fraser. good morning, welcome to brussels. boats are still being counted here at the european parliament. it very much feels like the morning after that i before, is a bleary eyes. i can see journalists asleep at the desks, surrounded by the detritus of half eaten food, bottles of water and quite a lot of coffee. no question what a story of the night was, the shift across the continent to the right. the hard right performing well in austria, the netherlands, germany. not so well in poland and slovakia. and, of course, the headline news overnight is the fact that president macron has called that snap election in france, where the national rally took 32% of the vote, compared to his party s 14%. that is a record performance for the national rally. it left the president, in his view, with no option but to dissolve parliament and call a snap election. translation: the rise - of nationalists and demagogues is a dangerfor our nation, but also for europe. i say this even though we h
A columnist with the guardian. Welcome to you all. Thanks for being back with us. Polly, we will talk a lot about theresa may and why she did it, but one thing all the commentators seem to have started this Election Campaign in agreement on is that this will see offJeremy Corbyn. But he seems to be relishing the job of underdog. Why . I think he likes elections. Big rallies are his thing, it is what is best at. It looks to me unlikely that he will leave, even if he thoroughly thrashed. Those around him seem to be saying hes going to stay until we get a rule change will make sure that another corbynite would take after, which would be at Party Conference in september. This is very internal labour party stuff, but theres every reason to think that even if he is thoroughly crushed, hes going to stay. He may stay, and that was perhaps one of the reasons why theresa may might have wanted this election, to finally lance that boil of an opposition she doesnt like. She has said she wants more
A columnist with the guardian. Welcome to you all. Thanks for being back with us. Polly, we will talk a lot about theresa may and why she did it, but one thing all the commentators seem to have started this Election Campaign in agreement on is that this will see offJeremy Corbyn. But he seems to be relishing the job of underdog. Why . I think he likes elections. Big rallies are his thing, it is what is best at. It looks to me unlikely that he will leave, even if he thoroughly thrashed. Those around him seem to be saying hes going to stay until we get a rule change will make sure that another corbynite would take after, which would be at Party Conference in september. This is very internal labour party stuff, but theres every reason to think that even if he is thoroughly crushed, hes going to stay. He may stay, and that was perhaps one of the reasons why theresa may might have wanted this election, to finally lance that boil of an opposition she doesnt like. She has said she wants more
says marine putin. three of the more extreme candidates here have actually said quite supportive things about vladimir putin in the last year or so and emmanuel macron is trying to harness that for the french public to say, look, as might appear that marine le pen is far more moderate than she was a few years ago but do not buy that. she is just as dangerous as she was before. worth also pointing out that if you cast your mind back 2002, when jacques if you cast your mind back 2002, whenjacques chirac was in a run off with marine le pen s father, and france then decided there was no way that they could possibly support a member of the far right and again that led to jacques chirac crashing marine le pen s father but marine le pen and her father don t get on any more, and that is how france that then. as things changed in the way