Steerpike, Author at The Spectator

Tuesday

25 September 2018

Watch: Israeli ambassador takes a pop at Jeremy Corbyn

The Labour Friends of Israel reception at the party’s conference has traditionally been attended by the Labour leader. But this year, as in recent years, Jeremy Corbyn did not attend. Instead it fell to the party’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, to make an appearance. Watson was introduced as a ‘long standing friend of Israel’ and he used his speech to call out those who have attacked pro-Israeli MPs within the Labour party. Here’s what he said: We have an obligation to rid this party of anti Semitism. I recognise the hurt that has been caused. I recognise the pain that has been thrust upon our friends in the Jewish community. I know how failing to tackle a problem risks bringing eternal shame.

Steerpike

Corbyn’s rallying cry at Mirror bash

It’s the eve of the Leader’s Speech at Labour conference and Jeremy Corbyn has attempted to set the mood with an extra speech at the Mirror conference party. The Labour leader told an adoring crowd that this conference was historic - before thanking them for being one of the okay media publications: ‘Conference this week has been fascinating - it’s now the biggest ever. We are planning for a future that works for everyone and brings about social change. Thanks to the Mirror for giving us a fair hearing - plenty of the others don’t. This conference shows a degree of confidence in our party. This country needs a Labour government and I’m ready to take us there if we can force an election any time soon.

Steerpike

Watch: Diane Abbott makes yet another number blunder

When it comes to numbers, Diane Abbott doesn't have a good track record. And it seems that's still the case for the shadow home secretary. Delivering her speech to Labour conference this afternoon, Abbott intended to talk about 999 calls. But unfortunately the Labour MP fell one number short: Oh dear...

Steerpike

Tosh McDonald: I set my alarm early so I could hate Thatcher more

Jeremy Corbyn has famously said that he wants a 'kinder, gentler politics'. But it seems one of his close allies didn't get the message. Union leader Tosh McDonald took to the stage at Labour conference this morning to tell his fellow party members of just how much he hates Margaret Thatcher: 'I say this many times, it’s still true: I hated her. I wish I could be like Jeremy and rise above it, but I can’t. And I did hate her that much that I did set my alarm clock an hour earlier than I needed, just so I could hate her for an hour longer.' Tosh by name, tosh by nature...

Steerpike

Watch: Labour supporter refuses to leave the stage

It’s all kicking off at Labour conference. A Labour supporter has just given a speech on Palestine from the main stage, but when he was told his time was up he refused to leave the stage: 'My time is not up. I am speaking for the Palestinian people. I’ve got a couple more lines and I’m going to say them, and if you want me off this stage, you’re going to have to get security up here. And they’d better send an army, because east enders, like Palestinians, don’t go down easy.' https://twitter.com/josephmdurso/status/1044590622710075394?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Eventually, he did leave the stage but not before a warm greeting and a handshake from Jeremy Corbyn...

Steerpike

Live blog: Labour’s Brexit position, 25/9/18

It's Labour conference and the party is supposed to be setting out its plan for government. Only when it comes to Brexit, no-one is quite sure what that is. In the interest of clarity, Mr S will be running a live blog with the latest twists in the party's apparent Brexit policy: 11am: Keir Starmer says remaining in the EU is an option The shadow Brexit secretary tells Labour conference: ‘Nobody is ruling out remain as an option.’ 11am: Dennis Skinner frowns The Beast of Bolsover doesn't seem too impressed by Starmer's intervention: https://twitter.com/Alain_Tolhurst/status/1044540809197105152 11.

Steerpike

Scottish Labour leader’s conference snub

It’s fair to say to say that the leader of Scottish Labour, Richard Leonard has struggled to make his mark since he was elected in 2017. While the position used to automatically command respect as the figurehead of the dominant party north of the border, after several catastrophic elections, Labour and the position have been relegated to the periphery of Scottish politics while the Conservatives and SNP take up the main stage. But while Leonard may be used to being sidelined in Scotland, you would hope that he would receive a little more love and recognition at his own party conference in Liverpool. Unfortunately not. It appears that even the Labour party are struggling to remember who their Scottish leader is.

Steerpike

Keir Starmer goes off script in Brexit conference speech

This year's Labour conference has been praised for adopting a more professional tone than previous years. However, today that message appears to have been lost. After the party pulled plans at the last minute for a female deputy leader, Keir Starmer appears to have gone off script in his big Brexit conference speech. https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1044532574255636480 The shadow Brexit secretary was met with applause when he appeared to keep the idea of a second EU referendum on the table – announcing: 'Nobody is ruling out remain as an option.' Only John McDonnell did just this yesterday when he said any second referendum would be 'deal or no deal'. Curiously, Keir's line isn't on the speech text briefed out by Labour. Has Starmer gone off script without approval? P.S.

Steerpike

Watch: Kate Hoey’s Brexit warning to Corbynistas

The Corbynistas don't have much time for Kate Hoey, the Labour MP and ardent Brexiteer. Owen Jones accused Hoey of propping up a government that is leading Britain 'into calamity' by refusing to vote down the Tories over Brexit. But the MP for Vauxhall has a message for her critics: it isn't me you should worry about. Instead, Hoey said, Corbyn's supporters should keep an eye on the likes of Chuka Umunna and other Labour MPs calling for a second referendum. Their support for a 'people's vote' has little to do with Brexit, she said, and more to do with trying to make life difficult for Jeremy Corbyn.

Steerpike

Through the looking glass: Labour’s future foreign policy

To the dismay of many of Jeremy Corbyn's parliamentary colleagues, foreign policy is the Labour leader's main passion. Corbyn rarely appears more animated than when discussing the plight of Palestinians – or lambasting the Saudi Arabian government. So, Mr S listened with interest as Corbyn's closest allies gathered at Labour conference for a Stop the War fringe event. Corbyn adviser (and former Communist Party of Britain member) Andrew Murray was joined by shadow cabinet members Richard Burgon and Diane Abbott along with Chris Williamson for the packed event titled Why We Need An Anti-War Government. To kick proceedings off, Williamson said the party was making history: 'We often talk about recapturing the spirit of 1945 and I honestly feel that we're in that moment right now.

Monday

24 September 2018

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Watch: Ex-Corbyn spinner gets schooled on Sky News

Dawn Butler's decision to back Militant didn't go down well on the first day of Labour conference, but the shadow equalities minister can still count on Corbyn's loyal defenders to stick up for her. Former spinner for the Labour leader, Matt Zarb-Cousin, rushed to Butler's defence on Sky News. But when he was asked to explain why Butler was right he was somewhat less certain. Instead it fell to his fellow guest Stephanie Lloyd to explain the error of his ways: Oh dear. But Mr S isn't convinced that Zarb-Cousin will have learnt his lesson...

Steerpike

Watch: Labour supporting teacher on getting rid of Tories

A teacher and Labour party member has just taken to the stage at the party's conference talking of the importance of giving kids a good education. Sensible enough, you might think. Except for the fact that Sion Rickard said that if children were educated properly it would mean that Tories would no longer exist. Here's what he said: 'I've never met a bad four-year-old. I've never met a four-year-old that was evil. So every child has a chance and if we give them a proper education, we'll empty our prisons, we'll have much less problems with our NHS, social issues... We'll probably not have any Tories because we'll have brought up our kids properly.' Mr S wouldn't want to be a kid in his class...

Steerpike

Diane Abbott’s immigration plan fails to add up

What would the government’s immigration policy look like if Diane Abbott was Home Secretary? Abbott’s speech on the fringe of the Labour conference made it clear what it won’t be, even if what it will be is less certain. It won’t involve immigration detention centres, which Abbott has vowed to shut down. The shadow home secretary expressed her disbelief after her former opposite number Amber Rudd told her that places like Yarl's Wood were necessary because some of those awaiting deportation were violent: ‘I said: ‘How can that be?’ 'Even in the prison estate, the actual prison estate for actual prisoners, only a fraction of them have (been) convicted of violent offences.

Steerpike

Listen: Labour MP blasts Corbynite colleague at Progress rally

Here we go again. Although Labour conference has become increasingly Corbynite in recent years, the Progress rally can always be relied upon as a safe space for Labour moderates. And so it was that Corbyn-sceptic Labour MPs gathered at the annual event on Sunday night to air their grievances. Wes Streeting – the Labour MP for Ilford North – have a crowd-pleasing speech which took aim at Corbyn ally Chris Williamson, as well as Dawn Butler over her recent Militant comments: 'Good evening Progress – it's great to be here. It's like one of Chris Williamson's democracy tours except about thirty years younger in terms of average age. Here at Progress we don't talk about how we get rid of Labour MPs, we come together to talk about how we elect more Labour MPs.

Steerpike

Labour conference 2018, in pictures

It's that time of year again: Labour conference. With Jeremy Corbyn's grip on the party tightening in the past year, the conference, too, has taken on a distinctly Corbynista feel. The exhibition hall is made up of a mix of business stands – including Apple – and campaign groups. Meanwhile, over at the sister festival – Momentum's World Transformed festival – pictures of Marx adorn the walls alongside banners making clear Sun journalists are not welcome. Viva la revolución! (Mr S will update this post as the conference goes on.

Sunday

23 September 2018

Steerpike

Hacks left in the cold at Labour conference

Jeremy Corbyn's relationship with the MSM has long been a strained one. When the Labour leader isn't bad-mouthing hacks, he's telling them that he will 'democratise' their publications. So, perhaps it should come as little surprise that journalists have found themselves left out in the cold at this year's Labour conference. Hacks arrived to find themselves not in the main building but in a tent outside in the cold. Adding insult to injury, to find it one must follow the 'dog exercise' area signs. To borrow the words of Chuka Umunna: won't Corbyn 'call off the dogs'?

Saturday

22 September 2018

Steerpike

Watch: Siblings turn on congressman in brutal attack ad

In recent weeks, Westminster has given Washington a run for its money when it comes to unpredictability in politics. However, there are some areas in which the US still leads the way in suprises – namely attack ads. A political advert to support the campaign of Democrat David Brill running for Congress in Arizona has gone viral thanks to a plot twist at the end. In it, six speakers explain why they are unhappy with the sitting congressman, the Republican Paul Gosar: 'If he actually cared about people in rural Arizona, I bet he'd be fighting for social security, for better access to healthcare,' says 'Jennifer, medical interpreter'. The twist? It turns out these individuals are all Gosar's siblings. All's fair in love and war...

Steerpike

Dawn Butler’s Militant conference message

When the Labour manifesto was leaked ahead of the 2017 general election, critics said that a win for Jeremy Corbyn would drag the country back into the 1970s. Today, shadow equalities minister Dawn Butler proved them wrong - and showed that Labour would actually like to drag us back to the 80s instead. At Labour’s women’s conference in Liverpool, the Corbynite MP took the extraordinary step of praising the Militant-run Liverpool council of the 1980s, which protested new Conservative local spending caps by setting an illegal budget. The decision to break the law caused such chaos in the city that auditors had to be called in, Labour's reputation for fiscal responsibility lay in tatters, and the council had to deliver redundancy notices to its own workers by taxi.

Friday

21 September 2018

Steerpike

Emily Thornberry risks reigniting Labour’s anti-Semitism row

Is Jeremy Corbyn the victim in Labour’s anti-Semitism scandal? Emily Thornberry seems to think so. The shadow foreign secretary said that the Labour leader was ‘distressed’ by the claims against him and that he found the row ‘very difficult’ to deal with because it went ‘so against his idea of who he is’. In an interview with the Evening Standard, the Corbynite MP said that while the Dear Leader was usually ‘very Zen’ about criticism, ‘calling him an anti-Semite, calling him a racist, that just went straight to the absolute core of him. It really distressed him’. Poor old Jeremy.

Tuesday

18 September 2018

Steerpike

Watch: Vince Cable fluffs his ‘erotic spasm’

Vince Cable's big moment at the Lib Dem party conference has arrived – but unfortunately for the Lib Dem leader he managed to fluff his lines. Cable was set to use his keynote speech to accuse Brexiteers of pursuing an 'erotic spasm' in leaving the EU. But that's not quite what he actually said: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1042049125699575808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Talk about an anti climax...