Politics

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

Friday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The Cameron doctrine: Britain’s new foreign policy

David Cameron is continuing his tour of Africa today and is — according to the New York Times — ‘boasting a sheaf of commitments to new partnerships in the fields of defense, counterterrorism, intelligence-sharing and military training’. He was in Tripoli yesterday, where his approval ratings ought to be sky high having been instrumental in the operation to depose Gaddafi. He was urging a no-fly zone at a time when even the Pentagon was mocking him for the idea. Last week, he upped the stakes and spoke of a ‘generational battle’ in Mali. The PM is turning into quite the hawk: after Afghanistan and Libya, the decision to contribute C-17s and

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 — Leveson debate special

The Spectator hosted a sell out debate on Thursday night on the motion ‘Leveson is a fundamental threat to the free press’, and you can now hear what happened. As Fraser reported yesterday, it was a lively affair, with the motion carried albeit with a significant swing to those speaking against. Although the quality is not as good as we had hoped, you should still be able to follow what happened.  You can hear the individual speakers at: 2:30 – Richard Littlejohn (for) 11:25 – Chris Bryant (against) 23:26 – Guido Fawkes (for) 32:21 – Max Mosley (against) 40:44 – John Whittingdale (for) 51:50 – Evan Harris (against) 1:05:13 – Questions

Thursday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory battle of the letters intensifies

It’s the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice this week, so perhaps it’s the passionate letter from Darcy to Elizabeth that’s inspired such an enthusiastic burst of letter-writing from Conservative MPs complaining about stories in the press today. Earlier, we had Jake Berry complaining to the BBC, and now there are more. Sadly, the latest missives I’ve got hold of from Harriett Baldwin don’t contain declarations of love, or any insults for the recipient’s mother: instead, Baldwin is angry about an article by Ed Miliband in today’s Sun. Plugging his party’s policy for every big firm receiving a government contract to train young people, the Labour leader writes:

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Govt confusion on defence shows how painful the next spending review will be

The government’s position on defence spending is, to put it politely, confused. After the completion of the SDSR and the defence spending settlement, there was an expectation that the military budget would begin to rise again in real terms from 2015. There has long been talk in Whitehall that David Cameron assured senior military figures that this would be the case and, as James Kirkup notes, he told the Commons that he believed that this would happen. So, this morning when we woke to the news from the Prime Minister’s plane that the defence budget would rise in 2015-16, it seemed that Cameron had imposed his will on the bureaucracy.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Half of the British Army’s officer corps is privately educated. Does that matter? – Spectator Blogs

An interesting spot, courtesy of the good chaps at Think Defence. From Hansard: Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North, Labour) To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proportion of new recruits to the Army at (a) soldier and (b) officer level previously attended state school. Andrew Robathan (South Leicestershire, Conservative) The proportion of soldier recruits that had previously attended a state school is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Including the most recent intake of officer cadets to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, in January 2013, 53.5% of the UK educated intake over the last 12 months came from state schools. While the

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Is the press biased against the SNP? Probably. But we are all nationalists now. – Spectator Blogs

So we have a question and it is a simple one. Should Scotland be an independent country? There, that wasn’t so difficult was it? It is, after all, the nub of the matter. Granted, one might agree that Scotland should be an independent country but still conclude that being so is a different matter. That might be a metaphysical matter beyond the Electoral Commission’s ken. Nevertheless, it is not an unreasonable question. Some reports seemed keen to spin this as some kind of ‘setback’ for Alex Salmond. Apparently dropping the preamble ‘Do you agree’ – included in the SNP’s favoured wording – is yet another indication the nationalists are on the ropes.

Douglas Murray

No-go Britain

In 2008 one of Britain’s best and most courageous men, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, said that there were parts of Britain which had become no-go areas for non-Muslims. For these comments he was met with widespread scorn and denial. Nick Clegg – then merely leader of the Liberal Democrat party – said the Bishop’s comments were ‘a gross caricature of reality.’ William Hague said that the Bishop had ‘probably put it too strongly’, while the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) accused him of ‘frantic scaremongering.’ So how interesting it is to read of the arrests made by police in recent days of a number of men for a string of incidents

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron: defence spending is protected. Hammond: no it isn’t

After Cabinet tensions on the matter, David Cameron was trying to reassure those worried about further defence cuts while visiting Algeria. The Telegraph reports a senior government source saying the Prime Minister will honour his pledge to increase defence spending from 2015. The source told the newspaper: ‘The Prime Minister does not resile from anything he has said about defence.’ But rather less reassuringly, Philip Hammond decided to clarify that reassurance this morning. The Defence Secretary told Sky News that the PM was only referring to the equipment budget, and that he would continue to make the argument for maintaining the ‘resources that we need to deliver Future Force 2020’:

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron will have to fund his Mali adventure

‘This is the hour of Europe, not the hour of the Americans,’ Jacques Poos, foreign minister of Luxembourg, declared in 1991. Yugoslavia, he said, was a problem in Europe’s neighbourhood and Europeans would solve it. In the end, a decade of genocidal ethnic conflict was only ended thanks to substantial US involvement. The hour of Europe has arrived again with the conflict in Mali. This time, though, it is the Americans telling the Europeans that it is up to them to solve the problem. The Obama administration has wasted no time in making clear that it thinks France’s aims in Mali are overly ambitious. It is also dragging its feet

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Gerald Scarfe isn’t anti-Semitic – but David Ward is

I’m turning into a Holobore. I can feel it happening, and it’s sapping at my soul. What a week. It started with David Ward, the Lib Dem MP and anti-Semite. No, shut up. Yes he is. If you say ‘the Jews’ should have ‘learned the lessons of the Holocaust’ and that they clearly haven’t because of their ‘inflicting atrocities on Palestinians’ then you’re ticking every box. And he did say these things. So he is. It’s ‘the Jews’ that rankles first, obviously. I’m a Jew. Am I inflicting atrocities on Palestinians? Me and Lenny Kravitz and Woody Allen? Oh, you cretin. But as bad, if not worse, is the shameless

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

I look forward to using my pensioner’s pass on HS2 – and I’ve spotted the people to run it

Investing £33 billion in HS2 — £46 billion if you accept the Taxpayers’ Alliance’s calculation — won’t boost us out of this triple dip, but it might ease the one after next, early in the reign of hugely popular, three-times-married King Harry, in whose favour his elder brother will abdicate, Dutch-style, after his 50th birthday. It’s a constant theme of this column that all prediction, even one year ahead, is (in Sir Mervyn King’s phrase) ‘a mug’s game’: every element of that first sentence may turn out to be bunkum. Even so, the announcement of second-phase HS2 routes to Manchester and Leeds, with stations for Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield, makes

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Live blog: Guido & Littlejohn vs Bryant & Mosley at The Spectator’s free press debate

7.15pm A full house here at the IET in Savoy Place – our free press debate, sponsored by Brewin Dolphin, has been a sell-out. A stunning venue and an outstanding lineup. For the motion: Guido Fawkes, Richard Littlejohn and Tory MP John Whittingdale. Against: Max Mosley, Chris Bryant and the celebrity lawyer Charlotte Harris. Chaired by Andrew Neil. And the motion: Leveson is a fundamental threat to the free press. RICHARD LITTLEJOHN is up first. The Leveson inquiry, he said, was a cross between a Soviet show trial and Graham Norton show. The self-regarding liberal elite seized on an opportunity for this. Leveson was picking over the bones of a corpse:

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

William Hague goads Labour on Europe

What a lot of fun William Hague had this afternoon in the Commons as he opened a debate tabled by the Prime Minister on Europe. ‘I have not yet exhausted the list of the Coalition’s achievements,’ he told an MP trying to intervene. His speech was rather like a slow motion version of the PM’s address last week, but with words like ‘subsidiarity’ added in for good measure, and a longer tour of how wonderfully robust the Tory party is on Europe. Though some Tory MPs made their own thoughts on the referendum clear (James Clappison called for legislation in this parliament for a referendum in the next, and Bill

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Dave prepares the Fortnums hamper for his food bank visit

It was the croc that didn’t snap, the firework that failed to fly, the jeroboam that refused to go pop. Last week, David Cameron’s speech on Europe was supposed to heal a two-decade rift within the Tory family and to set Britain on a bold new course in our relationship with the continent. A week later and the great In-Out gamble didn’t rate a mention at PMQs. Not a peep. Not a syllable. Not a whisper. Ed Miliband didn’t bring it up either. Their mutual silence isn’t hard to explain. Both parties are acting tough but remain vulnerable on the referendum question. Cameron will accuse Miliband of not trusting the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How the terms of debate on Europe changed

The website of the new Centre for British Influence through Europe reveals just how far on the back foot the pro-Europeans are. Its introductory article states: ‘It is also wrong that the other extreme think that they own the European flag in their belief that the only future is full on in.’ This is a major concession by the pro-European forces. It is strikingly different from the Britain in Europe message that this country must join the single currency and be at the heart of Europe. Now pretty much everyone accepts that Britain isn’t going to join the Euro and isn’t going to pursue ever closer union with the rest

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory opponents of gay marriage meet as whipping plans upset backbenchers

Tory MPs opposed to gay marriage are holding a meeting in the next hour to discuss next Tuesday’s second reading of the Bill, I understand. The meeting is being co-ordinated by, among others, David Burrowes, who has been a vocal opponent of the reforms. One of the things that is particularly upsetting the MPs is that there will be a three-line whip on the programme motion for the vote. The legislation itself will be a free vote, but the vote on how it is scrutinised will be whipped, which is leading some MPs to argue that this isn’t a really free vote. Those opposed to the legislation want it debated

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

PMQs: Ed Miliband argues Labour would borrow for success

‘We’d borrow more, but we’d use it better.’ That was the message Ed Miliband found himself trying to get across when attacking David Cameron at PMQs today. He accused the Prime Minister of ‘borrowing for failure’, saying: ‘He is borrowing for failure: that is the reality, and he is borrowing more for failure. That is the reality of his record. And here is the truth: they said they’d balance the books, they said they’d get growth, they haven’t.’ So Labour would borrow for success. What would that mean? Miliband decided to tease us by not mentioning how he’d do better borrowing. The two leaders traded quotes from various IMF staff

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron encourages his party to bang on about Europe

Something quite curious is going to happen in the Commons this afternoon. David Cameron is encouraging his party to bang on about Europe. He has called a general debate, with the motion ‘that this House has considered the matter of Europe’, and it promises to be rather strange. The strangest thing is that a month ago, David Cameron would never have dreamed of tabling this sort of debate: his camp were busy in October trying to quell an uprising of backbenchers over the EU Budget. But after the speech that delighted even Mrs Bone last week, Cameron finally doesn’t have to wait for a backbencher to pounce on him with

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron visits Algeria for talks on ‘generational struggle’

The Prime Minister is visiting Algeria today to pay his respects to the victims of the hostage crisis. He will also hold talks with Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal, and The Sun reports that he will ask Sellal’s permission for MI6 to hunt down the attack’s mastermind, Mokhtar Belmokhtar. This will mark the next move in the ‘generational struggle’ he described in his Commons statement. One of the first big steps in this struggle took place yesterday, with Downing Street confirming the deployment of more than 330 troops to North Africa to help the French action in Mali. None of those troops will be in combat roles, with the majority

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne urged to drop Google boss as business adviser

Starbucks had a go at David Cameron on Sunday for his ‘cheap shots’ at the coffee chain’s tax arrangements in the UK. The company felt it was being unfairly singled out in comments about companies legally avoiding tax needing to ‘wake up and smell the coffee’. So what about other firms known to be avoiding tax? Coffee House has learned that the former Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott is writing a rather scathing pair of letters to David Cameron and George Osborne about the government’s dealings with Google, which paid only £6 million in corporation tax in the UK in 2012 by funnelling £6 billion worth of transactions through