Politics

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

Fraser Nelson

It’s still war between Brown and Miliband

David Miliband should remember: it is still war between him and Gordon Brown. Thinks he’s Foreign Secretary? Thinks he can go around talking up Nato protection to former Soviet states in speeches like these? Well, Team Brown has something to say about it. Here is Nick Brown, deputy chief whip and Brownite muscleman in a Guardian article: “Cameron urges Nato to admit Georgia. Nato is a mutual defence pact… .Do we really mean to commit ourselves to all-out war against the Russian Federation if something like this happens again?” And this government member goes on: “If western hawks really are advocating Nato membership for every small country that borders the

Poles are the fall guys of the immigration debate

When, back in 2005, Michael Howard said, ‘it’s not racist to talk about immigration’, his words sounded less like a statement of the obvious than a plea for the political and media classes to cut him some slack. They didn’t, of course. The then Conservative leader was roundly chided for playing the race card, accused of giving aid and comfort to the BNP, and warned that his focus on immigration would lead to an increase in racial assaults. These days, however, everyone is thinking what Michael Howard was thinking three years ago. Gordon Brown talks about ‘British jobs for British workers’; Labour has no qualms about blowing the dog-whistle on

James Forsyth

Georgia sheds light on the mind of Cameron

The final phase of preparing the country for Prime Minister Cameron is under way. Having decontaminated the brand and marched ahead of Labour in the polls, the Tories are now introducing the country to Statesman Cameron. Politics abhors a vacuum. So with Gordon Brown hunkered down planning his autumn ‘relaunch’ and David Miliband practising looking like an innocent flower while being the serpent underneath, Cameron had the opportunity to act the statesman during the Georgia crisis. He did so, even going to Tbilisi to convey Britain’s solidarity with Georgia. As one top Tory purred to me, ‘He’s combined the toughness of a Thatcher, with the tactical acumen of a Blair.’

Martin Vander Weyer

Economic recovery plan? Forget it, Gordon

The Prime Minister’s survival is pinned on a September ‘relaunch’ to ease the voters’ economic woes. But, says Martin Vander Weyer, each door through which Brown tries to escape his predicament slams in his face. His room for manoeuvre is negligible All this talk of Gordon Brown’s ‘economic recovery plan’ calls to mind the unhappy day, many years ago on a junior bankers’ training course, when I took part in a competitive team game which involved managing a computer model of the British economy. We were told it was a version of the Treasury’s own model. In successive rounds, each team would have the opportunity to alter tax rates, interest

Fraser Nelson

Boris’s gift to Labour

Might Labour’s attack machine have come back from the dead? They have today seized – and quite rightly – on this comment in Boris Johnson’s Daily Telegraph column: “If you believe the politicians, we have a broken society, in which the courage and morals of young people have been sapped by welfarism and political correctness.  And if you look at what is happening at the Beijing Olympics, you can see what piffle that is” Quite apart from Boris talking about “the politicians” as if he’s forgotten he is now one of them, there is only one party talking about a “broken society” and that’s the Conservatives. It was a theme

Fraser Nelson

The middle-class rip-off

Great moment on the Today programme this morning when John Major – without irony – told James Naughtie how great the National Lottery was because an opera lover like him could benefit from the money poured into the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. That deal was perhaps the most egregious example of cash transferred from poor people to rich people, but sadly typical of the regressive nature of arts funding. I can understand the logic behind supporting indigenous arts lest they die out, but why have British taxpayers subsidise the singing of songs written a hundred years ago in Italian or German? If the usually-rich people who tend to watch opera

McCain and Cameron, close for now

It is common knowledge that John McCain and David Cameron get on. By convention, politicians do not enter into electoral politics in other countries, but the Conservative leader has made clear how McCain impressed him when he spoke at the 2006 Conservative Party Conference while McCain has described Cameron as a Kennedyesque figure. Their staffs are said to be in regular touch and the two men talk on the phone.   At first blush, the Russo-Georgian War show how close they really are. Looking at their respective statements, it is hard to distinguish between the views of the two politicians. In response to the invasion, it was McCain who struck a

In case you missed them…

…here are some of the posts made over the weekend on spectator.co.uk: James Forsyth on who Putin is and the retreating Gordon Brown Americano on why Obama shouldn’t choose a foreign policy expert as VP nominee and how McCain has found another gear.  

Pickles responds

Here are Eric Pickles’s answers to the questions posed by Coffee Housers:  Victoria Street “Devolving power downwards from Westminster doesn’t mean that the blame can always be devolved downwards. Are you prepared for the inevitable slew of critical media that is an inevitable result of letting go the reins? Can you resist the temptation to intervene? Can you take the pressure of Labour and Liberal Democrat authorities demanding central government action to pay for their local mistakes?” If we are truly to be the Party of real localism, we must trust local councillors to determine what is right for local communities and be confident that those communities will hold them

Another by-election nightmare looms for Brown

The death of John MacDougall, Labour MP for Glenrothes since 2001, will trigger yet another nightmare for Gordon Brown. No other word will do. Glenrothes in Fife is on the PM’s very doorstep and – after Glasgow East – looks distinctly vulnerable. In the 2005 general election, Mr MacDougall polled 19,395 votes, well ahead of the SNP’s John Beare on 8,731. But Labour’s majority of 10,664 accounted for only 28.5 per cent of the vote. In Glasgow East, Labour’s 2005 majority was larger in absolute terms – 13,507 – but accounted for more than 43 per cent of the turnout. In other words, Glenrothes looks like an even juicier target for

Politics | 13 August 2008

Irwin Stelzer reviews the week in politics  There are several ways one might look at Gordon Brown’s leaked plan to send £150 to each of the seven-plus million families receiving child benefit. The first, and kindest, is as an attempt to ease the coming winter’s budget strain on what Sir Brian Bender, permanent secretary at the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, during a first-class train ride from Leeds to London, too loudly dubbed ‘ordinary people’ — not the needy, the more numerous ‘ordinary’. The second is as a straight-out election bribe, part of the ‘fight-back’ that the Prime Minister is planning for the autumn. Why he imagines that this

Your questions for Eric Pickles

It’s been a week since we asked CoffeeHousers to put forward their questions for Eric Pickles.  We’ve since picked out the best five, which have now been put to the shadow communities secretary.  He’ll get back to us in a couple of days. The CoffeeHousers whose questions were chosen can e-mail me on phoskin @ spectator.co.uk to claim their t-shirt and 180th Anniversary issue of the magazine. Anyway, here are the questions: Victoria Street “Devolving power downwards from Westminster doesn’t mean that the blame can always be devolved downwards. Are you prepared for the inevitable slew of critical media that is an inevitable result of letting go the reins? Can

The Sunday Essay: a reminder to send in your submissions | 12 August 2008

We’ve introduced a new feature to Coffee House – the Sunday Essay.   Each Sunday, we’ll post an essay by one of our readers, on any political, cultural or sporting topic.  The first of these essays appeared a couple of days ago – you can read it here. If you’d like your writing to be considered, just e-mail an article of between 500 and 1500 words to me at phoskin @ spectator.co.uk  – the Coffee House team will pick out the best submission each week, and post it on the website the following Sunday.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re an MP, a member of the policy wonk world, or have nothing

Where on earth is David Miliband?

A great post by Mary Dejevsky over at Open House, questioning just what David Miliband has been doing during the conflict between Russia and Georgia.  Yes, our Foreign Secretary has issued a statement on the issue, but some of his colleagues – such as Des Browne and Jim Murphy – have been far more prominent on the airwaves.  And Miliband’s French counterpart has even gone over to Georgia, to witness the situation first-hand. I’ve been assured that Brown and Miliband have been in “direct discussion” over the Georgia crisis.  But, still, it’s hard not to conclude that the Labour leadership struggle lies behind our Foreign Secretary’s no-show.  Maybe he’s been blocked by the

In a pickle?

Iain Martin writes an important piece over at Three Line Whip, in which he reveals that the Cameroons may be turning against Eric Pickles.  According to Martin, their beef with the shadow communities secretary is that he took too much of the credit for the Crewe and Nantwich success, and that he’s been “grandstanding” ever since.  That opinion may even be shared by David Cameron.  Here’s the bottom line: “One Tory sage says Pickles may still become the Conservatives’ chairman yet if he can get over this rough patch, but then his mood darkens: ‘The problem is that when David (Cameron) has made up his mind about someone he rarely alters it.

Just what can the West do?

Western policymakers are finally making their official statements on the crisis in South Ossetia.  Our own Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, has said he “deplores” the Russian attacks on Georgia.  George Bush has called Russia’s actions “disproportionate,” and told Vladimir Putin that “this violence is unacceptable”.  Whilst the most ominous warning comes from Dick Cheney, who stated that Russian aggression “must not go unanswered”. But for all the pejorative languange, just what can the West do?  There are several factors counting against military intervention, whether by NATO forces, or by individual countries, such as the US or the UK.  Here are some brief outlines: 1) Fullscale war.  The number one fear is that

Will dithering Darling get the chop?

For much of his time as Chancellor, it’s been hard not to feel sorry for Alistair Darling.  He’s been parachuted into what are rocky economic times, and has had to deal with – and often reverse – decisions made during Brown’s Chancellorship. The recent stamp duty fiasco seems different though.  It was embarrassing enough that the idea of temporarily suspending stamp duty leaked from the Treasury in the first place (usually a sign of a minister not in control of his department).  But the uncertain response of Treasury officials – and Darling himself – has only compounded the situation.  How so?  Well, potential house-buyers have held back from purchases until

Britishness revisited

I’ve just got around to watching some of Gordon Brown’s appearance at the Edinburgh Book Festival yesterday (you can see footage here).  It wasn’t that bad, actually.  If anything, he came across as relaxed, confident and – shock, horror – fairly witty.  One can’t help but view it all as a long message to David Miliband.  Something like “Look, you ungrateful upstart, I can do ‘Man of the People’; I can do charming.  And I’m completely at ease with all your plotting”. But there was more to it than that.  He dimissed claims that Britain is broken, and made reference to the general resolve and decency of the British public: “I don’t

Alex Massie

Hague’s Wisdom

William Hague warns David Miliband not to challenge Gordon Brown and offers this priceless spot of advice: “People want normal politicians and David Miliband is more geeky, more like me… David Cameron could wear a baseball cap, whereas Miliband would find it harder to appear normal. I must have a word with him and give him some advice – don’t try to be normal when you aren’t. As I never want to be leader of my party again, I don’t have to try to be normal any more.” [Hat-tip: Coffee House]