Uk politics

Thursday

Ross Clark

Theresa May’s promotion of Rory Stewart is a smart move

In sacking Gavin Williamson for an offence he strenuously denies Theresa May has created for herself a potential embarrassment. What if a criminal inquiry were to find the former defence secretary not guilty of any breach of the Official Secrets Act? Yet as no-one seems to have noticed, the mini-reshuffle she carried out in the wake of the sacking has avoided another fast-looming embarrassment. In promoting Rory Stewart to the Cabinet as International Development Secretary  she has averted the loss of a popular and up and coming minister. Last August, when prisons minister, Stewart made a rash promise. He said he would resign if he had not succeeded in reducing violence and drug-taking in 10 target jails within a year.

Melanie McDonagh

Is the Guardian practising what it preaches on climate change?

The Guardian has an advertisement today from Sainsbury’s. Nothing wrong with that; respectable paper, respectable retailer. It’s the nature of the ad that’s interesting: a big bubble saying Save 10p per litre of fuel, surmounted by a picture of a petrol pump nozzle. You can see were the problem lies, can’t you? This is the paper that’s sympathetic to Extinction Rebellion, to Greta Thunberg, to the anti-fossil fuel activists who campaign against the British Museum accepting funding from BP, now giving space to a company flogging petroleum cheap, thereby stimulating consumption.

Katy Balls

Will May’s decision to sack Gavin Williamson backfire?

Will Theresa May's decision to sack Gavin Williamson come back to haunt her? That's the question being asked in Westminster this morning after the Prime Minister fired the Defence Secretary alleging that he was behind a leak on Huawei from a meeting of the National Security Council to the Telegraph. The hope in No. 10 was that this decisive action would bring the episode to a close. That now seems rather optimistic. News of Williamson's sacking has made its way onto the front page of every paper – but most of the articles suggest it's not a black and white issue. They all note that doubt has been cast over what evidence No. 10 actually has against Williamson and reference the fact that he has sworn on his children's lives he is not behind the leak.

Wednesday

Katy Balls

Gavin Williamson sacked, but denies guilt on Huawei leak. What went on?

Gavin Williamson has been sacked from government following an investigation into the Huawei leak from a meeting of the National Security Council – replaced by Penny Mordaunt. Announcing the decision, a Downing Street spokesperson said Theresa May had asked Williamson to leave government having 'lost confidence in his ability to serve in the role of Defence Secretary': 'The Prime Minister has this evening asked Gavin Williamson to leave the Government, having lost confidence in his ability to serve in the role of Defence Secretary and as a member of her Cabinet. The Prime Minister’s decision has been informed by his conduct surrounding an investigation into the circumstances of the unauthorised disclosure of information from a meeting of the National Security Council.

Steerpike

Theresa May: ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ stance was ‘abstract’

Theresa May once said that 'no deal is better than a bad deal', but did she really mean it? The Prime Minister was asked to clarify those comments in front of MPs this afternoon. May said that while she stuck by what she said at Lancaster House in January 2017, she was actually 'talking in the abstract': 'I stand by the references I have made in the past, that 'no deal is better than a bad deal', but I happen to think we have a good deal. When I first made that reference, I was talking in the abstract. We now are no longer talking in the abstract. We are talking against the background of a negotiated deal, hard-fought, which I believe is a good deal for the United Kingdom.' Mr Steerpike is glad that May has finally cleared that up. The Prime Minister didn't stop there though.

Lloyd Evans

Theresa May flounders horribly at PMQs

Best mates on Brexit, deadly foes on everything else. The highly suspicious search for a Lab/Con Brexit accord was suspended today as the party leaders exchanged blows at PMQs. These covert ‘talks’ are clearly a blackmail effort contrived in Downing Street. By threatening her MPs with a Labour-backed Customs Union, Theresa May hopes to secure their support for her thrice-rejected withdrawal agreement. It might just work. The EU wasn’t mentioned at PMQs but the Labour leader found alternative sources of distress. ‘Things are getting worse,’ he crowed at the Prime Minister as he ran through a hit-parade of sob-stories: inequality, malnutrition, rising crime, falling police numbers and care-home failures.

Isabel Hardman

Pointless PMQs shows up the government’s powerlessness

Most MPs' minds are elsewhere at the moment, with the local elections on Thursday and the European elections looming at the end of the month. Many of them were physically elsewhere at today's Prime Minister's Questions, which took place in a sparsely-populated Chamber with little atmosphere. A low rumble of bored chattering accompanied Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn's exchanges, which lacked the usual political fire and fury of sessions held right before a poll. Neither of them really bothered to engage in exchanges, instead reeling off poorly-planned lines about social mobility, life expectancy and social care. The Prime Minister produced one of the worst jokes of her premiership when she told Corbyn that he should have welcomed the anniversary of the union between England and Scotland.

David Butterfield

Cambridge’s slavery inquiry will raise more questions than it answers

Can the past hold the present to ransom? Can we be culpable for our predecessors’ actions? Knotty questions of this kind have long been debated in British universities. But now these abstractions are finding new and controversial expression. Yesterday, the University of Cambridge made headlines by launching an academic investigation into its historical relationship – direct or otherwise – with the slave trade. The panel will spend two years scrutinising whether Cambridge profited from ‘the Atlantic slave trade and other forms of coerced labour during the colonial era’. For academics, the enquiry will certainly be interesting. But serious problems inevitably arise when historical discoveries are deemed to have moral consequence for the present.

Steerpike

Liz Truss shows solidarity with Diane Abbott

Liz Truss and Diane Abbott are an unlikely pair. One is a champion of free markets while the other is a true Corbynista. However, of late the Chief Treasury to the Secretary has managed to find common cause with the shadow home secretary. Speaking at a Freer think tank event last night with fellow freedom lovers James Cleverly and Steve Baker in the audience, Truss spoke of the importance of fighting over-interference of the state into people's daily lives – and that includes Abbott's recent decision to disobey London transport rules and drink an M&S mojito on the overground: 'When we try to micromanage people’s lives, we take away the freedoms that are crucial for them to feel in control. Freedom is the ability to make choices that others disapprove of.

Claire Fox

David Lammy inspired me to stand for the Brexit Party

I am standing as Brexit Party candidate in the forthcoming EU elections. The response of voters so far has been overwhelmingly positive. Phew. Here’s a chance to demonstrate that the shambles that parliament has made of delivering on a referendum mandate will be challenged by a democratic fightback. It really is exciting. But, I admit, deciding to stand was rather more nerve wracking, and sent shockwaves among my peers.   *** “Why on earth rock the boat, it could ruin your life and career?”. Just one of the incredulous warning notes sent to me when a friend heard I was considering standing. I certainly had doubts about throwing my hat in the electoral ring.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn wins his Brexit showdown with Tom Watson

Jeremy Corbyn has again shown his power over the structures of the Labour party by winning today's national executive committee showdown over its European elections manifesto. A faction of MPs, led by Tom Watson and backed by the GMB, Unison, Usdaw and TSSA unions, had hoped to change party policy to support for a confirmatory referendum on any Brexit deal that Parliament comes up with. But Corbyn and the Unite union had opposed this, and this afternoon, they came out on top.

Stephen Daisley

Anas Sarwar and the case that shames Labour

Jews are familiar with the malice, prejudice and stupidity that governs the Labour Party’s complaints process when it comes to anti-Semitism. They will find no comfort in the news that other allegations of racism get short shrift too, even when the complainant is a prominent Labour politician. The party has said there is no case to answer against a councillor accused of telling Labour MSP Anas Sarwar that Scotland wasn’t ready to vote for a ‘Paki’. The incident is alleged to have occurred in 2017, when Sarwar contested the Scottish leadership against left-wing union fixer (and eventual victor) Richard Leonard. Sarwar went public with his claim and Davie McLachlan, then Labour leader on South Lanarkshire Council, was suspended.

Isabel Hardman

The Government wants Brexit talks to end next week. But can they end well?

Will the cross-party Brexit talks ever end? They seem to have been going on for almost as long as the negotiations to get Britain out of the European Union, and with a similar lack of anything for either side to boast about. Yesterday, David Lidington said he was 'encouraged by the sense in the room today about the need to inject greater urgency into this', which was read by some as a sign that a breakthrough might be imminent. This seems a rather hopeful reading of what is essentially an admission that everyone has been faffing around a lot, but members of the Labour negotiating team also believe the government might shift on some of its red lines. Lidington updated the cabinet on the talks when it met today.

James Kirkup

Clever Tories admit capitalism isn’t perfect

One of the many things that has been neglected in the Conservative Party because of all-consuming Brexit is a meaningful debate about markets and business. Confronted with a Labour leader offering a clear critique of capitalism as a “rigged” system and outflanked by Nigel Farage telling a remarkably similar story about big money financing a self-regarding elite, the Tories have generally offered two responses. Both are flawed. On one hand are those who think the answer to complaints about the economy is to yell about Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman and sometimes Singapore. Liz Truss has become the most prominent advocate of what Stian Westlake rather brilliantly calls “live-action role-playing Thatcherism”.

Steerpike

Watch: James Brokenshire taken to task over Roger Scruton sacking

James Brokenshire has been keeping a low profile since the controversial sacking of Roger Scruton three weeks ago. But now the Housing Secretary has finally been taken to task for his handling of the row. Brokenshire sacked Scruton from his unpaid government role within hours of the publication of an interview in which Scruton was accused of making a 'series of outrageous remarks'. As Douglas Murray details in this week's magazine, the truth about what Scruton said was rather different. https://twitter.com/IainDale/status/1122988961784303618?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw On LBC, Brokenshire was asked by Iain Dale whether he regretted sacking Scruton: 'It is just that regret I have. I have a huge amount of respect and acknowledgement for Sir Roger’s focus on aesthetics.

Katy Balls

The message behind Labour’s latest party broadcast | 30 April 2019

As the Tories set expectations low for Thursday's local elections, Labour is in campaign mode. The party has released its third and final party political broadcast ahead of this week's votes. The theme of the short film is investment vs austerity attempting to lay out the reasoning behind the Labour slogan 'for the many not the few'. In it, a host offers five members of the public money back that they lost as a result of Tory austerity. Meanwhile, a billionaire is given a £20,000 tax cut. The film goes on to suggest that only the 'ordinary' people put the money back in the community – while the billionaire barely notices it and moves it abroad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Monday

Robert Peston

How Labour could solve its Brexit conundrum

Sources close to the Labour leader believe the emergency NEC meeting on Tuesday, which determines the Labour manifesto for the EU elections, will agree a formula that is "a restatement" of the party's equivocal and prolix party conference resolution of last September. But a senior trade union source tells me that if Unison, GMB and Usdaw are bulldozed on Tuesday, if their demand for Labour to commit to a "confirmatory" referendum on any Brexit deal is simply ignored, Corbyn and his colleagues are "being delusional about the likely consequences". The well-placed trade unionist added: "They have no idea what's going to hit them and the scale of the backlash they will face" – which captures for you how emotions are running very high.

Steerpike

Good news for government leakers

The hunt is on within government to discover which individual leaked details of a meeting of the National Security Council on allowing Huawei to help build Britain's new 5G network to the press. With an inquiry under way, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt today announced that he would be happy to hand over his phone as part of the investigation. Still, should any government ministers or aides currently find themselves less enthusiastic about aiding the inquiry (and sweating it out that the net is closing in), perhaps they can find some relief in a column former No 10 aide Kate Perrior has penned for the Times. Perrior says that during her time working for the Prime Minister, she had to take part in three leak inquiries.

Sunday

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Tory chairman ‘hopes’ his party’s councillors will vote Conservative

Brandon Lewis: I hope our councillors will vote Conservative After fighting off some technical glitches this morning, the new series of the Marr Show featured an interview with the Conservative party chairman Brandon Lewis. With local elections, and potentially, European elections approaching next month, Mishal Husain (filling in for Marr) asked Lewis about the party’s dire standing in the opinion polls. Of particular concern was a poll of Conservative councillors showing that 40 per cent were planning to vote for Nigel Farage’s new Brexit party if the European elections went ahead: MH: When nearly 800 of your councillors were questioned for a survey, 40 per cent of them said they would be voting for the Brexit party... BL: ...

Robert Peston

Jeremy Corbyn won’t be forced to campaign for a second referendum

A concerted attempt by Labour MPs and MEPs to engineer that their party would campaign unambiguously for a ‘confirmatory’ Brexit referendum in the EU elections looks set to flop. Instead Jeremy Corbyn’s preferred position of characterising a new public vote only as an option is likely to prevail, because he seems to have retained the backing of most of the leaders of the big trade unions. The decision on how strongly to push for a referendum, and how Labour’s position on it should be worded in its manifesto, will be taken at a crunch emergency meeting of the party’s ruling NEC on Tuesday.