Politics Archives

Monday

10 Jan 2011

Clarification

Oooh, some of you lot get a bit hissy when the word “right” is banded around, don’t you? I used the term “far-right” in respect of the three parties which are not the Conservative Party. I suppose I could have used “further-right”. But for those of you, like Old Slaughter, twitching uncomfortably at UKIP being bracketed with the BNP, here are those policy details on which they agree, from their most recent manifestos and policy statements: Leave the EU Leave Schengen Release UK businesses from “120,000” European laws. Immediate freeze on immigration Expel Islamic extremists Kick out immigrant miscreants Get rid of the Human Rights Act Ban the burqa and

Alex Massie

Showdown at the Blame Game Corral

Alastair Campbell, of all people, shows how the ghastly Tucson shootings are to be exploited for political purposes: What the right are now doing is trying to portray the killer of Tucson, Arizona as a crazed loner operating in some kind of vacuum. But even if it turns out that he had never heard of the Tea Party, did not know who he was shooting, and was in fact a card-carrying member of the Democrat Party, (all three unlikely) it is time for the right-wing prophets of hate, many of whom have grown rich and famous on the back of their bile, to recognise the harm they do to public

James Forsyth

Johnson running out of his nine lives

Ed Miliband’s press conference today was a classic example of clever opposition politics. He and Alan Johnson said that Labour would continue the bonus tax on the banks for one more year. This policy has the twin advantage of maximising the coalition’s discomfort over the whole issue of bankers’ bonuses and expiring well before the next election. The rest of Miliband’s press conference was devoted to an attempt to defend the record of the previous Labour government. Miliband kept making the valid point that in the years before the crash Cameron and Osborne weren’t saying that Labour was spending too much but were instead committed to matching Labour’s spending plans.

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 10 January 2011

…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Fraser Nelson examines the government’s economic policy. James Forsyth relays Michael Gove’s latest initiative, and explains why the Cameroons care about the Lib Dem poll rating. Peter Hoskin reports that Labour are running away with it in Oldham East. David Blackburn reckons Cameron interviews better in print than on screen, and says that there is more to the sex gang story than depraved men. Daniel Korski thinks that South Sudan is set for a difficult independence. And Rod Liddle analyses Oldham’s other three horse race.

Peter Hoskin

Will Balls and Cooper capitalise from Johnson’s mistakes?

You’ve probably heard about Alan Johnson’s latest slip-up yesterday. But it’s still worth highlighting the response made by a Labour spokesman – as Dizzy has – because it’s simply extraordinary. Here it is: “We have a Shadow Chancellor who lives in the real world. He knows the difference between a progresive and regressive tax. He knows what it takes to get on in the real world. That is more important than taking part in a Westminster quiz game.” Extraordinary that Labour should already have to make excuses on behalf of Johnson. But even more extraordinary that they should be made in this manner. The shadow chancellor errs, in quick succession,

Sunday

9 Jan 2011

James Forsyth

Why the Cameroons think the Lib Dem poll rating matters

Matt d’Ancona’s piece in The Sunday Telegraph arguing that the coalition should stick to its long term strategy and ignore the slings and arrows of the daily news cycle makes an important point. The Blair governments would, undoubtedly, have achieved more if they had done this. But the circumstances for the coalition are different in one crucial regard: it could fall far more easily. What keeps keep Tory Cabinet ministers up at night is the fear that the Lib Dems could dump Nick Clegg and that a new leader would then pull the party out of a coalition. At the moment, this seems like an unlikely prospect—not least because it

Rod Liddle

Oldham’s other three-way battle

Just back from covering the campaign in the Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election – where, I suspect, the Lib Dems will not do quite so badly as many either hope or fear. It seems to be the Tory vote which is collapsing; odd, really, as the seat should be a three way marginal. One of the interesting sideshows is the three-way split on the far right, between the BNP, UKIP and the newcomers on the block, the English Democrats. The BNP did very well in Oldham five years ago, but their support locally (and nationally) has dwindled since then. They are competing with the English Democrats for the disillusioned Labour

Fraser Nelson

Cameron sells the coalition’s economic policy

David Cameron was on Marr this morning (with yours truly doing the warm-up paper review), talking about the “tough and difficult year” ahead. Others have been through the interview for its general content. What interested me was its economic content: not the most sexy subject in the world, I know, but, as Alan Johnson unwittingly demonstrated on Sky this morning, the Labour Party looks unable to scrutinise the government’s economic policy. Anyway, here are ten observations: 1) “Because of the budget last year, we are lifting 800,000 people out of income tax, we’re raising income tax thresholds. That will help all people who are basic rate taxpayers.” Thanks to

Peter Hoskin

The pollsters have Labour running away with it in Oldham East

The same, but completely different. That’s the electoral paradox that emerges from a couple of opinion polls on the Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election this morning. The same, because both the Lord Ashcroft survey for the Sunday Telegraph and the ICM survey for the Mail on Sunday produce the same result as in the general election: Labour first, the Lib Dems second and the Tories in third. Completely different, because this is no longer the achingly close contest that it was back in May. Both polls have Labour soaring 17 percentage points above the yellow bird of liberty. Of course, the polls aren’t always right. Yet these latest will surely

Saturday

8 Jan 2011

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 8 January 2011

You may have heard government ministers — Conservative ones anyway — saying that their current EU Bill ensures referendums on further transfers of power from Britain to the European Union and puts parliamentary sovereignty on the statute book. You may have heard government ministers — Conservative ones anyway — saying that their current EU Bill ensures referendums on further transfers of power from Britain to the European Union and puts parliamentary sovereignty on the statute book. It does neither of these things. A separate Bill would be required for a referendum actually to take place. As for sovereignty, this is allegedly rescued by Clause 18, which says that ‘It is

The Spectator

Leader: King’s ransom

When George Osborne decided to raise VAT, more months ago than he will admit, he did not imagine that he would be compounding the worst inflation in Western Europe. Prices are currently falling in Ireland, flat in Germany and rising only slightly throughout the rest of the Eurozone and America. But in Britain, inflation is back with a vengeance. This week, millions of shopkeepers raised prices by far more than the 2.1 per cent needed to accommodate the new tax. They did so not out of greed, but in preparation for a year of rising heating, staff and transport costs. The shopkeepers realise what Mervyn King, the Governor of the

David Blackburn

Affable Cameron invites you into his home

Perhaps I’m alone in this, but David Cameron interviews better in print than he does on screen. He’s almost too polished on television. His supreme confidence and tendency to guffaw at his scripted jokes can grate. But in print his assurance has an affable, human quality. The Daily Mail has interviewed him today. Most of the piece is a lifestyle feature – Dave at home attending to Florence’s evening feed as he watches Newsnight. It is vacuous fare, but it strikes a brilliant contrast with Ed Miliband’s rout at the hands of the nation’s housewives on the Jeremy Vine Show, where there were echoes of Gordon Brown’s excruciating unease with

James Forsyth

Politics: From Red Ed to Steady Eddie

Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are locked in a political duel, and only one of them can survive. Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are locked in a political duel, and only one of them can survive. In the new politics, what helps Clegg hurts Miliband and vice versa. This unusual dynamic makes next week’s by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth especially important: it is, in effect, the first electoral clash between the two men. The result will determine which leader spends the first part of the year fending off questions about their future. It is coalition politics that has created this clash between Miliband and Clegg. During the Labour leadership

Douglas Murray

Jihad against justice

For a jihadi, Britain is one of the very best places in the world. In Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, overhead drones kill terrorists on a regular basis. In most democratic countries, politicians try to limit their enemies’ ability to operate — so one runs the risk of being thrown into prison, if caught mid-jihad. But not in Britain. Here, the Islamist insurgents have found that there are a hundred ways to run rings around our police and justice system. Nothing demonstrates this more spectacularly than the control orders farce. Control orders are an inelegant system for putting restrictions on terror suspects, either because the evidence which could convict them is

Friday

7 Jan 2011

James Forsyth

Coalition polling

As Tim Montgomerie notes, tonight’s Angus Reid poll asks an interesting question about who voters would support if asked to choose between Labour and a Coalition party. This questions pushes up support for Labour with Labour scoring 45 percent on it compared to 40 percent on a normal voting intention question. The increase in Labour support comes from the fact that 46 percent of Lib Dem voters from the 2010 election would in these circumstances vote Labour compared to the 32 percent who’d go coalition. Polling on a hypothetical should, obviously, be treated with caution. But the fact that the coalition together polls worse than the coalition apart is interesting.

Martin Bright

Miliband is not yet the man to build the ‘good society’

Neal Lawson¹s Comment is Free blog-post/essay/manifesto on the ‘good society‘ is causing a flurry of interest in Labour circles. The head of Labour leftish pressure group Compass has been banging on about this for four years now. Borrowed ultimately from Aristotle, this re-heated utopianism is a tempting route for post-socialists tired of the compromises of the Blair years. Neal Lawson is a passionate man, who can claim with some justification to have been developing Labour¹s version of the ‘big society’ for some time. Here is Neal at his emotional, tub-thumping best: ‘To take back some semblance of control, we can’t start from a position of trying to humanise a turbo-consumer

Peter Hoskin

Clegg strikes an uncertain balance

By my count, it’s the fourth speech that Nick Clegg has delivered specifically on the subject of deflating the state since last May. And like his last three, today’s number was stuffed with words like “liberty” (23 times), “freedom” (19) and “power” (14). Much of the more specific content was familiar, too: like the confident asides about ID cards and a Freedom Bill. What we really wanted to hear, though, was what Clegg would say about control orders. And what he said was … well, not much. Like the PM earlier this week, the Deputy PM suggested that control orders are an imperfect mechanism – and that “they must be

Fraser Nelson

King’s ransom

How much bigger does Britain’s inflation have to become before Mervyn King realises it’s a problem? The VAT rise should have lifted prices by 2.1 percent – but shopkeepers over Britain have been applying far larger rises. Why? Because one of the most important factors in economics – expectation of inflation – is back. People are bracing themselves for another year of rising heat, transport and staff costs – so retailers hike up prices in anticipation, and a vicious spiral of inflation begins. The Retail Price Index was up 4.8 percent last November, and Consumer Price Index 3.3 percent. The price of this failure of monetary policy is paid by

Thursday

6 Jan 2011

David Blackburn

Unpicking Miliband’s deceits

Ed Miliband has penned a combative but incredible piece in today’s Times (£). He makes two substantial points. First, that the coalition is deceiving people: Labour was not to blame for the deficit. And second, the coalition’s cuts package (in its entirety) is unnecessary. Oh what a tangled web he’s weaved. His argument is a maze of conceits, sleights of hand and subterfuge, and he interchanges between debt and deficit at his convenience. But, occasionally, his position is exposed. As this Coffee House graph recalls, Labour built a substantial structural deficit prior to the economic collapse. Tony Blair acknowledged as much in his memoir: ‘We should also accept that from

David Blackburn

Winding down Control Orders

David Cameron has reiterated that Control Orders are to be scrapped. He told an audience in Leicester yesterday: ‘The control order system is imperfect. Everybody knows that. There have been people who’ve absconded from control orders. It hasn’t been a success. We need a proper replacement and I’m confident we’ll agree one.’ Whether the new arrangement will replace both the name and the letter of the law remains to be seen, but the government is expected to lessen some of the more severe elements of Control Orders. When this story broke at the weekend, Cameron was happy to spin the reforms as a Lib Dem initiative, despite considerable Tory input.