Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
The Evening Standard reveals that Eric Joyce – the Falkirk MP and John Hutton’s PPS – is to step down from his government role after the Labour Party conference. There’s been a lot of speculation over the past few days that Hutton himself will be the first Cabinet minister to resign in protest at the Brown premiership. This can only fuel that rumour.
UK Polling Report’s Anthony Wells is reporting a rumour that the Tories could have broken the 50 percent mark in tomorrow’s MORI poll. The (very much unconfirmed) figures have the Tories at 52 percent, Labour at 24 percent and the Lib Dems at 12 percent. That would give the Tories a hefty lead of 28 percent – which is significantly up on the 20-ish point leads they’ve enjoyed recently, and can only pile more pressure on Brown. Watch this space. UPDATE: Poll results confirmed.
In the end, I’d say Nick Clegg’s speech at the Lib Dem conference was so-so. The very good parts were offset by the very bad parts, and there was a chunk of neither-here-nor-there material in between. And all delivered in the now-ubiquitous, walk-around-the-stage-with-no-notes manner. If you want to read the whole thing, there’s a copy of it here. I’ll just deal with the two extremes: The very bad Clegg’s speech began like a stand-up routine. And a terrible one, at that. There was joke, after joke, after joke, at the expense of both Labour and the Tories. The Government were likened to the “living dead -They are a Zombie government. A cross between
Is Gordon Brown trying to take credit for the HBOS-Lloyds merger? Sounds implausible, but the blog of Robert Peston, Brown’s biographer, has this snippet: “I am hearing that this deal has been negotiated at a very high pay grade level, with the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, talking to Sir Victor Blank, chairman of Lloyds TSB, about how helpful it would be if Sir Victor could bring himself to end the uncertainty hanging over HBOS by buying it.” If this is true, I’m amazed the takeover went ahead, given that Brown tends to be 180 degrees wrong about any financial deal – whether it be selling gold at the bottom of
The party’s MPs are fatally conflicted over Gordon Brown’s leadership, says Rod Liddle. Their craven conduct reflects the awkward fact that they overwhelminglychose him in the first place There was an interesting story in the newspapers this week about an American dog which rang 911, the emergency services, when his owner had a seizure. The details were a little hazy; we know that the dog was a German shepherd, but we do not know his or her name. Nor was it clear whether the animal used a landline to summon assistance, or if it had its own mobile phone. According to the emergency services, the dog, having successfully contacted 911,
American readers may consider themselves fortunate that they have no idea who Tavish Scott is. English readers may do likewise. For that matter, so may many Scots. Nonetheless, Mr Scott, the new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats (titter ye not) did provide one public service at his party’s UK conference last week. He demonstrated the extent to which the Sarah Palin phenomenon has rippled across the world. In a speech watched by dozens, he told party delegates that if Scottish politics were American politics: you would observe that the only difference between Alex Salmond* and Annabel Goldie** is lipstick What a wag. *SNP leader and First Minister of Scotland
Jonathan Rauch has a terrific, hilarious column about the McCain campaign. Highly recommended. Excerpt: “We need to go on offense. Our theme is that Barack Obama is too old for the job and that the public needs a younger, more vigorous brand of leadership. OK, here are some scripts we’re looking at.” “Wait, wait, wait. Wait. Do you need time off? I can give you a few days. Take some time. You’ve earned it.” “No, Senator. If you’ll just look at these scripts –“ “Steve, April Fool’s Day is seven months off. You want me to say Obama is too old to be president and I’m not?” “Yes.” “I’m younger
Just to confirm the earlier story, the BBC are reporting that David Cairns – the Minister of State at the Scotland office – is going to resign in protest at Brown’s premiership. As Iain Dale points out, the question now is of whether or not this will open the floodgates
The whirlwind of rebellion rumours, claims and counter-claims continues to rampage around Westminster. Will Caroline Flint act as a stalking horse? Is John Hutton about to resign? Which minister referred to Team Brown as “thugs”? I, for one, don’t have the answers. But you’d have expected No.10 to be more clued in than most. Not so, if Ben Brogan’s latest blog post is anything to go by: “Somebody close to Jim Murphy called me a short while ago to assure me that the Minister for Europe is not about to resign. Now, I suppose you could say the same about quite a few members of the Government. What’s curious is that nobody had
For more, see Trading Floor.
Nick Clegg is right when he says that “Labour are on the wrong side of the biggest issue in British politics – the argument about the big state versus the smaller state.” But which side are the Liberal Democrats on? His plans for tax cuts look about as sound as a No10 soufflé. The 4p cut in income tax would be replaced by a local income tax – so a tax shift, not a tax cut. The £20 billion cuts in Whitehall spending are not all for tax relief, some of this (they don’t say how much) would be diverted to other state spending. Compared against the £679bn of state
Whether or not it does oust Brown, it’s hard not to be impressed by just how well-managed the Labour backbench rebellion is. The plotters’ latest strategic shift is to point out that Brown could actually emerge triumphant from a leadership contest. Here’s George Howarth speaking to the Beeb earlier today: “We’ve got to confront our problems and deal with them and i think a leadership contest is the best way to do that … It might not even be a new leader. It’s quite possible that Gordon could contest a contest and emerge stronger.” Of course, I doubt Howarth, or any of the other plotters, believe that a leadership contest
…here are some of the posts made over the weekend at spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson ponders whether the McDonagh insurgency is doomed to failure, and thinks that Zac Goldsmith’s role as a “green-witness” could have hurt the Tories. James Forsyth looks at who could take on Brown in a leadership contest, and shows that David Miliband has lost confidence and fallen in line. Peter Hoskin thinks the Labour rebel mess allows the Tories time to fine-tune, and tells us Gordon Brown has lost his chance for a relaunch. Theo Hobson explores the legacy of Cardinal Newman in his new weekly column on religion. Clive Davis points us in the direction of
Today brings mammoth financial news: Lehman Brothers has filed for Chapter 11, and Merrill Lynch is has been taken over by Bank of America. Two giants of Wall Street have fallen on the same day, and there will be more to come. I love the footage of a puzzled-looking Alan Greenspan talking about a “twice in a century” shock to the system, as if he had nothing to do with all this. The decision to pump America full of cheap debt was one taken by him at the Fed – it’s his bubble that’s bursting here. Brown copied him in Britain, leveraging up Britain in the same way. Neither saw
Jenny McCartney’s column in the Sunday Telegraph today pinpoints the key flaw to the Labour project: in its drive for equality, it produces inequality. This apparent paradox is the regular consequence of left-wing politics world over: the best of intentions produce the worst of results. There is now enough data on the 11 years of the Labour Project to show its failure on every important yardstick. Employment figures: a mirage created by immigration. Economic boom: a mirage created by debt. NHS performance: dismal, for the money injected. Education: Britain hurtling down the international league tables in absolute and relative terms. Defence: let’s not go there. But it is in social
I have one more for James’ list of stories that would cause problems for the Tories if Labour were not entertaining us all with the longest death scene in political history. Last week a jury at Maidstone Crown Court decided that the threat of global warming justified breaking the law – a story that made news worldwide. Specifically, six Greenpeace activists who vandalised a coal-fired power station and caused £35,000 of damage were acquitted on the grounds that the vandalism was done to prevent even greater damage to the environment. Random verdict from a strange jury, you might think. But speaking as an “expert witness” in the activists’ defence was
The Siobhan McDonagh insurgency is on its third day, with a wide range of names and rather devastating quotations in today’s press all aimed at Labour activists who gather in Manchester this time next week. I’ve just come from News 24 which is leading with footage it has today of Fiona McTaggart on today’s Politics Show but but there are far more names. Here’s a list of who’s saying what:- — Barry Gardiner, a special envoy for Brown: accusing him of “vacillation, loss of international credibility and timorous political manoeuvres that the public cannot understand”. (Sunday Times) — Frank Field: “Given we haven’t got a cabinet stuffed with people who
It’s yet another 20-ish point for the Tories in the latest YouGov poll for the Sunday Times. They’re on 46 percent (up 1 on last month); Labour are on 27 (up 2); and the Lib Dems on 16 (down 2). I guess it’s fair to say that Brown’s economic recovery package – or what we’ve seen of it so far – isn’t making much difference. The problem for Brown is that the foreseeable future doesn’t present many opportunities to close the gap. He’d have pencilled in the party conference as a chance to do something – anything – to get some of the public back on side; be it a
The calls for a leadership contest are certainly getting louder. (UPDATE, 1500) Earlier today, Fiona MacTaggart became the fifth Labour MP to confirm that they’ve asked for leadership nomination forms to be sent out. And the expectation is that more will follow, as this increasingly takes on the complexion of an attempted coup. Who might the discontents be? Here are a few key paragraphs from the Telegraph this morning: “The Daily Telegraph understands that about a dozen Labour MPs, including several former senior ministers, have asked officials to provide nomination papers for a leadership contest at the party’s conference later this month. They include Janet Anderson, Kate Hoey, Frank Field,
James Forsyth reviews the week in politics If Labour does dump Gordon Brown before the next election, then each of the three major parties will, this decade, have replaced a leader before he has had a chance to fight a general election. What used to be exceptional has become almost routine. This is a consequence of politics now running in double-time; the speeded-up news cycle means that what used to take years now happens in weeks. Consider the almost total reversal of Gordon Brown and David Cameron’s political positions since the last conference season. Then Gordon swept all before him, while Cameron had to make a brilliant speech to save