Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
Andrew Grice has just blogged about a new poll in the Indy tomorrow which has the Tories 16 points ahead. The poll also shows that the majority of the population favour scrapping Trident. However, the public wants real term increases in health and education spending every year.
Jackie Ashley complains in her column today about Labour misters going on ‘mic-strike’ saying that it will lead to Labour being beaten so badly that it might not be able to come back. Ashley is speaking for a lot of people in the Labour party, one hears frequent complaints these days about Minister who are prepared to pick up the cheque each month but not to put in the hard yards. The consequences of ‘mic-strike’ were evident this morning. William Hague was on the Today Programme talking about the latest revelations concerning the government’s relations with the Gaddafi regime but no Foreign Office minister was prepared to do a response.
Over at the indispensable UK Polling Report, Anthony Wells runs the rule over the latest Telegraph/YouGov poll: “The Telegraph today has looked at their Yougov poll and decided it shows the Conservatives doing badly in the North. For what it’s worth, it doesn’t even do that – it shows the Conservatives 2 points behind in the North, an aggregate of government regions in which they trailed the Labour party by 19 points in 2005 – so it actually shows a swing to the Conservatives of 8.5 points in the North, marginally better than this poll suggests they are doing in the country as a whole. That, however, is beside the
You wait days to see the word “meekly” in print, and then it crops up twice at once. Today’s Sun reports on a Jon Cruddas speech tomorrow, in which he claims that: “[Labour] seem to be meekly accepting defeat, unable to show what we believe in… …We have only months to get this right, otherwise we will go down to catastrophic defeat.” While Jackie Ashley develops the same theme in a piece for the Guardian, highlighting the same Cruddas quote along the way. The Cruddas intervention is significant mainly because of its timing. The MP for Dagenham has clarified his views on Labour’s plight before now (including in the latest
If you want some insights into where Labour are going next, then do read this story in today’s Guardian. The main points are that Brown and Darling have agreed not to spare the health and international development budgets from cuts; that Labour’s public spending cuts will be set out over the next couple of months, beginning with a couple of speeches this week; and that Labour wants to frame its cuts as a return to the public service reform agenda. As one “cabinet source” tells the paper: “The new economic context is a challenge for us, but New Labour in its original form never saw spending more money as the
To my mind the most interesting political story of the weekend is tucked away inside The Sunday Times. Jonathan Oliver reports that Unite, a trade union which donates huge sums of money to Labour, might be taken over by those who believe that the union should stop funding Labour. (The new leadership would not be in place this side of the election, though. Labour will still be able to rely on Unite’s help during the campaign). Unite provides 15 percent of Labour’s funding and the loss of this money after an election defeat would be painful for Labour financially. However, I suspect that many Labour figures on the right of
After the abortive plot to smear Richard Dannatt, you’d have thought Labour would have learnt their lesson: that it’s often politically foolish, not to mention indecent, to pick petty fights with the military top brass. But – what’s this? – today’s Mail on Sunday reports that certain Labour figures may have been priming another smear campaign against Dannatt’s successor, General Sir David Richards: “The threat to target the General, who took up his new job just nine days ago, was one of the real reasons that Labour MP Eric Joyce resigned as an aide to Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth last week. Former soldier Mr Joyce has told friends he attended
The Beeb’s admission that they have invited Nick Griffin onto a future episode of Question Time is causing quite a stir. Two main questions are emerging from it all. First, should the BBC give a platform to the BNP? And, second, should other politicians appear on a show with BNP figures? The Tories have already said they’re “very happy” to put forward a shadow cabinet member to debate Griffin, while Labour are wrestling with their “custom” not to share a platform with the BNP. My take on each question is that, first, the Beeb aren’t wrong to give the BNP a platform. Personally, I find the party’s views and its
Well done, Alistair. After taking on Brown over the crude “Labour investment vs Tory cuts” dividing line – and winning – it sounds as though the Chancellor is challenging another of the PM’s lies: that the government’s “stimulus” measures have “saved 500,000 jobs” during the recession. According to the Mail on Sunday, Darling has told the PM to stop repeating this claim because it can’t be substantiated, and he’s resisting having it put in the Budget, too. As soon as the government started mentioning “500,000 jobs”, Westminster’s lie detectors started sounding; especially as it gradually morphed from “up to 500,000” to “at least 500,000”. We at Coffee House Towers have
A new book on John Howard’s government, by the veteran Australian politcal journalist Paul Kelly, has a nice account of the Australian PM’s first encounter with Tony Blair: “At one point John Howard, trying to be clever, asked Tony Blair: ‘What are you going to do with the Thatcher legacy?’ Blair paused, he sat up straight, extended his arms and broke into a huge grin. ‘I’m going to take the lot,[ he chortled. Blair laughed but Howard seemed stunned. It wasn’t the answer he expected. On his return to the hotel Howard was fuming. ‘That man’s a bloody chameleon. He doesn’t stand for anything,’ Howard declared.”
One question that arises from the publication the Lockerbie documents is why Jack Straw suddenly decided against excluding al-Megrahi from the PTA? Straw justified his change of heart on the grounds of “overwhelming national interests”, though trade and commercial interests were not a contributing factor in that calculation, a point he reiterated last weekend. But, in an interview with the Telegraph today, Straw contradicts himself: ‘”Yes, it (trade deals with Libya) was a very big part of that (including al-Megrahi in the PTA). I’m unapologetic about that. Libya was a rogue state. We wanted to bring it back into the fold and trade is an essential part of it –
Andrew Grice has an interesting column in the Independent today laying out Number 10’s plans for an autumn fightback. The six-step strategy is as follows: “1. Labour will focus on the policy choice between the two main parties because the Tories are more vulnerable on policy than their current opinion poll lead suggests. The Tories are perceived by the public not to have any policies. 2. The focus on Labour’s record and future plans will allow it to close the poll gap. 3. As an economic recovery begins, the Government’s approach will be seen to have stopped recession turning into depression. 4. Labour must then show how the recovery will
There was a fascinating piece from Martin Kettle in the Guardian today. The headline was slightly laboured but encapsulated the argument well: “An October revolt is plotted. Brown’s head is not safe yet”. Kettle wears his Blairite loyalties on his sleeve, so it’s pretty easy to see where he is getting his ministerial briefings from. He is well-connected in just the sort of places where the Prime Minister is disliked the most. But his clear bias does not stop him from making some important points. The first is that the optimum period for a putsch against Brown is the week immediately after party conference season. As Kettle points out, the
Brown’s delivery may have been beyond sepulchral, but the content was encouraging. He laid out how Afghan stability is being bolstered by the increased activity and competence of Afghan security forces, the replacement of the heroin crop with wheat, an intensification of government in rural hinterlands and by arresting urban corruption. At least there now seems to be a degree of co-ordination between coalition and Afghan security operations, civic reconstruction and the administration of government. These are welcome changes but there is still no overarching sense of what the ‘Afghan mission’ hopes to achieve, beyond the dubious contention that it will make the West safer. As a result, a number
Nick Clegg’s statement today on Afghanistan strongly suggests to me that by the time of the next election the Lib Dems will be for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Clegg told the BBC that: “I think there’s a tipping point where we have to ask ourselves whether we can do this job properly, and if we can’t do it properly we shouldn’t do it at all. I don’t think we are there yet,” he said. Clegg’s use of the word yet seems to be a definite hint that he is moving towards advocating withdrawal. In crude political terms, this would make a lot of sense for the Lib Dems. It would give
Tim Montgomerie reports that a senior source at CCHQ has said that John Bercow will not stand as an official Conservative candidate at the general election, and therefore party members will not be required to vote for him. So, will they be for or against Bercow? Councillor Netta Glover, the Buckingham Association’s deputy chairman and political officer, told me that the executive committee were “standing firm behind Mr Bercow”, and that Tory party rules stated that “anyone seeking an official nomination against the speaker would be barred by the returning officer” – so de-selection can be discounted. However, and this has induced a joint migraine for Central Office and
Remember that New Statesman article about Obama calling Cameron a “lightweight”? Well, the Journalist Closest to Obama, Richard Wolffe, has a different take. Here’s what he told the Today programme this morning, courtesy of the ever-alert Andrew Sparrow: “He had a strong impression, a strong reaction, to both Cameron and Brown. It was right at the end of his foreign trip. And he was really taken with Cameron. He and his aides thought that he had energy and verve, a dynamism that suggested he was a good candidate – remember this was a candidate at the time, not a president. And there was bonding that took place which you might
With the resignation of Eric Joyce as PPS to the Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth, the question of why Britain is part of the NATO-led Afghan mission has taken on new force. No doubt the Prime Minister will explain what he sees as the reasons when he speaks at IISS later today. But just because Gordon Brown supports a policy does not make it wrong. Here are the reasons why we should remain engaged: 1. To deny Al Qaeda a safe-haven from which to train and organise attacks on the West. Though terrorism can be organized in Oldham, Hamburg and Marseilles, Al Qaeda still believes it needs safe-havens in places like
Who really freed the Lockerbie bomber? The question cannot be answered by deliberately looking in the wrong place. And for the fortnight since Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s Justice Secretary, announced Mr Megrahi’s release that is what journalists have been doing, obsessively. Reporting with the pack mentality that often misdirects them, British newspapers have tried to prove that Gordon Brown authorised the release. Instead they have demonstrated only that the Prime Minister wanted Megrahi to be transferred to Libya under the prisoner transfer scheme, and that he had no power to make it happen. Granted, Mr Brown and the British Cabinet desired a result that would have appalled Americans nearly as much
This morning’s political firecracker comes courtesy of Martin Kettle in the Guardian, who claims that a group of Labour figures are moving to oust Brown in October: “An active network of MPs and peers now exists, involving some names you might expect, but also others – including big ones – whose participation would surprise you. This group, like probably the majority of Labour MPs, accepts that Brown is a liability to his party’s election prospects. Unlike the majority, though, they claim to think something can be done about it. They believe the window of opportunity, if it comes, will be in the two or three weeks after October 12. If