Westminster

No amount of reports in the press that Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet-making is farcical and his party is divided should distract us from the fact that he is winning. I don’t mean that he will become prime minister, or even (though this seems quite possible) that he will survive as leader until the general election. It is just that he is gradually bringing more and more of Labour under his control, and grinding down his opponents. Besides, his public positions are coherent — in the sense of being internally consistent — and he is quite accomplished at adhering to an undeviatingly hardline, left-wing ideology while sounding mild and decent. Taxed,

Since Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Labour leader, his close friend – and rumoured former lover — Diane Abbott has proved to be one of his most loyal allies. When Abbott — who has earned the nickname Madame Mao — isn’t spending PLP meetings writing her Christmas cards, the Shadow International Development Secretary can be found defending Corbyn from accusations of sexism, as well as appearing on television to praise the new regime. Still, with rumours circulating that Abbott is being given the cold shoulder by some members of Team Corbyn after a rather disastrous turn on Today, could it be that she is planning to change the way she deals with the media?

Almost exactly three years ago, Tom Watson stood up in parliament and demanded the Metropolitan police investigate ‘clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No. 10’. It was an incendiary claim which, because it was made during Prime Minister’s Questions and broadcast on live television, set hares running on social media and beyond. We know, now, that the police found no evidence to support an allegation of rape made against Leon Brittan by a woman known as ‘Jane’. But the question remains: what about that link to No. 10? I have spent much of the past three years looking into this. Working for BBC Panorama means following the

David Cameron might not be remembered as the best prime minister in modern British history but he will probably be remembered as the luckiest. Jeremy Corbyn’s election as leader of the Labour party is proving worse — or, for the Tories, better — than anyone could have imagined. His wrecking ball is busy destroying everything that was built by Labour’s modernisers. He does not lack authenticity, belief and passion — but his beliefs are ones which would be more at home in a 1920s plenary meeting of the Moscow Soviet than in contemporary British living rooms. The Chancellor sees Corbyn’s leadership as a chance to further blacken Labour’s name. The

Nigel Farage held another event in Westminster this morning to announce the dates of his ‘Say No – Believe in Britain’ tour, through which he hopes to drum up support for a Brexit. While the venue and message were identical to his press conference in July, the Ukip leader did reveal some details: twelve regional co-ordinators have been chosen, 300 events are planned over the next few months and six million leaflets will be delivered by Christmas. In light of the British Future polling on the toxicity of Ukip’s immigration message, Farage was keen point out he will work with anyone to achieve a Brexit — even Jeremy Corbyn. He said that a Corbyn victory

The Labour leadership candidate Andy Burnham, who has worked in politics for 21 years, makes much of his life outside the Westminster bubble. As well as releasing a campaign video designed to show off his Northern working-class roots, he told Andrew Neil on the Sunday Politics that part of the reason he is ‘rooted’ in the real world is that he has held down normal jobs outside of politics: AN: You work from a mile from where we are. Tell me one job you’ve had that’s not the Westminster bubble? AB: I worked for a newspaper, I worked for a publishing company before I came into politics. AN: For how

The shaming of Lord Sewel was a classic tabloid exposé. The fact that a peer of the realm (albeit one appointed by Tony Blair) was caught on camera apparently ingesting Class A drugs in the company of prostitutes is a good enough story in itself. The fact that the peer in question was chairman of the Lords privileges and conduct committee while he was doing so makes it very near to red-top nirvana. Since the publication of the story — and scores of lavish accompanying photographs — the peer’s Pimlico flat has been raided by police (who battered down a door to gain access), and Lord Sewel has resigned from

The media complain about ‘career politicians’. Yet when politicians come along who aren’t Oxford PPEists, who have progressed via think tanks and spadships to safe seats without their feet touching the ground, journalists are shocked by their failure to conform to contemporary mores. We want politicians to be different, it seems, as long as they stay the same. Tim Farron is that rarity in modern life: a senior politician from the north of England. The north has become the British equivalent of America’s flyover states, lost in the no-man’s land between the centres of real power in London and Edinburgh. Farron did not leave it until he came to Westminster.

‘Is Home Rule the only realistic alternative to independence?’ was the question posed at a Spectator debate, sponsored by Brewin Dolphin, in Edinburgh last week. In one sense the question is redundant since, no matter how much some nationalists claim otherwise, there is no reasonable or realistic scenario in which it is possible to envisage the United Kingdom government scrapping the Scottish parliament. Some measure of Home Rule, therefore, is indeed the only realistic alternative to independence? But what is Home Rule? As the panel agreed (not least since this has long been obvious) there is no agreed or even satisfactory definition of Home Rule. Is it, as the journalist

Since the 56 SNP MPs entered Parliament, they have taken to ‘rebelling’ against the establishment in a number of ways. So far they have focussed their time on trying to nab Dennis Skinner’s seat, going against Commons’ etiquette by clapping in the chamber, and purchasing white roses for the Queen’s Speech. Now they also appear to have had enough of corridors. Stewart McDonald, the SNP MP, claims that the Commons’ youngest MP Mhairi Black has come up with a shortcut through Parliament that involves walking through the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s office: And there was Mr S thinking that Black was beginning to prove the naysayers wrong.

While new MPs are sitting through tedious induction classes to teach them the rules of the House of Commons such as never clap in the chamber or call another member ‘you’, down the road another political institution is laying down the law. The Kennington Tandoori has been a home-from-home to politicians for decades, with numerous plots and shenanigans traced back to its darkened doors. Though if the sign that has just gone up in their window is anything to go by, the owners of the curry house are not quite as strict as the men in tights: As for rule no.4, Mr S is unsure how happy the last Scottish Lib Dem MP

Ahead of the arrival of 56 SNP MPs in Westminster yesterday, Alex Salmond offered his new colleagues some advice in a recent interview. He said: ‘Make your voice heard, represent your constituents, and stay out the Strangers Bar’. So far, so good. In fact, Salmond will no doubt be glad to hear that his fellow MPs have taken his advice and stayed out of the Strangers bar. Instead, they have opted to make Parliament’s sports and social bar their new base. Word reaches Steerpike that a few members of staff had their noses put out of joint last night when the lesser frequented bar was unexpectedly busy. ‘It was packed full of the SNP gang – on a Monday,’