Labour Party
How to cope with unsold tickets and empty halls: my advice to Owen Jones
My heart goes out to Owen Jones. The left-wing journalist is one of the headliners at a Labour party fund-raiser…
The origins of Labour’s racism
Another word which has gained a new meaning in the present decade, along with ‘vulnerable’ and ‘diverse’: survivor. Once it…
Women come last in Labour’s deranged victim hierarchy
I wonder if we are about to see a mass resignation of women from Labour, furious at the party’s collapse…
Jeremy Corbyn’s takeover is complete – and the Tories are terrified
For Jeremy Corbyn and his allies, there has been no far-left takeover of the Labour party or its governing National…
“I’ll eat you alive” – Angela Rayner interview
Angela Rayner is perhaps the only Labour MP who works with a picture of Theresa May hanging above her desk.…
Order, order! In the Commons, you are where you sit
Diet nannies will spend Christmas telling us ‘you are what you eat’ but in the House of Commons ‘you are…
‘The first 100 days will be radical’ – John McDonnell on the Corbyn coup and its consequences
John McDonnell looks exhausted, slumped in his parliamentary office chair. Nobody said the revolution would be easy. Do he and…
Gordon Brown’s memoirs show he is good at blowing his own trumpet – but nothing else
Gordon Brown has pitched his memoirs as the honest confessions of a decent man. He failed to win the one…
Gathering storm
Sally Potter’s The Party, which unfolds in real time during a politician’s soirée to celebrate her promotion, is just 71…
Real life
‘What do you think it means?’ I asked the builder boyfriend as we stood in front of the sign. A…
No Khan do
Let’s try a thought experiment, shall we? If a senior adviser to my old boss, Boris Johnson, had celebrated John…
Yay, root out those Jew-haters, Jeremy!
A long and arduous flight back from the Caucasus, but worth it nonetheless for the meaningful protest we had staged…
Will Labour convict me of thought crime?
I got an email this week, from a chap called Harry, which began as follows: ‘I am writing to inform you…
How to save Labour
The party needs real radicalism – it is in the hands of an ugly simulacrum
Send in the Alsatians
Islington is a bellwether, and also a joke: the most unequal borough in London, where social housing leans against £4…
Meet the ‘out’ campaign’s secret weapon: Jeremy Corbyn
Europe has opened up an unbridgeable chasm in the Conservative party. Labour remains, near as dammit, united. On the EU…
Diary
While browsing in Barter Books, the wonderful secondhand bookshop in Alnwick that is fast becoming a national institution, I came…
Corbynglish as a second language: a political dictionary of terms
Corbynterpretation [n]: The inevitable process of debate, after Jeremy Corbyn is interviewed, over what he actually meant. Does the Labour…
Diary
Whatever you do, don’t allow your six-year-old to be caught short at Crewkerne station. With the rain pouring and the…
The Spectator’s Notes
No amount of reports in the press that Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet-making is farcical and his party is divided should…
Corbyn is untouchable now
There have been few more pathetic displays of political impotence than the tweets sent by shadow cabinet members paying tribute…
Bye, George
Is Galloway’s luck finally running out?
Portrait of the year
January David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that only electing the Conservatives could ‘save Britain’s economic recovery’. Labour unveiled a…
Hug, hold hands . . . then stampede to the right
What a pleasure it was to see two socialist parties triumph in the most recent elections. First, Labour increased its…
After Labour’s Syria shambles, step forward Major Dan
It makes no sense for Britain to bomb Islamic State in Iraq but not Syria. Attacking a group that does…
