Politics

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

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

PMQs: Meet ‘the dunce of Downing Street’ and the ‘muppets’

The increasingly personal bickering between Cameron and Miliband went on today for most of the session. After a bad tempered set of formal exchanges—with Miliband branding Cameron ‘the dunce of Downing Street’ and Cameron calling Miliband and Balls ‘muppets’—the two front benches continued to trade barbs as backbenchers asked their questions. At one point, Cameron even accused Miliband of laughing at the failings of the Welsh NHS. listen to ‘PMQs: Muppets and dunces’ on Audioboo Miliband went on the sale of Royal Mail and the fact that the share price has shot up since the government sold it off. Miliband wasn’t quite clear whether he wanted to mock Cameron and the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

PMQs: What the Labour manifesto really said about Royal Mail

Today at Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron accused Ed Miliband of ignoring his own party’s manifesto on the Royal Mail. He said: ‘He said just then, Mr Speaker, it’s a sale nobody wanted. It’s in his manifesto! It was a commitment of the last government!’ listen to ‘PMQs: Muppets and dunces’ on Audioboo So what does the Labour 2010 manifesto actually say? Here’s the section on the Royal Mail: ‘The universal postal service delivered by the Royal Mail connects and binds us together as a country. We are firmly committed to the 28 million homes and businesses across the country receiving mail six days a week, with the promise that

Steerpike Steerpike

Eggcellent openings in Westminster

Westminster City Council is advertising the role (offered by the Westminster Adult Education Service) of tutor in ‘Ukrainian egg decoration’ – at £25 an hour. Anyone who thinks that the job would be a walk in the Royal Parks should think again. The advert says: ‘As well as being enthusiastic and motivated you need to have a teaching qualification (minimum PTTLS)’. Mr S better put his tiny ornate paintbrush away. He would have applied for the equally well remunerated ‘hula-hooper’ tutor too, were it not for the equally restrictive qualification barrier. Tristram Hunt must be so proud that teaching qualifications are being taken so seriously.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick vs Nigel: Clegg gets a little help from Farage’s mate Vlad

Nick Clegg ‘lost’ last week’s LBC debate with Nigel Farage, not for want of trying to sound reasonable or appear at ease and polished, but because there are simply fewer voters who are prepared to give someone from the establishment a hearing, or agree with him on Europe. The Lib Dem leader does plan to use fewer stat attacks and more emotion tonight when the two men meet again. But he also has a bit of help from Farage himself, who is either revealing a strong conviction about Vladimir Putin that he had hitherto kept buried or is stubbornly digging himself a hole over his comments about the EU and

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Len McCluskey: Unite could start donating to other parties

Len McCluskey spoke to the press gallery lunch on April Fools’ Day. It would have been more fitting had the Unite leader not been such an impressive, witty, and thorough speaker. And much of what he said wasn’t very jokey at all: Ed Miliband, I suspect, will not be chuckling away as McCluskey’s remarks are relayed to him. The Unite leader told the Press Gallery that there could be a situation where his union votes to change its rules so that it can donate to political parties other than Labour. Labour, he told the listening hacks, is ‘at a crossroads’ and he fears for its future if the party loses

Douglas Murray

At last, Britain is investigating the Muslim Brotherhood

The UK government has announced a long-overdue investigation into the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK. I am delighted. Why Britain should continue to act as an Argentina-like sanctuary for Islamic fascists I have never understood. I hope the investigation will be deep and wide-ranging. But of course if the government really wants to go into this properly it could do no better than to start at its own doorstep. Last week the inept and unelectable Baroness Warsi announced the formation of a new Foreign Office Advisory Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Given that Warsi has previously and repeatedly claimed that tackling ‘Islamophobia’ is one of the

Carola Binney Carola Binney

Want a market in higher education? Here’s how

Ed Miliband is mooting a tuition fees cut, to a maximum of £6,000 a year according to reports. I graduate in 2016. If Labour wins the next election, I’ll be in one of only 4 cohorts to pay £27,000 for their education. If I’m really unlucky, I might get lumped with a graduate tax too. It’s not my plight, however, that’s got Labour talking about tuition fees again. Instead, it’s the government’s admission that the current policy is likely to be more expensive than planned: official estimates suggest that 45 per cent of students will never pay back their loans. Just 3.6 per cent more and the new system would

Steerpike Steerpike

Tory fingers point at Michael Fallon over Royal Mail debacle

It’s not just Vince Cable who is getting it in the neck today for the scathing report into the sell-off of the Royal Mail. Michael Fallon is copping his share of the blame too. Fallon has friends in high places; but he’s wound up one of his Tory colleagues: ‘Fallon is 62 years old this year, and is one of those safe-seat types. You know, the sort of guy who thinks ‘campaign’ is a fizzy white wine from France. His whole job was to sit on Vince Cable. But he’s been AWOL in recent months, and today the National Audit Office has holed Fallon below the waterline. This Royal Mail

Robert Halfon MP

The Conservatives’ moral mission: jobs, jobs, jobs

Remember Labour’s defining mission: ‘education, education, education’? Yesterday we had the Conservative equivalent ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’. In what some might see as an important day in the development of the mission of the Conservative Party, the Chancellor pledged the goal of Full Employment: ‘Today I’m making a new commitment. A commitment to fight for Full Employment in Britain, making jobs a central goal of our economic plan.’ What does this mean in practice? It suggests that cutting taxation and cutting the deficit is all about creating the conditions for work, not that tax cuts, and balancing the books are ends in themselves. It creates a moral imperative for economic reform

Hamish Macdonell

Enough complacency. Enough bitching. The No camp needs to fight to save the Union

Look up complacency in the dictionary and the chances are you will find a picture of a Scottish unionist next to it. For months – no, make that years – politicians at the sharp end of the fight against Scottish Nationalism have been warning about the dangers of complacency. But they might as well have been mumbling platitudes about the weather for all the effect it has had. The unionist side has been complacent, there is no doubt about that. Many in the anti-independence camp seem to have forgotten what this cause means to Alex Salmond and the SNP. They seem to have forgotten that this is all the Nats care about. It is

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Esther McVey shows that the Tories are aggressively on message

Work and Pensions Questions in the Commons has long been a battle between the two main parties for the moral high ground, but today Esther McVey, who appeared even more energetic than usual, made that battle just a little bloodier. She scolded Sheila Gilmore for not smiling when she talked about more people in employment and then listed ‘all the good news that is happening’. Then she told Stephen Hepburn that he hadn’t read the figures on the labour market, joking that ‘the honourable gentleman spoke with gusto but that was all he spoke with’. She was quite keen on the word ‘gusto’, actually, praising Nigel Adams for asking a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Osborne offers optimistic promise to ‘blue collar’ voters

George Osborne’s commitment today that the Conservatives will fight for full employment in Britain is another way for the Chancellor to make an iconic gesture towards ‘blue collar’ voters who might still feel left behind by Britain’s recovery (he can find a useful guide on other things to do in the pages of today’s Sun). The first was a rise in the minimum wage, long fought over by Conservatives as a measure which could damage employment, but embraced by the Chancellor as a way of showing that the recovery is for the many, not just the few. Today’s commitment in the Chancellor’s speech – which was initially billed as Osborne

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Without Scotland, the UK would be poorer both culturally and spiritually

If Alex Salmond gets his way, this country will be rendered asunder. Once you cross the Tweed, you’ll be in a foreign land. The fact that Salmond is so keen to suggest that even after independence there’ll still be a ‘social union’ between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom suggests that he knows that people are disturbed by this idea. But one of the puzzles of the Scottish referendum campaign is how reluctant politicians have been to make the emotional case for the Union. Instead, Better Together and the government have chosen to concentrate on a series of technocratic argument. This is why Nick Watt’s story about a senior

The Spectator

George Osborne’s ‘fight for full employment’ speech – full text

In a speech given at Tilbury Port in Essex, Chancellor George Osborne hailed cuts to business and personal taxes this week as the ‘biggest in two decades’ – and committed to ‘fight for full employment in Britain’. Here’s what he said:- Thank you for coming here to Tilbury Port, this morning. We’re all here at the start of the most important week of changes to our tax system for a generation. These are the biggest cuts to personal and business taxes for two decades, and we’re making our benefit system more affordable and fairer too. Changes which will affect the lives of millions of people. Whether you are working or

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Tories are repeatedly reminding voters of their achievements – finally

It’s no surprise that the Conservatives want to take the credit for the tax cuts in the Budget, or that the Lib Dems are rather peeved about this. The Chancellor will make a speech today in which he describes Britain as ‘starting to walk tall in the world’ and drive home what he sees as a series of key government achievements on ‘reshoring’ and the rise in the personal allowance of income tax, which comes into effect this week. Nick Clegg, meanwhile, is giving his monthly press conference where he will argue that the Conservatives are trying to ‘steal’ his own party’s prize ideas. Those two men can tussle about

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why Sajid Javid could end up at the top of the Tory tree

Sajid Javid’s promotion to Culture Secretary will not surprise his many fans. And it underlines an advantage that the Conservative party has over Labour right now – the talent in its back benchers. The Tories, quite simply, have far more MPs who could be Prime Minister – thanks to the hugely successful recruitment process that David Cameron ran after becoming leader . One of them is Sajid Javid, who is interviewed by the Mail on Sunday today – this was done (as ever) months earlier by James Forsyth in the Spectator (his interview here). They’re both worth reading, as I suspect Javid is one of these guys we’ll be hearing

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Douglas Alexander: Labour hasn’t fired Arnie Graf as election guru

Ed Miliband tried to reassure his MPs this week that the party just needed to weather a temporary blip. But one question the Labour leader will be (or should be) contemplating which is quite separate from the squally polls is whether his top team can repair increasingly public tensions which are as much about personality as they are about strategy. The Mail on Sunday reports another fissure between Douglas Alexander and Michael Dugher, while Andrew Rawnsley has a useful guide to the major fault lines in the party. This morning on Marr, Douglas Alexander was asked to comment on reports that his party had fired Arnie Graf as community organising

Alex Massie Alex Massie

From time to time it is necessary to execute a government minister to encourage the others. This is one such moment.

Hanging. Shooting. Beheading. Defenestration. Take your pick. It doesn’t matter which method you choose but the government minister who told The Guardian’s Nick Watt that “of course” there would be a deal to be done creating a sterling zone shared by an independent Scotland and the remaining parts of the United Kingdom needs to be found, summarily tried, and executed. Game-changing moments, of course, are rarely anything of the sort. Political campaigns do not pivot on individual moments or blunders. Fundamentals matter more. And yet the fundamentals are in turn shaped by the accretion of a thousand impressions. At least in part. The campaigning matters too. Especially in a close race. So this minister

Saturday

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Gay marriage is a triumph for our arrogant political class

Well, Peter and David, John and Bernado, Sean and Sinclair are now married and the happy husbands have the further benefit of the unanimous blessing of our political class. David Cameron said the move sent a message that people were now equal ‘whether gay or straight. It says we are a country that will continue to honour its proud traditions of respect, tolerance and equal worth.’ For good measure, he added that the law change would encourage young people unsure of their sexuality. Really? You mean a few more teenagers hovering between being gay or straight might go for the gay option on the back of the prospect of a