Politics Archives

Sunday

9 Dec 2012

In Doha, a big green rent-seeking machine

A couple of weeks ago the great global warming bandwagon coughed and spluttered to a halt in Doha, the latest stop on its never-ending world tour. The annual UN climate conference COP18 is no small affair. This is a bandwagon whose riders number in the thousands: motorcades of politicians, buses full of technocrats and policy wonks and jumbo-jets full of hippies travelling half way round the world, (ostensibly) to save the planet from the (allegedly) pressing problem of climate change This is despite the fact that nobody seems able to point to any great problems caused by the modest warming of the globe at the end of the last century

James Forsyth

The only Labour business supporter that Chuka Umunna can name is a Labour peer

Chuka Umunna’s interview on The Sunday Politics today highlighted several of the problems facing the Labour party. When Andrew Neil pressed him on whether he could name any heads of big companies backing Labour, the shadow Business Secretary could only name a Labour peer who the party ennobled in 1998. Here’s the exchange: AN: Tony Blair said that Labour can’t go into the next election without the support of a single chief executive from a big company. Can you name the boss of a big major company who’s backing Labour? CU: The Chairman of ASOS who is Waheed Alli. He has backed the Labour Party. AN: Is that a public

Isabel Hardman

Tory MP in battle with ministers over ‘snooping bill’ safeguards

Coffee House has learned that a Tory MP is engaged in a fight with the Home Office on safeguards for its proposed ‘snooping bill’. The fate of the Draft Communications Data Bill could be decided on Tuesday when a cross-party committee reports back on the legislation. Nick Clegg is already reported to be considering dropping the Liberal Democrats’ support for the Bill, and the joint committee’s report is expected to take a negative view of the proposals. One Liberal Democrat member, Lord Strasburger, told Home Secretary Theresa May that the proposals for monitoring internet users’ records were a ‘honeypot for casual hackers, blackmailers, criminals large and small from around the world,

Isabel Hardman

Will he, won’t he? Ed Miliband makes noises about benefits war

Ed Miliband is ready to wage war with David Cameron and George Osborne over the Welfare Uprating Bill, which will see benefits rise by 1 per cent a year, rather than in line with inflation. The Labour leader has been talking tough in the papers this morning, with a piece in the Sunday Mirror in which he says: ‘We should be tough on the minority who can work and try to avoid responsibility. But there comes a moment when a government is exposed for who they are. That happened to David Cameron and George Osborne this week. ‘They showed they are not fit to govern because they played political games

Friday

7 Dec 2012

James Forsyth

Jeremy Heywood, just call him very influential

The main topic of conversation in Whitehall today has been The Guardian’s profile of the Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood. One particular passage has raised some eyebrows in several ministerial offices: He believes, they say, that reports of his power are overstated and the very suggestion that he might be making decisions on behalf of politicians makes him “cringe”. He prefers to describe himself, they say, as simply very influential. Heywood, and this irritates some in Number 10, briefs journalists personally. He is known to be particularly concerned about his image. I’m told that after The Spectator cover depicting him as the PM’s puppet-master, there was much discussion over what

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Tory MP accuses Theresa May of ‘dereliction of duty’ over Qatada case

A Tory MP has accused the Home Secretary of a ‘dereliction of duty’ that will put the British people at risk. His criticism concerns the way in which she is handling the Abu Qatada case. Theresa May won permission this week to appeal against the Special Immigration Appeals Commission’s decision to block the deportation of Abu Qatada to Jordan. But the Home Office has confirmed in a letter to Tory MP Mark Reckless, seen by Coffee House, that it will base its strategy for the case on the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which rejected the Islamist cleric’s appeal in May, rather than the test

Fraser Nelson

Citi: Osborne “no longer has credible plans” to tackle debt

Britain will lose its AAA rating within 18 months because George Osborne ‘no longer has credible plans to put the debt/GDP ratio on a stable or declining path’ according to Citi. Its verdict is worth reading in full (pdf) and is important because it adds weight to the idea that — as a result of Osborne’s lack of progress on the deficit — 2013 will be the year of the British downgrade. What did it for Michael Saunders, the Citi analyst, was seeing Osborne take what James Forsyth refers to in this week’s political column as the St Augustine approach to deficit reduction: ‘Lord, let me balance the books but

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron backs gay marriages in church

This week marks seven years since David Cameron was elected leader of the Conservative party, and he has celebrated the occasion by making an announcement that will certainly keep things lively among his MPs and grassroots. Joe Murphy reports in the Standard today that he will allow religious groups to host same-sex weddings in their places of worship. The Prime Minister made clear this lunchtime that he would allow a free vote, appearing on the lunchtime news to say: ‘I’m a massive supporter of marriage and I don’t want gay people to be excluded from a great institution. But let me be absolutely 100% clear, if there is any church

Isabel Hardman

Number 10 coy on Royal Charter proposal for press regulation

Newspaper editors are under pressure to come up with a new system of press regulation that works, and the Prime Minister is under pressure to show that he is taking the need for a new system seriously, rather than just bowing down to media bosses. So is a Royal Charter the solution that would ensure the new press watchdog would remain independent of and tough on the newspapers? Reports have surfaced in the press that Oliver Letwin is mulling over the idea as a way of avoiding statutory underpinning while giving assurances about the new regime. The Economist reports: ‘Oliver Letwin, the minister in charge of squaring this awkward circle,

Thursday

6 Dec 2012

The Spectator

Barometer | 6 December 2012

Distilling a philosophy The manager of Fitzpatrick’s in Rawtenstall, the last surviving temperance bar in Lancashire, has pleaded guilty to drink-driving. His embarrassing predicament would have been understood by the very earliest members of the temperance movement, however. — When cheese-maker Joseph Livesey of Preston founded the British Association for the Promotion of Temperance in 1832 it demanded only that people temper their drinking by refraining from spirits. — Livesey’s personal journey can be traced in the names of his various publications, beginning with the Moral Reformer (1831), the Preston Temperance Advocate (1834), the Teetotal Progressionist (1852) and the Staunch Teetotaller (1867). — 1867 also saw him convert to vegetarianism.

The Spectator

The great creep forward

It took Tony Blair about five years to work out what he wanted to do with his government and George Osborne appears to be on a similar, depressingly slow learning curve. It’s not that he lacks ideas. There were plenty of good ones in his mini-budget this week, including tax cuts for the low paid, and for companies. But none of this will speed the recovery. ‘It’s taking time, but the British economy is healing,’ the Chancellor said, to laughter in the house. We are not even halfway through the recovery. To go through the small print of the budget was to grasp just how vile the outlook is. At

James Forsyth

For the Autumn Statement, stability: for the mid-term review, ambition

After months of squabbling and not-so-civil war, the coalition now appears to be functioning again. This is one immediate consequence of George Osborne’s Autumn Statement. The Chancellor was allowed to present a package to the House that had not been leaked earlier by coalition partners in an act of preemptive spin. This matters not only for the orderly proceeding of affairs of state but also because the Autumn Statement was the first of a two-part coalition effort to seize the political initiative. The second will come in the new year with the publication of its mid-term review. Time is running out for further radical reform. The Autumn Statement was limited

Isabel Hardman

How George Osborne took on Ed Miliband on the cost of living

In addition to his effective attack on Labour’s welfare policy, George Osborne used the Autumn Statement to take on Ed Miliband on another key electoral battleground. Over the past few months, the Labour leader has been trying to convince voters that he has the solution to their cost of living woes. His biggest offer so far has been the Living Wage, which sounds lovely to voters because it involves them being paid more money, but actually doesn’t work (something Miliband is clearly sufficiently aware of to stop him pledging to make a living wage mandatory). The coalition already had its own offer in the form of the rise in the

James Forsyth

Eric Pickles and the looming Tory split over the ECHR

Eric Pickles is one of the few characters in contemporary British politics. In an interview with The Spectator this week, he chides Vince Cable for not deregulating enough, admits that he gets ‘occasionally irked’ by George Osborne’s impatience on policy, and reveals that ‘‘I was asked by a senior member of the government, two weeks after the National Planning Framework had come into being, why it hadn’t worked.’ But Pickles also gives us a glimpse of a coming Tory split. He says that it is ‘ridiculous’ that individuals can appeal their cases all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. He wants to stop this, which

Isabel Hardman

The strivers vs scroungers battleground

Welfare will be one of the key battlegrounds at the next general election, and George Osborne’s Welfare Uprating Bill will certainly be one way the Conservative party can prod Labour on what is a hugely awkward policy issue for the party. It accelerates the internal debate about how Labour can appeal to the electorate on the issue of welfare while staying true to its own core beliefs, and, Tory strategists hope, will cause some ructions. While the party appeared united in Manchester at its autumn conference in September, it faces hard times ahead as it tries to answer some of the big questions about what a Labour welfare state would

Sayeeda Warsi

Ugandan Asians are part of Britain’s secret weapon for success

Few people who were alive 40 years ago will forget the scenes of thousands of Ugandan Asians arriving in Britain after being expelled from their country by dictator Idi Amin. Between 1972 and 1973, nearly 40,000 Ugandan Asians came here. Many originated in India and had British overseas passports, and the then Prime Minister Edward Heath said our country had a moral duty to help them. Amin had forced them to leave everything. But he could not make them relinquish their skills, their determination and their resilience – all of which they brought here in abundance. So 40 years later we are not commemorating the terrible circumstances of their departure

James Forsyth

Labour aims to change political dynamic around benefits uprating

It now looks almost certain that Labour will vote against the 1 per cent uprating for most working age benefits. Labour is pointing out that because this also includes tax credits, most of the people hit by this will actually be in work. The party hopes that this changes the political dynamic around this subject. But, as a Liberal Democrat minister pointed out to me last night, the coalition can portray any attempt to uprate by more than 1 per cent as special treatment for those on benefits. The minister stressed that public sector pay was only going up by 1 per cent and the threshold for the 40p rate

Isabel Hardman

If Britain loses its AAA rating, Osborne will lose one of his key attack lines

George Osborne’s admission that he will not meet his target to have debt as a percentage of GDP falling by 2015/16 has serious consequences for one of his central messages. The Autumn Statement has led credit ratings agency Fitch to warn of a possible downgrade. The agency said: ‘Missing the target weakens the credibility of the fiscal framework, which is one of the factors supporting the rating.’ Ratings agencies aren’t the be-all-and-end-all by any means, and Osborne could quite easily point to just how wrong they were before the crash, giving collateralised debt obligations high ratings. But the problem is that the Chancellor tends to wheel out their approval to

James Forsyth

Osborne is the St Augustine Chancellor – he wants to balance the books, but not yet.

After months of squabbling and not-so-civil war, the coalition now appears to be functioning again. This is one immediate consequence of George Osborne’s Autumn Statement. The Chancellor was allowed to present a package to the House that had not been leaked earlier by coalition partners in an act of preemptive spin. This matters not only for the orderly proceeding of affairs of state but also because the Autumn Statement was the first of a two-part coalition effort to seize the political initiative. The second will come in the new year with the publication of its mid-term review. Time is running out for further radical reform. The Autumn Statement was limited

Steerpike

Tony Hall’s successor, organic government and the great Lib Dem shale plot

Rending of raiment and gnashing of teeth at the Guardian. I’m told that the paper’s veteran editor, Alan Rusbridger, is tipped to take over at the Royal Opera House once the BBC’s director-general designate, Tony Hall, relinquishes control. Quite a wrench for Rusbridger, who has stewarded the profit-averse newspaper since 1995. Last year alone he amassed losses of £44 million, so he’ll be relieved to know that the Opera House comes with an annual subsidy of £28 million from the Arts Council. Rusbridger was coy when Steerpike asked him about making a move this week, though he denied having spoken to anyone at the Royal Opera House. Fans of Rusbridger insist that he