Politics Archives

Sunday

13 May 2012

Pickles struggles for an answer on growth

The government is desperate for economic growth but where can it find it? This was the question posed to Eric Pickles on the Sunday Politics today, but sadly he was unable to provide much of an answer. The Communities and Local Government secretary gave a blustering interview, where he reaffirmed William Hague’s view that ‘growth will come from government creating conditions for us to work a little bit harder.’ But when pushed by Andrew Neil on what this (slightly condescending) idea actually means, Pickles jumped on the chance to blame Labour for the ‘something for nothing culture’. Pickles did add that the government’s chosen sources of prosperity are business investment

Peter Hoskin

Hammond speaks out

Generally speaking, Philip Hammond is one of the Cabinet’s quieter members; a sort of human calculator designed to run a department efficiently and with the minimum of fuss. Which is why his interview with the Sunday Times this morning (£) is so eye-catching. There’s very little that’s understated about it at all. ConservativeHome’s Matthew Barrett has already put together a useful summary of the main points, so suffice to say that Hammond is dismissive about both Lords reform… ‘He believes the upper chamber “works rather well” as it is and that voters are “probably largely indifferent” on the subject.’ …and gay marriage: ‘He believes gay marriage is too controversial for

Saturday

12 May 2012

The Spectator

Barometer | 12 May 2012

Before the Golden Dawn A neo-Nazi party called the Golden Dawn won 7 per cent of the vote in the Greek elections. The party denies being inspired by the Nazis, even though its flag bears a resemblance to the Swastika. Its name, however, may be inspired by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an occultist society founded by William Wynn Westcott, a coroner from Leamington Spa. — The society was founded upon rituals and teachings which Westcott claimed to have obtained by deciphering letters from Anne Sprengel, an imaginary illegitimate child of Ludwig I of Bavaria. In 1888 the society opened a temple in London, followed by others in

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 12 May 2012

If you want proof that we have not got over our banking crisis, you need look no further than the reaction to Mervyn King’s Today programme lecture last week. Almost all of it reflected — although it did not, of course, directly express — the rage of bankers at the Governor’s criticisms. ‘Already we see vested interests rise up to defend their bonuses and profits,’ said Sir Mervyn. They still find plenty of allies in the media to do so. Comment focused on how King’s own mea culpa had not been big enough. But the most important, virtually unreported point his lecture made was that none of the problems which

Sebastian Payne

Friends in north?

For the Tories to have any hope of winning a majority, they have to face up to reclaiming seats in the North, but can they do so under Cameron? David Skelton from Policy Exchange suggests not in an interview with the Northern Echo today, where he outlines the ‘Cameron problem’: ‘You can’t get away from the fact that the Tory party looks pretty public school, pretty Southern and quite gilded. The fact is that the Tories can’t win an election if they can’t appeal to aspirational working-class voters in the North and the Midlands…If the Tories can’t find a way to get across the fact that voting Tory has become countercultural in

James Forsyth

Politics: Why a European referendum is now almost certain

The Romford Pledge might not have the same ring to it as the Tamworth Manifesto. But Boris Johnson’s decision while campaigning last month to sign up to the campaign for an in/out referendum on EU membership could be a key moment in the history of the Conservative party — the moment when the party’s balance of power tipped decisively in favour of a referendum. As with so many of Boris’s actions, it is hard to know whether his pledge was spontaneous or a calculated move. Certainly, the Mayor hesitated before signing. Then, according to those present, the seat’s Eurosceptic Tory MP, Andrew Rosindell, told him it wasn’t party policy to

Rod Liddle

What really makes the Tories toxic

So, who is to blame for the Conservative party’s supposedly appalling showing in last week’s council elections? The party leaders seem to have concluded that the loss of Birmingham and Southampton councils and more than 400 councillors nationwide is somehow down to the poofs, and their incessant clamouring to be allowed to marry one another. Perhaps the party sources who suggested, the morning after the elections, that out of contrition the government would ‘backtrack’ on the commitment to legalise gay marriage are right; it was this commitment which, through some complex psychological process, possibly rooted in Freud, turned the voters against the government. Their personal financial worries and more general

Emily Rhodes

Brideshead re-elected

David Cameron and George Osborne have been repeatedly accused by a fellow Conservative of being ‘posh boys who don’t know the price of milk’; ‘arrogant posh boys’, moreover, ‘who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others’. This, say some, is why their party did so badly in last week’s elections. Perhaps this pair of Oxford toffs should learn a lesson from the quintessential Oxford toff, Brideshead Revisited’s Sebastian Flyte. He would never dream of buying a pint of milk from the corner shop; his milk would be poured for him, from a jug, at teatime. Sebastian is certainly arrogant and far

Hugo Rifkind

Cameron is quite conservative enough, thank you

Find me a person who stopped voting Conservative last week because of David Cameron’s vague, half-arsed, lacklustre stance on gay marriage. Go on. I dare you. Or because of the even vaguer, totally-not-going-to-happen proposals to reform the House of Lords. I’ll settle for one of them instead. Just one, and then I’ll shut up and leave you alone. Anyone? Anyone? Oh, look, there’s probably one. Maybe there are even as many as eight. And I don’t really want to meet them. They’re representative of nothing. ‘But the Ukip vote soared!’ I hear you cry. ‘Their share of the vote is five points higher than a year ago!’ Yes, indeed. But

Friday

11 May 2012

The Spectator

From the archives: the coalition is born

It is two years to the day since David Cameron first entered 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister. To mark the occasion, here’s James Forsyth’s cover story from the time on the deal that put him there: Can this marriage of convenience work?, James Forsyth, 15 May 2010 ‘It is not the prize. It is a means to the prize.’ This is how one long-time political ally of David Cameron described the Tory leader’s entrance into Downing Street at the head of a coalition government. The deal with the Liberal Democrats which has put Cameron in Downing Street is, as this Cameron ally admits, ‘an arranged marriage not a love

The Spectator

The week that was | 11 May 2012

Here is a selection of articles and discussions from this week on Spectator.co.uk… Fraser Nelson looks at what Hollande’s win means for Cameron, questions Nick Clegg’s economic competence and examines Cameron’s gay marriage folly. James Forsyth says the Tories are shaping up for an EU referndum, reports the first blood on Lord’s reform and thinks Andy Coulson easily handled his Leveson appearance. Peter Hoskin asks if the Milibands have Hollande fever, thinks Cameron was reassuring backbenchers in the Queen’s Speech and asks if Hollande and Merkel can meet in the middle. Jonathan Jones reports on Michael Gove’s attempt to take on private schools and trade unions and looks as the Greek tragedy rolls on.

James Forsyth

Embarrassment for Cameron, trouble for Hunt

Rebekah Brooks’s testimony at Leveson was embarrassing for the Prime Minister — but no worse than that. I suspect that tomorrow’s papers will have much fun with the fact that Cameron used to end his texts to her with the letters ‘LOL’ in the mistaken belief that it meant ‘lots of love’. But, as one friend of the PM’s pointed out to me, No.10 would have definitely settled for that being the headline story this morning. Jeremy Hunt, though, again finds himself in some difficulty thanks to a Fred Michel email which indicates that the Culture Secretary was seeking News Corps’ guidance on how to deal with hacking. As with

Jonathan Jones

Get set for more Greek elections

A second Greek election is looking more and more likely, with party leaders unable to form a coalition. I reported on Tuesday that Antonis Samaras — leader of the largest party, New Democracy — had admitted that he couldn’t put together a government and had passed on the mandate to Alexis Tsipras, leader of Syriza. Well, Tsipras also failed to build a coalition, as he couldn’t convince ND and centre-left Pasok to turn against their austerity plan, and so the baton has been passed to Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos. His hope was to convince Democratic Left — which holds 19 parliamentary seats — to join his and Samaras’s parties in

Alex Massie

An Epidemic of Not Scoring

Watching Andy Coulson answer the Leveson inquiry’s questions with a dead bat yesterday, the likes of Robert Shrimsley and Tim Montgomerie tweeted that viewing Coulson testify was akin to watching Chris Tavaré bat. Those of you who remember Tavaré will appreciate that this was not meant altogether kindly. This will not do. I concede that as a child no cricketer infuriated me more than Tavaré. He seemed to me, then, to be some kind of anti-cricketer, forever forgetting that scoring runs – preferably with style – was a batsman’s chief objective. I fear I disliked poor Tavaré as keenly as ever any gum-chewing Australian did. There was, after all, so

Jonathan Jones

The coalition: two years in

As the coalition celebrates its second birthday, it seems as good a time as any to take a look at how it’s doing in the eyes of the public. First, here’s how the government’s approval rating — as measured by YouGov — has changed since its formation: As you can see, the coalition took office with reasonably good ratings, but the first ten months or so — which included the Comprehensive Spending Review and the tuition fees vote — saw public opinion turn against it. For the rest of 2011, the ratings stayed fairly flat, with the government neither regaining ground with the public nor losing any more — and

Fraser Nelson

The folly of Cameron’s gay marriage culture war

For some time now, a growing number of Tory MPs have been quietly informing the whips that they will not be voting to support gay marriage. They’ve been getting letters from their constituents, and even those in favour of the idea know that they can’t afford to support it. When a cabinet member spoke to the whips office recently, he was given a startling reply: don’t worry, it will never come to a vote. The consultation is ongoing, but the agenda is being dropped. The effect it’s having on the morale of the Tory grassroots is calamitous. I look at this fiasco in my Daily Telegraph column today, and here

Thursday

10 May 2012

Jonathan Jones

Gove takes on private school dominance and trade union opposition

The Education Secretary gave a very pugnacious speech this morning on the need to improve the country’s state schools. ‘It is remarkable,’ Michael Gove said at independent school Brighton College, ‘how many of the positions of wealth, influence, celebrity and power in our society are held by individuals who were privately educated’. He cited the various professions — politics, law, medicine — where private schools are ‘handsomely represented’. That’s certainly not a new observation. Gove could have, if he’d wanted to, cited the Sutton Trust’s statistics (below) showing the proportion of judges, Lords and CEOs who come from independent schools. Instead, he chose a more novel — and effective — way

Jonathan Jones

Obama comes out for gay marriage

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player It isn’t just this side of the Atlantic where same-sex marriage is very much on the political agenda. Here, the Prime Minister gave it his support in his October conference speech, and the government is pressing ahead with plans to legislate for it before the next election, under the leadership of Lib Dem equalities minister Lynne Featherstone. Meanwhile, across the pond, Barack Obama gave his support for equal marriage last night. In an interview with ABC News (above), he said: ‘At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same

Alex Massie

Tory Plans for an EU Referendum are Baffling and Incoherent

I wish the Conservative party’s attitude towards european policy made more sense. To be more specific, I wish the Prime Minister’s attitude made more sense. One can respect the views of, say, Bill Cash or Michael Heseltine without needing to agree with them. They have the merit of holding views that are easy to understand. This does not appear to be the case as far as David Cameron and his closest chums are concerned. And so, I’m afraid, James’s column in the magazine this week makes depressing reading. The Cameroons, he says, are shaping up for a referendum on the EU and this seems likely to be a manifesto commitment

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22: Will the riots return?

We haven’t done enough to prevent the riots of last summer happening again, says Simon Marcus in this week’s cover feature. And in the latest episode of our The View From 22 podcast he expands on this, discussing his personal experiences with the Boxing Academy in Tottenham and Hackney: ‘What enabled us to engage in strong debate during the whole process was what I saw on the front line at the Boxing Academy for many years. But what I was being asked, in many ways, to accept was wrong. When you’re being told that your eyes and ears have deceived you for five years, that’s something I can’t accept.’ James