronial backroom fixer loathed by Blairites to scourge of Fleet Street when he took on Rupert Murdoch. There was a brief counter-culture period when he went around wearing a beret, a foray into hunting down alleged paedophiles, and a mysterious vanishing act when he realised that Jeremy Corbyn’s fans were out to get him. In the magazine this week, I look at where Watson’s latest incarnation is taking him: he’s the key figure in the latest attempt to save the Labour Party from Jeremy Corbyn and his hard

Isabel Hardman

The Lib Dems could soon become important power brokers: here’s what they want

An old joke among political journalists is that you know a writer has run out of topics when they start producing columns either on their children or the Liberal Democrats. With so many other things going on, perhaps this is why Westminster has been oddly indifferent to the leadership contest taking place between Jo Swinson and Ed Davey over the past couple of months. We should have been paying more attention, as the winner may well have an important role to play in the political turmoil over the next few months. Last night, the BBC held its hustings with the two candidates, and I was one of the journalists invited

James Forsyth

Which Brexit strategy will Boris Johnson go for?

Before he even gets in to Number 10, Boris Johnson must make one of the most important calls of his premiership. As I say in the Sun this morning, he must decide what his Brexit plan is. On Wednesday, calls with European leaders will begin—and Boris Johnson will have to know what he wants to tell them. As one of those preparing him for government puts it, ‘They’ll call him to say congratulations—and he’ll have to set out his stall’. This is crucial because the European Commission will refuse to negotiate with Boris’s government unless it is instructed to do so by the member states. Within the Johnson camp, there

Friday

Robert Peston

We’re heading for an autumn election

Interviewing Boris Johnson is like staring long and hard into an expressionist painting: there are pyrotechnics, the shape of commitments and policies, but it might all be mirage. After I spoke with him on Wednesday for my show, my abiding sense was that he would dearly love a root-and-branch renegotiation of Theresa May’s Brexit deal, but that his famous optimism is not the same as naïveté. He knows replacing the Withdrawal Agreement at this late juncture is a million-to-one chance – and so leaving without a deal may be the only way to meet his deadline of Brexit by 31 October. That is why, for example, he was so gung-ho

Thursday

Steerpike

Is Leo Varadkar climbing down over Brexit?

Leo Varadkar certainly talks tough when it comes to Brexit, but is the Irish PM preparing to back down? Mr S. only asks because the Taoiseach conceded this morning that he is ‘willing to compromise’ over Brexit. This marks something of a change from his earlier comments in which he has repeatedly dismissed alternatives to the backstop, or regulatory alignment across the Irish border. Here is what Varadkar said on RTE today:  ‘The objective is to avoid the emergence of a hard border between north and south as a result of Brexit. What I care about is achieving those objectives and I am willing to compromise providing those objectives are

Matthew Lynn

Is the OBR right about a no-deal Brexit recession?

Sajid Javid. Liz Truss. Dominic Raab, or perhaps even his old City Hall colleague Kit Malthouse. There are plenty of well-qualified candidates to move into the house next door when Boris Johnson becomes prime minister next week. But one thing is surely now certain. The incumbent will have to be removed. In the dying days of a dismal Chancellorship, Philip Hammond seems intent on doing nothing more than stoking the dying embers of Project Fear. At a moment when the country needs a Chancellor working out how to cope with a potentially major economic shock, it is stuck with one paralysed by an irrational fear of what might be around

Steerpike

Seven of the best moments from This Week

It’s the end of an era tonight as This Week goes out for the very last time. The BBC’s late-night politics show has built up a cult following since it first aired in 2003. A host of politicians, from Diane Abbott and Jacob Rees-Mogg, to Charles Kennedy and Ken Livingstone have all appeared. Singer Pete Doherty, Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie and comedian Stewart Lee have also all popped up. The show’s presenter Andrew Neil has been there from the beginning. Here is Mr S’s pick of the seven most memorable moments from the show: Red Ken comes unstuck: Ken Livingstone is well known for talking about Hitler. But it was on the subject

Wednesday

Nicole Lampert

The only way to solve Labour’s anti-Semitism problem

‘The Labour Party welcomes everyone* irrespective of race, creed, age, gender identity, or sexual orientation. (except, it seems, Jews)’. So says an unprecedented advert in the Guardian today, which is signed by more than 60 Labour peers. It could hardly be more damning. Yet while the advert is shocking, it stops short of pointing out the only way that Labour can solve its anti-Semitism crisis for good: by getting rid of Jeremy Corbyn. Labour peers who backed the statement aren’t the only ones to fail to state the obvious. Deputy leader Tom Watson, who says he favours the introduction of an independent complaints procedure, has also fallen short. So, too, has

Matthew Lesh

We are all paying the price for May’s desperate bid to define her legacy

Theresa May’s final weeks in Downing Street have been much like the rest of her tenure: ungracious, uninspiring and unprincipled. May’s latest departing gesture is a gigantic £500 million loan guarantee to Jaguar Land Rover to help with the development of electric cars. This follows on from the government’s £120 million loan to British Steel (which is now in receivership). But how does dishing out huge sums of money to corporate giants fit in with May’s claim to stand up for the “Just About Managing”? The simple answer? It doesn’t. But in a desperate bid to help JAMs, May has created an “Office for Tackling Injustices” in order to “gather data” on socio-economic, ethnic, and

Tuesday

Brendan O’Neill

Sadiq Khan is wrong about austerity and knife crime

There is something really ugly in Sadiq Khan’s description of stabbings in London as the ‘human cost of austerity’. What’s he saying? That being poor makes you a violent maniac? That being hard-up increases your likelihood of wanting to take a knife from the kitchen drawer and use it to slice some kid’s face? Does he really believe that individuals see things closing down — youth centres, libraries, mental-health programmes — and think to themselves: ‘This is bad. I’d better go out and stab someone in the neck’? Khan’s new focus on poverty and knife crime is intended to sound sympathetic and progressive. But in fact it is incredibly dehumanising.

Steerpike

Jeremy Hunt’s ‘entreprenur’ blunder

Did you know that Jeremy Hunt is an entrepreneur? If you’ve heard any of the Tory leadership contender’s speeches or been at a hustings event, you are bound to, given how often Hunt has mentioned his business background. But while Mr S. doesn’t doubt Hunt’s money-making credentials, he does wonder whether he could do with brushing up on his spelling. Over on Hunt’s official Facebook page, a meme has appeared boasting that Hunt is ‘an entreprenur to turbocharge our economy’. Oh dear…

Steerpike

Watch: Dominic Grieve says Tory party has been ‘Talibanised’

There is no love lost between Dominic Grieve and his local Tory party association, but Mr S. thinks that the MP for Beaconsfield’s latest comments will hardly help matters. At an event in London, Grieve said there had been a ‘Talibanisation’ of the Tory party. He also said that a fear of being deselected was putting Tory MPs off from speaking out against a no-deal Brexit: ‘There has been a sort of Talibanisation of sections of the Conservative party grassroots membership with some vociferous minorities – but often capable of dominating meetings coming along and trying to get rid of MPs interestingly enough who’ve been totally loyal. Who’ve simply indicated

Matthew Lynn

Is ‘because of Brexit’ the new ‘despite Brexit’?

Unemployment is at record lows. Wages are rising at the fastest rate in a decade. The gender gap is evaporating, creating a more equal society. Which country is that? France, perhaps, as it benefits from president Macron’s reforms? Or Germany, as it reaps all the benefits of the Single Market and the single currency? Well, not quite. In fact, it is Britain. Despite Brexit, to use the obligatory two words that now have to be firmly placed in front of any positive news about the economy, the UK continues to evolve into one of the best places in the world to be an employee right now. And although most of

Ross Clark

A weak pound is nothing to fear

Ed Conway, Sky News’s economics editor, tweets this morning that sterling has notched up a dubious record – it stands out as the worst-performer of all major currencies over the past 24 hours, month, three months and 12 months. But does that matter? Yes, if you are about to go on a foreign holiday. Take a longer view, however, and you might conclude that a weak pound might be rather a good thing. The most obvious point about a sinking currency is that it makes the country’s exports cheaper in global markets and makes imports more expensive. It thus helps to boost production while simultaneously helping to switch consumers towards

Rod Liddle

The complaints are piling up at the BBC after my Newsnight appearance

For those of you who were not watching, if you have the time, take a look at the interview I did on Newsnight with Emily Maitlis about my book. And tell me if you think that it was an even-handed, unbiased, rational discussion. The complaints are piling up at the BBC: here’s one from a remainer: Dear sir or madam, I am writing in relation to Emily Maitlis’s interview with Rod Liddle on Newsnight yesterday. I have the highest regard for the BBC: over many years, I have relied on the organisation to provide impartial reporting and comment on a wide range of issues. Moreover, I am well aware of

Steerpike

Watch: Rod Liddle vs People’s Vote campaign boss

Brexit has turned into a ‘mis-selling scandal’, according to Tom Baldwin from the People’s Vote campaign, who popped up on Newsnight last night to talk about the imminent danger of a no-deal Brexit. Baldwin was on the programme alongside Rod Liddle. And – somewhat unsurprisingly – it’s safe to say that the pair didn’t see eye-to-eye on Brexit. Here is how their exchange unfolded: Rod Liddle: What do you call it? What’s the phrase you give to the people’s vote these days? Of course, it’s the people’s vote because the people who voted the first time… Tom Baldwin: No, the people voted last time as well. But the people have

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Johnson and Hunt try to unite the Tory party in final leadership debate

Tonight’s Sun debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt was far more relaxed than last week’s head-to-head clash. But it was also stuffed with news lines, as both men prepared for the final few days of voting in the Tory leadership contest. Both declared the Northern Irish backstop dead, Johnson ruled out an election before Brexit happens, and they both attacked Donald Trump for telling black and minority ethnic congresswomen to ‘go back’. On Brexit, the answer that Johnson gave about the backstop showed how likely it is that he might pursue a no-deal Brexit: he rejected a time limit or unilateral exit clause. This makes a confrontation with Conservative

Isabel Hardman

Ministers to rush out domestic abuse bill – but will Boris back it?

The Home Office has confirmed that it will publish the Domestic Abuse Bill tomorrow as Theresa May tries to secure her legacy at the very end of her premiership. Victims’ Minister Vicky Atkins told Home Office questions this afternoon that the legislation will move from draft form to legislation for scrutiny on the floor of the Commons. The reason there is this rush is that May fears her successor wouldn’t pick up the Bill of their own accord. As I’ve blogged before, this is partly her fault because she delayed publication of the draft document for so long. But it is also because the legislation as proposed isn’t to everyone’s

Sunday

Stefan Boscia

I’d rather be politically homeless than stay in the Labour party

Among the first things I did when moving to the UK from Australia was sign up to three British institutions: Arsenal football club, the NHS and the Labour party. Sure, Jeremy Corbyn’s party is further to the left than the Australian iteration. But following Labour’s surge in the 2017 general election there was something alluring about the party. It was offering wholesale change, by improving public services, increasing the minimum wage and scrapping student tuition fees. These policies sat well with my millennial sensibilities. And like it or loathe it, Labour’s grassroots campaign back then radiated a palpable sense of excitement about the party’s future. A year on from arriving