Politics Archives

Sunday

22 Apr 2012

Alex Salmond’s Hampden and Murrayfield Strategies

I’ve written a column for Scotland on Sunday today looking at the SNP’s transformation into a proper national party: [T]wo SNP approaches have helped the party attain its present supremacy. They can be labelled the Hampden and Murrayfield strategies. They are different but complementary, designed to appeal to different branches of the electorate. The Hampden strategy appeals to working-class and lower-to-middle-class voters. It is populist, Saltire-wrapped and keenly, proudly Scottish. The Murrayfield tranche of the electorate is older, wealthier and more likely to consider itself Scottish and British. Though outnumbered by the Hampden vote, its influence – especially in business and the media – is disproportionately powerful. The Hampden voter,

Saturday

21 Apr 2012

Sebastian Payne

Siobhan Benita: Boris’ secret weapon

With anti-politics on the rise, there’s one candidate in the May elections who is out to capitalise on the mood. Siobhan Benita, the independent running for London Mayor, has been making increasingly remarkable waves in the run up to 3rd May. She is a technocrat, priding herself on the absence of political views, but adds colour to the race — according to our wine correspondent, Simon Hoggart — whose other employer, the Guardian, has a soft spot for her: ‘Finally she arrived and, while I won’t say that the media swooned, she certainly had an impact. Tall, glossy-haired, elegant in a pencil dress with scarlet jacket, and a diamond wedding

James Forsyth

How would the House of Lords be elected?

In the debate over House of Lords reform, the Lib Dems are trying to say that they favour an elected House of Lords and anyone who opposes them is a reactionary in favour of the status quo. They believe that this is their best chance of winning the argument. But, in reality, things are more complicated than that. Some of the Tories most sceptical of the Clegg proposals are actually believers in an elected second chamber. They just don’t want it to be done through STV, a system that the Lib Dems favour because it would hand them the balance of power there. The issue of the voting system under

Fraser Nelson

Ash Green’s academy success story

I was a panellist on Radio Four’s Any Questions last night, in Bedworth outside Coventry. At the reception afterwards, I got talking to the pupils, teachers and even the local vicar of the school where the show was recorded. With so much gloom (and shambles) in Westminster, it was a heartening reminder of what is going right in Britain, aided by David Cameron’s government. I thought I’d share it with CoffeeHousers. Not so long ago, Ash Green School was seeing a pathetic 3 per cent of its pupils achieve what is now called ‘Five Good GCSEs’ (5 GCSEs at A-Cs, including English & Maths). Now it’s 65 per cent. Success has

James Forsyth

Politics: Cameron and the civil service coup

There is a split in the Cameron circle. The divide is between those who think that the problems of the past few weeks have been a blip, one that will end when Boris Johnson wins in London, and those — including some of the Prime Minister’s closest friends — who fear the problems are symptoms of a disease that could cripple the government. At stake in this debate is the future strategic direction, and the potential success, of the Cameron project. The Prime Minister, ever the optimist, is in the first camp. He is inclined to think that he is experiencing a normal bout of mid-term turbulence. But some of

Leo McKinstry

A mayor for Whitehall

Siobhan Benita’s sanctimonious and mystifying bid to run London Ken Livingstone wept last week at the launch of his election broadcast, but when it comes to narcissistic self-pity, he’s been outdone by Siobhan Benita. Benita’s the other candidate in the London mayoral contest, the one who isn’t Boris or Ken or Brian or that Green woman. A former civil servant now running as an independent, she’s spent the last month wailing about lack of coverage. She claims she is the victim of a media ‘blackout’ — excluded from televised debates and banished from the airwaves. So great is her fury that she has even demanded a meeting with BBC executives.

James Forsyth

Job scheme

Chris Grayling’s job is to make sure that British people can get jobs. But he faces a problem. Since the election, 90 per cent of the rise in employment is accounted for by foreign-born workers. As Employment Minister, Grayling is painfully aware that there is a very large difference between importing workers and creating jobs. When we meet in his sparsely decorated ministerial office, he is frank about the scale of the problem. ‘There is no doubt,’ he says, ‘that a young person coming out of school, college or university without the experience [of work] is at a disadvantage compared to someone coming into the UK from overseas.’ To ram

Tristram Hunt

Gove’s paradox

By any standards, the Education Secretary is good news for history. He knows the subject, he likes the subject, and his ‘English Baccalaureate’ is already producing a marked upturn in pupils studying the past. Sadly, Michael Gove is also a Conservative — and a deeply ideological one at that. He has a certain vision of history and, with it, a ‘drum and trumpet’ view of what should be taught in our schools. I would be happy for pupils to learn this aspect of our past. But the problem the Education Secretary faces is how to marry that passion for Whiggish British history with an equally strong determination to liberalise the

Friday

20 Apr 2012

David Blackburn

From the archives: Lords reform could kill the coalition

Why is Lords reform such an explosive issue? The subject should induce narcolepsy, but even loyal Tories are threatening to launch a rebellion against it that will make the Maastricht revolts look like child’s play. Subscribers to the Spectator will remember the James Forsyth article which first argued that Lords reform was an irreconcilable difference that was likely to break the coalition partners. In light of the last 24 hours, it’s worth revisiting: Irreconcilable differences, James Forsyth, The Spectator, February 25th 2012 It has become clear over the last few weeks that we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the coalition. Once, the rows between Tories and Lib Dems used to be about

Fraser Nelson

Lewis Hamilton vs Ed Miliband

Every so often, British sportsmen are prevailed upon not to go to certain countries, in protest at some usually-hideous policy. Now it’s the turn of our racing drivers. Yvette Cooper said on Question Time last night that, at the very least, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton should pull out of the Formula One race this weekend. Ed Miliband wants the race to be cancelled. What baffles me is that the racing drivers should be seen as so controversial, whereas (so far as I can tell) neither Cooper nor Miliband has had anything to say about the British government approving the sale of arms to Bahrain long after its uprising started

Sebastian Payne

Gove’s historical conundrum

Is it possible to set schools free while demanding a beefed up teaching of our nation’s history? Both are topics close to the heart of the Education Secretary but eventually, he’s going to have to choose one over the other. Top-down orders on the History curriculum will undermine attempts to give schools and teachers more control over what they do. Tristram Hunt threw this curveball in this weeks magazine, where he states it is a example of the classic Tory struggle between liberalism and conservatism: ‘The self-inflicted challenge comes with delivering this national narrative of Britishness. Because at the crux of Gove’s schools revolution is the dismantling of national provision.

James Forsyth

Britain will contribute again to the IMF

Britain will contribute $15 billion (£10 billion) more to the International Monetary Fund. This means that there will be no need for another parliamentary vote on UK funding of the IMF as it is within the limits set by parliament in its last vote on the matter. This news has emerged in a joint statement by Australia, South Korea, Singapore and the UK; the UK’s $15 billion contribution is in proportion to this country’s voting share in the organisation. In terms of the politics of this decision, it is interesting that the Australian Liberals, the Tories’ sister party Down Under, are going to back the increase in the Australian contribution despite being

David Blackburn

Cameron remains adamant on Lords reform

Despite last night’s threats, David Cameron remains personally committed to the cause of reforming the House of Lords. The coalition is also resisting calls for a referendum on the reforms, saying that it is ‘not persuaded of a case of having one’. Their view comes despite reports that the joint committee and banks of Tory and Labour MPs want a referendum. The pressure on David Cameron, of course, pulls both ways. On the one hand, his backbenchers are vowing to prepare ‘off the scale’ rebellions that are ‘worse than Maastricht’. On the other hand, are the Lib Dems. In a show of strength that bordered on hubris, Lord Oakeshott said

David Blackburn

The EU against new booze

You don’t expect to find so much politics in a booze mag, but there’s an intriguing story in a recent edition of the Drinks Magazine. Relations between Britain and Argentina have been very fraught of late, so the good folk at Chapel Down, the internationally renowned vineyard in Kent, decided to promote peace and goodwill by importing Malbec grapes from Argentina to make a special English wine, called ‘An English Salute‘, to mark World Malbec Day, which took place on Tuesday. The vineyard planned to sell the wine in Gaucho, the chain of Argentine-themed steakhouses. However, the European Commission blocked this neat marketing initiative on the grounds that grapes imported from outside the

Thursday

19 Apr 2012

James Forsyth

The depth of Tory feeling over Lords reform

What should worry David Cameron about tonight’s meeting of the 1922 Committee on Lords reform was that it was not just the usual suspects who spoke out against it. The two MPs presenting the case against were members who have never defied the whip: Jesse Norman and Nadhim Zahawi. Those present were particularly struck by some polling data that Zahawi, who used to run YouGov, presented. It showed that when asked what issues were a priority for them zero per cent of the electorate mentioned reform of the Lords. Even when prompted, this number only rose to six per cent. But Zahawi’s polling shows that if reform does go ahead,

James Forsyth

ECHR reform won’t happen

In Westminster, the debate about the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights is all being seen through the prism of the Abu Qatada case. Undoubtedly, the whole debate over how many days had elapsed is something Theresa May and the Home Office would have liked to avoid. It has also come at a particularly unfortunate time for the government when people are prepared to believe it has been incompetent even when it hasn’t been. But what, I expect, is more significant in the long term than Abu Qatada is the fact that the Brighton conference on the ECHR is not going to deliver the

Sebastian Payne

Cameron approaches Lib Dems’ chief tormenter

News is breaking at the Telegraph that Matthew Elliott — head of the TaxPayers’ Alliance — is being considered for an adviser role in Downing Street. It would be strategic move by Cameron, and a bold one given Elliot’s effective work on the Alternative Vote referendum. That campaign, which focused on Nick Clegg’s shortcomings, is the greatest sore between the Prime Minister and his deputy, raising the question of how Lib Dems react to the news that their prime taunter has been being brought into the love nest of No.10. Many Conservatives will be heartened by the news, especially at a time when there is a brain drain sweeping across the

James Forsyth

Cameron and the civil service coup

We thought CoffeeHousers might care to read James’s political column from this week’s magazine (on sale today), so here it is: There is a split in the Cameron circle. The divide is between those who think that the problems of the past few weeks have been a blip, one that will end when Boris Johnson wins in London, and those — including some of the Prime Minister’s closest friends — who fear the problems are symptoms of a disease that could cripple the government. At stake in this debate is the future strategic direction, and the potential success, of the Cameron project. The Prime Minister, ever the optimist, is in

Alex Massie

Today in Stupidity: Salmond is Hitler & the Economist is Racist

David Starkey’s declne from competent historian to reactionary nitwit has been a sad business. I’m afraid it shows no sign of abating either. The Huffington Post has this: Historian Dr David Starkey has compared Scottish first minister Alex Salmond to Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler. “If you think about it, Alex Salmond is a democratic Caledonian Hitler, although some would say Hitler was more democratically elected,” he said. “[For him] the English, like the Jews, are everywhere” he added to gasps from the audience. Starkey was speaking at a debate, hosted by the Bow Group think tank, on the teaching of British history in UK schools. Oh dear. Granted, one

Wednesday

18 Apr 2012

James Forsyth

Reeves resignation is bad news for Clegg

The departure of his senior aide Richard Reeves is a major blow to Nick Clegg. Reeves, a relative newcomer to the Lib Dems, was far less focused on party structures than many of those in Clegg’s circle and instead concentrated on the party’s long term electoral prospects. Reeves’s view was that there was a space in British politics for a party that was classically liberal on economics and socially liberal on other matters. He wanted to turn the Lib Dems into a party that was as comfortable in government as in opposition. There will be those who want to read something political into Reeves’s departure. But based on conservations I