Michael White's Blog, page 5
July 8, 2016
In Andrea Leadsom the Tories may have another formidable Thatcher
Introverts such as Theresa May tend not to do well in the PM’s job; politics is sometimes about the bold seizing the opportunity
An entrepreneurial friend who doesn’t usually follow politics closely, but is alarmed by Donald Trump and Brexit, said the other day: “Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel and Theresa May, that might work.”
Good spot, though we can all see flaws in the scenario. Clinton may not beat the bouffant haired, billionaire “champion of the poor”. Merkel may soon lose office. As for the British home secretary and Tory leadership frontrunner, she may soon be beaten by a Home Counties rival who is fast reinventing herself as a rightwing populist.
Related: How Andrea Leadsom can beat Theresa May
Related: The sad truth: Theresa May is bad, but the other Tory candidates are worse | Rafael Behr
Related: Publication of Andrea Leadsom's CV prompts new questions about her career
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July 4, 2016
May v Leadsom? We just need someone to lead us out of this mess | Michael White
Not since the existential crisis of 1940 has a Conservative leadership battle carried so much potential for good or ill
It’s barely a week since I argued here that Brexit Britain is facing its gravest collective crisis since the second world war because the problems confronting us all are like multiple organ failure after a car crash: economic and political, social and constitutional. Paramedics must first stop the bleeding and stabilise the traumatised patient.
How have they been doing these past 10 days? Not very well. Try as I may to see positive developments since the result shocked both leave and remain camps, I can’t find much. Markets have steadied after their usual featherbrained panic, but that’s a respite, not a cure.
Related: Brexit live: Farage resigns as Ukip leader saying 'I want my life back'
Related: Jeremy Corbyn stands his ground as Labour seeks leadership deal
Related: Tories clash over Brexit ‘hysteria’ as leadership battle enters next phase
Continue reading...July 2, 2016
The Brexit vote aftermath, explained: a wild week in UK politics
From Labour infighting to the end of Boris Johnson, the shocking EU referendum result set into motion a series of events that no one could have predicted
Discussing the drama of Britain’s ground-shifting vote to withdraw from the European Union on National Public Radio this week, a Washington interviewer reminded his American listeners that the popular Machiavellian TV series House of Cards was originally set in Westminster, seat of the British parliament. It was even written by a Conservative party apparatchik whose real-life successors have rapidly outstripped his fiction.
“We always thought your West Wing was a bit idealistic,” NPR’s on-air guest in London interjected.
Related: Tory party leadership race: the road ahead
Continue reading...July 1, 2016
Don't wait for politics to be saved. It's time to get involved
Many people tend to ignore domestic politics until something goes wrong and it bites them – as it has now with Brexit
Do you know much about the technological “singularity”? No, nor do I, it’s way above my pay grade. But I heard it mentioned this week in the context of the meltdown over Brexit and the shambolic mess into which second-rate political leadership has led us.
Basically the much-disputed thesis of the singularity is the moment in the not too distant future when the exponential growth of artificial intelligence (AI) accelerates to the point where supercomputers can improve themselves without human knowledge, let alone consent. They can then take over, if they so choose.
Continue reading...June 27, 2016
Post-referendum chaos shows the inadequacy of our political class
Today’s politicians lack the intellectual heft and stature of our bygone leaders
Britain’s self-harming Brexit crisis, its unsettling outcome made worse by the feeble incoherence of the political class’s response, again highlights a wider problem for us all. What has gone wrong with quality control on the production lines of leadership in public life?
It’s not just our problem, of course, any more than aggressive populism tinged with nationalism is unique to Brexit, though parochial Brexiters may think so. There are people like them, thinking the same, in every country; that’s the point. Our national mood, angry and resentful, is part of a bigger malaise. Let’s call it Trumpery.
Related: Brexit: Osborne tries to calm markets as Angela Eagle joins Labour resignations - live
Continue reading...June 26, 2016
Brexit crisis won't end for years – and no one is taking responsibility
We hired Cameron to make decisions on our behalf but by passing the buck back to us he has created a dangerous political vacuum
Forget about the humiliating Suez invasion of 1956 or fallout from the 2003 Iraq war. Forget about the IMF crisis of 1976, sterling’s Black Friday in 1992 and Margaret Thatcher’s fight with Irish terrorism, let alone with the miners. I was born at the end of the second world war and this is now the greatest British political crisis of my lifetime.
Why? Because it is self-inflicted, hydra-headed and increasingly beyond our control, both politically and economically, at a time when Britain is losing friends fast by peeing on their chips. It may calm down – it will calm down – but this is a rolling crisis which will not end for years. No one can say with any confidence how it will end.
Related: Labour in crisis: shadow ministers resign in protest against Corbyn
Boris deserves to be made to sweep up the glass after the Brexit party, but it’s not his style
Buyers’ remorse is said to be gripping some casual Brexit voters, just as it gripped some Corbyn backers last year
Related: European far right hails Brexit vote
Continue reading...June 24, 2016
UK referendum: who can keep the post-Brexit landscape from falling apart?
The Leave vote throws into doubt the future of the United Kingdom, the EU, Nato – and stewardship of the UK itself. Can anyone capably step into the void left by David Cameron’s resignation?
With its usual talent for misplaced optimism the stock market had decided in the early hours of Friday morning that its complacent bet on a Remain vote was coming good. When the Leave camp’s majority for a British withdrawal from the European Union (EU) later became unmistakable London markets fell by £200bn and sterling suffered its worst drop for 30 years.
It may all calm down as level-headed self-interest reasserts itself over impassioned hearts. But many forces, most of them beyond British voters’ parochial concerns or politicians’ control, are at now work. In Berlin and Brussels, Paris and far beyond, not all are benign.
Continue reading...June 23, 2016
Brexit decision day: a last-minute primer as voters cast ballots to leave EU or stay
When the school buildings and church halls traditionally used as polling stations in Britain opened for business at 7am local time on Thursday and voters began arriving to register their verdicts in the referendum on whether the UK should remain part of the EU, first reports reflected the kind of differences this bitter campaign has accentuated.
Related: Brexit: from an American perspective, there is only one good outcome
Related: Don’t understand Brexit? Try replacing Brussels with Beltway | Amana Fontanella-Khan
Continue reading...June 22, 2016
In or out, Cameron's EU referendum may leave a toxic legacy | Michael White
The history of the political device loved by populists is not a happy one. In Scotland, it has created divisions and one-party rule
Why is it that a referendum campaign feels so different from the mood of a general election: more impassioned, more in your face, more bitterly divisive?
I felt uneasily the same covering Scotland’s 2014 campaign on independence from England, less so 41 years ago during Britain’s first Brexit ballot in 1975 over its barely dry membership of what we all called the Common Market.
Related: Ruth Davidson enjoys her Nicola Sturgeon moment in EU debate
Related: Exclusive: Nato chief says UK staying in the EU is key to fighting terrorism
Related: Jeff Mitchell's best photograph: ‘These people have been betrayed by Ukip’
Continue reading...June 21, 2016
David Cameron isn't the only leader facing conflicting pressures about Brexit
The Scottish National party hope a vote for Britain to leave the EU could set the stage for a second referendum – with Scotland up for exit – this fall
The British prime minister, David Cameron, is not the only party political leader facing conflicting pressures from his supporters as the country staggers towards Thursday’s divisive Brexit referendum on whether it should leave the 28-nation European Union. In Scotland’s devolved government in Edinburgh, the ruling Scottish National party (SNP) is widely suspected of gaming the campaign to secure a second referendum on independence north of the border.
Tensions within the UK’s main opposition Labour party are well documented. Jeremy Corbyn – the Bernie Sanders of Westminster politics – was elected as Labour’s most leftwing leader in 80 years during the activist revolt against two successive election defeats last year. His has been a vocal anti-EU analysis throughout his 30-year career as an MP.
Related: Attempts to elevate the Brexit debate following MP's death begin to fray
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