Politics

The Sun on Sunday’s story this morning that senior Tories have opened talks with Boris Johnson about a campaigning role for the Mayor follows some advice offered by James Forsyth in the pages of this magazine back in May. In his politics column, James argued that Boris needed a role in the 2015 campaign to reach voters who might otherwise be turned off by the Tories: ‘Persuading the public that Labour can’t be trusted with office again is necessary but not sufficient. To achieve victory, the Tories must connect with the electorate in a way that they are currently not. That means Cameron finding a role for Boris; he’d be

After a seasonal interlude, rival Tories are back to doing what they do best: warring over the heart and soul of the party. In the cuddly corner, we have Bright Blue; a think tank of hoody-huggers who are imploring the PM to be nice to immigrants. The Guardian has been purring with approval since Bright Blue’s director Ryan Shorthouse ‘specifically called for the Tory Party to adopt a Liberal-Conservative manifesto for the election’: ‘At the moment, the messaging is quite negative and uninspiring – it’s not enough to win voters and gain momentum. We need to be more inspiring and bigger picture than that and we need a positive vision, not

It turns out that Alex Salmond needn’t worry too much about the re-emergence of that pesky row about advice on an independent Scotland’s membership of the European Union. He’s got arguments that are far more powerful than all that to convince Scots of the value of independence. In the latest issue of Idea, a magazine produced by the Evangelical Alliance, two Christian MSPs set out their arguments in favour of and against independence. Both accept that there isn’t one Christian position on the subject, but the SNP MSP for Glasgow Shettleston John Mason does suggest that the Bible might have some wisdom on the matter – and it’s from as far

In my interview with David Cameron in the current Christmas edition of The Spectator, there wasn’t enough space for everything – including his thoughts on press regulation. We did discuss it, in the back of his car, and he warned that the press is playing a dangerous game in its defiance — i.e., refusing to sign up to the Politicians’ Charter. This was an elegant and voluntary compromise, he said, and the alternative may be compulsory statutory regulation enforced by an illiberal Labour government. After the publication of the Leveson Report in November last year, Cameron spoke very eloquently about the danger of statutory regulation – rejecting regulation which ‘has the

Earlier on today, I was asked by Angus MacNeil, a Scottish National Party MP if I would choose a Scottish or a British passport should they win the referendum. As he knows, the choice is anathema to those of us who are proud to be both Scottish and British and don’t see any antagonism that needs to be resolved by separation. SNP politicians, in my experience, are some of the nicest people in politics on either side of the border. Moderate, friendly, intelligent, open-minded, gentle: such decent types that you can end up being blinded to their agenda. Which is to destroy Britain, to force people to choose between being Scottish or British,

While Anna Soubry’s short joke about Nigel Farage on Marr has been causing the biggest row, it was actually Vince Cable’s interview earlier in the programme that was clearly intended to annoy. The Business Secretary has been quite quiet of late, particularly after a rather humiliating conference season. But today he went much, much further than his boss Nick Clegg in differentiating the Lib Dems from the Tories. While he repeatedly referred to his leader’s work in blocking the 75,000 proposed by Theresa May in a leaked Home Office document, Cable repeated his fears about the Help to Buy scheme and, significantly, warned that cuts to public services were endangering

Fair’s fair. Ed Miliband might be a fish-faced ninny but that doesn’t let David Cameron off the hook. And not just because he’s trailing a fish-faced ninny in the polls. No, the Prime Minister can be a terrible poltroon himself. Witness his witless suggestion today that the United Kingdom might veto future EU enlargement unless something is done to  thwart “vast migrations” of people. It is a silly thing to say for a number of reasons and the first of those is that Cameron is in no position to make any such suggestion. He cannot bind future British governments and since there is no immediate prospect of any country being

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