Politics

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

Thursday

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Nick vs Nigel sketch: Farage edged ahead of a pompous Clegg – but there was no knock-out blow

Never mind the arguments, the body language said it all at the EU debate last night. Nigel Farage was relaxed, smiley and upbeat. Nick Clegg had a solemn and rather shifty air. He looked like a plain clothes undertaker handing out business cards in Casualty. Power has enclosed him in a layer of pomposity and self-righteousness (adding to a pretty thick undercoat, it has to be said), and he admitted no flicker of warmth or humour to his performance. Even his geniality was ice cold. When asked a question by the audience he memorised the questioner’s name and used it repeatedly during his answer. Where did he get that trick?

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Has Ed Miliband’s luck finally run out?

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_27_March_2014.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss whether Miliband’s luck has run out” startat=802] Listen [/audioplayer]Ask anyone in Westminster about the obstacles to a Tory victory in next year’s election and you’ll hear a well-rehearsed answer. The constituency boundaries are so ancient that Labour can win on a far lower share of vote; Ukip is eating into the Tories’ base while the coalition has united the left behind Labour; being beaten by Ukip in the European elections will send Tory MPs into a regicidal frenzy. By contrast, Labour appears to be holding itself together; its problems are hidden well below the waterline. But that’s changing. The Budget has brought

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Nigel Farage wins LBC debate but will he regret ‘blood on their hands’ comment?

Tonight’s YouGov poll says that Nigel Farage won the debate with Nick Clegg by 57 per cent to 37 per cent. But, intriguingly, the plurality of those polled said that they’d vote to stay in the EU. For Farage, the hope has to be that this victory gives him back some of the momentum that he lost when Romanian and Bulgarian immigration failed to become the problem that he had predicted it would be. He’ll also be happy with the fact that 70 per cent of Tory voters polled said that he’d won. The Liberal Democrats will not be surprised to lose tonight. For them, the bonus is that Clegg

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Ed Balls ruins Miliband’s piece of theatre

Last week, if you can remember that far back, World War Three was about to start in Ukraine. The fixture was postponed, thankfully, and politics at Westminster has returned to the usual domestic blood-letting. Both leaders were in chipper mood. Cameron sees everything moving in his direction, including the Labour party which has accepted his benefits cap. Miliband was equally buoyed up. He was grinning and skipping at the despatch box like a boxing kangaroo. The energy giant SSE had just announced a price freeze till 2016. Which is exactly what Miliband prescribed last autumn. So today, at least, he appears to be running the country. Naturally he made the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Small Labour rebellion as 22 MPs vote against welfare cap

The Commons has just backed the government’s welfare cap by 520 votes to 22 against. As that figure for the Noes will include SNP MPs, this means a very small rebellion on the Labour benches – around 13. Party sources were yesterday briefing they expected around two dozen of their backbenchers to vote against. Tory deputy chief whip Greg Hands has already taken the opportunity to tweet the names of those he saw going through the No lobbies in this vote. 13 Lab rebels on Welfare Cap: Abbott, Campbell, Clark, Connarty, Corbyn, Hopkins, Jackson, McDonnell, Mudie, Riordan, Skinner, T Watson,Wood — Greg Hands (@GregHands) March 26, 2014   We’ll bring

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Nick Clegg stands to beat Nigel Farage in tonight’s Europe debate. Here’s why.

Tonight is the first round of the Clegg/Farage debate on Britain’s EU membership. It is perfectly possible that both of the leaders could benefit from it. They could emerge as champions of their causes and gain plaudits for having the courage to debate the issue. But I suspect that this won’t happen. They both believe too passionately in their positions on Europe to play it safe, thought they might be cautious tonight knowing that there’s another debate coming in a week’s time. One other thing that has raised the stakes is the barrage against Farage. If Farage has a poor night tonight, there’ll be a lot of talk about how

James Forsyth James Forsyth

PMQs: Lib Dems have thwarted changes to fox hunting law

Ed Miliband started strongly at PMQs today. He seized on Scottish and Southern’s announcement that they’ll freeze energy prices as a justification of his most popular policy, the energy price freeze. He mockingly asked Cameron if he still thought the idea was unworkable and a Communist plot. listen to ‘PMQs: Cameron vs Miliband on energy prices’ on Audioboo

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

PMQs: who will take credit for SSE’s price freeze?

Perhaps both David Cameron and Ed Miliband will try to take credit for SSE’s announcement that it is freezing its prices until 2016 when they tussle at PMQs. Number 10 this morning said: ‘Anything which helps consumers with their bills is to be welcomed, of course and one of the things that the company is explaining today is it is able to, a principle reason why it is able to make this decision is because of the rolling back of the green levies and green charges, which is a result of this government.’ This is true, but it’s not quite the full picture. The only reason the government decided to

Alex Massie Alex Massie

It is not surprising that the polls on Scottish independence are tightening…

There are some pollsters who believe nothing has changed since 2011. All the storm and blast, bluff and bluster about Scottish independence has had no impact at all. The settled will of the Scottish people remains settles: more power for Edinburgh but no to independence. Oddly YouGov’s Peter Kellner is one of these pollsters. Oddly because, as the chart above shows, his own polling organisation’s reports show that the race is, as long expected, tightening. There is a small but definite drift to Yes. True, at its present rate it will not be enough to prevail come September. But it is quite possible that the drift towards a Yes vote

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

‘Net migration’ is bogus. Maybe we should look at ‘net foreign migration’?

Mark Field, MP for Westminster, has set up a brand new campaign group of Tory backbenchers called Managed Migration – as opposed, you might think, to the unmanaged sort we have at present. But he’s not actually in favour of managing migration in the conventional sense; he wants the PM to drop the party’s commitment to containing overall numbers of net migrants to the ‘tens of thousands’ though there seems fat chance of that just now.  Big increases in net migration, he says, are a tribute to the recovering economy. He’s got a point in one sense. As the economy improves, fewer Brits want to leave, which has an effect on net numbers.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick v Nigel: what Cameron should worry about as he watches today’s fight

Even though it’s not unreasonable to predict that both Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage can emerge from tonight’s LBC debate feeling they’ve won (they’re preaching to quite different choirs), it’s still worth remembering that the one who lands a killer blow or smart put down will get the best clip on the 10 o’clock news. David Cameron says he won’t be watching the debate, implying he’s not bothered by this sideshow. Few believe this. But as he does furtively follow the exchanges while pretending to watch one of his favourite box sets, the Prime Minister will see both Farage and Clegg rubbish his renegotiation strategy. The former thinks it is

Tuesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act is no longer helping Miliband

Up until now, the fact that we know the date of the next general election has worked in Ed Miliband’s favour. He has known the timetable to which he has to work and has been able to resist demands to produce policy early by pointing out that we know the next election will not be until May 2015. But in the present circumstances, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act is not helping Miliband. Normally, in the fourth year of the parliament with the government receiving a bounce in the polls, the opposition would be wary of a snap election. This would create some internal discipline. But everyone on the Labour side now

Sebastian Payne

Can the government avoid another rail fiasco before 2015?

There’s some exciting train news today, and no, it’s not related to HS2. The Transport Secretary has announced that the franchise for the East Coast Mainline has gone out to tender. Britain’s second busiest railway marked a low point for rail privatisation, when National Express bombed out of the franchise and Labour nationalised the line. Since then it has been under government control and the coalition has delayed throwing it back into the private sector several times. How have each of the operators fared on the line? Since British Rail was privatised in the early 1990s, the ECML has been run by Great North Eastern Railways (1996 to 2007), National

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Lib Dems go cold on candidate after ‘Jesus and Mo’ row

The Lib Dems are considering scaling back their fight for Maajid Nawaz to win the Hampstead and Kilburn seat after the row about his ‘Jesus and Mo’ tweet, I have been told. This very marginal seat, which Labour’s Glenda Jackson holds with a majority of just 42, had been one of the Lib Dems’ key target seats. But a very well-placed senior source tells me that after the ‘Jesus and Mo’ row (which Nawaz had an extremely bad-tempered debate about with Mehdi Hasan and Mo Ansar on yesterday’s Newsnight), those involved in the party’s campaigns have privately concluded that the candidate has seriously damaged his chances of winning the seat

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Will welfare cap vote be Miliband’s biggest rebellion?

So Rachel Reeves confirmed in the Commons today that Labour will back the welfare cap when it comes to a vote. Tory MPs cheered her as she announced this. There is a rebellion brewing on the Labour benches on this, which party sources are saying they remain ‘vigilant’ about. Some claim that this will be the biggest revolt of Miliband’s leadership. If it is, then it will have to surpass the 40 Labour MPs (39 and one teller) who rebelled against their party’s official position on welfare sanctions just over a year ago. The then Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne instructed Labour MPs to abstain on a bill

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg’s new running sore

Nick Clegg spent the first 20 minutes of Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions looking a little miserable. A wan smile did flicker across his lips at about 18 minutes in, but it didn’t spread to his eyes or stay very long at all. In fact, he appeared to be doing his best to fit the best ever P.G. Wodehouse description of a man looking like ‘a cat which has just been struck by a half-brick and is expecting another shortly’. Fortunately for Clegg, the other half of the brick didn’t turn up. In fact, when the time came for Harriet Harman to savage the DPM, he appeared quite happy that she’d

Steerpike Steerpike

Ed Miliband’s sympathy for ‘needy’ Gove

Congratulations to Sarah Vine. Last night the Mail columnist achieved the almost impossible feat of getting the leader of the Labour Party to defend his party’s favourite pantomime villain: Michael Gove. ‘I feel like I should rush to your husband’s defence now,’ spluttered Ed Miliband on ITV’s Agenda last night, declaring that he was sure that the Education Secretary (Vine’s husband) was a great father. The secret to Vine’s success is to have no secrets. She is making a career out of revealing the minute details of the power couple’s domestic arrangements. And last night she regaled the show with tales of paternity leave in the Gove household: ‘He hung around

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Today’s inflation fall means the Tories can have their interest rate cake and eat it too

Today’s inflation figures bring more good news for the government. CPI inflation is now down at 1.7 per cent, the lowest rate in four years and below the Bank of England’s target – so making it less  likely that interest rates will rise before the next election. Inflation as measured by RPI is 2.7 per cent, down from last month’s 2.6 per cent. With Osborne’s pensioner bonds, which will offer 4 per cent return, the Tories can now have their interest rate cake and eat it. Adding to the buoyant mood in coalition circles is that Labour still hasn’t worked out its critique of the Budget. I’m told that Labour

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Harriet Harman: Labour is making steady progress

‘I don’t think things are going wrong,’ Harriet Harman insisted on the Today programme. ‘I think we’re making steady progress. And if you look at when people actually vote, for example in council elections, then actually around the country we’ve got nearly 2,000 more councillors since Ed Miliband became leader.’ listen to ‘Harman: ‘I don’t think things are going wrong’ with Labour’ on Audioboo Miliband last night admitted on ITV’s The Agenda that 2015 will ‘be a close election’. Harman helped flesh out why when she defended her leader, telling Today that ‘I think that Ed Miliband has absolutely identified that people are feeling a real squeeze on their living