Politics

Now that former Central Office favourite Mark Clarke has been banned for life from the Conservative party, he could pursue a career in copy-writing. He seems to have a twisted aptitude for that sort of thing. When leading the Tories’ general election RoadTrip 2015 of young activists, many of them peachy girls, Mr Clarke was said to have had the slogan ‘Isolate, inebriate and penetrate’. Though he denies the bon mot, his approach was apparently wildly successful — which is more than can be said for his attempts to land a parliamentary seat. Several women, including at least one serving cabinet minister, fell for this plausible smarmer over the years. Mr

David Cameron’s Christmas message is being reported as one of his most Christian public statements yet, with the Prime Minister arguing – as he did at Prime Minister’s Questions recently – that ‘it is because of these important religious roots and Christian values that Britain has been such a successful home to people of all faiths and none’. Cameron has – with the occasional rather odd hiccup – become much more confident about talking about Christianity, both in terms of his own beliefs and the importance he thinks faith should have in wider society, since he described his personal faith as being ‘a bit like the reception for Magic FM

Spain is a long way from being Greece or Portugal, but in Sunday’s historic general election, Spaniards sent out the same message that the Greeks did in July and the Portugese did in October – namely, a resounding ‘No’ to austerity economics. Anti-austerity Podemos—the left-wing challenger party that is less than two years old—took a staggering 20.7 per cent of the national vote and is now the third-strongest political force in Spain. As long as the composition of Spain’s new government is unknown, the country’s economic recovery is on hold – but two things, at least, are now very clear. First, the Popular Party has failed to convince many Spaniards of its claim

Christmas is almost here, so it’s time for our annual year in review podcast. In this View from 22 hour-long special, I’m delighted to be joined by a stellar line-up of Spectator contributors to look back on the events of the past twelve months, as well as asking each of our guests for their person of 2015. Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth discuss the surprise Tory victory in May’s general election and how David Cameron has finally proven himself a winner. Does he now have the whole Conservative party behind him? And who should take credit for this victory? Fraser Nelson and Alex Massie look at the rise and rise of the SNP and how Nicola Sturgeon managed to

In the new year the EU referendum battle will heat up, and it seems the Conservative party are already starting to shuffle things around in preparation. Stephen Gilbert, the party’s current deputy chairman, has today announced that he is standing down from this position. When Gilbert originally became deputy chairman, it was agreed that he could also hold non-executive roles with other groups. In November, he took up a part-time position at Populus, the official polling company for the main campaign to keep Britain in the EU, Britain Stronger in Europe (BSIE). While this position was in accordance with Conservative party rules, the move infuriated plenty of Tory Eurosceptics, who

“Spain is not going to be the same anymore and we are very happy,” declared Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos, last night. He’s right: the two-party system which has governed Spain since its emergence from dictatorship in 1975 has just ended. Podemos, an anti-austerity populist party that didn’t exist two years ago, has taken 20pc of the vote in the elections; Ciudadanos, a more centrist upstart, won 13pc. Both have deprived the conservative Popular Party of its majority. It finished first with 29pc of the vote, but it’s not enough to govern. The PP’s main rival, the Socialist Party (PSOE), won 22pc. So what now? It’s all uncharted territory. Spain’s democratic history has shown a two-party system (below) working reasonably well:-  “I

David Cameron is warming to the idea of making Boris Johnson Foreign Secretary. As I write in The Sun this morning, Cameron is drawn to the idea of sending Boris to the Foreign Office in a post-May reshuffle. But a Cabinet ally of the Prime Minister stresses that Boris will have to be ‘unequivocally yes’ come the EU referendum if he is to be Foreign Secretary. It is easy to see why the idea of doing what it take to bind Boris in before the referendum is gaining traction in Number 10. Polling shows that Cameron backing Britain staying part of the EU gives the In campaign a big boost.

If the responses to last week’s Paris agreement on tackling climate change are anything to go by, you’d think politicians were warming to the issue. David Cameron said that ‘this generation has taken vital steps to ensure that our children and grandchildren will see that we did our duty in securing the future of our planet’. But the political excitement around the summit was not part of a trend, but a mere spike in interest. Politicians don’t talk very much about green issues at present. They barely discussed the environment at all during the election, and generally see it as being of such low salience that they needn’t talk too