Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Monday

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Do as I say (not as I do): Nick Clegg’s Privy Council double standards

Last week the Sun roused anger after they ran a front page claiming that the Queen backs Brexit. The paper reports that the Queen expressed concerns about the European Union during a tense exchange with Nick Clegg over lunch in 2011. With Clegg stopping short of completely denying the story, Michael Gove has since been accused of being behind the leak after it was revealed that the pair both attended a lunch with the Queen that year. Clegg has expressed outrage that Privy Council members would dare to divulge details of private conversations with the Queen: ‘I find it rather distasteful to reveal conversations with the Queen.’ So imagine Mr S’s surprise on reading the Mail on

Irwin Stelzer

Don’t listen to Obama – real Americans want Brexit

Because Americans love Britain, and because we are a presumptuous lot, we often advise the United Kingdom on its foreign policy. And not only the UK, but Europe. Successive US administrations have urged European nations to form a United States of Europe as an answer to the question attributed to Henry Kissinger: ‘Who do I call if I want to call Europe?’ The latest such unrequested advice was offered to your Prime Minister by no less a foreign-policy maven — see his successes in Libya, Middle East, China, Crimea — than Barack Obama. The outgoing president informed David Cameron that his administration wants to see ‘a strong United Kingdom in

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris vs Barack in the EU referendum campaign

As the EU referendum campaign wears on, the rules of engagement from both sides are becoming clearer – or at least the rules that both sides would like to use for engagement. The Inners are in favour, unsurprisingly, of throwing everything they can at the campaign to keep Britain in the EU. The Outers are annoyed that the Inners are doing this, though their surprise often seems exaggerated: they cannot really be shocked that a government would try to do everything to stop a change that it thinks is a bad thing for the country. Today Boris Johnson sets out one of the rules of engagement that Brexit campaigners would

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Right-wing populists surge in Germany’s state elections

Angela Merkel continues to reap the whirlwind. In this weekend’s elections Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has emerged as the fastest-growing political insurgent party since 1945. It has managed to enter all three state parliaments – with over 10pc of the vote in Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and almost a quarter of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt, more than double the centre-left SPD. It focused its campaign as a protest against Merkel’s migrant policy, a policy that paid off. Its success is more than just another example of Europeans letting off steam. Imagine if Nigel Farage declared that police should be ready to shoot migrants trying to make it from Calais to Britain; saying: ‘I don’t want to do

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne heads into Budget week in defiant mood

Based on the tone that he took on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, we can expect George Osborne to take a rather defiant tone as he unveils this week’s Budget. The Chancellor has had a difficult few weeks, not least because of the retreat on pension reforms and defeat on Sunday trading, but he tried to turn this into a virtue, saying: ‘The big picture is people look at Britain and they see a country getting its act together and putting its house in order. And if you look at what we do as a government, I think we take big, radical, reforming steps. Yeah, we have got a

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Watch: Seema Malhotra’s car-crash Sunday Politics interview

With the Budget due next week, George Osborne appeared on the Andrew Marr show to warn of the need for further spending cuts. Keen to put forward an alternative vision for the UK economy, Labour’s Treasury team have also taken to the airwaves this morning. John McDonnell told Marr of the need for more long-term investment, arguing that at least 3 per cent of GDP should be used for investment compared to Osborne’s 1.4 per cent. Alas it seems that Labour’s shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury had failed to catch this. When Seema Malhotra appeared on the Sunday Politics to help explain McDonnell’s vision she appeared to lack knowledge of any of the specifics.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The old case for Scottish independence is dead; long live the new case for Scottish independence

Who knew Nicola Sturgeon was a devotee of Saint Augustine? Her message to the SNP conference yesterday was simple: Lord, grant me independence but not yet. And how the people cheered! The mere mention of independence was enough to send the nationalists into a state of millenarian rapture as they imagined the ecstasy to come. Nothing else – not even the ritual pillorying of the hated Tories nor the now equally traditional concern trolling of Scottish Labour – excited Ms Sturgeon’s audience. Only the thought and prospect of independence brought them to their feet, a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ like the Highland Light Infantry on a payday night out. But it will not be

Saturday

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Boris, Miss World and Bublé at Lord Ashcroft’s 70th birthday party

Lord Ashcroft is celebrating his 70th birthday at the Grosvenor House Hotel and Mr S is honoured to be one of the guests. William Hague, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Iain Duncan Smith, Penny Mordant and even Tom Watson are amongst the guests at perhaps the most lavish birthday party anyone will host in London this year. His 50th and 60th had people talking about them years afterwards, so no one expects his 70th to disappoint. There are actors hired to be paper boys, brandishing fake newspapers with headlines about the noble lord suing anyone who suggests he has turned 70. Ashcroft doesn’t seem to mind self-mockery either. Blofeld, the cat-stroking

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Don’t expect Budget fireworks from George Osborne

Don’t expect ‘fireworks’ from the Budget one of Osborne’s closest political allies told me this week. Ahead of the Budget on Wednesday the Chancellor finds himself hemmed in by the EU referendum, fraying Tory discipline and the worsening global economic situation, I say in my Sun column this week. A Budget four years out from a general election is normally when a government takes some risks. But I doubt Osborne will be doing much of that on Wednesday. First, he doesn’t want to do anything to make the EU referendum more difficult for the government to win—the intensity with which David Cameron is campaigning reveals how worried he is about

Friday

Peter Oborne

Barack Obama is right: David Cameron let Libya fall into the abyss

In their interview in the Christmas edition of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth asked the Prime Minister whether he now considered that his intervention in Libya had been a mistake. David Cameron accepted that matters could have gone better since the fall of Gaddafi, but insisted that ‘what we were doing was preventing a mass genocide’. Like Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Gaddafi’s genocide seems to have been a fiction. It was reiterated over and over again by government and in the media in order to whip up support for the imposition a no-fly zone in March 2011. However, there was never any convincing evidence. Later that summer

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Alastair Campbell is confronted by his namesake: ‘have you got any idea what my life has been like?’

Although Alastair Campbell no longer works in politics, he remains a divisive figure in Westminster thanks to the reputation he earned as Tony Blair’s spin doctor. During this time, Campbell is said to have been instrumental in using spin to win parliamentary approval for Blair’s call to invade Iraq. Still, Campbell appears to think that it’s about time people got over any ill-feelings towards him as a result of this. Speaking at Portland’s Rising Stars party, Campbell gave a speech to the spin doctors of tomorrow. In this, he complained that even though he left Downing Street 12 years ago, he still gets ‘load of sh-t’: ‘I always feel when I’m in

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Simon Hughes’ new job brings him back to the Commons

After Simon Hughes lost his seat in the general election, the Liberal Democrat stalwart went from Justice Minister to unemployed overnight. Happily the former Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats has since managed to find work, recently being appointed to cover maternity leave for the Open University’s head of public affairs Laura Burley. However, Mr S understands that Hughes’ new role is the cause of much amusement in the Commons. Parliamentary staffers report receiving calls from Hughes — who built a reputation over the years for being one of the Commons’ more sanctimonious figures — asking if MPs will be attending events relating to the Open University. ‘We usually receive these calls firming up RSVPs for

Charles Moore Charles Moore

There are no easy answers to the EU question

People — nice people, members of the public, concerned voters — keep coming up to me saying, ‘We want to hear the arguments about the EU referendum.’ It sounds a strange thing to want because, since the last years of Margaret Thatcher’s government, the arguments have rarely been out of the news for a week, and jolly boring they often are. But what such people go on to say is that they seek the objective facts and cannot get them from either side in the campaign. They would like some useful fact sheet which answers all their questions. Well, from time to time, papers like the Telegraph and the Times

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

John McDonnell tries to repair Labour’s economic reputation 

What is Labour’s biggest obstacle to getting back into government any time soon? Those who’ve spent any time thinking about the general election result – and the party still doesn’t talk that much about May 2015 – will say that until voters trust the party on the economy, it is not going to succeed. John McDonnell’s team clearly agrees, briefing the media today that the reason the Shadow Chancellor is making a major intervention on the economy as he prepares for the Budget is that voters were wary of Labour on the economy.  McDonnell’s speech today sounds remarkably similar to the messages Ed Balls offered before the election, that Liz

Thursday

Peter Jones

Governor Cameron and the Brussels empire

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the EU Commission, made a typically brilliant intervention in the EU referendum debate by arguing that ‘Whoever does not believe in Europe, who doubts Europe, whoever despairs of Europe, should visit the military cemeteries in Europe.’ Cicero made just this point to his brother Quintus, who in 59 bc was about to embark on his third term as governor of Asia Minor (now western Turkey): ‘Asia ought to remember that, if she were not governed by us, she would hardly have been spared the disasters of external war or internal discord. But our government cannot be maintained without taxes, and Asia ought without resentment to pay

The Spectator

Turkey’s blackmail

Looked at from the narrow perspective of how to deal with the lethal business of human trafficking across the Aegean, this week’s deal between the EU and Turkey shows some encouraging signs. Slowly, the EU seems to be realising that the surest way to stop migrants dying in unseaworthy boats is to adopt similar measures to those used by Tony Abbott the former Australian Prime Minister: turn back the boats, and deport those who land illegally. The Australians paid Malaysia to help handle the migrant problem. The EU is paying Turkey more than £4 billion over the next three years to contain 2.5 million refugees. The problem, however, is that

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 10 March 2016

Surely there is a difference between Mark Carney’s intervention in the Scottish referendum last year and in the EU one now. In the first, everyone wanted to know whether an independent Scotland could, as Alex Salmond asserted, keep the pound and even gain partial control over it. The best person to answer this question was the Governor of the Bank of England. So he answered it, and the answer — though somewhat more obliquely expressed — was no. For the vote on 23 June, there is nothing that Mr Carney can tell us which we definitely need to know and which only he can say. So when he spoke to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Can the Leave campaign mount as scary a Project Fear as David Cameron?

David Cameron’s referendum campaign trail continued today, with the Prime Minister visiting Chester and giving a speech defending Britain’s membership of the European Union. And on the other side his Cabinet colleague Chris Grayling gave a speech warning about the dangers of continuing to stay in the bloc. Neither speech today was particularly angry with the other side – though separately Vote Leave’s Matthew Elliott accused the Prime Minister of being ‘desperate to change the subject from his failure to deliver his manifesto promises on immigration’. Cameron’s main Project Fear theme was to accuse pro-Leave campaigners of seeing job losses as a ‘price worth paying’, and therefore to sow further

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Michael Crick chases down Lord Feldman

Michael Crick’s Channel 4 report into Tory election spending has led to an investigation by the Electoral Commission into the hotel bills and advertising bills the Conservatives failed to declare as election expenditure. So it’s safe to say that Crick is unlikely to be the flavour of the month over at CCHQ. In fact Lord Feldman has so far ignored interview requests from Channel 4 when it comes to explaining his party’s spending. So with Feldman not returning his calls, Crick saw his opportunity after he spied the Conservative Party chairman walking in the Westminster area. The story hungry hack sprinted after him, eventually catching Feldman for an awkward exchange. MC: Why don’t

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why are politicians so self-loathing?

One of the poorest lines in Dan Jarvis’s speech this morning was not the pre-briefed line about being ‘tough on inequality, tough on the causes of inequality’, which has already endured sufficient mockery. It was this seemingly innocuous proposal: ‘Let’s be honest – MPs who represent areas along the HS2 route or in the Heathrow flight path have a tough call about whether to vote for these schemes. So let’s take out the politics. Let’s look at new powers that allow the government to refer major infrastructure decisions to the National Infrastructure Commission for an independent decision on whether projects should go ahead.’ Jarvis isn’t the first politician to say