Politics

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

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

Listen: The Spectator’s verdict on the opposition leaders’ TV debate

Ed Miliband managed to surpass expectations in tonight’s opposition leaders’ debate. In this View from 22 podcast special, Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and I discuss the final televised debate with the party leaders — minus David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Did Nigel Farage target  his core base once again? How successfully did Nicola Sturgeon deal with Ed Miliband’s attacks? And did Natalie Bennett and Leanne Wood manage to have their voices heard? You can subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week, or you can use the player below:

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Ed Miliband’s gamble paid off but the Scottish question still haunts him

Ed Miliband took a risk by turning up to this debate and until the last question it looked like it had definitely paid off. Miliband avoided conceding too much to the anti-austerity alliance to his left of Nicola Sturgeon, Natalie Bennett and Leanne Wood and parried Nigel Farage’s attacks on Labour pretty effectively. On Trident, he sounded statesmanlike as he explained why in an uncertain world, Britain needed to renew its nuclear deterrent. All the while, he got in regular attacks on David Cameron both for his record in government and not being at the debate. But the last question was about hung parliaments and it is this which caused

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why Ed Miliband is taking part in tonight’s TV debate

Tonight Ed Miliband takes one of the big risks of the campaign. He debates with Nicola Sturgeon, Nigel Farage, Leanne Wood and Natalie Bennett. All of these leaders will be aiming to score points off Miliband. Those close to the Labour leader give several reasons for why he is taking part tonight. They argue that he does well whenever he’s given the chance to speak to voters directly. But the main reason for Miliband’s doing this debate is the Scottish situation. Labour feared that without Miliband present, this debate would have turned into a clash between Sturgeon and Farage — which would have benefitted the SNP north of the border.

Steerpike Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Nick Clegg tempts fate with BLUKIP photoshop

Today Nick Clegg revealed a new poster claiming that the Tories could form a coalition with Ukip. Speaking about the prospect of ‘BLUKIP,’ Clegg warned of the potential dangers of such a pairing: ‘The prospect of a left wing alliance between Labour and the SNP has been well covered. What’s equally possible is an alliance that will drag Britain further and further to the right: BLUKIP – a bloc of right wingers from UKIP, the Conservatives and the DUP that could hold the balance of power. There is a very real danger that Nigel Farage and his friends could hold David Cameron to ransom.’ Still, Mr S can’t help but think Clegg is already pre-empting his

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

The moral arguments for confronting Islamic State are increasing by the day

It’s not perhaps the first thing you notice in the Labour manifesto, but one interesting commitment by the party is to establish a Global Envoy for Religious Freedom. It may or may not be an indication that Douglas Alexander reads The Spectator – which suggested some time ago that Britain should, like Canada, have a roving envoy to support specifically freedom of religion – but it’s a good move. Given the remarkable insouciance of the Coalition government on the issue of the persecution of religious minorities and Christians in particular – there was no obvious British reaction, for instance, to the consistent string of attacks on innocent Christians in Pakistan

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tories and Labour keeping policies up their sleeves

Three weeks from now, people will be voting and the parties will just be getting a sense of how this election is shaking out. But in a sign of how both the Tories and Labour are expecting this contest to go to the wire, I understand that they have both held policies back from their manifesto so that they can use them in the final days of the campaign. The thinking is that by keeping some things back they can use these policies to grab the initiative in the campaign at crucial points. At the moment, the polls show no sign of breaking either way. What does seem to have

Steerpike Steerpike

Why Ed Balls doesn’t deserve to be compared to Gromit

Last week’s cover of the Spectator featured Ed Miliband and Ed Balls drawn in the style of Wallace and Gromit by Peter Brookes. However, the image of the shadow chancellor as Gromit the dog has caused concern for one reader: Balls is no Gromit Sir: Your front cover illustration depicting Ed Miliband and Ed Balls as Wallace and Gromit (11 April) is only partially justified. In the animated film, Gromit is a quick-thinking and highly resourceful companion who rescues Wallace from difficult situations. On the available evidence, Ed Balls does not fit that description. Frank Tomlin, Billericay, Essex Should Balls wish to make the case that he is a quick-thinker, Mr S advises

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour aide picks up Ed Miliband’s drink bill

Taking a break from preparing for tonight’s debate, Ed Miliband has been out about in Hornsey, north London. Trying to look normal by visiting Riley’s Cafe (with an entourage and security detail, just like all normal people), it looked like the Labour leader had dropped the first big election clanger of the campaign. Channel 4’s political correspondent Michael Crick tweeted to say that Miliband had failed to pay for his coffee: It turns out Crick’s story was a bit frothy. Mr S understands that an aide picked up the tab to avoid an awkward row. Still, no word yet on whether Miliband’s coffee drinking skills rival his aptitude for eating bacon

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Schoolchild tells Tristram Hunt he would vote Ukip to ‘get all the foreigners out’

Tristram Hunt encountered every politician’s nightmare on the campaign trail this morning. When visiting a primary school in Derbyshire, the shadow education secretary asked a schoolchild how they would vote in the general election. The answer was probably not one he was expecting: Tristram Hunt: Do you know who you’d vote for? Schoolchild: Ehhh, Ukip Hunt: You’d vote Ukip? Very good. Why’s that? Schoolchild: Eh, I’d like to get all of the foreigners out of the country Finally, we have the first moment of the campaign to rival Gordon Brown’s Gillian Duffy gaffe in 2010.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Yes, the SNP really is a faith-based party peddling miracles

The thing about faith is that, in the end, it’s unfalsifiable. You either have it or you don’t. But even within the community of the faithful there must be room for doubt. Indeed it’s the doubt that often proves the faith. The late Neil MacCormick (praise be upon him, etc), once suggested there were two kinds of Scottish nationalist. The existential, come-what-may, nationalist and the utilitarian, evidence-weighing, nationalist. It was, and remains, a cute distinction. Unfortunately, for the most part, it is also bogus. A man – or, indeed, a woman – may start as a utilitarian nationalist but by the end of his cost-benefit analysis he is likely to

Sebastian Payne

Watch: Nigel Farage interview on South Thanet, tactical voting, Douglas Carswell and those HIV comments

Nigel Farage has been mysteriously absent from the election campaign trail. In the latest Mini Election interview, I spoke to the Ukip leader about his race in South Thanet and whether he any regrets about choosing a seat that was not particularly Ukip-friendly. ‘None’, he said despite the ‘vitriolic campaign against me’. Farage added, ‘Don’t forget I stood here in 2005 and I’ve worked with this branch since 1999 to try and build it up.’ Nor does Farage regret saying he would stand down as Ukip leader if he fails to win South Thanet — arguing that ‘it’s the right thing to do’ and this fight is his Becher’s Brook.

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour MP suggests Ed Miliband is not speaking frankly about NHS spending

This morning Sir David Nicholson criticised Ed Miliband for failing to commit an extra £8 billion a year towards the NHS. The former head of the NHS said that Labour needed to follow the example of the Tories and Lib Dems by signing up to the pledge. Now, Frank Field, the Labour MP, has come out in response. However, rather than rush to Miliband’s defence, he has claimed that each main party leader, including Ed Miliband, is not being frank about NHS spending. Field says in a press statement that it will only be after the election that Labour, along with the other major parties, will be able to seriously discuss their plans for the

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: 21 days to go

Now that all the manifestos are in the public domain, we are back onto more conventional campaign territory. The big event of today is at 8pm this evening, when the ‘opposition leaders’ will debate each other on the BBC in the final televised debate before polling day. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today’s main election stories. 1. Here come the insurgents Tonight’s TV debate represents an opportunity for the smaller political parties to give Ed Miliband a good kicking. Nicola Sturgeon, Nigel Farage, Natalie Bennett and Leanne Wood will all relish the chance to turn on Miliband — the

Robert Smith

Exclusive: Where the next generation of MPs think the burden of cuts should fall

What do the next generation of MPs think with regards to public services, government spending and taxes? Coffee House has got its hands on new research by Ipsos MORI on the opinions of prospective parliamentary candidates from the main parties. The pollsters interviewed almost one hundred PPCs – 26 Conservative, 29 Labour, 20 Liberal Democrat and 11 SNP – who are all standing in marginal or safe seats, and therefore stand a good chance of making it to the green benches after the general election. Here are the points that stand out: 1: Defence cuts on the front line Defence cuts lead the way for both Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates who

Sebastian Payne

Who lies behind these three new pro-Conservative blogs?

Three new anonymous pro-Tory political blogs have popped up in recent weeks. All are rather curious: none carry bylines, and two are so technically similar that they could have been made in the same place. They were introduced to the world by Louise Mensch in a post for ConservativeHome. In fact, Guido Fawkes has suggested that Mensch might know who is behind them: So are they real? Or astroturf — a Westminster term for something that looks like grassroots but is actually from someone connected to the campaign? I’ve done some digging to find out more. Publicly Inconvenient Publicly Inconvenient is a cheerfully designed site, layered with cartoons by Gary Barker. Mensch described it as a ‘good policy blog’. The

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Mob rules

A spectre is haunting Europe — and knocking on the door of Downing Street. It has installed a president in France and a mayor in New York. It is causing mayhem in Spain and Greece and insurgency in Scotland and it may yet halt Hillary Clinton’s march to the White House. This idea — left-wing populism — is a radical, coherent and modern response to the financial crisis and the hardship suffered since. It is being effectively harnessed by Ed Miliband, taking him within touching distance of victory. And it may well become the creed that guides the next five years of British government. The Labour manifesto that was published

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron must show he’s not too posh to push

At 5.45 a.m. Lynton Crosby holds the first meeting of the day at Conservative campaign HQ. The aim is to work out what threats need to be neutralised that day and what opportunities should be capitalised upon. The early start isn’t macho posturing but a reflection of the modern media environment. The news now moves at such pace that a lie can go all the way round the worldwide web before the truth even has its boots on. The political weather is rarely more changeable than in a close election campaign. In this environment, the trick is to work out what actually matters: what might determine the election. But after

Robert Philpot

Jews against Miliband

When he was seven, Ed Miliband was taken to visit his grandmother in Tel Aviv. Pointing to a black-and-white photograph in her home, young Ed demanded to know who ‘that man in the picture’ was. He was told the man, David, was his grandfather and had died in Poland many years before he was born. Only years later did Miliband realise that his grandfather had been murdered by the Nazis for being Jewish. Miliband’s parents only narrowly escaped a similar fate: fleeing Belgium as the German armies overran it in 1940, his 16-year-old father caught the last boat from Ostend to Britain. In Poland, his mother — together with her sister

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Did the £20 million Norwegian’s pay row make BG cheaper for Shell?

Helge Lund was widely expected to go into domestic politics when he ended his successful tenure as head of Statoil, the Norwegian state oil and gas company. Instead, he was hired to run BG Group, the troubled former exploration arm of British Gas, but on a promise of such ludicrously rich terms — up to ten times his Statoil salary — that shareholders, the media and Vince Cable howled in protest. An embarrassed BG board had to scale back the offer, though it remained pretty fat and as I wrote at the time, ‘no mention of Lund, however good he turns out to be, will ever omit a jibe at

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

David Cameron’s Evan Davis interview: defenceless on defence

“I’ve got it too,” said David Cameron, whipping out the ‘contract with Britain’ he published five years ago. His team seems have prepared him for the format of Evan Davis’s BBC interviews: confront the subject with discomfiting material, probe a bit and see what happens. But he was less prepared for being challenged from the right.  Davis asked him on his failure to commit to the basic Nato minimum of spending 2pc of GDP on defence – in spite of his badgering other countries to do so at the Nato summit in Wales. “I don’t think that you’re willing to say Britain will stick to its international obligation on defence,” he said. “We’re keeping it clearly