Uk politics

Wednesday

Nicole Lampert

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

From our UK edition

'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.

Matthew Lesh

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

From our UK edition

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 gender disparities.

Tuesday

Brendan O’Neill

Sadiq Khan is wrong about austerity and knife crime

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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’

From our UK edition

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.

Matthew Lynn

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

From our UK edition

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.

Ross Clark

A weak pound is nothing to fear

From our UK edition

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 home-produced goods.

Rod Liddle

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

From our UK edition

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 the challenges the organisation faces in providing such reporting and comment, particularly in recent years.

Steerpike

Watch: Rod Liddle vs People’s Vote campaign boss

From our UK edition

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 been let down. Let the people decide this. RL: Brexit hasn't been the problem.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

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

From our UK edition

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.

Isabel Hardman

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

From our UK edition

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 taste. It includes the first statutory definition of domestic abuse, and this goes far beyond the stereotype of a man beating his wife.

Sunday

Stefan Boscia

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

From our UK edition

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.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Boris Johnson’s planning for government

From our UK edition

Boris Johnson had been refusing to engage with the question of Cabinet appointments and the like until he was through his Andrew Neil interview. But with that done, his focus is now shifting from the campaign to the transition as I say in The Sun this morning. One source explains the move by saying that ‘from next week, decisions have to be taken for the success of a Johnson administration’. I understand that Johnson will settle on who he wants as Chief Whip, Chancellor and Party Chairman before moving on to the other appointments. One long time Johnson confidant tells me that Boris has learnt lessons from what happened to Vote Leave. It won the referendum, but it didn’t have a plan for what to do the day after.

Friday

Ian Acheson

Tommy Robinson is no martyr. Here’s how to stop him becoming one

From our UK edition

We might not care for Stephen Yaxley-Lennon but we should care very much about what happens to him in prison over the next two months or so. Lennon, also known as ‘Tommy Robinson’, was convicted at the Old Bailey yesterday for contempt of court after he live-streamed footage of defendants on trial for sexual exploitation arriving at court. Yaxley-Lennon had previously served time in custody for this but was freed on appeal pending a retrial. Just to make matters more complicated, he was also sentenced yesterday for an earlier contempt committed at Canterbury Crown court in 2017, again at a rape trial that involved four Asian defendants that attracted a suspended sentence, now activated.

Richard Ekins & Stephen Laws

John Major is wrong to threaten legal action over prorogation

From our UK edition

John Major has threatened personally to bring legal action if the next prime minister were to attempt to prorogue Parliament in the autumn. On Tuesday, Dominic Grieve MP moved an amendment that might encourage legal challenge to an attempt to prorogue. It is unclear whether John Major sought to rely on the Grieve amendment or instead made his case on wider grounds, in line with a recent argument that the courts would block prorogation. It might well be politically unwise to prorogue Parliament in the autumn, making a bad situation worse. It may be difficult to imagine situations in which it would be a helpful contribution to securing UK exit from the EU. We take no view on those questions.

James Forsyth

Boris Johnson struggles through interview with Andrew Neil

From our UK edition

Boris Johnson just faced by far his toughest interview of the campaign. He was pressed hard on Brexit, Kim Darroch’s resignation, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and his economic policy by Andrew Neil. At the end of the interview, Boris Johnson looked at his watch—I suspect it seemed to him much longer than the half an hour it was. On Brexit, Boris Johnson made his usual case. But his attempt to sound like a details man by citing Gatt 24 Article 5B came rather a cropper when Andrew Neil asked him what was in Article 5C. Boris Johnson had no answer.

Steerpike

Watch: Boris Johnson taken to task over Brexit plan

From our UK edition

Is Boris Johnson a man of detail? The Tory leadership frontrunner certainly gave the impression of being one when he revealed his Brexit plan to Andrew Neil. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before he became somewhat unstuck. Boris claimed that in the event of a no-deal Brexit it 'might be possible...that both sides agree to a standstill' in order to prevent tariffs being imposed. He pointed to paragraph 5B of GATT to make his point. But did he know what was in the following paragraph? https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1149734201991806977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Here is how their exchange unfolded: AN: So how would you handle – you talk about Article 5B in GATT 24 – BJ: Paragraph 5B. Article 24. Get the detail right. Get the detail right, Andrew.

Steerpike

Watch: Jeremy Hunt: I’m not ‘Theresa in trousers’

From our UK edition

Jeremy Hunt has a lot in common with Theresa May. As Andrew Neil pointed out in his interview with the foreign secretary tonight, both are Tory technocrats. And both backed May's Brexit deal three times. So is Jeremy Hunt just 'Theresa in trousers'? 'Certainly not,' according to Hunt, who said that while he was loyal to May it was now time for a new approach. Part of that new approach involves Hunt switching to a no-deal Brexit strategy if no Brexit progress is made by the end of September. Here is how Hunt explained that approach in a tetchy interview: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1149745145044094977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw   AN: Back to Brexit.

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: How MPs could have averted Parliament’s harassment crisis

From our UK edition

MPs tried to set up an independent complaints process into sexual harassment and bullying as far back as 2016, but their efforts were blocked, I have learned. Anne Milton, who was the Conservative Deputy Chief Whip between 2015 and 2017, told Coffee House that she became increasingly concerned that the political parties' own complaints processes were insufficiently independent, and convened a meeting of whips and Commons clerks to try to get Parliament to set up its own process. She had received a number of complaints from staff who had been bullied by MPs or other employees, and was concerned that there was often no proper recourse for these complainants.

The Spectator

Full transcript: Jeremy Hunt’s Andrew Neil interview

From our UK edition

AN: Jeremy Hunt - like Theresa May you voted to Remain. Like Theresa May you’re a Tory technocrat. Like Theresa May you voted for her Brexit deal, three times. Why would the Tories want more of the same when it’s hardly been a golden age for them? JH: Because, Andrew, I am a totally different person and I have a totally different plan. And I did vote three times for Theresa May’s deal and I’ll tell you exactly why: because I wanted to leave the European Union as quickly as possible. And had we voted to do that, as indeed did Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg and many other people, we would have left the EU by now and I think we would have been in a better position as a country. AN: But a lot of Tories look at you and they say, “We tried you.