Politics

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

Tuesday

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

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg loves Britain, and fighting Farage

Nick Clegg’s spring conference speech seems to have been written entirely with Nigel Farage in mind. The Lib Dem leader has decided to go after the Ukip chief, and today’s address was the latest example of the old party of protest directly engaging with the new one. Where Farage had a slogan about loving Britain and voting Ukip (which would have been better if it hadn’t been borrowed from the BNP), Clegg had a whole Love Actually-esque speech about it, ranging from affectionate asides about cups of tea and queues to this country’s love of freedom and its generosity. It was pretty difficult to disagree with anything that the Deputy

The Spectator

Nick Clegg’s ‘I love Britain’ speech: full text

Since I became the Deputy Prime Minister I have had the privilege of spending a bit of time representing Britain’s interests in other parts of the world. I have visited Latin America and Asia to boost exports. I have been to Africa, where we are building better education systems as well as helping fight corruption, poverty and disease. I have travelled to different parts of Europe and the United States to promote British trade. And while each trip varies from the last, there is a thread which runs through them all: you get to see Britain through other people’s eyes. Everywhere I have been – every nation around the planet

James Forsyth James Forsyth

David Cameron pays the price for another lazy shuffle

The Tory leadership is not best pleased with James Brokenshire, the Immigration Minister whose ill-judged speech turned a media spotlight onto the Cameron’s nanny. There are mutterings in Downing Street about the speech having being submitted for clearance very late. But Number 10 can’t escape its share of the blame for this fiasco. First, the speech should never have been cleared. The problems it would cause were obvious, which is why one Lib Dem tells me ‘we all fell out about laughing when we read it.’ Second, Brokenshire should never have been appointed to this job. When Mark Harper resigned as immigration minister because his clearner was working in the

Friday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Number 10 to clarify Cameron nanny row

Great excitement in Westminster today over David Cameron’s Nepalese nanny (as a member of James Brokenshire’s metropolitan elite) and whether the Prime Minister had a role in Gita Lima obtaining British citizenship. At this morning’s lobby briefing, a Number 10 spokesperson was asked whether Cameron had played a role in getting Lima a British passport. The spokesperson replied that they were ‘not aware’ of any involvement from the PM. Now I understand that Number 10 have checked the relevant documents and are shortly to release a statement confirming that the Camerons did not write a letter in support of their nanny’s passport application. Samantha Cameron was simply named as the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Will Howard Davies recommend the Heathrow Hub after the next election?

As Patrick McLoughlin makes clear in his interview with The Spectator, Sir Howard Davies’s report on where in the south east new runways should be built will be published soon after the next election. The plan is that the new runways will then be approved and construction under way by 2020; meaning that there’ll be no chance for people to vote against them at a general election. Strikingly, the Heathrow Hub option — which would extend the northern runway and then turn it into two runways — is rapidly gaining support in Westminster. Part of its attraction of is that the scheme would also enable you to extend the southern