Politics

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

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

What’s the matter with Scotland? It’s full of Scottish people.

Here’s the thing many people misunderstand about Scotland’s referendum on independence: it isn’t really very much to do with England. When someone starts chuntering on about Braveheart and Bannockburn you know you’re listening to a fruitcake. This is true whether the fruitcake is Scots or English. At least the latter have the excuse of ignorance, I guess. Anyway, the point is that as much as we may occasionally dislike or, more frequently, be irritated by the English they’re not the problem. The people we really hate are our fellow Scots. And with good reason. I mean, look at us. The worst part of losing the referendum (whichever side you favour) is having

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Cameron’s dilemma, the collapse of the Lib Dems and Salmond’s secret weapon

How can David Cameron appeal to his own natural supporters in Ukip? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Douglas Murray and Mats Persson from the Open Europe think tank discuss this week’s Spectator cover feature and whether it is too late for the Prime Minister to win back the Ukippers. How does the triumph of Ukip compare to the other populist parties in Europe? What kind of response can be expected from the European Union? And will other countries push for changes in the EU’s open borders policy? James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman also discuss the aftermath of the European elections in Westminster. Was it predictable that the Lib

Peter Mandelson

Peter Mandelson: Ed Miliband needs more policies and fewer promises

In his Spectator diary this week Lord Mandelson offers Ed Miliband some advice… Nigel Farage has no trouble in heaping praise on Putin because of their shared antipathy towards Europe. Farage’s party had a good week. The challenge for them is to build a genuine movement beyond a charismatic leader, a band of fruitcake candidates and a clutch of reactionary ideas. I doubt they will succeed. In my political career we’ve seen two similar ‘breakthrough’ moments, both in the 1980s: the SDP’s rise and fall, then the Greens coming and going. Those parties’ success was only due to Labour’s weakness. When Labour got its act together, their appeal faded. The same

Douglas Murray

Ukip aren’t going away – and David Cameron has no idea what to do

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_29_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Mats Persson discuss the aftermath of the Euro elections” startat=40] Listen [/audioplayer]It must have come so easily back then. In April 2006, the young David Cameron had already assumed the mantle of leader of the Conservative party as arranged by his predecessor, Michael Howard. And as he prepared to assume the next highest office, the insult fell from his mouth with extraordinary ease. ‘Ukip is sort of a bunch of fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists,’ he told his radio interviewer. Deadly. Though not, as it finally turned out, for the party he was attacking. Last week that same Ukip topped the British polls

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why no one’s ready to oust Nick Clegg (except the Tories, of course)

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_29_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the Lib Dem’s internal warfare” startat=818] Listen [/audioplayer]Nigel Farage is pretty good at giving people hangovers, and on Monday morning all three Westminster party leaders woke up with one. Ukip’s victory in the European elections represents the first time in more than a hundred years that Labour or the Tories had not won a nationwide vote. It showed that the old allegiances on which our politics are predicated have broken down. It also reminded us that none of the parties are national affairs any more; Labour came third in four regions, as the Tories did in six. On this result, Ukip have

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Labour has proved that it speaks for London – and nowhere else

So, now almost all the votes have been counted — except for those in the Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets, where the vibrant and colourful political practices of Bangladesh continue to keep the returning officers entertained. Allegations of widespread intimidation of voters at polling booths, postal voting fraud and a huge number of mysteriously spoiled ballot papers; so much more fun than the usual dull, grey and mechanistic western electoral procedure. You wonder, looking at the exotic political fervour of Tower Hamlets, how on earth the British people could be so mean-spirited as to have developed this sudden animus against immigration. White British people now make up less than one third

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Meet Alex Salmond’s secret weapon: the England football team

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_29_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Freddy Gray and Alex Massie on Salmond’s secret weapon” startat=1363] Listen [/audioplayer]Why did Alex Salmond choose this year to hold the Scottish independence referendum? People have said it is because 2014 is the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn, Scotland’s greatest victory over the English, inspiration for that ridiculous last scene in Braveheart. Others believe it is because in July Glasgow will host the Commonwealth Games, after which the Scottish nationalists reckon they will be surfing a wave of yes-we-can enthusiasm. But maybe Salmond, canny fellow that he is, had another event in mind: next month’s Fifa World Cup in Brazil. Scotland won’t be going to Rio, of course: they

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

The truth about being a politician’s child

It was a Friday morning in 1992, Britain had just had an election, and I was on an ice rink. No special reason. You’re in Edinburgh, you’re a posh teenager, it’s the Christmas or Easter holidays, weekday mornings you go to the ice rink. It was a thing. Maybe it still is. I was only quite recently posh at the time, having moved schools, and I was — in both a figurative general sense and literal ice-skating sense — still finding my feet. My new boarding-school life was pretty good, though. The way you went ice-skating in the holidays was a bit weird, granted, but you could smoke Marlboro at

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

Five things you need to know about the Scottish independence papers

Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Scottish government have been at war today. Both have released papers with conflicting predictions about whether the Scots would be better off outside of the UK. The SNP says individuals would be £1,000 better off out of the UK, while the Treasury argues they’d be £1,400 better off in the UK. Much of this analysis is based on negotiations that haven’t happened and economic forecasts that could easily change, but both papers offer much food for thought. Here are the five key competing claims you need to know from the fiscal policy papers: 1. A £1,400 UK dividend? The Treasury’s Fiscal policy and sustainability paper

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Nick Clegg is safe, but his party will continue to glower a while longer

Nick Clegg is safer now than he was this morning. Lord Oakeshott’s outing as the source of these ICM seat polls and his resignation from the party has put the plotters on the back foot. MPs who were ambiguous in their support for the leader are now much more forthright. Vince Cable himself is preparing a further statement of loyalty to Clegg following his denunciation of Oakeshott yesterday. The Clegg operation is more interested in getting this story over with than settling scores. It is vigorously defending Cable, arguing that he can’t be held responsible for Oakeshott’s actions. But the problem for Clegg is that the Lib Dems’ internal structures

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The Right loses as Ukip wins

In Brighton in 1996, an insurgent party held its first and as far as I can see only conference. Liberal journalists gazed on the gaudy spectacle with wonder and disdain. We could see that he Referendum Party was a sign of the coming age of the super-rich. It was created by Sir James Goldsmith, a corporate raider who inspired the English tycoon Sir Larry Wildman, in Wall Street, and, you may not be surprised to hear, was a vain and bombastic censor to boot. (He persecuted Private Eye in the courts for not treating him with the deference a mighty plutocrat deserved.) Goldsmith spent most of his time in Mexico

Priti Patel

Tax Freedom Day is a reminder of the choice in 2015: high tax Labour, low tax Conservatives

Tax Freedom Day, which falls today, is cause for celebration. It marks the point in the calendar when someone’s income stops paying for their tax bill and they start keeping the money they have earned. It is an annual reminder that people who work hard and play by the rules deserve to keep their hard won earnings. It is why cutting tax has always been a priority for Conservatives. Four years ago we inherited a tax system that was designed to be as complicated as possible. Gordon Brown’s stealth taxes doubled the revenue the Treasury raised through taxation and National Insurance. In total, Labour put up taxes 178 times, and

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Will Oakeshott’s demise kill off Lib Dem revolt?

Nick Clegg said this morning that ‘appropriate steps’ will be taken to deal with Lord Oakeshott after the peer was outed as the ‘Lib Dem supporter’ who had commissioned uncomfortable polling about the Lib Dems’ chances in 2015. As with other difficult situations with Lib Dem peers, though, Clegg doesn’t have that much power to remove the whip from Oakeshott, even if he’d like to. Speaking after his speech on international development the Deputy Prime Minister said: ‘I think it is wholly unacceptable for people in a campaigning political party facing very very difficult elections last week as we were to find out now with hindsight that a senior member

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Scottish Independence: The Cost of Living Like This

Yippee! The number-crunching boffins are at war again. The UK and Scottish governments have today released rival forecasts for life in an independent Scotland. It will not surprise you that the UK government’s projections run towards the pessimistic side of the ledger while their opponents in Edinburgh take a sunnier view of Scotland’s future economic circumstances and performance. Fancy that! The Scottish government suggests there might be £5bn windfall from independence; the UK government reckons each Scot receives a ‘Union dividend’ worth something like £1,400 a year.  They can’t both be right. In fact the probability is they are both wrong. That is, Scotland’s fiscal and economic position would be

Andy Slaughter

How did Labour manage to take control of Cameron’s ‘flagship’ London council?

After a formidable campaign run by Shadow London Minister Sadiq Khan, Labour took four out of eight Euro seats. Redbridge, Croydon, Merton, Harrow – none typically thought of as Labour boroughs – turned from blue to red. This should be the real story of the 2014 local and European elections. But the most surprising result in London came when Labour convincingly took control of Hammersmith and Fulham. A council variously described as Cameron’s ‘favourite’ or ‘flagship’, it had enthusiastically piloted some of the most high profile and radical Tory policies. The victory belongs to Stephen Cowan, the new Labour leader of Hammersmith and Fulham, and his team of candidates and activists,

Steerpike Steerpike

Ukip pin Newark hope on data access

Ukip types, already with a spring in their step this week, are further buoyed by the fact that they will be going into the Newark by-election with data up their sleeves. The Tory machine is in full swing on the ground, but the playing field has been levelled. Whereas in previous by-elections Farage turned up to the pub or hung about meeting people in the market square, Newark will be different. Thanks to the proximity of the crunch Nottinghamshire ballot to the European and local elections, the self-styled ‘people’s army’ will be on an equal footing with the embedded local Tories, as they will be able to see exactly who

Julie Bindel

Julie Bindel goes to Hay-on-Wye and comes back with trench foot

I am trudging around a field in the middle nowhere with mud up to my genitals. The joining instructions for the annual HowTheLightGetsIn festival at Hay-on-Wye does not include advice about avoiding looking like a filthy puddle by the time you get to do your talk. I was booked to speak at a few sessions on men being absolute bastards, and arrived on Friday at the same time as the torrential rain. ‘It was beautiful last week,’ said the driver who met me at Hereford station. ‘Hope you’ve got your wellies?’ For the love of god, I thought, why would I have bloody wellies? I live in London. After a restless night

Tuesday

Charlotte Henry

Who is behind the campaign to oust Nick Clegg?

Lord Oakeshott has gone under the radar, as speculation mounts about his involvement in a bid to oust party leader Nick Clegg. Many believe he is responsible for commissioning a poll that appeared in today’s Guardian, showing that Clegg and other Lib Dems could lose their Commons seats if he remains leader. Looking through the House of Lords Register of Members’ interests, it’s clear that Oakeshott is very rich indeed, boasting numerous Directorships and shareholdings. He certainly has the financial clout to fund such a poll. The register reveals something else, too: that Oakeshott has one member of staff, called Naomi Smith. She confirmed to me that she is ‘a

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Michael Gove hasn’t banned Steinbeck – but perhaps he should have.

I’ve never quite understood why so many people hate Michael Gove. I mean, really hate him. To my mind his heart is so obviously in the right place that I’m happy to forgive him his occasional excesses. It may not quite be the case that anyone who so thoroughly upsets the teaching establishment must be doing something right but it is very plainly something more likely to be right than wrong. Which, I suppose, means I do understand why so many people hate the Education Secretary. As the left often reminds us (albeit usually tediously) speaking truth to power is rarely popular. But no, Michael Gove has not banned  the teaching of