Politics Archives

Monday

31 Mar 2014

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

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

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

30 Mar 2014

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

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

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

29 Mar 2014

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

Isabel Hardman

Osborne and Alexander deny Scotland could keep the pound

After Nick Watt’s stunning scoop this morning on an unnamed minister saying that an independent Scotland could keep the pound after all, George Osborne and Danny Alexander have released this joint statement: ‘A currency union will not work because it would not be in Scotland’s interests and would not be in the UK’s interests. Scotland would have no control over mortgage rates, and would be binding its hands on tax and funding for vital public services. The Scottish Government are proposing to divorce the rest of the UK but want to keep the joint bank account and credit card. The UK would not put its taxpayers at risk of bailing out a

Friday

28 Mar 2014

Isabel Hardman

Class warriors and unpaid mercenaries

Class war. It’s not very classy, is it? But it’s Labour’s big thing at the moment, the class-of-politicians-crisis, which it thinks works well with the other crisis facing hardworking families up and down the country that the party likes to talk about, and allows Ed Miliband to duck awkward things like responding to the Budget. He and his henchmen have spent the past week and a half talking as much about Etonians as they have pensioners. On Tuesday, Rachel Reeves had her go, banging on about rich Tories buying Lamborghinis. Ed Balls was the follow-up act on Wednesday (having already had a first shot last week with his jokes about

Isabel Hardman

Knives out for Warsi in reshuffle

After a few weeks of Boris vs George, Conservatives are now starting to gossip about something a little more immediate: a post-European elections reshuffle. I understand that the Prime Minister is currently experiencing concerted lobbying from many ministers and backbenchers to remove Baroness Warsi from her post as ‘senior minister of state’ after her decision to wave about a front page on the ‘Eton Mess’ in Number 10 on ITV’s The Agenda a few weeks ago. There was fury at a senior level in the Conservative party about Warsi’s behaviour: she was punching her party’s bruise on class. One minister says: ‘She should be dropped down a hole and a

Isabel Hardman

Peers launch bid to neuter controversial ‘stateless’ plan in Immigration Bill

Remember that rather curious change to the Immigration Bill that would render foreign-born terror suspects ‘stateless’ that ministers managed to sneak through while most MPs were in a tizz about Dominic Raab? Well, it’s facing its first major battle in the House of Lords soon, with a group of peers tabling an amendment which would in effect neuter it or spark a row in the Commons. The new clause, tabled by crossbenchers Lord Pannick and Lord Brown, Lib Dem former Director of Public Prosecutions Lord Macdonald and Labour’s Baroness Smith, proposes setting up a committee of MPs and peers to consider whether the stateless policy should go ahead. This proposal

Fraser Nelson

Clegg, Farage and the poverty of Britain’s EU debate

Two of the writers I most admire have fallen out over the Clegg vs Farage debate. James Kirkup calls it for the Lib Dem leader (his reasons here) and Peter Oborne for Farage – but I’m in the happy position of being able to disagree with both of them. I think they both lost, and I explain why in my Daily Telegraph column today. Clegg has decided to ride the Ukip wave, positioning himself as the patron saint of Europhiles who loathe the sight of Nigel Farage. He will be calculating that there are more of them than LibDem supporters. But I regarded their debate on Wednesday as rather sterile,

Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s slow mission to convince sceptics at home and in Europe

Today’s joint FT article by George Osborne and Wolfgang Schäuble is yet another exhibit for David Cameron to wave at critics of his EU policy. While Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg fight over In or Out with no chance of leading the government that presents that choice to the British people (read Fraser’s Telegraph column on this), David Cameron can say that he is inching closer to winning debates, point by point, with European leaders. Today’s article contains the important acceptance that non-eurozone countries should be protected rather than disadvantaged by treaty change: ‘A stable euro is good for the global economy, and especially for Europe. The crisis has shown that

Thursday

27 Mar 2014

Sebastian Payne

Will Nick and Nigel be sidelined from the 2015 TV debates?

Has last night’s debate affected Nigel Farage’s chances of being involved in the general election TV debates? Although the broadcasters and political parties have yet to agree any dates or formats, the precedent has been set and the public will be expecting them. With weasel words from No.10 and a bullish attitude from some broadcasters, there’s a long way to go before an agreement is made. The public already have a clear idea of what they expect. According to the last YouGov polling on the subject, nearly half believe there should be a four-way debate between Cameron, Miliband, Clegg and Farage: [datawrapper chart=”http://charts.spectator.co.uk/chart/noqHV/”] It’ll be interesting to see whether the

Charles Moore

Boris should call a referendum

Everyone can see that the West has no idea what to do about Russian power in the Ukraine. Britain, in particular, is at the margins. It is time for the Mayor of London to fulfil his historic role of stealing a march on more conventional politicians. Boris should take a leaf out of President Putin’s book and call a referendum of Londoners. He should ask them whether they would like all Russian housing in London to be seized, and be inhabited, instead, by British families. I predict a Yes vote whose percentage would exceed even that of the recent Crimean plebiscite. Obviously the Mayor, unlike Putin, has no military forces

Isabel Hardman

Clegg and Farage’s real mission: getting their voters to turn up

‘You guys always love the zero sum game, you know, politics as Premier League football,’ Paddy Ashdown said this morning when asked whether he accepted whether his leader had lost last night’s LBC debate on Europe. This sounded ridiculous initially: of course politics is like Premier League football. The party that comes second in a general election doesn’t skip away arguing that it was the taking part that counts, it retreats to lick its wounds. listen to ‘Lord Ashdown on the Nick vs Nigel debate’ on Audioboo

Ed West

Hampstead and Kilburn – it would be a disgrace if the Lib Dems don’t back Maajid Nawaz to the hilt

In the past 30 years British English has received a number of loan words from Arabic, words which would have meant very little to our young grandparents but are now familiar enough to be used metaphorically: jihad, fatwa, taliban, dhimmi. Almost all refer to religion and religious conflict, and have a slightly unwelcome ear to most people. (It wasn’t always like this, of course; Arabic has in the past given us a number of terms, from zero to orange to racket and nadir, not to mention countless scientific phrases). One word I would like to see imported, however, is asabiyyah, a term which is best translated as ‘cohesion’, but more

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

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