
Tories launch US-style attack ad on Mark Reckless
The Conservatives have launched an aggressive video advert for the Rochester and Strood by-election. It attacks Mark Reckless in a very direct manner – but not in a personal manner.

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
The Conservatives have launched an aggressive video advert for the Rochester and Strood by-election. It attacks Mark Reckless in a very direct manner – but not in a personal manner.
Alex Salmond is on his way out. The First Minister gives every impression of enjoying – or at least making the most of – his farewell tour. And why not? Far from weakening the SNP, defeat in September’s referendum has – at least for now – strengthened the party. Its supremacy is unchallenged and while recent polls putting the Nationalists on 50 percent of the vote are unlikely – surely! – to last forever this is the kind of problem worth having. Nevertheless, the First Minister’s final days in office have also reminded us that policy and, indeed, philosophy are not necessarily Salmond’s strengths. Unusually, First Minister’s Questions proved a
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a new Crimestoppers telephone hotline that the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) decided would be a good idea, that was going to be dedicated specifically to ‘concerns about legally held firearms’. What ‘concerns’, exactly? Well, mainly that shooters could be ‘vulnerable to criminal or terrorist groups’ which is why the new phone line was designed to help the police ‘gather intelligence’, by urging members of the public to report any signs of ‘radicalism, extremism and vulnerability to terrorism’ among gun owners. But after a dedicated campaign from the Countryside Alliance, the decision has been made to abandon the plans. The organisation had
Labour types are in an aggressive mood this morning. Why are the newspapers and the BBC setting such store by just two MPs who apparently want their leader gone when the Tory party has around ten times that number of committed malcontents, they grumble? Peter Hain was particularly defensive this morning, suggesting that all Ed Miliband’s supposed woes are actually part of a plot by the Daily Mail. First, here’s an attempt to explain the media excitement about the threat to Miliband. Both main parties are glum at the moment, partly because the polls suggest voters aren’t particularly inspired by either of them, and partly because they recognise that anti-politics
Imagine if, in one of her first acts as First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon announced that, in spite of the result of September’s independence vote, Scotland was to declare independence anyway, on the basis that opinion polls now showed a majority of people in favour of independence and therefore there was no need for the decision to be approved in a referendum. David Cameron and his government would surely treat it as an outrage. Why, then, has the Chancellor this week seen fit to announce that the people of Greater Manchester are to have a directly elected mayor? Two years ago the very same question was put to the
So Ed Miliband did manage to squeeze in a few words on his leadership alongside his comments on bus regulation. This afternoon he dismissed reports of a letter calling for him to stand down as Labour leader as ‘nonsense’ and said that the party’s focus was ‘on the country’. listen to ‘Ed Miliband dismisses reports of a Labour leadership crisis’ on audioBoom
There are apparently two Labour MPs who have called for Ed Miliband to step aside. That just two from Ed Miliband’s party are openly moving against him while some estimates put the number of letters calling for a vote of no confidence in David Cameron at 22 shows the difference in personality and practice between the two parties. Labour is markedly unhappier than the Tories (who don’t resemble sunbeams themselves at present), and Ed Miliband polls below his party, while the opposite is true for David Cameron. Labour is not a party that manages to pull off pre-election regicide that effectively. For the past few years in opposition, it hasn’t
Mr S was in one of Westminster’s finest watering holes last night to toast Guy Fawkes. And who better to do it with than his old muckers from Guido Fawkes, who had whacked a hefty wodge of cash behind the bar in honour of their patron saint. The guest list was terribly exclusive: Jo Johnson, Buzzfeed’s Jim Waterson, and various libertarians from the Adam Smith Institute made the cut, but Dame Vivienne Westwood and the heiress model Alice Dellal were turned away. The pair disappeared off into the night to join the gaggle of Anonymous protesters getting their hemp knickers in a twist about fracking/Julian Assange/capitalism. But given that Dellal’s grandfather was British property tycoon ‘Black
In the Commons this morning, William Hague confirmed Coffee House’s story that the government will hold its vote on opting back into the European Arrest Warrant on Monday. He said the joint committee working on the relevant statutory instrument hadn’t finished working, but that the House of Commons would vote on it on Monday. But the troublesome pre-Rochester rebellion is apparently shrinking, MPs tell me. Those on both sides expect only around 30 rebels against the government now, where previously up to 100 had been expected. There are a number of reasons for the fall in numbers. The first and least significant is that holding it before the Rochester by-election
By rights, Jean-Claude Juncker should be in dire political trouble this morning, not lecturing Britain about paying an extra £1.7 billion to the European Commission. Documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists suggest that while Juncker was Prime Minister of Luxembourg, 548 comfort letters were issued to various international businesses about their tax arrangements. These letters allowed multinational companies to get away with paying minimal amounts of tax anywhere but Luxembourg despite the majority of their business being done elsewhere, the ICIJ alleges. The ICIJ claims that more than 340 companies secured secret tax deals with Luxembourg. The ICIJ alleges that the deal with FedEx left 99.75 per
Ed Miliband’s internal critics used to complain that he had a 35 per cent strategy. They claimed that his unambitious plan was to eke out a technical victory by adding a chunk of left-wing Liberal Democrats to the 29 per cent of voters who stayed loyal to Labour in 2010. Those close to Miliband were infuriated by this attack, insisting that their election strategy was far more expansive. Today, however, 35 per cent would sound pretty good to Labour, now becalmed in the low thirties in the polls. Miliband might never have had a 35 per cent strategy. But he did have a strategic insight that makes Labour’s current predicament
Interviews with Ukip bigwigs used to happen in pubs. But times are changing. When I meet Patrick O’Flynn — the party’s economics spokesman, and until recently chief spin doctor — it’s in a juice bar. O’Flynn, a former political editor of the Daily Express who studied economics at Cambridge, is one of those driving Ukip towards professionalism. Ukip, he says, is the only party he’s ever joined, and it is ‘not part of the Conservative family’. That is why he rates its chances in northern Labour seats: ‘We didn’t close down any coal mines or steelworks and we’re not known as the patrician Home Counties rich people’s party.’ He claims,
Birmingham has changed a bit since I grew up there in the 1970s. Back then, the stories of the hour were the usual industrial unrest at Longbridge, the IRA bombs in the Tavern in the Town and the Mulberry Bush, and the ongoing success of local lads Slade, Wizzard and ELO. Today, though, it’s mainly stuff like Operation Trojan Horse, and I barely recognise the place or the culture at all. So when, driving back from the Conservative party conference the other week, I found the radio button that normally takes me to Radio 4 mysteriously tuning instead to a local Islamic station, I thought I’d do a bit of
It is interesting that neither Scotland nor Wales have been much bitten by the Ukip bug. The supposedly sensible view is that both of these countries are more kindly disposed towards the European Union than are the English — and that Ukip’s contempt for the European Parliament and its politicians is seen as another example of that rather too familiar English jingoism and xenophobia, commodities which are not terribly popular either north of Berwick or west of Monmouth. It is also sometimes mentioned that immigration is far less of an issue in Wales and Scotland — unless we are talking about English immigration, which does indeed tend to make the
The post-Jim Murphy Labour reshuffle has arrived, and while it’s not particularly seismic, it still tells us some interesting things about Ed Miliband’s thinking. The Labour leader has replaced the former Shadow International Development Secretary with Mary Creagh, which means it can’t be described as a consolation prize (something development campaigners were wary of as they’d rather someone who wanted the job, thank you). Creagh has a reputation in her party for being formidably well-briefed (although she managed to disappoint regional newspapers recently), and was particularly impressive in her last role but one as Shadow Environment Secretary when the horse meat scandal broke. Anas Sarwar, who some had tipped as
Was that a pop at Hattie? Ed Miliband began PMQs by evoking the centenary of the Great War. ‘We will all be wearing our poppies with particular pride this year,’ he said. And every eye ran along Labour’s front bench to count off the crimson blooms. Balls, poppy. Miliband poppy. Harman, poppy. No, wait. As you were. Harman, no poppy! Her chic, double-breasted grey jacket bore no tribute to the fallen. But I expect it’s a CND thing. All the same, Miliband should send her out to buy one. Tuppence ought to do it. The Labour leader needed a win today. Badly. His poll ratings have dipped to the same
Washington, DC The American election cycle is beginning to resemble the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day. In the film, you may recall, Bill Murray plays an egomaniacal Pittsburgh weatherman named Phil Connors who discovers that he’s stuck in a time loop in which the same day repeats itself over and over. He goes bonkers, driving a truck over a cliff in a suicide attempt, only to wake up again the next morning. Substitute the American public for Connors and you have a sense of the prevailing political atmosphere in the US. Ever since 9/11 shattered its illusion of omnipotence, the United States has been unable to escape its troubles. Instead, it
The Commons has a rather listless feel to it at the moment. Today’s PMQs will not live long in the memory. Ed Miliband’s strategy was to get David Cameron to say as often as possible that he wants to stay in the EU, with the hope that this would drive a wedge between Cameron and his backbenchers. This tactic was, as far as it went, quite effective. Cameron repeatedly said that he wanted to stay in a reformed EU, and wasn’t prepared to say explicitly that he would be prepared to campaign for an exit if he didn’t get what he wanted out of the renegotiation. Labour believe, with justification,
Lord Ashcroft’s polls are, as a rule, very rarely good news for the Tories these days – the peer clearly hopes that he’s at least warned the party before it goes over the top – and his latest tranche of surveys in marginal seats proves that rule. The peer examined 12 marginal seats where the Conservatives lead Labour with majorities as low as 1,936 and as high as 3,744. Here’s what you need to know: 1. Across the 12 seats, Labour led the Tories by 36 per cent to 33 per cent, with just three seats remaining with the Tories: Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) and Blackpool North &
If Theresa May wants to have a public row with Sajid Javid, the Culture Secretary doesn’t seem particularly keen on continuing it. He tried his best to avoid jumping into a war of words with the Home Secretary, whose leaked correspondence warning that his plan to make mobile phone companies fill in ‘not-spots’ (areas with no coverage) could make it more difficult for intelligence agencies to thwart terrorist attacks are splashed over the front of the Times. Javid said: ‘The Home Secretary, like every other member of the Government, fully supports this strategy that we’re setting out today. Well, the reason this is a consultation is because this stage we