Politics Archives

Tuesday

26 Feb 2013

Italian elections: ‘The worst possible outcome’

Forget Moody’s. If you want to see market panic, just look at Italy. As Isabel reported this morning, the unexpectedly strong performance of Beppe Grillo’s anti-establishment party, the Five Star Movement, has produced an extremely close election result, and no clear winner. While the electoral system guarantees a majority in the Chamber of Deputies for the group with the largest vote share (Pier Luigi Bersani’s centre-left group), it does not do so for the Senate. With no group securing a majority in the upper house, Italy now faces coalition negotiations and likely another election. Citi calls this ‘probably the worst possible outcome for Italy’ — thanks to the political uncertainty,

Tom Maddocks

Crisis handling the Lib Dem way

For the Liberal Democrats, the Rennard affair was bad enough, particularly blowing up in the middle of the Eastleigh by-election; the way it has so far been handled from a crisis management point of view has made it a lot worse. The problem for the party is that prevarication, twisting in the wind and changes of mind seem to have been far more in evidence than specific, decisive action. First, the line seemed to be that Mr Clegg did not know about the allegations, so presumably he couldn’t have been expected to have taken action, then it seemed he did know but only about ‘general concerns’, now it is alleged

Steerpike

Oona King’s return to the spotlight

The Lords’ terrace was transformed into a theatre yesterday evening to stage an adaptation of Blair Babe Oona King’s House Music diaries, which recount her career as MP for Bethnal Green and Bow between 1997 and 2005. Many of New Labour’s faded hopes, like Ruth Kelly, turned up to roll back the years and remember the good times; although those wanting to catch a glimpse of Gordon had to make to do with an actor, because, of the Great Man himself, there was no sign (again). Ed Stoppard and comedian David Schneider were treading the makeshift boards in this dramatisation. They nailed compelling impersonations of Brown, Blair and George Galloway (King’s

Sebastian Payne

Labour are the real losers in Eastleigh

The Lib Dems are still on course to hold Eastleigh. Despite the loss of Britain’s AAA credit rating and the unfurling Rennard scandal, Lord Ashcroft’s latest poll today puts their candidate Mike Thornton on 33 per cent. Tory candidate Maria Hutchings is lagging five points behind on 28 per cent while Ukip are a little further behind with 21 per cent. Disappointingly for Ed Miliband, the Labour party’s celebrity candidate John O’Farrell is coming in with just 12 per cent. This confirms two things. Firstly, the by-election is only about local politics. As we discussed on last week’s View from 22 podcast, Chris Huhne has barely been mentioned on the doorstep. From the start,

Isabel Hardman

Weary Italian voters can teach UK politicians lessons

Italian voters are clearly cheesed off: with the Establishment, and with the country’s austerity programme. The explosion onto the scene of Beppe Grillo – which Freddy examined in his post from Rome on Sunday – shows quite how cheesed off they are, and it also has wider lessons for the eurozone and for UK politics, too. The first is that voters clearly do not share eurozone leaders’ unswerving commitment to the euro project: Grillo made much of his party’s eurosceptic credentials and won 54 seats in the upper house, with Berlusconi’s centre-right on 116, while Mario Monti, the conduit for the EU’s austerity measures, won only 18. No alliance gained

Monday

25 Feb 2013

Camilla Swift

Lord Rennard allegations: A timeline

As the allegations against Lord Rennard continue to emerge – and confusion continues over who knew what, and when, here is a timeline of the allegations, according to The Telegraph’s correspondence from 2010, and Cathy Newman’s Channel 4 News report from the 21st February 2013. 2003 Bridget Harris, who left her position as Clegg’s Spad just a few months ago, alleges that Rennard behaved in an ‘inappropriate’ manner, touching her legs three times whilst having coffee at a conference in Swansea in 2003. He then invited her up to his room, an incident which she then reported to her line managers. 2004 At an ‘away day’ in Peterborough, in 2004,

Isabel Hardman

AAA credit rating: George Osborne gives Labour a (revisionist) history lesson

George Osborne was playing historian today as he responded to Ed Balls’ urgent question on the credit rating downgrade, charting Labour’s role in the UK’s loss of the AAA rating; particularly the deficit it bequeathed the Coalition. But he was in revisionist mood when it came to his own stance. As Ed Balls repeatedly leant across the despatch box and tried to hand the Chancellor a copy of the Tory 2010 manifesto in which the party lists ‘we will safeguard Britain’s credit rating’ as the first of its eight benchmarks, George Osborne told MPs that what he had always said was important was the confidence of the markets. MPs were

James Forsyth

Could Eastleigh go the way of Cleggmania?

The Liberal Democrats have a different relationship to the popular press than the other two main parties, both more afraid and more contemptuous. This I suspect contributed to the slightly unwise tone of Nick Clegg’s statement last night. His declaration that ‘I will not stand by and allow my party to be subject to a show trial of innuendo, half-truths and slurs’ was hardly what you would expect from a party leader trying to show humility. One of the reasons that the Liberal Democrats are particularly sensitive to press coverage is the party’s memory of the unraveling of the Cleggmania. Until then, the Liberal Democrats had simply not been covered

Nick Cohen

Sexual abuse: Don’t toe the party line

A scandal broke in the Socialist Workers Party a few weeks ago after a woman member claimed a Trotskyist tribune of the working class had taken time off from promoting world revolution to rape her. The SWP did not behave as any decent person would and advise the woman to contact the police. In its paranoid mind, the criminal justice system conspires to discredit true revolutionaries, if given half a chance. Instead of involving detectives and judges, the party’s disciplinary committee set itself up as a kangaroo court, and “tried” the man it would identify only as “Comrade Delta”. The minutes show the paranoia with great clarity. One of the

Isabel Hardman

How will the Rennard allegations affect the Eastleigh by-election?

What effect will the Rennard allegations have on the Eastleigh by-election? Channel 4 has been working on the story for months, but it is obviously taking off at an inconvenient time for the Liberal Democrats. There is also – for both Coalition parties, although particularly for the Tories because this was a key pledge for George Osborne – the problem of the AAA credit rating loss. But don’t forget that the by-election was triggered by Chris Huhne’s ‘guilty’ plea for perverting the course of justice, and in spite of repeated references in Conservative campaign material to ‘trust’, Huhne appears to have had little effect on the by-election. One Conservative MP

Jonathan Jones

Markets shrug off Britain’s downgrade

It seems that Moody’s downgrade of UK government bonds on Friday night has — so far — had more effect on the headlines than the markets. After the news on Friday night, the pound fell by about a cent against the dollar, from $1.525 to $1.515. And against the euro it fell from €1.157 to €1.147 (it’s fallen a little further this morning, to €1.144). But that’s no bigger than the drop on Wednesday on the news that Mervyn King and two other members of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee had voted in favour of more quantitative easing. And it doesn’t seem to have raised the cost of

Isabel Hardman

Lord Rennard: The key questions

As James observed last night, Nick Clegg’s statement on the Rennard allegations raised more questions than it answered. Lord Rennard continues to strenuously deny the claims of sexual harassment made on Channel 4 News last week and in other reports since. But the problem is that when allegations were being made and rumours were circulating, nothing was done, regardless of whether those claims would have been proven or not. And as Nick Clegg hasn’t closed down the row, here are five questions that the party and those examining it will want to answer: 1. There are discrepancies between the different accounts of when the Lib Dem leadership received the specific

Sunday

24 Feb 2013

James Forsyth

Danny Alexander statement on Lord Rennard allegations

Below is a statement from Danny Alexander on his role in attempting to deal with allegations made against Lord Rennard: ‘As I said yesterday, I did not know about these specific allegations until the Channel 4 broadcast. When indirect and anonymous concerns about Chris Rennard’s conduct came to the attention of Nick Clegg’s office, in late 2008, we acted immediately. As Nick’s Chief of Staff, I put these concerns to Chris Rennard in strong terms and warned him that any such behaviour was wholly unacceptable. Chris Rennard categorically denied that he had behaved inappropriately as he continues to do. Chris Rennard subsequently resigned as Chief Executive on health grounds. As

Steerpike

Lembit twists the Clegg knife

The Lord Rennard scandal is spreading, not least because of Nick Clegg’s willingness to bring in other characters. He even directly named Danny Alexander as central to the disastrous investigation five years ago. Clegg’s statement says they didn’t know the specifics involved or the names of the women. A line that does not hold much weight when one of the victims was his own Special Advisor. As many Liberal Democrats lie low, it would not be a ‘show trial’ without everyone’s favourite yellow clown. Enter stage left Lembit Opik who popped on Sky News. The last person that the party leadership would want to see, and he did not upset the punters:

James Forsyth

Nick Clegg’s statement on Lord Rennard raises as many questions as it answers

Nick Clegg’s statement this evening concedes that he was aware of general concerns about Lord Rennard’s alleged behaviour. He says that he asked his then chief of staff Danny Alexander to confront Rennard about these concerns in 2008. Rennard told Alexander, Clegg says, that there was no truth to the allegations. Again, it is worth stressing that Rennard denies all the complaints made against him. Clegg, though, angrily refutes suggestions that he was aware of any specific allegations. He complains about a ‘show trial of innuendo, half-truths and slurs’ against the Liberal Democrats. Following Clegg’s statement, most attention now will focus on the Alexander Rennard meeting in 2008. Was it

Fraser Nelson

Nick Clegg drags Danny Alexander into the Rennard allegations

Nick Clegg has come back from Spain to admit that he did know about the allegations about Lord Rennard’s behaviour towards women – and, for good measure, has told us all that so did Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. In a statement, he has this to say: ‘I am angry and outraged at the suggestion that I would not have acted if these allegations had been put to me. Indeed, when indirect and non-specific concerns about Chris Rennard’s conduct reached my office in 2008, we acted to deal with them. My chief of staff at the time, Danny Alexander, put these concerns to Chris Rennard and warned him

James Forsyth

Nick Clegg statement on Lord Rennard

Statement from Nick Clegg: The allegations made on Channel 4 concerning Lord Rennard last Thursday were extremely serious and distressing to the women involved. It is critical they are investigated thoroughly and dealt with properly and they will be. But I would like to make one thing crystal clear. I did not know about these allegations until Channel 4 informed the party of them shortly before they were broadcast. I have today spoken to one of the women in the broadcast who I respect and admire and who confirmed that she had never raised the issue with me. I am angry and outraged at the suggestion that I would not

Freddy Gray

Italian elections: anti-politics on amphetamines

Rome Italians go to the polls today, and Beppe Grillo still seems to be the name on everybody’s lips. Grillo is expected to get up to 22 per cent of the vote — staggering for a comedian-turned-politician with no discernable policies whose campaign slogan is ‘vaffanculo’ (‘F— off!’). Il Fenomeno Grillo is anti-politics on amphetamines. Is Italian democracy self-immolating? Maybe. Faced with nothing but corruption, recession, imposed EU austerity, and the same old politicians, the downtrodden public are fed up and turning on the system. You can’t really blame them. Some of the Italians I spoken to here today think it is scandalous that Grillo has so much support —

Sebastian Payne

What Lord Ashcroft’s breakup with the Tories means for David Cameron

Now Lord Ashcroft has withdrawn his funding (£) from the Tory party, what implications does the move have for David Cameron? Much like losing Britain’s AAA rating this week, it’s less about the actual impact for his government but the message it sends out about where they are going. As the Sunday Times reports today, the Tory peer has lost all faith in Conservatives’ ability to win the next election: ‘It comes amid mounting pessimism among Tory supporters about the prospects of victory. Although Ashcroft has not publicly expressed doubts over the party’s ability to win, privately he is said to fear Labour is likely to secure more seats. A source close to Ashcroft said:

James Forsyth

Nick Clegg needs a QC to address the Rennard crisis

‘What did he know and when did he know it’ is one of the staples of modern journalism and it is the question Nick Clegg is struggling to answer over the Lord Rennard allegations. Before continuing, it should be stressed that Rennard denies the allegations made against him. But the situation is fast turning into a political crisis for the Liberal Democrats, it is splashed across a whole host of newspaper front pages this morning. (Michael Fabricant, who is coordinating the parliamentary part of the Tory by-election effort, has already tweeted a picture of Tory activists brandishing these front pages in Eastleigh.) At the moment, the Liberal Democrats are relying