Politics

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

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour vote to the Tories’ benefit

Labour has just marched into the trap that George Osborne set them and voted against the benefits cap — again. As one gleeful Tory says, ‘we’re going to make sure everyone in the country knows how they voted on this.’   I suspect that in every Labour-held marginal that the Tories need to win to get a majority in 2015 the benefit cap will feature prominently on Tory literature. Labour MPs will be faced with the unenviable task of explaining why an able-bodied household where no one works should receive more in benefits than the average wage.   The cap chimes with the public’s sense of fairness — as the

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Miliband finds his niche, and leaves Cameron looking boorish

Miliband is getting the measure of PMQs. Not with respect to Cameron. With respect to himself. He’s learned that his strongest register — sanctimony — will always ring hollow unless it’s attached to a powerful cause. And his gags don’t work. So he’s ditched his team of funny men and wise-crackers and turned to his political instincts instead. Miliband’s gut worked today. He began with a question which he knew Cameron couldn’t answer. Why hasn’t the government activated the laws requiring banks to name all employees earning over a million year? The PM answered by not answering. He performed a transparent switcheroo from the particular question to the general topic.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tories push benefit cap in PMQs, Miliband ignores it

As expected, the Tories did everything they could to make the benefit cap the subject of PMQs. One Tory MP managed to slip in a question on it just before Miliband got up, allowing Cameron to press the Labour leader on the issue even before he had started speaking. Tory MPs kept coming back to the benefit cap — there were five questions on it in all — allowing Cameron to repeatedly mock the Labour front bench for not saying what its position is. ‘Just nod — are you with us or against us?’ was one of the lines Cameron tried to goad them with. But in the main clashes

Peter Hoskin

The view from the Institute for Fiscal Studies

It’s the halftime coffee break here at the launch of the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Green Budget, so I thought I’d send CoffeeHousers a quick update. But first, just to be clear, that’s green meaning green, not green meaning environmental. This is the IFS’s annual, different-hued version of the Treasury’s Red Book. It’s their overall take on the economy and public finances. So far, there has been little that will surprise or disconcert George Osborne as he prepares his own Budget: the picture is expectedly grim. As John Walker, chairman of Oxford Economics, put it in his warm-up routine on the general economy, 2011 was ‘disappointing’ and 2012 will be

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The battle for ‘fairness’ continues

Today’s PMQs will be another skirmish in the battle for fairness. All three parties know that there is no more potent word in British politics at the moment than fairness and they all want to be its champion. But what will make PMQs interesting today is that Cameron and Miliband each have a powerful weapon in the fairness debate, but also a vulnerability. Miliband’s weapon is bankers’ bonuses – the government’s inaction over Stephen Hester’s bonus has given him plenty of material. But he’s acutely vulnerable over the benefits cap. Cameron will be desperate to move the debate onto this territory. All the polling shows that Labour’s desire to have

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Freedom for Shetland!

If Scotland can claim independence — and a ‘geographical share’ of the oil regardless of population — then why can’t Orkney & Shetland? It’s the Up Helly Aa festival in Lerwick tonight, where men dress up as vikings and set a longship ablaze. Not a very Scottish festival, but when your nearest city is Bergen how Scottish do you feel? Laurance Reed, a former Hebridean resident (and ex-MP), has a piece in this week’s magazine pointing out that, by the Salmond doctrine, there is nothing to stop the Scottish islands breaking off, claiming the oil wealth and becoming the Dubai of the north. His piece is below. Freedom for Shetland!,

Peter Hoskin

<del>Sir</del> Fred Goodwin

And so Fred Goodwin has lost his knighthood. Here’s the Cabinet Office statement (and some of my previous thoughts here): ‘It will soon be announced in the London Gazette that the Knighthood conferred upon Fred Goodwin as a Knight Bachelor has been cancelled and annulled. This decision, not normally publicised in advance, was taken on the advice of the Forfeiture Committee, which advised that Fred Goodwin had brought the honours system in to disrepute. The scale and severity of the impact of his actions as CEO of RBS made this an exceptional case. In 2008 the Government had to provide £20bn of new equity to recapitalise RBS and ensure its

Peter Hoskin

Cameron cheered by the Lib Dems, spared by the Tories, mocked by Labour

If you wanted proof that Cameron has softened his stance towards Europe since the hard chill of December, then just look to the Lib Dems. Nick Clegg, unlike then, was sat next to the Prime Minister as he gave his statement to the Commons this afternoon. And the questions that followed from the likes of Menzies Campbell and Simon Hughes were generally warm and approving. Campbell started by, in his words, ‘praising the pragmatism of the PM’. Hughes celebrated a ‘more successful and satisfactory summit than the one in December’. That praise, while friendly enough, creates obvious problems for Cameron — and it was those problems that Ed Miliband sought

Jonathan Jones

The Tories are extending their lead on the economy

It looks like Dave’s still made of Teflon. Even after the economy shrank by 0.2 per cent and the unemployment rate rose to its highest point since 1995, the public still think his party is better at handling the economy than Labour. And the Tories’ lead on what is by far the most important issue to voters hasn’t just survived all this bad economic news — it’s actually grown. Before Christmas, 31 per cent said the Tories would best handle the economy, against 27 per cent for Labour. In today’s YouGov poll, that four point lead has trebled to become a 12 point lead — the biggest since autumn 2010:

Peter Hoskin

Miliband the eurosceptic? Not yet

Ed Miliband is not naturally a eurospectic, but he certainly sounded like one during his appearance on ITV’s Daybreak show earlier. ‘I’m very concerned about what David Cameron has done,’ he said in reference to the PM’s equivocation over Europe yesterday. ‘He’s sold us down the river.’ Whether this is Miliband committing towards the sort of euroscepticism that is being urged on him by some of his colleagues, it’s too early to say. It’s only words, after all. But my guess is that — just as when Miliband attacked Cameron for not signing up to the latest treaty, but couldn’t say whether he’d have signed it himself — this is

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Scotland: A Land Where Conservative Principles Die

For some time now we have been told – by the editor of this magazine among other, less distinguished, commentators – that David Cameron and the Downing Street machine view Scotland as a rum, far-off place about which they know little and which, on the rare occasions they pay attention to it, perplexes them mightily. One would like to think this were not the case but it seems a dispiriting and accurate appraisal. Why – indeed why-oh-why – do Conservatives abandon the principles of Conservatism when discussion turns to Scotland? On Sunday “sources close to the Prime Minister” apparently ruled out any talk of fiscal autonomy, devolution plus, devo max

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Astonishing Scenes as Sarah Palin Says Something Useful…

Sarah Palin has provided us with a helpful distillation of what Newt Gingrich’s campaign is all about: At the weekend the ex-house speaker, Newt Gingrich had an endorsement from the former front-runner, Herman Cain, and the Florida Tea Party. But his biggest backing, and probably the most influential, has come from the 2008 V-P candidate, Sarah Palin who went on Fox TV yesterday to say, “if for no other reason, rage against the machine, vote for Newt; annoy a liberal, vote Newt. Keep this vetting process* going, keep the debate going”. Since annoying liberals is Mrs Palin’s secondary** aim in life she knows well of what she speaks. It’s not

Peter Hoskin

Cameron softens his stance on Europe — but who benefits?

‘We will insist that the EU institutions — the court, the commission — that they work for all 27 nations of the EU.’ So said David Cameron, back in December, suggesting that he’d block Europe’s ‘fiscal compact’ countries from using EU-wide institutions to enforce their, er, fiscal compact. But now this component of his ‘veto’ appears to have come to naught, and that veto is looking all the thinner for it. On the Today Programme this morning, William Hague confirmed that Britain wouldn’t block the use of EU institutions, such as the court, for the fiscal union. ‘We’re not intending to take action about that now,’ is how he put

Jonathan Jones

The tuition fee effect, revealed

The coalition’s tuition fee rise will put young people from poor backgrounds off applying to university — or so we were told by Labour and the National Union of Students. But now we can actually put that claim to the test. UCAS today revealed how many of that first year group to be affected by the rise have applied to university. So what does those number tell us? Looking at the headlines resulting from the release, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Team Miliband have been vindicated. ‘University applications plunge 9% after tuition fees are trebled,’ proclaims the Daily Mail. ‘Thousands give up on university because of tuition fees,’ says

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Does Labour support the benefits cap or not?

Does anyone, anywhere, understand the Labour Party’s position on the government’s intention to cap welfare benefits? I ask as a member of the Labour Party who is, of course, anxious to spread the message far and wide but is worried by what seem to be certain, um, inconsistencies of approach. So, on Question Time last week David Lammy conceded that he agreed wholeheartedly with the idea of a benefits cap but thinks the various dissenting Church of England bishops are absolutely right to criticise the idea of a benefits cap and that the government is penalising the poor. He got quite worked up about it, railing against the injustice while

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Ed Miliband: Britain’s Greatest Leader of the Opposition

Ed Miliband is a geek, a failure and a loser. All the press says so, so it must be true. Yet the apparent no-hoper retains the ability of the boy who confronted the naked emperor to change the terms of debate. Ever since Mrs Thatcher, the working assumption of the British elite has been that it must always placate Rupert Murdoch. If that meant the corruption of government — the ruling party giving special treatment to Murdoch’s businesses, Murdoch giving the ruling party propagandistic support in return — so be it. If that meant successive Prime Ministers debasing themselves (and their country) before an overmighty citizen, who was not even

Jonathan Jones

Some numbers to encourage both halves of the coalition

Yesterday’s YouGov poll for the Sunday Times had a few interesting nuggets buried beneath the top line (Lab 40, Con 39, as it happens). Here are some of the most topical findings: 1) Clegg’s tax proposals are very popular. 83 per cent support the Lib Dems’ policy of increasing the personal allowance to £10,000. This might explain the 12-point jump in Nick Clegg’s net approval rating since last week. And there’s strong support for the ‘mansion tax’ that Vince Cable’s been pushing since 2009. 66 per cent back ‘a new tax upon people with houses worth more than £2 million’ — something Clegg called for again last week — and

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 30 January 2012

…here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson finds the prospect of party political police commissioners depressing, and doubts that 51 per cent of Scots really back independence. James Forsyth notes that Douglas Alexander understands Labour’s problem, and comments on the party’s attempt to seize on Stephen Hester’s bonus. Peter Hoskin breaks down Labour’s new line on the benefits cap, and reports on the government’s problems over Hester’s bonus. Daniel Korski reports on the worsening situation in Syria. On the Book Blog, Gloria de Piero reveals her love of books about recent US politics, and her respect for Das Kapital. On the Arts Blog, Lynn Shepherd shares the exhilaration she

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Peston: Hester will not take bonus

Stephen Hester’s decision to waive his bonus, revealed by Robert Peston just after 10 o’clock, will be a source of great relief to David Cameron and George Osborne. A story that could have dragged on for weeks, undermining their argument about fairness has just lost most of its potency. Ed Miliband, though, will be able to claim — with some justification — that it was the threat of a Commons vote on the matter that led to Hester renouncing his bonus. But this isn’t quite the end of this business. There’s now the question of what happens to the bonuses for other members of staff at RBS and then there