Politics

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

Tuesday

Tim Stanley

Rand Paul’s libertarian crusade will shake up the presidential race

Finally, the presidential race got interesting. The thought of Hillary Clinton vs Jeb Bush was too much of a rerun of the same old thing: big government liberal vs big government conservative arguing about how best to spend Americans’ money. And they both share a taste for military excursions – white boots marching in foreign lands. Well, now there’s a candidate officially in the race who stands for something completely different. Rand Paul’s libertarian crusade could be about the most exciting candidacy in my political lifetime. It won’t star the most exciting candidate. Senator Paul (Kentucky) wears the standard uniform of the college Republican: blue blazer, red tie, grey slacks. The

Sebastian Payne

Ukip may be slipping in the polls but it will still have a big impact on the election

Is the Ukip bandwagon slowing down? Today’s Sun reports that Ukip has lost a quarter of its voters since November, from an average of 16.75 per cent in polls last November to 12.25 per cent in March. As the chart below shows, Ukip’s share of the vote, according to YouGov, has been the slide since the heady days of the Rochester & Strood and Clacton by-elections: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/dEo2g/index.html”] Nigel Farage has even admitted that the march of the people’s army has stalled. But when asked by the Telegraph this afternoon if he was ‘panicking’, he responded ‘good Lord, no!’, claiming the Sun’s figures are a little out: ‘Well – firstly their poll of polls is wrong – the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Is the general election campaign like watching paint dry?

It is rather fashionable at the moment for those involved in politics to moan about what a boring election campaign this is shaping up to be, and how the only excitement will be once polls close and the results start rolling in. But interestingly fewer voters than you might think agree with this view. YouGov asked at the weekend ‘how interesting or boring have you found the general election campaign so far?’, and while a majority – 51 per cent – said it was boring, 42 per cent said it was interesting. The ‘interesting’ camp was made up of 33 per cent of voters who thought the campaign ‘fairly interesting’, while

Steerpike Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Puppy love for Yvette Cooper and Will Straw

Could this photo beat Nick Clegg’s hedgehog photo call to be the strangest animal election campaign snap? Here Yvette Cooper and Labour’s candidate for Rossendale and Darwen Will Straw are posing on a pavement with a slightly flattened-looking dog under their hands. Handily, in the background, a girl carries a spare dog past, just in case the first one does manage to escape. Thx to @YvetteCooperMP for joining us in Whitworth to talk about risks of Tory police cuts & meet our local mascot pic.twitter.com/xMGFCJ1Brk — Will Straw (@wdjstraw) April 7, 2015

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

How Labour can use Europe to stop the Tories

One of the first tasks of a party in our time of fragmented politics is to stop their opponents making alliances. As things stand, the Tories can form a coalition with Ukip (and it tells you all you need to know about David Cameron that he would even consider such a possibility) the Democratic Unionists and the Liberal Democrats. As the Lib Dems are likely to form the largest block, they are the most important target for Labour. You only have to listen to Nick Clegg, say, or Danny Alexander, to suspect that they would rather keep the coalition with Cameron. Why shouldn’t they? They’ve worked together for five years.

Steerpike Steerpike

Journalists jeered for asking Tony Blair questions at Labour press conference

Labour have continued their bizarre war on the media with aplomb. As Mr S has reported in the past, pesky journalists that have the audacity to ask awkward questions are given the full hairdryer treatment from the audience at Labour’s set piece events. Today’s speech by Tony Blair was no different: This Tony Blair event very nostalgic. A member of the audience even called me “Tory scum” for asking a question. — James Landale (@BBCJLandale) April 7, 2015 Modern trait of crowd booing journalists who ask the most relevant questions. Expect more of it to come. #Blair — Chris Gibson (@ChrisGibsonNews) April 7, 2015 All stirred up by the party’s

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne’s press conference leaves questions unanswered

This is supposed to be the week when people start thinking about the General Election. George Osborne certainly thinks voters are only just switching on as he used his press conference this morning to reiterate a number of claims about Labour’s economic policies that the Tories made last week, including one that the Institute for Fiscal Studies politely described as ‘unhelpful’. The Chancellor launched something called ‘Labour Party Fiscal Plans: An Analysis’, which he presented with the help of a nifty PowerPoint that splashed the words ‘SPENT’ over every funding stream Ed Miliband’s party has come up with so far. It included the claim that Labour would hit working families

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Scottish TV debates offer Labour one final chance to hold back the SNP advance

Tonight’s Scottish leaders’ debate in Edinburgh is as important to the general election campaign as last week’s debate featuring Cameron, Miliband et al in Manchester. Both this debate and the second Scottish one tomorrow offer Labour a final opportunity to reverse the SNP advance. The polls indicate that the SNP are on course to take 28 Scottish seats off Labour in May. This would make it the largest Scottish party at Westminster. It would also make it impossible for Ed Miliband to win a majority. At the moment, nothing seems capable of halting the Nationalists’ momentum. The dramatic fall in the oil price, which has upset many of the calculations in the independence white paper,

Steerpike Steerpike

Revealed: Desperate Clegg takes £50,000 in last-minute donations in fight to keep his seat

According to a recent Ashcroft poll, Nick Clegg is on course to lose his seat in the general election. If he is ousted from Sheffield Hallam, the Deputy Prime Minister will follow in the footsteps of the Liberal leaders Archibald Sinclair and Herbert Samuel, who both lost their seats while leading the party. Clegg is of course keen to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself. So keen in fact, that Steerpike can now reveal the desperate lengths the Liberal Democrats leader has gone to in his fight to keep Labour from taking his seat. According to the latest register of interests, Clegg has taken a total of £50,000 in donations since mid-March. In his hour of need, Clegg

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Is ‘come home’ the best thing David Cameron can say to Ukip voters? 

One of the things the Tories need to do in order to hold on to power is to convince those considering voting Ukip in the General Election that it is safer to back the Tories instead. To that end, David Cameron yesterday told a campaign event that he hoped such voters would return to the Tories so that Labour wouldn’t have a chance of putting the recovery at risk. He said: ‘Come with us, come back home to us rather than risk all of this good work being undone by Labour.’ Labour said this was further evidence that the Tories and Ukip were preparing to work together. But Ukip’s response

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: 30 days to go

With the Easter break now over, the general election campaign will notch up a gear today as the political parties try to make the most of the last month of campaigning. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, we’ll be posting a summary every morning of the main events so you know what to expect from the day ahead. 1. Blair’s back — again After a series of cryptic interviews in which he appeared to complain about the direction of the Labour Party, Tony Blair has gone loyal for the campaign. The Guardian reports that the former Prime Minister will be speaking in his old Sedgefield constituency

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why all this talk of a hung parliament could be a self-fulfilling prophecy

In a close campaign, you would normally expect the smaller parties to get squeezed as voters decided that is really a choice between Labour and the Tories. But this time, thing might be different. Why, because the general expectation is that there will be another hung parliament and the coverage of the campaign is being reflected through that prism. This emphasis on the likelihood of a hung parliament could change how people actually vote. As I write in the current issue of the magazine, the British Election Study shows that among voters who expect another hung parliament support for both Labour and the Tories is radically lower with the minor

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Another Tory ‘defection’ to Ukip – in a safe Labour seat

Nigel Farage has had a torrid few days – exactly as he’d planned. He had all six of his fellow contestants in the TV debate ganging up on him over immigration, just as he’d hoped. He’s provoked the Liberal Metropolitan Elite into attacking him over his comments about health tourism and HIV, just as he’d hoped. And today, to cap it all, he’s claiming a Tory defection. Mike Whitehead had been the Conservative candidate in Hull West and Hessle, standing against Alan Johnson in the Labour safe seat. The Tories came third here in 2010. Farage said this morning: ‘I am delighted to be welcoming Mike to the party at this exciting

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Parties launch tax attacks as Britain heads to the beach

The three main parties are having a fight about tax today. It’s the day the rise in the personal allowance comes into effect, and David Cameron will give a speech describing what is to most people the Easter Bank Holiday as ‘Money-Back Monday’ (which sounds a bit like a gameshow in a pound shop) and claiming tat up to 94 per cent of households are better off under the tax and benefit changes that come into effect this year. Ed Balls is also working today while the rest of Britain heads to the beach and scratches its head about how to sort out the garden: the Shadow Chancellor is also

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Chris Leslie confirms: Ed Miliband is planning more tax rises

There’s something Ed Miliband isn’t telling us. He’d spend more, he says, and tackle the deficit. But how? Almost every tax rise he has announced is intended to raise cash for still more spending – so how would he cope with the fact that the government still needs to borrow 12p for every £1 that it spends? The obvious answer is: tax rises. But Labour has taken great care to avoid being drawn onto that topic. Or had taken great care, until Chris Leslie’s outing on the TV shows today. Leslie, deputy to Ed Balls, is one of the better guys in politics, straight-talking and pretty honest. And today, he told it straight: Labour

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tories convinced ‘moment of maximum danger’ has passed

On Thursday night, David Cameron didn’t eviscerate the competition. But nor did he suffer any damage and that, to Tory high command, meant that it was job done. The Tory leadership didn’t want any debates at all, they’d rather not have taken the risk. So, to get through this one debate with the dynamics of the campaign unchanged was, to their mind, a result. As Cameron enjoyed a late night drink with Samantha Cameron, George Osborne and his key aides on Thursday, he reflected on how much better he felt than he did after the first debate five years ago when he knew that he had not only underperformed but

Sebastian Payne

The poll that could mean the end for Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage’s career is on the brink. Aside from his solid performance in the TV debate last week, the Ukip leader isn’t focusing on the party’s national standing. All that matters to Farage now is South Thanet and making sure he is elected as the constituency’s first Ukip MP. But the seat is not a sure win and fears have been spreading throughout the party about what would happen if he fails to be elected. These fears will only be exacerbated by today’s Mail on Sunday splash, which reports that a ‘Ukip-commissioned poll…shows that Farage has fallen behind his Tory opponent in the Kent seat he is contesting. And he is in

Saturday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The hounding of the BBC’s James Cook exposes the uglier side of Scottish nationalism

BBC Scotland’s James Cook caught up with Nicola Sturgeon today and asked her about the Telegraph‘s leaked memo. But he also told her that the story chimes with what he has been told by senior SNP figures – that it suits their wider purpose to have a Tory Prime Minister because it rallies support for independence. His asking this question infuriated the CyberNats who rounded on him. Rarely for a BBC journalist, he commented on it: What an extraordinary level of vicious abuse I have received today for simply reporting the news. Is this the country we want folks? Is it? — James Cook (@BBCJamesCook) April 4, 2015 He raises a good point.

Sam Coates

Don’t let this election turn us into Little Britain

If elections are job interviews, as party leaders like to say, then this interview has so far failed to assess applicants on the one part of the job description that most have no experience in – foreign policy and security. This absence was at its most conspicuous this week when the TV debate didn’t spare even a cursory nod to global issues. Maybe the lack of contention on foreign policy is an implicit tribute to the Conservatives’ steady hand on the tiller? If not, let’s hear why. If so, the Conservatives have been surprisingly, some might argue laudably, reluctant to invoke global insecurity as an issue. Security concerns, global instability, and

Steerpike Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Election fatigue sets in

With just five weeks to go till polling day, one happy voter in Bedford has had enough. Mr S suspects that it’s for the best if Patrick Hall, the Labour candidate for Bedford and Kempston, doesn’t pay a personal visit to this address.