Politics Archives

Tuesday

20 Oct 2009

The BNP’s appropriation of British institutions must be resisted

Hardly a day passes without Nick Griffin cosying up to a poster of Churchill and the Few. Valour provides potent nationalist imagery, but Griffin has no right to it – as his distinctly ambiguous stance on the Ghurkhas’ residency rights makes clear. This morning, senior officers, in conjunction with Nothing British, condemned Griffin’s opportunism: ‘We, the undersigned, are increasingly concerned that the reputation of Britain’s Armed Services is being tarnished by political extremists who are attempting to appropriate it for their own dubious ends. We deplore this trend for two reasons. First, the values of these extremists – many of whom are essentially racist – are fundamentally at odds

Peter Hoskin

Are we about to see a double-act?

It’s Tuesday, so it’s time to sift through Rachel Sylvester’s column for juicy quotes. In her latest, she saves the best for last: a Cabinet minister saying that “It’s up to the brotherhood now”. No, not that brotherhood – but the brothers Miliband, Ed and David. The intimation being that they need to take over from Brown – and sharpish. There’s been plenty of speculation about the Milibands recently, so this latest titbit shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. But, to my mind, it’s interesting how this minister packages Ed and David together – as the “brotherhood”. It has generally been assumed that one or the other wouldn’t

Rod Liddle

Labour’s stance on the BNP is morally and intellectually wrong

It’s not just death and taxes you can depend upon – you can also be absolutely certain that the Labour Party will, at every opportunity, take precisely the wrong decision about the BNP. You may have seen Fraser’s blog about Labour MPs voting not to allow democratically elected BNP MEPs into the House of Commons. It is a convention that our European Union representatives are allowed the use of Westminster facilities, but not one which Labour will extend to the BNP for the simple reason that they do not like them. One of the first members to sign up was Andrew Dismore, MP for Hendon, who has a long and

Peter Hoskin

When will they learn?

Why argue your case when you can smear your opponent’s name? According to this morning’s Telegraph, that’s the approach that a group of MPs are taking over the Sir Thomas Legg letters. The plan they’re apparently considering is to use parliamentary questions to find out details such as Legg’s pay, his team’s expenses and how much they’ve spent on media advice. One Tory MP tells the paper that there are “legitimate questions” about these things. Hm. It’s not only a pernicious strategy, it’s also stupid. Even if MPs manage to uncover some sort of hypocrisy on Legg’s part, do they really think it will divert public anger away from them?

Monday

19 Oct 2009

David Blackburn

The political position in Kabul deteriorates

It seems that a second Afghan election is now probable after Hamid Karzai’s share of the vote fell below 50%. The BBC reports that the drop is the result of the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission ordering that ballots from 210 polling stations be discounted. The pro-Karsi Independent Electoral Commission will deliver its verdict shortly, but is bound by the ECC, so a run-off seems likely. This turn of events is no surprise – rumours of corruption circulated months before polling. But the coalition is now in a very awkward position. Mr Karzai’s state of mind is frenetic – he views these allegations as more evidence that there is an Anglo-American

Peter Hoskin

Those strange post-conference polls

So what’s the deal with the opinion polls we’ve been seeing in the newspapers recently? There was some hubbub in Tory circles yesterday over the fact that two weekend polls – YouGov for the Sunday Times and ComRes for the Indy on Sunday – had Labour either gaining ground on the Tories or a maintaining boosted level of support around the 30 percent mark. What had happened to the 19 percent lead that the Tories enjoyed in the immediate aftermath of their conference? Had the Labour conference really been more successful than the Tory one, despite all appearances? I’ve heard these, and similar questions, doing the rounds over the past

Peter Hoskin

Sheerman on the offensive

Just what was in Barry Sheerman’s coffee this morning? So far today, the schools committee chairman has used a couple of media appearances to a) call Ed Balls a “bully”, and b) criticise all three party leaders – including Brown – for their “cowardly party leadership” over the Legg review. Punchy stuff, which makes you wonder whether he’ll be the de facto “Get Gordon Out” candidate for PLP chairman, after all.

David Blackburn

5 Labour ‘refusenik’ MPs threaten to resign over Legg letters

Paul Waugh reports that 5 ‘refusenik’ Labour MPs are threatening to trigger by-elections over Brown’s reluctance to curb Sir Thomas Legg’s retrospective cap. Clearly, Brown is in an invidious position – it is conceivable that Labour will lose these by-elections in any event, but Brown would be committing very protracted and very painful electoral suicide if he demanded that Sir Thomas retract his demands. Brown is indecisive when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing in his favour, so God knows what agonies the Hamlet of Kirkcaldy is wrestling with at the moment, and I suspect most of us would have died of old age if the refuseniks

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 19 October 2009

…here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson says that the horror story of the BNP’s success is not over, and argues that current Tory health plans are backward-looking and reactionary. James Forsyth reports on the end of a convenient fiction, and thinks the Tories have found the right way to repeal the hunting ban. Peter Hoskin thinks that Gordon Brown will struggle to sell himself as a reformer, and gives his take on the latest development in the expenses scandal. David Blackburn fears that Parliament may have to dance to a Scottish jig, and reports on the Vaclav Klaus’s decision to ratify the Lisbon Treaty.

Sunday

18 Oct 2009

Alex Massie

How Serious are the Tories about Localism?

This chart, pinched from Burning Our Money, shows how much work needs to be done if the Conservatives’ talk of handing power back to local communities is actually likely to amount to anything. As you can see, local government raises more of its own money in almost every other leading country. Only Ireland, Greece and, to my surprise, the Netherlands are more dependent upon central government.(Meanwhile, over on the good side of the chart are our friends in Australia and, especially, New Zealand.) Real Localism – and all the good things that are supposed to flow from it – demands a measure of fiscal responsibility. Without that accountability the rest

Alex Massie

Stickies vs Provos

Tory Bear is upset with the continuing brouhaha over the Conservatives’ pals in the European parliament. Well, fair enough. I find it hard to believe that anyone, apart from euro-obsessives, cares about the european parliament but perhaps I’m mistaken. Accordingly he wants, not unreasonably, to draw attention to some of Labour’s less than wholesome allies in Europe. Among them… How about Proinsias De Rossa, ever heard of him? Well he is a murdering terrorist who is linked to the killing of six British Policemen. This former IRA man originally joined the Communist and Allies group before transferring to the PES and taking an active role in the drafting of the

Alex Massie

Dancing to a Scottish Jig? Aye, Right.

Och, David, dinna fash yersel’. The chances of Alex Salmond playing a tune for anyone to dance to next year are a good deal slimmer than the First Minister himself. His speech was, like Gordon Brown’s in Brighton, a parochial affair, designed to appeal to the lumpen party memebership, not convince anyone who ain’t already a true believer. It was, then, absurd. But no more absurd than is the rule at this kind of gathering. Then again, it was, in one sense, a Unionist speech, albeit one cloaked in nationalist rhetoric. Public spending in Scotland has essentially doubled in Scotland since devolution (without, it must be said, doing very much

Alex Massie

A Parliament of Doctors

So, it seems that if you want to win a primary contest in the modern Tory party it helps to be a GP. Having selected a local GP in Totnes the Conservatives have selected another local MP in Bracknell. As Liberal Vision’s Mark Littlewood says, Phil Lee may well become an admirable Member of Parliament but, from an ousider’s perspective it does seem a shame that neither of the two high-profile candidates – Iain Dale and Rory Stewart were selected. Since I’ve complained about excessive control from the centre it may seem churlish to grumble that there are problems with the way that local parties select their candidates too. But

David Blackburn

Scotland the Brave

Everyone knows that Martin Luther King had a dream. It featured eloquent, high-minded ambitions about little white girls and little black girls playing together in harmony. Alex Salmond has dreams too. In an utterance that should have resulted in immediate committal, he compared Kenny MacAskill to Mahatma Gandhi, and then, with the rhetorical panache of a Scottish Judge Jeffries, told the SNP conference that he wanted to see “Westminster dangling from a Scottish rope”. As visions of the future go, capital punishment is not as appealing as Dr Luther King’s evocation of Christian brotherhood; but, in the event of a hung parliament, Salmond’s dream might be realised. Salmond’s experience

Saturday

17 Oct 2009

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 17 October 2009

People are missing what is wrong with Sir Thomas Legg’s inquiry into MPs’ expenses. People are missing what is wrong with Sir Thomas Legg’s inquiry into MPs’ expenses. It is not so much that it is unfairly retrospective: after all, MPs were supposed to decide themselves what was appropriate in the discharge of their parliamentary duties, and so they should not now take refuge in what the Fees Office may have advised them. The problem is rather that, by decreeing a particular level for cleaning, gardening and so on, Sir Thomas is herding sheep and goats together, instead of separating them. People who claimed a bit more than the limit

James Forsyth

The end of a convenient fiction

No one really thought that Vaclav Klaus would hold out against the Lisbon treaty until the British general election, but it was a convenient fiction for the Conservative party. It enabled both the leadeship and Eurosceptics to pretend that the current policy remained operative and that any questions about what would happen if the Lisbon treaty was ratified by the time of the next election were hypotheticals. So, as David notes, to hear Klaus conceding that he can’t hold out until the election is a blow. The question now is what happens next. Domestically, I doubt that the party will have a big row about Europe—it is too disciplined, too

Fraser Nelson

The horror story of the BNP’s success is not over

Up to now, MEPs can use Westminster’s facilities; but, yesterday, Nick Brown tabled a deplorable motion in the House of Commons – to ban Nick Griffin from parliament. Just in case there were any doubt, Andrew Dismore spelled it out, saying Brown’s motion would “mean that the newly elected British National Party members would not be allowed to get into this place. Most Members are of the view that that should be the case.” I bet they are. But why? Whose fault is it that Griffin was elected in the first place? As I argued in the News of the World a while ago: if I had my way, I’d base Griffin

Peter Hoskin

Brown the Reformer: er, good luck with that

Brace yourselves. According to the Guardian, Brown is about to sell himself as a Great Reformer: “Brown, the cabinet sources say, decided in the past few weeks to adopt a tougher pro-public sector reform stance, in order that his defence of the state in the face of recent attacks on big government by David Cameron does not become confused with complacency about the current performance of the public sector.” Despite the sensibleness of the reform argument, I can’t imagine that Brown will make much headway with this. For starters, he has that “Roadblock to Reform” label, and Labour’s patchy record on public service reform, hovering over him like the proverbial

Peter Hoskin

Tax-free troubles

And so it gets even messier. Today’s Telegraph reports that HMRC are conducting formal investigations into the tax affairs of 27 MPs. You see, expenses claims are only supposed to be tax-free provided that they’re wholly necessary for Parliamentary work. And, as we all know by now, quite a few of our, ahem, honourable members haven’t been following that requirement – so they may owe some cash to Her Majesty’s tax collectors. It probably won’t be enough to fill the black hole in the public finances. But it’s a start. They’ll be something deliciously perverse about this if any of those MPs investigated are also among those who claimed for

James Forsyth

How the Tories plan to avoid a cultural beating

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics. Mud sticks. In politics everyone remembers the charge and not the denials — something Labour has exploited for years. Typically, it would denounce the Conservatives for being heartless, privileged bigots who care nothing for the poor, eat foxes and have no place in modern Britain. But that doesn’t work anymore, as people have stopped listening to Labour. So Labour has had to pin its hopes on independent left-leaning groups hurling accusations and making people think that the Tories are still the nasty party, whatever David Cameron says. This new lie of the land could be seen at Conservative conference where the most damaging