Politics Archives

Friday

20 Dec 2013

Tea at 22: Michael Fallon on jobs, Europe and Ukip

In the latest episode of Tea at 22, I interviewed Conservative business and energy minister Michael Fallon on his work in two Whitehall departments, Tory EU policy, and the party’s approach to Ukip. Fallon was the Spectator’s Minister of the Year for 2013. He had some very interesting points about how the Business department in particular might look different under a Tory majority government, suggesting that the Lib Dems had held the Tories back in getting more young people into work. Asked whether the Lib Dems had left the labour market rather more gummed up than the Tories would like, Fallon said: ‘Yes we would certainly have liked to have

Alex Massie

The so-called “crack cocaine of gambling” is a myth. Trust Ed Miliband to believe in it.

The puritan, as devotees of Baltimore’s finest know, is greatly exercised by the fear that someone, somewhere, might be enjoying themselves. Ed Miliband is a puritan. And a hopeless, nagging, fish-faced puritan at that. A ninny, in other words. The Labour leader has a rare gift. He knows, you see, how you should spend your money. What’s more, if you fail to spend your cash in the proper Miliband-approved manner he thinks he should be – nay is! – entitled to coerce you into changing your miserable behaviour. Of course he is not alone in that. Many politicians are far too free and easy in these matters. But there is

Charlotte Henry

The runners and riders for deputy leader of the Lib Dems

The election of the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrat parliamentary party is hardly hold the front page stuff. However, whoever wins the contest, triggered this week by Simon Hughes’ surprise elevation to ministerial office, will give us a good indication as to where the party currently sees itself. The election is decided by a vote of Lib Dem MPs, as that is who the deputy leader is there to represent, and can only be contested by those who are not ministers. Coaltion has forced the Lib Dems to look at where they stand ideologically, and who the MPs select as their deputy leader will give a strong indication of

Fraser Nelson

ONS admits UK economic recovery is stronger than it thought

The ONS has today revised upwards its growth for most of 2013, to show a recovery far stronger than it admitted at the time. This fits a trend: in economics, good luck tends to come in waves. And the tools economists have to work out what’s happening are so crude (and often useless) that it takes years to work out what really happened. Only in 2011, for example, was it clear that Gordon Brown had incubated the worst economic overheating since the war – hence the crash. But by the time this was clear, everyone blamed bankers for the crash – when, in fact, it was just reckless economic management.

Isabel Hardman

Will ignoring FOBTs be enough?

When he spoke to the 1922 Committee on Wednesday, David Cameron told MPs that the Conservative attack on Labour must not involve fighting the party on its own territory. He named payday loans as one of the issues that Ed Miliband and co want to create an ‘evil Tories’ narrative on. But another one that Miliband is currently focusing on is fixed-odds betting terminals, or FOBTs. The Labour leader has announced today that a Labour government would give councils the power to ban or cut the number of FOBTs in their areas. Visiting Kilburn today, Miliband said: ‘Currently there is almost nothing that can be done to stop the spread

Ed West

Stella Creasy’s stance on gendered toys misses the point

I felt a touch of sadness on Tuesday when Marks & Spencer caved in to demands that they de-gender their toys, which must make me the worst person on earth. After her triumphant campaign, MP Stella Creasy tweeted: if it annoys some so much girls might want 2 play with cars, imagine how they’d feel if they knew also wanted 2 run companies & stuff! ;-@ — stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) December 18, 2013 Is that why, though? What annoys a lot of people is that a vocal pressure group professing outrage, the universally accepted currency of public discourse, has limited customers’ options. It’s like when people complain about Amazon selling

Alex Massie

In praise of Eric Joyce

Yes, Eric Joyce, the MP for Falkirk until the next election, has issues. Yes, his copy book is well blotted. He has a conviction for assault which scarcely reflects splendidly upon him (even if many members of the public themselves wouldn’t mind sticking-the-heid on any number of MPs) and in his dozen or so years in Westminster he has made energetic use of his parliamentary allowances. Yes, yes, yes. But I have some time for almost anyone declared “unfit to stand for the Labour party”. It’s a kind of character reference. Moreover and despite his troubles, Joyce possesses many of the qualities we should desire in our parliamentary representatives. Chief of

Isabel Hardman

PM pushes for stricter immigration controls in Brussels

The Prime Minister is in Brussels today, trying to drum up support for stricter immigration controls on new countries joining the European Union. How much traction this gains will tell us a great deal about how successful his overall renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU might be. David Cameron’s supporters argue that the tide of ideas is clearly turning in his direction in Europe, and that he has clocked up a number of achievements already in persuading other leaders to think what he’s thinking, especially that cut he managed to achieve in the EU Budget. They also hope that the work MPs from the Fresh Start Project have been

Thursday

19 Dec 2013

Douglas Murray

The murder of Lee Rigby had everything to do with the worst version of Islam

The ‘guilty’ verdict has been delivered in the trial of Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale for the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in May. An interview with the soldier’s parents has just been released in which they say that their son died in the cause of protecting the rights of our democracy, including the freedom of speech and the freedom to walk the streets in safety. So it would do an injustice to the young man’s memory not to reflect on what has constituted an additional outrage and insult in this already horrific case. Within hours of the murder of Drummer Rigby in May our Prime Minister, David Cameron, appeared

Sajid Javid

Nine months is generous – Ed Balls has nothing to say on the economy

With the economy recovering and Labour floundering, it was a poor PMQs yesterday for Ed Miliband. And the source of his trouble was sitting right next to him – his own Shadow Chancellor. After a disastrous response to the Autumn Statement, Ed Miliband is rumoured to have given Ed Balls nine months to sort out Labour’s economic policy. Clearly riled, Ed Balls has given an interview to the FT this morning, the raison d’etre explicitly being to try and regain some credibility on the economy. And so, somewhat wearily, we have the re-announcement of a ‘zero-based spending review’, six months on from its first outing in June. Try as Balls

Steerpike

Lib Dems crush #TeamJezza

Sanctimonious Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes has accepted a government job, despite having said that he would not. Speculation about who might replace him reached fever pitch last night at the annual Nick Clegg bash, which is always a night to remember. Insiders deride the job as ‘talking to bearded activists about hemp soup’. It’s among the more tedious posts in Westminster; but someone has to do it to keep the Lib Dem grass roots sweet. Tories and right-wing yellows are still sore that Nick Clegg sacked dishy West Country MP Jeremy Browne during the last reshuffle, and #TeamJezza soon gained traction. Mr S rather likes the idea of

Isabel Hardman

Vince Cable: London is ‘becoming a kind of giant suction machine’

Vince Cable’s Today interview was remarkable for two reasons. The first was that the Business Secretary announced that he doesn’t want to ‘rush into legislation’ on zero hours contracts and instead wants to have another look at exclusivity agreements, where an employee is forced to work for one company only, even if they offer very few paid hours from week to week. This isn’t that surprising to those who have been following the debate: the Lib Dems found at their conference that their members were quite wary in Q&A sessions of outlawing these scary-sounding examples of labour market flexibility, and the Tories working on this are quite relaxed about tackling

Wednesday

18 Dec 2013

Isabel Hardman

Cameron to 1922 Committee: We must tell voters a hung parliament would threaten our radicalism

David Cameron received a rapturous banging of desks at the final meeting of the year for the 1922 Committee this evening. My sources have given me a run-down of what was said. Backbenchers were, I hear, very cheered by some of his words, particularly on his 2015 strategy. The Prime Minister told his MPs that the important thing to avoid is fighting Labour on their own territory. That means resisting being dragged into ding-dongs about payday loans and other pet issues that Labour likes to raise (the problem with this is that it creates a vacuum for Labour to invent its own description of what the nasty Tories think when

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: This being Yuletide there were some turkey ticklers

Christmas is excellent news for a Labour opposition. The season of goodwill throws rich and poor into sharp relief. Red-faced aldermen gather at loaded tables to gobble up roast goose and plum-duff. And afterwards they throw sixpences at starving chimney-sweeps who scrabble for crusts of bread in the snow. At least that’s how it should be. But Labour is in trouble this year. A dearth of bad news has gripped the country. There’s a chronic shortage of shortages. And the lack of a serious crisis is reaching crisis proportions. Ed Miliband is suffering. He looked positively nauseous as he stood up at PMQs and applauded the ‘welcome’ fall in joblessness.

Isabel Hardman

PMQs: a triumph for David Cameron, aided by Ed ‘turkey’ Balls

A Prime Minister can leave PMQs happy if he’s sent his troops off for Christmas in a good mood. Today David Cameron managed that, weaving in festive jokes through a list of statistics that shot Labour down. He was helped by the fact that Ed Miliband didn’t have a coherent line of attack at all, dancing from complaining that the employment figures still showed too many people were in part-time work to energy bills, to the Chancellor’s missed targets on the economy and on to childcare and the the 50p rate. There was a theme here: look at how the country is struggling to get enough work and afford the

Alex Massie

What is David Cameron for?

A mischievous question, I know, but one prompted by Janan Ganesh’s latest Financial Times column. It is eight years since David Cameron became leader of the Conservative party and three and a half since he became Prime Minister. He may only have 18 months left in either post. We know – or think we know – a lot about Cameron. He is what he seems to be. Decent fellow, capable in a crisis, unruffled. A better-than-average product of his class and background. Thought he should be Prime Minister because he reckoned he’d “be good at it”. And yet the thought nags: what is he for? What is Cameron’s ministry about? As Ganesh

Isabel Hardman

Greg Barker interview: ‘Green crap’ was a curmudgeonly thing to say

You might be forgiven for thinking that the Conservative party has spent the past month or so taking all the green rubbish – or ‘crap’ as one source close to the Prime Minister was quoted as saying – out and forgetting it ever loved environmentalism. But visiting Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker’s office is a reminder that the party hasn’t quite purged its green, climate-change conscious past. He still has a green Union Jack cushion on one chair, and another with ‘Save the Planet’ embroidered on the case. There’s still a picture of the Prime Minister with a husky on a side table. Clearly Barker still thinks that

Isabel Hardman

Faster curbs on ‘benefit tourism’ are easy-peasy compared with Cameron’s real EU task

The Prime Minister’s announcement today that he is fast-tracking his curbs on ‘benefit tourism’ was designed to reassure worried MPs that the government really is moving as fast as it can to do anything it can ahead of the lifting of transitional controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants. When these curbs, which mean all EU jobseekers will have to wait for three months before they can apply for out-of-work benefits, were first briefed a few weeks ago, Downing Street suggested that they would not be ready for the 1 January deadline. Better to brief a later date and then speed things up, as the Prime Minister has today. But while

Tuesday

17 Dec 2013

Douglas Murray

‘The left’ doesn’t matter; but its cowardice does

I know it’s not quite the year’s end. But I think the sweetest words I heard in 2013 are already set: ‘The left doesn’t really matter’. Those words were said to me by a pollster. The point he was making was that although the commentating classes obsess about the state of the left, it doesn’t really matter. Among the public as a whole only a handful of people take any interest in where the left does or doesn’t stand on issues and what this does or doesn’t mean. If there is anyone who thinks that a shame they should just look at the contortions ‘the left’ is going through now over

Isabel Hardman

Ukip and Tories scrap over their squeeze message

One thing that has been abundantly clear about the Tory plan for Ukip is that it will involve a long, slow ‘squeeze message’ (more on that here) that has already been deployed: the vote Ukip, get Miliband line. Naturally, Ukip is keen to counter that and argue that in fact this early squeeze message to encourage voters to think strategically is just wrong. To that end, party donor Alan Bown has taken out a full-page advertisement in the Telegraph today that argues ‘UKIP stand poised for a major breakthrough in 2015, within reach of victory in many seats across the country’. He outlines the results of four polls: in the