Politics

What have the Churchill £5 note, the Home Office ‘racist vans’ and the ‘Bedroom Tax’ got in common? All were alleged breaches of section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, which provides that public authorities are under a duty to have ‘due regard’ to preventing discrimination and advancing equality. Dropping Elizabeth Fry from banknotes was said to be a breach of s149 by the campaign to bring a judicial review. They quickly secured the £10 note for Jane Austen. But as litigants, they would have been in good company. Section 149 was used by the Fawcett Society to challenge the 2010 Budget’s impact on women. It was also the legal

Ties between the Tories and the Republicans have rarely been weaker than they are today. The hiring of Jim Messina, Barack Obama’s campaign manager, is another sign that the Tories are more interested in the technical effectiveness of the Obama machine than they are in anything that the Republicans are producing. I suspect that the Republican most likely to revive Tory interest in the GOP, its idea and its electoral strategy, is Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey. Christie is neither a southern Republican nor a Tea Party man. Rather, he’s a north eastern Republican with a more emollient attitude to government. Christie is up for re-election in New

Ed Miliband is rumoured to be on the verge of sacking shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg, who is simply no match for Michael Gove’s flair and intellect. I hear that Vernon Coaker, who was Children, Schools and Families Minister under Brown and Balls, is in line for promotion. Coaker is a former teacher and seasoned political pugilist, so he would certainly brighten things up. But the damp Twigg has not given up, not yet. As is his wont, he has penned a letter to the Times Education Supplement. And, as ever, it is not a success. Among the usual bleats about Gove being a rabble rousing ‘ideologue’, I noticed this line: ‘Like a shark in

David Cameron is committed to an EU referendum if he’s still Prime Minister after the next election. We also know that he’d like to lead the ‘In’ side if he can get a good enough deal. Given this, the fact that the FT is reporting that Ivan Rogers, the PM’s Europe adviser, is the frontrunner to be Britain’s ambassador to the EU is particularly disappointing. Rogers is a cerebral chap who knows the EU and its institutions back to front. But what he is not is someone who is a natural at driving a hard bargain. As one insider says, ‘he’s not a tough negotiator like Cunliffe’, a reference to

The British embassy in Yemen is to be closed for a couple of days because the Americans have got wind of a terrorist threat. The Foreign Office has gone so far as to urge all Britons to leave the fractious, arid, maniac-bedevilled wasteland right now. I think they should stay where they are. Any Britons visiting Yemen are either mentally ill or actually involved in plotting the very terrorist violence the FCO is worried about. If only we could persuade all of our trainee jihadis to export their talents to this desolate agglomeration of rocks and sand, Britain would be a happier and safer place to live in.

It’s a good time to be a Tory in Westminster at present. Labour is under pressure. The backbench dissenters have been quietened. Aides, hacks and spinners exude an air of confidence when you meet them in SW1’s watering holes. Even Boris Johnson reckons that David Cameron could yet pull it off in 2015. Speaking of which, the party has captured the services of Jim Messina, a strategist who has worked with Barack Obama. He will whip CCHQ’s mercurial digital assets into shape and help to sell the government’s economic record. Aside from enjoying the benefit of Messina’s gifts, this is a PR coup for the ‘nasty party’. Observe the reaction

First the white vans, now the spot checks – Nigel Farage is being given fresh voice by the Home Office’s attempts to tackle illegal immigration. He has said of the spot checks: ‘Spot checks and being demanded to show your papers by officialdom are not the British way of doing things. Yes of course we want to deal with illegal immigration but what’s the point of rounding people up at railway stations if at the same time they are still flooding in at Dover and the other nearly 100 ports in this country. I’m astonished that the Home Office has become so politicised…before long they will be live video-streaming of these arrests.