Politics

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

Saturday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Politics | 14 February 2009

It cannot be much fun to interrogate men who are already broken, but the Treasury select committee had assembled on Monday for a show trial rather than a genuine cross-examination of witnesses. Sir Fred Goodwin, former head of RBS offered a ‘profound and unqualified apology for all the distress that has been caused’. And how well it would have suited the MPs around that table if this had been an admission of guilt not just for the banking crisis, but the wholesale collapse of the global economy. Such an act of ‘closure’ — if anyone had been convinced by it — would shield many of our politicians from the humiliation

Friday

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The Spectator Inquiry continues apace

Most of the stuff we do at Coffee House is for a laugh – but our wiki-investigation into the recession is deadly serious. We urgently need to find out what went wrong, and the thinking of the Westminster village consensus won’t do. We need you, your insights, your suggestions, your criticisms. If you have friends with expertise – in academia, the hedge fund industry, the quiet souls who weren’t promoted because they didn’t buy into the myth – urge them to leave their thoughts on how our investigation should proceed.  We provide the platform, you provide the energy and direction. So far it’s been great: over 40 responses to our scoping

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Cameroons vs Cameronians

In his Prospect piece on “Red Toryism” (of which more later) Philip Blond refers to “Cameroonian conservatism” and he’s hardly alone in talking about “Cameroonianism” and the so-called “Cameroons” who follow Dave. Who chose these labels? And why? I mean, the perfectly sensible – and real! – word “Cameronian” already existed. Is it because no-one wanted to suggest that Dave’s acolytes were like these fellows or because it was thought that “Cameroons” sounded amusing and riffed on these traditional Scottish sweets? Or, of course, upon a former French colony in West Africa? Anyway, I suppose we’re stuck with “Cameroons” now. Perhaps Spectator readers can explain why – and by whom

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Limits of Presidential Power

Writing in the FT yesterday Martin Wolf observed: It is extraordinary that a popular new president, confronting a once-in-80-years’ economic crisis, has let Congress shape the outcome. Commenter IanC agrees with Wolf, as does Porkbelly who writes: Obama could easily have used his electoral mandate to impose his will upon the House Democrats when the bill was crafted; instead he let them cobble together a malodorous mess of every left-liberal pet project and constituency gimme. Now there’s something to this. The bill is indeed larded with goodies the Democrats have long-desired. And it may well, as I say, have adverse long-term consequences while also failing to solve short-term problems. But,

Martin Bright

Do the Downing St denials mean that Brown won’t apologise?

I am finding the Downing St reaction to the story about officials asking for copies of Obama’s TV apologies rather mystifying. From their perspective, what’s so wrong with asking for them anyway? Shouldn’t Downing Street keep a close eye on the performance of the US president during his first 100 days? It’s a strange thing to deny as surely officials must be asking for this sort of material all the time. More worrying, I suspect, is the speculation about the use to which it might be put. And does this mean that Brown has ruled out an apology for his role in creating the economic crisis we find ourselves in?

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown sits before the committee

There was a kind of grand jury feel to Gordon Brown’s appearance before the select committee chairs today. “I’m not sure I can make my hearing as exciting as the one you’ve had in the last two days,” he said. “Get started,” said John McFall.  Brown has a great genius in neutralising hostile questions by dragging it down into minutiae – a trick that Blair, the incurable thespian, could never quite master. I won’t blog the points that ran into the sand. Here’s my summary of Brown’s appearance, and my take on it: 1. Printing money. Brown said that the BoE has a “statutory duty” to keep inflation up if

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The unemployment ahead

How high will unemployment get? In his interview with me in today’s Spectator (an extended, web version here) Alan Johnson says – towards the end – that we’d best prepare for two years of downturn. He was being optimistic. During the last three recessions (mid-70s, early 80s, early 90s) it took three years for the unemployment to peak – and there is every chance that it will keep rising in Britain until 2011. The below graph, from Citi, certainly chimes with the Balls analysis of this being the worst recession for a century. It looks like we’ll get ILO unemployment from today’s 1.9m to about 3.4m – which will make

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

GOP Deathwish

Arlen Specter, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, is no-one’s idea of a rock-ribbed Republican. But even though he voted for the recent stimulus package, he is a Republican. It’s a measure of how the GOP currently cares more about ideological purity than actual victory that conservatives are, once again, very excited by the prospect that Specter could face a serious primary challenge in 2010. The fact that a conservative Republican seems pretty unikely to win in a state that is trending Democratic seems not to matter too much. The Keystone state hasn’t voted Republican in a Presidential election since 1988, while the last GOP governor, Tom Ridge, was also, of

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The PR Problem

Reacting to the Israeli election result, Patrick Hennessy plays out a scenario in which Britain adopted the Israeli electoral system. He suggests it would all end badly and that the Tories should remain resolutely opposed to modifying our election system. That’s fine. But the Israeli situation no more demonstrates the failures of PR than our own lop-sided system demonstrates the inadequacies of a first-past-the-post system. That is to say, it both does and doesn’t. There’s no perfect*, universally fair and clear electoral system. If there were then someone might have found it by now. As Matt Yglesias says, different countries suit or require different systems. Hennessy claims that the PR

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown’s job vacancies are dwindling

In PMQs today Gordon Brown said there are 500,000 vacancies in the economy – a revision from his recent 600,000 claim. But this morning’s unemployment data show that even this is out of date. The number of vacancies is collapsing way below the half-million mark – so these British jobs are becoming even more scarce. The trajectory of unemployment so far the sharpest since the war. Monthly data for the Great Depression just doesn’t exist, so Balls may be right after all. Here is the graph, from Citi, showing the full horror story:

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

HMS Brown is sinking

A commanding performance from Cameron today. There were large cheers, and larger expectations, on the Tories benches as he stood up. His first words were an improvised response to the opening question, placed by Labour poodle Khalid Mahmood, demanding that ‘the allegations against Sir James Crosby must be investigated.’ ‘So,’ said Cameron, ‘they can even plant questions at short notice.’ He invited the Prime Minister to admit ‘a serious error of judgement’ in appointing James Crosby to the FSA. Brown waffled about awaiting the outcome of various investigations and Cameron came back forcefully calling Crosby ‘the man who was going to sort out mortgage market’. His footnote that the Prime

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Where British jobs are going

Just as you thought the British Jobs for British Workers imbroglio has died down, the ONS issues an update to its migrant v native workers figures and it shows just who the recession is hurting. In the last three months of last year there were 278,000 fewer British-born people in work. Over the same period there were 214,000 more immigrants in work. So, in net terms the recession is only hurting native workers: the appetite for immigrant labour seems undimmed. PS This data is normally only available on request. Normally, a nerd like me makes a data request and the kind souls at the ONS cook it up. But even then, you never

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cameron gets all the best dividing lines in PMQs

It’s hang-a-banker season, so David Cameron had an open goal: Sir James Crosby, the former HBOS chief who allegedly sacked a whistle-blower, and who has today resigned his role at the FSA. The Labour whips planted a question with Khalid Mahmood about Crosby, as if to shoot the Tory fox. “They can even plant questions at short notice,” started Cameron, witheringly. Brown kicked it into the long grass, saying an investigation into banking “rejulation” as he pronounced it – after last week’s “rec-depression” there is something of the George W about Brown. He even seemed to struggle over KPMG and later accused the Tories of “setting their faze (sic) against ordinary families”, as well

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Sorry all round

Every Wednesday, a new and rather sadistic ritual takes place at Prime Minister’s Question Time. David Cameron will ask Gordon Brown to admit he got something – anything – wrong and the Prime Minister will refuse. Mr Cameron is lowering the bar each time: last week, Brown was asked to confirm if there was a bust. It’s as if he’s programmed not to. Yet Martin Bright, our new spy, has news over on his blog: that No.10 has asked for DVDs of Barack Obama’s apology and that Brown may be preparing his own one. There is more than just the public humiliation aspect here. I argued in my News of

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Gordon’s Apology?

Photo: Peter Nicholls/WPA Pool/Getty Images This item from Martin Bright (Welcome, Comrade!) risks leaving one speechless: Now word reaches The Bright Stuff that the man who has never knowingly apologised for anything is preparing his very own “mea culpa”. I am told that Whitehall officials have been ordered to make a compilation DVD of Obama’s various apologies to the American TV networks to be studied by the Prime Minister. The idea of Gordon Brown practising a humble self-deprecating manner in front of the mirror based on what he has seen on his training DVD doesn’t bear thinking about. But then again… maybe it does. So… Picture the scene deep inside the

Richard Northedge

How many banks does the government want?

So Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is planning to turn the Post Office into a ‘people’s bank’ — to add to the taxpayers’ portfolio that includes most of Royal Bank of Scotland, the biggest stake in Lloyds Banking Group, the rejuvenated Northern Rock, the rump of Bradford & Bingley, and dear old National Savings & Investments. Of the eight retail banks in the FTSE-100 when the credit crunch first squeezed, the government now effectively controls five; of the rest, Alliance & Leicester was swallowed by Santander, and only HSBC and Barclays remain independent. When Lloyds TSB unveiled its merger with HBOS last September the Office of Fair Trading announced it would

Tuesday

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The talent drain

Good piece by Piers Morgan in today’s Daily Mail about the British talent doing well in America. He quotes an American film director saying our actors are more likely to be formally trained – and then, to America, for the big bucks. From The Wire (McNulty’s from Yorkshire) to Gossip Girl (Chuck Bass is from Hertfordshire), some the best known ‘American’ actors over there are Brits putting on an accent – it’s something of a phenomenon. But it’s not restricted just to acting. One of the most under-reported stories is the silent exodus of skilled Brits to countries with better state schools and safer streets. As I blogged a while back, Britain

Alex Massie Alex Massie

David Cameron’s Peculiar Unionism

David Cameron’s op-ed in Scotland on Sunday this week was interesting. Not because of anything that Cameron said but because it appeared at all. It’s another small indication that the country is preparing itself for a new Conservative government. To put it another way, I don’t think SoS would have been very interested in an op-ed from Iain Duncan-Smith or Mixhael Howard. What would have been the point? What could they have said to the country that anyone wanted to hear? Not much. So Cameron’s proposals for how he would work with Holyrood are, while scarcely earth-shattering, useful to have put on the public record. Nonetheless, they are sensible, modest