Uk politics

Wednesday

Matthew Lynn

Boris-onomics is what Britain needs

A few jokes. A sprinkling of tax cuts. A few more jokes. A couple of flashy new buildings. And then back to the jokes. As Boris Johnson launches his pitch for the premiership – and takes a commanding lead among Tory MPs – it would be easy to dismiss his economic programme, along with the rest of his plans, as flimsy self-promotion, with about as much substance as one of his columns. After all, he is leaning heavily on his record as London mayor to prove his credentials and most of his critics will dismiss that as irrelevant. But hold on. In fact, Johnson’s record as mayor was exceptionally good. And his time

Katy Balls

Boring Boris? Johnson opts for risk-averse campaign launch

It was the launch event everyone was waiting for. After weeks of keeping a low profile – a submarine campaign according to critics – with just one newspaper interview, the leadership frontrunner Boris Johnson emerged this morning to officially kickstart his campaign. However, rather than opt for a circus tent, waffle freebies and thinly-veiled attacks at colleagues like some of his rivals, Johnson’s event at Carlton Gardens proved rather tame. The former mayor of London was introduced by a new Cabinet supporter – Geoffrey Cox. Part of a carefully choreographed strategy to show Johnson has support from across the party, Cox took to the lectern (as he did for Theresa

Tuesday

Michael Ezra

Tax cuts are welcome, but Boris’s proposal is not the best

The source of government revenue is a mystery for many people, but one thing voters do remember is that they are taxed. When people open up their pay slips, the income tax deduction stares them in the face. The sight of it is galling, and the higher the percentage taken, the worse it is. This is true even if there is a sense that, like a foul-tasting medicine, it is a necessity. So this aversion to tax explains why Boris Johnson’s pledge to raise the level at which the higher rate tax band of 40 per cent kicks in – from £50,000 to £80,000 of earnings – is electorally attractive. This remains

Ross Clark

A legacy Theresa May can be proud of

Theresa May is said to be desperately searching for a legacy in her last few weeks at Number 10. It is staring her in the face. Today, the Office for National Statistics published its latest employment figures which confirm, against all odds, that we are in the midst of a jobs miracle of which any previous prime minister would have been proud. The employment rate climbed again to 76.1 per cent, the equal highest on record. The unemployment rate fell to 3.8 per cent, the lowest rate since the autumn of 1974. The rate for economic inactivity – which takes into account people who are not working but not looking

Steerpike

Which Tory leadership contender is the biggest animal lover?

Twitter was awash this morning with pictures of Tory leadership contender Rory Stewart, bending to stroke Larry the Downing Street cat as he made his way into Number 10. However, Mr S couldn’t help but notice that Larry gave Stewart something of a cold shoulder, casually strolling away without a backward glance. Perhaps the sensible moggy could sense that Stewart is much more of a dog person. Walking across Afghanistan in 2002, Stewart was accompanied on his trek by an ‘enormous’ dog who he named Babur, after a Mongol emperor. And in a 2010 interview with the Financial Times commented that the one thing he would most like to own

Isabel Hardman

The one part of Theresa May’s legacy her successor must protect

Promising to protect Theresa May’s legacy isn’t really a feature of this Conservative leadership contest. That’s not just because so many of the candidates disagree about the type of Conservatism that they the outgoing Prime Minister espoused, but because she doesn’t really have much of a legacy to protect. But one of the few reforms that May did introduce is under threat as a result of the upheaval in the party. The Domestic Abuse Bill is currently in draft form, despite there being apparently widespread support for its policies in parliament. Its publication in draft was delayed a number of times ‘because of Brexit’, which is the sort of excuse

Fraser Nelson

Gove, Javid and the uses of backstory

Michael Gove’s launch was, easily, the strongest of any candidate yesterday and he deserves the plaudits he’s getting now. Even if you dislike him, his speech is worth listening to (it’s here) and it was made without notes. I’ve heard him talk before about the school in Liverpool he mentioned where only one pupil got decent grades. In his original telling, his point was that the distance between Liverpool and Edinburgh (where his birth mother is from) was about the same as the distance between Aberdeen and Edinburgh – so he could have ended up in either city. But alongside the cocaine use, another disclosure in Owen Bennett’s new book

Katy Balls

Can Sajid Javid reboot his leadership campaign?

On Thursday, MPs will have their first chance to vote in the secret ballot for their pick for the next leader of the Conservative party. At the moment, the consensus in the Parliamentary party is that the most likely pair to make the final two are Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt – after Michael Gove’s campaign received a setback at the weekend when he admitted to previous drug use. But what about Sajid Javid? The Home Secretary had been touted as a good bet ahead of the contest commencing. However, Javid has at times struggled to make an impression – and have his message cut through – in what has

Toby Young

Has the BBC gone back on its word over free TV licences?

If I were a pensioner, I’d be a bit miffed by the BBC’s decision to end the policy of giving free TV licences to the over-75s. At present, the cost is met by the government, but it was due to be picked up by the BBC from 1 June 2020. At least, that’s what I thought — and I had good reason. According to a report on the BBC News website dated 6 July 2015, the Beeb would ‘cover the cost of providing free television licences for over-75s’ and ‘in return… the licence fee will rise with inflation’. The story referred to this as a ‘deal’ that the BBC had

Robert Peston

Rory Stewart is reassuringly bonkers

Brexit is both the cause of the Tory leadership contest – it was too much for Theresa May – and is the toxin that threatens to destroy the contest to replace her and her party. The reason is that even if the new prime minister were to take the UK out of the EU – which can by no means be taken for granted – there is unlikely to be a Brexit dividend for him or her or the Conservative Party. Because for most Tories or their potential supporters, Brexit is no more and no less than the duty that voters set the government in that 2016 referendum. So far

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson’s opponents have been too easy on him

Boris Johnson is currently the quiet man of the Tory leadership contest, lurking in the shadows rather than courting media attention as he usually does. His campaign team has deliberately held him back from touring the studios to avoid gaffes or rows. They’re even nervous about the limited exposure he has, joking that he is ‘always one Monday column away from disaster’. Of course, it’s easier to do this when your candidate has as high a profile as Johnson: he doesn’t really need any more attention than he’s already got. It is, though, not the greatest of compliments from those members of his campaign team that they seem to feel

Isabel Hardman

Michael Gove tries to come out fighting after cocaine row

Michael Gove is one of those people who enjoys finding themselves with their back against the wall, fighting. His leadership launch this afternoon was mired in questions about his past drug use, but the Environment Secretary looked totally unruffled by the rows of the past few days and the questions from journalists after his speech. His was a typical Gove offering, in that it was a beautifully-written and well-structured speech. He started with his back story of being adopted and never knowing his birth mother. He set out all he has achieved so far in government, running from his passion for improving all children’s life chances through education reform, his

Ross Clark

Scrapping free TV licences for the over-75s will cost the BBC dearly

Well, that was surprising. The BBC has announced that from 2020 it will do away with free TV licences for the over-75s. In future, free licences will only be available to households which have at least one member receiving pension credit.   Everyone else will have to pay the full whack of £154.50 a year. In defence of its decision, the BBC cites the results of a consultation, 52 per cent of the 190,000 respondents to which it says were approving of its decision to end blanket TV licences for the over-75s. Let’s skate over other recent democratic exercise where 52 per cent of the population were in favour of something

Katy Balls

Jeremy Hunt reveals Brexiteer backing at campaign launch

After receiving a boost over his Cabinet rivals at the weekend with the endorsement of Amber Rudd, Jeremy Hunt has today used his official launch to unveil support from a senior Brexiteer. Penny Mordaunt has come out in support of the Foreign Secretary. Speaking at the launch in Westminster, the Defence Secretary said she trusted Hunt to deliver Brexit. Her endorsement is a coup for the Hunt campaign as it shows that he has support from a senior Brexiteer. Mordaunt’s endorsement is more significant in many respects than Rudd’s. This is because what Hunt’s campaign has been lacking is support from Brexiteers – his support is largely from MPs who

Isabel Hardman

Dominic Raab’s brazen Brexit pitch

Dominic Raab’s launch was just downstairs from the event that Matt Hancock held, and rather more serious, too. He was able to underline his parliamentary support, filling the front row of his audience with MPs who cheered loudly at appropriate moments. He was introduced by Maria Miller, who joked that she hoped to persuade him to become a feminist and claimed that both had come from relatively humble backgrounds. Raab’s campaign team had clearly decided that it was best to be brazen about something that is considered by some as a weakness. The candidate’s pitch was as someone who is sufficiently brazen to achieve the kind of Brexit he and

Melanie McDonagh

The problem with Jeremy Hunt’s abortion stance

So it turns out that there may have been a quid pro quo behind Amber Rudd’s backing for Jeremy Hunt, her former political mentor, beyond the usual conversations about Cabinet jobs. Amber – who is for some reason that escapes me is considered a kingmaker – was interviewed this morning about one possible impediment to a shared world view between the two of them: Jeremy Hunt’s take on abortion, something that Amber says “is very important to me”. Of Hunt’s view, expressed on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, that the legal limit for abortion should be reduced from 24 weeks to 12, she said it was his “personal, private view”. 

Isabel Hardman

Can Matt Hancock be trusted on Brexit?

What does Matt Hancock offer the Conservative party? He’s a former Remainer who has stayed loyal in Theresa May’s Cabinet and so has a bit of a tricky pitch to make to a party furious about the outgoing Prime Minister’s failure to deliver Brexit. He also hasn’t got an eye-catching drugs story to get attention, for better or worse.  His solution this morning was to offer a slightly trippy leadership launch at which he went entirely overboard on the optimism, energy and bizarre motivational aphorisms. He told a slightly bewildered and haggard-looking press pack that “you are the future of Britain!”, gesticulated at the view behind him and declared “I

Sunday

Katy Balls

Hunt gains momentum over Gove ahead of crunch week

Which two candidates will make the final two of the Tory leadership contest? At the moment, the race is Boris Johnson’s to lose with the former foreign secretary on course to make it to the membership ballot. However, the contest for the other place is tight.  The make up of the Parliamentary party means there will be likely be only one no-deal Brexiteer candidate in the final two – with the other spot going to a Cabinet candidate. As of Friday, Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt were the two candidates with the most nominations after Johnson – with Sajid Javid trailing behind. This weekend, however, has seen several developments which

Katy Balls

How the Parliamentary stage of the Tory leadership contest works

This week, the Conservative leadership content enters the Parliamentary stage. The various contenders – at the time of writing there are eleven – will be whittled down to two. The remaining pair will then tour the country for membership hustings ahead of a members’ ballot. So, how exactly will it play out? All candidates must receive at least eight MPs’ backing in order to enter the contest formally. Only the principal and seconder need be named – the remaining six MPs are able to stay anonymous. The deadline for this is 5pm on Monday.  The threshold was raised from two MPs to eight in a bid to reduce the number

Saturday

Steerpike

Michael Gove’s cocaine blues

The Tory leadership race has taken on a new turn this weekend with the Daily Mail splashing on Michael Gove’s cocaine confession. The Environment Secretary tells the paper that he took the ‘drugs on several occasions at social events more than 20 years ago’. At the time, Gove was working as a journalist. Of the experience, he says: ‘It was a mistake. I look back and I think, I wish I hadn’t done that.’ Gove goes on to say that he doesn’t think this should rule him out of the leadership race: ‘I don’t believe that past mistakes disqualify you.’ The admission comes ahead of the publication of a book