Politics

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

Saturday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 29 January 2011

The departure of Andy Coulson exposes a weakness in this government’s management of the media. The departure of Andy Coulson exposes a weakness in this government’s management of the media. Coulson was very good at sitting in on meetings of clever advisers and ministers and subjecting their ideas to the simple test of ‘How will this play with voters?’ His plain common sense is now absent. But even Coulson was not particularly suited to the much-maligned but essential art of ‘spin’. Because of the Blair and Brown years, this is now seen as the same as lying. It is true that lying has too often been involved, but the essential

The Spectator

Leader: Growth or bust

David Cameron has said he is determined not to lead a cuts-only coalition. He has spoken about promoting entrepreneurship, rightly hailing small businesses as the engine of Britain’s economic recovery. At the last Tory party conference, he paid homage to ‘the doers and the grafters, the inventors and the entrepreneurs’. He was fully behind these ‘wealth creators’, and no, he said, ‘those aren’t dirty words’. And since then: nothing. As we digest the news that the British economy shrank during the final three months of 2010, it is worth asking what’s happened to George Osborne’s growth strategy. It seemed not to exist during the general election campaign. In August, the

Peter Hoskin

Has Maude shut the door in Boris’s face?

Nigel Lawson and Francis Maude are both interviewed in the Telegraph today, and the results are very different in each case. For his part, Lawson is in bombastic form – waxing sceptical on everything from the coalition to the Big Society. Whereas Maude is predictably more reserved and accepting. It’s the Maude interview, though, that contains the most politically significant revelation. Namely, this: “Boris Johnson, privately backed by several Cabinet ministers, is leading the charge for tougher union laws. But Maude, a key player in the Coalition’s dealings with the public sector, is reluctant. Tightening Thatcher’s labour laws is a ‘last resort’ he says. In the meantime, the Government should

Peter Hoskin

Ten points about the Ed Balls interview

Ed Balls gets personal in his interview with the Times (£) today, but not in the way you might expect. For most of the piece he dwells on what the paper calls his “hidden vulnerability” – the effort to contain his stammer. And from there on, the politics seems a touch softer than usual. There are surprisingly few overt attacks on his opponents, and those that make the cut are considerably less violent that we’re used too. Which isn’t to say that the interview lacks politics. No sirree. Here’s a ten-point selection of some of the political highlights (so to speak), with my added comments:      1) Doubling back

Alex Massie Alex Massie

British Politics Explained

I’m indebted to my friend Neill Harvey-Smith for summing up the British attitude to politics in just three sentences: I don’t know what it is. It sounds like a good idea. It probably won’t work. That’s in response to this: And you know what? Most of the time, I don’t know what it is. It sounds like a good idea. It probably won’t work is neither a dumb nor an irrational approach. But you can see why, in this instance at least, it might frustrate David Cameron and Steve Hilton.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

No time for pleasantries. Get ready for Osborne v. Balls

The night Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party, his advisers sent him to bed before midnight and confiscated his mobile phone. The night Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party, his advisers sent him to bed before midnight and confiscated his mobile phone. Half a mile away from where the new leader was sleeping, Ed Balls was holding a wake with his closely knit, leadership campaign team. Here, no one was going to tell him what to do. He was going to sing, sup and speechify for as long as he wanted. In the wee small hours of the morning, Balls kept rallying his troops.

Peter Oborne

Where’s the divide?

The outcry over Sayeeda Warsi’s speech on Islamophobia last week cannot be understood without a clear grasp of the balance of power within the coalition government. There are two factions, and the strongest can loosely be described as neoconservative. This faction remains an unconditional supporter of the United States of America, continues to defend the Iraq invasion, powerfully admires and in some cases worships Tony Blair, and automatically takes the side of Israel in the middle east. This section of the coalition also takes a hard line on domestic security arrangements, supporting control orders and the divisive Prevent strategy for confronting its special interpretation of the Islamic terror threat. Its

Friday

Daniel Korski

Coffee House interview: Ursula Brennan

Few government jobs are as demanding as that of Permanent Under-Secretary, or PUS, in the Ministry of Defence. With Liam Fox as your boss, General David Richards as your colleague, and an exhausted, overspent department to run, it is no surprise that when Bill Jeffrey retired many of the government’s most senior officials – including, it is said, No 10’s Jeremy Heywood – balked at the challenge. Forward stepped Ursula Brennan, who until then had held the ministry’s No 2 job before a career in the Ministry of Justice, and what is now the Department for Work and Pensions. Here, Mrs Brennan has kindly agreed to answer a few questions

Peter Hoskin

Poll catch-up

Other sites have already covered this week’s opinion poll results, among them Labour’s largest lead since September 2007 and the public’s confusion over the Big Society. But there are a couple of findings that are worth dwelling on as we drift into the weekend: 1) Labour gaining ground in the blame game. Ok, so PoliticalBetting’s Mike Smithson mentioned this a few days ago. But, here at Coffee House, we’ve translated the numbers into the graph below. It shows that, over recent YouGov polls, Labour have been slowly receiving less and less blame for the spending cuts, while the coalition are receiving more: Expected, perhaps – but still noteworthy, not least

Martin Bright

What happens when journalists become the story?

When spin doctors become the story or spokesmen need a spokesman, we know the game is up. So say Alastair Campbell and Andy Coulson, and they should know. So what happens when journalists become the story?   The re-opening of the investigation into News of the World phone-hacking case has sent a chill across Fleet Street. Collectively, journalists really had hoped this would go away. A prurient interest in the private lives of stars and public figures is nothing new. The pressures of a tabloid newsroom are immense, and it should come as no surprise that journalists looking for an edge were prepared to take such technological liberties. But no

Peter Hoskin

Cameron’s gloomy brand of optimism

A weird, sprawling kind of speech from David Cameron in Davos this morning. It started off on an unusually, if expectedly, gloomy note: all talk of Europe’s debt-induced decline in the face of competition from India, China and Brazil. And he emphasised, of course, that Britain would, and should, stick to its current trajectory of “tough” deficit reduction. But it’s where it went from there that was more striking still. Cameron contrasted his position with that of “the pessimists”. These people, he claimed, have a charter which includes propositions such as, “we in Europe are incapable of solving our debt and deficit problems,” and, “we’re attached to liberal values that

Peter Hoskin

Boris: George knows I’m right

David Cameron and George Osborne must have hoped that their message from Davos today would be broadcast unimpeded. It is, after all, a blunt message, designed to smash through all the radio chatter: we must continue with deficit reduction, there is no alternative, etc. But, inconveniently for them, there are other voices saying what we must do – among them Boris Johnson. The Mayor of London’s interview with the Telegraph is at once typical and quite intriguing. Typical, because he holds aloft the same standards as always. “I understand 50p tax politically,” he says, “but there has got to be a sense of where we are going and where we

Thursday

David Blackburn

Spelman’s a lumberjack and she’s ok

The coalition’s plans to privatise Britain’s woodlands have received what is euphemistically termed ‘a mixed reception’. Caroline Spelman’s consultation document and accompanying article in today’s Times (£) may change that fact. Both are historically conscious and upholstered with reassuring pastoral interludes – an elegant departure from most ministerial rambles.   But, this government’s politics breaks well clear from the literary immersion. There is a dose of Thatcherism. Spelman is adamant that the state should not be managing forests, and she wants private companies to exploit commercially valuable forests. She writes: ‘It’s time for the Government to step back and allow those who are most involved with England’s woodlands to play

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Limits of Hefferism. (And of Ed Miliband)

Anthony Wells sifts through IPSOS Mori’s latest poll: For David Cameron, 30% of people like both him and his party, 39% like neither. 17% like Cameron but not his party, 7% like the Conservatives but not Cameron. Hence, in total Cameron is liked by 47% of people (down 6 since before the election) and the Conservatives by 37% (down 1) – while Cameron’s likeability has dropped somewhat since the election, he is still viewed considerable more positively than the party he leads. Emphasis added. Like everyone else, I’m an admirer of Simon Heffer’s style (and he is sound on cricket too) but it might be worth remembering that his pro-Conservative,

David Blackburn

Nimrod: from a symbol of pride to one of decline

There are contrasting images of Nimrod the Hunter: the mighty king of the Old Testament, and the less fearsome figure of Elmer Fudd. Through no fault of its own, the Nimrod spy plane, the most advanced and versatile aircraft of its type, seems destined to belong in the Fuddian category. Several senior officers have written to the Telegraph, urging the government to reconsider its decision to scrap the aircraft. They argue, not for the first time, that Britain’s defence capabilities are being pulverised by political calculations. (Con Coghlin adds his strategic concerns in the same paper.) The top brass have found an ally in Unite, some of whose members build

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The dignified and undiginified parts of the constitution

There’s a febrile atmosphere in Westminster tonight. The coalition is poised for a frontal assault on the privileges of the House of Lords and there is an expectation that today’s dramatic developments in the phone hacking saga are the beginning of something not the end. The coalition’s actions on the Lords have been prompted by Labour’s filibustering of the AV bill. But there’s no guarantee that it will succeed. First, it has no majority in the upper house. Second, a lot of Tories peers are worried about just how many Clegg inspired changes to the constitution the coalition is pushing through. On the phone hacking front, there’s a sense that a dam broke today: the rogue

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Shocker! The Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead has no regard for the Constitution

Most entertaining, this Gerry Adams business. He may deny that he is now the Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead but if he ain’t then he hasn’t resigned as an MP. And if he is a paid officer of the Crown he would seem to be playing fast and loose with the Irish constitution. This may not surprise you or anyone else. However the constitution plainly states: 40.2.2: 1: Titles of nobility shall not be conferred by the State. 2. No title of nobility or of honour may be accepted by any citizen except with the prior approval of the Government. Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead is

Daniel Korski

Mandarined

One of the greatest challenges for any minister – and, by extension, the government’s programme – is to avoid being “mandarined”. That is, smothered by officials in the manner of Yes Minister. But it can happen to even the most powerful and outwardly confident politicians. Here is how. Reputation Management. First, the politician is thrilled to find herself or himself in office and is keen not to rock the boat – lest the Prime Minister is told by the Cabinet Secretary that the minister is under-performing. Tony Blair is said to have toyed with the idea of having report cards for ministers. As a result, the minister opts to push

Peter Hoskin

The Big Society in 1997

Titter ye might. The Big Society? In 1997? If the idea was of, erm, limited electoral worth in our last general election, then it was certainly of little use when Tony Blair hurtled into power all those years ago. Yet there is was, mostly speaking, in the “Civic Conservatism” espoused chiefly by David Willetts. Danny Finkelstein, writing for the pre-paywall incarnation of Comment Central, has already alluded to the intellectual debt that Steve Hilton et al owe to Willetts’ thinking back in the 1990s. Fraser did likewise in an interview with Willetts from four-and-a-half years ago. I mention this now for two conjoined reasons. First, the source texts of Civic

Peter Hoskin

The Lib Dems reject Ed Miliband’s overtures (again)

What a joy it is to watch Ed Miliband contort and twist so that he can offer a hand of friendship to the Lib Dems. It has been a three-act show, so far. First, during the Labour leadership contest, he described the Lib Dems as a “disgrace to the traditions of liberalism,” adding that, “I can see the death of the Liberal party to be honest”. Then, he said that he would actually work with those dying Liberals, but only if they ditched Nick Clegg first. And then today, in an interview with the Independent, he suggests that Clegg might be able to stay on, after all. As turnarounds go,