Politics Archives

Thursday

1 Oct 2009

Brown claims it’s 1945 all over again

So we’ve heard before that Brown is “obsessed” with Winston Churchill and, in his mind, wants to avoid the wartime leader’s fate as a Prime Minister who guided Britian through a crisis only to be answered with a thumping in the polls. In which case, it’s rather odd that Brown should write this in the campaign document that he’s releasing today: “This is the stark choice facing the British people at the next election. The choice will be as stark as 1945.” So who’s Brown meant to be? Churchill or Attlee? Or some alternate universe Churchill who won the 1945 election? CoffeeHousers, I leave the answer to you…

David Blackburn

Forget referenda. If the Irish vote Yes, a future Conservative government would have to adopt the Lisbon treaty

According to exhaustive polling data, the Irish will vote Yes to the Lisbon treaty. With Czech senators looking set to ratify the treaty also, the probable future Conservative government in this country faces a dilemma: what to do about Lisbon. Simple, says Bill Emmot in the Times. Cameron and Hague must hold their noses because it is in their national and partisan interests to do so. ‘For a new Tory government in Britain, the European scene could not be better, with right-wing parties in power in both France and Germany. The chance is there to seek common cause on an issue dear to Tory hearts, namely defence and the protection

Wednesday

30 Sep 2009

Peter Hoskin

How Cameron responded

A quick post to point out that Fraser’s interview with David Cameron – to which CoffeeHousers contributed questions – will be appearing in tomorrow’s issue of the magazine. We’ll also be making the article free to all website users tomorrow morning, so you can read the full thing then. In the meantime, here’s a selection of the quotes within it, so you can get a sense of what the Tory leader had to say for himself: Thoughtful radicalism: “What you need is thoughtful radicalism. Prepared radicalism. It needs to come from a solid and strong base. Compare Margaret Thatcher’s trade union reforms with Ted Heath’s. It wasn’t that Ted Heath’s

Alex Massie

Was Rory Stewart an MI6 Officer?

Was Rory Stewart, Harvard Professor, author of The Places In Between and prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate for the Bracknell constituency, an MI6 officer? Former-ambassador-turned-conspiracist Craig Murray says he was: One person I would not vote for is the crusading neo-Conservative Rory Stewart. It is particularly annoying that he is constantly referred to as a former diplomat. Stewart was an MI6 officer and not a member of the FCO. Three years ago I received a message from the FCO asking me not to mention this as, at that time, Stewart was still very active for MI6 in Afghanistan and his life could have been endangered. I agreed, and even removed a

Alex Massie

A Strategic Blunder by a Prime Minister Living in a Fantasy World

Gordon Brown is an intelligent man but I’ve always thought him a better tactician than strategist. His speech to the Labour party conference yesterday confirmed that view and, indeed, strengthened it. Consider this passage from Jonathan Freedland’s column today: The Brownites always loathed Blair’s “respect agenda”, regarding anti-social behaviour orders as dismal and sacking Blair’s respect tsar. But Brown devoted a full page and a half of today’s text to the topic, more than on foreign policy, defence and climate change combined. So there were crowd-pleasing promises to crack down on Britain’s “50,000 most chaotic families” and to set up “supervised homes” for teenage mothers. Shades of the Magdalene Sisters,

James Forsyth

Will Labour go to war with The Sun?

Tony Woodley of the Unite union just received a huge cheer for coming to the podium and ripping up a copy of The Sun while laying into ‘Australian Americans’ who come to this country and try and tell us how to do politics here. There’s no doubt that the feeling here in Brighton is that Labour should hit back at The Sun. Harriet Harman laid into the paper this morning and Peter Mandelson called The Sun ‘losers’ at a fringe event. (However, Labour is denying that its responsible for the Google ads that appeared today saying, “You can’t trust The Sun. Wrong on Hillsborough, Wrong on Labour”.) But the more

Peter Hoskin

When does a joke become a smear?

Paul Waugh highlights a passage from Harriet Harman’s speech today: “Contrasting Labour’s record on equalities and feminism with that of the Tories, she said that David Cameron would extend foxhunting rights to everyone, while George Osborne would replace a SureStart in every community with ‘a lapdancing club in every community’.” Now, Paul reports that Harman’s people are saying the “lapdancing” bit is merely a “jokey reference to lapdancing club tickets distributed during last year’s Tory conference in Birmingham”. But it seems to me that this is a particularly contrived and even nasty attempt to sully an opponent’s name. I expect the Tories can expect more of this dubious treatment as

Rod Liddle

Of all Brown’s potential successors, only Cruddas fills me with enthusiasm

Who would you like to see succeed Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour Party? Still deluded by the continuation of power and the hopeless yearning that it all might come right next summer, Labour has been strangely united at its conference. Certainly compared to those conferences I well remember in 1979, 1983 and even 1987. The issue scarcely arose. I realize that asking many of you who you would prefer to lead the party, Mandelson, Straw or Harman is akin to asking you to choose between smallpox, diphtheria and bilharzia. But hell, have a heart, indulge me for a few moments. And remember that while Cameron and his ideologically

James Forsyth

Getting shirty with the media won’t do Labour any favours

The news that the Sun was endorsing the Tories deflated the mood of conference last night. And Labour hang-overs can not have been improved by Brown’s performance on Sky today, which Pete referenced earlier. The Prime Minister was clearly irritated by Adam Boulton’s line of questioning, using the phrase ‘let me finish’ more than any other. But watching it you couldn’t help wondering if this was a preview of the election campaign: a defensive Brown railing against the media. Andrew Marr asking that question and The Sun endorsing the Tories have bated Labour into running against the media. But there are two fundamental flaws with this strategy. First, Labour does

Peter Hoskin

On this morning’s evidence, Brown’s fightback is already over

If you still haven’t made up your mind about whether Brown’s speech yesterday will do anything for Labour’s chances, then just dash through his interviews with the broadcast media. Two topics stand out – the Sun’s decision to back the Tories, and whether Brown will get involved in a televised debate – and there’s little substantive discussion of the agenda that Brown set out in his speech yesterday. Now, you could, like Alastair Campbell, say that this is because the media is hell-bent on portraying Brown in a negative light. But I’d argue that, aside from some crowd-pleasing passages for the Labour faithful, his speech yesterday was remarkably thin. Any

David Blackburn

Did you know? Gordon Brown’s been talking about strong global regulation for years

Well, that’s what he claims anyway. Brown’s extended interview on the Today programme was an exercise in deflecting blame (and the Sun coming out for Cameron) – ‘none of this would have happened if people had listened to me because, you see, I saw it all coming’ was his refrain. This exchange with Jim Naughtie was particularly telling: “JN: Let me take you back to ‘markets without morality’, which was in your speech and you’ve repeated it now. When did you decide that bankers were being greedy and excessive in their demands? GB: Well Jim, you know, I’ve always been of the view that we needed a better global financial

Martin Bright

Why now, Gordon?

Considering the dire situation in which Gordon Brown finds himself, yesterday’s speech was really rather good. It gives the party faithful something to cling on to as they begin the grim task of campaigning for a Labour victory in 2010. The obvious question for me after hearing it, though, was “why now?” How can the Prime Minister credibly offer a message of change two years into his premiership? Think back to 2007 and the first flush of the Brownite dawn. His initial offer to the British people was constitutional reform. I know he was already beginning to be persuaded of the arguments for the alternative vote system at this point.

The Spectator

Parliamentarian of the Year | 30 September 2009

The Spectator/Threadneedle Parliamentarian of the Year Awards are fast approaching. As we did last year, we are inviting you to nominate a reader’s representative. This should be the elected official who you believe has best pursued the noble art of politics, putting the public interest ahead of everything else, especially expenses. All you have to do is click here and – in no more than 250 words – nominate your choice. We’ll print a selection of the best nominations in the magazine throughout October. Then, on the 28th October, the reader who has submitted the best-written nomination will be revealed. The closing date for entries is Monday 26th October 2009.

Karl Ludvigsen

Who’s really driving the rescue of Vauxhall?

It’s an axiom of auto-makers — as it is of most producers of goods — that they are squeezed between suppliers and customers. Upstream suppliers have options to reduce costs and improve profits while their customers downstream, the retailers, can set prices to suit their markets. Although the producer likes to think of himself as king, in fact his thankless task is to squeeze such profit as he can from the narrow margin between supplier and customer. So why, you may well ask, does Magna International, a Canadian supplier of vehicle components, unheard of to the British and European public, want to relieve ailing General Motors of the challenge of

Bruce Anderson

Is David Cameron tough enough to be a Tory revolutionary?

A Pall Mall club: the members’ table at lunchtime: unease and discontent. Everyone wants rid of Gordon Brown. No one is sure about David Cameron. I am asked the questions that I have been asked a hundred times before. What does he believe in? Will he be up to it? The questioners think that their doubts arise from a shortage of policies. They are wrong. The problem is caused by an absence of conviction. After all, the Lib Dems have policies on everything from asparagus beds to xylophone-playing. Little good it does them, because few people believe that they stand for anything. No one thought that about Margaret Thatcher. Yet

Irwin Stelzer

Tips for the new US ambassador

Obama’s man in London needs to stop bashing Bush, immerse himself in domestic political discourse, and get out and meet some true Brits, says Irwin Stelzer ‘He is not even a diplomat,’ sniffed BBC News when Louis Susman took up his post as America’s ambassador to the Court of St James. An Obama Chicago crony, the Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill rushed to point out from his perch in Washington — ‘a little bit of Chicago’s ruthless and combative political machine is soon to descend on the decorous calm of the Court of St James’. Because Susman had donated some $200,000 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and hoovered up so much more

Rod Liddle

Is it more rude to ask if someone’s going whacko than blind?

Rod Liddle says the furore surrounding Andrew Marr’s questions to Gordon Brown is academic. These rumours are rife in the blogosphere Is our Prime Minister perpetually out of his brainbox on powerful psychotropic substances, as everybody now seems to believe? Dilaudid, crystal meth, that sort of thing? Does he stagger out of bed and say: ‘Aw, Sarah, I’ve got a meeting with Harman in half an hour. Light up the crack pipe, will you?’ Looking at the man, you would not think so. That strange, strangulated smile, the ever encroaching brow — this is not the demeanour of a man who, for example, mainlines camel tranquillisers every morning. If he

Fraser Nelson

Cameron: ‘What you need is thoughtful radicalism’

Lord Mandelson is outside David Cameron’s office when I go in for my interview. Not in person, alas, but boxed in a small television set giving his speech to the Labour party conference, to heckling from those gathered around it. A few days ago, the noble lord had suggested he would serve in a Tory government, and Mr Cameron has already thought of a role. ‘He can chair a truth and reconciliation commission on New Labour,’ he says, laughing. ‘I think that would be a very good opening job. Perhaps when he has done that and atoned for all his past sins, we could find him another.’ If Mr Cameron

Tuesday

29 Sep 2009

Peter Hoskin

The Sun shines on David Cameron

The Sun’s Whitehall Editor, David Wooding, has just tweeted that the newspaper will officially back the Conservatives at the next election. Given the paper’s recent editorial stance, it’s hardly surprising news. But it will still delight Team Cameron, and is a blow for Brown in the aftermath of his conference speech. I expect we’ll hear more about it shortly. UPDATE: The relevant Sun story is here, although it’s still only showing the opening paragraph.

David Blackburn

Brown’s watch words to defeat

Comment Central’s Alice Fishburn has collated Brown’s buzzwords. It’s revealing that derivatives of ‘choice’ and ‘change’ were used 38 times, whereas the words ‘honest’ and ‘responsibility’ were uttered twice and four times respectively. Given that the public have turned against the government’s running of the economy, Brown was unwise to concentrate on Tory-bashing rather than attempt to emphasise his honesty and sense of responsibility, but perhaps he’s given up on that front. Initially, his Goethe-inspired avowal to dream big and change the world again had me grasping for the gin; but this speech was for the hall first and the voters second, which isn’t enough to avoid defeat. All he’ll