Politics Archives

Thursday

29 Jan 2015

Steerpike

Tory MP ‘plotted to knock over’ BBC cameraman

Michael Cockerell’s new documentary series inside the House of Commons saw the reporter gain unprecedented access to parliament. However, while many MPs were keen to be involved, a group of Tory MPs plotted to knock over a BBC cameraman in order to stop them filming. The astonishing claim was made by Cockerell at a press screening today of Inside the Commons ahead of its release next Tuesday. ‘There was a plan by some backbenchers to knock our cameraman over so that proceedings would be suspended and we would be blamed for it,’ he revealed. ‘But it was thwarted by the man in charge of security. The doorkeepers are the eyes and ears and the

Isabel Hardman

Green MP hides mention of party from campaign literature

The Greens may be in the middle of a national ‘surge’, with more than 50,000 members, but in one part of the country, their brand isn’t particularly trendy. In Brighton, the Greens on the council aren’t the best advert for the party – something our leading article picks up on this week. Indeed, such are the tensions between the party on the council and the local MP, Caroline Lucas, who faces a tough fight to keep her Brighton Pavilion seat, that she joined the picket lines to protest pay cuts introduced by her own party. Now I’ve come across some of Lucas’s campaign literature which suggests that she’s not always

Steerpike

Coming soon: David Cameron’s obituary

Isabel Oakeshott has gone to such lengths to get close to David Cameron for the biography she is helping Lord Ashcroft write that she has even been pictured following him on his jogs. Now David Cameron’s nemesis Ashcroft has given an insight into what readers can expect from the tome. Speaking at the Political Book Awards, Ashcroft, who was a sponsor of the event, had a choice use of words to describe the biography of the Prime Minister. ‘I hope that next year with Isabel Oakeshott that we may have one of the books up there for ‘Political Book of the Year’. As most of you know we are writing

Steerpike

Rory Bremner takes John Bercow to task over million pound gym revamp

John Bercow got more than he bargained for last night when he presented an award at Paddy Power’s Political Book Awards. Appearing on stage alongside Rory Bremner to giveaway the gong for ‘Polemic of the Year,’ the Speaker of the House of Commons was grilled by the impressionist on the rising cost of the Westminster gym upgrade. Bremner said, ‘Can I ask you, have you come from the new gym?’ ‘I have, I was there earlier, I didn’t see you there,’ Bercow replied, nervously. The 53-year-old Scotsman then asked Bercow if it was really true that a spinning room at the costly gym had been named in his honour. ‘It’s not called the spinning room, you

James Forsyth

Europe’s crisis is Cameron’s opportunity

Napoleon notoriously preferred his generals to be lucky — and on that score at least, he would have approved of David Cameron. The triumph of the Syriza party in Greece presents him with a glorious opportunity to solve the European question that has bedevilled the Tories for so long. Europe’s difficulty is Cameron’s opportunity. The European elite has been shaken by the scale of Syriza’s victory. Just a few weeks ago, Cameron was arguing in private that Greek voters, who remain overwhelmingly pro-EU, would ultimately not back a party that was intent on a confrontation with the eurozone authorities. European diplomats stressed that even if Syriza won it wouldn’t get

Martin Vander Weyer

What’s good about austerity (whatever the Greeks think)

The only question I remember from my Oxford moral philosophy paper was ‘What is integrity and is it a virtue?’ In the margins of all the politicking that follows the victory of Syriza in the Greek election, I hope someone asks: ‘What is austerity, is it a virtue, and why has it worked in the UK and Ireland but failed in Greece?’ My own definition of austerity in the context of financial crisis, when I debated it with former Greek finance minister George Papaconstantinou, was ‘a synonym for frugal, uncorrupt government supported by willing taxpayers of the sort that has been largely absent in southern Europe’, at which George got

Dennis Sewell

The Tories have one real success in government – and they’re scared to talk about it

The most significant achievement of this coalition, the only thing they really have any right to crow about, and possibly all that posterity will ever remember them for with anything approaching gratitude, will not be the ‘long-term economic plan’ they never cease to talk up, but the school reforms that the Conservatives seem almost to want to deny as the general election approaches. This reticence is a mistake. With many voters grown so cynical about mainstream politics that they’re ready to throw in their lot with any passing populist chancer, here is a rare success story that needs shouting from the rooftops. It’s a story about how a cabinet minister

Isabel Hardman

Why would someone pay hundreds of pounds for one snowdrop bulb? I think I know

I think I’m coming down with galanthomania. It’s a rare affliction, but one that’s hard to shake, and it’s affecting more people every year. Galanthus are snowdrops, and galanthomania is a 21st-century version of that 17th-century craze for tulips which began in the Dutch golden age. At the height of the tulip mania some bulbs were selling at 3,000 or 4,000 florins, almost ten times a craftsman’s annual wage. Snowdrop bulbs aren’t there yet, but collectors spend hundreds of pounds on some rare bulbs, and seed company Thompson and Morgan broke records in 2012 by paying £725 for a single specimen. This rare flower, Galanthus woronowii ‘Elizabeth Harrison’, has yellow

Mary Wakefield

Do I really care about Ebola? Do you? Does Oxfam?

It’s strange how quickly we all forgot about Ebola. Speak for yourself, you might say — and I will. Until a friend sent me a report this week on the progress of the epidemic, Ebola had, I’m sorry to say, almost faded from my mind. The report contains good news: where the outbreak was worst, in Liberia, there are now just five cases left. Ebola treatment centres are shutting down, unneeded — and I was delighted but also ashamed. I have been to Liberia and written about it and I had thought last year that I cared tremendously about its fate, more than others, perhaps. My heart bled even as

Wednesday

28 Jan 2015

James Forsyth

More of the same from Cameron and Miliband at today’s PMQ’s

David Cameron ran down the clock very effectively at PMQs. With only a few sessions left between now and the general election, Cameron blocked Miliband’s questions on the health service by demanding that the Labour leader apologise for apparently saying that he wanted to ‘weaponise’ the NHS in this election campaign. Despite Cameron now using this line at every PMQs, Miliband had no effective response to it. So, Cameron was able to get away with simply not answering Miliband’s questions. The result: at the end of PMQs, politics was in the same place as it was at the start and with the Tories now convinced that events are moving their

Nick Cohen

Political correctness: How censorship defeats itself

A cretin writing in this morning’s Telegraph doesn’t understand the meaning of ‘cretin’. Just about every writer writing about Benedict Cumberbatch in every paper yesterday failed to understand that Cumberbatch was not a racist because he had said ‘coloured’ rather than ‘person of colour’. Poor fool that he was, Cumberbatch had wanted to use his appearance on US television to complain about the lack of opportunities for black actors in Britain: ‘I think as far as coloured actors go, it gets really different in the UK, and a lot of my friends have had more opportunities here than in the UK, and that’s something that needs to change.’ After the battering

Steerpike

Vote of no confidence for ‘offensive’ Ian Liddell-Grainger

Ian Liddell-Grainger has been branded unfit for purpose by local Tories. The Conservative MP is facing calls to be deselected as a Tory candidate for the general election, with Conservative councillors in West Somerset passing a vote of no confidence in him. The Tories on the council are cross because he’s allegedly made ‘gratuitously derogatory and offensive comments about West Somerset Council, its leaders and some of its councillors and officers’. The charge sheet includes other accusations of bullying and immoral and dishonourable behaviour. Liddell-Grainger is certainly an outspoken chap. When his constituency was flooded last year, he said of Environment Agency chief Chris Smith that ‘If I just have to stick his head

James Forsyth

Could Trident be moved to Wales?

There’s a belter of a scoop in today’s Daily Mail. James Chapman, the paper’s political editor, reports that the Ministry of Defence is examining plans to move Trident from Scotland to Wales. I’m particularly confident that this story is correct because I had heard something very similar from Whitehall sources. There is understandable concern that a second independence referendum in Scotland is now likely and so the whole question of where to move Trident in the event of a Yes vote arises again. I also wonder if this work might not come in handy in the event of a hung parliament where the Scottish Nationalists hold the balance of power. The SNP have repeatedly

Isabel Hardman

Not all the worriers in Labour are from a previous ‘era’

The papers are full of Blairite warnings to Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham about the way Labour is campaigning on the NHS at present. Alan Milburn’s World at One interview gets a great deal of coverage, and just to twist the knife a bit further, the former Cabinet minister joins John Hutton to write in the FT that ‘if Labour is to win in May, the two Eds need to set the record straight and reclaim ground foolishly bequeathed to their opponents’. They’re talking about the economy, criticising the current Labour leadership for apologising too much for New Labour’s spending when the Tories supported it (a pithy line in the

Tuesday

27 Jan 2015

Isabel Hardman

Nicky Morgan: British values test isn’t just about Muslim schools

Nicky Morgan has launched a rather strident defence of the government’s ‘British values’ agenda this evening, after fears that it is being used to punish schools unfairly. The Education Secretary recently announced that the Christian Durham Free School would close after Ofsted inspectors said teachers were failing to challenge ‘racist words and sexually derogative and homophobic terms’ and that it was failing to promote the values set out by ministers. In a speech to think tank Politeia, Morgan said: ‘I’m afraid I have no sympathy for those who say that British values need not apply to them, that this should purely be a special test for schools in predominantly Muslim

Sebastian Payne

Majority of voters want Cameron as PM — but would prefer a Labour government

What do the British public want from their government after 2015? Well, unless things are really going to shift in British politics in the next few weeks, they still want the impossible: a Labour majority government led by David Cameron. According to a poll from ComRes/ITV News out this evening, 55 per cent said their favoured scenario is for David Cameron to remain Prime Minister, compared to 45 per cent for Ed Miliband. But 51 per cent would prefer Labour winning a majority of MPs — two points ahead of those who’d like to see a Tory majority. This contradiction is not new. Cameron has always polled ahead of his party

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Senior Tories protest removal of Theresa May’s advisers from candidates list

Senior Tories yesterday protested the removal of Theresa May’s special advisers from the candidates’ list, Coffee House understands. There had been talk of mounting a ‘rescue mission’ to reinstate Nick Timothy and Stephen Parkinson after they were struck off the list before Christmas, but at a board meeting of the Conservative party yesterday, MPs representing the 1922 Committee expressed their discomfort at the way the pair had been treated. Many in the party feel it was a vindictive swipe at Timothy and Parkinson, who do not enjoy good relations with Number 10. They had hoped that the board, which is the ultimate decision-making authority in the party, might overturn the

Isabel Hardman

80 Tories could reject plain packaging

While Cabinet members grumble about the way the government’s plain packaging announcement was snuck out last week, those Tories opposed to the measure have been counting up the number of colleagues who will vote against it.I understand that they are expecting at least 80 Tory MPs to reject the introduction of plain packaging in the free vote. Their numbers could be reduced because the measure will pass and some will wonder whether rejecting a government proposal even in a free vote is worth it.Some are absolutely opposed to the idea on principle. Others are really annoyed at the sneaky way ministers brought it out. Others still are annoyed that this

Isabel Hardman

Labour fails to turn up to work for Treasury questions

The Commons is pretty quiet at the moment, draining of energy earlier and earlier in the week as MPs head out to their constituencies. So quiet, in fact, that Labour seems to have given up on using departmental question times as a forum for making government ministers uncomfortable or piling any political pressure on their opposite numbers. Yesterday’s Work and Pensions Questions were pretty lacklustre from an opposition attack point of view, but today’s Treasury questions were far worse. Tory MPs had turned up with piles of sickly sweet loyal questions to ask, most running along the lines of ‘is the Chancellor aware that he’s doing a fantastic job?’ The

Sebastian Payne

100 days till polling day: the Tories are just ahead but anything could happen

Today marks 100 days till the election — so how is the race looking? Still very close, according to the most recent opinion polls. In three polls released over the last 24 hours, the Tories are ahead by one point — according to YouGov, Survation and ComRes (notably, the first time they’ve put the Tories ahead since 2011). Only Lord Ashcroft has the Tories level pegging with Labour. As the chart above shows, the two main parties are neck and neck. The Tories will be hoping these small leads will grow over the next few weeks while Labour will be pleased their opponents have yet to gain much traction. Ukip’s vote