Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Tuesday

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 31 May 2011

…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the Bank Holiday weekend. James Forsyth says you couldn’t make the Wayne Bishop story up, and wonders if Sarah Palin is about to launch a bid for the Republican nomination. David Blackburn reveals the unlikely triumvirate opposing the government’s energy policy, and argues that the Shoesmith case is about much more than the tragedy of Baby P. Daniel Korski is back in Cairo, finding out where the Egyptian revolution has got to. And Melanie Phillips says that Cameron has been drinking the Kool-Aid.

Monday

David Blackburn

In England’s green and pleasant land

What do the TUC, heavy industry and the European Commission have in common? This is not the start of a bad joke; the answer is that they all oppose the government’s energy policy. Ten days ago, Tata (formerly British Steel) announced that it was to cut more than 1,500 jobs at plants in Scunthorpe and on Teeside. The directors later confirmed that their decision was influenced, in part, by the introduction of a costly carbon floor price at the last Budget. The floor price, which exists on top of levies imposed by the EU, has increased the burden of taxation on energy consumption to subsidise renewable energy research. In last week’s

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Could the Greeks leave and then rejoin the euro?

The Harvard economist Martin Feldstein proposes an intriguing solution to Greece’s problems in his latest column: “A temporary leave of absence from the eurozone would allow Greece to achieve a price-level decline relative to other eurozone countries, and would make it easier to adjust the relative price level if Greek wages cannot be limited. The Maastricht treaty explicitly prohibits a eurozone country from leaving the euro, but says nothing about a temporary leave of absence (and therefore doesn’t prohibit one). It is time for Greece, other eurozone members, and the European Commission to start thinking seriously about that option.” Where Feldstein is surely right is that Greece can’t get out

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Is Palin readying a run?

With David Cameron in Ibiza and Ed Miliband on honeymoon, British politics is relatively quiet. But something fascinating is happening in America: Sarah Palin, contrary to media expectations, appears to be preparing to run for the Republican nomination. With the former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee deciding against getting into the race, Palin has a far better chance of lining up populists and social conservatives behind her candidacy—two formidable voting blocs in the Republican primaries. Add to this that the rest of the Republican field has problems—Mitt Romney because of his inconsistency and the lack of enthusiasm for him while John Huntsman will struggle to shake off the fact he served

Saturday

Allister Heath

Politics: If Greece falls, Britain will suffer

When George Osborne delivered his first budget, Greece made the perfect backdrop. The television news channels had split screens: on the left side, the new Chancellor making the case for austerity. On the right side: riots in Athens as a government confronted the consequences of its profligacy. Now, as then, British eyes are on Greece — but for different reasons. The prospect of a Eurozone banking crisis has now overtaken rampant inflation as the greatest single threat to the British economy. The risk is not Greece itself, which, for all its great difficulties, remains a small and marginal economy. British holidaymakers may quietly pray for the return of the drachma

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Is Cameron headed for a fall?

David Cameron exudes a worrying confidence these days. He strolls through the corridors of the Palace of Westminster with the air of a man already thinking of victory at the next election. His head is tilted slightly skywards, as if already enjoying the sunlit uplands of victory in 2015. But this confidence is misguided, even dangerous, as some of those closest to him are well aware. They, by contrast, do not look relaxed at all. They look anxious, pained, bundles of nervous energy. Their fear is that the Prime Minister is on the brink of making mistakes that could endanger his premiership: that he is about to sabotage his own

Christina Lamb

Trapped in the palace

When Barack Obama and David Cameron met in London this week, one problem would have been foremost in their minds. It’s more than six weeks since they penned their joint article with Nicolas Sarkozy demanding that ‘Gaddafi must go’. It’s more than two months since they started airstrikes in Libya. Yet Gaddafi is stubbornly refusing to be toppled. He is not alone. In Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh has reneged on two deals to step down and, at the last minute, refused to sign a third — despite an American promise of immunity. In Syria, Bashar Assad seems determined to stay on through sheer bloody force, unmoved by US and EU

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Revenge is not a sin, it’s a public service

It was never likely that Chris Huhne’s agonies over what will sooner or later be called Penaltypointsgate would arrive unaccompanied by a rash of commentary about revenge. It was never likely that Chris Huhne’s agonies over what will sooner or later be called Penaltypointsgate would arrive unaccompanied by a rash of commentary about revenge. All of three hours elapsed before ‘Hell hath no fury…’ — now so over-used that we have to tail off into a sheepish ellipsis after the first few words — appeared in a Fleet Street headline. This has been followed a series of columns ranging from the lip-smacking (‘those classic revenges in full: (1) Othello…’) to

Friday

Peter Hoskin

From the archives: Bush in London

You may have noticed that Barack Obama came to the country on a state visit this week. But he wasn’t the first US President to be extended an invitation from the Queen, oh no. George W. Bush beat him to that particular honour in 2003. Here are a couple of Spectator pieces from the time, the first the magazine’s leader column, the second by Peter Oborne: Don’t burn Bush, The Spectator, 15 November 2003 The Queen’s state carriage has carried some pretty rum types over the years. Nicolae Ceauscescu took a break from murdering his countrymen to take a ride down the Mall in June 1978. In 1994 it was

Thursday

Jonathan Jones

Big gain for Cain

Remember Herman Cain? The former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza who scored a surprise win at the first Republican presidential primary debate earlier this month? Well, the latest Gallup poll is out today, and shows him on 8 per cent amongst potential primary voters: essentially tied for third behind Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. This is the first poll conducted since Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump and Mitch Daniels all declared that they would not seek the nomination, and is also the first of Gallup’s to include Cain’s name. 8 per cent may not sound all that impressive, but it is when you consider that just 33 per cent of respondents know

Peter Hoskin

More freedom for some schools means better schools all round

Academies, as CoffeeHouser knows, are booming. There were around 200 of them when Michael Gove became Education Secretary last May. Now, just a year later, and steaming well ahead of expectations, there are over 600. This is, as Benedict Brogan suggests in his Telegraph column today, one of the great successes of the coalition era — albeit one that owes a debt to Andrew Adonis, Tony Blair and all the school reformers that came before them. And it is a triumph of quality, as well as of quantity. The simple, overwhelming truth is that academies are, on the whole, better than the schools they replace. Just look at the table released by the

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Cameron and Obama’s mutual appreciation has its limits

And the Word of the Day is “we”. Both David Cameron and Barack Obama deployed it liberally in their joint press conference just now, as they ran through all the mutual pleasantries and backslapping that attends these events. “We have discussed the two things we care about the most,” flushed Cameron, “getting our people jobs, and keeping our people safe.” From there on in it was first name terms — “thank you, David” — and claims about the strength of our two countries’ special, essential, unique relationship, etc. With the sun blazing down on the garden of Lancaster House, I’m sure the photos will turn out nice. Cameron appeared to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A good day for Cameron

Today is one of those days when David Cameron gets full political benefit from being Prime Minister. He is basking in the president of the United States’ reflected glory. The papers this morning are full of him playing table tennis with Barack Obama and tonight’s news bulletins will lead on their joint press conference at lunchtime. As Cameron stands next to Obama, he’ll look both a statesman and a centrist. It’ll be hard for Labour to attack Cameron as an extremist on deficit reduction when he keeps stressing how he and Obama agree on a sensible level and pace to get their budgets heading back into balance. There are, obviously,

Peter Hoskin

The Tory divide over European bail-outs

As Obama and Cameron played table tennis yesterday, a considerably more furious game was being waged between the government and Tory backbenchers. It related to a Parliamentary motion tabled by Mark Reckless – and described here – that sought to stem UK involvement in any future bailouts for eurozone countries. All well and good, you’d think, until a rival amendment percolated down from on high to dilute Reckless’s proposals. This new amendment would only go so far as to “urge the Government to raise the issue of the [bailout mechanism] at the next meeting of the Council of Ministers of the European Council”. The green benches were set for a

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A Vanished Scotland

Speaking of a Scotland that is no more (or largely no more), here’s video of the Reverend Dr Donald McDonald addressing the crowd at the disbandment of the Cameronians in 1968. You don’t see stuff like this very often these days and I’m enough of a Tory to recognise that whle improvements bring many blessings they come at a price that’s paid in poignancy too. Perhaps one should not be too sentimental about these things, though the crowds who flocked to the National Theatre of Scotland’s production of Black Watch will recognise the pathos of these video clips. Nevertheless, the style or temper on magnificent display here has largely vanished.

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Gary Johnson vs Ron Paul

In the grand drama of an American presidential campaign, wondering whether Gary Johnson or Ron Paul will win the vestigial libertarian-minded vote in the Republican primary is but a tiny scene of little consequence whatsoever. At best it’s an Off-Off-Broadway production and even that might be a generous verdict. Nevertheless, it’s not without interest since it will shine some light on the heroic patriots who make up the “Tea Party”. I considered this last November and now Ilya Somin asks the same question: Johnson or Paul? Like me, he’s a Johnson man. Will Wilkinson explains why, whatever Johnson’s merits, he’ll struggle to make an impression: I think Mr Johnson’s gentle

David Blackburn

Choppers add to the Libyan fog of war

There was much ado about choppers in Westminster earlier today. Yesterday, French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet told reporters that Britain and France were to deploy attack helicopters to Libya; and that the British had instigated this move. The fog of war then descended. Labour’s defence spokesman Jim Murphy called on the British government to explain why the conflict is escalating. Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey contradicted Longuet’s account; and a source at the Ministry of Defence told me that this was the first he’d heard of helicopters being deployed to Libya in that role. The implication was that the French were trying to force the issue. Then again, a separate

David Blackburn

A coup for the Tories?

The Tories are cock-a-hoop about the defection of UKIP MEP David Campbell Bannerman – positively crowing, in fact. “There’s nothing more satisfying,” said one CCHQer, “than UKIP suffering.” Activists and MPs alike reckon that the Conservatives could have won a majority last May if it weren’t for UKIP in the south-west. Vengeance is sweet, but is it of lasting importance? Campbell Bannerman has used a blog post to justify his action: David Cameron is an inspiring leader and an avowed eurosceptic. Perhaps it will become a salve for the right, increasingly seen as Cameron’s blind spot. Equally, the answers Campbell Bannerman gave to Total Politics’ Amber Elliott could be used

David Blackburn

Clegg: No MP is above the law

The sun shone on the deputy prime minister at DPMQs earlier today. Nick Clegg usually wears a grimace at the despatch box; but he was assured this morning, successfully defending a Labour onslaught on the NHS reforms. There were even flashes of, well, Flashman. He replied to a question from Chris Bryant by quipping, “Every time the Honourable member asks a question, I wonder why anyone bugged his phone.” Clegg also rebuked John Hemming for breaking the Giggs super-injunction yesterday; a popular move among those MPs who think Hemming degraded parliamentary privilege. Clegg said: “I don’t think anyone should be above the rule of law. And if we don’t like

Daniel Korski

Stop Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown’s friends have launched a shameless effort to compel the government into nominating him for the IMF post. The government would be mad if they did. Mad. This is not about petty score-settling, as yesterday’s Evening Standard would have it. This is about qualifications to lead, and the former Prime Minister, despite his intellect, does not have those skills. He led the country to ruin and remains in denial about it: he saved the world, don’t cha know. The UK should be smarter about using talent from across the House, but there are limits. And it is a bit rich for the ex-PM’s friends to argue that David Cameron