Politics

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

Friday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The NHS Wales disaster vindicates Tony Blair, not David Cameron

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_January_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Charlotte Leslie and James Forsyth join Sebastian Payne to discuss the NHS.” startat=1410] Listen [/audioplayer] As someone who believes that a Labour government would be a calamity for Britain, I ought not to mind the recent fuss about NHS Wales. Yes, it is a disaster – as the Daily Mail has been cleverly highlighting. And it has been run by Labour for 15 years, so they’re guilty as charged. Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, makes this point powerfully today. But if the English NHS is much better by comparison to Wales, it’s not because of him, nor because of David Cameron. It’s because of Tony Blair. The NHS

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The EU’s gift to Nigel Farage – Brussels demands £1.7 billion more from Britain

With truly dreadful timing, the European Commission has sprung David Cameron with a demand for £1.7 billion in extra British budget payments to the EU. The commission says this amount is due because the British economy has performed better than forecast. But this unexpected demand is for serious money, an almost 20 per cent increase in the British contribution. If Britain pays up, Christmas will have come early for Nigel Farage and Ukip. This explains why all three Westminster parties have been so quick to denounce the demand as unacceptable. There are mutterings of legal challenges and the like. The money is due by December 1. But politically, I don’t

Steerpike Steerpike

Westminster’s gone barking

It’s that time of year again – sandwiched between conference season and the Autumn statement – when the nation’s political pooches (and their owners) descend on Westminster. Yes, yesterday saw the Westminster Dog of the Year show, 2014. Last year’s winner, Noodle the cockerpoo (and her owner, Alan Duncan) had been promoted to the judging panel after her success, and seemed keen to be back on the podium. She wasn’t the only one, either. David Burrowes’ Cholmeley (who came third last year, and second in 2012), also seemed very attached to the winner’s platform, and posed nicely alongside it. But sadly for Cholmeley, there was no space for a labrador on

Thursday

Griff Rhys Jones

Griff Rhys Jones’s diary: I am now less of a celebrity than my daughter’s dog

In order to promote the Dylan Thomas in Fitzrovia festival, I am trying to persuade Jason Morell, the director, that he must help me come up with stunts. ‘It’s stunts that will get us into the meeja,’ I tell him. So we launch the ‘Dylan Thomas Fitzrovia Breakfast Challenge’. Gary Kemp, Tom Hollander, Owen Teale and myself swallow a glass of beer with a raw egg in it — the great Celtic bard’s preferred nutritional morning kick-off. We are supposed to film it and challenge three others to do the same in aid of inner-city charities, and thus news of our festival will spread like a west African disease. Nobody

The Spectator

Deal with the debt, George Osborne? You’ve hardly started

George Osborne has declared victory over Ed Balls, the IMF and all the others who warned that his austerity measures would throw Britain back into recession. But his triumphalism obscures a huge failure: his inability to contain the national debt. While the UK economy has been growing strongly (it is currently the fastest-growing of any developed country) the public finances have taken a dramatic and sudden turn for the worse. It emerged this week that, between April and September, the Chancellor borrowed £58 billion — £5.4 billion more than during the same period last year. Osborne’s original plan to eliminate the structural deficit by the election has been off course for

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Kelly Tolhurst wins Rochester primary on turnout of 5,688

Kelly Tolhurst has won the open primary to be Conservative candidate for Rochester and Strood, I understand. The result is not due to be announced until this evening, but I hear that Tolhurst won by fewer than 50 votes on a turnout of 4,000. The turnout is the key in this as it will give some indication as to the level of interest in the constituency in the Conservative candidate. It is worth bearing in mind that the turnout in Sarah Wollaston’s open primary in Totnes was 16,497. That much lower turnout in a more high-profile contest following a defection will add to party worries following yet another poll showing

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Paedophile crimes should not be used to score points against ‘The Establishment’

Fiona Woolf, as you can probably tell from her Maggie-Smith-in-yet-another-costume-drama photograph above, is a member of The Establishment. She’s Lord Mayor of London. And a QC. Plus, she has been at the same social events as former home secretary Lord Brittan and his wife; is even sort of friends with Lady B, in common with hundreds of other well-connected people. That’s the thing about being of a certain age and professional eminence – you keep being introduced to each other and occasionally show up at the same dinner parties. Take another example: Baroness Butler-Sloss. Her late brother, Lord Havers, was attorney general when Leon Brittan was in office. So you could say that

Steerpike Steerpike

Breitbart’s loss is Nigel Farage’s gain – or is it?

It’s no great surprise that Raheem Kassam, the troublesome managing editor of Breitbart London, has left his job. Kassam is a wildly self-important figure who flits about on the internet Right. Mr Kassam is famed for his inflated sense of self-importance, and Mr S particularly enjoyed the write up of the new job, mysteriously under an anonymous by-line on Breitbart: ‘Breitbart London understands from senior UKIP sources that Kassam was picked specifically for his political nous and campaigning prowess.’ What’s intriguing, though, is Kassam’s new job: he has been taken on as a ‘senior adviser’ by Nigel Farage. Kassam is a professional wind-up merchant, of sorts, too — and trained in

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The UKIP effect: killing the thing you love

This chart, courtesy of Mike Smithson, shows Ipsos-Mori’s polling on British membership of the European Union. It shows support for leaving the EU is no higher now than it was 20 years ago. I’ll wager this surprises you. As you can see, there has always been a constituency for leaving the EU. Public enthusiasm for the european project has always been conditional. Despite that, the unhappiness of a known known has generally proved more attractive than the uncertainty of a known unknown. (This, ahem, is also true of certain other constitutional questions with which we have wrestled recently.) But how can this be? How can UKIP be soaring in the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why the UK should should be subject to different rules on European migrants

The rest of Europe has, predictably, reacted negatively to the suggestion that the UK should be able to impose some kind of cap on free movement while remaining in the EU. At first glance, it does sound as if David Cameron wants the UK to stay a member of the European club without subscribing to one of its founding rules. But there’s actually a very good argument for why the UK should be treated differently. As I say in my column this week, Britain is the one major EU economy that is never going to join the euro. This makes Britain a special case. If there is no limit on

The Spectator

Podcast: Europe, counties and hipsters

This week’s issue of the Spectator takes a close look at Europe. Nicholas Farrell focuses on the terminal decline of Italy, and asks whether anything can be done to stop the rot. Daniel Hannan, the Conservative MEP, suggests that David Cameron might not mean it when he says he will campaign for an EU exit if he doesn’t receive better terms from Brussels. And James Forsyth suggests Ukip isn’t the only thing changing Cameron’s mind about immigration. James presents the podcast, and is joined by Mats Persson, director of Open Europe, and Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive for Business for Britain. From European borders to English ones. Matthew Engel suggests that if we

Daniel Hannan

How Cameron could make the EU a winning issue (and why he won’t)

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth, Mats Persson and Matthew Elliott discuss Europe” startat=60] Listen [/audioplayer]Imagine if David Cameron actually meant it. Imagine if he really did follow through with his implied threat to campaign for Brexit in the absence of better terms from Brussels. You can picture the televised address. An oak-panelled background with a large union flag hanging sedately in the corner, the PM with that furrowed house-captain expression he sometimes does. The script pretty much writes itself. ‘All of you know how hard I tried to secure a new deal. I was often criticised for being too conciliatory, but it was my duty to do whatever was in my

James Forsyth James Forsyth

It’s not just Ukip that’s changing Cameron’s mind about immigration

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth, Mats Persson and Matthew Elliott discuss Europe” startat=60] Listen [/audioplayer]It is easy to mock David Cameron on immigration. Under pressure from the public and from Ukip, he’s having to hot-foot it to a tougher position on the free movement of labour within the European Union. Ideas dismissed as unworkable only a few months ago are now on the table. But it’s not all political positioning. There really is a serious case for Britain to be treated differently from eurozone countries when it comes to freedom of movement. Whoever ends up in government after the next election, Britain’s relationship with the EU is going to have to

Harry Mount

It’s time to shave that beard: the decade of the hipster is over

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Harry Mount and Aleks Eror discuss hipsters” startat=1572] Listen [/audioplayer]Calling all hipsters, it’s time to get the razor out! You have hit peak beard. You’ve had a decade of getting away with those narrow, short trousers and the studiously thought-out socks; with the Victorian archdeacon beards and the shaven sides to your heads. It wasn’t even that good while it lasted. Like gay fashionistas — but without any humour or bite — the hipsters stood in front of the wardrobe for an age every morning. And then proceeded to pick out random combinations of clothes straight from the £1 reject basket in a rural Norfolk branch of Help

William Cook

A voyage along my grandfather’s coastline

My grandfather was born in a huge white house on the Baltic coast of eastern Germany, and ever since I was a child I’ve been fascinated by this enigmatic tideless sea. I’ve travelled along its southern shore, from Germany to Estonia, but I’d always wanted to sail across it, and last month, at last, I did, aboard the Queen Victoria on Cunard’s Royal Viking Adventure. I joined the cruise in Stockholm (the other passengers had sailed here from Southampton). Why had no one ever told me what a stunning city this is? Perched on a little island, the old town is perfectly preserved — a cluster of cobbled alleys, patrolled

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Ukip 13 points ahead in Rochester & Strood

Tonight, we have a second poll from Rochester & Strood and it again shows Ukip ahead. Mark Reckless doesn’t lead by Clacton margins—Ukip are on 43 and the Tories 30 in this ComRes poll—but his advantage is formidable with just four weeks to go. Particularly alarming for the Tories is how many voters there intend to use this by-election to kick the government. 62 percent of those polled agree with the statement that, ‘“This by-election is a good opportunity for me to show David Cameron and the Conservative Party how unhappy I am with their government”   Having already announced that Cameron—and every other Tory member of the Cabinet—will visit

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Cameron and Miliband squabble over the NHS, while saying nothing

It didn’t work. But it was a good idea. David Cameron prepared an ambush for Ed Miliband at PMQs today. The trouble was he attacked the Labour leader for a vice he himself has mastered with conspicuous aplomb: question dodging. Miliband is clearly in trouble. He’s using his only remaining strength, the NHS, to prop up his burgeoning weaknesses. Expect this to continue till next May. There’s always a calamity somewhere in the NHS and for Miliband, ill tidings are like gold dust. He painted a picture of a basket-case health system that would have shamed a failed state in the Middle Ages. Cameron, he said, wasted billions on a

Charlotte Henry

Nick Clegg stakes the middle – again – but is it the sweet spot for Lib Dems?

Speaking at a south London primary school this morning, Nick Clegg firmly reiterated the Lib Dems’ equidistance between the two other major parties. Before an assortment of public-sector workers, Clegg attacked the potential ‘reckless borrowing’ of Eds Balls and Miliband, as well as George Osborne asking ‘the working poor to bear the brunt’ of cuts. ‘In the centre,’ he said, ‘my party, the Liberal Democrats, we believe in sound public finances, supporting strong public services.’ Stop me if you’ve heard this before. What was (sort of) new was Clegg stating that, ‘once we’ve balanced the books, clearing the so-called structural deficit, the Liberal Democrats will increase public spending in line

Steerpike Steerpike

Gunpowder, treason and caviar – selling out in Westminster, Guido style

If you’re going to sell out to the establishment, you might as well do so on an industrial scale. As the PM told the Guido Fawkes blog’s ten -ear anniversary party at the Institute of Directors last night, via video link, ‘what better way’ to celebrate ‘rejecting’ the cosy political classes than a posh dinner of caviar and champagne in the heart of Westminster. Guy Fawkes would have been turning in his grave, as cabinet ministers including Francis Maude and Liz Truss, and mysterious billionaires such as Michael Hintze and Lord Ashcroft, along with 200 of Westminster’s finest, came to pay homage to a decade of sniping from waspish troublemakers.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Ukip’s unsavoury Polish ally in the European Parliament

One of the best arguments against European political integration is the people with whom British political parties end up allied in the European Parliament. For reasons of parliamentary influence and, let’s be frank, money, British parties don’t want to sit on their own, so instead sit as part of broader European groups. Now, all of these groups contain MEPs whose views would be considered distasteful in Britain. But even by this standard, Ukip’s latest recruit to its group seems pretty extreme — Robert Iwaszkiewicz comes from a party that even Marine Le Pen refused to do business with. The leader of his party, the Polish Congress of the New Right,