Politics Archives

Tuesday

17 Jun 2014

Please David Cameron, no moral grandstanding over Iraq this time

A preview of Mary Wakefield’s column in this week’s Spectator… If there’s a bright spot in the murky mess of Iraq, it’s that finally we have a war that it is impossible to paint in simple terms, as a battle of good against evil. This time, even our PM, the self-appointed heir to Blair, can’t grandstand about defeating ‘terror’ or protecting ‘innocent civilians’ because there’s terror and innocence on every side. He can’t pose as world policeman; stand side by side with Obama and say ‘we must not let this evil happen’, because clearly we already have. Take ISIS, the Islamist group once affiliated to al-Qa’eda who’ve become the world’s

Isabel Hardman

Govt sources: die is not yet cast for Juncker

Funnily enough, the government seems a little less bullish about blocking Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission than it did a fortnight ago. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman was asked about the reports that the die is now cast for Juncker, and whether his appointment could bring forward the UK referendum on the matter. He said: ‘In terms of the referendum, the Prime Minister’s approach for a referendum and the 2017 timetable, that is entirely unchanged, and will not change.’ He added that British officials including this country’s ambassador to the European Union would continue to make the point that ‘the actions of the European Union between now

Isabel Hardman

Tory ministers will abstain on a knife crime amendment they support

The Commons will host another odd coalition situation this afternoon, as MPs vote on Nick de Bois’ amendment to the Criminal Courts and Justice Bill which introduces mandatory minimum sentences for repeat knife offences. Nick Clegg and David Cameron have agreed to waive collective responsibility for this vote. The Lib Dems who have publicly opposed this policy, will vote against. Tory backbenchers will be free to do as they please, as will PPSs, but ministers will abstain on the amendment. This looks a bit poor: David Cameron has made clear that he supports the de Bois amendment, which is a means of bypassing the Lib Dems to get this policy

Alex Massie

Scaremongering and smearing: just another day in the Scottish referendum campaign.

I was surprised to discover this morning that Gordon Brown last night suggested the Scottish education system should be abolished and replaced by a new pan-UK curriculum and examination system. This would indeed be a bold thing to recommend three months before the independence referendum. A surprise too and the sort of thing you’d expect to be all over the news today if it weren’t, of course, the case that the press is irrevocably biased against the nationalists and determined to bury anything that might embarrass Unionists. Still, Gordon said it. He must have. Otherwise why would Kenny Gibson MSP say Gordon Brown “has endorsed the idea of a UK-wide education

Steerpike

Politicians don’t make good sports

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has a long way to go if he is serious about his awkward watching sport photographs. Proud of our boys who secured our first point–hopefully the first of many more to come. #WorldCup2014 #TeamMelli pic.twitter.com/9pzyT1Dr3f — Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) June 16, 2014 Last night’s effort was a good start, but he will have to up his game if he is to continue with these homages to Cameron: Who can forget the awkward Cameron and Merkel shots from the 2010 World Cup: And while Rouhani is gently being welcomed in from the cold, he’s going to have to wait a long time before he can display such

Isabel Hardman

Cameron needn’t worry too much about Juncker fallout – for now

What happens if, as reports suggest today, David Cameron fails in his bid to block Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission? It will make the Prime Minister look weak. It will make his renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with Europe and his call for reform of the European Union as a whole much more difficult. These are serious wounds. But the Prime Minister may at least relax that he’s not going to face an uprising in Westminster. Eurosceptic MPs have appreciated his stand on this issue, and are – by and large – committed to fighting for general election victory. They’ll think about other fights after that general election.

Monday

16 Jun 2014

Sebastian Payne

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is wrong — my generation isn’t selfish or obsessed with cappuccinos

Is Generation Y becoming more right wing and self-obsessed? Radio 4 broadcast a very interesting documentary tonight, Generation Right, on whether my generation is becoming more individualistic — featuring this parish’s Toby Young and Fraser Nelson. Both argued that some of our values might be perceived as right-wing but the trend isn’t that simple. Thanks to greater choice and empowerment of the individual, Generation Y is far less trusting of the state, which one could translate as a form of small-c conservatism. The Independent’s Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is someone who believes that. She told Radio 4 my generation is selfish and spoilt: ‘…they’re a frightfully spoilt generation. They hate the fact they don’t

Isabel Hardman

Michael Gove is being helped by Labour’s poor discipline and weak attacks

It doesn’t really matter whether Dominic Cummings’ Times interview was unhelpful to Michael Gove. Labour has just been about as helpful to the Education Secretary as it possibly could be without announcing that it supports everything he does, right down to the detail of the history curriculum. Education questions this afternoon was the perfect opportunity to exploit the gift of an interview in which Gove’s trusted former adviser attacked David Cameron and the Number 10 operation. But the attack never really came. Kevin Brennan asked about Cummings’ line that he signed into government departments and Number 10 as ‘Osama bin Laden’. Gove’s reply was, as predicted, ornate and beautifully defensive.

Camilla Swift

The government’s plans to embrace technology in the classroom

How can technology help British students to acquire the skills they need to succeed? This is the question that Matthew Hancock, Minister for Skills & Enterprise, addressed this morning at a Spectator forum on the importance of addressing Britain’s skills deficit. On the same day, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills released their response to a report they commissioned in a bid to embrace technological advances in further education. Modern technology has the ability to break down so many educational barriers, as Molly Guinness discovered in her interview with the scientist Sugata Mitra in May, who used a computer installed in a public wall to develop the Sole method of

Steerpike

Carpet-bagging MP confuses Yorkshire and Durham

Helen Goodman, the Labour MP for Bishop Auckland in Durham, was born in Nottinghamshire and brought up in Derbyshire, so you would have thought that she might take extra care to brush up on her local knowledge of Durham to avoid accusations of ‘carpet-bagging’. The Northern Echo gleefully reports: ‘The village of Ingleton is so famous for its beautiful waterfalls and deep caves that MP Helen Goodman waxed lyrical about them as she opened a County Durham fair. Unfortunately for the Bishop Auckland MP she was talking about Ingleton, in North Yorkshire – which lies 70 miles away.’ The reaction from the local population has been blistering. Take Durham resident

Isabel Hardman

How will Gove deal with Dominic Cummings’ attack on Number 10?

One of these days, former Gove adviser Dominic Cummings is going to tell us what he really thinks. He’s followed up his interview with the Times (£) in which he describes David Cameron as ‘bumbling’ and attacks the team around the Prime Minister with a blog examining the gap between politicians and the electorate and the failure of successive governments to learn from mistakes. The main problem for Number 10 in Cummings’ analysis of the way it works is that he’s not the only one who holds that opinion. He argues that Number 10, like MPs, has ‘no real knowledge of how to function other than via gimmick and briefings’ and

Rod Liddle

A small town in Yorkshire turns racist

A small Yorkshire town has been hugely enriched this year by the arrival of 500 Roma people. The village of Hexthorpe was once boringly, stultifyingly, monocultural – and you would think that locals might have welcomed this influx of vibrant diversity. Not a bit of it – they called a public meeting and complained long and loud in a manner which, frankly, can only be called racist. They warned, too, that there would be violence in the streets. Is it too much to hope that one day these uneducated and bigoted Yorkshire folk will understand that claiming benefits, fly-tipping, littering the streets, threatening people and playing loud music all night

Alex Massie

David Cameron is a Tory, not a radical. Which is both a strength and a problem.

There is much to enjoy in Dominic Cummings’ glorious attack on the ghastliness of Britain’s political system. It is a cri-de-coeur from a man who, whatever else may be said of him (and his enemies have plenty to say), has given the matter some thought. Westminster will swoon at the criticisms of Cameron (‘a sphinx without a riddle’), Ed Llewellyn (‘a classic third-rate suck-up-kick-down sycophant presiding over a shambolic court’) and Craig Oliver (‘just clueless’) but that’s just the gags, really. The substance is elsewhere. As in: “MPs have no real knowledge of how to function other than via gimmick and briefings. That’s also how No 10 works. It’s how

Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg is setting out what the Lib Dems stand for

What is Nick Clegg up to? He held a press conference today to tell us that his party’s manifesto will be a Lib Dem manifesto, not a manifesto aimed at a partnership with Labour or the Tories. And he announced that his party will ring-fence education spending for two-to-19-year-olds in the next Parliament. The Liberal Democrat leader told the assembled hacks that Britain needed to move from ‘austerity to ambition’, another fortune cookie phrase presumably cooked up by whoever thought ‘Alarm Clock Britain’ made sense. Clegg said: ‘As we look towards 2015, it’s clear to me that Britain doesn’t want or need simply more of the same. The Conservative party

Dominic Raab

Oxfam’s Vanity Fair

Today, dozens of campaign groups rushed to defend Oxfam’s advert attacking government austerity for ‘forcing more and more people into poverty’, claiming complaints about politicisation were an attempt to ‘silence legitimate debate’. In a free country, pressure groups are part of the fabric of our democracy. But, if they choose to be charities for ‘public benefit’, they must remain independent to justify extensive tax breaks. Oxfam sounds like an echo chamber for the Labour Party – and taxpayers aren’t there to subsidise that. Like the Hollywood blockbuster it was mimicking, Oxfam’s ad mixes fact and fiction. It conjurs a tempestuous image of The Perfect Storm of ‘austerity Britain’, ‘starring: zero-hours

Sunday

15 Jun 2014

Steerpike

Exclusive: Nigel Evans: I’ll be back

Mr Steerpike can exclusively reveal that former Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans is to run for a senior position on the 1922 Committee executive. The recently vindicated Tory MP remains popular on the backbenches, and has been keeping a deliberately high profile since being cleared on nine counts of sexual abuse. The all-powerful committee is the repository of backbench opinion and sets the agenda when it comes to internal Tory politicking. Sources familiar with the Evans bid are quietly confident that their friend will become a significant player in Tory circles again, come decision day. Jason McCartney, the former Liberal Democrat candidate and journalist-turned Tory MP, is also running for a top

Hamish Macdonell

If a men-only referendum was held, Salmond would win comfortably

Another day another poll or, rather, another day and we have another two polls on independence. Scotland on Sunday today published an ICM poll which found support for Yes on 45 per cent and support for No on 55 per cent, a gap of ten points (once don’t knows had been excluded). But, most importantly what this means is that the gap between the two sides has narrowed by six points in the last month. [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/mG0gU/index.html”] According to ICM, the Yes side has gone up by three points since mid May while the No camp has gone down by three points. ICM has always maintained a good reputation for

James Forsyth

Is Labour’s machine up to fighting a general election campaign?

Judging by the tone of the commentary at the moment, you would think that Labour were badly behind in the polls. In fact, they are ahead by a few points—a margin that would still give Miliband a majority. But what should worry the Labour leader most is that every time the Labour machine is put under scrutiny it is found wanting. Tom Watson, in an intervention that will further worry leadership loyalists, has been out and about making this point this morning. Last month’s election campaign when Miliband didn’t know the name of the candidate he was campaigning for in Swindon was all too typical of Labour’s failings. The left

Saturday

14 Jun 2014

Isabel Hardman

Ex-Tory minister: free schools will let extremists in

The row about extremism in schools has over the past week widened out to the role of faith in education in general. This morning I interviewed Crispin Blunt, a former Conservative Justice Minister and Duncan Hames, a Lib Dem MP, for Radio 4’s The Week in Westminster. Blunt told me he fears that the Coalition’s own flagship free schools programme will sow division in England and allow extremist sects to educate children at the taxpayer’s expense. He went so far as to suggest that free schools would move England towards the situation in Northern Ireland: listen to ‘Crispin Blunt and Duncan Hames on faith in schools’ on Audioboo

Friday

13 Jun 2014

Fraser Nelson

The British jobs miracle, in six graphs.

No one quite expected it, and even now ministers struggle to explain it. But the British jobs miracle has become the single biggest fact of economic life – proving that sometimes, things go badly right as well as badly wrong. Cameron has now overseen more job creation than his last six predecessors did at this stage (above). The excellent Michael Saunders from CitiGroup has produced an excellent report about it (pdf) and some of his charts are below. 1Jobs growth is beating every single forecast (see chart of total jobs, above), even the optimistic forecasts that George Osborne was publishing when he was talking about abolishing the deficit in five