Politics

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

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Revealed: how Nick Clegg cooked up his ‘free school meals’ pledge

For those who missed Dominic Cummings, recently departed Michael Gove adviser, on BBC Radio 4’s World At One, here’s the extraordinary transcript which confirms what Coffee Housers will have feared. He didn’t give an interview, but responded to the BBC’s questions (below) about Nick Clegg’s plan to give free school meals to all school pupils – even the offspring of millionaires. And to me, this sums up why coalitions are a bad idea. The junior partner gets desperate for a jazzy-sounding idea to call their own, so ambush their senior partner. An announcement is made, for reasons of spin and nothing else. No policy work is done. The expectations of

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Revolts over Immigration Bill loom in House of Lords

Awkward rows about who employs ‘cheap foreign labour’ aside, the immigration issue is going to blow up again in the next couple of weeks when the Immigration Bill reaches report stage in the House of Lords. There are two main problems with the legislation which could lead to some very awkward votes at this stage – and both are being highlighted in the current committee stage. The first relates to fines for private landlords who do not make adequate checks on tenants who then turn out to be illegal immigrants. It has been unpopular ever since it was announced, with landlords arguing that the government is trying to recruit them

Steerpike Steerpike

Alistair Carmichael: Chris Huhne put the ‘T’ in Cancun

Jovial Lib Dem Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael addressed lobby journalists over lunch today. Speaking from his experience as the party’s former chief whip, he managed to praise the discipline of his party in the Coalition. But he also recalled a rather tense episode with Chris Huhne refusing to return to the UK to vote: ‘One thing which I was thinking about recently was that Chris Huhne, in the interests of tackling climate change, had managed to be at some big summit in Cancun, so was not available to take part in the division on the day and it was one of the features of Chris’s political operation that when the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Lib Dems could go from being the ‘nice party’ to the ‘nasty party’

Danny Alexander managed to please Ed Balls at Treasury Questions today by revealing that he wasn’t opposed to the Shadow Chancellor’s call for the Office for Budget Responsibility to audit the spending pledges made in an opposition party’s manifesto. He told the Commons: ‘I think this is an idea well worth further consideration, Mr Speaker. What I’d be worried about in taking it forward is the pressure it would place on the Office for Budget Responsibility, which is a new organisation that’s only recently taken on responsibility for forecasting the public finances. I’d worry that in the first election when they have those responsibilities this function might be difficult for

Sebastian Payne

Renewal offers a vision for a Tory workers’ budget

How can the Tory party broaden its appeal? Renewal, a group founded to do just that offered its answer at a packed Westminster pub yesterday evening. With just eight days to George Osborne’s 2014 budget, Robert Halfon MP and Renewal’s David Skelton offered their vision of a ‘workers’ budget for the Workers’ Party.’ Arguing that ‘what happened in Scotland [to the Conservative party] is slowly happening in the North’, Halfon outlined why he believes the Conservative Party needs to change its narrative, mission and structures to go beyond its traditional reach, particularly with working class and ethnic minority voters. Firstly, to address the Conservative party’s lack of a ‘moral mission’,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Bob Crow, 1961-2014: An old-fashioned trade unionist

Bob Crow’s death is a shock – he was only 52 – but it also signals the end of old-school style union operating. Crow was a real old-fashioned union boss. He cared only about the deals for his workers, not the wider party political machinations that other leaders such as Len McCluskey and Paul Kenny like to embroil themselves in. As Ed wrote in March, he focused on the interests of working people without much regard to anything else, including regular rage from commuters. His union was the first to be booted out of the Labour party after a series of rows which culminated in RMT refusing to sever links

The Spectator

RMT leader Bob Crow dies – reaction

RMT leader Bob Crow has died aged 52, the Press Association is reporting. Only yesterday the union boss was giving broadcast interviews, including this one on BBC Radio 4’s PM programme. The RMT released a statement this morning saying: ‘It is with the deepest regret that RMT has to confirm that our General Secretary Bob Crow sadly passed away in the early hours of this morning. ‘The union’s offices will be closed for the rest of the day and the union will make further announcements in due course. The media have been asked to respect the privacy of Bob’s friends and family at this difficult and distressing time.’ Here’s Boris

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The British constitution has never made sense or been fair. Why expect it to do so now?

Well, yes, Hamish Macdonell is correct. A coherent devo-max option could win the referendum for Unionists. Some of us, ahem, have been arguing that for years. There were, of course, good reasons for insisting that the referendum vote be a simple Yes/No affair. A single question cuts to the heart of the issue and, notionally, should produce a clear outcome. Nevertheless it also greatly increased the risk – or prospect, if you prefer – of a Yes vote. A multi-option referendum would have killed a Yes vote. But if Hamish is correct I am not, alas, so sure the same can be said of Comrades Forsyth and Nelson. James writes

Ed West Ed West

‘Almost a conservative’ – in praise of Bob Crow, 1961-2014

Very sad to hear of Bob Crow’s death. Doubtless his erstwhile political opponents will be falling over themselves to say that he will be ‘sadly missed’. But I’ve admired him for a while. He was in many ways the last of a breed: a union leader feared by the government. I used to share the view held by all floppy-haired men in pink shirts, that  Crow was basically a thug holding London to ransom by demanding absurdly high salaries for Tube drivers; blokes who just sit there pushing a button while we hard-up arts graduates slave away for much less money. Plus there’s the fact that he lived in social

Monday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

What’s next for Tim Montgomerie?

Normally, we wouldn’t blog about a journalist moving jobs — but Tim Montgomerie is an exception. He is an actor in, not just an observer of, Britain’s political drama which is why it’s significant that he has decided to step down as opinion editor of The Times, to do other things (as yet undefined). Normally, ‘do other things’ is a euphemism – but in Tim’s case, it fits a pattern. He is a serial political entrepreneur, an ex-Iain Duncan Smith staffer who set up ConservativeHome website, and the Centre for Social Justice think tank and can be found behind various other projects (PoliticsHome, 18 Doughty Street TV, and others). A

Steerpike Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Labour gets tough

Labour says it is tough on welfare policy. And today, the party launched its tough compulsory jobs guarantee funding pledge by looking tough too. Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and Rachel Reeves would have made a stronger Mr Steerpike quail in these hard-hitting outfits.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A ‘no’ to Scottish independence won’t save the Union

The longer the Scottish referendum campaign goes on, the more I fear for the long-term future of the Union. I suspect that the pro-Union campaign will win this September, but the way in which they will do this is storing up problems for the future. The pro-Union campaign has, so far, concentrated on two messages: the dangers of independence and the fact that there’ll be more devolution if the Scots vote no to independence. These tactics will help with this September’s referendum—indeed Hamish Macdonell argues persuasively that a ‘devo plus’ offer would deliver victory. But strategically they are storing up problems for the future. Gordon Brown is today proposing a

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Nigel Farage keeps on about EU migration, but non-EU migration is the greater problem

Last week, I spoke alongside Nigel Farage in a debate about immigration organised by the Evening Standard. It was good fun, as you’d expect, with David Lammy, Tessa Jowell and Simon Walker of the IoD on the other side, and David Goodhart alongside me and Mr Farage. You’d be startled, mind you, at the way Nigel Farage gets mobbed by an audience, and in a good way. I did get the chance to get to talk briefly to him myself and ask the question I’d wanted to put to him for ages: why it is that he keeps on about EU migration, when it’s non-EU migration that’s the greater problem. He

Hamish Macdonell

Ming Campbell knows how to kill off the Scottish nationalists. Shame no-one’s listening to him.

The independence campaign could be over now. The Yes campaign could be all but destroyed with six months to go before the vote. The unionists have it within their power to do this, yet they choose not to do so for the simple – and apparently intractable – reason of narrow party politics. This morning the Lib Dem grandee Sir Menzies Campbell will unveil plans to try to forge ‘common ground’ between the three unionist parties on more powers for the Scottish Parliament. Sir Ming knows that if he can get Labour and the Tories to agree with him, then a tri-party agreement on more powers will effectively kill off the nationalist

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Browne: Some bosses are a bit ‘control freakish’

What makes a good Secretary of State? Today Jeremy Browne was interviewed on the Daily Politics about what it’s like to be a junior minister, from his experience of working in both the Foreign Office and Home Office. Towards the end, Jo Coburn asked whether it was true that he’d been given more freedom at the Foreign Office than he had when working for Theresa May at the Home Office. He said: ‘Well that would be telling tales, but I think… anybody who’s ever been in any workplace will know that some bosses are willing to give you a little bit more freedom and discretion and others are a bit

Douglas Murray

Nick Clegg’s comedy act

I much recommend Nick Clegg’s weekend speech. Since it was given at the Liberal Democrat Spring some people may have missed it. There is hardly a line that cannot draw a laugh. My favourite passage is this subtle reference to UKIP: ‘An ungenerous, backwards looking politics has emerged in Britain. The politics of blame has found an acceptable face: it wears a big smile and looks like someone you could have a pint with down the pub. So I’m drawing a line in the sand. I am going to defend the tolerant and modern Britain we love, and I am going to start by showing people what’s at stake at the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Number 10 tries to defend Brokenshire speech

What fortunate timing it is that Home Office questions falls this afternoon, during the aftermath of one of the worst debut speeches a minister has managed in this Parliament. Doubtless Labour will have a great deal of fun with James Brokenshire’s ‘metropolitan elite’ speech which appears to have been rather disowned by figures in Number 10 over the weekend. Today at the Number 10 lobby briefing, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘The speech was setting out the government’s approach to immigration policy, it’s a policy the Prime Minister very much supports. We want to attract the brightest and the best, people who want to work hard and get on,

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Gove, Cameron and the myth of ‘state vs private’ schools

Will David Cameron send his kids to a state secondary school, as Michael Gove is doing? Today’s papers are following up James Forsyth’s suggestion that Cameron will slum it as well. But this story takes, as its premise, the ludicrous notion of a binary divide between private and public. In fact, anyone lucky (and, let’s face it, rich) enough to get into a good state secondary in London has no need of going private. And this is arguably the greater scandal. I can offer an example. I’m house-hunting the moment, and last weekend viewed this cramped wee house, with poky rooms, listed for an outrageous price. But the estate agent

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ukraine: Cameron and Merkel continue to focus on ‘de-escalation’

David Cameron and Angela Merkel held a working dinner last night in Hanover ahead of their visit to a digital trade fair today. Naturally, they discussed Ukraine, and Number 10’s readout of the call this morning says ‘they both agreed that the priority is to de-escalate the situation and to get Russia to engage in a contact group as swiftly as possible’. Cameron also spoke to Vladimir Putin yesterday, with the Russian President telling the Prime Minister that ‘Russia did want to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis’ – although presumably in Putin’s mind that doesn’t involve quite the same level of compromise as those words might initially suggest.

Sunday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

I’m not surprised at David Cameron’s Nepalese nanny

Why the surprise? Of course the Prime Minister would employ a nanny from somewhere like Nepal. David Cameron is simply taking part in the familiar upper-middle class game of ‘Exploited Third World Labour Top Trumps’. The more backward, far-flung and desolate the country of origin, the higher your nanny scores. And, incidentally, the cheaper she is likely to be. Nepal scores a very commendable fifty points. Right now I’ll bet Osborne is trying desperately to source a skivvy from Kyrgyzstan, or perhaps a member of the Melpa tribe from Papua New Guinea, with their strange binary counting system and facility for pig-rearing. Nick Clegg has gone for easy points with