Uk politics

Jeremy Corbyn chose to focus his questions to the Prime Minister today on the government’s response to the Grenfell Tower fire. It was the second anniversary last week of that fire, and campaigners have accused the government of not keeping its promises to the survivors of that disaster. The Labour leader asked about the slow progress in removing the same cladding from other buildings that was on the Grenfell Tower, and then moved on to a recommendation made years before the fire that tower blocks should have sprinklers fitted. That recommendation followed the fire at Lakanal House in 2009 in which six people died. The coroner at that inquest had

We all know this is a great country. Sadly, it’s one currently very poorly led by a political elite, some masquerading as non-elite, which has great difficulties discerning and telling the truth. I am discouraged by just how badly Brexit has been handled to date, and currently pessimistic that this is going to get any better any time soon. I am worried that the longer the sheer lack of seriousness and honesty, the delusion mongering goes on, the more we imperil our long-term prospects. It is not patriotism to keep on failing to confront realities and to make serious choices from the options which exist, rather than carrying on conjuring

In less than a month, Theresa May’s premiership will be history. If she is remembered at all, it will mainly be for Brexit. She took on a near-impossible task, made it harder (her misjudged ‘red lines’ from autumn 2016 will always haunt her), and finally failed at it. That had many consequences, not least the neglect of domestic policy. The burning injustices she so memorably listed on the Downing Street step are still blazing away. Poor social mobility, health inequality, racial bias in the justice system, a dysfunctional housing market and poor provision for mental health problems – all remain unresolved. It is therefore understandable that Theresa May wants to

The first televised Tory leadership debate drew as much attention for who wasn’t there as who was. After Boris Johnson decided to avoid the Channel 4 leadership debate on the grounds that voters had had enough blue-on-blue action (and perhaps also that as the Tory leadership frontrunner he has little to gain and much to lose from such an event), the broadcaster decided to effectively empty-chair him – putting up a lectern where he would have been. It then fell to Johnson’s leadership rivals Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Dominic Raab, Rory Stewart and Michael Gove to provide the substance of the 90-minute programme. It kicked off with enough blue-on-blue attacks

We are all aware that Jo Brand saying battery acid would be a more appropriate liquid than milkshakes to throw at people was a joke. It was a bad joke, but it was a joke. We are all aware that the chances of a Radio 4 listener hearing the joke and being inspired to hurl battery acid at a right-wing politician are slim to none. It remains such a morbid and mean-spirited jest that it should not be made, let alone by people whose jokes are being funded by the taxpayer, but it is foolish to classify it as incitement. What rankles is the pungent hypocrisy of Brand’s liberal and

There is a reason Boris Johnson is avoiding the TV debates, and his name is Lynton Crosby.  Crosby is running the Johnson leadership campaign — in awkward conjunction, it seems, with Boris’s girlfriend Carrie Symonds. He is a veritable TV debatephobe. He has run the last two Tory general elections, and he ordered David Cameron and Theresa May to shy away from the TV debates.  In Crosby’s view, debate-ducking is the sensible course. He sees no upside. For frontrunners, especially, if the debate goes well, there is no real uptick in support. The only way a TV debate can influence an election is if a candidate has a massive gaffe, a

Critics of Boris Johnson were quick to seize on the fact that when Beth Rigby, the political editor of Sky News, asked a question at his launch yesterday she was jeered by some of his supporters. Jessica Simor QC, an opponent of Brexit, tweeted: ‘The road to fascism – their boos at Beth Rigby made me shiver.’ Referring to the same incident, professor Colin Talbot asked: ‘How long before he goes full Trump and starts talking about Fake News?’ Had Rigby been non-partisan, these complaints might have some merit. But the words she used when she was jeered made it sound as if she was siding with Boris’s opponents. You

A fair few MPs felt there was no reason to come to today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, given the real action is in the Conservative leadership contest. There were spaces behind Theresa May as she took questions from Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader clearly hadn’t put much effort into preparing for the session, either, offering a bizarre hotchpotch of questions ranging from no-deal Brexit to the government’s record on renewables. Those Tories who had turned up weren’t interested in asking May tricky questions: what was the point, when she has just weeks left as Prime Minister? Instead, they wanted to praise what existed of her record, with Peter Bone praising her