Politics Archives

Tuesday

26 Mar 2013

Steerpike

Farewell Shepherd’s

The end of an era for Westminster lunchers. Shepherd’s, the favourite haunt of Cabinet Ministers, political editors and TV types since 1993, has closed. The sister restaurant of Langan’s Brasserie — the joint venture between notorious alcoholic Peter Langan and Michael Caine — Shepherd’s shut its doors unexpectedly yesterday, leaving staff stumped as to why. Famed for its house pie, even devout vegetarian Adam Boulton has lamented this as a ‘sad day’ for the ‘best restaurant near Parliament’. The increasing Americanisation of lunch in London is clearly taking its toll.

David Blackburn

The life and opinions of Boris Johnson

It was inevitable, after the Mair interview and the Cockerell profile, that Boris would dominate the news this morning. Steve Richards and Hugo Rifkind (£) have written about him in their columns, and there are numerous reviews of Cockerell’s programme to read – Paul Goodman at ConHome will make for a thoughtful and entertaining lunchtime break. I don’t think that Cockerell’s programme told eagle-eyed political observers anything new; but that was not its intention, at least from Boris’ perspective. Eddie Mair wondered if Boris is nasty piece of work; most viewers of Cockerell’s programme would have emerged with the view that Boris is at worst a naughty piece of work.

Alex Massie

The Scottish Tories Cross Their Rubicon

Alea iacta est. And not before time. More than a year ago and at the outbreak of this independence referendum virus I wrote an article for this magazine arguing that, crikey, there was just a hint that the Conservative and Unionist party might become relevant in Scotland again. Or, at any rate, there was an opportunity for them to do so. You see, the referendum offered Tories a chance to press the case for something they should have embraced long ago: proper fiscal autonomy within the Union. This might satisfy Scots’ evident thirst for real Home Rule without needing to go to all the trouble of winding up the Union

David Blackburn

Tories who say that Cameron is making ‘no difference’ underline the coalition’s communications failure

You should take note when Benedict Brogan, an influential and widely sourced journalist who has been very close to the Cameron and Osborne operation over the years, writes of the fire-sale of Cameron shares. He says in today’s Telegraph that Cameron’s party view him as a ‘lame duck’ who makes ‘no difference’. This is an extraordinary claim for disaffected Tories to make. True: the economy is mired and the government has tied itself to only one course of action. There have also been disasters at the department of health; and energy policy ought to be giving Number 10 an enormous headache. But Cameron’s coalition is changing the landscape of education and

David Blackburn

David Cameron’s immigration speech fails to capture the imagination

This morning’s papers have followed the lead of yesterday’s TV news bulletins: the prime minister’s immigration speech was not the success it might have been. The Times is lukewarm (£). The Guardian is suspicious. The Mail is derisive. And our own Douglas Murray is contemptuous of a speech which merely stated the ‘utterly obvious’. Yet again, the government has failed to convince the media. Part of the problem is that the numbers are inconclusive. The Guardian has built on yesterday evening’s BBC news reports, which claimed that only 13,000 migrants from that part of the EU have claimed JSA since 2009. This contrasts with Mr Cameron’s concerns about a widespread ‘something for nothing’

Monday

25 Mar 2013

James Forsyth

Cameron sticks to the script at the ’22

David Cameron has just delivered his end of term address to the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers. The Prime Minister made little news apart from going out of his way to praise Maria Hutchings, making clear he had no truck with efforts to blame her for the party’s poor performance in the Eastleigh by-election. He stuck to the same messages that he had when addressing the parliamentary party the other week, one backbencher left complaining ‘we’ve heard it all before.’ But what should cause some concern Number 10 is how few MPs turned up to hear the Prime Minister. The audience was estimated at between 80 and 100, less than

Sebastian Payne

‘Small-scale’ bloggers hear the chimes of freedom

Bloggers of the United Kingdom rejoice – an exemption from the all-new press controls looks to be on the way. We are waiting today to see if any of the amendments tabled on Friday will pass but the Financial Times reports (£) that cross-party talks over the weekend will result in a successful amendment on blogging: ‘Tri-party talks took place over the weekend to agree a wording for an amendment to the crime and courts bill which will be discussed in the House of Lords on Monday.’ At some point, that is. The amendments are being considered in the Lords right now but there has been no sign of anything

Douglas Murray

Despite the fanfare, David Cameron still isn’t doing anything on immigration

Well, it was right not to expect much. The full text of David Cameron’s speech on immigration is here but it can be summarised in one sentence: ‘mass migration has brought some good things, but it has also brought problems so here is some tinkering we propose.’ There are so many problems when our politicians speak on this subject. Not least is that they expect to be congratulated for saying the utterly obvious. For instance, most British people worked out a long time ago that those of us who already live here ought to have priority in housing over people who have just arrived. We also worked out some time

M.E. Synon

How long will capital restrictions last in Cyprus? ‘Can’t say’

To the European Commission headquarters this morning for a briefing with Michel Barnier, the Frenchman who is commissioner in charge of banking. The press pack wanted to talk about – what else? – Cyprus. But Barnier wanted to talk about his green paper on the long term financing of the European economy. Which made for the usual pantomime: the journalists sat and scrolled through emails while Barnier read out his plans on how to finance the EU economy without depending so much on banking (good luck there, commissioner). When he finished, the reporters looked up and started the questions about the banks in Cyprus. Reuters asked how long capital restrictions

Isabel Hardman

Momentum grows for EU referendum bill

One other area besides immigration where Tory MPs want their leader to go further than he feels he can is, unsurprisingly, Europe. There is growing pressure within the party for the Prime Minister to get legislation on the floor of the House of Commons which would guarantee a referendum in the next Parliament. This is what Bernard Jenkin, who favours a referendum sooner than 2015, has to say: ‘The Prime Minister’s veto in 2011 gave his poll ratings a great fillip, but that veto was just ignored. They just decided to go ahead with the Fiscal Union Treaty anyway but without the UK. And the UK did not achieve any

Isabel Hardman

What Tory backbenchers want on immigration, and what the PM can give them

David Cameron knows that immigration is an issue that bothers voters, and that the mainstream parties have snubbed it in recent years to their detriment. So his speech today is partly an attempt to regain ground from UKIP, which fought a campaign in Eastleigh that was all about immigration, bringing every gripe back to that. He also knows, as I explained on Friday, that Tory MPs are preparing for the first dedicated Commons debate on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants, and he wants to take some of the steam out of that by announcing clear measures to reduce the ‘pull factor’. Those measures, which the Prime Minister will detail in a

Sunday

24 Mar 2013

James Forsyth

It’ll take more than Eddie Mair to stop Boris

I’ve just watched the Boris interview with Eddie Mair and I have to say, these dogs won’t hunt. Mair threw three accusations at Johnson and I think all three of them are dealable with. The first was an allegation that Boris had made up a quote, something that he lost his job at The Times for. Now, I suspect that anything in which Boris can claim the defence that he had only moved something from ‘before Piers Gaveston’s death’ to after it isn’t going to end a political career. Also considering that Boris rose to journalistic prominence after this incident, it is hard to claim that it is disqualifying. The

Fraser Nelson

‘Would you like to replace Ed Balls?’ The question Alistair Darling won’t answer

Ed Balls is a good street fighter, but not a very loveable one. The polls suggest he is perhaps the least popular figure in frontline politics. His manner too abrasive and his political bloodlust too obvious. As James Forsyth says in this week’s View from 22 Spectator podcast (below), Balls is — at best — Miliband’s 3rd choice for the position of Shadow Chancellor. His first was Alan Johnson and Yvette Cooper (aka Mrs Balls) was asked before it fell to Balls. A triumphant Alistair Darling, fresh from a 2014 Scottish referendum victory, may well be more palatable to the public. It’s unlikely that Balls would move over for Darling

Isabel Hardman

Eddie Mair to Boris Johnson: “You’re a nasty piece of work aren’t you?”

Boris Johnson makes a tricky interviewee. He’s charming, vague, witty and able to turn the conversation to his advantage with his ornate language and humour. If all else fails, he does something with his hair. But today the Mayor of London met his match with the equally charming and witty Eddie Mair on the Marr Show. Mair confronted him not just with persistent questions about his ambitions, but also clips from this week’s documentary on Johnson which appeared to show him discussing whether to hand over the details of a journalist to his friend Darius Guppy so Guppy could have him “physically assaulted.” Mair then moved in for the kill..

Fraser Nelson

School wars: Michael Gove, Fiona Millar and Andrew Adonis at Spectator conference

Three years ago, Dennis Sewell wrote a Spectator piece about the real enemy awaiting Michael Gove: ‘The Blob’. Carla Millar illustrated the point (below). Today in the Mail on Sunday, the Education Secretary extends the metaphor further: ‘School reformers in the past often complained about what was called TheBlob – the network of educational gurus in and around our universities who praised each others’ research, sat on committees that drafted politically correct curricula, drew gifted young teachers away from their vocation and instead directed them towards ideologically driven theory. ‘Some wonder if past reformers were exaggerating the problem in university education departments. Thanks to the not-so-Independent 100 we can see

Saturday

23 Mar 2013

James Forsyth

No thawing in Ed Miliband’s attitude to the Liberal Democrats

Ed Miliband’s interview with The Times today is striking for the language he uses about the Liberal Democrats. There’s no attempt to follow up last week’s Clegg, Miliband outflanking of Cameron with a love bombing of the deputy Prime Minister. Instead, there’s an emphasis that it would be ‘very difficult to work in a future Labour government with somebody who has taken the opposite position in a Tory government’. There are no warm words for Vince Cable either: “He flirts with the right position but doesn’t consummate it.” I think this reveals two things. First, Miliband knows that the coalition is surprisingly solid; it is not going to collapse anytime

Friday

22 Mar 2013

Sebastian Payne

It’s down to the House of Lords to save the bloggers

On Monday, Parliament will decide the future of blogging in this country. As the government’s press regulation proposals stand, blogs big and small would come under the new press regulator. This would make bloggers liable for significant compensation sums (aka exemplary damages), fees for joining the regulator as an ‘associated member’ (newspapers join as full members) as well as for increased legal costs. While the proposals could send bloggers rogue, to host their sites abroad and out of Parliament’s jurisdiction, others who can’t face the hassle may decide to close down. The problem stems from Leveson’s lack of concern for (or understanding of) the Internet. His report devoted just one page to the

The Spectator

Budget 2013: The Spectator briefing

On Wednesday evening, Andrew Neil, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth presented The Spectator’s Budget Briefing at the Savoy Hotel. Here is the handout that accompanied their presentation: Here’s the presentation with accompanying audio (click here to view full screen):

Steerpike

Westminster hotels get political

It’s the battle of the Westminster hotels. First the lavish opening of the new InterContinental at St James, going directly for the political crowd, and now the Corinthia are doing things a little more subtly. Thursday night saw the opening night of their Above and Beyond show, a performance that takes over every part of the hotel, with nineteen actors performing to an individual as they tour the building. Steerpike hears that a very confused Ryan Giggs was left wondering what was going on as he tried to enjoy a sauna and was invaded by the show moving through the spa rooms. Last night’s audience members Richard Curtis and and

Isabel Hardman

Migrants debate looms as PM prepares immigration speech

It’s not just Nick Clegg who is having a good long think about immigration at the moment: David Cameron is as well. He’s got a big immigration speech on Monday, which shows how spooked the parties are by UKIP that they feel they need to at least address the topic, even if they insist that they’re not adopting Nigel Farage’s terms of debate. As he writes his speech, Cameron will probably have in mind the looming problem of how many Romanian and Bulgarian migrants are coming to this country when transitional controls lift at the end of 2013. If he doesn’t, he should, because that backbench debate from Mark Pritchard