Uk politics

Tuesday

Robert Peston

Will Boris Johnson save or sink the Tory party?

Now that the Tory party has confirmed we’ll know the identity of its new leader and therefore in theory our new prime minister in the week beginning 22 July, it is also possible to capture the single issue that will dominate both the coming two weeks of voting by MPs – who will choose the shortlist of two – and then the definitive choice by party members. It is this deceptively simple question: will Boris Johnson save or sink the Tory Party? Right now the former foreign secretary and Churchill biographer is streets ahead of the pack, both in respect of the declared support of Tory MPs and popularity among

Isabel Hardman

Tory party changes rules to stop candidate chaos

The Tory leadership contest rules are to change in order to whittle down the number of candidates, the party board confirmed this evening. After it became clear that the contest was going to be rather chaotic with more than a dozen candidates, the party agreed to raise the threshold for nominations to make it harder for contenders to get onto the ballot paper. Each would-be leader must have eight nominations to get onto the ballot, and then win the support of at least 17 MPs in the first round. Then at the second ballot, any candidate receiving 32 votes or fewer will be eliminated, with rounds continuing until only two

Isabel Hardman

The biggest mistake Change UK made was to become Change UK

Why did Change UK end up splitting? Well, there were the personality clashes. And then there was the failure to attract more MPs who were supposed to break off from their existing parties to join the quest to change politics. But the biggest reason the party ended up in this mess was that simply it became a party. When it started off as the Independent Group, its members seemed keen to cast their new caucus as something loose and exploratory, rather than a formal political party. In fact, I understand that three of the MPs – Gavin Shuker, Angela Smith and Luciana Berger – who announced they were leaving today

Steerpike

Mike Gapes: Change UK is like an acorn

If it wasn’t already, Change UK is now surely on its last legs. Six of the party’s MPs – including leader Heidi Allen – have quit. But those left behind still remain defiant. In a Sky News interview, Mike Gapes – who defected from Labour earlier this year – said the party was alive and kicking. He then compared Change UK to an ‘acorn’ that could grow into a ‘big tree’: Kay Burley: Mike, you’ve lost your party, you’re going to lose your seat at the next election. You knew you would, which is why you didn’t go for a by-election…Now, half of the party that you set up has

James Kirkup

Donald Trump has done Britain a favour with his NHS grab

“Everything with a trade deal is on the table…so NHS or anything else, a lot more than that”. That was Donald Trump talking about a possible UK-US trade deal after Britain leaves the EU’s common trade policy. Cue political drama, headlines and Conservative leadership contenders trying to work out what to say when someone asks them if they would be willing to include NHS procurement in any future trade talks. (Not for the first time, Matt Hancock was first off the blocks, tweeting to rule it out.) There will doubtless be a great deal of good analysis of what this comment means for the Tory leadership race: does it harm

Isabel Hardman

Change UK splits after disastrous European elections

Just a few months after becoming a political party, Change UK has announced it is splitting. Six of its MPs, including its leader Heidi Allen, have quit, with Anna Soubry now taking the crown. The party confirmed the split with a press release typical of its odd behaviour throughout its existence, focusing on Soubry’s election before casually mentioning that more than half the party had left. Allen has left, along with Chuka Umunna, Sarah Wollaston, Gavin Shuker, Luciana Berger and Sarah Wollaston. They are returning to working as an ‘independent grouping’ and leave behind Soubry, Chris Leslie, Joan Ryan, Mike Gapes and Ann Coffey. Despite being small, the party had

Freddy Gray

Trump provides another masterclass in comic statesmanship

Donald Trump adds to the jollity of nations, and his press conferences are hugely entertaining. He drops massive news bombs, laughs, and whisks himself away. I defy anyone not to be entertained. In terms of epic oddness, his encounter with May today one was a notch or two down from last year’s at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country residence. Still, he provided another masterclass in comic statesmanship. Trump bends the world to his idea of reality, and it’s hilarious. He was able to repeat – once again – his conviction that he arrived in Turnberry, his golf course in Scotland, the day before the EU referendum. He didn’t. I was

Steerpike

Trump on Gove: ‘I don’t know Michael’

Over the weekend, Donald Trump endorsed Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign. Boris ‘would do a very good job’, Trump said. At today’s press conference, Jeremy Hunt was also backed by Trump. But one person who didn’t quite make it was Michael Gove. When asked about the Tory leadership contest, Trump had this to say: ‘So I know Boris. I like him – I’ve liked him for a very long time. I think he would do a very good job. I know Jeremy – I think he would do a very good job. I don’t know Michael. Would he do a good job, Jeremy? Tell me.’ Michael Gove would be forgiven for

Steerpike

Donald Trump: Why I snubbed Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn has made much of snubbing Donald Trump by refusing to attend a state dinner in his honour, but was it really Trump who got the cold shoulder? At a press conference this afternoon, Trump has just claimed that Corbyn wanted to meet Trump, but that it was he who turned down the Labour leader. Here is what Trump said: ‘I don’t know Jeremy Corbyn, never met him, never spoke to him. He wanted to meet today or tomorrow and I decided I would not do that. I think that he is, from where I come from, something of a negative force…so I’ve decided not to meet’. Mr S.

Steerpike

Who is more rude: President Trump or Prince Harry? 

Manners maketh man. If you are going to be a prince, moreover, politesse really should be paramount. Monarchy is, if nothing else, all about ancient codes of conduct: honour, chivalry, formality, and bloody well smiling at people you don’t necessarily like.  That seems a bit much for Prince Harry, who, if reports and photos are to be believed, gave the President of the United States a very chilly reception at Buckingham Palace yesterday. He seems to have avoided Mr and Mrs Trump. He stood at the other end of the room and looked peeky. Of course, such speculation could be a nothing-burger cooked-up by the controversy-addicted tabloids. The press and

Monday

Bernard Connolly

Why the Brexit Party might be wise to form a pact with the Tories

The no-deal Catch 22 for the Tories is well-established, bringing comfort to those who oppose no-deal (and Brexit) and worry to those who rightly see no-deal as the only way of actually leaving the EU. The idea is that the Tories cannot fight an election until Britain has genuinely left the EU, but that it will be impossible to leave without an election that would put Corbyn in power and stop Brexit altogether. The conclusion drawn by some Tories is that the new prime minister, whoever it is, will have to ask for another extension. But that’s wrong. And while there is an existential issue for the Tories, there could

Isabel Hardman

Why standing for Tory leader could hinder Tory MPs’ careers

Why would you stand for the Tory leadership? If you’re someone like Dominic Raab, Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt, you’ve been planning this for months, with a team in place since at least the start of the year because you really think you can win this. But there are other entrants who are highly unlikely to get anywhere near the final two but are still standing. Some of these MPs may think they genuinely have an outside chance, but others have made a variety of calculations. Rory Stewart, for instance, is building a proper profile for himself as someone unafraid to walk around in public asking people what they think

Katy Balls

Back Boris: Johnson tries to prove his electability in campaign video

The Tory leadership race officially starts next week when nominations close for the first stage of the contest. Until then, each campaign is doing their bit to show they are not falling behind. Today the Boris Johnson campaign have stepped up a gear with the release of their campaign video. It comes after a series of mixed videos from contenders so far. Dominic Raab was mocked for a decisive head turn, Sajid Javid for using his Parliamentary office and Jeremy Hunt for mispronouncing Culloden. Boris Johnson’s has tread a different path. In his campaign video, the former Mayor of London is seen out of Westminster meeting with ordinary voters. The

Brendan O’Neill

The real reason some Brits don’t like Trump

Why do certain Brits hate Donald Trump so much? Duh, it’s obvious why we hate him, they’ll say. It’s because he’s a migrant-bashing, country-bombing, far-right-enabling nightmare of a president who threatens to plunge the world into a 1930s-style politics of hate. It’s the duty of every decent Brit to hate this dangerous orange oaf, they insist, as they prep their placards and dust down their pussy hats for tomorrow’s anti-Trump ‘carnival’ in central London.  Okay. But President Obama mistreated migrants, too. Footage of Border Patrol agents firing tear-gas canisters at migrants at the Mexico-America border last November made headlines around the world and was incessantly tweeted by Trump-phobes as proof

James Kirkup

In praise of Matt Hancock’s Brexit plan

Matt Hancock is the youngest of the candidates running to be Conservative leader but he’s starting to look like the grown-up in the room. At the weekend he published the outline of a Brexit plan that might just prove the basis for a way ahead that averts either economic or political disaster. The plan, as I read it, entails accepting the Withdrawal Agreement as negotiated by Theresa May is the only viable way to avoid a No-Deal exit in October and shifting the focus of British ambitions to the Political Declaration on the future relationship between the UK and EU that would follow Withdrawal. That’s both sensible and smart. Sensible

Saturday

Philip Cowley

The next Tory leader will have even less flexibility than May on Brexit

In Choosing A Leader, what remains one of the best books published on British leadership contests (although I appreciate this is a niche market), Len Stark argued that the procedures parties used when selecting their leaders rarely made much of a difference. With a handful of exceptions, he demonstrated that the same candidate would have won, no matter how the party went about making its choice. Parties chose candidates who will unite them, he argued, after which what mattered was who was most electorally appealing or most competent – and they did that regardless of the rulebook. Yet there were exceptions, not all of them inconsequential. Stark’s book was published

Douglas Murray

Why this year’s al-Quds Day march could be different

This weekend might provide an interesting spectacle. On Sunday the annual al-Quds Day march sets off in London from outside the Home Office. Of course al-Quds Day is the day inaugurated by the late bigot Ayatollah Khomeini, and his initiative allows peace-loving Khomeinists to stroll along the streets of London (among other capital cities) calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. Historically the event has always attracted controversy, not just because it is organised by the farcically misnamed ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission’ but because the speakers and organisers routinely make their intentions perfectly clear. Two years ago one of the speakers on the Al-Quds Day platform declared that ‘Zionists’

Steerpike

‘I’ve just cancelled my membership’ – Doctors turn on RCGP for ‘no-platforming’ Julia Hartley-Brewer

This week, Julia Hartley-Brewer joined the list of right-of-centre commentators to have found themselves ‘no-platformed‘ after a Twitterstorm. The Talk Radio host had been invited to join a Question Time-style panel discussion for the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) on the ‘hot healthcare topics of the day’ – they said she was there as she had written about health issues for 25 years as is the daughter of a GP. And if you disagree with her opinions, they said, then by all means challenge her because it’s committed to free speech. But how committed? The Scruton-style Twitterstorm escalated so much (with the inevitable petition) that her invitation was rescinded:

Melanie McDonagh

Why the First Wives’ Club should cut Boris a bit of slack

Well, very obliging of Donald Trump to back Boris Johnson – ‘a very good guy…he’d be excellent…I like him very much’ – in his interesting interview in The Sun, I’m sure. That’ll go down terrifically well with the kind of woke constituency that’ll be on the streets from Monday to make clear that the president is very, very unwelcome here; as it happens it also includes Jeremy Corbyn who is boycotting the president’s state banquet… though I don’t know whether he made clear that this is what he’d so if he were PM, which is kind of worrying. Happily, Mr Trump made clear he doesn’t much care. Anyway, will Mr

James Forsyth

Johnson bags Truss endorsement, but no Boris Amber dream ticket

The Boris Johnson campaign has been very quiet this week. But as I say in The Sun this morning, it will move into a higher gear next week. Liz Truss is set to become the first person who sits round the Cabinet table to endorse the former Foreign Secretary. I understand that the campaign will also unveil a slew of endorsements from MPs, giving it more declared supporters than any other campaign. One MP who won’t be endorsing him, though, is Amber Rudd. Her and Boris Johnson sat down on Thursday. But ultimately the differences between them over Brexit policy are simply too great to make any kind of dream