Politics Archives

Thursday

2 May 2013

Frank Field interview: Labour needs to do something dramatic to win back its lost working class voters

There’s one government adviser who still feels Steve Hilton’s absence very keenly indeed. ‘He was always thinking ahead, how do we set the debate rather than endlessly react to it, that was why he was such a delight to work for. All the time he was racing ahead. It was difficult to keep up with him. I just thought he was brilliant, he was just wonderful.’ But it’s not a Tory MP or spinner who is missing the Prime Minister’s ‘blue-sky’ guru: this adviser is Labour MP Frank Field, appointed by the government when it formed to work with David Cameron on how to tackle poverty. He suspects that it

Isabel Hardman

The EU Referendum Bill won’t appear in Parliament any time soon

Some Tories are all aquiver today after the Prime Minister’s radio hint yesterday that he might be prepared to introduce an EU referendum bill in this parliament after all. Here are David Cameron’s words on yesterday’s World at One that are supposed to set your heart pounding: ‘I think we need to demonstrate absolutely that we are serious about this referendum; we’ve said we’re going to hold it, we’ve said it’s going to be an in-out referendum, we’ve set a date by which it must be held. I look forward to publishing a bill, to getting support for it, to doing everything I can to show to people at the

Charles Moore

When Michael Heseltine turned up at a Thatcher book signing

At the launch of my biography of Margaret Thatcher, I was flattered to see Michael and Anne Heseltine joining the signing queue. It was very sporting of him. When they reached me, Anne asked for my inscription, but Michael said he wished his copy to be blank so that he could quickly sell it. I think — unusually for him — that he misunderstands the way this strange market works. The most common question I am asked by audiences about Mrs Thatcher is something to do with Carol and Mark. Did she bring them up successfully? Was she a good mother? etc. The fact that this comes up so often

Steerpike

Steerpike: Unpopular Populus, and the call of the Boris

It’s been a tricky few days for Populus, the ultra-cool research organisation. Once the Tories’ favourite pollster, Populus has long enjoyed the patronage of Fleet Street’s most prestigious client, the Times. But no longer. The Thunderer is about to sever the link and cut a new deal with deadly rivals YouGov. The blow is compounded by news that Cameron’s election guru, Lynton Crosby, is unlikely to hire ‘not-so-Populus’ in the run-up to the next election. A funny moment from Charles Moore’s book launch last week. The esteemed author was addressing the crowd on the subject of low taxation: ‘Mrs Thatcher always said that if people kept more of their

Jonathan Rugman

A visit to Bulgaria with Nigel Farage

One Sunday evening, while I was trying to avoid ironing my shirts, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to take Nigel Farage to Bulgaria or Romania. The Ukip leader is convinced that hordes of people from these countries are poised to pour into Britain when the rules are relaxed next year, so why not go there with him to see if he’s right? A few weeks later, I put my proposal to him. ‘But nobody will come here from Romania,’ said Nigel. ‘They’ve eaten all the transport.’ So we went to Bulgaria. ‘I am getting lots of funny looks,’ observed the scourge of open-door immigration

James Forsyth

Ukip vs the world

Ukip hope that this week’s county council elections are just the fireworks display before the big bang. In 2014 they think they can blow open British politics by winning a nationwide election. If they can succeed in doing that, they would almost certainly force Labour into matching the Tories’ pledge to hold a referendum on the EU after the next general election. This would guarantee the public its first vote on Britain’s EU membership in 40 years. The success of Ukip at making inroads during this campaign has caused some unease in Tory ranks. But a Ukip victory in the European elections a year before a general election would throw

Matthew Parris

Who’s afraid of a snooper’s charter? Ask Google

Forgive me, but let’s go straight in. Readers of a sensitive disposition look away, but there’s a serious reason for the exercise I suggest that those with access to Google might like to attempt. There’s a thing called the AdWords Keyword Tool. You can find it at adwords.google.co.uk/-keywordtool. It is provided by Google for the benefit of online advertisers keen to select words or phrases they can use in order to catch as many Google searchers as possible in their net. So it will tell you how many people in the last month included in their search terms (say) ‘anti-wrinkle cream’: 22,200. But it is invaluable, too, to anyone curious

Wednesday

1 May 2013

Isabel Hardman

The Tories have failed to agree a line on UKIP

David Cameron’s refusal to say ‘UKIP’ on the radio today was rather entertaining, but it does highlight a strange problem that the Conservative party has brought upon itself for these local elections. Here’s his exchange with Martha Kearney, which you can listen to below, from 8m 49s in: Cameron: ‘My role is to get around the country and I’ve enjoyed doing it in the last couple of weeks, to get around the country and to talk about the government’s policies, local policies, what the Conservatives are doing. I think there is a real appetite for…’ Kearney: Is it a strategy, not to say UKIP? Cameron: No, not at all, it’s

Alex Massie

A Tory party that is spooked by UKIP is a Tory party that will lose the next election

UKIP are buoyant and, all of a sudden, everyone’s favourite protest-group. In a curious way, the confirmation that many of their candidates really are boggle-minded, eyes-popped extremists of one stamp or another almost helps UKIP. It confirms that they’re not like the other political parties and encourages people to adopt them as the Sod it, I’m just mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more party. (These people tend not to be attracted to libertarian parties; just as well UKIP is not a libertarian party.) But UKIP should enjoy this moment while they can. They will remain a presence on the political scene and they will

Isabel Hardman

Labour is being forced to talk about ‘good borrowing’ before it is ready

It’s not a case of will they, won’t they when it comes to whether Labour would borrow more, but will they admit it and try to sell this plan to voters? In the past few days, we’ve seen the party trying to work this out in public. Ed Miliband, in his awkward World at One interview, knew that saying ‘yes, we’d borrow more to fund the VAT cut’ would provoke triumphant howls from his opponents, and so ended up nervously jabbering away as Martha Kearney asked the same question over and over again. But yesterday he told Daybreak that ‘I am clear about this: a temporary cut in VAT, as

Tuesday

30 Apr 2013

Steerpike

The glass houses of parliament

The Labour Party is most exercised by the news, broken by the Spectator, that Economist journalist Christopher Lockwood has been appointed to the Downing Street Policy Unit. Poor old Lockwood is charged with being a bit posh, knowing David Cameron personally and attending a good school. This amounts to a crime against humanity in Labour land. Rent-a-quote Rachel Reeves, who moonlights as shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, took time off her maternity leave to lambast the elitist chumocracy at the heart of Dave’s government. All of which is a bit rich because the Labour Party indulges this particular establishment vogue to a tee. Rachel Reeves’ sister Ellie is on

Douglas Murray

Did MI6 plot against UKIP?

Dirty tricks against UKIP by the establishment are not a new phenomenon. Though in recent days the Conservative party have been found engaging in them, there are far more striking examples from the recent past. On 25 May 2001 the Spectator published a piece by Norman Tebbit that deserves to be far better known. Tebbit recounts the tale of two serving or former British intelligence agents who infiltrated first Jimmy Goldsmith’s Referendum Party and then UKIP. Tebbit gives examples of how UKIP’s efforts were derailed during the period in which these agents were inside the party. It is important to stress before directing you to the Tebbit piece below that

Sebastian Payne

Ed Miliband faces calls to remove Ken Livingstone from Labour NEC after ‘disgusting’ remarks

Ken Livingstone’s remarks about the motives of the Boston bombing suspects have been widely condemned for suggesting that American foreign policy ‘fuels the anger’ that drove such young men into acts of terrorism. Tory chairman Grant Shapps has demanded the former Mayor of London apologise for causing offence: ‘These are irresponsible, insensitive and thoughtless comments which show why Ken Livingstone is not fit to hold public office. He should unreservedly apologise for the distress he has caused’ Brooks Newmark MP has gone one step further and written to Ed Miliband this afternoon, asking the Labour leader to also condemn the remarks and remove Livingstone from Labour’s National Executive Committee. Coffee House has seen a copy

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: whips ask ministerial aides to snoop on their bosses

Not wanting to heap worries onto the Prime Minister when he’s just about found harmony with his party, but as well as the underused backbenchers I mentioned this morning, he might want to think about his party’s PPSs as well. Some of them feel they were offered their jobs with the promise that the role would become ‘turbo-charged’, but haven’t found the reality quite so glamorous. I hear that the last meeting Downing Street held for ministerial aides didn’t cheer many of them up. It wasn’t just that they were given a presentation on oral questions that most of them felt they’d heard about a year ago, or that the

Alex Massie

This Britain: Maria Miller confuses economics with pleasure and beauty.

Is it possible for a government minister to give a speech that is not a “keynote address”? That was my first thought upon reading Maria Miller’s speech at the British Museum last week. My second thought was remembering the old saw that any time a government minister talks about “culture” it is sensible to reach for your Browning. Thirdly, I recalled that Maria Miller is the kind of Commissar whose officials think it sensible to threaten journalists. So I suppose that I was predisposed to think poorly of her speech on the economic importance of the arts. Well, it was still a rotten speech that lived-down to these low expectations. Given

Tristram Hunt

The British workforce needs skills to compete, not a race to the bottom

When J.B. Priestley visited Stoke-on-Trent on his 1934 ‘English Journey,’ he tried his hand throwing a vase at the Wedgwood factory in Etruria. It is fair to say, he lacked the skills. After a lot of jokes about ‘jollying’ and ‘jiggering’ and watching his vase flop back into clay, Priestley praised the craftsmen ‘doing something that they can do better than anybody else, and they know it … Here is the supreme triumph of man’s creative thumb.’ Well, times have changed, but the way in which opinion formers think about skills has failed to move on much from Priestley. Of course, craft and artisanal skills remain essential to industries like

Steerpike

Liberal Democrats liberal with the facts

I know the Liberal Democrats are trying to take credit for anything they like the sound of, but their rewriting of history is getting out of control. It seems that they have claimed Gladstone as a ‘Liberal Democrat’ on the Downing Street website. I doubt that even Mr Gladstone could make Thursday’s elections any easier for Clegg & Co – assuming that Mr Gladstone, who was once Tory MP for Newark and held sound views on economic management, would help.

Isabel Hardman

No 10’s outreach programme mustn’t leave underused MPs scratching their heads

David Cameron is really trying to reach out to his party at the moment. The announcements of a policy board of MPs and a policy chief who is also an MP were intended to show that it’s not just the inner circle that calls the shots. Jo Johnson appears to have received a bigger promotion than initially announced: today’s Sun reports he’s not just leading on policy, he’s also taking over from Oliver Letwin in writing the manifesto. But appointing Chris Lockwood to the policy unit has added to the impression that the PM really trusts his friends and those who hail from the same social circle. He did, after

Monday

29 Apr 2013

James Forsyth

Chris Lockwood to join new Number 10 policy unit

Downing Street has pulled off a coup with the recruitment of Chris Lockwood, the US editor of The Economist, to the new Downing Street policy unit. Lockwood is one of the brightest and most insightful people in journalism and one imagines that he wouldn’t have left a prime perch at The Economist if he did not think that the new Policy Unit will have real heft. Lockwood is close to Cameron: he was one of the six journalists that the Prime Minister listed as a personal friend in his evidence to Leveson. In 1993, as reported in the Elliott and Hanning biography of Cameron, Lockwood was part of a group

James Forsyth

Local elections: Tory leadership prepares MPs for the worst

The Tory leadership is getting increasingly nervous that the party isn’t sufficiently braced for bad local election results this Thursday. They’re worried that too many MPs assume the party won’t lose much more than 300 seats. The problem is that, for understandable reasons, MPs are treating all of CCHQ’s dire predictions — one source there is talking about 750 loses if the UKIP wave doesn’t break — merely as expectations management. In an attempt to persuade people of how bad the results could be, senior figures have taken to showing people this bar graph and map which illustrate the Tories’ current dominance. Their argument is that there is only way