Politics Archives

Thursday

19 Jun 2014

Tories set to take a dozen seats from Lib Dems in 2015

How many seats will the Conservatives take from the Lib Dems at the next election? According to Lord Ashcroft’s latest polling, a dozen or so Tory-Lib Dem marginals look set to change hands. Surveying 17,000 voters in 17 seats*, Ashcroft has found the Lib Dems’ share has dropped by 15 per cent (compared to eight per cent for the Conservatives) with an overall swing of 3.5 per cent to the Tories. If this swing were replicated across the country, this would hand David Cameron another 15 seats in 2015. However, Ashcroft’s research suggests there isn’t a universal swing. For example in Newton Abbot, the polling suggests a nine per cent swing but in Wells,

Freddy Gray

Forget Blair – will David Cameron admit that Libya was a disaster?

Never mind Tony Blair and his denials over Iraq. As our government contemplates its response to the latest crisis in Iraq, now may be the moment for a different Prime Minister to admit to another grave error. Will David Cameron concede that he might have been wrong to have intervened in Libya? Until recently, the Cameroons and most of the inhabitants of the Westminster village were eager to chalk up the removal of Muammar Gaddafi as a win for Team Dave and the coalition. It was proof – badly needed, after a decade of disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan – that military intervention could work. Western firepower played a key

Lottie Dexter

Ed Miliband is losing Generation Right

Rigorous welfare reforms for the under-25s must be combined with targeted tax breaks. That’s the best way to get young Britain going and galvanise the new electorate. For keen observers, Ed Miliband’s speech on welfare may sound familiar. Last November Labour dropped plans — to scrap benefits for the under-25s — like a hot potato after vicious attacks from activists. Yet a few months on and Miliband rehashes these, pledging to continue good work this government is already doing, for instance young people already receive a lower rate of Jobseeker’s Allowance and can already take up training and continue receiving their benefits. It seems that Ed Miliband is the timid

Steerpike

Why so shy, General Petraeus?

Former CIA director and US Army General David Petraeus is in town hosted by the Henry Jackson Society. But that’s classified. For some reason Petraeus is being very shy in front of journalists (well, most journalists). The event in the House of Commons this afternoon is being held under the Chatham House Rule. All media, your humble correspondent included, have been refused entry. What was it about the affair with his biographer that led to his resignation as America’s top spook which the shy general does not want to be asked about?

Steerpike

David Cameron attacks ‘career psychopath’ Dominic Cummings

There must be an election in the offing because the PM was out and about last night looking for a manifesto. He addressed Policy Exchange’s (PX) annual summer bash in Westminster College Gardens. It was a gag a minute. He cracked rotten jokes about pig semen, and claimed that he was one of the founders of PX — adding that he only sat around eating pizza while the brainboxes came up with ideas which he then stole. How the people stared. He thanked Policy Exchange for providing his government with most of its backroom brains and spinners. Comedy Dave joked the path from ‘policy wonk, to special advisor, to career psychopath’ was

James Forsyth

How the Westminster hawk became an endangered species

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_19_June_2014.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the death of Westminster hawks” startat=726] Listen [/audioplayer]There is a slight whiff of the summer of 1914 to Westminster at the moment. The garden party season is in full swing and the chatter is all about who is up and who is down. In the Commons chamber itself, domestic political argument dominates. You would not know that a vicious sectarian war is raging in the Middle East. At the first Prime Minister’s Questions after the fall of Mosul to the terrorist group ISIS, no one asked David Cameron to explain the government’s policy on Iraq. The situation in Iraq is dire on

Fraser Nelson

Danny Alexander on Scottish independence, income tax, Nick Clegg and George Osborne

Danny Alexander doesn’t suntan well, but he looks more freckly than normal when we meet in HM Treasury. He’s just back from the seaside town of Nairn in the Highlands, where, as the most senior Scot in the Cabinet, he’s been sent to fight in the front line of the Battle for Britain. People were queuing to sign up to the Better Together campaign, he says, and he has high hopes of defeating Alex Salmond on 18 September. It all added up to something rather rare for a Liberal Democrat: the feeling of being on the winning side in an election. As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, he has been

Rod Liddle

A Labour elitist meets a fête worse than death

It is surely only a matter of time before someone with a mischievous glint in their eye invites the Labour MP for Bishop Auckland, Helen Goodman, to open a fête in a place with which she is entirely unfamiliar, e.g. Bishop Auckland. Helen recently turned up as guest of honour at a fête in a village in the constituency she has represented for nine years. She delivered a moving eulogy to Ingleton, praising its beautiful waterfalls and deep, labyrinthine caves. The villagers listened with a dawning hilarity. Mrs Goodman had confused the village she represents with one of the same name some 70 miles away in the Yorkshire Dales. There

James Delingpole

The big fat lie about cholesterol

Though I’m not generally big on banning stuff, there’s one substance I would prohibit without a moment’s hesitation — probably on pain of death if that’s what it took because clearly, where vanquishing monstrous evil is concerned, no sanction is too extreme. I’m talking, of course, about the devil’s semen: semi-skimmed milk. And about its unholier cousin — aka the devil’s urine — skimmed milk. Seriously, almost nothing can conspire to ruin my day more effectively than when I order up a flat white and the barista doesn’t know that only weird faddists with no taste take their coffee made with anything but full fat. Apart from maybe when someone tries to add

Wednesday

18 Jun 2014

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: The bombshell from a man who could be a bore

Explosive stuff at PMQs. Question two and Sir Peter Tapsell, the Father of the House, was called. This quaint semi-official title makes him, potentially, the chamber’s most dependable bore. Not today. He called on backbenchers to enact their ‘ancient but still existing power’ to commence procedures of impeachment against ‘the Rt. Hon. Tony Blair’. Not for war crimes. For lying to parliament about the Iraq invasion. Wow. This bombshell took the pressure off Miliband who’s in lousy shape and could do with a win at PMQs. Badly. He hasn’t got near Cameron for months. But he decided to shelter behind the nation-quake in Iraq, and he spent all six questions

Fraser Nelson

Petraeus: America can’t serve as an air force for a Shi’ite militia

If conservatives had an answer to Woodstock, it would resemble the Margaret Thatcher Conference on Liberty held today by the Centre for Policy Studies. The lineup is stellar, and I’ve been here all day. General David Petraeus is one of the many guests and was asked what he’d do about the rise of ISIS. Here’s what he said, 3:30 into the below clip: ‘If there is to be support for Iraq, it has to be support for a government of Iraq. That is; a government of all the people; and that is representative of and responsive to all elements of Iraq. President Obama has been quite clear on this: This

Isabel Hardman

Mike Hancock: I crossed the line

Mike Hancock has settled the civil case brought against him by a constituent alleging that he sexually assaulted her (Julie Bindel outlined the case for the magazine here). In a statement released today, the MP, currently suspended as a Liberal Democrat, apologises for his behaviour. He says: ‘In October 2009 you first came to me as a constituent to seek my assistance as your MP and councillor. Subsequently and over several months I came to your home on several occasions, sometimes unannounced and conducted a friendship with you that was inappropriate and unprofessional. ‘I understand that you felt degraded. I did not treat you with sufficient respect. I made you

Sebastian Payne

Video: can Labour solve its Miliband problem?

Ed Miliband’s popularity ratings have sunk below those of Nick Clegg this week, so what can Labour do? In this week’s View from 22 podcast, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the Miliband problem —we’ve put together the video highlights above. Will Labour contemplate sacking him? Is there anyone else who could do a better job? And will the upcoming shadow cabinet reshuffle improve his standing? You can listen to the full discussion on the podcast tomorrow morning. Subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week.

James Forsyth

The Commons is finally talking about Iraq. Will anyone notice?

PMQs last week took place just hours after Mosul had fallen to ISIS. But despite this, not a single MP asked Cameron what the government’s position on the situation in Iraq was. Today, though, Ed Miliband devoted all six questions to the topic. There was much consensus between Cameron and Miliband but one doubts that the governments in either Baghdad or Tehran will take much notice of what was said in the Chamber. Indeed, the Commons seemed oddly passive about the exchanges as if everyone was aware of the limits to Britain’s ability to influence the situation. listen to ‘PMQs: Cameron and Miliband on Iraq’ on Audioboo One thing that

Steerpike

Jeremy Paxman’s greatest hits

Farewell then, Jeremy Paxman. The veteran broadcaster bows out of Newsnight tonight. Mr S has compiled his favourite Paxo moments: The infamous Michael Howard interview is foremost in the extensive genre of politicians not answering the question: Chloe Smith, who was a high-flying Tory Minister at the time, never recovered from this encounter with Paxo in 2012: It’s no surprise that David Cameron has refused to do a head-to-head on Newsnight since becoming Prime Minister: look at what Paxman did to Blair: And John Bolton: And Russell Brand: And Conrad Black: And Sting: And George Galloway: And student protesters: And his old mucker Boris Johnson: As a final humiliation, Paxman will tonight ride off into the

Ed West

Debate: will a robot steal your job?

Was Karl Marx right all along about capitalism? One of the subjects I like to bore everyone about whenever I get a chance is the hollowing out of middle-class jobs as a result of technology, squeezing wages just as the old German predicted. It’s the subject of a Spectator debate tonight, which will be well worth attending, and a subject I wrote about for the magazine last year: ‘Jaron Lanier, the Silicon Valley philosopher and author of Who Owns The Future?, has shown how technology and the free-flow of information are removing secure, middle-class jobs. Far from being egalitarian, the digital revolution has reduced financial rewards for those in the middle

Tuesday

17 Jun 2014

Isabel Hardman

Tories win knife fight using devious and confusing methods

As expected, Nick de Bois’ amendment to the Criminal Courts and Justice Bill passed 404 votes to 53. It owes nothing to the Conservative frontbench, which abstained for reasons I’ve tried my best to outline here (it’s difficult to explain something that doesn’t make a grab deal of sense, especially when both parties have voted in different ways before, as on the boundary changes). And it owes nothing to the Liberal Democrats, who opposed the measure in Cabinet and in this vote. The result this evening is an example of the way the Coalition has reshaped the workings of government. Can’t get the Cabinet agreement you need on a policy?

Isabel Hardman

Cameron adjusts language on Juncker: ‘I’ll go on opposing that right up to the end’

As I reported earlier, Number 10 is adjusting its commentary on Jean-Claude Juncker’s bid to become president of the European Commission to include plenty of conditional verbs. David Cameron appears to be giving up the fight, too. At his press conference in Downing Street with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, the Prime Minister said: ‘There is an important principle at stake here which is that the accountable elected members of the European Council, the elected heads of state, the elected heads of government, should be the ones who propose who runs the European Commission. It’s a very important principle and I will go on putting forward that principle and opposing this

Mary Wakefield

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