Politics Archives

Saturday

24 Oct 2009

What BNP Bounce?

Contra good Brother Hoskin, I’m not terribly troubled by this YouGov poll: The survey found that 22 per cent of voters would ‘seriously consider’ voting for the BNP in a future local, general or European election. This included four per cent who said they would ‘definitely’ consider voting for the party, three per cent who would ‘probably’ consider it, and 15 per cent who said they were ‘possible’ BNP voters.” The poll, at least as reported by the Telegraph, does not find one in five voters considering the BNP. It finds that 15% of voters might, hypothetically speaking, consider casting a hypothetical vote for the BNP. In other words: they

Peter Hoskin

One in five would consider voting for the BNP

Here are the stand-out findings from today’s YouGov poll, conducted after this week’s Question Time, for the Telegraph: “The survey found that 22 per cent of voters would ‘seriously consider’ voting for the BNP in a future local, general or European election. This included four per cent who said they would ‘definitely’ consider voting for the party, three per cent who would ‘probably’ consider it, and 15 per cent who said they were ‘possible’ BNP voters.” This just reinforces my qualms about Thursday night’s show. Yes, Griffin embarrassed himself in front of a hostile audience and panel, but that may not have mattered. He had already reached out to any

Alex Massie

Setting the Clocks Free

Hardy Perennial Watch: Daylight Savings Time Edition. Yup, some things are certain and among them is the fuss over the ending of British Summer Time tonight. For years the North has handily Defeated the South but I suspect that, just as Dave Cameron’s southern chums may be about to supplant Gordon Brown’s North Britons, so too will the South, er, rise again and eventually prevail in the Great Clock Battle of Britain. The case for change – that is, for not changing the clocks – is not a bad one even if it has always been defeated by the Scottish lobby. (No surprise there, eh, Spectator readers?) The Times makes

James Forsyth

How David Cameron plans to tame the unions

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics. There is a reason why Tory excitement about returning to government is so tempered: it could be war. The simple, grim mission awaiting them is to impose the sharpest cuts attempted by any postwar government while radically reforming many public services. The trade unions can be expected to respond aggressively, thinking they can turn Cameron just as they did Heath. A bloody collision of the type the Cameroons for so long hoped to avoid now seems inevitable. Unsurprisingly, the Tories have little appetite for a Thatcher-style showdown with the brothers. And, quietly, they believe they have developed a strategy that will avert one.

Friday

23 Oct 2009

Martin Bright

How Question Time Became Important

I can’t expect anyone to bother reading another piece about Question Time, but bear with me here. In the build-up to Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time, I was convinced it was a fuss about nothing. I still can’t quite understand Peter Hain’s objection to allowing an unpleasant fascist hang himself live on TV. Good box office, sure, but surely a spectacle worth paying good money to see. My only concern was the quality of the panel. But when it came to it, I was pleasantly surprised. I thought Huhne, Warsi, Straw and Greer were really rather good. I have my doubts about Sayeeda Warsi’s record on radical Islam and

Peter Hoskin

Worse than the Major era?

Here’s one for Coffee Housers: is this government sleazier than John Major’s? Asked that question on the BBC News channel’s Straight Talk with Andrew Neil this weekend, Martin Bell has no doubts. “I think this one is worse,” he says. But that’s not the end of it. The former independent MP thinks that the parties need to start looking towards their front benches if they’re to properly cleanse the taint left from the expenses scandal: “But I do think it is going to require the assisted departure of all frontbenchers of both parties who have claimed unreasonable and disproportionate expenses. And if you look back over the dramas of the last four

The Spectator

The week that was | 23 October 2009

Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. Fraser Nelson says that the BNP defines itself by race – that distinguishes it from every other party, and asks whether it is legitimate to discuss the strength of the link between HIV and Aids. James Forsyth wonders why the BBC allowed Question Time to become Griffin time, and thinks that MPs should be allowed to employ their relatives. Peter Hoskin argues that Brown’s lose-lose position will prevent our broken politics being fixed, and tries to unravel those strange post-conference polls. David Blackburn sees the same old mistakes being repeated in Afghanistan, and says that the BNP’s

David Blackburn

There is no need to go out this Saturday

The Thick of It returns tomorrow night and by all accounts its as cynical, savage, sweary and uniformly contemptuous as ever. The subject matter of this series is, apparently, over promoted female Cabinet ministers – very topical in view of the government reshuffle and the Conservatives’ perverse all-female candidate lists. It goes without saying that the show’s producers have a sense of humour, but to make the fact plain they invited Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint to the premier on Tuesday. I’m told they didn’t like it. Anyway, The Thick of It is the sharpest and most well attuned political satire since Yes Minister; it’s essential viewing. Here’s

David Blackburn

Griffin to complain about “lynch mob” Question Time

Nick Griffin has just made the following statement: “It was not a genuine Question Time, it was a lynch mob… People wanted to see me and hear me taking about things like the postal strike. Let’s do it again and do it properly this time.” He added that he would lodge a “formal complaint to the BBC over the way it twisted Question Time”. As James wrote last night, the debate was an extended navel gaze into whether it was right that Griffin appeared on the programme. Whilst Griffin unquestionably came off worse by babbling about a rather enigmatic, non-colour specific group called British aborigines, the panel missed the opportunity

James Forsyth

If anti-Semitism is the problem, then the Tories shouldn’t sit with the EPP either

No one has done more to make the Tories’ new European allies an issue than Jonathan Freedland. He has written about the subject with real passion and, so sources in the Jewish community tell me, played a crucial role in persuading the president of the Board of Deputies to write to David Cameron expressing concern about them. This week, his column on the subject contained this point: ‘Just this month Oszkar Molnar, an MP from Hungary’s main opposition party – on course to form the country’s next government – told a TV interviewer that “global capital – Jewish capital, if you like – wants to devour the entire world,

Peter Hoskin

So where does this leave Brown?

Most people expected this morning’s official GDP statistics to show that the economy has come out of recession. But they didn’t. In fact, they had the economy shrinking by 0.4 percent in the third quarter of this year. So the downturn continues – and it’s the longest on record. We’ve always maintained on Coffee House that coming out of recession won’t do much good for Brown. But, obviously, staying stuck in one has far more dangerous implications for him (not to mention the country). Obviously, the government won’t be able to deploy the green shoots strategy now. But with other major economies already out of recession, they’ll struggle to deploy

David Blackburn

Euro Foreign Minister Miliband?

The Lisbon Treaty decrees that Europe must have a Foreign Minister. It is not clear exactly what the Secretary of State will do, but David Miliband is being widely tipped for the role. According to one diplomat quoted in the Times and the Guardian, Miliband has “good European credentials and a brilliant mind.” The minister made famous (rather unfairly) by banana-wielding and a penchant for Indian donkeys is undoubtedly pro-European: he is in favour of further integration and deeply opposed to Cameron’s euroscpetic Tories and their European allies: so he ticks all of Brussels’ boxes. But would he take the job? The Labour party’s Titantic predicament is now so advanced

Thursday

22 Oct 2009

Fraser Nelson

EXCLUSIVE: What was said in Question Time

First question on the Second World War. Is it fair BNP hijacked Churchill? Straw says in the war Britain defeated a party based on race like the BNP. The BNP defines itself by race – that distinguishes it from every other party. All other parties have a moral compass. Nazism didn’t and neither does the BNP. We only won the First and Second World War because we were joined by millions of black and Asian people. Applause. Griffin then counters by saying Churchill would have been in BNP. He described Churchill as Islamaphobic by today’s standards. “The government is giving up on British freedom,” said Griffin. An audience member says

Fraser Nelson

Griffin has achieved exactly what he hoped to

As far as the BNP is concerned, Nick Griffin has already won this Question Time debate. It’s not about whether he does badly or well – he simply wins from the publicity. He’s been on Channel Four news, got an interview in today’s Times, all will be splashed all across the tabloids tomorrow – and that’s before we consider the Question Time slot itself. Then, he will win because, as we emphasise in the leader of this week’s magazine, millions watch Question Time. For every 50 people who think he disgraced himself, there may be only one person who thinks he might have a point. But, for Griffin, that will

David Blackburn

Has the tide turned against ‘President’ Blair?

Increasingly, it looks as though Tony Blair must make do with what he’s got. Last Saturday, the Independent reported that Nicolas Sarkozy is likely to evoke the spirit of de Gaulle with an emphatic ‘Non’, founded on Britain’s retention of the Pound.Today, Iain Martin has heard that Jonathan Powell’s proselytising in Brussels merely antagonised his audience. And the kiss of death for Blair probably came in the form of an endorsement from Silvio Berlusconi. But, there must be a European President, and, as Matthew D’Ancona observes, Blair’s experience on the international stage, his Europhilia and his Eurotrash-popstar status make him the ideal candidate. Nothing is more galvanising than the prospect

Peter Hoskin

The genius of Michael Heath

Michael Heath’s Flash Gordon cartoon in the latest issue of the magazine is so good that we figured we’d share it with CoffeeHousers. Click on the image below for a larger version:

David Blackburn

Tightening immigration should constitute part of compassionate Conservatism

The mainstream parties’ collective silence on immigration has, undoubtedly, contributed to the BNP’s growing popularity. Nicholas Soames and Frank Field have penned such an argument in today’s Telegraph. David Cameron’s modernisation of the Conservative Party came at the expense of even mentioning immigration. Yesterday’s mind-boggling population projection should curtail the era of uncontrolled immigration: Britain cannot sustain such human and social pressure in the age of austerity. The Tory leadership might view this reality with trepidation. They should not. Limiting immigration would alleviate poverty; it equates exactly with the Tories’ broad one nation philosophy. Labour has ceded its traditional support to the BNP, which indicates that the government’s appalling record

Peter Hoskin

The trailer for Nick Griffin’s Question Time performance

Is Nick Griffin’s interview with the Times a sneak preview of what we can expect from him on Question Time tonight? I rather suspect so. His aim in it is not only to project a reasonable front – by glossing over awkward facts (his conviction for inciting racial hatred is described as “Orwellian”), and by making dubious comparisons (he likens the BNP to opposition movements in Zimbabwe) – but also to provoke and rile his political opponents. The BNP leader sarcastically thanks “the political class and their allies for being so stupid” as to allow his appearance on QT. But the problem for Griffin is whether he can maintain the

Wednesday

21 Oct 2009

James Forsyth

Should MPs be able to employ their relatives?

The 1922 committee of Tory MPs is meeting now and the word is that there will be a concerted push to defend the right of MPs to employ their relatives; something that MPs on all sides fear the Kelly review will try to ban. In a Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion way, it is easy to say that MPs shouldn’t be able to employ family members. But there is no doubt that there are a lot of relatives, and spouses especially, who are working extremely hard for their salary. Given the hours MPs work and the fact that they have to be in two places, one can see why

Peter Hoskin

Postal strike to go ahead

The Communication Workers Union has just confirmed that there will be a national postal strike tomorrow and on Friday, effective as of midnight tonight. From a purely political perspective, this largely vindicates David Cameron’s decision to major on the strikes during PMQs earlier. You imagine that the story will dominate news broadcasts later, and the Tory leader can expect to have some of his attacks on Brown inserted into the coverage.