Politics

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

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Time for the pundits to keep their word

There were some dangerous pledges made in the heat of the election battle from both politicians and pundits. Paddy Ashdown promised to eat his hat should the exit poll prediction bear out. It did, and he has not consumed his hat, though he did go halfway and consume a hat-shaped cake. A similarly rash exit poll reaction was had by radio’s Iain Dale back in 2010, though he has not yet come good on his promise to streak. Unlike, it seems, the Telegraph’s Dan Hodges who promised to run naked down Whitehall singing ‘Land of Hope of Glory’ if Ukip polled over 6 per cent of the vote: They did, and Hodges is standing by his

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Cameron has one chance to abolish the licence fee and this is it

As the news of John Whittingdale’s appointment as Culture Secretary came through, I happened to be sorting my pile of threatening letters from TV Licensing. It was taking me a bit of time, as there are 34 of them, accumulated over the past two years or so. Faithful readers of this column may remember that in my flat in London I do not have a television. TV Licensing, which collects on behalf of the BBC, works on the insulting assumption that everyone has a television and therefore accuses me of licence evasion, telling me that it will take me to court. I never reply to these letters, both because I

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Having a leader won’t solve all of Labour’s problems

The Labour party has decided on a medium-length campaign to elect its new leader, the Press Association reports, with the announcement on 12 September. This is slightly odd, given NEC members were still on their way to the meeting where they’ll vote on the timetable, but there you go. If that date is approved, it is a halfway house between the short campaign that some were arguing would stop the party from descending into lengthy navel-gazing while the Tories got away with introducing policies that weren’t properly scrutinised by the Opposition, and the long campaign that the unions wanted so they could sign up more members – and that some of

Tom Slater Tom Slater

‘Anti-lad’ crusaders have begun a cultural cleansing of British universities

You can’t be on a campus for more than 10 minutes nowadays without hearing about inclusivity. Universities and students’ unions are mad for it. At the University of Sussex, a statement declaring that ‘The Union is committed to providing an inclusive and supportive environment’ has to be read, aloud, before every students’ union meeting. Students who want to set up a new society at the University of Bristol must satisfactorily prove that they will ‘respect and promote the Bristol SU values of equality, diversity, safe space and inclusivity’. It’s big in America, too. Not least at the University of Delaware, where, in 2007, it was revealed that the administration was

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Are Cabinet seats being kept warm for rising stars?

The reshuffle seems to have gone down reasonably well with Tory MPs – though there is as yet still no position for Nadhim Zahawi or Jesse Norman, which some think rather odd. The pair organised the Lords rebellion and are both able and bright. But Norman in particular may be in a bit of a Kevin Pietersen-style situation in that he has, in Number 10’s eyes, blown more than one chance. It wasn’t just his organisation of the Lords rebellion but his mysterious absence on the day of the Syria vote. It may be that the Tory leadership have decided that there is a ‘trust issue’ there. This will still

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Steve Hilton returns to the British political scene

In 2012, Steve Hilton quit his role as David Cameron’s senior adviser in frustration at the compromises of coalition and the slow pace of reform. Since then, he has maintained an almost total vow of silence on British politics. He had no desire to say anything that could be turned into a tricky headline for the Tories. But with the Tories having won the election—and with a majority—Hilton is dipping his toe back in the British political water. As well as doing various events to promote his new book More Human, he is also joining the Cameroon think tank Policy Exchange as a visiting scholar. Hilton’s arrival is a coup

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

It’s Labour’s loss if they don’t take Ukip voters seriously

Almost four million people voted for Ukip on 7 May. That, in itself, is an astonishing achievement for a party which is a) newish and b) endured more vilification than even Ed Miliband had to put up with, from both the press and of course the BBC. It would be nice to think that at some point we will get over our obsession with the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon – and start taking Ukip as seriously as we do the Nats. Or, almost three times more seriously, if we wish to be properly democratic. Ukip was crucial to the Conservative victory, taking enormous numbers of votes from Labour supporters north of Watford. Labour

Peter Jones

Labour has forgotten the people the party is meant to serve

The great Robert Harris has defended the pollsters who got the recent elections so wrong by quoting Cicero on the electorate’s fickleness. Cicero certainly acknowledged the problem when he was defending one Gnaeus Plancius in 54 bc, but made a rather different point. Plancius had been accused of rigging his election to the position of aedile (a sort of joint mayor of Rome) by his rival for the post, Laterensis. But Cicero had a problem: Laterensis was a personal friend. Since Cicero could not therefore lay into him, he began by arguing that electoral rejection could happen to anyone in Rome: ‘For in elections the people do not always demonstrate

Steerpike Steerpike

Tom Baldwin says BBC showed more bias against Labour than the Tories

Ed Miliband’s spin doctor Tom Baldwin has been rather quiet since Labour’s disastrous election night results. Now the former Times journalist has explained his radio silence in an article for the Guardian. He says he has been avoiding the news after the Tories had ‘a win they did not fully expect or really deserve’. However, the appointment of John Whittingdale as culture secretary has caused him to resurface: ‘But one story has finally made me stumble out of bed. The Tory newspapers have welcomed the appointment of John Whittingdale, an old Thatcherite, as culture secretary with gleeful headlines about the government “going to war” with the BBC. This was accompanied by unsourced

Sebastian Payne

Cameron, May and Javid are trying to prove the Tories are the natural party of government

The Tories are already putting some clear blue water between the coalition and the present majority government. Firstly, the new Business Secretary Sajid Javid has promised new tougher strike laws — ensuring that a minimum turn out of 50 per cent turnout is required for all strikes, while 40 per cent of all members will need to back a strike affecting essential public services. The TUC’s Frances O’Grady has already hit back, arguing the new rules will make ‘legal strikes close to impossible’. Secondly, Theresa May and David Cameron are promising to tackle our ‘passively tolerant society’. In the Queen’s Speech, due on May 27, the Tories will introduce a new counter extremism

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

What Labour must do is estrange its awful voters

And so now we have to suffer the epic delusions, temper tantrums and hissy fits of the metro-left. They simply cannot believe how you scumbags could have got it so wrong last Thursday, you morons. You vindictive, selfish morons. That has been the general response from all of the people, the liberal middle-class lefties, who have cheerfully contributed towards making the once-great Labour party effectively unelectable. You lot voted Tory out of fear — because you are stupid, stupid people. The Conservatives ran a ‘negative’ campaign and, because you are either simply horrible human beings, or just thick, you fell for it. That’s been the subtext of most of the bien-pensants,

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The polling debacle – and the wisdom of Walt Whitman

I was at the IEA/Taxpayers’ Alliance post-election conference yesterday, listening to Lord Ashcroft giving facts and figures about why voters chose the Tories. Given how wrong all of the pollsters were, I did find myself wondering whether it was worth listening to this. A Tory majority government has just been elected, confounding every single bookmaker and pollster in the land. As Ashcroft was telling us that X per cent of Tories believed in Y sentiment, I thought: statistically, what percentage of these statistics are pure bollocks? How many of the polls I’ve been reporting for the last few weeks and months have been pure bollocks? So I gave up listening to Ashcroft’s conclusions and thought, instead, of a Walt

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Could this be the row that sees Douglas Carswell leave Ukip?

Ukip is embroiled in an almighty row about money. It suddenly has too much of it, apparently. Guido reports that Douglas Carswell is refusing to take the full £650,000 of Short money that his party is entitled to for running a parliamentary operation that represents the four million votes the party won in the election. Ukip HQ are insisting he should have it, while Carswell is insisting they only take £350,000. HQ sources have been handing out some pretty heavy briefings about Carswell refusing to represent the party’s four million voters. Given the Clacton MP has always operated in a rather detached manner within the party and could easily hold his

Ed West Ed West

Some advice to people angered by the election: add some Tories on Facebook

My father recently passed away, and the stories people inevitably tell of the dead brought back memories of childhood. As a small boy I remember Sunday lunches that culminated with my IRA-supporting godmother storming out after dad had said something especially offensive about Ireland. But she’d be back the following month and all was forgotten. Another of dad’s lunchtime friends, I remember, had the honour of being one of just 12 Englishmen to fight in the Spanish Civil War – for Franco. One crony, who I mainly remember smelling of whisky and offering my brother and me £50 if we learned Gaelic, had brought a Red Army Faction terrorist to

Steerpike Steerpike

Tory discomfort at equalities appointment

To appoint one Equalities Minister who voted against gay marriage looked sloppy, to do it twice looks frankly strange. Yet that is what the Prime Minister has just done. Education Secretary Nicky Morgan voted against same sex marriage in July 2013, though she claims she has subsequently changed her mind. Caroline Dinenage, the Gosport MP, who has just replaced Morgan in the Equalities brief, also voted against it. As one Tory MP ponders: ‘When almost half the Parliamentary party voted for same sex marriage why can he not find an equalities minister who did?’

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Labour lost the working-class vote a long time ago

What’s Labour’s problem? Following its fantastic drubbing at the polls, the most common answer to that question is that the party has for too long ignored its traditional base: working-class voters. Among media Labourites in particular, those currently writing emotionally unhinged articles about how isolated they feel in this cruel new Britain — bless ’em — this has become the go-to excuse for Labour’s rubbishness in recent years. Yes, there’s the issue of Tory-backing Rupert Murdoch’s stranglehold on people’s mushy minds, they say, revealing their disdain for tabloid readers. And there’s the apparently irresistible lure of the Tories’ politics of fear, which they believe ensnared a dumb electorate, once again

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The reshuffle hasn’t mollified everyone

With Dominic Raab’s appointment as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Justice, a pattern is starting to emerge in David Cameron’s reshuffle of reconciliations with old foes in a new parliament. Raab organised one of the most effective rebellions of the last Parliament on the Immigration Bill, which left the Tory whips in complete chaos. Now he has been brought into government. Cameron is also – belatedly – handing out jobs to members of the ‘Curry Club’: a group of Conservatives who are pretty savvy at sniffing out policies that won’t work on the doorstep (and who have rather proven this by increasing their majorities). Curry Club members include Tracey Crouch, who will

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron ‘absolutely clear’ about priorities in Cabinet address

As part of his new style of governing, David Cameron addressed Cabinet today with cameras recording the first bit. The idea was clearly to set out his mission for the Parliament, to set an idea in people’s minds of what it is that he stands for – just in case anyone had any doubts. Here is his full statement: listen to ‘Cameron addresses his new Cabinet’ on audioBoom

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Rory Stewart’s mysterious promotion to Defra

One of the stranger appointments of this reshuffle so far has been Rory Stewart being sent to Defra. The former chair of the Defence Select Committee does represent a rural constituency, but the obvious choice given his service in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been the Ministry of Defence. Perhaps this wasn’t possible given his passionate arguments in favour of maintaining defence spending at 2 per cent of GDP, which the Tories have refused to do. But another obvious choice would have been the Scotland Office, given his passion for the Union – and the location of his seat. During the referendum campaign, Stewart organised his own event called ‘hands

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Osborne left with two vacancies to fill

One of George Osborne’s political skills is his ability to put together a talented team. Few politicians spend longer thinking about who to have working for them. But post-election, Osborne is going to need to reshuffle his own, personal operation. For Rupert Harrison, his able economic adviser is off and now, I learn, that his press secretary Ramesh Chhabra is leaving too. It is no surprise that they are going now, the Treasury team has been on the political front-line pretty much every day for the past five years. Osborne poached Chhabra seven years ago when his boss David Davis resigned. Since then Chhabra has worked tirelessly on Osborne’s behalf.