Politics

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

Thursday

The Spectator

What’s wrong with foreign aid?

Justine Greening is a robust politician and bean counter who reportedly used extremely fruity language when told she was being reshuffled to the International Development Department. Even though the new Secretary of State has made a strong start in her role, announcing the end of Britain’s aid programme to India by 2015 and suspending bilateral aid to Rwanda, she remains in a difficult position. In this week’s Spectator aid special, two writers examine the problems with Britain’s international development policy, from its target to spend 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income to politicians’ underlying assumptions about aid. Jonathan Foreman asks why politicians continue to throw money at aid projects

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The horror of the ‘fake’ independent coffee shop

It’s official: this country is going to the dogs. The proof? Tesco has been insidiously infiltrating the coffee shop market with a chain of shops that look independent. The Guardian reports outrage in Crouch End, where customers were ‘duped’ by ‘independent-looking, stripped back coffee shops’. The greatest crime of Harris + Hoole – which has its majority stake owned by the family that founded it – is that Tesco has a 49 per cent stake in the business, but doesn’t plaster its own logo above the shops, preferring instead to fill them with nice furniture and pretty decor. Here’s one quote from the piece: “I avoid Starbucks because it’s a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cristina Kirchner forgets the most important people in the Falklands row: the Islanders

The British government has been gently rattling the bars in its stand-off with Argentina over the Falklands of late: giving the Queen a stretch of land in Antarctica which Cristina Kirchner’s government disputes the ownership of is one example. But today, ahead of a referendum in March for Islanders to decide whether they want the Falklands to remain under British sovereignty, Kirchner has upped the tension. In a letter published as an advert in today’s papers, the Argentine President demands that the UK ‘abide by the resolutions of the United Nations’ to end colonialism and negotiate a solution to the sovereignty dispute over the Islands. There’s a question about why

Jonathan Foreman

The great aid mystery

One of the more bizarre mysteries of contemporary British politics is the ironclad, almost fanatical intensity of the government’s commitment to foreign aid spending and the activities of DFID, the Department for International Development. It is bizarre because the Prime Minister talks about foreign aid as if it’s all about famine relief and saving children’s lives. But he and his Cabinet are intelligent, worldly people and they know that the real world of aid rarely resembles the one celebrated in DFID pamphlets and Oxfam ads. They know that most aid is ‘development aid’ intended not to help in emergencies, but to foster prosperity. They also know that this development aid

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Cameron election

One of the first things that the coalition did on taking office was to announce the date of the next election. This was meant to prevent destablising speculation about when the two parties might split apart and go to the country. It has largely succeeded in doing that. But there has been an unintended side-effect. Knowing the date of the next election has made all the parties far more obsessed with election planning than they normally would be. When two or three Conservatives are gathered together, attention invariably turns to 2015. David Cameron’s New Year message read, deliberately, like the first part of an election address. In conversation with members

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Get the church out of the state, and the state will stay out of the church

So let us return, you and I, warily and wearily, to the topic of gay marriage. Gingerly, in fact, as though with a hangover after an ill-tempered, bickering party. And, in the cold and Nurofenned light of day, let us find our common ground, and think about where it leads. I’m still for it and I’m still of the view that churches shouldn’t have to do it if they don’t want to. I’m for both of these things for the same reason, which is a belief that one person’s conviction, however firmly held, shouldn’t mess with another’s liberty and happiness unless it absolutely has to. In all honesty, though, I

Wednesday

Shiraz Maher

New terrorism control measures under the spotlight

It has not been a very happy start to the new year for Theresa May, who will have to answer difficult questions in the Commons about the disappearance of a terrorism suspect. Ibrahim Magog has been on the run since Christmas eve when police first realised he had failed to meet the conditions of his overnight residence requirements. Magog has been under investigation for two years and is believed to have trained with al-Shabaab, a Somali terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda. The group has waged a violent campaign in East Africa and has long threatened attacks against the West (although none have actually materialised). What will trouble the Home Secretary

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Now Nick Clegg turns on Labour ahead of mid-term review

Nick Clegg is in a pugnacious mood at the moment. First there was the very conveniently leaked memo in which Lib Dem strategists urged MPs to criticise their Tory Coalition partners publicly. Now he’s gone on the attack against Labour’s spending plans, or lack thereof. The Deputy Prime Minister writes in The Times: ‘The Labour leadership continue to complain about the coalition’s approach, but without providing any credible alternative. They’re learning the tricks of opposition and finding their rhetorical refrains. But where are the numbers? Where are their sums? The country has undergone the biggest economic crisis in living memory, yet they offer no explanation of how they’d get us

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

François Hollande: Ed Miliband’s embarrassing friend

Time was when Ed Miliband had plenty to say about François Hollande. When the new French President celebrated his victory in May, the Labour leader praised Hollande for his ‘determination to help create a Europe of growth and jobs, in a way that is responsible and sustainable’. He added: ‘This new leadership is sorely needed as Europe seeks to escape from austerity. And it matters to Britain.’ Then, Miliband was keen to work together with his new friend Hollande. Just a few months down the line, though, Labour has a bit less to say about how the French president is a shining example of the centre-left showing leadership and hope

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

A new EU membership for Britain: second-class or sensible?

Becoming a ‘second-class’ member of the European Union doesn’t sound awfully appealing on first glance at today’s Times story. But the ‘associate membership’ being considered by the Union of European Federalists would see Britain remain in the single market but lose its commissioner in Brussels and eventually its MEPs, too. Those drawing up this version of the new treaty also envisage that there would continue to be a seat at the Court of Justice for Britain. The big question for the eurosceptics I’ve spoken to this morning is whether Britain could have what one Tory MP described as a common market, rather than single market agreement, whereby it abides by

Sunday

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

The formidable female politicians of the year

Audits of the last year are a blessing to journalists: a postmortem of the gainers and losers of 2012 are a useful means of covering for the fact that there’s next to nothing happening on the political front, nobody’s at work and the only actual news is hinged on that annual festival of recrimination, the New Year’s Honours List. But the lists are good for sparking off debate, at least among the politically interested, and one of them, the Telegraph’s summary of the top five political women of the last year had at least the merit of getting me worked up. To cut to the chase, the women who matter by this

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Realism and optimism: David Cameron’s New Year message

David Cameron’s New Year message is a rather sober one, but it’s not downbeat. The theme is ‘realism and optimism’ and the Tory leader’s aim is to demonstrate to voters that his policies are putting the country on the right track, and to that end he makes some strong points on deficit reduction, unemployment, education, welfare, tax and pensions. Encouraging optimism about Britain’s trajectory is important because 2013 is going to be a difficult year, not just for the Conservative party internally on issues such as Europe and gay marriage, but for the Coalition, as new cuts come in and critics call on the government to change tack. Ed Miliband’s

Saturday

The Spectator

Why should MPs stay put in the Palace of Westminster?

Tristram Hunt paints a bleak picture of the state the Palace of Westminster is in for Spectator readers this week as he draws parallels between the crumbling parliament building in New Delhi and plans to renovate the Mother of Parliaments in London. The Labour MP and historian writes: In SW1, the situation is critical. Forget the obvious signs of decay — the mice; the leaking roofs; the wafts of sewage. Deep in the belly of Charles Barry’s 1830s Gothic wonderland, the infrastructure is in meltdown. The steam and condensate systems are beyond life expectancy. Explosions from the boilers risk the cabling and water pipes. The vertical risers are ridden with

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The genius of William Rees-Mogg

At my first-ever Tory party conference, I saw William Rees-Mogg leave a reception and chased him down the corridor like a groupie. I asked him if he had any tips: since college days, I’d marvelled at how he managed to write so clearly, compellingly and accessibly on such a variety of subjects. He had no reason to talk to a nonentity like me, but was kind enough to offer three tips. He said he took inspiration from Ben Jonson’s essays: the originals, he said, were still the best. Next, he had about six topics on the boil at any one moment. There wasn’t time to properly research a topic and write

Friday

Peter Jones

Rome vs the EU

On the eve of the first day of 2002, when the euro became the official EU currency, this column turned to Tacitus for its judgment: ‘the ignorant called it civilisation: it was in fact a mark of their servitude’; and ended ‘the issuing of a common currency, with all that implies in terms of ideology, autonomy, political identity and assertion of power, could be a useful first step in the servitude stakes, if nothing else’. And the last one too, if you ask the Greeks. So what is to be done? Everyone is in favour of a form of economic union, but it is time for an alternative. We should

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg make their new year pitch to voters

According to a spuriously scientific study, today is the day when festive excess gets the better of us, with one in two Brits opting to stay on the sofa with the curtains closed fretting about bills and weight gain. So how fortunate it is that Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have chosen to rouse a hungover nation today with their stirring new year messages. Ed Miliband promises that he will be setting out ‘concrete steps’ on how One Nation Labour will work, citing business, education and welfare as examples. He does add that he doesn’t ‘offer easy answers and I’m not going to offer false promises either’. But it’s difficult

The Spectator

Hunting with the Heythrop

In this week’s issue of The Spectator, Melissa Kite joins David Cameron’s local hunt, the Heythrop, to find out what its members think of its recent drubbing in the courts from the RSPCA, and the Conservative Party’s troubled relationship with fox hunting. She meets former huntsman Julian Barnfield, who was fined £1,000 in the case, and chats to him about the recent admission from the Tories that a free vote on the hunting ban isn’t on the cards for the new year after all: To understand fully the sense of grievance, you need to cast your mind back to the way the Conservatives campaigned at the last election. Then, the

Sebastian Payne

Austerity hits home in the North East of England

Have you personally suffered from George Osborne’s spending cuts? Your answer depends largely on where you live. I’ve witnessed both over the past few days. This Christmas, I’m enjoying my first prolonged stay away from London in some time and the impact of austerity in the North East has really struck me. First to note is spending cuts in local government. In this part of the world, the public sector is a vast beast. The Guardian reported in 2010 34 per cent of the total employment in Newcastle upon Tyne is in the public sector, one of the top 15 councils in the country. The authorities of Sunderland, Northumberland, North Tyneside and Darlington all have above-national average

Melissa Kite

The hunt for Cameron

On a perfect winter morning, I mount a dapple grey horse in an icy farmyard a few minutes from the Prime Minister’s country home and prepare to go hunting with the Chipping Norton set. David Cameron’s local hunt, the Heythrop, is meeting just round the corner from where the PM lives, in the Oxfordshire village of Dean, and the Cotswold elite are out in force. As we hunt, we will be skirting the estates of Jeremy Clarkson and Rebekah and Charlie Brooks. There are more socialites gathering on horseback than you can shake a hunting crop at, though at this stage I am not aware I might have to. The

Thursday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron needn’t fear renegotiating Britain’s relationship with the EU

Nick Clegg has made a not-so-startling intervention in the debate about Britain’s relationship with Europe today, warning that Britain must avoid selling itself short in a renegotiation. His interview with the Guardian is a necessary piece of positioning ahead of David Cameron’s Big Europe Speech in mid-January, and this kind of differentiation is something the Tories are more than happy for the Lib Dem leader to continue doing. So in some ways, Clegg warning Cameron not to overdo it on Europe isn’t at all significant. But the Deputy Prime Minister makes an important observation in his interview about Britain’s bargaining power. Describing the creation of the single market and the