Politics

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

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband on the trail

If you talk to Tory MPs privately and ask them which of the coalition’s budgetary decisions they are most uncomfortable with, they’ll generally indentify the VAT rise and the police cuts (the reductions in the defence and prisons budget are also often mentioned). So it is clever politics for Ed MIliband to be emphasising the VAT rise and the police cuts so heavily in Oldham East and Saddleworth. It enables him to oppose key bits of the deficit reduction programme without sounding like an out of touch left-winger. If Labour do hold the seat, it will be a boost to Ed Miliband. It will add to the sense that he

Daniel Korski

Wrong to be too Right

From a right-wing perspective, there are several things wrong with David Cameron’s leadership – not least the fact that he did not win the 2010 election outright. As an unassailable report by Lord Ashcroft showed, the Tory campaign squandered a historic lead over Labour. The policy disagreements – over the EU, civil liberties, and the AV referendum – are compounded by personal grievances. The Prime Minister, despite investing quite a lot of time placating quarrelsome  MPs – calling them, writing them letters, inviting them to No 10 – cannot shake the impression of a man who is buoyed by confidence verging on arrogance, and someone who is reliant on –

David Blackburn

Miliband swings into action by warning of inflation

The seasonal interlude has ended and Ed Miliband is sallying north to Oldham East. He will resuscitate old favourites from 2010: progressive cuts, fairness and a government bent of an ideological mission: but he will illustrate his point with reference to tomorrow’s VAT rise. Miliband will say: ‘Today we start to see the Tory-led agenda move from Downing Street to your street. At midnight VAT goes up, hitting people’s living standards, small businesses and jobs. The VAT rise is the most visible example of what we mean when we say the government is going too far and too fast, because it’s clear that it will slow growth and hit jobs.’

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Is it a merger?

When a Conservative leader wishes the LibDems well in a three-way marginal by-election, then what is going on? Andrew Gilligan’s piece today shows that the Conservative campaign there is muted, and my colleague Melissa Kite reported earlier that Cameron personally called off  the hunt supporters, Vote OK, who were planning to boost the Tory campaign. Little wonder that Conservative MPs are beginning to smell a rat. They are being told this is the cohabitation of rival parties; in the Daily Telegraph tomorrow, I ask if this is actually a merger.   From the start of this coalition, I’ve been struck by the differences between the coalition in Westminster, and that

David Blackburn

Control Orders: a pyrrhic victory for the Lib Dems?

Coalition is a tricky business, full of compromise and connivance. Emblazoned across the front page of the Sunday Times (£) is the news that Control Orders are to be scrapped. A victory for Nick Clegg, we are told, won to nurture wounded Liberal Democrats and preserve the coalition. The Liberal Democrat 2010 manifesto maintained that Control Orders would be abolished and many senior Liberal Democrats have been volubly opposed to Lord Carlisle’s report into Control Orders, which was understood to propose their retention. Certainly, Nick Clegg needs an outright victory on policy. The Oldham East by-election draws near, whilst the tuition fees debacle remains clear in the memory, harsh austerity

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A preview of the rebellions to come

Today’s papers are full of the Tory right asserting itself. In the Mail On Sunday, Mark Pritchard—secretary of the 1922 committee—demands that the Prime Minister and his allies come clean about any plans to create a long-term political alliance between the Tories and the Lib Dems. In The Sunday Telegraph, there’s a report that Tory rebels will vote with Labour to try and defeat the coalition’s European Union Bill. I suspect that these stories presage one of the major themes of the year, an increasingly assertive right of the Tory parliamentary party. For too long, Cameron has neglected his own MPs both politically and personally. The result is a willingness

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

‘Far-left’ and ‘far-right’: distinctions without differences

In my Observer column today, I talk about the growing repression in Hungary and my dislike of the terms “far right” and “far left”. Look for divergences between them and all you find are distinctions without differences. Dictatorial movements in Europe are merging; apparent opposites are turning out to be the same. The rather brave Hungarian artists I spoke to are threatened by fascistic forces. Yet when they fear for the future, they think of the fate of the subject people of “socialist” Belarus, whose dictatorship is being supported by the local representative of the supposed free speech lovers at Wikileaks, a story my Fleet Street colleagues ought to think

Peter Hoskin

Miliband’s first hundred days in five points

Ok, so Ed Miliband’s one hundred day anniversary actually falls on Tuesday – but what’s a couple of days between bloggers? Besides, even with two days to go, it’s safe to say that his will be a peculiar century. By some scientific measures, Labour are doing alright; sucking up Lib Dem voters to push ahead of the Tories in opinion polls. But that belies what has been an unconvincing start from their new leader. Here’s my quick five-point guide to his bitter honeymoon: 1) What’s the economy, stupid? One of Miliband’s boldest moves to date was his appointment of Alan Johnson as shadow chancellor. Indeed, at the time, I suggested that it could be

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

Ed by numbers

Ed Miliband’s leadership trundles on past the hundred day milestone tomorrow – so more on that, erm, then. But, in the meantime, here’s a quick graph transcribed from Ipsos MORI’s latest research. It depicts what, for want of a proper policy prospectus, is one of the most striking features of the Miliband era so far: that Labour’s support has risen while their leader’s personal ratings have slumped, reaching what today’s Mail describes as the “lowest of any new party leader at the same stage since former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith,” and lower even than his biggest fan, Neil Kinnock. Here it is:   To be fair, that still puts

Peter Hoskin

Rising costs: a problem for the public and the coalition in 2011

Ne’er mistake correlation with cause, I know. But, during the Brown premiership, the correlation between petrol prices and poll ratings was still pretty striking. Mike Smithson graphed it early last year, but the basic story was this: the Tories enjoyed their biggest poll lead over Labour when petrol prices were at their highest, and Labour closed the gap to only 1 percent when petrol prices were at their lowest. At the very least, it gives us a hypothesis to work from: prices up, the government suffers; prices down, the government recovers. And it looks as though we’ll be able to test that hypothesis soon enough. Today’s Express reports that –

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Nothing makes me feel as Scottish as an English New Year’s Eve

I actually did read Tony Blair’s memoirs in 2010, despite having sworn on these pages, quite petulantly, that I would not. I actually did read Tony Blair’s memoirs in 2010, despite having sworn on these pages, quite petulantly, that I would not. The bit that sticks in the mind is his description of Millennium Eve. You’ll have heard about it, because it’s already the only bit of the book that anybody seems to remember or ever mentions, because it’s funny, because he hated it. He’s in the Millennium Dome, every newspaper editor in the country is stuck on the tube at Stratford, he’s standing next to the Queen who doesn’t

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Totnes trouble for the Tories

If you want to know why party managers don’t like open primaries look at page 26 of today’s Guardian. There Sarah Wollaston, the GP who won the Tory open primary in Totnes, warns that Andrew Lansley needs to watch out if his NHS reforms are not to turn into privatisation by the back door. The piece is, to put it mildly, unhelpful from a Tory perspective. For a Tory MP, and one who was a GP, to suggest that Tory health policy could lead to a privatisation of the NHS is a gift to Labour. It is also the last thing that Andrew Lansley needs given the u-turn he has

Daniel Korski

A handful of predictions

Here we go. Spurred on by Pete earlier, it’s time for that essential, although often regrettable, end-of-year ritual. Not the prosecco-fuelled partying, but rather something with far more embarrassment potential: predictions for next year. That’s right, amateur guesswork dressed up as serious-ish journalism. Some scribes are better at this than others. Ex-blogger Iain Dale hit the nail on the head by predicting the election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader. In a German aquarium, Paul the Octopus nailed all eight of his predictions for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. By contrast, Mike Adams from NaturalNews probably ought to stop trying to channel Nostradamus. Last year, he predicted that

Peter Hoskin

Cameron and Miliband’s New Year message: 2011 will be like 2010 

If you want to know what British politics will sound like in 2011, then just read David Cameron’s and Ed Miliband’s New Year messages one after the other. They share a lot of the same words, but bounce along to different, if familiar, drumbeats. According to Cameron, next year will be “very difficult,” due to the effort of “putting our economy … on the right path”. According to Miliband, next year will be more difficult than it needs to be, due to “the decision taken to reduce the deficit at what I believe to be an irresponsible pace and scale.” In other words, cuts versus fewer cuts. Just like 2010 all

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

An 80 percent elected Lords would not be a Lib Dem triumph

The Lib Dem manifesto committed the party to a fully elected House of Lords. The Tory manifesto talked about a ‘mainly-elected’ second chamber and in 2007 David Cameron voted for ‘the other place’ to be 80 percent elected (interestingly, George Osborne voted for a fully elected Lords). The coalition agreement committed the government to a ‘wholly or mainly elected upper chamber’. So it is hard to see how a Lords that retained a twenty percent appointed element could be portrayed as a major Lib Dem triumph as, according to today’s Guardian, the coalition wants. There has been talk in Westminster that Clegg’s consolation prize if the AV referendum is defeated

Daniel Korski

In Cote D’Ivoire, New Year may bring a new Africa

The situation in Cote D’Ivoire is heating up. It has the potential either to herald a new future for West Africa, based on democracy, regional cooperation and a rejection of ethnic mobilisation; or to showcase the continent’s violent and undemocratic past. Hitherto there have been signposts pointing in both directions. On the one hand, Laurent Gbagbo is clinging on to presidential power, after having been in office for ten years on a questionable mandate. Willing to politicise the army and exploit ethnic differences, his strategy is straight out of the continent’s “big man” playbook of politics. On the other hand, Alassane Ouattara, the country’s rightful leader, has refrained from using

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Reformers for the Ancien Regime

Over on Coffee House my colleague Dan Hodges notes that a large chunk of the Parliamentary Labour Party has come out against AV, and speculates that their stand will help the “No” campaign.   So it may, but he is missing the true danger to the “Yes” campaign, which lies with its friends rather than its enemies. To be blunt, the supporters of “reform” are at best deluded and at worse rank hypocrites. The alternative vote solves no problems and remedies no grievances. It is an unlovely and unloved electoral system, as the voters of New Zealand showed when their government gave them the chance to choose how they cast

Dan Hodges

The momentum shifts

Yesterday’s announcement that 114 Labour MPs, including 5 shadow cabinet ministers, will be voting ‘No’ in next year’s Alternative Vote referendum isn’t exactly a ‘game changer’. But it has certainly shifted the terms of debate within the Labour party. Over the past few weeks a perception had been developing that adoption of the AV system, whilst not generating unparalleled excitement and passion within Labour ranks, was at least becoming the line to take. That perception has now changed. Labour’s internal stance on the issue is important. Labour supporters effectively represent the referendum’s ‘floating voters’. Successive polls have indicated a clear majority of Conservative voters opposing AV, with an even greater

Wednesday

Daniel Korski

This year’s biggest story

This year was so rich in stories – Expensesgate, the election and historic coalition, the Icelandic volcano, General McChrystal’s dismissal, the Pakistani floods, Haiti’s earthquake, Greece’s near-collapse, the Will n’ Kate engagement, Wikileaks, the Chilean miners and so on – that it is hard to pick just one story. Looking back over the year, however, I think two stories stand out – because they may herald a seismic change.  The first is, of course, the establishment of coalition. By now, the novelty of government by cross-party compromise has worn off. But, despite the gossipy complaints of a few Lib Dem ministers, a new kind of politics is being forged. It may not

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tzars and advocates

The coalition’s attempt to talk to two audiences at once is on full display today. The Times reports on the appointment of the Tory Lord Heseltine as a growth czar and his warning against bashing the bankers. Meanwhile, The Guardian reveals that Simon Hughes, the deputy Lib Dem leader, is to be the coalition’s access advocate. Hughes’ appointment is intriguing. On one level, the appointment of Hughes—who abstained in the fees’ vote—is a way of trying to draw a line under the matter within the Liberal Democrats. Clegg clearly hopes that having abstained Hughes will be better able to sell the package to sceptical party activists. But on the World