Politics

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

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Tom Baldwin says BBC showed more bias against Labour than the Tories

Ed Miliband’s spin doctor Tom Baldwin has been rather quiet since Labour’s disastrous election night results. Now the former Times journalist has explained his radio silence in an article for the Guardian. He says he has been avoiding the news after the Tories had ‘a win they did not fully expect or really deserve’. However, the appointment of John Whittingdale as culture secretary has caused him to resurface: ‘But one story has finally made me stumble out of bed. The Tory newspapers have welcomed the appointment of John Whittingdale, an old Thatcherite, as culture secretary with gleeful headlines about the government “going to war” with the BBC. This was accompanied by unsourced

Sebastian Payne

Cameron, May and Javid are trying to prove the Tories are the natural party of government

The Tories are already putting some clear blue water between the coalition and the present majority government. Firstly, the new Business Secretary Sajid Javid has promised new tougher strike laws — ensuring that a minimum turn out of 50 per cent turnout is required for all strikes, while 40 per cent of all members will need to back a strike affecting essential public services. The TUC’s Frances O’Grady has already hit back, arguing the new rules will make ‘legal strikes close to impossible’. Secondly, Theresa May and David Cameron are promising to tackle our ‘passively tolerant society’. In the Queen’s Speech, due on May 27, the Tories will introduce a new counter extremism

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

What Labour must do is estrange its awful voters

And so now we have to suffer the epic delusions, temper tantrums and hissy fits of the metro-left. They simply cannot believe how you scumbags could have got it so wrong last Thursday, you morons. You vindictive, selfish morons. That has been the general response from all of the people, the liberal middle-class lefties, who have cheerfully contributed towards making the once-great Labour party effectively unelectable. You lot voted Tory out of fear — because you are stupid, stupid people. The Conservatives ran a ‘negative’ campaign and, because you are either simply horrible human beings, or just thick, you fell for it. That’s been the subtext of most of the bien-pensants,

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The polling debacle – and the wisdom of Walt Whitman

I was at the IEA/Taxpayers’ Alliance post-election conference yesterday, listening to Lord Ashcroft giving facts and figures about why voters chose the Tories. Given how wrong all of the pollsters were, I did find myself wondering whether it was worth listening to this. A Tory majority government has just been elected, confounding every single bookmaker and pollster in the land. As Ashcroft was telling us that X per cent of Tories believed in Y sentiment, I thought: statistically, what percentage of these statistics are pure bollocks? How many of the polls I’ve been reporting for the last few weeks and months have been pure bollocks? So I gave up listening to Ashcroft’s conclusions and thought, instead, of a Walt

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Could this be the row that sees Douglas Carswell leave Ukip?

Ukip is embroiled in an almighty row about money. It suddenly has too much of it, apparently. Guido reports that Douglas Carswell is refusing to take the full £650,000 of Short money that his party is entitled to for running a parliamentary operation that represents the four million votes the party won in the election. Ukip HQ are insisting he should have it, while Carswell is insisting they only take £350,000. HQ sources have been handing out some pretty heavy briefings about Carswell refusing to represent the party’s four million voters. Given the Clacton MP has always operated in a rather detached manner within the party and could easily hold his

Ed West Ed West

Some advice to people angered by the election: add some Tories on Facebook

My father recently passed away, and the stories people inevitably tell of the dead brought back memories of childhood. As a small boy I remember Sunday lunches that culminated with my IRA-supporting godmother storming out after dad had said something especially offensive about Ireland. But she’d be back the following month and all was forgotten. Another of dad’s lunchtime friends, I remember, had the honour of being one of just 12 Englishmen to fight in the Spanish Civil War – for Franco. One crony, who I mainly remember smelling of whisky and offering my brother and me £50 if we learned Gaelic, had brought a Red Army Faction terrorist to

Steerpike Steerpike

Tory discomfort at equalities appointment

To appoint one Equalities Minister who voted against gay marriage looked sloppy, to do it twice looks frankly strange. Yet that is what the Prime Minister has just done. Education Secretary Nicky Morgan voted against same sex marriage in July 2013, though she claims she has subsequently changed her mind. Caroline Dinenage, the Gosport MP, who has just replaced Morgan in the Equalities brief, also voted against it. As one Tory MP ponders: ‘When almost half the Parliamentary party voted for same sex marriage why can he not find an equalities minister who did?’

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Labour lost the working-class vote a long time ago

What’s Labour’s problem? Following its fantastic drubbing at the polls, the most common answer to that question is that the party has for too long ignored its traditional base: working-class voters. Among media Labourites in particular, those currently writing emotionally unhinged articles about how isolated they feel in this cruel new Britain — bless ’em — this has become the go-to excuse for Labour’s rubbishness in recent years. Yes, there’s the issue of Tory-backing Rupert Murdoch’s stranglehold on people’s mushy minds, they say, revealing their disdain for tabloid readers. And there’s the apparently irresistible lure of the Tories’ politics of fear, which they believe ensnared a dumb electorate, once again

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The reshuffle hasn’t mollified everyone

With Dominic Raab’s appointment as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Justice, a pattern is starting to emerge in David Cameron’s reshuffle of reconciliations with old foes in a new parliament. Raab organised one of the most effective rebellions of the last Parliament on the Immigration Bill, which left the Tory whips in complete chaos. Now he has been brought into government. Cameron is also – belatedly – handing out jobs to members of the ‘Curry Club’: a group of Conservatives who are pretty savvy at sniffing out policies that won’t work on the doorstep (and who have rather proven this by increasing their majorities). Curry Club members include Tracey Crouch, who will

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron ‘absolutely clear’ about priorities in Cabinet address

As part of his new style of governing, David Cameron addressed Cabinet today with cameras recording the first bit. The idea was clearly to set out his mission for the Parliament, to set an idea in people’s minds of what it is that he stands for – just in case anyone had any doubts. Here is his full statement: listen to ‘Cameron addresses his new Cabinet’ on audioBoom

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Rory Stewart’s mysterious promotion to Defra

One of the stranger appointments of this reshuffle so far has been Rory Stewart being sent to Defra. The former chair of the Defence Select Committee does represent a rural constituency, but the obvious choice given his service in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been the Ministry of Defence. Perhaps this wasn’t possible given his passionate arguments in favour of maintaining defence spending at 2 per cent of GDP, which the Tories have refused to do. But another obvious choice would have been the Scotland Office, given his passion for the Union – and the location of his seat. During the referendum campaign, Stewart organised his own event called ‘hands

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Osborne left with two vacancies to fill

One of George Osborne’s political skills is his ability to put together a talented team. Few politicians spend longer thinking about who to have working for them. But post-election, Osborne is going to need to reshuffle his own, personal operation. For Rupert Harrison, his able economic adviser is off and now, I learn, that his press secretary Ramesh Chhabra is leaving too. It is no surprise that they are going now, the Treasury team has been on the political front-line pretty much every day for the past five years. Osborne poached Chhabra seven years ago when his boss David Davis resigned. Since then Chhabra has worked tirelessly on Osborne’s behalf.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Chuka Umunna confirms he will stand for Labour leader

In the last few minutes, Chuka Umunna has confirmed that he will be standing for the Labour leadership. The Streatham MP made the announcement in a video on his Facebook page while in Swindon – presumably to start undoing any claims his rivals will make that he is a candidate who only appeals to Londoners. He said: ‘I’m pleased today to be announcing that I will be standing for the leadership of the party. I think we can and we should be winning in seats like in Swindon. North, South, East, West we can absolutely do it as a party.’ Umunna added that he didn’t have much truck with the idea

Geoffrey Alderman

Student visa reforms will be a nightmare for university vice-chancellors

As the dust settles on the outcome of the 2015 general election, one group of business executives who we can be sure are less than ecstatic at what the future may hold in store for them are the university vice-chancellors. During the last parliament, Theresa May was responsible for a raft of ministerial directives aimed at reducing the number of students coming to the UK from outside the European Economic Area. She introduced a quota system for these international students, and forced (through the withdrawal of visa sponsorship licences) the virtual closure of scores of non-taxpayer-funded educational institutions. A number of taxpayer-funded universities also had their sponsorship licences suspended (notably

Sebastian Payne

Jim Messina interview: how the pollsters got it wrong and why Labour lost

Jim Messina is the American elections guru who got the general election right. Hired by the Conservatives as a strategy adviser in 2013, the Tories hoped he would emulate Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election strategy. And so he did. Whereas British pollsters consistently missed that the Tories were moving into pole position, Messina’s internal numbers showed for weeks they were on course to be the largest party. Speaking to The Spectator from Washington, D.C, he reveals that he was not at all surprised when the BBC exit poll showed the Tories were going to trounce Labour. ‘We predicted 312 seats that morning to Lynton [Crosby] and 316 was right in line with

Molly Guinness

Sensible Tories still believe in One Nation Conservatism

David Cameron has said the Conservatives will govern as a party of one nation. The phrase was apt at a time when part of the country seems to be pulling away with all its might, and after a bad-tempered election campaign, where class warfare was actively encouraged in some quarters. For a time, the phrase ‘One Nation’ was Conservative code for wanting to spend more, but that’s not what Cameron meant on Friday. This is how he put it: ‘We must ensure that we bring our country together…We will govern as a party of one nation, one United Kingdom. That means ensuring this recovery reaches all parts of our country,

Steerpike Steerpike

New SNP MPs take drinking advice from Alex Salmond

Ahead of the arrival of 56 SNP MPs in Westminster yesterday, Alex Salmond offered his new colleagues some advice in a recent interview. He said: ‘Make your voice heard, represent your constituents, and stay out the Strangers Bar’. So far, so good. In fact, Salmond will no doubt be glad to hear that his fellow MPs have taken his advice and stayed out of the Strangers bar. Instead, they have opted to make Parliament’s sports and social bar their new base. Word reaches Steerpike that a few members of staff had their noses put out of joint last night when the lesser frequented bar was unexpectedly busy. ‘It was packed full of the SNP gang – on a Monday,’

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Blue collar Conservatism is essential but difficult for the Tories

David Cameron is holding the first all-Tory Cabinet meeting since 1997 today, and he is expected to emphasise his mission for this Government to be characterised by ‘blue-collar Conservatism’ in which the Tories become the natural party of working people. It is, some hope, David Cameron’s chance to show, finally, what he stands for in politics. Previously when the Tory leader focused on a defining brand and a moral mission, it seemed a bit wishy-washy and insincere, with a lot of hugging of dogs and green trees. Then in this election campaign Cameron ended up being brutally pragmatic, not so much giving voters a reason to vote Conservative, but a

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

It’s not just pollsters. David Cameron has also confounded economists with his jobs miracle

David Cameron realised rather late on that the job miracle, rather than George Osborne’s dubious claims about deficit reduction, was the main economic boast of the last few years. And rightly: he is the first Prime Minister in the history of these islands to have presided over the creation of 1,000 jobs a day. His detractors argue that this numbers thing is simply a function of immigration. That of the 2 million jobs he boasted about creating, 1m of them are foreign-born workers. This is broadly correct (below). But let’s look at unemployment as a share of the workforce. This time last year, where did the economic forecasters think it would go? The answer comes in the blue

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

No Cabinet job for Grant Shapps

The party chairman in a general election winning campaign can normally expect a plum job as a reward, especially when that victory was against the odds. Tonight, though, Grant Shapps finds himself not in the Cabinet but a Minister of State at the Department of International Development. Shapps’ treatment is, at first, puzzling. After all, the Team 2015 network that he created appears to have done a decent job in neutralising the supposed advantage that Labour’s ground operation was meant to give it But those around the Tory leader, say that David Cameron simply became fed up with the odd allegations that kept popping up about Shapps. So, the fairness—or