Politics

One of the other things worth noting from this morning’s letter from the ‘members of the progressive community’ who are anxious that Labour isn’t attempting to make a big offer in 2015 is that the alliance of groups and figures from the left and right of the party back decentralisation. The letter calls for: ‘Devolution of state institutions, by giving away power and resources to our nations, regions, cities, localities and, where possible, directly to the people.’ As I explained in my Telegraph column last week, a battle in the shadow cabinet has resulted in a surprise victory for Hilary Benn and Jon Cruddas, who had been pushing for a

Tory MPs from less privileged backgrounds than their leader have developed a fun new game to play in the members’ tea room: drawing up definitive rankings of Polite Old Etonians and Rude Old Etonians. I hear that the polite list includes Jesse Norman, Zac Goldsmith and Jacob Rees Mogg, while the rude list features not only the PM but his chief whip Sir George Young, who is accused of ‘arrogance’. Apparently Sir George doesn’t say hello to people in the corridor. Keen bean Rory Stewart is also on the rude list: ‘People don’t mind ambition in parliament, but vaulting Shakespearean ambition is a bit of a turn off,’ whispers one

Do we trust our politicians to deal with Britain’s ties with Europe? The polar opposites on the matter, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage, will be making their case for reconfiguring Britain’s relationship this Wednesday, but it appears we have little faith in either of them. Ahead of the debate, YouGov and LBC have commissioned some polling on how each of the party leaders are trusted on Europe. The results aren’t particularly encouraging for any party leader — 31 per cent trust no-one on this matter, and all of the other party leaders rank below that: [datawrapper chart=”http://charts.spectator.co.uk/chart/uN3cV/”] While Nigel Farage is trusted by only 11 per cent, Nick Clegg scores

The row over Grant Shapps’ bingo poster is an example of what happens when politicians assume that what goes in the Westminster bubble stays there. David Cameron and Paul Dacre may be right that ’too many tweets make a twat’ and Twitter can be a ‘phoney world’. But occasionally, one tweet can move into the real world too. As Isabel reported yesterday, Conservative HQ’s ineffectual response to the misjudged Bingo poster suggests that they hoped the anger could be contained amongst the anti-Conservative brigade, many of whom spend their days tweeting abuse to George Osborne. But the number of spoofs (a selection can be seen above) and the fury within

Labour’s response to the biggest announcement of the Budget, on pensions reform, was never going to be snappy. It would be unfair to expect an Opposition to deliver an immediate response to such a surprising and complex reform. But that’s not to say that the way the party has responded has been exemplary. They were not helped by John McTernan’s Newsnight interview on Wednesday night in which he framed the debate about the pension reforms as being about whether or not governments should trust people to manage their own money. He’s a former party adviser so he doesn’t get the lines to take (which, according to Adam Boulton, were not

Douglas Alexander has given an interesting interview to the Independent in which he reveals that Labour has set up a team to monitor Ukip. It will go some way to reassuring those at the top of the party who, as I report in my Telegraph column this morning, are growing increasingly nervous about the party’s chances in the European elections. There have been awkward confrontations in Shadow Cabinet meetings about the party’s election strategy, and demands for something a little more tangible on the doorstep from shadow ministers from all wings of the party, and from candidates. It’s interesting that Labour is taking Ukip seriously, as some party chiefs initially