Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Keeping shtum

Iain Martin’s article for the Telegraph today is well worth a read. In it he’s praiseful of Project Cameron, but throws in a substantial caveat – that the Tories aren’t saying much on the economy. The silence on matters fiscal was typified by Cameron’s performance in PMQs yesterday. Brown accused him then of not having answers for “the problems of this country”. But – says Martin – top Tories suggest instead that it’s all part of the grand plan: “A member of the shadow cabinet denies that he and his colleagues simply do not have a clue about what to do: ‘The economy is going to turn into a fight

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Meeting McCain

John McCain is doing Europe tomorrow: Brown for breakfast, Cameron for afters and Sarkozy in Paris in the afternoon. It’s significant that he’s setting aside as much time for Cameron as Brown. In Bournmouth 06, Cameron hailed McCain as the next president of America – not a claim he (or anyone) would have repeated in Blackpool last October. But Cameron was right first time, and his initial bet has paid dividends.  Normally, American presidential candidates resist being photographed with Opposition leaders, but I understand McCain is happy to pose with DC. Let’s see if footage of them together makes the news tomorrow. UPDATE: McCain arrived a little early (I wonder

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cabinet’s green split

There’s a fun but revealing story in the FT today about a row within the Cabinet about what kind of cars they should all be driven round in. The split is between those who favour Ministers travelling in the eco-friendly Toyota Prius and those who think it is important that they use a car made in Britain. John Hutton, the business secretary, is in the British camp along with two of Gordon’s closest allies, Ed Balls and Jack Straw. While on the green side of the fence are Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, David Miliband and Hilary Benn—the past and present environment secretaries.  On the one hand, this can be

Peter Hoskin

“The sun is rising on our borrowing bacchanalia…”

Iain Martin highlights it over at Three Line Whip, and rightly so – Jeff Randall’s hatchet job on Alan Greenspan is essential reading.  Not only does it flag up Greenspan’s role in our current financial difficulties, but it also contains this great quote from Michael Bloomberg: “The economic uncertainty our two countries [America and Britain] face today is beginning to feel similar to the economic downturn we experienced six years ago… …But this time the stakes are higher because more people owe more debt and so do our governments. It’s time for us all to get our houses in order because the sun is rising on our borrowing bacchanalia.” I still can’t believe that

Peter Hoskin

National security letdown?

4 months overdue, Gordon Brown today outlined a new national security strategy. Was it worth the wait? Not particularly. It’s little more than a collection of proposals that we knew about already, combined with some loose “direction of travel”-type thinking (e.g. that Britain will “seek agreement on tougher controls aimed at reducing weapons and preventing proliferation”). All-in-all, the Tory criticism is pretty-much spot-on: it’s more a “list than a strategy”. And one component of that list is particularly underwhelming. Brown talks about maintaining “strong, balanced, flexible and deployable armed forces”. But what are his new ideas for doing so? In answer: “There will be increased commitment bonuses of up to

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brownies, Balls and the Barnett Formula in PMQs

There are two PMQs: the one seen from galleries in the Commons chamber, and the one on television. The more I go to the former, the more convinced I am the best view is in the latter. Pretty much the whole press gallery jumped to its feet to see what Ed Balls was doing when Cameron teased him (he sat underneath us all). And I couldn’t see – but I imagined – Labour MPs squinting as they read out their planted questions, as if wondering at the brazenness of the text. Anyway, from my perch, it seemed a clear win for Cameron. Not because any of his questions were knock-outs.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Throwing the book at Gordon Brown

An intriguing item in the Ephraim Hardcastle diary in The Daily Mail this morning suggests that cash for honours will soon come back to haunt Gordon Brown: “LORD Levy’s book about being Tony Blair’s Middle East envoy-chief party fundraiser – and the ‘cash for coronets’ police inquiry in which he was twice cautioned and questioned – is about to see the light of day. What does it say about Blair? Forget Blair, say friends of Michael Levy. The former pop music promoter blames Gordon Brown for stirring up the honours row as part of a campaign to destabilise Blair and replace him as prime minister. Even though it was a

Peter Hoskin

Charm offensive

Gordon Brown’s got an article in today’s Sun.  Its message?  That we shouldn’t worry about the economy, because he’s got his hand on the fiscal tiller.  Again, then, our Prime Minister is peddling the untruth that his Government – and, prior to that, his Chancellorship – have done nothing to expose us to the credit crunch.  That’s the big porkie, but the whole piece is dotted with little Brownies: boasts of unique growth, low inflation etc. etc.  There’s even the new one that “we can now allow the Government’s borrowing to rise at exactly the time when the economy needs support”, as though that’s a good thing.  Here’s how Brown

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Obama’s speech

Barack Obama’s speech today on race and America should, if there’s any justice, seal the Democratic party’s presidential nomination. It is a remarkable, subtle, nuanced discussion of how and why America remains so polarised on race. No other candidate could have delivered this address (and certainly none of them could have written it). It is – by a distance – the best, most important speech of the year and, in many ways, perhaps even the most significant speech given by any politician in years. Politically it seems to me that Hillary Clinton is a big loser today. Her hope must surely now rest upon the idea that conservatives will destroy

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown 2.0

From his deckchair in Vietnam, Guido blogs on the latest openings for the revamped (and, perhaps, jinxed) Team Brown – two web experts. He certainly needs them – Labour’s internet operation is indeed dire, and the No10 website is little better (save for the wonderful glimpse it offers of what UK government may look like under a restored caliphate).  Perhaps he should pay them to blog instead. Old Alex Hilton needs reinforcements – the left is heavily out numbered by us here on the right, for reasons I’ve never quite understood. The strange thing about the web is that individual people are far more popular and effective than hired hands.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

An outright victory?

A week ago, most people I spoke to in Tory HQ had the happy expectation that Boris Johnson was heading for a glorious defeat. i.e. – that he’d win on the first vote and lose the second. So Boris could be seen as a moral victor but robbed of his true throne by a voting system (like Jon Cruddas and the Labour deputy leader system). Now, the Tories are considering something which makes them a little more nervous – the prospect of Boris winning outright and something going wrong between now and 2010. As if. They should have more faith in BoJo.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Misrepresenting the welfare ghettos

I thought p8 of the Daily Mail looked familiar. It’s that table of benefits which we ran on Coffee House on Sunday (expanded from my News of the World column). But what’s this? “Tory research” it’s called. On closer inspection, the Tories have used recent welfare figures, and expressed them as a percentage of the mid-2005 poulation. So its a little Brown-style fiddle, as the population of neighbourhoods changes all the time – and the population of sink estates usually falls. New welfare rolls as a fraction of old population can be relied upon to produce a false, but higher figure. The News of the World would have been furious

Peter Hoskin

Remember to Quiz Clegg

Just a reminder that Nick Clegg has offered to answer questions from CoffeeHousers. Register your questions in the comments section to this post.  And early next week we’ll pick the best ones and pose them to the Lib Dem leader.  There are even CoffeeHouse t-shirts on offer…

Peter Hoskin

Disgruntled Labour

The two articles by the Labour MPs Jon Trickett and Charles Clarke in today’s Guardian are well-worth reading. Both are deeply pessimistic about the party’s prospects (perhaps indicative of the wider mood in the Labour camp), although they outline different ways to stem the rot. For Trickett, the Government needs to depart from the Blairism that it’s been espousing in recent weeks. Whereas, for Clarke, the Blairite agenda needs to be more boldly applied. Here’s Trickett: “In place of the New Labour promise of a modernised Britain, we saw an older Britain re-emerge: a class system where what your parents do counts for more than who you are; unrestrained markets; dominant private

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Al-Qa’eda’s secret UK gangs: terror as a ‘playground dare’

As Brown unveils his National Security Strategy, Fraser Nelson talks to those in the front line against Islamic extremism. MI5 has expanded successfully, but faces in al-Qa’eda an enemy that is organic, elusive and constantly mutating: gangs built on deadly bravado To defeat an enemy, one must first understand him — and this, for years, has been Britain’s principal problem in the war on terror. The identity and profile of the typical British jihadi was a mystery. Many argued he did not exist at all — until the July 2005 London bombings spectacularly proved otherwise. In those days, MI5 was tracking just 400 terror suspects. Now the figure is 2,000,

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

A holy man tipped to lead the nation’s Catholics

Mary Wakefield meets Dom Hugh Gilbert, the Benedictine Abbot of Pluscarden — said to be the Pope’s ‘dark horse’ candidate to succeed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor What is holiness? How do you spot it? I’ve come to Worth Abbey in Sussex to meet a monk often described as ‘holy’ — Dom Hugh Gilbert, OSB, Abbot of Pluscarden in Scotland — and I wonder as I wander around in search of him, what form his sanctity will take. What is a holy man, and where is this holy man? Worth seems deserted. Puddles lie low in sleeves of ice; clouds hang motionless over what looks like a spaceship but must be the

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Legislation is the Real Enemy of the People

There’s no stopping this blogging thing. The latest citadel to fall is, of all places, the dear old House of Lords. Hence Lords of the Blog which officially launched today. With any luck it will capture something of the upper House’s eccentricity… Lord Lipsey makes half a fair point here, for instance: I am in favour of very radical reform of the Lords, its arcane and inefficient procedures, a statutory appointments commission, the end of hereditaries, the eviction of criminals and tax evaders and much more taking of evidence and less speechifying. The only reform to which I am wholly opposed is election. Foreigners may find it charmingly British that

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tories up 13 in new ICM poll

The Guardian has just posted the headlines figures from its new poll which shows the Tories with a 42-29 lead over Labour. The poll also finds that David Cameron and George Osborne have an eight point lead on the question of who do you most trust with the economy.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why falling base rates have lost their sting

Now the Fed has cut US rates by another quarter, what’s next? The City expects UK rates to fall to 4.75% by year-end. Now and again, Gordon Brown likes to boast that he is able to reduce interest rates – unlike the Tories in early 1990s. One of Magician Brown’s favourite tricks is the “false proxy” – saying “base rates are falling, so homeowners can rest easy.” But as I have blogged before, the distinguishing feature of this credit crunch is the decoupling of the base rate from de facto mortgage rates, as the graph below from John Charcol shows. We are entering new territory, and the old financial relationships are

Peter Hoskin

Tories & tax cuts

With Philip Hammond suggesting that the Conservatives won’t cut taxes until a second term in government, there’s a lot of great reading material on the Tory tax debate in today’s papers and across the political blogosphere. The Telegraph’s Janet Daley is among the commentators who want the Tories to be bolder on tax.  Here are some key passages from her article today: “Mr Osborne had committed the party, as it were, to being uncommitted on the question of tax cuts: there would be no promises now of “upfront, unfunded” tax reductions, just a cautious wait-and-see-if-we-can-afford-it-at-the-time approach. Reducing the tax burden was, of course, an “aspiration” but it was an open