Red Box - Friday June 7 2019

PLUS: Which leadership candidate is a Lady Gaga fan?

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Friday June 7 2019

By Matt Chorley

Good morning,

An early start for me this morning, for a 7am start in central London to record another episode of the Red Box podcast walking out with a Tory leadership candidate.

You can hear that on Monday but there is also a cracker with another runner coming at 5pm today.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen so you don't miss an episode.

Matt Chorley

Red Box Editor

@MattChorley

The briefing

Theresa May officially stands down as Conservative leader today, formally triggering the leadership contest. She will remain PM until the new leader is announced on July 23.
As a special leaving present the Tories slumped to third in the Peterborough by-election and fourth in a new national YouGov poll.
If Philip Hammond thinks that his days as chancellor are numbered he is not letting it on. Yesterday he was warning the PM over the cost of going green. Today he is in Japan pushing for international action on tax rules for the digital era.
President Putin appeared to offer an olive branch as he said that Russia and Britain should “turn a page” following the Skripal poisoning and boost ties after May’s exit.
President Macron of France used the inauguration of the new British Normandy Memorial to proclaim that his friendship with May would outlast the difficulties of Brexit.
The Queen risks being pulled into a “terrible conflict” over Brexit, it was claimed, after Dominic Raab refused to rule out suspending parliament to force through a no-deal exit.
Two MPs have been named on the second annual Vogue 25 list of high-powered and visionary women. Marsha de Cordova, Labour’s shadow disabilities minister, is registered blind. “It goes without saying that we need more women like De Cordova in parliament,” Vogue says. Also on the list: Luciana Berger, hailed for being a founding member of Change UK — The Independent Group. She quit the group this week, obviously after the magazine went to press.
Today’s trivia question: It's 21 years since Theresa May was first appointed to the front bench as shadow schools minister under William Hague. Which colleague holds exactly the same service record? Answer at the bottom of today's email

Poor Nigel

The conditions could only have been better if the by-election had been held in the city of Nigelborough.

The sitting Labour MP had gone to jail and the Labour candidate was accused of racism; the Tories are leaderless and clueless; the European elections had given the Brexit Party unprecedented results and coverage; and this was a seat that voted 61 per cent for Leave.

And still Nigel Farage’s latest political vehicle stalled at the last minute, losing in the Peterborough by-election to Labour by 683 votes.

Now, we should remember that for a party that did not exist four months ago this is still an achievement. We should also remember, though, that history tells us that results like this are often a high point for small parties, not a stepping stone.

Sunder Katwala points out on Twitter that this result was not as good as Ukip's best by-election result (ignoring its wins with defecting MPs). In Heywood & Middleton in 2014 Ukip got 38.5 per cent of the vote and lost by only 600. In the general election a year later it lost by 5,000 votes and then by 23,000 in 2017.

Steven Fielding winds the clock back even further, tweeting: “In March 1983 Labour held on to Darlington in a by-election many thought it would lose to the SDP. Embattled leader Michael Foot said Labour would win forthcoming general election inspired by 'spirit of Darlington'. In that election Thatcher won a landslide & captured Darlington.”

This was a golden moment for the Brexit Party. The resignation of the former Labour MP Fiona Onasanya after she was jailed for lying about speeding points created the perfect anti-politics backdrop for an insurgent party. Theresa May’s limbo politics, seeing how low she can take the Tories, cleared space for an unashamedly pro-Brexit force.

It's also worth noting the Conservatives' supposed golden boy - Boris Johnson, who filmed his campaign video in Peterborough - did not exactly get people falling over themselves to vote Tory.

Jeremy Corbyn’s equivocal position on Brexit was supposed to appeal to everyone yet it risks appealing to no one. And then his party selected Lisa Forbes, who days before the by-election was reported to have endorsed antisemitic Facebook posts, including one that claimed that May had a “Zionist Slave Masters agenda”.

“I don't have a bad bone in my body towards any race of people,” she told Sky News overnight in a grovelling apology.

What she did have was a party machine. A local structure to knock on doors and get their vote out (while avoiding getting out their opponents’ supporters).

Mike Greene, the Brexit Party candidate, said this morning: “Naturally it is a blow to lose by so few votes but you have to remember that the Labour Party have millions of pounds to throw at elections and have been doing this for more than a hundred years.”

Yet it was anger at 100-year-old establishment parties that was supposed to catapult him to victory.

As the BBC reports this morning: “Mr Farage made a brief appearance at the count before the result was announced but left without talking to reporters.” You know things are bad when Farage won’t speak to reporters. Although he should be used to this by now, having lost on seven attempts to become an MP himself and countless more as a party leader.

It is not all bad news for the Brexit Party. A new YouGov poll for The Times gives them a six-point lead in a national survey asking how people would vote in a general election. Team Farage is on 26 per cent, ahead of Labour and the Lib Dems tied on 20 per cent. The Conservatives are in fourth place on 18 per cent, with the Greens on nine.

It is further confirmation of the remarkable success of the Brexit Party, which was only formally registered in February. By contrast Change UK, formed by MPs who defected from Labour and the Conservatives, is now polling on zero per cent. Stop laughing at the back.

The emergence of the new political forces has prompted YouGov to adapt the way it runs its surveys. The Brexit Party and the Green Party are now both included in the list of options when asking for voting intentions alongside the Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, and Plaid Cymru. It has carried out testing this week and found similar levels of support regardless of the method used.

A breakdown of the latest poll shows that 42 per cent of people who backed May’s Tories in 2017 have switched to the Brexit Party, which also picks up one in ten Labour and Lib Dem voters.

But the Peterborough result shows that converting top-level public enthusiasm into hard votes, in the right places, is going to be hard. More likely it will deny the Tories seats, clearing the way for Labour.

The Brexit Party balloon hasn’t burst but it’s lost a fair bit of air. And unless Farage keeps a tight grip on it, it risks just darting uncontrollably around the country, blowing an angry raspberry, before slumping all shrivelled to the floor.

Poll of the day

The national YouGov poll made for better reading for the Brexit Party than the Peterborough result.

In yesterday's poll by far the most favoured potential leadership candidate was Penny Mordaunt, on 68 per cent. Sir Graham Brady was second on 14 per cent, Steve Baker got 9 per cent, Priti Patel 6 per cent and Jesse Norman 3 per cent.

Red Box: Comment

Protest votes might be bolstering the Lib Dems but they can recede just as quickly

Charlotte Henry – commentator

We must unite against the forces of raw nationalism and rapacious neoliberalism

Ellie Chowns – Green MEP

Have your say

Yesterday I asked which of the candidates you think would be the worst PM.

Elaine Davies said: "At a time as a nation when we are so divided by Brexit the last thing we need is a Marmite leader like Boris, who divides opinion like no other candidate! It’s Rory or bust for me! But then I am a Lib Dem."

Rosemary O'Donoghue said: "Boris Johnson should not be elected as prime minister because he lacks judgment, as evidenced by his dealings with the Iranian authorities resulting in the increase in sentence for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe."

Chez said: "It has to be Michael Gove. Instead of cleaning up animal husbandry and vaccinating he prefers to kill badgers. We are still waiting for his response to public overwhelming request to ban the import of lion trophies."

Bill Bradbury said: "Put all their names in a bag. Shake them up and whoever will be pulled out will be the worst. A version of 'none of them above (or below)'."

TODAY: Which Conservative leadership contender would be the biggest headache for Nigel Farage? Email redbox@thetimes.co.uk and we'll use some of the best tomorrow.

The best comment

A land tax can be fertile ground for Labour

Philip Collins – The Times

Tory leadership race is looking like a stitch-up

Iain Martin – The Times

Donald Trump’s sartorial meltdown

Caitlin Moran – The Times

The Conservatives’ problem in Peterborough and beyond is that they can never win Brexit

Stephen Bush - The i

I'm a Labour supporter but I still wish Change UK had been more successful

Emma Burnell - Prospect

The cartoon

Today's cartoon from The Times is by Peter Brookes.

Need to know

DO IT AGAIN: Germany and most other EU governments will back another delay to Brexit regardless of who becomes prime minister, a senior European source says. (The Times)

FAST TRACK: HS2 trains will be able to run across northern England under plans for a fully integrated high-speed network. (The Times)

Red Box: Comment

By legislating on trans rights Theresa May could leave a great legacy

Benjamin Cohen – chief executive of PinkNews

Leadershipwatch

All this week Esther Webber and I have been asking the Tory leadership contenders about their cultural hinterland. The entire piece in Times2 is worth reading but this is just a flavour of what these would-be PMs do to switch off.

RUNNING

Boris Johnson is a fan of the Rolling Stones and once wrote that on first hearing Start Me Up “something in my endocrine system gave a squirt, and pow!”.
Jeremy Hunt says that it’s “too hard to pick” his favourite box set but plumps for early Game of Thrones or the Scandinavian detective thriller The Bridge.
Rory Stewart says that he’s pretty tone deaf and so bad at singing that “it’s very embarrassing”. He explains: “My father died recently and I had to lead singing around his grave, and it’s just awful. I’m a really, really bad singer.”
Andrea Leadsom is quite partial to the Canadian singer Shawn Mendes. “Oh, and I’d like to see the new version of Aladdin but my children have already been to see it,” she says. “Can a 56-year-old woman go and see Aladdin on her own?”
Michael Gove likes Human League “but Take That are my guilty pleasure”, and he always listens to music while he works — “Motown, Eighties music and 19th-century classical composers”. He sings badly, apparently, in “a terrible bass voice”, and reveals that he used to be able to play the tuba.
Matt Hancock says that the music choices in his household are now largely dictated by his children (“lots of Jess Glynne and teen pop”). He admits to singing “with enthusiasm if not ability” and playing the piano “badly”.
Sajid Javid responds to a question about his favourite artist saying: “I’ve kept the drawings my four kids have made. They’re always No 1.”
Sam Gyimah’s favourite TV show is Peaky Blinders and his favourite pop artist is Lady Gaga.
Esther McVey prefers Echo and the Bunnymen — “poetic, ground-breaking music that I grew up to in Liverpool”.
Mark Harper likes Abba, particularly Take a Chance on Me, but adds: “I can’t sing, no. I also can’t dance, as attested to by my minor dancing accident in 2013."

NOT RUNNING

Jesse Norman (half-politician, half-Bertrand Russell impersonator) decided after much rumination on Twitter that he was not standing. He also consulted constituents, two of whom were so opposed to him that Norman could only relate their thoughts through an artful euphemism. “They encouraged me to engage in novel arts of physical contortionism,” he said. More from the TMS diary

Essential reading

The Sketch

Springtime for Stewart is no laughing matter

Quentin Letts

Rory Stewart may be the Max Bialystock of the Conservative leadership contest. In Mel Brooks’s musical The Producers the impresario Bialystock sets out to create a flop, his accountant having said he can make more money from a loss-making show than from a hit. Bialystock devises a surefire stinker: Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp With Adolf And Eva At Berchtesgaden. It opens in, of all places, New York city. Bialystock goes off to a bar to celebrate — only to discover, to his horror, that audiences think it a satirical hoot.

Read the full sketch

Red Box: Comment

Factory workers are at last realising there’s a price to pay for Brexit

John Kampfner – commentator

Now read this

When one of Ernest Green’s relatives heard an old seaman on the radio talking about his adventures on HMS Redpole, they drew it to his attention.

“Didn’t you serve on that ship?” Mr Green was asked. “Do you remember Robert Barnett?”

Mr Green had not seen his old comrade since 1946 but on Wednesday night, on a ship taking veterans to Normandy, Able Seamen Green and Barnett were reunited. The pair, both 93, served on the Redpole when she went to Juno Beach on D-Day, and remained together on the ship until 1946.

When Mr Barnett injured an elbow and was sent home that was the last they saw of each other, even though they lived only 19 miles apart in Dorset.

Read the full story

TMS

From the diary

By Jack Blackburn

No milkshakes in Peterborough

Peterborough has a new MP after yesterday’s by-election, but though this is a divisive time in British politics the campaign has been tranquil by local standards. Stewart Jackson, Tory MP there until 2017, says that the constituency has produced “rough and tumble” since it first returned a member in 1542. “In 1906, one candidate for that year’s general election had their carriage set alight by opponents, and in 1970 Harmar Nicholls [the Tory MP] knocked out a trades union shop steward at a hustings.” Thank God no one had a milkshake.