Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
If only Boris Johnson had enjoyed as fun a day as his mannequin in Madame Tussauds. While the Mayor struggled with an IQ test set by LBC’s Nick Ferrari, his waxwork was donning a cheery Christmas jumper for Save the Children’s Christmas jumper campaign.
A minor observation on the BBC’s coverage from Cameron’s visit to Beijing (which has been, for the most part, of very high quality.) Nick Robinson closed his piece yesterday with a reference to the authoritarian and censorious nature of Chinese society and government heavy-handedness. To illustrate this, he revealed that he and his crew had been prevented from filming in Tiananmen Square; prevented politely enough, mind. I don’t doubt for a moment that the Chinese government is foul and totalitarian, as the report which followed (regarding Tibet) amply demonstrated. And a lot, lot, worse than what we have here. But Nick – try filming anywhere in central London other than
Boris Johnson insisted today that critics of his comments about IQ had chosen to ‘wilfully misconstrue what I said’. He told LBC radio this morning that ‘what I was saying actually is that there is too much inequality, and my speech was actually a warning, as correctly reported by many newspapers, actually a warning against letting this thing go unchecked. Because if you look at what’s happened in the last 20 to 30 years, there’s been a widening in income between rich and poor – there’s no question about that.’ He also managed to fail an IQ test, which was an inevitable consequence of this whole debacle. But Labour is
The Gay Hussar, the Hungarian establishment favoured by socialists with a fondness for champagne, has been in difficulties. Mr Steerpike related a joke that was doing the rounds: drum roll please… a patrons’ co-operative might save the old place! Well, they’ve only gone and done it. Fans of goulash and Tokay are looking to raise £200,000 by Thursday. Tory boy Iain Dale has the details if you want to join. (What’s that famous political gag about the right cleaning up the left’s mess?) If the Hussar remains open, Mr Steerpike has a request: someone, please do something about the food.
Michael Gove wants to blame Labour for today’s PISA rankings, in which the UK has fallen five places to 26th, and Labour wants to blame Michael Gove. So in this spirit of mutual accusation, Gove and his opposite number Tristram Hunt, pitched up in the Commons asking one another to support their own plans for reform. Gove repeatedly appealed to the opposition to join him in supporting his various policies from more autonomy for head teachers to performance-related pay, closing his statement by appealing to Labour for a ‘unified national commitment to excellence’ in education. Hunt then responded by asking Gove if he would join Labour in supporting various policies
Another day, another selfie crime. This time, it’s our Prime Minister, who is currently in China, where he is leading the British trade delegation. He tweeted this picture of himself with entrepreneur Jack Ma and hashtagged the word ‘selfie’: Jack Ma took a #selfie of us together, which I promised to share! #UKChina pic.twitter.com/Uhx4QCI1On — David Cameron (@David_Cameron) December 3, 2013 Dave has made the classic selfie mistake though: he’s looking at the screen, rather than at the camera (unlike Ma, who is clearly well versed in taking photos on his phone). Unfortunately, Dave can’t even claim he’s a novice. He’s taken selfies before, like the one above from the
At last night’s Spectator debate, the audience voted dramatically in favour of the motion Let’s Get Fracking! Despite impassioned speeches from Green party leader Natalie Bennett, Greenpeace’s Joss Garman, and Craig Bennett from Friends of the Earth, the crowd sided with Conservative MPs Peter Lilley and John Redwood and the energy consultant Nick Grealy, who said that it’s time for Britain to ‘peek into this Pandora’s box’ and at least explore the possibilities of shale gas. Peter Lilley opened the debate with a joke at Chris Huhne’s expense: ‘in my view he should have been jailed not for driving too fast but for driving the development of shale gas too slowly’. He went
Michael Fallon is the Spectator’s Minister of the Year, nicknamed the ‘Minister for Royal Shale’ for his dual role in the privatisation of the postal service and getting fracking going in this country. He’s also the minister whose thinking most closely mirrors Number 10’s stance on the energy market at present, and so his speech at the Spectator’s energy conference yesterday wasn’t just an important glimpse into current government policy, but also future Conservative policymaking on energy. listen to ‘Michael Fallon speaking at the Spectator’s Energy Conference’ on Audioboo Significantly, the Energy Minister told the conference that the most important issues were ‘security of supply, affordability, and playing our part
David Cameron has taken a trade delegation to see the People’s Republic of China. The hope is obviously to stir up trade for Britain. Nothing wrong with that. Except that when Mr Cameron was in Sri Lanka the other week he chose to lecture the Sri Lankan government over the manner in which they put down their Tamil separatist problem a few years back. This must have been galling to more than a few Sri Lankans since much of the funding for the Tamil Tigers over the years came from open fundraising in the UK. However, you may recall that relations between London and Beijing turned very frosty after David Cameron met
If Britain is to meet its self-imposed carbon-reduction targets it means the end of coal by 2030. Things aren’t looking much brighter for the coalition. The deep fissure between Liberal Democrat-driven green policy and Conservative-driven business policy has become clear at the Spectator Energy Conference today. Ed Davey has bunked off, with his office saying he is in China. Actually he is preparing for this afternoon’s announcement in the Commons, and energy minister Michael Fallon has been sent instead. Both halves of the coalition have rapidly stitched up a deal to cut energy bills by £50. But the Lib Dems won’t tolerate a reversal of decarbonisation targets. That makes a sensible energy policy impossible. As Peter Atherton of Liberium Capital
It is not surprising that the first Scottish opinion poll to be done since Alex Salmond published his White Paper on Independence last week would slip by almost unnoticed. After all, the attention of the Scottish media was somewhere else. It was focused, quite rightly, on events in Glasgow and the aftermath of the terrible helicopter crash there. As a result, the Progressive Scottish Opinion for the Scottish Mail on Sunday appeared and then, somewhat understandably, faded away quite quickly. It was a poll which, on most weekends, would have carried the front page for the paper. However, it was relegated to page 14 by the tragedy in Glasgow. It is,
Of all the ministers involved in the Coalition negotiations over energy bills, Ed Davey has had quite the worst experience. He has had to water down his conference bullishness about standing up to the Tories to a sort of amiable plea that the Lib Dems really are keeping the Coalition green. When his departmental junior Michael Fallon won ‘Minister of the Year’ at the Spectator awards this year, one of the judges observed that he had ‘kneecapped Ed Davey’. In his interview on Today this morning, Davey went for Labour, and dodged suggestions that he and his party had lost out. As James reported yesterday, there has been a fair
Boris Johnson’s speech at the Centre for Policy Studies, much misrepresented, is still grabbing headlines. Boris gave the Margaret Thatcher memorial lecture, so it’s no surprise it has been interpreted as a bid to succeed her. But another relationship is just as intriguing: was Boris also stealing Michael Gove’s clothes? The Mayor said much about the significance of the Conservatives’ past, but the Govian aspects of his speech offer a glimpse of what the party’s immediate future might look like, particularly when it comes to a future leadership contest. Boris’ ‘cornflake packet’ argument about meritocracy is a classic piece of Govian thinking. Posing the question ‘what would Maggie do?’, Boris
Tim Yeo’s local Conservative association in South Suffolk have deselected the 68-year-old MP via secret ballot last night, the BBC reports. Yeo was only recently reinstated as chair of the Energy and Climate Change select committee after the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards ruled he had not broken rules on lobbying. As Yeo has previously said he wants to stand again in 2015, he can now either appeal or apply to be the new candidate for South Suffolk. His majority is 8,689. There is some theorising this morning about whether this is about the ‘green crap’ row over green levies and taxes on energy bills. Yeo is an outspoken supporter of renewable energy
After hours of really insightful discussions about bacon butties, MPs have finally approved the third reading of the #LetBritainDecide Bill in the Commons. The legislation will now pass to the House of Lords, where the fun really begins. I’ve already written that the Bill has served its purpose in uniting the Conservative party. But it is worth noting that Labour’s position has not moved one jot during this process. Douglas Alexander might have been right when he told the Chamber that ‘this is not a bill about the Conservatives trusting the public but about Conservative backbenchers not trusting a Conservative Prime Minister’, but that scarcely excuses the Labour position, which
The panel discussion entitled ‘Can the UK produce the next Facebook?’ carried The Spectator audience on a stimulating journey from Scotland to Silicon Valley, before dropping them back in London. Mike Tobin, from Telecity, opened the discussion with a measured speech. He explained that Britain’s technological status has stagnated, and blamed this on a a mixture of things: our culture, government policy and economics. ‘We need to change the way we educate our kids’, was the crux of his message. He suggested we should inject the ‘fun, value and enjoyment’ of computer coding into the school curriculum. Julie Meyer, founder of Ariadne Capital, gave a fast-paced lecture that focussed on the restructuring of British business
Sir John Major was beginning to make a habit of embarrassing Downing Street: by suggesting windfall taxes on energy companies and denouncing private school cliques. But he was on his best behaviour last night at the Institute of Directors’ annual dinner. He praised Cameron and Osborne for their ‘brave policy’, adding that their ‘unpopular policy’ had ‘been proved to be right’. He slammed Alex Salmond and the SNP. So far so good; but, when it came to Europe, the old dog reverted to being decidedly ‘unsound’. He believes that the EU would suffer if we were to leave (which is not something that overly concerns Eurosceptics): ‘Of course, we would survive
One of the techniques that horror writers employ to make their novels as frightening as possible is to avoid describing their monster in any great detail. Read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and by and large it will be your own imagination filling in the details of Victor Frankenstein’s creation as the creature lumbers out of its inventor’s room and into the streets of Ingolstadt. Our imaginations frighten us far more than authors can. The same elision is at work in politics, except the authors aren’t doing themselves any favours. The Tories have a habit of staying very quiet indeed on a social problem, whether it be payday loans or something else
When George Osborne stands up next week to deliver the autumn statement, he’ll have some good news to deliver. Not only is autumn, the dreariest of the British seasons over, but borrowing has come in lower than expected and the OBR will upgrade the growth forecasts. But the return of growth, as I say in the magazine this week, poses a strategic dilemma for Osborne. If he declares the economic emergency over, the public might conclude it was safe to turn back to Labour. But equally he has to show voters that he’s sharing the proceeds of growth. I suspect that Osborne will steer clear of too many sweetners. They’ll
Hold the front page, Conservative Mayor of London Boris Johnson has made a startling confession: he’s not a communist. Well not quite, but almost. Boris in fact said in a speech to the Centre for Policy Studies yesterday that he does not believe economic equality is achievable, and that natural differences will always result in some people rising to the top of society ahead of others. So yes, in other words we can ascertain that the Tory Mayor of London is not a Marxist-Leninist. Judging by much of the reaction to his comments, though, some were apparently under the impression that he was. According to the Guardian, Boris ‘invoked the