Politics

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

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson, Tory counsellor-in-chief

Boris Johnson is difficult to pigeonhole, but at Tory conferences he seems to be taking the role of counsellor-in-chief, cheering up party activists with a slew of jokes and slights on other ambitious colleagues or indeed his party leader. As ever, there were two huge queues outside the auditorium this evening for his event on London, and some of the only truly sincere and excited-sounding applause when he (eventually) arrived. And there were jokes – ‘Ukip if you want to – David Cameron’s not for kipping. Not unless, obviously, he’s at his sister-in-law’s wedding’ and the definition of ‘Milipede’ being some sort of left wing insect – that left them

Sebastian Payne

Nigel Farage: offering Tories the kite mark of Euroscepticism

Normally you might lump Nigel Farage and Bill Cash together on the political spectrum. But today there wasn’t much love lost between them, judging by their almighty clash at a Bruges Group fringe today. The Ukip leader aimed both barrels at Cash, who had asked Farage not to fight Tories in marginal seats: ‘I have to say Bill, and I hate to say this, but listening to you this afternoon I’ve realised that you are a hopelessly, out of date tribal politician who has not recognised that British politics has fundamentally changed. ‘To ask me, to support a party lead by Mr Cameron, in order we can get back our

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How easy is Nigel Farage to squeeze?

Nigel Farage can’t come into the Conservative conference secure zone, but is hovering around the metal barriers at fringes and receptions. The Tories are trying to squeeze him out of the frame as they hold their annual jamboree, but they aren’t succeeding terribly well: today’s news is full of speculation about a Tory/Ukip pact, even though Farage has been talking about this for years (see James’s interview with him in the Speccie). But beyond this conference, all the parties are interested in – and worried about – how on earth they can squeeze Farage effectively when it really matters. The ‘squeeze message’ is one that parties deploy in the days

James Forsyth James Forsyth

George Osborne is back in the Tory leadership race

If the next Tory leadership election is a marathon, George Osborne fell down at mile six with that 2012 Budget. Most of those watching assumed that was the end of him. But Osborne got up, dusted himself down and started making his way back through the pack. Today’s speech showed that Osborne thinks he’s now back in that race. It was littered with the personal pronoun. It included a tribute to his parents who founded what Osborne called a small manufacturing company’ which the rest of us call Osborne and Little, the up-market wallpaper merchants beloved of the interior designing classes. It also showed off his acid sense of humour,

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

We’ll balance the books!! (By 2020) George Osborne speech analysis

You have to hand it to George Osborne: he’s great at turning massive setbacks to his advantage. He pledged to get rid of the deficit over one parliament, now he’s boldly saying he’ll do it over two. Be had said he’d sort out the economy over five years (after all, Britain won a world war in six) but now – in a well-delivered and well-received speech – he’s solemnly declaring that we’re ‘not nearly finished’ and he should be re-elected to finish the job. So to prove it, he had a new plan for 2018-20: a new deficit pledge. As ever with Osborne, it’s political.  He calculates that Ed Miliband plans

Sebastian Payne

View from 22 podcast special: the return of George Osborne

Fraser Nelson thinks it was the ‘language of someone happy with the economy’. James Forsyth saw it as renewed hope for leading the Conservative party. On this special View from 22 podcast, we analyse George Osborne’s speech to Tory conference this morning; whether the economic measures mentioned were sensible and what it says about the Chancellor himself. You can subscribe to our podcast through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week, or you can use the embedded player below: listen to ‘Spectator Podcast: @frasernelson and @jamesforsyth discuss Osborne’s speech’ on Audioboo

Steerpike Steerpike

Tory MP wins the Game of Thrones

There can only be one winner when you play the Game of Thrones. Any fan will tell you that. The victor, though, always comes as surprise: witness below Tory backwoodsman Alec Shelbrooke resplendent on the Iron Throne. The bombastic MP for Elmet, who is the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, visited the set of the hit HBO series, which is being filmed in Ulster. He’s been proudly flashing the picture around the conference bar. It’s the closest thing to leadership speculation that I have picked up on, so far.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Breaking: George Osborne wants to freeze fuel duty for the rest of this Parliament

George Osborne is currently giving his speech to the Tory conference, which is being well received – particularly impressive in this flat hall. He focused initially on the argument that fixing the economy is the way to solve the cost of living crisis. But his MPs will also be heartened that he didn’t stop there. The Chancellor has just told the conference hall that, provided the savings can be found, he wants to freeze fuel duty for the rest of this parliament. This announcement came at the end of a passage on the sort of people the Conservatives want to stand beside: the factory and warehouse workers that the Chancellor

The Spectator

George Osborne’s speech to the Conservative conference: full text and audio

listen to ‘George Osborne’s speech to the Conservative conference’ on Audioboo At every Party Conference since the election, as we have gathered, the question for us, the question for me, the question for our country, has been: ‘is your economic plan working?’. They’re not asking that question now. The deficit down by a third. Exports doubled to China. Taxpayers’ money back from the banks, not going in. 1.4 million new jobs created by businesses. 1,000 new jobs announced in this city today. Our plan is working. We held our nerve in the face of huge pressure. Now Britain is turning a corner. That is down to the resolve and to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Can Jeremy Hunt make the Tories the patients’ party?

What to do about Ukip is dominating the conversation on the fringe and in the conference bars here in Manchester. But Ukip is only part of the challenge for the Tories. At the next election, they need to hold onto their 2010 supporters and—if they are to win a majority—take votes off Labour. The Tories will only be able to do that if they can reassure these voters on the cost of living and public services. So, this week we’ll see the Tories trying to underscore their commitment to the NHS. There’s already been the cancer drugs fund announcement and Jeremy Hunt will, as I said in the Mail on

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne focuses on big picture and trust to undermine Labour

How can the Conservatives deal with Labour’s attack on the cost of living? As I explained last week, the party believes that the best way to address the opposition’s focus on living standards is to talk about the bigger picture rather than the ‘footling little things’. Senior Tories I’ve spoken to in the past week are very confident indeed that because they enjoy the trust of voters on the economy, while voters still blame Labour for the mess, they don’t need to worry about the strategy that Ed Miliband has adopted. One senior figure remarked to me this weekend that ‘Labour has mis-fired: when we’ve got such a poll lead

Sebastian Payne

Conservative conference: Monday fringe guide

Every morning throughout party conference season, we’ll be providing our pick of the fringe events on Coffee House. It’s the second day of the Conservative conference today in Manchester and the fringe is in full swing. As Grant Shapps noted when he kicked things off yesterday, the Tories’ is the largest party conference in the UK, and you could easily tell that from the fringe listings. So, for a round-up of the events you can’t miss look no further than Coffee House’s guide to the crème de la crème of the conference fringe below: Title Key speaker(s) Time Location Business is good for Britain: How can we encourage private investment and

Sunday

Sebastian Payne

Free Enterprise Group MPs say no to Help to Buy

Will any Tories except Cameron and Osborne applaud the Help to Buy mortgage scheme? At an IEA fringe event this evening, discussing lessons to be learnt from the recession, all the members present of the Free Enterprise Group of Tory MPs all conveyed their concern at the plans the Prime Minister has accelerated this weekend. Former banker Andrea Leadsom said she was ‘exceedingly concerned’ and suggested the property cap should be lowered from £650,000 to £350,000. Chris Skidmore agreed the cap is too large while Kwasi Kwarteng (leader of the group) said he was ‘uneasy about governments propping up credit markets in such a direct way’. The Free Enterprise Group

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

William Hague is charming, but what he says won’t satisfy the Eurosceptics

William Hague has to be one of the most charming men in the Cabinet. Today, rather than attacking his Lib Dem colleagues for being ‘woolly’, as Philip Hammond did, the Foreign Secretary made the case for a majority Conservative government by saying quite politely, at the end of a long list of British foreign policy achievements, ‘And all that in a Coalition: just think what we could accomplish on our own’. Delegates loved that. listen to ‘William Hague: ‘We must open the sluice gates of our soft power’’ on Audioboo

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why can’t Justine Greening pretend to enjoy her job?

Does Justine Greening enjoy being International Development Secretary? I ask only because while the text of her speech to the Conservative party conference contained a lengthy defence of aid spending, the minister managed to sound about as thrilled as someone who had just discovered their bus fare had gone up by 10p when she actually delivered it. If nothing else, the speech demonstrated that Andrew Mitchell was a loss to the case for ring-fencing the aid budget when he made his fateful journey from that department to the whips’ office. Mitchell always launched into an impassioned and compelling explanation of the liberal interventionist case for development spending. Meanwhile Greening is

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Philip Hammond: Britain can do better than a blank sheet of paper or the Lib Dems

listen to ‘Hammond: ‘A Conservative government will never send our forces in to battle without the right kit’’ on Audioboo Philip Hammond’s speech to the Conservative conference was accompanied by the set of circumstances that most ministers have bad dreams about after eating too much cheese. First he was interrupted by two men in military clothing, shouting about defence cuts and fusiliers. ‘I’ll come and talk to you later, let me finish my speech,’ the Defence Secretary said, hopefully. The man didn’t stop, and was escorted from the floor, followed by a cloud of journalists scribbling away and enthusiastic photographers. Then the giant screens behind Hammond that were beaming two

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Grant Shapps: Britain can do better than a Labour government

Manchester Central is a beautiful, cavernous conference venue. But it also seems to be acting as a bit of an atmosphere sink today. When Grant Shapps bounded onto the conference stage after the party’s tribute to Baroness Thatcher, he might have expected that his speech, which was full of the sort of fare that Tory grassroots love – attacks on Labour and the trade unions and a reminder that Abu Qatada no longer haunts these shores – would have gone down to uproarious applause. But though delegates clearly liked his speech, they never really warmed up. If this continues through the week, it won’t help diminish the impression that political

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How strong can the Tory tax attack be?

One of the key dividing lines in 2015 will be over what sort of action each of the parties proposes to take over filling the financial black hole. The choice is between tax rises and spending cuts, and the Tories were first out of the blocks to make clear that they want to focus on spending cuts, specifically shaving more money from the welfare bill, as part of their election offer. James first revealed this in his Mail on Sunday column in June, and then George Osborne ruled out tax rises at a press gallery lunch the following month. At the time, he said: ‘I think this can be delivered

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Look who’s back: Steve Hilton returns to help with Cameron’s conference speech

When Steve Hilton left Downing Street he regarded his friend David Cameron’s premiership as a disappointment. As Matt d’Ancona reports, Hilton regarded Cameron as ‘reactive not transformative’. When he didn’t return at the end of his sabbatical, it was thought that was that. But for the last few days, Hilton has been back. When Cameron asked him to come and help on his conference speech, their old friendship kicked in and Hilton flew back from California. He was one of five people who hunkered down with Cameron at Chequers from Tuesday to Wednesday evening to work out how the Tory leader should respond to Miliband. With Hilton, Cameron and Michael

Nigel Jones

It’s not just the Tories who ought to fear Ukip – Labour and the Lib Dems should too

Listen! The sound you hear in the damp Tory grassroots as they gather in Manchester for the party conference this weekend is not the noise of a questing vole, but the first, faint squeals of panic as the General Election nears and the cry goes up : ‘What on earth are we going to do about Ukip?’ Already, commentators of a Cameroon bent have started to scratch their heads and gnaw their knuckles as they contemplate the awful truth: without those lost Ukip votes the Conservative party will not win re-election, yet if Cameron remains as their leader, that support will never be forthcoming. Last week the Telegraph’s Iain Martin