Politics Archives

Saturday

6 Apr 2013

David Cameron and the Union

Alex Massie asks why I didn’t mention the Union in my piece in this week’s magazine on what David Cameron’s legacy will be. It is a good question. Indeed, one former Cameron aide told me that he thought that the likely preservation of the Union would be Cameron’s greatest achievement. But the reason I didn’t mention it was because Cameron’s strategy on Scotland has been to keep a relatively low profile. He has, deliberately, not made it his fight. He realised that Alex Salmond wanted to present himself as the opposition to an English Tory Prime Minister who was, in Nationalist-speak, imposing his will on Scotland—and has simply refused to

Fraser Nelson

Matthew Parris is right – and George Osborne should calm down.

George Osborne has been behaving rather oddly of late. Normally, he’s known as the ‘submarine’ for surfacing only twice a year. Now, it’s twice a week. On Tuesday he delivered a speech to supermarket staff, talking tough on welfare and sometimes lapsing into a Dick Van Dyke mockney accent. On Thursday he used the Philpott case to raise questions about the welfare system. Yesterday, David Cameron backed him. It looks like a concerted effort to speak on the wavelength of target voters – but will it work? In this week’s Spectator, Matthew Parris suggests it may not. He has spoken at length to many of the 40 MPs who hold

Friday

5 Apr 2013

David Blackburn

Why don’t Labour talk about welfare reform?

Philip Collins is shackled by the epithet ‘Tony Blair’s former speechwriter’; shackled because his columns prove him to be his own man. His latest (£) is a carefully argued critique of the Labour Party’s total lack of a welfare policy, titled ‘Labour Can’t Win If It’s On Mick Philpott’s side’ . The most arresting section is: ‘There is no better illustration of the self-harm of Labour’s position than that it is driving me into the arms of the Tory backbencher Bernard Jenkin. I usually regard Mr Jenkin as the prime specimen of perspective-free hyperbole on Europe and tax cuts. But Mr Jenkin was one of a number of Tories who suggested

David Blackburn

The Tories steal the Lib Dems’ best clothes with new poster

This poster will, I am sure, have the Lib Dems hopping about with fury. The Tories have hi-jacked a key Liberal Democrat policy: raising the personal allowance. Perhaps this is what lies in wait for the Lib Dems as 2015 approaches: the Tories steal all of their good ideas. If that happens, perhaps a merger of the two parties (or at least elements of the Lib Dems) will become more likely. Who knows? Anyway, the blurb that accompanies the poster shows that an attempt is being made to fashion the Conservative Party into the party of work. The poster reflects that positive aim; a dramatic improvement on the divisive and

David Blackburn

Nuclear weapons, Scotland and the future of the United Kingdom

David Cameron – who, in case you’d forgotten, leads the Conservative and Unionist Party – made a rare visit to Scotland yesterday. He spoke about defence. His message was clear: an independent Scotland could not expect to win defence contracts from what remains of the United Kingdom. Jobs and expertise, therefore, would be lost. Vote no. This is, as Iain Martin notes, smart politics. The Nationalists are weakest on those briefs which are the central functions of a nation state: defence, foreign policy and welfare. Cameron, as the British Prime Minister, should make more of this natural advantage. (Incidentally, Alex Massie has an excellent account of the referendum battle. It’s

Thursday

4 Apr 2013

Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley’s diary: My undiscovered island, and the Met Office’s computer problem

We’ve discovered that we own an island. But dreams of independence and tax-havenry evaporate when we try to picnic there on Easter Sunday: we watch it submerge slowly beneath the incoming tide. It’s a barnacle-encrusted rock, about the size of a tennis court, just off the beach at Cambois, north of Blyth, which for some reason ended up belonging to my ancestor rather than the Crown. Now there’s a plan for a subsidy-fired biomass power station nearby that will burn wood (and money) while pretending to save the planet. The outlet pipes will go under our rock and we are due modest compensation. As usual, it’s us landowners who benefit

The Spectator

George Osborne’s relish over welfare reform risks recontaminating the Tory brand

For the past few weeks Ed Miliband has repeated the words ‘bedroom tax’ ad nauseum. The average voter may think that such a thing exists. His obsession makes little sense without historic context. The last time a Labour opposition succeeded in attaching the word ‘tax’ to something which a Conservative government preferred to call something else was in 1990 when the Community Charge became almost universally known as the Poll Tax. Labour’s strategy then, depicting the Conservatives as taking sadistic pleasure in trampling upon the poor and weak, had a devastating effect. In those days, Labour posed as the party of compassion — and portrayed the Tories as economic obsessives

Rachel Johnson

The kibbutz goes capitalist

Galilee: The last time I was here, the kibbutz was filled with sunburnt, muscular, sweaty Israelis covered in dark curly hair, driving Jeeps, so handsome I’d spill my Jaffa orange juice down my white cheesecloth culottes when they spoke to me. Then, Kfar Hanassi, in northern Galilee, a grenade’s throw from the Golan Heights, had 600 or so members, and cleaved to the lofty-lefty ideals of the collective: everyone gave what they could, in the words of the kibbutz movement, and got what they needed. No one owned a house, everyone ate the same thing together in the dining room (yoghurt, hummus, eggs, more yoghurt, more hummus). After dinner, everyone

Douglas Murray

The Philpott case should prompt debate about Britain’s underclass

The Philpott case has already turned into a row about media reporting. You can see why. It is so much easier to argue about a newspaper front-page than to talk about the terrible underclass this country has created. In a nutshell our problem is this. For hard-working couples, having children in 21st century Britain is unbelievably costly. Having been taxed at every turn of their lives they have to think extremely carefully about whether they can afford to have a child. Many will decide they cannot. Others will decide that they can but will spend endless nights worrying over how they are going to support the child they have brought

David Blackburn

The Philpotts – what happened to Labour’s view that we should be tough on the causes of crime?

Several Labour MPs have expressed their disapproval of George Osborne’s comments about the taxpayer funding Mick Philpott’s lifestyle. For example, Andy McDonald, MP for Middlesbrough, said that welfare is a ‘completely separate discussion, it should not be had in the context of the most appalling crime of a father killing his six children. It just demonstrates how out of touch George Osborne is. He may as well make adverse comments about the entire population of a town or a religion, it’s absolute nonsense.’ The obvious problem with this is that Osborne acknowledged that they were separate issues. He said that the Philpotts’ crimes were their own responsibility, but their lifestyle, as

Alex Massie

David Cameron’s Legacy? Preserving the Union or presiding over the Break-Up of Britain

Politics is at least partially a matter of perspective. The same object can look very different depending upon the angle from which it is viewed. Which brings me to Brother Forsyth’s latest column. I bow to no-one in my admiration for James’s reporting and astute analysis. Nor do I dispute much of what he says in his analysis of David Cameron’s legacy. No, what’s interesting is what isn’t there. The Union. I know. Scots go on and on and on about this stuff. It is true that the Caledonian gene is strong on self-absorption. Nevertheless, I think it can reasonably be considered revealing that this type of column, written by

James Forsyth

The Tories try to win friends in the north

A new group designed to increase the Tory party’s appeal to urban northern voters will be launched this June. It already has the support of a considerable number of MPs and, I understand, senior figures in Number 10 are offering support to the project. David Skelton, who moved the Tories from third to second in Durham North at the last election, is stepping down as the deputy director of Policy Exchange to run it. This new group is right that it will be very hard for the Tories to win a workable majority without winning some seats in the urban and suburban north. This is going to require susbtanitally increasing the

Harry Cole

Is Andrew Mitchell the right man for Britain in Europe?

It now looks almost certain that Andrew Mitchell will be our next EU Commissioner in 2014. The job was not advertised and the backroom selection process remains a mystery. In the wake of the Plebgate row, though, we can make an educated guess as to why, according to the FT, Downing Street has asked Mitchell ‘to consider’ the offer. This would be no ordinary consolation prize for Mitchell. Downing Street has big hopes for Mitchell in the role. Senior Whitehall sources indicate that Britain will be pushing hard for a big economic portfolio when the new commission is appointed next year. The aim is to make the case for financial

Nick Cohen

Twitter: A playground for hysterics, prudes, fools and spies

Another day, another story of the forces of order hounding an innocent citizen for making innocuous remarks on Twitter. This week’s target was Rob Marchant, a centrist Labour supporter, who was chatting online with a few comrades. They all opposed Lutfur Rahman, the sly and to my mind thoroughly unappetising mayor of Tower Hamlets. Labour had expelled Rahman, a frontman for Islamic Forum Europe, after he ran against the official Labour candidate to become mayor. Unlike many of the conformists and appeasers on the London left, Marchant and his friends believed that it is the job of leftists to oppose the religious right. Not everyone agrees with that admirable sentiment.

Clarissa Tan

East vs East – Asia’s new arms race

It is, by now, clear that Kim Jong-un is madder than his father. He’s blasted off North Korea’s third nuclear test and plans to restart its nuclear reactor, as his people continue to starve. Last weekend his government declared that the ‘time has come to stage a do-or-die final battle’ with South Korea. He has instructed his troops to ‘break the waists of the crazy enemies’ and also ‘cut their windpipes’. For good measure he described Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s first female president, as a ‘venomous swish of skirt’ and has severed all military hotlines with Seoul, like a petulant teenager refusing to answer the phone. It would be funny,

James Forsyth

What will David Cameron be remembered for?

Ten Downing Street has been an odd place these past few days. The prime ministerial portraits that line the main staircase have been taken down and the furniture covered in dust sheets, as the authorities take advantage of David Cameron’s absence to spring clean. But the process has reminded those who work there of the transience of power, of how quickly they could be removed and the question of what legacy they might leave behind. What will future occupants say when they see the portrait of Cameron on the wall? Toward the end of his time in No. 10, Steve Hilton would sit in policy meetings and ask, ‘But is

Matthew Parris

Frontline Tories to Cameron: ‘We don’t want to look nasty and we don’t want to look mad.’

Just before Easter, writing for the Times, I talked to 30 of the 40 Conservative MPs with the most marginal constituencies. My aim was to get a sense of how they think their party should position itself. I explored their opinions on a range of vexed policy areas. Finally I asked whether David Cameron’s leadership was a help or hindrance. The broad conclusion was that most marginal MPs took a decidedly and sometimes passionately ‘softline’ position on most controversial issues, European ‘interference’ in domestic human rights questions offering the nearest thing to a hardline consensus. And all considered Mr Cameron a plus, though more weakly in the Midlands and North.

Wednesday

3 Apr 2013

Steerpike

Boris Johnson vs Pippa Middleton. It’s on

Game on: Boris has accepted Pippa Middleton’s ‘Whiff-Whaff’ challenge. The Mayor of London has declared: ‘I’m game if she is. Happy for Pippa to join me on a visit and see the benefits of our £22m Sports Legacy Fund in action.’ While Pippa would no doubt enjoy that, the Spectator is happy to set up a ping pong table in our garden. Pol Roger will be served. UPDATE: Mr Steerpike has confirmation Pippa is still up for the contest. I hear she ‘sensed some nerves’ in Boris’s reply.

Steerpike

Pippa Middleton’s challenge to Boris Johnson

Pippa Middleton writes an Alpine Notebook for the new Spectator, out tomorrow. She has this to say at the end: ‘Back home in London after my Alpine challenges, I can now pursue less demanding hobbies in my spare time, such as ping-pong. I’m informed that Boris Johnson, former editor of this magazine, wants to be “whiff-whaff” world king even more than he wants to be Prime Minister. I’m also told the Johnsons are almost as competitive as the Middletons. So I’d like to lay down a challenge to the Mayor. My only stipulation is that I can use my favourite Dunlop Blackstorm Nemesis bat, which I used when I played

Tuesday

2 Apr 2013

James Forsyth

Key David Cameron aide to quit Downing Street

Sky News has revealed tonight that Rohan Silva, one of the Prime Minister’s key advisers, is leaving Downing Street. Silva might not be a household name but he has been a hugely influential figure there these past few years. In opposition, he worked for George Osborne before moving to work for David Cameron in government. He has been the driving force behind spending transparency, Tech City and crime maps. There have been few more pro-enterprise and pro-reform voices in this government. His departure is a big blow to Tory radicalism. One of the things that marked Silva out was a thirst for new ideas that is all too rare in