Politics

The pegs are definitely coming out of Michael Gove’s education big tent, although it’s not just the Secretary of State who is pulling them out. Time was when Stephen Twigg could only make strangely consensual-yet-critical humming noises at the despatch box during departmental questions. Now Tristram Hunt is able to find sufficient difference between his education policies and Gove’s to go on the attack at these sessions, and Gove can snap back about the quality – rather than complete absence – of Labour’s education policy. At today’s education questions, Hunt attacked on Ofsted: not just the row about Sir Michael Wilshaw, but on whether academies and free schools should be

How many FTSE 100 chief executives support Labour? How many FTSE 250 chief execs back Ed Miliband? Difficult questions for Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, in his outing on the BBC’s Sunday Politics today. Labour’s plan to jack up the top rate of income tax to 52 per cent (up from 47 per cent) has sent a fairly clear message about its attitude to business. Digby Jones, an ex-CBI boss who served in Gordon Brown’s government, has summarized Miliband’s position as: ‘if it creates wealth, let’s kick it.’ Stuart Rose, ex-M&S ceo, says the 50p tax borders on ‘predatory taxation.’ The head of the London Stock Exchange says Milband’s 50p

Compare and contrast. We have Chris Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency, whose shortcomings can now be seen covering 23,000 acres of Somerset. And yet, when visiting yesterday, he did not say sorry (the word he used instead was ‘proud’). He says he sees no reason for him to resign, even when it is clear that the failures he has overseen have led to a spectacular catastrophe (we call for his resignation in this week’s Spectator). Exhibit B is Mark Harper, who has just quit as immigration minister because he failed to spot that his cleaner had lied about having permission to work in Britain. She went to far as

Downing Street comms supremo Craig Oliver texted ‘could this be the start of a beautiful new relationship?’ to a Telegraph executive when Tony Gallagher departed as editor of the once staunchly Tory broadsheet. It seems that Michael Gove did not get the memo, though. Gove dropped by Telegraph towers on Buckingham Palace Road yesterday to give an interview, after which his government chauffeur contrived to drive his car into the side of the building – something many an MP must wish they could do after the Telegraph-led expenses scandal. A witness tells me: ‘he actually dealt with it very well’. After checking on his driver, Gove cracked a joke about

[audioplayer src=’http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_6_February_2014_v4.mp3′ title=’Matthew Parris and Alex Massie discuss how Alex Salmond could wreck the Union even if he loses’ startat=55] Listen [/audioplayer]From a kind of torpor about this year’s Scottish referendum, Lord Lang of Monkton has roused me. You may remember Lord Lang as Ian Lang, a Scot who as MP for Galloway served Margaret Thatcher and John Major as a minister, under the latter both as Scottish Secretary and then President of the Board of Trade. A pleasant, steady and notably capable man, it was possible to imagine him as a potential Tory leader, but he stuck with John Major throughout. Last Thursday, Lang secured and led a Lords