Politics Archives

Monday

21 Sep 2015

The shocking truth about the Piers Gaveston society? It’s incredibly dull

Regarding the pig’s ear of a story currently circulating thanks to Lord Ashcroft’s vendetta against David Cameron, perhaps I could add a codicil. As many readers will know, the allegation is that at a Piers Gaveston event attended by David Cameron while a student at Oxford, our present Prime Minister went through an initiation ritual which involved him putting his private member into a pig’s mouth. I doubt that anybody – not even Labour spin doctors or Lord Ashcroft – seriously believes the story. It stinks of the university-years version of a Chinese whisper, whereby any exaggerated urban legend is attributed to the person who becomes most well known after

Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Labour press office taunts David Cameron with Percy Pigs

With the Downing Street press office declining to comment today on allegations from Lord Ashcroft involving the Prime Minister and a dead pig, Labour has also stayed quiet over the claims. However, members of the Labour press office were unable to resist ignoring the alleged incident completely, with press officers giving out sweets to hard-working lobby journalists. The choice of candy? Percy Pigs, of course.

Isabel Hardman

CCHQ will remain neutral during EU referendum campaign

The Conservative Party board has agreed that CCHQ will remain strictly neutral throughout the EU referendum campaign, Coffee House understands. Sources report that this afternoon’s meeting concluded that it was in the best interests of the party that its campaign machine be inaccessible to either side in the campaign. MPs had warned of a split if Tory party resources had been made available, particularly if they were made available for the side of the campaign that David Cameron ends up backing, which is expected to be ‘In’, while many Tory members are in favour of leaving. Earlier, Coffee House revealed that David Cameron was in favour of neutrality. But there will

Sebastian Payne

Labour should learn from Nick Clegg on how to deal with its history

Nick Clegg has stepped back into the limelight today and he’s been pretty chirpy about his party’s time in government – and its prospects for recovering from its election downfall. In his speech to the Liberal Democrats annual conference in Bournemouth, the former Deputy Prime Minister was full of happy thoughts about his party’s time in government — which resulted in 49 MPs losing their seats and its vote share to just eight per cent: ‘Those achievements in Government, in turn, wouldn’t have happened without you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Each and every one of you. Whether you liked or loathed the coalition. Whether you were exhilarated or

Steerpike

Revealed: Boris Johnson’s Piers Gaveston porkies

With Lord Ashcroft’s claim in today’s Daily Mail that David Cameron once enjoyed intimate relations with a dead pig, talk has soon turned to which unnamed Tory MP was the source of the story. With the incident allegedly taking place at an initiation ceremony for the Piers Gaveston dining society – which is named after Edward II’s alleged male lover — it has been suggested that one of Cameron’s Oxford university contemporaries could be the source. While Steerpike is yet to discover which MP is behind the Ashcroft tale, Mr S couldn’t help but remember that one Tory MP previously got himself into trouble for telling porkies concerning Piers Gaveston. When Boris Johnson was

Alex Massie

Is Labour still a Unionist party?

The answer to this question, it turns out, comes from Kenny Dalglish. The answer is mebbys aye, mebbys naw. At the weekend the Scottish party’s former leader suggested Labour should have (some kind of) ‘free vote’ in the event of there being another independence referendum. Kezia Dugdale, the latest occupant of this poisoned throne, conceded Labour MSPs should, if there is another referendum, be free to campaign for independence if that’s where their heart lies. Now, in one respect this makes sense. Labour are in a hopeless position in Scotland right now. Moreover, the party cannot recover unless it wins votes from erstwhile supporters who have crossed the constitutional aisle to support the

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn should forget railways if he wants Labour to be a success

Jeremy Corbyn’s first policy pronouncement as Labour leader hasn’t been all that surprising: he wants a ‘People’s Railway’ that will bring the railways back into public ownership line by line. He will have noticed the excited noises that party members made at hustings whenever he mentioned rail renationalisation – and the impatient sighs from the same audience when his rivals for the leadership were cool on the issue. But as Peter Kellner explains today, even though this individual measure is popular, unless Corbyn is able to deal with the public’s fundamental lack of trust in Labour over the economy, he could promise voters every single retail offer they’ve ever dreamed

Dan Hitchens

The Prevent strategy has finally reminded the NUS why free speech is worth defending

It is a startling about-turn. The National Union of Students, who have played a considerable role in the dismal recent history of campus censorship, are suddenly sounding as though they have ingested the complete works of John Stuart Mill. The ‘basic function of universities,’ the NUS declare, is ‘introducing students to a variety of opinions and encouraging them to analyse and debate them’. They are warning of ‘a significant threat to civil liberties and freedom of speech on campuses’. This is a reference to the Prevent counter-terrorism guidelines, which come into force at universities today, and which the NUS is promising to oppose at every level. It is tempting to

Toby Young

Is that really the best Lord Ashcroft could dig up?

My first reaction on reading the extracts from Lord Ashcroft’s muckraking biography of David Cameron in today’s Mail was, ‘It that it?’ Ashcroft has been digging for dirt about the Prime Minister for the best part of five years, even luring Isabel Oakeshott away from the Sunday Times to wield the shovel, and all he’s been able to come up with is that he smoked cannabis with James Delingpole when he was a student and may have been present while someone else took cocaine at his house. And, of course, there’s the pig story. I’m dubious about the pig episode and I’m better informed than most, having been a contemporary of

Steerpike

Has Lord Ashcroft’s ‘unnamed Tory source’ been reading Hunter S. Thompson?

Today’s news has been dominated by the claim in Lord Ashcroft’s David Cameron biography that the Prime Minister once had intimate relations with a dead pig. Naturally Cameron has been the subject of much mockery, even though the story has come from only one source, who remains unnamed. While Ashcroft says that the MP who told him the story is well-placed, he also adds by a way of justification that ‘it is an elaborate story for an otherwise credible figure to invent’. However, could the source simply be well versed in the writings of Hunter S. Thompson? In his election book ‘Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72’, the writer chronicled his experiences

Ian Kirby

Ashcroft’s pig head ‘story’ would have been thrown out by any tabloid editor

When I was the News of the World‘s political editor, I was on the lookout for stories – and for scandal. That’s what political journalists are paid for. But had I gone to Rebekah Brooks or Andy Coulson when they were editing and said that I had a story about David Cameron’s honourable member and a pig’s head, their first question would be: ‘where’s the proof?’ If I then told them I had it on good authority from an MP who swears he’s seen a photograph but won’t go on the record, I would have been booted out of the office – only after being given a good kicking. As every political journalist

Brendan O’Neill

Oh man, I hope it’s true that Cameron did that thing with a pig. He’d be King of the Lads

Let’s assume that it’s true – that what an anonymous MP told Lord Ashcroft about the young Cameron and a pig is actually true. For what a brilliant blow it would be against the New Prudes, against those booze-dodging, speech-policing, lad-hating media moralists and Twitterbores. I don’t know why Cameron’s PR people are going into meltdown. If the story’s false they should say so. But if it’s true they should put lipstick on this pig: release the alleged photo of the alleged incident, tweet it for bants, and watch Dave’s popularity among yoof soar. Needless to say, Lord Ashcroft’s claim that Cameron once put ‘a private part of his anatomy’ into a dead

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron backs calls to keep Tory party neutral during EU referendum

David Cameron will today support calls from his MPs to keep the Conservative party neutral during the EU referendum campaign, Coffee House understands. The Times reports this morning that the Conservative party board will meet to discuss whether or not the party machine should remain strictly neutral. This would mean the campaign to stay in the EU, which the Prime Minister is expected to support, could not use campaign data gathered by CCHQ, or organise activists using the party’s structures. A Number 10 source tells me that Cameron will be represented at the board, and that his view is that the party should be neutral during the referendum. The meeting

Sebastian Payne

Tim Farron: I’m not a ‘homewrecker’ for Labour MPs

The Liberal Democrats are gathered in Bournemouth for their annual conference and the media hasn’t taken much notice. But according to the party’s leader Tim Farron, it’s the biggest conference since Liberal Democrats came together in the late 1980s. On the Today programme, Farron claimed the party was in a good position, having gained 20,000 new members since the election, and is poised to take advantage of the changing political times: ‘Over the last week and a half, we’re in a situation aren’t we where the tectonic plates of British politics have changed massively and we are in a situation where we alone stand as the one party who are socially just and

Steerpike

Lord Ashcroft gets his revenge on David Cameron: #piggate

Given that Lord Ashcroft and David Cameron are known not to be on the friendliest of terms, the former Conservative Party deputy chairman’s biography of the Prime Minister was never going to be a puff piece. Yet Steerpike suspects that even Cameron will be taken aback by today’s Daily Mail front page: Monday's Daily Mail front page:Revenge!#tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/jU3P3WiGF4 — Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) September 20, 2015 The first part of the paper’s serialisation of Call Me Dave looks into a young Cameron’s days at Oxford university. First though Ashcroft details his feud with Cameron, explaining that their relationship turned sour after he failed to make good on a promise to offer the Tory donor a top job if

Ed West

Whatever happened to critical thinking in foreign policy?

Now that the Middle East is basically moving to Europe after Germany did the national equivalent of advertising a house party on Facebook, it’s worth looking back four years ago to when the ‘Arab Spring’ was beginning, and what might have been done. At the time, you’ll recall, Egypt’s kleptocrat dictator had just fallen and the first protests were beginning in Syria. David Cameron flew to the Gulf where he attacked suggestions that the Middle East ‘can’t do democracy’. As the Mail reported at the time: He rejected the idea that ‘highly controlling’ regimes are needed to ensure stability as violence and protests continued in Libya. He dismissed the idea

Sunday

20 Sep 2015

Sebastian Payne

Twelve disagreements Charlie Falconer has with his party leadership

Charlie Falconer is one of the few figures closely associated with Blairism serving in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, which isn’t surprising given the new leader’s mandate. In an extraordinary interview on the Sunday Politics, the shadow justice secretary said he was serving under Corbyn because ‘I want to make the opposition as effective as possible in holding the government to account’ — while outlining a long list of policy areas he is at odds with the leadership on. As well as saying he would quit if Labour campaigns for a Brexit, Falconer has revealed no fewer than twelve other areas where he differs with Corbyn and John McDonnell. 1. Leaving Nato Corbyn has previously

Steerpike

Arthur Scargill: Jeremy Corbyn isn’t left wing enough

Ahead of the Labour leadership election result, David Cameron warned that Jeremy Corbyn would take Britain back ‘to the days of Michael Foot and Arthur Scargill’ if elected. Well, a week into Corbyn’s leadership of the party — and several gaffes later — it turns out that there is one small snag with regards to Cameron’s premonition; Corbyn is just not left wing enough. Arthur Scargill — who founded his own Socialist Labour Party after the party changed the wording of Clause IV — says Corbyn is ‘not left wing enough to lure people back to Labour’. Arthur Scargill tells Sunday Politics Yorks & Lincs @jeremycorbyn isn't left wing enough to lure

Saturday

19 Sep 2015

Kate Maltby

Maggie’s great, but can’t the US find an inspiring American woman to go on their banknote?

Banknotes, again. Now it’s America’s turn to suffer the unintended consequences of an ill-implemented campaign to inject some XX chromosomes into currency. In June, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced that he was knocking founding father Alexander Hamilton, a self-made, illegitimate boy from the West Indies, off the $10 bill. There’s a nationwide hunt for a woman whose image could replace him: in this week’s Republican debate, Jeb Bush suggested Margaret Thatcher. You can even tweet your own suggestions to the Treasury, with the hashtag #TheNew10. Now, I’m pretty keen on Margaret Thatcher. (If Jeremy Corbyn wants to end the scourge of personal abuse in politics, he could talk to her

Fraser Nelson

Project Fear and the grim legacy of Scotland’s ‘no’ campaign

A year ago today, Britain woke up to find the union saved – but only just. In 10 Downing St, the 45 per cent voting ‘yes’ looked like a victory, and the whole issue closed. I was in my hometown of Nairn that day, in the Highlands, where things looked rather different: after visiting pupils in my old school I wrote that, far from being closed, the debate had just begun. It wasn’t just the depressing closeness of the result, but the way the ‘no’ campaign had relied upon relentless negativity to make its case. As Joe Pike puts it in his fascinating account, the campaign ‘left a kingdom united, but