Politics Archives

Friday

6 Apr 2012

The week that was | 6 April 2012

Here is a selection of articles and discussions from this week on Spectator.co.uk… Most discussed: Ross Clark on Cameron’s tragic flaw Most shared: Sebastian Payne on Ken vs. Boris in a lift. Most read: James Forsyth on how the London Mayor campaigns could play out. And the best of the rest… Fraser Nelson looks at what is being done in the name of ‘national security’. James Forsyth examines Ed Davey’s ‘pro-European claims’ and reports on the Tory ire towards Dave’s uni friend. Peter Hoskin looks at Gove’s call to improve A-Levels and believes the Lib Dems will relish a scrap over civil liberties. Jonathan Jones says Cameron and Osborne are taking

Thursday

5 Apr 2012

James Forsyth

The implications of today’s tax releases

I suspect that three important consequences will flow from the release today of the London mayoral candidates tax returns. First, voters will see that Boris Johnson’s rage at Ken Livingstone on Tuesday as being thoroughly justified. Second, they’ll see that Ken Livingstone, despite all his left-wing rhetoric, is the only one of the four main candidates to have tried to make his affairs tax efficient. The third consequence is that a precedent has now been set that politicians running for office should publish their tax returns. I’ll be shocked if one of the three party leaders doesn’t try and steal a march at the next election by volunteering to publish

Jonathan Jones

How much tax do the mayoral candidates pay?

So, Ken has now released his tax details. He hasn’t gone as far as Lib Dem candidate Brian Paddick, who’s published his full tax returns for the past three years. And there are also questions about what income Ken might not have included in his release. It’s also not clear whether or not he’s including National Insurance contributions, as the other two candidates are. But, based just on the figures each candidate has declared, here are the effective tax rates they’ve been paying: UPDATE: It seems Ken’s campaign is trying to use our chart as proof that he isn’t avoiding tax. But our figures for Ken are simply the amount

Sebastian Payne

Is Ken done for?

Last night, during their television debate, all four London Mayoral candidates declared they would fully disclose their tax returns. This morning, Boris, Brian Paddick and Jenny Jones have duly done so — but Ken? Nothing so far. The Labour team has put out an unpersuasive statement explaining his silence: ‘We believe household publication is necessary for full disclosure as the question of Ken’s income and his wife’s income and their tax has been central the coverage of this issue. Publication of Ken’s returns alone will not address many of the questions that have been raised. The only way to answer all the questions about this issue and to move

Wednesday

4 Apr 2012

James Forsyth

The coalition to defeat Ken Livingstone

The most striking thing about tonight’s mayoral hustings on Newsnight was how often Brian Paddick attacked Ken Livingstone. Paddick, who turned in the most assured performance of all the candidates, accused Livingstone of being like a ‘bad 1970s comedian who plays to whatever audience he’s talking to.’ He also, interestingly, sided with Boris Johnson when the discussion turned to the 50p tax rate and then the candidate’s own tax affairs. It is tempting to see Paddick’s performance tonight as testament to how keen the Liberal Democrat top brass are to see Livingstone defeated in London. They know that if Labour fails to win in London, the pressure on Ed Miliband

Ross Clark

Cameron’s tragic flaw

The latest issue of The Spectator is out tomorrow, of course – but we thought CoffeeHousers might like to read this piece by Ross Clark in advance. It’s about what he calls David Cameron’s ‘tragic flaw’: impoliteness. Premierships do not end in failure, as Enoch Powell once asserted, but in tragedy. They start with a beaming figure disappearing behind the door of No. 10 – even Edward Heath, immortalised now as the Incredible Sulk, entered with a radiant grin. And they end with a haunted shadow of a politician creeping out to a waiting car, his every character flaw having been chiselled to destruction. Over the past week, the tragedy

James Forsyth

Ed Davey’s ‘pro-European’ claim has Tory ministers fuming

There’s barely disguised fury among Conservative ministers about Ed Davey’s claim that the coalition may well be more pro-European than the Labour government was. One complained to me earlier that it was typical Lib Dem mischief making and that ‘if they are not going to behave like normal ministers then we shouldn’t either’. Indeed, this minister went on to suggest that William Hague should publicly slap down Davey for his comments. I doubt this is going to happen. Davey is the leading Lib Dem on the Cabinet’s European Affairs Committee and I suspect there’s little appetite in the Foreign Office for a coalition row over Europe. But Davey’s comments do

Peter Hoskin

The Lib Dems will relish a scrap over civil liberties

They’re languishing in the polls, their leader is considerably more unpopular than either David Cameron or Ed Miliband, they face a difficult set of local elections in May — and yet the Lib Dems still seem relatively upbeat at the moment. Why so? Mostly, I think, it’s because they feel that asserting themselves is starting to pay off. Not in votes, perhaps, but in perceptions. They cite the Budget as a defining moment in this respect: they got the increase in the personal allowance that they wanted, the Tories got most of the blame for everything else. That’s why I suspect some Lib Dems will be quietly delighted at the

Tuesday

3 Apr 2012

James Forsyth

Boris is right, but will anyone listen?

The tensions that have been bubbling away in the London mayoral contest spilt out into the open today with Boris Johnson accusing Ken Livingstone of lying about both of their tax affairs. On the facts of the matter, it looks pretty clear that Boris is right: he doesn’t use a company to reduce his tax liability. There are, though, those claiming that accusing Livingstone of being an ‘f***ing liar’ will hurt Boris. But I doubt this; it is hard to imagine Boris as an angry or mean-spirited person. What this exchange does do, though, is raise the stakes for their televised hustings tomorrow night. I expect that Livingstone will try and

Freddy Gray

Cameron and Christianity

Just in time for Easter, David Cameron has attempted to claw back some of the Christian support he seems to have lost. At an official reception for Christian leaders in Downing Street today, he waxed spiritual: ‘Easter week is a very important moment in the Christian calendar. So I would like to extend my best wishes to everyone here in the United Kingdom, and across the world, at this special time of year. This is the time when, as Christians, we remember the life, sacrifice and living legacy of Christ. The New Testament tells us so much about the character of Jesus; a man of incomparable compassion, generosity, grace, humility

Jonathan Jones

More poll woes for the coalition

You certainly don’t need polls to tell you that it’s been a bad couple of weeks for the coalition – but we’ve got them anyway. Pete noted on Sunday that the government’s approval rating was at its lowest since the start of this Parliament, and it’s actually dropped another three points since. Today’s YouGov poll finds just 21 per cent giving the coalition the thumbs up, against 64 per cent who disapprove. That’s almost identical to the 20-64 split YouGov found for Gordon Brown’s Labour government back in January 2010. The below graph shows how public opinion has turned against the coalition over the past two years: Today’s poll also

Peter Hoskin

Gove calls on universities to improve A-levels

It may be a sleepy day in Westminster, but Michael Gove and his school reforms have lost none of their brilliant urgency. The schools secretary has today written to Ofqual — the body in charge of regulating the exams system — to ask that universities be allowed to involve themselves, much more closely than ever before, in designing and implementing A-levels. In the letter he sums up his plans thus: ‘I want to see new arrangements that allow Awarding Organisations to work with universities to develop qualifications in a way that is unconstrained — as far as possible — by centrally determined criterion.’ And he adds that this process should

Monday

2 Apr 2012

John Simpson

A new Argy-bargy | 2 April 2012

Another article to mark the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War — this one from the current issue of the magazine. It’s by John Simpson and analyses the current tensions between Britain and Argentina. Buenos Aires Buenos Aires is as exhilarating, as unpredictable, as stylish as ever. But the economic boom is over. Times are hard once again, more shops in Calle Florida are boarded up, the sales are pretty frantic. And so, as Jorge Luis Borges, the blind sage of Calle Maipu, just off the superb Plaza San Martin, once remarked: ‘When Argentina’s economy goes bad, you can be sure that nationalism will soon be beating its wings.’ Argentina’s

Peter Hoskin

Miliband talks tough

Remember when Ed Miliband couldn’t be found anywhere? Now you can barely get away from him. The Labour leader has been conspicuous by his presence over the past week, whether on the airwaves or in graffiti form (see left, a photo taken on London’s South Bank yesterday). And he’s continued that hi-vis trend today, by launching Labour’s local election campaign in Birmingham. Two things stand out from the speech he gave at that event. The first was his heavy emphasis on the pledges he announced last week: capping railway fares, unfreezing the personal allowance for pensioners, etc. As I blogged at the time, it’s doubtful whether these will actually achieve

Clarissa Tan

Burma’s startling Spring

Of all the Springs we’ve seen, perhaps the Burmese one is the most astonishing. It’s because the person aligned on the side of oppressive leadership — President Thein Sein, formerly of the junta — in a sense participated in the Spring himself. Aung San Suu Kyi has claimed a staggering by-election victory — her National League of Democracy party looks set to win 44 of 45 constituencies contested — after last year finally agreeing to end the NLD’s boycott of Burma’s ‘democratic’ system. This was after she’d found common ground with Sein, who had unexpectedly unveiled an array of political reforms. These included the freeing of hundreds of political prisoners,

James Forsyth

Cameron loyalists say his Tory critics are a small minority

The drumbeat of criticism of David Cameron and George Osborne by various Tory MPs, summed up on the front page of today’s Telegraph, has drawn a reaction from those MPs loyal to the leadership. Kris Hopkins, the founder of the 301 group of Tory MPs, complains that the trouble is being whipped up by a ‘small group of disaffected people’ and that ‘the nature of their criticisms shows that this is about their egos not making the country a better place.’ At issue here is who speaks for Tory MPs. Hopkins claims that the vast majority of his colleagues are ‘committed and supportive of the Prime Minister and his team’

James Forsyth

Tory ire focuses on Dave’s uni friend

The grumbling in the Conservative party at the moment is reminiscent of Tudor court politics. No one is prepared to criticise the king directly so instead various personal favourites of the monarch are targeted. At the moment, the chief proxy for discontent is Andrew Feldman. To the Cameroons’ critics, he sums up everything that is wrong with the way the PM and his team do politics. Feldman is co-chairman of the party not because of his standing in the party or the country but because he is a friend of Cameron. To further irritate their critics, their friendship dates back to them serving together on the ball committee of their

The Spectator

From the archives: Defending the Falklands

To mark the 30th anniversary of the start of the Falklands War, here’s Ferdinand Mount’s column from the time: The last armada, Ferdinand Mount, 10 April 1982 A debacle speaks for itself. All things that inescapably follow — the humiliation, the indignation, the ministers hurrying in and out of Cabinet, the spectacular sitting of Parliament on a Saturday, the calls for the resignation of Mr John Nott, Lord Carrington and anyone else standing in the line of fire — are not only themselves part and parcel of the debacle; they help to explain why it happened. The Falkland Islanders are the last victims of our refusal to be honest with

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 2 April 2012

…here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: James Forsyth examines Galloway’s ugly politics and argues Cameron needs to take on Whitehall. Peter Hoskin questions the current Tories motivation, writes that new polling suggests everyone’s a loser and thinks the Prime Minister needs to quickly find a proper solution on party funding. Melanie McDonagh argues Galloway may be a good MP. And on the Arts Blog, Claudia Massie writes on the wonders of paper sculptures.

Jonathan Jones

Now Cameron and Osborne take flak from their own side

The bad headlines continue for Downing Street this morning, with the Telegraph front page declaring ‘Tory MPs round on Cameron and Osborne’. Of course, Tory backbenchers griping about their leadership is nothing new and, usually, ‘concern that Government policies are being poorly explained to voters’ or a suggestion that ‘a senior MP should be appointed as full-time Conservative Party chairman’ wouldn’t make the front page. But after the two week onslaught Downing Street has just suffered — from granny tax to cash for access to petrol panic to pasties — the disgruntled chattering reverberates that bit louder. And the nature of these complaints is different than, say, the ones we