Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
Forget the red lines in this election, it’s the yellow lines that Labour are having a daily struggle with. Yesterday it was there campaign bus, today it’s Ed Miliband’s motorcade. The vehicle was snapped flouting the law in Victoria this morning: A gas guzzling Range Rover for his security detail? Whatever happened to the Energy and Climate Change Secretary who made a commitment, back in 2009, to cut our emissions by a third by 2020?
Are the Tories throwing dead cats into the election debate? This question only makes sense if you recall Boris Johnson’s 2013 description of a strategy deployed by an ‘Australian friend’ of his: ‘To understand what has happened in Europe in the last week, we must borrow from the rich and fruity vocabulary of Australian political analysis. Let us suppose you are losing an argument. The facts are overwhelmingly against you, and the more people focus on the reality the worse it is for you and your case. Your best bet in these circumstances is to perform a manoeuvre that a great campaigner describes as “throwing a dead cat on the table,
Despite their leader playing the pious ‘not angry, but disappointed’ shtick at his press conference this morning, it’s not all po-faces over in Labour land after the Tories’ latest attack on Ed Miliband. ‘Lynton Crosby has literally had to go nuclear to distract from non-doms,’ chuckles a chirpy Labour source. Tory sources back this up, saying it was Crosby’s personal idea to re-open the ‘stab in the back’ narrative. Strikingly, Philip Hammond refused to repeat this language on the television today. ‘But it’s a perfectly reasonable attack line,’ says a disgruntled Labour source. ‘In the Labour leadership campaign, Ed was attacked for stabbing his brother in the back. Then, Ed’s people reacted as they reacted now
Right now, you know, Nicola Sturgeon vs Jim Murphy vs Ruth Davidson is the best show in British politics. It really is. Better, for sure, than David Cameron vs Ed Miliband vs Nick Clegg. The three Scottish leaders are each substantial – and likeable – figures in their own right but it also helps that the question of Scotland is a large and important issue upon which there is mighty disagreement. That makes for a heftier, more passionate, kind of politics. The future matters and is, depending upon our choices, very different. It is more than just a managerial process. This week’s two Scottish debates confirmed all this. They were, as
You might be forgiven for expecting that a Defence Secretary giving a speech on defence during an election campaign would involve an announcement about his party’s defence policy. And Michael Fallon did ‘announce’ something today, which is that the Tories would commit to four nuclear submarines, updated missiles and warheads in a renewal of the Trident continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent. This was an announcement in the sense that the Defence Secretary said it in a speech with a party-branded board behind him, but it wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was that Fallon, usually one of the cannier political operators out there, managed to give a speech attacking another
“Is it sensible to spend your way out of debt?” ran the opening question in the last night’s Scottish leaders debate – marking it out, straight away, as something very different from politics-as-usual. It was set in Aberdeen, hence the greater concentration of common sense. The six-way debate was feisty and refreshing, and of a calibre higher than the seven-way UK leaders’ debate. Scotland has joined Denmark in producing the best political drama, except this is real. Nicola Sturgeon won last week’s UK debate, I’d give Tuesday’s to Tory leader Ruth Davidson. I’m not sure anyone won, or lost, last night – but unlike last week’s melee, we did learn
Today Owen Jones has criticised Michael Fallon for using the term ‘stabbed in the back’ to describe what he thinks Ed Miliband would do to Britain over Trident. The Guardian columnist has gone so far as to say that the phrase is ‘anti-Semitic’. Michael Fallon’s “stabbed in the back” metaphor is deeply sinister. It is a classic anti-Semitic trope — Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) April 9, 2015 However, Mr S understands that Jones may not have always been so averse to the term. In 2011, Jones gave a Bookmarks Bookshop talk about his book Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class as part of the annual Trades Union Congress. Writing for the Enlightenment Blues blog,
Louise Mensch has never been one to hide her love for her former boss David Cameron. However, their relationship took a hit earlier this year when the Prime Minister’s decision to pay tribute to the late King Abdullah resulted in Mensch blasting Cameron on Twitter. Happily, the pair have since made up and Mensch is supporting Cameron in the election. In fact her support is so strong that as well as donating thousands of pounds to Tory candidates to help them campaign, Mensch is also trying to collect some David Cameron stash. Mr S sees that Mensch – who was once heralded as a ‘Cameron Cutie’ – has entered a competition on Twitter in a bid
Trident is set to be the big issue today — but the fight isn’t just about policy. Several newspapers have splashed on the news that the Tories are attempting to embarrass Labour over whether they would allow the SNP to box them into scrapping our nuclear deterrent. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today’s main stories. 1. Fallon vs. Miliband The Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has launched an attack on Ed ‘backstabber’ Miliband in the Times today — claiming that he would trade renewing Trident for SNP support to prop up his government. ‘Ed Miliband stabbed his own brother in the back to become
Here’s what to expect 52p top rate of tax Ed Balls won’t be looking for money when he says the ‘additional’ top rate of tax will go back up — there’s no evidence it will raise any. Top-band income tax will be 50p, which added to the extra 2p National Insurance would give Britain an effective top tax rate of 52 per cent. If it’s a temporary measure, as Balls has hinted, one-percenters will defer bonuses and disappear from the statistics (a problem, when they pay £1 in every £4 of income tax). If it’s permanent, they may scarper. If Balls really wanted to raise money from the rich he’d
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/edcouldstillwin/media.mp3″ title=”Dan Hodges and George Eaton discuss what will happen if Ed wins” startat=40] Listen [/audioplayer]What if Ed Miliband wins? His victory is still seen, especially by those on the right, as a near-impossibility — an event so improbable as to defy the laws of political gravity. But then again, we’re three weeks away from the general election and still the Conservatives still haven’t managed to establish a convincing lead. He might yet defy the bookies. And what then? Imagine it’s the morning of Friday 8 May. Prime Minister Miliband has just crossed the threshold of Downing Street, the famous door swinging shut behind him. What happens next? One
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/edcouldstillwin/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and James Forsyth discuss the current state of Scottish politics” startat=866] Listen [/audioplayer]Normally, if a candidate whose party came fourth in a constituency last time tells you they’re going to win, you put it down to election derangement syndrome. But in post-referendum Scotland the normal political rules don’t apply. When Joanna Cherry, the SNP candidate for Edinburgh South West, says she’s headed for Westminster — despite the SNP picking up just 12 per cent of the vote here in 2010 — she is probably right. Walking round with Cherry as her team cheerfully canvasses in the early evening sunshine, you can’t help but be struck by
It’s a complete recipe for disaster of course. By which I mean being trapped at sea with The Spectator’s ‘Low life’ correspondent for an entire week. That’s seven whole days. At sea. Crikey! Not that Jeremy Clarke isn’t the best of company (he is — everyone adores him) and not that we won’t all have the hugest of fun. After all, Cunard’s Queen Victoria has at least a dozen different watering holes to keep us (and JC) happy, from the Golden Lion pub to the swanky Commodore Club for pre- and post-prandial cocktails. No, it’s just that I fear hangovers of Wagnerian proportions, appalling damage to my liver and —
From ‘Our Home Guards’, The Spectator, 10 April 1915: There is nothing of the national picnic; or of playing at soldiers about the Home Guards. Those who enter the corps mean business, and not a good time in the open air under a series of military aliases. Some of the special features of the movement are most interesting. Mr Harris in his letter mentions the example of Bradford. In this city the Volunteer movement has created something like a social and moral revolution. It has given the city a corporate military feeling akin to that which existed in the great Flemish towns in the 14th century.
‘How’s your shoulder?’ someone asked recently, and it was only then I realised, for the first time in a while, that my shoulder felt good again. In last year’s Grand National — you might recall if you watched it on television — I had a heavy fall when going well on Long Run, the wonderful horse on whom I won the Gold Cup. I landed on my shoulder and had to hobble off the course. Those famously intimidating Grand National fences may have been made a bit more forgiving in recent years — thank God! — but they are still huge, and when you fall going over one it hurts.
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/edcouldstillwin/media.mp3″ title=”Freddy Gray and Damian Thompson discuss the Catholic crack-up” startat=1403] Listen [/audioplayer]A scurrilous rumour recently swept Rome: the Pope had summoned the Vatican’s finance czar over his expenses. When Cardinal George Pell admitted spending more than £3,000 on a designer kitchen unit, Francis quipped: ‘What, is it made of solid gold?’ That never happened, of course, but the tittle-tattle served a purpose. The story appeared in an Italian magazine just as Francis was deciding how much power to give Cardinal Pell over the curial accounts. Influential figures wanted to keep their money away from the cardinal’s prying eyes. What better way than to present him as a rogue
The Tory-Labour battleground remains very close. Lord Ashcroft has returned to ten competitive marginal seats in his latest round of polling and has found swings to Labour, ranging from 0.5 per cent to four per cent. According to his latest polls, the Conservatives are set to hold onto five of these marginals: Blackpool North & Cleveleys, Gloucester, Kingswood, Pendle and Loughborough — the last represented by Education Secretary Nicky Morgan. Use the interactive chart above to see the latest polls. In the other five marginals, Pudsey is a tie between the two parties — as it was in November last year — while Labour is set to take Harrow East,
Nicola Sturgeon has been described as a rock star politician. In Tuesday’s STV debate she looked like one who is suffering from second album syndrome. Having impressed a UK-wide audience in the seven-leader ITV debate last week, her reception at the Scottish version was far more muted, with some instant polls suggesting a narrow victory for Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy. A dispassionate observer might place Sturgeon third, behind Murphy and an impressively plucky Ruth Davidson. It takes something to stand before a Scottish audience, where the Tory brand isn’t just toxic but radioactive, and earn applause for making the case to reintroduce prescription charges. Ruth Davidson is unlikely to
One of the most striking things about Scotland is how the referendum still dominates politics here. I’ve seen more Yes posters and stickers than I’ve seen posters for any political party. The referendum also goes a long way to explaining the SNP surge. In Edinburgh East, for instance, 17 thousand people voted Labour in 2010, giving the party a nine thousand majority. Considering that the seat has been Labour since 1935, you’d expect that to be enough for the party to hold on easily. But as the SNP candidate for the seat Tommy Sheppard pointed out to me, 27 thousand people in this seat voted Yes last autumn. If he
The editor of The Spectator isn’t the only person thinking about the prospect of Ed Miliband becoming the next Prime Minister. Eighty educationalists have signed a letter in the Daily Mail today warning about the danger of a future Labour government curtailing academy freedoms. They’re concerned about Ed Miliband’s pledge that Labour would reintroduce ‘a proper local authority framework for all schools’ – which sounds a lot like placing all taxpayer-funded schools back under local authority control. The letter-writers flag up two freedoms they are particularly concerned about: the freedom that academies and free schools have to set their own pay and conditions and the freedom they have over the curriculum.
