Politics

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

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

PMQs: David Cameron’s hatred towards Ed Miliband is palpable

MPs piled into the Chamber expecting a blood and thunder affair. But instead it was rather subdued. Ed Miliband chose to ask six questions about the Syrian situation concentrating on the humanitarian and diplomatic situation and Cameron had to respond in measured tones. Though, one could sense that Cameron would have loved to have gone for Miliband. listen to ‘Miliband questions Cameron on Syria at PMQs’ on Audioboo The most needle came in their finale exchange when Miliband declared that last week’s vote had not been about Britain withdrawing from the world but ‘preventing a rush to war’. Cameron witheringly replied that his regret was that Miliband had chosen ‘to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

‘To sack Jesse Norman over a moral issue like whether to support war is outrageous’

Jesse Norman’s departure from the policy board hasn’t come as a huge surprise to many Tory MPs: I was with one after the vote who was subjecting his twitter feed to a lengthy examination to work out whether Norman was stranded overseas. The only evidence available was that Norman went to a beer festival on 26 August and found out about the recall from the BBC and Easyjet. ‘I love beer festivals, but I also know when to turn up,’ grumbled the MP. It would have been a terrible message to send to other backbenchers if Norman hadn’t been moved from his job. This is a sign of Number 10

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Jesse Norman to leave No.10 policy board after Syria vote

Jesse Norman is to leave the Number 10 policy board after abstaining in last week’s vote on Syria, I have learned. It was made clear to the Tory MP, who is known to have disagreed with the government’s position on Syria, that this was an inevitable consequence of avoiding a three-line whip vote. But I understand that the decision was made more in sorrow than in anger, and sources hope the path back for Norman will be a quick one. An announcement on his replacement will be made shortly. The policy board hasn’t, as I revealed in the politics column last week, gelled brilliantly yet, but colleagues found Norman impressive

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tom Watson: the Labour man with a plan

Ed Miliband needs to reassure his backbenchers that he does indeed have a good plan after the GMB union announced it was cutting its affiliation funds to the party by 90 per cent. But someone else already has a plan: and it looks strangely like one that will cause the Labour leader a bit of grief. Tom Watson has this morning written a blog in which he suggests that ending the link between the party and the unions ‘is a very serious development that threatens a pillar of our democracy that has endured for over one hundred years’.  He writes: ‘Over the next year we have been asked to consider

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

GMB funding blow for Labour shows need for a clear plan from Miliband

Has Labour got a plan? If it does, the GMB doesn’t like it, announcing this morning that it will cut its affiliation funds from £1.2 million to £150,000, effective from january 2014. The cut is to reflect the number of the union’s members who it estimates would choose to affiliate to the Labour party under the new reforms announced by Ed Miliband. In a statement this morning, the union said: ‘GMB CEC expressed considerable regret about the apparent lack of understanding the proposal mooted by Ed Miliband will have on the collective nature of trade union engagement with the Labour Party. ‘A further source of considerable regret to the CEC

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Will Tories rebel again over the lobbying bill?

MPs will vote on the second reading of the unpopular lobbying bill at around 7pm. It has not had a particularly enjoyable introduction to the Commons this afternoon, with attacks from Labour and nervous questions from Coalition MPs worried about its effect on innocent charities. Some Tory MPs – including Douglas Carswell – intend to vote against the second reading, but from conversations I’ve had with backbenchers this afternoon, it looks as though a bigger rebellion will come on the programme motion, which puts the bill into a committee of the whole house (good) but with a guillotine – or time limit – for debate (bad). The reason the guillotine

Stephen Twigg

Super-sized primary schools will damage education standards

This morning, as parents were getting their children ready for their first day at school, the Education Secretary was taking to the airwaves. To many parents, who will be sending their children into overcrowded classrooms, they will be astonished by the complacency shown by Michael Gove. David Cameron’s Government has created a crisis in primary school places, of its own making; with a forecast shortfall of places of 240,000 by 2015. Michael Gove has no business grandstanding about his record. He and David Cameron cut schools capital spending by 60 per cent on taking office – twice as much as the cuts to other departments’ capital budgets. In fact, the cut to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

No-one has any plans for a second vote on Syria, part II

Today’s Foreign Office Questions was a far classier affair than yesterday’s rather snippy session with Philip Hammond on Defence. William Hague chose not to tell Labour that they had no authority when talking about Syria, instead choosing to focus on the humanitarian situation that Britain can still do something about. His first answer was as follows: ‘The United Nations has announced that there are now 2 million Syrian refugees in the region. The United Kingdom is already the second largest donor, supporting more than 900,000 Syrians, and we will do more. The president of the Syrian National Coalition will visit London on Thursday, when we will discuss further support to

Sebastian Payne

How can Labour respond to the rapid rise and popularity of free schools?

As the new school year begins, the Department for Education has announced 93 new free schools are opening — more than double opened last September — creating 46,000 new places. With a total of 174 free schools now open, the evidence suggests Michael Gove’s free school programme is taking off. This is how many have opened since the election: But though free schools are flourishing, there’s still a squeeze underway.  The Local Government Association today warns that half of the school districts in England will run out of places within two years due to ‘unnecessary restrictions’ on councils: ‘Its analysis of local authority data suggests about 1,000 of the 2,277

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Andrew Lansley: we can’t afford to delay the Lobbying Bill

For a bill purportedly about transparency, the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill has quite a lot of muddied water swirling around it at the moment. Leader of the House Andrew Lansley is currently giving evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee on the legislation, which many fear has all sorts of unintended consequences (it’s worth reading Mark Wallace on ConHome for more detail on the potential problems). But the chair of the Committee, Graham Allen, is an outspoken critic of the Bill. He thinks it’s a dog’s breakfast (Douglas Carswell recently went one better, saying ‘far more thought has gone into pet nutrition’, and Paul

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A Game of Numbers: Pollsters Go To War in Scotland

On Sunday an opinion poll was just a poll. Nothing to be too excited by. Unreliable too. The real poll – the one that counts – is still a year away. So put not your faith in numbers. Disappointment that way lies. On Monday the mood in the Scottish nationalist camp changed. Opinion polls now offered a persuasive and necessary reminder that Scotland’s on the march. A march that ends in freedom and liberty and whisky next September as an ancient country reasserts her prerogatives  and takes here rightful place in the family of nations once again. Polls are pure dead brilliant, don’t you know? From which you will gather

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

CCHQ is already carrying out Andy Coulson’s GQ advice on Ukip

The Conservative party may have lost its summer momentum, but at least it isn’t worrying about Ukip at the moment. Former spin chief Andy Coulson is doing some worrying in this month’s GQ on the Tory party’s behalf, warning that the party needs an even stronger message on Europe to counter the threat of Nigel Farage’s party. But some of his advice will hearten CCHQ, as spinners and researchers are already ahead of Coulson. The article says: ‘UKIP must be taken seriously so as to expose just how empty-headed it really is. Every utterance must be recorded and analysed, every speech given proper attention by some of the bigger, more

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Philip Hammond: No 2nd Syria vote ‘unless the circumstances change very significantly’

Defence Questions this afternoon was, as you might expect, a rather chippy affair. It seemed that whenever Philip Hammond rose to answer a question, he answered it by reminding the Labour MP asking it of their party’s decision to oppose the government’s motion on Syria. Nowhere was this more the case than in the Defence Secretary’s exchange with Jim Murphy, where both men set out some interesting wriggle room in their party positions on a second vote. listen to ‘Hammond: ‘Circumstances would have to change very significantly’ before MPs get another vote on military action in Syria’ on Audioboo

Douglas Murray

The Syrian paradox

Readers may be interested to know that I have a piece in this morning’s Wall Street Journal on the House of Commons vote last week on Syria. David Davis MP has a piece in the same edition making some broadly similar points. For me the conundrum of Syria now comes down to one particular problem. That is one which the House of Commons stumbled over last week and which the US Congress is likely to stumble over in the week ahead. The West has now given ample warning to President Assad of its intention to strike at some point. President Obama has famously drawn a red-line over the use of

Sebastian Payne

‘What other journalist can claim they’ve had a movie made about one of their interviews’ – Andrew Neil on David Frost

Today’s papers are full of tributes to the broadcaster David Frost, who passed away yesterday at the age of 74. I spoke to his friend and fellow broadcaster Andrew Neil this morning about his memories of the journalist as well as Frost’s broadcasting legacy: listen to ‘Andrew Neil on David Frost ‘the only journalist who combined journalism with entertainment’’ on Audioboo

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

No 10: Absolutely no plans for a second vote on Syria. Labour: We could consider it

Will there be a second vote on Syria? As you might expect, that question dominated today’s lobby briefing with the Prime Minister’s official spokesman. He told journalists that ‘there has been no change’ in the Prime Minister’s view since Thursday’s vote and that ‘parliament has spoken: that’s why the government has absolutely no plans to go back to Parliament’. As I said this morning, the only way in which you’d be at all safe putting money on another vote on this matter would be if Ed Miliband came back to Cameron and pledged his support. And on this, Labour is being rather less equivocal than the government. Chuka Umunna has

Sebastian Payne

Is Obama’s Syria vote a gamechanger? View from 22 special podcast

As the world’s reaction to Syria continues to develop, with Barack Obama’s vote in Congress and talks of a second vote in Parliament, the Spectator’s Douglas Murray, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the state of the special relationship, who will be responsible for the eventual outcome in Syria, what Labour and the Tories are thinking about a potential second vote, the significance of Obama following in Cameron’s footsteps and what to expect over the next week. Douglas Murray on the problems with intervention ‘How do you hit targets in Syria that punish Assad which do not go some way to toppling the regime? If you do topple the regime, then there is a strong

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg: We won’t ask Parliament the same question on Syria

Nick Clegg has this morning added his own voice to those at the top of the Coalition saying they won’t go back to Parliament for another vote on Syria. The Deputy Prime Minister was careful to be clear that he and his colleagues respected parliament’s verdict, and didn’t want to push MPs when they had already made their views clear: ‘We’re not going to keep asking the same question of Parliament again and again. We live in a democracy, the executive cannot act in a way which clearly is not welcome to Parliament or the British people, so we’re not proposing to do so… I can’t foresee any circumstances where we

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The second vote that MPs really should hold on Syria

Even though George Osborne did everything he could yesterday to kill talk of a second vote in the House of Commons on action in Syria, speculation about that vote still makes the front pages this morning. There are probably safer bets to place. But one of the failings of Parliament last week – amidst all the cheering for a boost for democracy that is apparently characterised by ministers getting stuck in soundproofed rooms and missing key votes – was that in failing to pass either the government motion or the Labour amendment, Parliament failed to even condemn the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. That was underlined by