Uk politics

Monday

Brendan O’Neill

The real reason some Brits don’t like Trump

From our UK edition

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 of his fascistic tendencies.

James Kirkup

In praise of Matt Hancock’s Brexit plan

From our UK edition

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.

Saturday

Philip Cowley

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

From our UK edition

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.

Douglas Murray

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

From our UK edition

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.

Steerpike

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

From our UK edition

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?

Melanie McDonagh

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

From our UK edition

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 Trump’s endorsement cut any ice with Tory members?

James Forsyth

Johnson bags Truss endorsement, but no Boris Amber dream ticket

From our UK edition

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 ticket work. I understand that Rudd pushed the former Foreign Secretary to budge on his commitment that the UK would leave the EU on October 31st with or without a deal.

Jamie Bartlett

What Rory Stewart and Donald Trump have in common

From our UK edition

What the hell has got into Rory Stewart? The man’s everywhere, outstretched phone in hand, like an Instagram influencer on the edge, asking people to come and talk to him about Brexit. He’s at the Lewisham market by the stinky fish! No wait – now he’s on a train to Wigan. Now he’s talking Dari in Barking; now he’s in Kew Gardens searching for a Brexiteer. But wait: he’s on the move again, chatting in a taxi! Then to Borough Market, filling the tiny screen with his distinctive features. He has more energy than the rest of his rivals put together, and is even making arch-careerist Boris Johnson look indifferent about the leadership contest.   This is all very smart.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Change UK holds post mortem after EU election humiliation

From our UK edition

Change UK has been holding post-mortem meetings about its failure to win any seats in last week’s European elections, I understand. Members of the newly-formed party met up this week to discuss what to do next after it only secured 3 per cent of the vote overall.  Critics have suggested that it’s already all over for Change UK, and even its optimistic members accept that the party is going through a very difficult phase. There is talk in some quarters of a merger with the Liberal Democrats- and it was notable that both Mike Gapes and Anna Soubry praised Jo Swinson, who is standing to lead that party.

Katy Balls

Stop Boris? These days it’s Operation Stop Raab

From our UK edition

For a long time now, there's been a Stop Boris campaign in operation in Westminster. With the Parliamentary party a lot less keen on the former foreign secretary than the eurosceptic membership, MPs have plotted ways to keep Johnson off the final two in a Tory leadership contest. MPs vote to knock out contenders in Parliamentary rounds before the Tory grassroots select their leader from the two left standing. The way the contest works means that there is ample opportunity for MPs to work together to knock out candidates they don't like. However, a number of Tory MPs have a new target in their sights. In the past couple of weeks, there has been a sea change in how Tory moderates view Johnson.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Tory leadership row brewing over CCHQ ‘stitch-up’

From our UK edition

Inevitably, the Tory leadership contest is developing a row about process and possible stitch-ups. Party grandees have been suggesting limiting the number of candidates to prevent ‘chaos’ (which suggests an interesting reading of the current political turmoil as not being chaotic). Iain Duncan Smith thinks there should be a higher threshold for nominations and more candidates knocked out at each round, while members of the 1922 Executive committee are also proposing limiting the numbers of candidates to around a dozen. There is a split though on whether this would be fair or whether the ‘widest debate possible’ is more important.

Kate Andrews

Why I’m pleased that Dominic Raab isn’t a feminist

From our UK edition

Dominic Raab is not a feminist. That is the confession the Tory leadership hopeful makes in an interview in this week’s Spectator. Screams, gasps and 240 character rants have swept the internet since. Who in their right mind would reject the notion of treating men and women equally? Of course, Raab didn’t do that. He describes himself as “someone who is passionate about equality and wants a fairer society.” What Raab rejects is the term itself: feminism. And Raab is not alone. In fact, his position represents the vast majority of women in the UK. Most women don’t identify as feminists. Young women, older women, and especially women in lower income brackets actively reject the term.

Eamonn Butler

The message Tory leadership candidates need to hear

From our UK edition

I’ve been the victim of a robbery. In broad daylight. As an average Brit, more than 40 per cent of everything I produce is taken by the government for whatever they want to spend it on. In theory they ask my opinion on what that should be. But they ask me only every five years, and even then, the chance of my vote making a difference is literally millions to one. That’s why many – or most of us – don’t bother to vote at all and most of the rest simply give the major parties a big two fingers. Even mediaeval serfs only had to work a third of their time for their masters. We work two-fifths for ours. That’s the equivalent of labouring non-stop, from 1st January to today, 30th May, solely for the government.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

The Boris Brexit court case isn’t as bad for his leadership bid as some hope

From our UK edition

Will Boris Johnson being told to answer to allegations of misconduct in a public office derail his leadership campaign? The former foreign secretary has been told he must appear in court to answer the claims, brought in a private prosecution by campaigner Marcus Ball, who objects to his claim during the referendum that the UK sends £350 million a week to the EU. Today a district judge ruled that there was sufficient evidence to proceed with a trial. This prosecution will naturally be seen by someone of Johnson's enemies as a chance to undermine him while he's the frontrunner in the Conservative leadership contest. But this isn't likely to have the effect they hope.

Isabel Hardman

How councils in crisis could open up an important Tory leadership battleground

From our UK edition

One of the issues that should crop up in this Tory leadership contest is local government funding. True, it's not a particularly enticing matter, but Conservative MPs are generally very worried about the state of their local councils. Today's BBC story on 11 authorities which could exhaust their reserves within four years underlines this worry. The Beeb used analysis by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance to work out which councils the organisation had listed - anonymously - as being most at risk. The Local Government Association is warning that councils will have to further cut back services and that 'ongoing funding gaps are simply too big to be plugged by reserves'. Of course, this also affects the debate about social care, with councils already struggling to fund its provision.

Tom Goodenough

Operation Stop Boris is backfiring. Again

From our UK edition

As the race to replace Theresa May heats up, Operation Stop Boris is now in full swing. Boris Johnson remains the clear frontrunner to win the Tory leadership contest and his critics are determined to prevent him doing so at any cost. But his detractors should learn an important lesson from the referendum campaign: going after Boris is bound to backfire. Boris’s critics are determined to have another go, with his Tory rivals queuing up to take a pop. Matt Hancock is the latest to hit out with his jibe ‘f**k ‘f**k business’, a reference to Boris’s comments about lobbyists warning of the damage of a no-deal Brexit. Jeremy Hunt has also targeted Boris. So, too, has roaming leadership candidate Rory Stewart.

James Forsyth

Talking about Brexit won’t be enough for the next Tory leader

From our UK edition

The Tory leadership contest has been dominated by Brexit so far. To a large extent, this is inevitable: Brexit is the biggest issue facing the country and the Tory party. But dealing with Brexit is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a Tory recovery. If the Tories are to win a fourth term in office, they are going to have a compelling domestic agenda as well. So far, the ideas put forward in this contest haven’t been particularly imaginative—doubling defence spending and a penny off the basic rate are standard Tory fare. The biggest question, to my mind, for the Tories is how to revive the ownership society. The Tories cannot expect people who don’t have any hope of obtaining capital, to be capitalists.

Matthew Lynn

Matt Hancock has missed the point about Boris’s business jibe

From our UK edition

If it was in a playground in one of the rougher parts of town, which increasingly it resembles, this could easily escalate. One candidate remarks that he thinks the party should ‘f**k business’ so another one wades in to argue ‘f**k 'f**k business'’. And perhaps by lunchtime some other candidate you have never really heard off will be tweeting that instead the party should ‘f**k, 'f**k, f**k business'’. Before long, the Tory party leadership contest will start to look like the bits that were edited out of a Malcolm Tucker rant in The Thick of It for being too sweary. And yet the row spectacularly misses the point. Of course the Conservative party should be pro-business. But that is not quite the same thing as being pro-Big Business and its lobbyists.

Steerpike

Graham Brady meets with an old hand at campaigns

From our UK edition

With twelve candidates so far declared for the Tory leadership contest, more MPs are expected to announce in the coming days. Those rumoured to be planning on throwing their hat into the ring include Mark Harper, Steve Baker and 1922 chairman Graham Brady. On Friday, Brady recused himself from a Conservative Party statement on the leadership timetable – on the grounds that he might himself run. So, Mr S was intrigued to learn of a meeting Brady attended on Tuesday at the MC Saatchi office in London. Steerpike's advertising man-in-the-know reports that Brady was spotted meeting Tory peer – and former chairman – Maurice Saatchi.

Ross Clark

Boris Johnson’s court appearance is nothing to celebrate

From our UK edition

I have often wondered what would happen if politicians were bound by the same rules as advertisers, or if manifestos were brought within the scope of the trading standards laws. What if we could take legal action against a government for failing to provide the extra NHS beds or school places they had promised? Given the propensity for governments to excuse themselves from their own legislation when it suits them – Blair’s government simply passed a clause excluding political parties when Labour’s women-only shortlists fell foul of sex discrimination legislation – it is hard to imagine such a law being passed by Parliament. But on 14th May, Westminster Magistrates heard an attempt to create one through political precedent.