Politics Archives

Wednesday

29 Oct 2014

European Arrest Warrant rebellion shrinks after Cameron pledges pre-Rochester vote

Why did David Cameron set the vote for the European Arrest Warrant for before the Rochester and Strood by-election? It seems to be a way of picking a right-wing sore just at the wrong time. Perhaps he felt bounced into doing it at Prime Minister’s Questions. But those involved in the rebellion think it could also be an effective way to quell a sizeable revolt by reminding Tory MPs that being disloyal before the by-election would be a good way to help Mark Reckless win the seat. The rebellion seems, according to some insiders, be shrinking. Others think that given most Tory MPs seem resigned to losing Rochester anyway, it

James Forsyth

Jim Murphy has what Scottish Labour needs: energy, fearlessness and the ability to win

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_30_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss Jim Murphy” startat=1010] Listen [/audioplayer]There should, by rights, have been a stampede of candidates to replace Johann Lamont as the leader of the Scottish Labour party. With the new powers promised to Holyrood, the Scottish First Minister promises to be a more powerful figure than most of the Cabinet. Only the holders of the great offices of state will be more influential than the occupant of Bute House. Labour might well trail the SNP by a large margin in the Holyrood polls, but their position is by no means hopeless. But since she decided to step down, there was silence. After days

Isabel Hardman

PMQs: Immigration arguments mean Ukip won the session without asking a question

Ed Miliband chose one of his medleys of things that have gone wrong for today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. There were plenty of those to choose from, and the Labour leader started with the almighty row in the Tory party over the European Arrest Warrant. He accused David Cameron of delaying the vote because of the Rochester and Strood by-election, and offered the Prime Minister next week’s Opposition Day debate to hold it, where he said Labour would support him to get the measure through. Cameron was having none of that, though, and pledged that the vote would be held before Rochester. He claimed Miliband’s questions had collapsed. listen to ‘PMQs:

Steerpike

Did she say that out loud? Gay marriage muddle from Nicky Morgan

Mixed messaging from education secretary Nicky Morgan, who also moonlights as the equalities minister: Despite saying previously that ‘marriage to me is between a man and a woman’, and voting against gay marriage legislation, today Morgan said she probably would vote for gay marriage, telling the BBC’s Today programme that you ‘learn’ on the job. She went on to claim that she voted no on gay marriage before because of her constiuents were against it. Does their view go out the window at the sniff of high office? And it was clearly not what she was saying at the time…

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Gove letter telling Tories how ‘Lib Dems have killed’ EU Referendum Bill

Privately, the Conservatives are probably not particularly surprised about the demise of Bob Neill’s EU referendum bill, this time at the hands of the Liberal Democrats. It was always a Downing Street ruse to help quell backbench rebellion and senior Tories have ever since viewed the progress both of this bill and its predecessor, led by James Wharton, as an opportunity to cheer up the backbenches with bacon butty breakfasts and so on. Of course, it had a political point, now well proven, which was that only the the Conservatives want to let Britain decide its continued membership of the EU. That both Labour and the Lib Dems have blocked

Fraser Nelson

How Maggie’s ‘swamped’ comment crushed the National Front

The brilliant Matthew Parris writes in his Times column today about Margaret Thatcher using the word ‘swamped’ in relation to immigration in 1978. We had been averaging 500-700 letters a week when, discussing immigration in a TV interview, Mrs Thatcher used the word “swamped”. In the following week she received about 5,000 letters, almost all in support, almost all reacting to that interview. I had to read them. We were swamped indeed: swamped by racist bilge. It’s the things people confide in you when they think you’re one of them that can be so revealing. But there is another part of this story that Matthew leaves out. On election night

Isabel Hardman

What would a Ukip win in the South Yorkshire PCC by-election tell us?

Before the by-election battle with Ukip in Rochester that Westminster is rather obsessed with, there’s another chance for Nigel Farage’s party to cause a political earthquake. Tomorrow, voters in South Yorkshire will go to the polls to elect a new police and crime commissioner to replace Shaun Wright, who eventually resigned after the Rotherham child abuse scandal. Ukip is fighting a vigorous campaign in this PCC election, launching posters at the weekend that read ‘there are 1,400 reasons why you should not trust Labour again’, with a picture of a teenage girl on them. The party’s candidate Jack Clarkson does have a good chance of winning the seat from Labour,

Tuesday

28 Oct 2014

Isabel Hardman

Liam Fox launches One Minute Fox campaign

Liam Fox has launched a series of ‘One Minute Fox’ videos in which he sets out his position on various hot issues from the threat of fundamentalism to welfare reform. He unveiled the series – which he says will become more controversial as the election approaches – to a group of Conservative MPs this evening. Intriguingly, none of the videos mentions Conservatism or have any party branding, but they are branded in his own name, which may of course come in handy in the future. Cynics might say that the videos are about a future leadership campaign, but the explicit aim is to communicate Conservative ideas to undecided voters without putting them

Isabel Hardman

Who’s playing dirty politics on Lord Freud and welfare? Everyone

The main business of the day in the House of Commons is Labour’s debate on Lord Freud, a row that blew up nearly a fortnight ago. The party’s motion, entitled ‘Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Welfare Reform and disabled people’, finishes with ‘. . . this House has no confidence in the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform; and calls on the Prime Minister to dismiss him.’ It’s not a wise move to put any money on David Cameron meeting this demand, given that Freud apologised on the same day his comments about disabled people and the minimum wage were raised at Prime Minister’s Questions. Unless you’ve got a lot of

Isabel Hardman

Can George Osborne quibble away shock EU bill?

What’s next for David Cameron’s tussle with Brussels? The Prime Minister made clear yesterday that ‘we are not paying a sum anything like’ the £1.7 billion demanded by the European Commission last week, and now the focus is on how much he can get the bill reduced by. He will have to pay a bill, but to maintain credibility, the Prime Minister must end up paying something much smaller than the original demand. Next week George Osborne and other European finance ministers will hold emergency talks on the bill, and today Number 10 set out what the Chancellor plans to say at those talks. A Downing Street spokeswoman said: ‘What

Simon Martelli

Postcard from Tunisa – voters reject Islamists, embrace sanity in cradle of Arab Spring

Tunis A bloody two-day siege at a house in the outskirts of the capital last week didn’t augur well for Tunisia’s landmark elections. Six suspected jihadists, including five women, and a policeman were killed in the standoff in Tunis. A small child was also critically injured in the crossfire, which came amid repeated warnings by the authorities of Islamist attacks aimed at disrupting last Sunday’s vote. But sanity prevailed at the polls. With a turnout of more than 60 per cent, Tunisians queued to take part in their first elections under a new constitution, sending out a strong message of hope. And so began a new chapter in the remarkable

Isabel Hardman

Tribal loyalty stops bad news becoming worse for party leaders

Today’s Independent explains why the Tory party is starting to get rather jitter again. Sure, Labour has fallen five points to level-peg with the party in a ComRes poll for the paper, with both on 30 per cent, but as Mike Smithson points out, the party could still be losing seats to the Opposition even if it secures a 6 per cent lead. But the poll also has Ukip on 19 per cent after the shock bill from Brussels. As I reported yesterday, MPs were already picking up on voter concern about this on the doorstep – and a poll for the Times found most voters through he would pay up

Monday

27 Oct 2014

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron and Michael Gove to abstain on key Recall Bill vote – to keep Lib Dems happy

MPs have a free vote tonight on Zac Goldsmith’s amendment to the Recall Bill. But I have learned that instead of voting with their Tory colleague, the Prime Minister and chief whip are to abstain in the vote. Michael Gove and David Cameron have agreed to do so, not because they oppose Goldsmith’s proposals, which will, he claims, ensure a powerful form of recall rather than that endorsed by Nick Clegg. Instead, they will not walk through the lobbies because the Lib Dems have asked them not to. Clegg and co were apparently wary of an ambush by the Tories whereby the party would officially hold a free vote, but

Isabel Hardman

Tory MPs threaten trouble for PM over EU bill

Tory MPs might have appeared keen to support the PM after his surprise EU bill when they spoke in the Commons this afternoon. But behind the scenes the party is in a pretty precarious situation. Open unrest is being held back by two things: a realisation among backbenchers that they do need to hunker down as a by-election approaches and the General Election draws nearer, and the Prime Minister’s pledge that ‘we are not paying a sum anything like that’. But neither is guaranteed to keep critics quiet forever. Backbenchers point out that the current party loyalty at the moment is motivated by a desire to beat Labour – and

Alex Massie

Jim Murphy is Scottish Labour’s only hope

At the risk of intruding into someone else’s calamity, if you can’t enjoy this what can you enjoy? By this I mean, of course, Scottish Labour’s meltdown. (Suggestions the party is not actually an iced lollipop should not be taken too seriously.) The thing to remember about Labour in Scotland is they’ve never been as popular as they like to think. They’ve only ever been the largest minority. A large and zombified minority, to be sure, but a minority nonetheless. They never – ever – spoke for a majority of Scots. They only claimed to. They still do. That’s the astonishing thing. They are the people’s army, the political will

Fraser Nelson

Jim Murphy now favourite to become leader of Scottish Labour

WANTED: a fall guy to oversee the Scottish Labour Party’s greatest Westminster electoral setback in May 2015 – and be blamed for it afterwards. Seven-month fixed contract. It seems that Hutchie boy Anas Sarwar doesn’t fancy the job, having ruled himself out this afternoon. But Jim Murphy hasn’t (yet), which has made him the bookies’ favourite. I’m not tempted at 4/5 – Murphy may be a patriot, but he has never hankered after Holyrood. When Tony Blair first asked him to be Europe Minister, he told friends that his first thought was “at least it’s not Scotland”. That was then, though. He has since turned out to be quite good at Scotland, though, and his Irn Bru-box tour of

Isabel Hardman

Listen: David Cameron tells MPs why he won’t pay EU bill

The House of Commons is in a febrile, nervy mood this afternoon. No-one is quite happy with anyone else. David Cameron raised a cheer when he told MPs that he will not pay the €2bn bill apparently sprung on him by the European Commission, but he had very little to say when pressed by Labour on how this surprise was quite so surprising given Treasury ministers were mentioning it in letters months ago. Ken Clarke made backbenchers glower and opposition MPs howl with glee when he told the Chamber he sympathised with the Prime Minister for being surprised by something everyone in the Foreign Office and Treasury had known about

Sebastian Payne

Meet the two Americans set to steer the next general election

Washington, D.C. David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg – the obvious targets to blame for the disillusionment engulfing British politics. But let’s not forget the role of the Americans. Thanks to the main Westminster parties’ increasing use of technologies and personalities from Washington, the traditional British forms of electioneering have been gradually abandoned for slick, expensive techniques that have inadvertently allowed more traditional campaigners, the SNP and Ukip for example, to take the establishment by surprise. Despite this, 2015 is set to be the most American election to date. The television debates are happening, the use of social media, voter targeting and data are all on the up while

Ben Southwood

There will be no wind power without fossil fuels to guarantee supply

On 1 December, The Spectator will be hosting a conference on the geopolitics of energy, featuring MP David Lidington, the UK’s minister of state for Europe, and Price Waterhouse Cooper’s chief UK economist John Hawksworth. Tickets are still available and can be purchased online. The UK is quite windy. We need to reduce our carbon emissions. Take these two propositions together and it seems obvious that wind power could be a significant chunk of the solution. We already know that wind-power is costly and nearly always runs way below capacity. But a new paper out today suggests the problem is worse than that – its output is so variable and unreliable

Isabel Hardman

Tricky Commons session looms for Cameron on EU bill

It’s been a while since David Cameron had to give such a difficult feedback statement to the House of Commons after a European summit. Even his last tricky address, on his failure to block Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, could at least be spun as the Prime Minister valiantly standing up for the right principle. But at this afternoon’s session in the Commons, the Prime Minister will face complaints from MPs not just about how impossible Europe is but about how some parts of the Westminster machine knew about the so-called unexpected bill but others did not. So the questions Cameron will face will be: can you