Politics Archives

Friday

2 May 2014

Is Nigel Farage trying to distract us?

On location for The Sunday Times in the exciting by-election town of Newark-upon-Trent, I asked a nice local woman about her voting intentions. What way do you think you’ll be voting, I asked. This is what she said. “Um, yes, the poll. Well, I will turn right out of my house and walk down the road and then there’s usually a what-do-you-call-it, poll thing, in St Leonard’s Church, on the corner. I think that’s right..” I just thought I’d share that response with you. It is interesting that the leader of UKIP. Nigel Farage, who is of course somewhat Eurosceptic, apparently believes that contesting a poll for election to the

Thursday

1 May 2014

Peter Jones

What Boris and Pericles have in common

What is Boris’s great secret? Does it lie in the bust of the Athenian statesman Pericles (c. 495–429 bc) that he keeps in the Mayor’s office in London? The key can be found, perhaps, in Pericles’ passionate commitment to the idea of Athens as a ‘living lesson for Greece’. This was the central message of his famous Funeral Speech (430 bc) — not so much the heroism of the dead as the uniqueness of the city for which they had died and the contrast with its bitter rival, the conservative, inward-looking, military-obsessed Sparta. Athens was a model to others, Pericles affirmed, a democracy governed in the interests of the many,

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband’s price control pattern

Ed Miliband has got the reaction he wanted to his speech on the private rented sector, which he used today to launch Labour’s local election campaign. Landlords and nasty right-wingers hate this latest stage in his ‘cost-of-living contract’. The Residential Landlords Association said rent controls ‘would critically undermine investment in new homes to rent and are not needed’ and the National Landlords Association said ‘the proposal for a three-year default tenancy is unnecessary, poorly thought-through and likely to be completely unworkable’. On Coffee House, Policy Exchange’s Chris Walker says ‘rent controls are at best misguided and at worst could be counterproductive, longer-term’. Grant Shapps suggested that these were ‘Venezuelan-style rent controls’. Which

Steerpike

Nigel Farage joins the political greats

Nigel Farage has been ‘egged’ while on the campaign trail. He was pelted by a protestor as he left his car. The protestor was dragged away by police. Mr S can’t help but notice that Farage has joined a list of political greats, including such lights as John Prescott and Ed Miliband, who have been ‘egged’ while out on the stump. Truly, Ukip has arrived.

Alex Massie

Yes voters are the Union’s secret weapon

Well some of them are anyway. Consider the tweet above. It’s since been deleted and you can see why. Gerry Adams’ arrest might not be an obvious element of the Pan-Unionist Conspiracy but if you think that you lack the imagination necessary to be the wilder kind of Scottish nationalist. Then again paranoia is a consequence of monomania and breathtaking solipsism. Of course it’s just a tweet and only a single one at that. But there are plenty others like it. And yes, for sure, there are loonies on the Unionist side too. There really are people who think Alex Salmond evil and, lord knows, there are any number of Unionists making

Charles Moore

One way to persuade me to vote Ukip

So far, I am disinclined to vote for Ukip in the forthcoming Euro-elections. Our area has been represented for many years by the great Daniel Hannan, the leading practising Eurosceptic of our times, so I have resisted the Faragiste temptation. But I felt a bit wobbly after reading an interview with Nigel Farage in the Guardian. According to its author, Decca Aitkenhead, Ukip supporters — though not the libertarian Nigel himself — want to make dressing up for the theatre compulsory. They are so right. It is now almost compulsory not to dress up for the theatre, even in the West End. This has had the predictable result that theatre-goers pay less attention, eat and

Matthew Parris

Ukip isn’t a national party. It’s a Tory sickness

It can happen that something ought to feel wrong yet somehow doesn’t; and you wonder whether this means that in some deep way it could be right. Take for example a discussion on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday last week. The subject was the rise of the ‘Teflon’ United Kingdom Independence Party. I ought to have found the programme’s handling of this to be inappropriate; yet it felt both appropriate and natural. In this column I shall discuss why. Radio presenters do not give explanatory headlines to political interviews. At about 8.20 a.m. Evan Davis simply said ‘Let’s talk about Ukip’ and off they went, ‘they’ being himself

James Forsyth

Revealed: George Osborne’s plan to become Foreign Secretary

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_1_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss Osborne’s Foreign Secretary aspirations” startat=646] Listen [/audioplayer]Confidence is coursing through Downing Street at the moment. The economy is growing at a good clip and senior Tories feel more optimistic than ever about the result of the next general election. With this belief in retaining office comes more thought about what a second-term Cameron government would have to do. Minds are also turning to the question of how the top team should be reshaped after the general election. Politically, one issue towers above all others: Europe. Within 18 months of being re-elected, the government will have to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU

Hugo Rifkind

If Ukip aren’t racist, how come so many racists seem to like them?

The most thought-provoking discussion about racism I ever heard took place five years ago on Channel 4’s Celebrity Wife Swap. No, it did. On the one side they had the former TV pundit and football manager Ron Atkinson and his wife Maggie, and on the other they had the former Olympic javelin thrower Tessa Sanderson and her husband Densign. Maggie Atkinson was the star. ‘Ron’s not a racist,’ she kept saying, with all the sincerity in the world. ‘He’s not. He’s just not.’ That’s all. Possibly I oversold it. The point was, this was about five years after Ron’s TV work had pretty much dried up, due to the way

Wednesday

30 Apr 2014

Lloyd Evans

Ed Miliband slapped in the face by bouncy Dave

As the economy bounces back it keeps smacking Ed Miliband in the face. At PMQs today he tried to pose as the people’s champion fighting fat-cat capitalism. He started with Royal Mail, which is now worth a billion more than when it was floated. In hindsight, any privatisation can look like a Westminster mega-blunder or a Square Mile stitch-up. Miliband took the latter view. Referring to the clique of 16 ‘golden ticket’ investors, he asked why these lucky speculators had been allowed to flip their shares for an instant profit while the hard-working posties had been ordered to retain theirs for three years. Cameron spotted the trick. Posties got free

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May wins battle with Number 10 over stop-and-search reform

So Theresa May has won her battle with Number 10 on stop-and-search reform, sort of. She announced a number of changes this afternoon to the power for police – but they’re all voluntary. That the Home Secretary has managed to get any of these changes into a state where she can announce them is a victory – but the initial voluntary nature of the reforms was the compromise necessary to make this announcement happen. The changes are as follows: The Police and Criminal Evidence Act Code of Practice A will clarify what constitutes the ‘reasonably grounds for suspicion’ on which the police carry out the vast majority of stop-and-searches. If

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron is linking Ed Miliband to Labour’s past mistakes

What a very long PMQs today, presided over by a very bumptious John Bercow. The Speaker let the exchanges run into what he called ‘injury time’, made a rather poisonous jibe at Labour MP Fiona Mactaggart over her private schooling, and told the Prime Minister that as far as he was concerned, he had finished an answer when the PM didn’t believe he had. listen to ‘Cameron defies Bercow’ on Audioboo

James Forsyth

Why Farage isn’t standing in Newark

I always thought that it was unlikely that Nigel Farage would stand in Newark. When I discussed the prospect of a by-election there with him on Monday, he seemed drawn to the idea of a local candidate; pointing out how the Canadian Reform Party had secured their key by-election breakthrough with ‘a completely unknown geography mistress, who lived in the town, who had lots of relations there’. Farage’s decision not to stand is a recognition that the Tories are bound to pick a local candidate and that their campaign would paint him as someone who is interested in what Newark could do for him, not what he could do for

Isabel Hardman

Farage (wisely) bottles the Newark by-election: ‘I’m a fighter, I’m a warrior’

Much relief in Downing Street this morning as Nigel Farage announces that he’s not standing in the Newark by-election. Coffee House readers had the best insight into the Ukip leader’s thinking when James posted the details of a conversation he’d had with Farage about the constituency. And his prediction that Farage may well decide to not stand was right. listen to ‘Nigel Farage says he’s not standing in Newark: ‘You have to pick your battles’’ on Audioboo Farage has bottled it, he’s frit. That’s what every relieved Conservative MP is saying this morning. It’s true: Farage got to the cliff edge, looked down, and edged away from what he saw.

Isabel Hardman

The Mercer mess

Patrick Mercer has gone out in style. One Tory MP, hearing that the whips had tried to dissuade him from triggering a by-election fight with Ukip at an extremely inconvenient time for David Cameron, told me: ‘It’s a waste of time. He’s determined to damage Dave. He’s Colonel Nicholson in Bridge on the River Kwai!’ Mercer has left Cameron a little present in the form of this by-election. Even if Nigel Farage announces today that he won’t stand in the contest (and James’s post from last night on the Ukip leader’s thinking is a must-read), Ukip can still repeat its success in Eastleigh by fielding an impressive formerly unknown candidate. In Eastleigh,

Tuesday

29 Apr 2014

James Forsyth

Why Nigel Farage might not stand in Newark

Nigel Farage told me on Monday how closely he was watching the situation in Newark. He introduced the subject by saying, “there’s one other thing that could change everything”. But Farage’s comments to me yesterday make me think that he’s unlikely to stand in Newark. He said that he’d ‘been looking at candidates’ and mused on how just one MP would make such a difference. He pointed to how the Canadian Reform party had won a seat in a by-election in 1989 and then go on to become the largest opposition party in at the next election. What struck me about this anecdote was how taken Farage was by the

Sebastian Payne

Who could win the Newark by-election?

Who stands the best chance of winning the Newark by-election after Patrick Mercer’s resignation? It is a safe Conservative seat, which Mercer has held since 2001. At the last general election, Mercer was reelected to Newark with a 32 per cent majority: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/xnER5/index.html”] The Tories announced when Mercer resigned the party whip that Robert Jenrick, a lawyer who currently works at Christie’s auction house, would be standing for Newark at the next election. Will Jenrick hold the seat? According to Electoral Calculus, there is an 87 per cent chance that the Conservatives will win Newark based on the current polls — but by-elections are more unpredictable. listen to ‘Patrick Mercer

Isabel Hardman

Patrick Mercer quits as MP and triggers awkward by-election in Newark

Patrick Mercer has quit as an MP. The Sun has the story, with the former Conservative saying: ‘It is clear to me that the constituency of Newark needs to be represented properly. I will not argue will the findings of the committee and I can only humbly apologise. “My military background has taught me that you must never let down the people who depend on you, and those people are my constituents of Newark. If that becomes the case, you must go without any argument.’ listen to ‘Patrick Mercer resigns as the MP for Newark’ on Audioboo Now the question is when the Newark by-election will take place. It is

Isabel Hardman

Patrick Mercer banned from Parliament for six months

Patrick Mercer has been banned from Parliament for six months, the Standards Committee has confirmed, following revelations by the Telegraph and BBC Panorama that he agreed to table questions in return for cash. He had already resigned the Conservative whip. The question now is whether Mercer resigns as an MP, triggering a by-election in Newark which the Tories could try to hold on 22 May? Nigel Farage today said he would consider standing in a by-election this year. In 2010, Mercer won a 16,152 majority, with Ukip coming fourth with 3.81 per cent of the vote.

Sebastian Payne

Briefing: the Tory HS2 rebels

High Speed 2 moved another step closer to actually happening last night, as the Hybrid Bill passed its second reading and vote in the Commons. 41 MPs voted against the bill, including 26 Conservatives who rebelled against the party’s three-line whip. The rebellious MPs fall into three categories: those whose constituencies will be affected by HS2, those unconvinced by the project and the usual contingent of troublemakers. Then there are the MPs who stayed away from the Commons yesterday, mysteriously or otherwise. Here is a breakdown of the rebels and abstainers: HS2 runs through their constituency Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) – The former Wales Secretary has been one of