Politics Archives

Saturday

9 Mar 2013

May blossoms

The question about Theresa May has always been what does she believe? Well, today in the widest-ranging speech of her political career she went a long way to answering that. You can read the speech, delivered at the Conservative Home conference, here. Several things struck me about the speech. First, on economics May is not a classical liberal or a Lawsonian. Instead, she is more in the Michael Heseltine camp. She made the case for a buy British government procurement programme that strikes a ‘better balance between short-term value for the taxpayer and long-term benefits to the economy’. But, in other areas, May is prepared to be more free market

Isabel Hardman

Clegg plays tough guy in shouty Q&A with Lib Dem activists

Nick Clegg has just battled his way through a rather more grumpy than usual question-and-answer session at the Lib Dem spring conference. Normally, these sessions are an opportunity for the party to let off steam – they’re obviously far more robust than the sort of thing you’ll see in the House of Commons as they involve party members complaining about things that worry them, rather than telling Clegg how pleased they are with the Coalition’s record. And normally Clegg performs well: Q&A sessions are his strength. But this was a more robust session than usual, with considerably more steam: activists weren’t just anxious and keen to grill their leader, they

James Forsyth

Tories and Lib Dems strike deal on mansion tax vote

Further to Isabel’s post this morning, I understand from a senior coalition source that the two parties have now reached an agreement on how to handle Tuesday’s vote on Labour’s mansion tax motion. The Liberal Democrat leadership has assured their coalition partners that they’ll back a government amendment to it. This amendment will concede that the coalition parties have different views on the issue. The only question now is whether the speaker John Bercow will call it. I suspect that this agreement has been helped by a desire to limit coalition tensions post-Eastleigh and pre-Budget. There is also reluctance on the part of the Liberal Democrats to get dragged into

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem activists keep up pressure on sexism

The Lib Dem leadership has been trying its best this weekend to address the Lord Rennard allegations. I understand Tim Farron has been meeting activists to discuss any ongoing concerns. And the party also announced last night that it was creating a new group, Liberal Democrat Women, which, slightly confusingly, merges Women Lib Dems and the Campaign for Gender Balance. Another group with a more imaginative name is Rock the Boat, set up by Lib Dem activist James Shaddock, as a way of pressuring the leadership to examine not just the Rennard allegations, but the wider culture in the party. It boasts around 300 members currently. Female activists told Coffee

Fraser Nelson

Lord Ashcroft’s message to the Tories: you’re doomed in 2015

I’m at the ConservativeHome ‘Victory 2015’ conference today, which after Lord Ashcroft’s presentation should perhaps be renamed Annihilation 2015. He started the day with one of his mega expensive polls of marginal seats, a survey of 19,200 suggesting the Tories would lose 93 seats to the Labour Party alone, giving Miliband a total of 367 MPs and a majority of 84. ‘I don’t want to see a Labour majority of four, let alone 84, but I hope this puts the challenge into some sort of perspective,’ Ashcroft said. The perspective being: give up! Go home! Wait for 2020! The noble lord didn’t quite put it like that (update: you can

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dems to hold mansion tax vote strategy meeting

Will the Lib Dems support Labour’s mansion tax vote? Vince Cable praised his pet policy idea last night, telling Lib Dem activists that it was an effective way of the government collecting revenue because properties can’t move. But on Tuesday, the party will have to decide how it should vote on a very carefully-worded Labour motion (which you can read here). I understand that the Lib Dem leadership is holding a meeting on Monday to decide its strategy for the vote, which is an Opposition Day debate, not government business. A source close to Vince Cable tells me: ‘It’s unlikely the party will end up voting for the Labour motion.’

Isabel Hardman

Vince Cable: Tory ‘ideologues’ waging ‘jihad’ against public spending

Vince Cable managed to hit all the Lib Dem spots last night with his fringe speech at the Lib Dem spring conference. He didn’t just mention the words ‘land value tax’, which set many Lib Dem heads nodding away with approval, but also managed to say ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’ in Swahili, and accuse right-wing Conservatives of waging ‘jihad’ against public spending and public services. Here are three main points from his speech: 1. Cable said certain Tory ‘ideologues’ were waging ‘jihad’ against public spending. It wasn’t clear whether the Business Secretary was attacking his Tory Cabinet colleagues or backbenchers like Liam Fox and David Ruffley

Friday

8 Mar 2013

Isabel Hardman

Shirley Williams: Nick Clegg is above all the victim of the Rennard scandal coverage

A crime reporter friend enjoys telling the story of his first black eye at the local Magistrates’ Court. Like so many, it occurred as he was leaving, and bumped into a convicted defendant. The conversation ran along these lines: Man convicted of awkward crime: You’re not putting this in the paper, are you? You can’t do this, it’ll ruin my business. Reporter, in his first job and in a chippy mood: You should have thought about then when you did it, mate. Man convicted of awkward crime’s right fist makes contact with reporter’s eye. I remembered this story this evening as the Lib Dems started their party’s spring conference in

James Forsyth

An independent rap across the knuckles for the Prime Minister

Today’s letter from the Office of Budget Responsibility pointing out to David Cameron that the OBR’s growth forecasts have taken into account the effect of austerity on growth is embarrassing for the Prime Minister. This kind of letter is a gift to the opposition and Ed Balls has set about taking full advantage. Now, it is worth noting that Cameron’s comments in this case were more defensible than his ones about the national debt in the Conservative party political broadcast, which Fraser picked up on at the time. As government spin doctors have been vigorously arguing, Cameron was mainly talking about why growth has undershot the 2010 forecast which factored

Douglas Murray

At last. Some right thinking on Iran

At last some leadership on Iran. And from the Conservative benches. After last week’s appalling Jack Straw piece in the Telegraph, the Conservative MP James Morris has a brilliant and blistering response in the same paper. ‘It is vital that we continue to pressure the Iranian regime through tough and sustained sanctions – and leave the possibility of a military option firmly on the table. The Iranian regime must be under no illusions about our determination and resolve in preventing them from achieving their objective of developing a nuclear weapons capability. Those of us who understand the grave danger a nuclear Iran would pose – and there are many –

Melanie McDonagh

What was it that made the Vicky Pryce trial so compelling?

Just about the only respectable moral that can be drawn from the grisly extended farce that was the Vicky Pryce trial is that the defence of marital coercion is a choice absurdity; one look at the feisty, tightlipped Ms Pryce should have been enough to persuade any jury that this one wasn’t a runner. Everything else about the trial was just horrible. And, obviously, utterly compelling. It’s a toss up between whether the calculated revelation about Pryce’s abortion – at her husband’s behest, she says – was worse than the publication of emails from her embittered son Peter to his father (for good measure she let it be known that

Isabel Hardman

Labour courts Lib Dem support with mansion tax motion

Labour is still pursuing its mansion tax vote, with the debate set for next Tuesday. It’s a clever piece of political timing by Ed Miliband’s party, as the text of the motion is now out and about in time for the Lib Dems to assemble in Brighton for their Spring Conference. Vince Cable is speaking tonight at a fringe event, and will undoubtedly be asked whether he wants the Lib Dems to support it. The motion, which the party has just released, reads as follows: ‘That this House believes that a mansion tax on properties worth over £2million, to fund a tax cut for millions of people on middle and

Martin Bright

A lesson in solidarity, from the Jewish community in Britain

This week I wrote my last Bright on Politics column for the Jewish Chronicle. Here it is in full: This is my last Bright on Politics column. After three-and-a-half years at the JC, I will leave with a lump in my throat, so please forgive me if this piece is a little sentimental or, dare I say it, schmaltzy. When I started work at the paper, some of my former colleagues warned me I was consigning myself to a backwater. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even before I joined the paper I had always felt it to be a unique publication: an ultra-local community newspaper with global ambitions.

Alex Massie

Ed Miliband’s Convenient, Part-Time, Cowardly, Zionism

For a few hours this morning it looked as though Ed Miliband might do something uncharacteristically courageous. The Jewish Chronicle reported that the Labour leader had described himself as a Zionist at a meeting organised by the Board of Deputies. It may be sad that this would need to be considered, as Dan Hodges put it, ‘a brave and welcome statement’ but that’s the modern British left for you. Mr Hodges wondered if Miliband would ‘stand by’ this statement. His scepticism was sensible. And sure enough, word comes that Miliband’s views have been ‘misinterpreted’ by the Jewish Chronicle. As Hodges relates the story: ‘Asked at the event whether he was

Steerpike

Dave’s Dozen

Last year Steerpike broke the news that fourteen rebel backbenchers had written to Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, as part of the formal process to trigger a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister. The number of names required is forty-six. This morning our editor, Fraser Nelson, reveals that senior rebels now believe that they are ‘half a dozen names away from a coup’. That’s only a minibus of Tories for Cameron to slight in some way or offend; and you wouldn’t bet against that considering Dave’s reputation for brusqueness.

Fraser Nelson

Fear, loathing and the coalition government

The success of Britain’s coalition government over the last two years has been extraordinary. That two parties could come together, in Westminster’s adversarial system, was itself unusual. That they could agree a radical programme of government: school reform and welfare reform, was exceptional. But in my Telegraph column today, I say suggest that the battles over the spending review suggest that this spirit of co-operation is ending – and that the condition might be terminal. Here are my main points: 1. The constructive phase of coalition. When I served a tour of duty in the Scottish Parliament, I was struck by how the LibDems profited from coalition with Labour. They had

Thursday

7 Mar 2013

Isabel Hardman

Labour will have to get used to about-turns on policies it opposed

Yesterday Ed Miliband reiterated his party’s existing policies on immigration for voters, today Yvette Cooper went into further detail about how Labour would address the policy area in government. Like Miliband’s PPB, Cooper’s speech speech to IPPR included an acknowledgement that politicians don’t like to talk about immigration, and a mea culpa. She said Labour should have been quicker to bring in the Australian-style points-based system, that the party should have kept transitional controls for Eastern Europe, and that as a government it should have ‘looked more at the impact, and been ready to talk about problems. Cooper was heavy on the policy detail, and some of that detail included

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron DOES have a magic money tree

So David Cameron says there is ‘no magic money tree’. In his big economy speech today, the Prime Minister said: ‘Now of course there are plenty of people out there with different advice about how to fix our broken economy. Some say cut more and borrow less, others cut less and borrow more. Go faster. Go slower. Cut taxes. Put them up. We need to cut through all this and tell people some plain truths. So let me speak frankly and do just that. ‘There are some people who think we don’t have to take all these tough decisions to deal with our debts. They say that our focus on

Harry Cole

The Lib Dems make another personal scandal their party’s problem

Another evening and another set of headlines opening with the now familiar line ‘senior Liberal Democrats have denied they knew’. Not the allegations about Lord Rennard (which he denies) this time, but whether they had any prior warning in spring 2011 about the coming storm that seems likely to land Chris Huhne and his ex-wife in jail. What should have been a scandal about Chris Huhne could taint the entire senior party. Isabel argues that the political fallout from today’s verdict and next week’s sentencing of Pryce and Huhne will be relatively minor. In the short-term I agree, but in the long-run days like today are occurring a little too

Isabel Hardman

Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce: the politics

What is the political impact of the Chris Huhne/Vicky Pryce case? It’s a question that you’ll hear a lot from those who view everything through what Edward Leigh might call the merciless prism of politics. And yet, as James Kirkup points out on his Telegraph blog, this is more about a terrible family breakdown than it is about the Liberal Democrats. However, as we’re still holding up that merciless prism of politics, here are a few thoughts. The first is that of course people will discuss this in the bars at the Lib Dem spring conference this weekend. But will it overshadow the event itself? Not really: this has become a