Politics

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

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Uproar in the Commons: the story so far

This is an extract from tonight’s Evening Blend email, a free summary of the day’s political developments from the Spectator team. To subscribe, click here. And to read the email in full, click here. Thanks to Theresa May’s hard work, tonight’s vote on the European Arrest Warrant was looking to be a reasonably downbeat affair, with around 30 Tory rebels expected and the package of justice and home affairs opt-ins due to pass on the strength of government payroll and Labour votes. But things escalated rather quickly once MPs were inside the Chamber. All weekend there had been confusion about whether the vote on the European Arrest Warrant was indeed

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Government wins crunch vote on European Arrest Warrant by NINE VOTES

The government has just won the vote extending the debate on the justice and home affairs opt-outs by just nine votes – 251 ayes to 242 noes. This means that MPs have approved the motion for the debate to continue to 10pm, which rebels and Labour had turned against because the Speaker had said that this was not a vote on the European Arrest Warrant. Theresa May is insistent, though, that this is a vote on the matter. Such a narrow win is clearly a relief for ministers  – and many of them had been hauled into the Commons early by panicked whips who suddenly realised they were facing a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Commons uproar: European arrest warrant debate in a ‘total mess’

The government is in a total mess this afternoon. The whole house of Commons has turned on Theresa May and Chris Grayling for the way they have handled the vote on the European arrest warrant. MP after MP is calling, via points of order, for the motion to be withdrawn. The whips are in frantic conversation. Update, 17.26  May is now speaking and she appears to be sticking to her line. I hear that whips are trying to get all of the payroll vote ready to support the business motion that the house will vote on, as there are fears that the government will lose it.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Net migration target becomes an ‘aim’ or ‘objective’

When is a target not a target? Theresa May seems quite keen for us to think that Tory pledge to bring migration down to the tens of thousands was a ‘comment’ or an ‘aim’, now that it doesn’t look as though that’s going to be possible in time for the election. Today Number 10 did insist that there had been no change in the target, but also refused to call it a ‘promise’. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘There’s no change. That remains the objective towards which the Prime Minister and others are working… It has always been the objective. There’s been no change, the tens of thousands by

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour hedge bets on PR firm

The Labour Party has asked the mad men over at Lucky Generals to work with them at the next general election, according to Campaign magazine. Seasoned watchers of this sort of thing will recall that Lucky Generals created Labour’s car-crash party political broadcast featuring a shrinking Nick Clegg (above). Despite a well rounded and widespread panning of the advert, the agency boasts about it on their website. ‘The film was the most talked-about political broadcast of recent times,’ they claim. Yes, but for all the wrong reasons. Mr S also wonders how Lucky General’s work for bookies Paddy Power will sit with the Labour team. Miliband has promised to clamp

Steerpike Steerpike

Nick Clegg sweats it out on court against Cameron’s crony

On Friday, Mr S boarded the Thames cruiser the Silver Sturgeon to join TV presenter and former tennis pro Andrew Castle in welcoming heavy hitters Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray back to London for the ATP World Finals. But for Castle, it was a less experienced tennis player who was weighing on the former British No.1’s mind. ‘I played a charity match with Nick Clegg last month,’ the presenter, who regularly puts his old chum David Cameron through his paces on court, sighed during the Moët & Chandon Thames river cruise. Although Nick Clegg had previously described the match as ‘great, great fun,’ Castle confided to Steerpike that relations between

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

European Arrest Warrant vote mired in confusion

The government’s vote on the European Arrest Warrant this evening is becoming rather confused. The motion does not include a mention of the warrant itself, which ministers had hoped would have a psychological effect on MPs considering how to vote, as the division would not be solely about the most contentious measure. The motion is as follows: ‘That the draft Criminal Justice and Data Protection (Protocol No. 36) Regulations 2014, which were laid before this House on 3 November, be approved.’ The chairmen of three select committees last week described the voting arrangements for this evening. Keith Vaz, Home Affairs Select Committee chair, Bill Cash, chair of the European Scrutiny

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

May cautious on net migration target

Judging by how happy she is to talk about the case for remaining within it, Theresa isn’t expecting a big rebellion on the European Arrest Warrant later today. She may have driven down some of the numbers by not talking about the measure in the motion that’s before the Commons, but really it’s a combination of her behind the scenes talks with MPs to persuade them she has secured reform and a desire on the part of backbenchers not to make the story about Tory revolts when things are going so badly for Labour that’s swung it. There is, as ever, internal Conservative grumbling that the rebel whips haven’t been

Sunday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour unrest: What Ed Miliband can learn from David Cameron’s struggles with the Tories

Well, the Labour party certainly knows how to give the appearance of a fight when its back is against the wall. Many MPs and supporters have spent quite a lot of this fine autumn day tweeting frantically that this morning’s unpleasant headlines (summarised in their full gory glory by James here) are a plot by the media to stop their thoroughly decent leader making it to Downing Street and why aren’t we all writing about the problems that David Cameron has with the Conservative party instead? They protest too much: if lobby journalists were organised enough to compile time sheets, most of us would quite clearly have spent the bulk

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Labour leadership crisis that David Cameron would have scripted

So far, this is the Labour leadership crisis that David Cameron would have scripted. The papers this morning are full of awful poll findings for Ed Miliband, negative briefings and on the record criticism from his own side. But, there is no sign of a challenger yet nor has a frontbencher resigned. So, all this strife is doing is further turning public opinion against Miliband and turning the focus to where the Tories want it to be, is Miliband Prime Ministerial material? Where does all this go from here? Well, if Alan Johnson was at all interested things would get very interesting very quickly. But his denials seem entirely genuine. This

Saturday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why did George Osborne spoil a genuine victory with spin?

After spending so many years pointing out Gordon Brown’s tricks and deceits, I had hoped for a bit of a retirement when George Osborne took office. No such luck. The Chancellor seems to have learned too much from his old nemesis and seems unable to resist stretching the truth – sometimes until the elastic snaps. So it proved with yesterday’s EU negotiation. The Chancellor is blowing smoke, but it seems that the £1.7 billion bill has been halved automatically by the application of the UK rebate – in the same way that previous adjustments have been halved automatically by the UK rebate. Osborne’s achievement – a smaller, but genuine one – was to delay

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Miliband triggers an outbreak of political unity – though not the sort Labour wants

Is the latest Labour leadership crisis actually triggering new wave of party unity? Lord Prescott, who has slammed Miliband as ‘timid’ for his ‘complacent’ leadership style, spotted John McTernan, Tony Blair’s former political secretary turned columnist, in the reception of the BBC after they had both been on the airwaves to discuss the party’s dire straits. ‘I remember when we used to disagree about things’ called out Prezza. And it’s not just sparring partners in his own party who Ed is bringing together. At last some common ground has been found between Ukip and the Tories. ‘He’s the best thing going for absolutely everyone right now,’ one Ukip spin doctor

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory eurosceptics plot to use loss in Rochester to pressure Cameron

Labour might be mired in misery this week, but at least it can take comfort that around the corner is the Rochester by-election, which the Conservatives look set to lose. Not one MP returning from campaigning against their former colleague Mark Reckless honestly thinks they’ll win, even if they tweet nice things and post aggressive videos. Let’s just remind ourselves of why losing this constituency is particularly painful for the Conservatives. They spent their conference calling Reckless a ‘dickhead‘ and saying they thought they could win the by-election because he was a liar, and he didn’t have the same personal appeal as Douglas Carswell in a constituency considered far less

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory MPs react to Osborne’s ‘EU bill deal’

So are Tory backbenchers happy with what George Osborne claims to have brought back from Europe after his talks on that £1.7 billion bill? While the government argues with the European Commission about what it has and hasn’t secured this afternoon, the Right of the Tory party have already been working out what they think. Some had set a very low limbo bar of £400 million, and Britain certainly will end up paying more than that. The first thing is that they’re naturally not happy with the idea that Britain is paying anything. The basic view of those in the No Turning Back and Cornerstone groups is that Osborne should

Anne Jolis

Smoke, mirrors, magic: how George Osborne “halved” the £1.7bn EU bill

George Osborne took a victory lap on Friday to declare that ‘instead of footing the bill, we have halved the bill.’ This would be the £1.7 billion EU budget invoice the European Commission handed to the UK government in October, with a pay-by date of 1 December. After meeting with his EU counterparts today, the UK finance minister announced a deal in which ‘the bill instead of being £1.7 billion will be around £850 million’. Er…not quite, as it turns out. Here’s what Osborne left out: the UK will still owe the full £1.7 billion, only not all in December, and would be able to quickly offset part of the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Did Osborne halve Britain’s EU bill by admitting that growth still leaves him broke?

George Osborne will tonight return from Brussels bringing peace with honour. He says he has agreed to hand over just £850 million to the EU, rather than the £1.7 billion it asked for, as a penalty  for having the fastest economic growth in Europe. If true*, how did he wangle it? I have a theory. He could have told the EU that yes, the UK has pretty strong growth – over 3 per cent this year and next. In theory, this leaves the UK better-able to pay bills. But not this time. Quite the reverse: the deficit is actually going up right now – a bit of an embarrassment for a Chancellor who asked to be

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Osborne gets Britain’s £1.7bn bill halved—and no payments before the election

Update: In the last few hours, there has been huge confusion and heated debate over whether the British bill has actually been halved. Click here for the verdict of Open Europe which concludes that ‘ Osborne [is] right on the amount but may be exaggerated the extent of the concession.’ A deal has been reached over the supplementary £1.7 billion bill that Britain was handed by the European Commission a fortnight ago. Britain will now pay no more than £850 million, a halving of the bill. George Osborne insisted that the Commission apply the ‘British advantage’ element of the rebate to the bill which led to this 50% reduction. Other EU

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Alex Salmond’s School of Denial

Alex Salmond is on his way out. The First Minister gives every impression of enjoying – or at least making the most of – his farewell tour. And why not? Far from weakening the SNP, defeat in September’s referendum has – at least for now – strengthened the party. Its supremacy is unchallenged and while recent polls putting the Nationalists on 50 percent of the vote are unlikely – surely! – to last forever this is the kind of problem worth having. Nevertheless, the First Minister’s final days in office have also reminded us that policy and, indeed, philosophy are not necessarily Salmond’s strengths. Unusually, First Minister’s Questions proved a

Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

Shoot first, ask questions later – police back off new gun monitoring plans

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a new Crimestoppers telephone hotline that the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) decided would be a good idea, that was going to be dedicated specifically to ‘concerns about legally held firearms’. What ‘concerns’, exactly? Well, mainly that shooters could be ‘vulnerable to criminal or terrorist groups’ which is why the new phone line was designed to help the police ‘gather intelligence’, by urging members of the public to report any signs of ‘radicalism, extremism and vulnerability to terrorism’ among gun owners. But after a dedicated campaign from the Countryside Alliance, the decision has been made to abandon the plans. The organisation had