Politics

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

Thursday

21 Apr 2016

The Spectator podcast: Obama’s Brexit overreach

To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. Is Barack Obama’s intervention in the Brexit debate a welcome one or should he keep his nose out of our business? Tim Montgomerie says in his Spectator cover piece that such overreach is typical of the US President’s arrogance. But Anne Applebaum disagrees and says that Obama speaks on behalf of many Americans when he calls on Britain to stay engaged in European politics. So should we listen to Obama? Joining Isabel Hardman to discuss is Spectator deputy editor Freddy Gray and the

Fraser Nelson

How to save Conservatism

Iain Duncan Smith may have lost his job, but he has found a new whisky. It’s called Monkey Shoulder, and they became acquainted when he went to lie low in the Highlands after his resignation. When he went to buy a new bottle from Robertsons of Pitlochry he was told he’d have to wait a few days. ‘I told them not to worry, that I had more time on my hands. The man behind me said: “Yes, we know all about that — you were the talk of the town here for days.”’ It’s an example, he says, of how his resignation struck a far deeper chord than he imagined

Anne Applebaum

He speaks for America

[audioplayer src=”http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/260046943-the-spectator-podcast-obamas-eu-intervention-the-pms.mp3″ title=”Janet Daley and Freddy Gray discuss Obama’s overreach” startat=27] Listen [/audioplayer]You don’t like Barack Obama’s foreign policy? Fine, I don’t either. You are impatient to know who the next president will be? Me too. But if you think that the current American president’s trip to the UK this week is some kind of fanciful fling, or that his arguments against Brexit represent the last gasp of his final term in office, then you are deeply mistaken. In Washington, the opposition to a British withdrawal from the European Union is deep, broad and bipartisan, shared by liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans alike. I should qualify that: the opposition to a

Tim Montgomerie

Obama’s overreach

[audioplayer src=”http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/260046943-the-spectator-podcast-obamas-eu-intervention-the-pms.mp3″ title=”Janet Daley and Freddy Gray discuss Obama’s overreach” startat=27] Listen [/audioplayer]Nobody could describe Donald Trump as lacking in self-confidence, but the billionaire egomaniac is emotional jelly compared with King Barack. Even before he won the Nobel peace prize, Obama was telling America that his elevation to the presidency would be remembered as ‘the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow’. He doesn’t have Mr Trump’s gold-plated helicopter, private jet, penthouse and yacht. But when it comes to self-reverence and sheer hauteur there is no one to beat him. Someone who believes his political personality can reverse global warming will have no doubts about his ability

James Forsyth

Cameron’s heading for a hollow victory

[audioplayer src=”http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/260046943-the-spectator-podcast-obamas-eu-intervention-the-pms.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss the PM’s hollow victory” startat=511] Listen [/audioplayer]‘Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won,’ wrote the Duke of Wellington after Waterloo. David Cameron may well feel the same about referendums on 24 June. The EU debate is already taking a toll on the Tory party and his premiership. While defeat would be disastrous for him, even victory will come at a heavy political cost. Victory is, for now, still the most likely outcome. Barring a dramatic worsening of the migrant crisis or another eurozone emergency, the uncertainty inherent in leaving the EU will probably mean

James Delingpole

Oxford in my day was another, better world

I was in the attic killing some Taleban on Medal of Honor when Girl interrupted and said: ‘Dad, what’s this?’ What it was was a pile of memorabilia which I’d stuffed into a plastic shopping bag on leaving university and which I’d barely looked at since. We picked through the contents rapt with wonder. To me it seems like yesterday but this was a window to a world that no longer exists — an Oxford at least as remote from current experience as my Oxford was from the version attended 30 years earlier by all those clever grammar-school boys with their pipes and tweed suits, fresh from doing their National

Wednesday

20 Apr 2016

Steerpike

Watch: Ed Vaizey grilled by Andrew Neil over George Osborne’s dodgy EU dossier

It fell on Ed Vaizey, the culture minister, to defend George Osborne’s dodgy EU dossier on the BBC’s Daily Politics. As you might expect, he didn’t do a very good job of it. Could he explain why the Chancellor used his new, misleading metric of “GDP per household” instead of the proper (and lower) figure of household income? No, he couldn’t. Could he explain why, if the Chancellor thinks this new GDP-per-household metric is so important, he divided 2030 income by the 2016 number of households (27m) rather than the expected number then (31m)? No. Could he name another Treasury budget, or pre-Budget report, where this GDP per household had ever been used before?

Charles Moore

Simon Danczuk’s ‘dark place’ excuse should be used more widely

If you are caught doing something bad nowadays, what you are supposed to say (the latest exponent is Simon Danczuk MP, the anti-child abuse zealot, after ‘sexting’ a 17-year-old girl) is: ‘I was in a very dark place at the time.’ At present, the phrase is used to half-excuse sexual misbehaviour, drug-taking and the like. I hope it will extend more widely, as in ‘Mr Osborne, why did you create the Office of Budget Responsibility to make economic forecasting independent of the Treasury, and then use the Treasury to concoct an economic forecast to frighten people into voting to stay in the EU?’ A shamed Chancellor: ‘I was in a very

Steerpike

Watch: Vote Leave’s Dom Cummings is grilled by Andrew Tyrie – ‘this sounds like Aladdin’s cave to me’

Popcorn at the ready! Today Vote Leave’s Dominic Cummings has been hauled before the Treasury committee to answer questions on ‘the economic and financial costs and benefits of UK’s EU membership’. To begin this, Cummings — who has been described by former colleagues as a Tory Che Guevara — was grilled by the committee’s chair Andrew Tyrie. The tone was set from the start: DC: “I’ve got another meeting at four, so I’ll have to be out of here before that.” AT: “I don’t think you’ve got the hang of these proceedings. We ask the questions and you stay and answer them.” DC: “I’m just telling you when I’ll be leaving.” AT:

Lloyd Evans

PMQs Sketch: The Tories have redefined the term ‘manifesto’

Does Cameron care any more? Insouciance is a more attractive quality than earnestness in a leader but Cameron is taking his demob-happiness to extremes. He dismisses every crisis with a bored eye-roll and a wave of the hand. Doctors strike? No big deal. Backbench revolt over education? Been there before. Dodgy dossier on Brexit? All forgotten by the summer. Tax evasion scandal? A scrap of signed paperwork will sort it. Corbyn attacked Tory plans to academise schools against their will. This is the same freedom-at-gunpoint policy that worked so well in Iraq and transformed a malign dictatorship into a thrusting modern democracy. Cameron believes that cattle-prodding schools into accepting autonomy

Martin Vander Weyer

Brexit forecasting is futile – and both sides should just admit it

The most striking thing about the Treasury’s forecast of the impact of Brexit is the relative modesty of its claim that by 2030, assuming a UK-EU trade deal akin to the one negotiated by Canada, ‘our GDP would be 6.2 per cent lower’ while ‘families would be £4,300 worse off’. Since those quotes come from the foreword signed by George Osborne, many voters will distrust the whole document — in which case they might prefer the even more modest ‘worst case’ of a 2.2 per cent GDP hit by 2030 predicted by non-partisan think-tank Open Europe alongside what it calls ‘a far more realistic’ range of possible outcomes ‘between a

Hamish Macdonell

The SNP manifesto reveals a new approach to Scottish nationalism

Do you want to know what it looks like when one party has become the most dominant force in its country’s political history, when one in every 30-odd voters is a member of that party and when it is regularly topping 50 per cent in the polls? Then look no further than central Edinburgh this morning where Nicola Sturgeon was launching the SNP’s Holyrood election manifesto. The queues to get in to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre stretched back for several streets as supporters and party members waited eagerly in the warm spring sunshine for the chance to hear, and see, their leader in person. The inside of the hall

James Forsyth

PMQs: David Cameron brings up Sadiq Khan’s extremist links

Today’s PMQs was a reminder that the old fashioned approach of detailed, forensic questioning on a single topic works best. Jeremy Corbyn delivered his best performance as leader of the opposition today, questioning David Cameron on why all schools will have to become academies. He skilfully exploited Tory splits over the issue. The relative silence from the Tory benches did nothing to shake the impression that this is a policy in trouble; which is a pity given that too many local authorities continue to exert a negative influence on education. But the most heated moment of the session came later when Cameron started talking about Sadiq Khan having shared a platform

Steerpike

Watch: David Cameron wades into Labour’s McDonald’s row – ‘I’m lovin’ it’

This week Jeremy Corbyn has faced an MPs’ revolt over the Labour party’s decision to ban McDonald’s from having a stall at its party conference. A number of MPs have accused the Labour leader of snobbery, while Corbyn’s spokesman has had to admit that he does not know what the vegetarian Labour leader could even eat at the popular fast food chain. Happily one person is at least enjoying the ongoing row. David Cameron brought up Labour’s misfortune at PMQs. He explained that he had at first thought the party were banning John McDonnell from Labour conference, before realising it was something much worse. He added that he was “lovin'” the row, in

Isabel Hardman

Why is Scottish Labour putting so much effort into its Trident policy?

It’s perhaps not a surprise that Scottish Labour will oppose Trident renewal in the party’s manifesto for the Holyrood elections. The party did hold a symbolic vote on the matter at its conference last autumn, and delegates voted against renewal of the nuclear deterrent, despite Kezia Dugdale’s own preference for multilateral disarmament. And it’s not a surprise that this has enraged trade union GMB Scotland, which is pushing for a vote in favour of the Trident successor programme at today’s Scottish Trades Union Congress conference. SMB Scottish Secretary Gary Smith accused the Scottish Labour party of playing ‘fast and loose with thousands of livelihoods at Faslane, Coulport, Rosyth and across

Steerpike

Ben Goldsmith gets behind his brother’s campaign: ‘back Zac or crack!’

To Aqua Nueva on Regent Street where the Spanish bar was transformed into a Mediterranean getaway for one night only to celebrate the Ibiza Preservation Fund… or Zac Goldsmith’s mayoral campaign, depending on who you spoke to. While guests including Bryan Adams and George Lamb gathered at the champagne-fuelled bash to show their support for the conservation trust — which aims to help preserve Ibiza and Formentera’s countryside and marine areas — its co-founder Ben Goldsmith couldn’t resist going off piste. In his speech on the fund, Goldsmith tried to tell the crowd about his brother’s mayoral campaign. ‘Zac would be here if he could, but he’s a little busy,’ he explained,

Alex Massie

All shall have prizes: the SNP launch the most unnecessary manifesto in Scottish political history

The SNP launched their manifesto for the forthcoming election to the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh today. 1,400 party members gathered for morning worship at the Edinburgh International conference Centre. Members of the media were forced to wear security bracelets emblazoned with the slogan “I’m with Nicola” which, given the contempt with which many nationalists view the press, was a nice touch. Your correspondent was not present, partly because he had forgotten the manifesto launch was taking place today but chiefly because none of it mattered in the slightest. The SNP don’t need a manifesto to win this election. They are the masters now and there’s nothing they or their opponents can

Isabel Hardman

Leave campaigners brace themselves for ‘In’ onslaught

If the number of foreign politicians and international organisations that the government is enlisting in the campaign to stay in the EU is anything to go by, David Cameron and George Osborne are a bit nervous about the outcome of the referendum. This week in particular has seen the Chancellor using not just the might of the Treasury to scare voters about Brexit, or just the might of the President of the United States, but also eight former US Treasury secretaries. In their letter today, the former ministers write that Britain leaving the EU would threaten the Special Relationship. They argue: ‘It would reduce Britain’s very positive influence as an

Steerpike

What ‘stinking cesspit of corporate corruption’? Steve Hilton refuses to say he backs Brexit

In More Human, Steve Hilton describes the EU as ‘a stinking cesspit of corporate corruption gussied up in the garb of idealistic internationalism’. So given his strong words on the issue, in theory it would seem that David Cameron’s former director of strategy — who is also one of the Prime Minister’s closest friends — has all the makings of a Brexiteer. However, speaking on Today to launch his new website Crowdpac — which aims to show which candidates match your priorities — Hilton appeared to get cold feet on the issue. When Sarah Montague asked him if he was backing Out, Hilton attempted to avoid the question several times: SH: Well Sarah,

Luke de Pulford

A genocide is underway in Iraq and Syria. Why won’t the government recognise this?

Later today the House of Commons will vote upon a motion expressing belief that a genocide is underway against Christians, Yazidis and other ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq and Syria. The motion, proposed by Fiona Bruce MP, is supported by a large number of MPs from all parties. The Government is expected to oppose, as they did when a similar measure was debated in the Lords. At the time of writing, party enforcers are rumoured to be whipping MPs on the payroll to abstain from the vote. This is an old parliamentary tactic intended to undermine the legitimacy and clout of the measure under consideration by reducing the number of