Politics Archives

Friday

11 Oct 2013

Have Edward Snowden and the Guardian started a ‘debate’?

The Snowden files continue to dominate the news today. Vince Cable has said that the Guardian newspaper had provided a ‘considerable public service’ by publishing Edward Snowden’s leaked material. This contrasted with Nick Clegg’s effort on LBC Radio yesterday (above). Clegg said that it was important to have a debate about technology and privacy, before condemning the Guardian for releasing ‘technical’ material that would have interested ‘those who want to harm us’. Rarely have the tensions running through the Liberal Democrats (a protest movement and an aspiring party of government) sounded more clearly in my ear. Our own Douglas Murray is rather more clear-minded than either of these august gentlemen.

Sebastian Payne

Len McCluskey: Miliband is brave and a genuine radical

Len McCluskey is doing Conservative HQ’s work for them. The emboldened Unite leader is welcoming the return of socialism under Red Ed. Last night at the annual Jimmy Reid lecture, McCluskey spoke passionately of Miliband’s bold new agenda: ‘Ed Miliband’s speech to the Labour conference was – some would say – the most genuinely radical we have heard from a Labour leader for nigh on 30 years.’ He also welcomed the end of New Labour’s ‘neo-liberal’ dogma (you know, the policies which resulted in three general election victories). In reference to Ed’s energy policy: ‘that is not just a break with the coalition’s policies, it also represents Labour turning its

Fraser Nelson

Good capitalism vs. Bad capitalism

The Royal Mail privatisation has been a resounding success: shares were priced at the top range of 330p and are now trading at 440p. The 99.7 per cent of Royal Mail staff who took shares have today seen the value of their stake jump by a third. Ditto the 15,000 Royal Mail middle managers who applied for a medium-term share programme and will keep the stake for three years. For once, I disagree with Spectator associate editor Allister Heath: he’s appalled that the government denied any shares to those who asked for £10,000 or more so all of those who applied for £750 could be satisfied. I’m delighted, and say

Alex Massie

Why won’t the SNP embrace the shale gas revolution?

One of the odder elements of the current energy debate at present is that the political party that spends the most time talking about energy – that’s the SNP by the way – is strangely reluctant to chase the opportunities afforded by the imminent shale gas revolution. It’s a subject I consider in a column for The Scotsman today: Scotland’s oil resources are a vital national asset. Everyone, I think, knows this. If there were no remaining oil reserves waiting to be exploited in the North Sea, the economic case for independence would be severely weakened. Oil is a cushion and a comfort blanket. But the Nationalist’s determination to make

James Forsyth

Royal Mail shares surge in early trading

Royal Mail shares are currently trading at 421p, 91p above its 330p opening price. This morning, the shares hit 456p before falling back slightly. This increase of more than a third in value and the fact that the share offer was so oversubscribed has led to lots of claims this morning that Royal Mail was undervalued. But it is worth remembering that when the government announced it was going to privatise Royal Mail, there was lots of chatter about how the government would struggle to get it away. It was argued that it was foolhardy to sell it into a strike by postal workers. On its current price, the Royal

Thursday

10 Oct 2013

Peter Jones

Livy on Ed Miliband

What should we make of Ed’s support for his father Ralph against the Daily Mail? Livy’s life of Torquatus suggests two possible responses. Torquatus was the obtuse, inarticulate son of the vicious and overbearing consul Manlius who, wanting to disown him, sent him off to work in the fields. But in 362 bc Manlius was threatened with a court case by the tribune of the plebs, Pomponianus. When Torquatus heard of this, he begged for a private audience with the tribune. The tribune agreed, expecting the abused Torquatus to support his case. Instead Torquatus threatened to kill him on the spot, unless he signed an oath not to proceed. The

The Spectator

George Osborne is blowing bubbles

In opposition, George Osborne said that you cannot borrow your way out of a debt crisis. In government, he has proved it. Since entering No. 11 Downing Street, his strategy has been to talk sternly about austerity while borrowing more than anyone else in Europe. With every budget he has presented, the deadline for balancing the books has slipped further forward — now it’s 2020. Britain’s AAA credit rating has gone, we’re paying billions more in debt interest payments as a result. The Chancellor has brilliantly spun all this as the problems of austerity rather than his own profligacy, but for three years he has had no good news to report.

Isabel Hardman

Gove sets early policy test for Tristram Hunt

The congratulations have been flowing in from across the Labour party for Tristram Hunt as the new Shadow Education Secretary. But there is no praise higher for the newly promoted MP than to get a detailed letter from Michael Gove testing his mettle just a few days into the job. Gove saw Stephen Twigg as someone he didn’t need to worry about a great deal, more of a distraction from his daily hobby of provoking the teaching unions than a mighty threat. But Hunt, while still possibly in danger of proving too Blairite for his party’s tastes, appears a mightier candidate. Education Questions in the Commons will certainly be an

Alex Massie

Theresa May’s Immigration Bill is another contemptible piece of legislation

Say this for the government, they are at least consistent. Their contemptible lobbying bill is now followed by their equally contemptible immigration bill. Sometimes you think that if it weren’t for Michael Gove and for the fact that David Cameron isn’t Ed Miliband there’d be few reasons to support this government at all. And this immigration bill really is contemptible. Politics is often a question of signalling and what this bill signals, alas, is that the government prefers the presumption of guilt to the presumption of innocence. It is a bill that turns ordinary Britons into snitches for central government. A bill that will make life more inconvenient for millions

John O'Neill

The green taxes that add £112 to your energy bill

At PMQs yesterday David Cameron said Ed Miliband was suffering ‘complete amnesia’ over his time as energy secretary. Ed might have forgotten some of his climate change policies that put money on your energy bills – but it doesn’t matter – they might not be around for long. As James Forsyth said at the weekend, George Osborne wants to get rid of some of them in his autumn statement. The Department of Energy and Climate Change says there are seven green taxes that put £112 on the average energy bill in 2013, making up just under a tenth of the total. What are they, and which of them is cost-of-living warrior Ed Miliband responsible

James Forsyth

2010 intake of Tory MPs write to Adam Afriyie telling him to drop his amendment

More than 140 of the 147 Tory MPs elected in 2010 have written to Adam Afriyie telling him to drop his amendment to the EU referendum bill. Given that Afriyie has previously suggested he’ll drop his attempt to bring the referendum forward to 2014 there is no support for it, it now seems doomed. This loyalist flexing of political muscle by the 2010 Tory intake will cheer Downing Street. It shows that the parliamentary party does, for the moment at least, want to stay united on Europe. It also indicates that a certain discipline is returning to Tory ranks as the next election approaches. Even six months ago, an amendment

Fraser Nelson

Libya’s PM, Ali Zeidan, has been kidnapped

A few weeks ago the Prime Minister of the liberated Libya, Ali Zeidan was sitting in 10 Downing St talking to David Cameron. A few hours ago he was kidnapped, in what appears to be retaliation for the seizure of an al-Qaeda leader by the Americans in Tripoli a few days ago. The Libyan government has said Zeidan was ‘taken at dawn this morning by gunmen to an unknown place for unknown reasons.’ He had been living staying in the Corinthia Hotel, sister to the luxurious Corinthia Hotel in Whitehall. One guard at the hotel described it as an ‘arrest’ according to Reuters. Libya’s justice minister says it was a

Hugo Rifkind

Hugo Rifkind: For now, I’m choosing to believe in Tommy Robinson’s conversion

I’ve often thought it might be interesting to meet Tommy Robinson, or Stephen Lennon, or whatever one is supposed to call the erstwhile English Defence League frontman these days. Because, well, he’s not an idiot, is he? Or at least, not to the extent you’d like him to be. And it bugged me. I remember seeing him up against Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight a few years ago. Yes, he fell into bear-traps, quite a few of which he’d dug himself, and yes, he said more than a few things that any mainstream politician would have been crucified for, and rightly. But at core, there was something there with which Paxman

Martin Vander Weyer

Martin Vander Weyer: Bad news for pawnbrokers. Is that good news for the rest of us?

While attention has focused on the sudden ubiquity and alleged iniquity of payday lenders, boom and impending bust has infected another part of the short-term credit sector. For the very reason that the global economy is recovering, Britain’s pawnbrokers are in trouble. Pawnbroking traces its history to the Medicis, but owes its traditional image in this country to Charles Dickens: ‘Of the numerous receptacles for misery and distress with which the streets of London unhappily abound,’ he wrote in 1835, ‘there are, perhaps, none which present such striking scenes as the pawnbrokers’ shops.’ Today’s UK market leader H&T, formerly Harvey & Thompson, opened for business on Vauxhall Bridge Road in

Wednesday

9 Oct 2013

Alex Massie

Yes, of course the War on Drugs exists (but it shouldn’t)

There is something contemptible about Nick Clegg’s latest piece of handwringing. the Deputy Prime Minister – a position that, at least notionally, carries some clout – complains that he’d very much like to do something about Britain’s antiquated drug laws but, well, he can’t because it’s hard and, besides, the Tories are such rotters. Clegg could have made this a cause. He could have done something about this before now. He could, at the very least, have talked about the War on Drugs rather more than he has. He could even have noted, frequently, that David Cameron has changed his own tune on these matters, abandoning the sensible attitude he once had. He has, instead,

Steerpike

Another dodgy deal with Gaddafi

No, not Tony Blair in a big tent in the desert, but our man Taki in the Big Apple. In tomorrow’s Spectator, Taki writes, with characteristic tact, on the Middle East. Mr Steerpike particularly liked this snippet: ‘My friend Saif Gaddafi… was ‘detained’ while fleeing [Libya] and is held by some nice guys south of Tripoli. I call him my friend because we were introduced in New York four years ago and I mistook him for a coke dealer and politely asked if he had anything good.’ Apparently, he did not. The poor little Greek boy claims that Saif’s gear was ‘lousy’. Subscribers will enjoy this and more tomorrow. Non-subscribers

Chloe Smith

‘Newsnight offered me a goodbye interview with Jeremy Paxman. I didn’t return the call.’

I have been very touched this week by the messages of goodwill I’ve had after revealing my decision to step down from being a minister. I’m neither the first nor the last MP to enjoy my constituency work deeply. Indeed, my predecessor in my own seat was well-regarded for being often obstinate in Westminster and a great constituency MP at home. I’m proud of what I’ve been able to contribute to my country, in three years as a whip and minister. I whipped the Welfare Reform bill through Parliament; at the Treasury I negotiated detailed decommissioning contracts with the oil and gas industry, to open up billions of pounds of

The Spectator

Nick Clegg says we’re losing the war on drugs. But is there even a war?

This country is losing the war on drugs, according to Nick Clegg. The Deputy Prime Minister told the BBC’s Free Speech programme that he was frustrated that his Coalition partners were not prepared to be more imaginative on the issue, given clamour from other quarters for a new direction: ‘I don’t think we’re winning the drugs war; I think we keep banging our head against the wall and in fact I find it very frustrating that my Conservative coalition partners are not prepared to look more openly, imaginatively. You’ve got very senior police officers now coming out saying that the war on drugs is failing, that we should treat drug

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Ed Balls leaves them wanting more

Here’s a favourite Tory joke. Question: What does ‘BBC’ stand for? Answer: Buggers Broadcasting Communism. David Cameron seemed tempted to try this gag at PMQs today. He mentioned the Beeb four times in sardonic asides. ‘Let’s praise the BBC for once,’ he said, bitingly. He woke this morning, he said, to a BBC report stating that public satisfaction with council services had risen despite the cuts. ‘I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.’ He berated Ed Miliband for wanting to introduce new decarbonisation targets. ‘Even the BBC doesn’t agree with that.’ And he attacked Milband’s promise to freeze energy bills as evidence that ‘he’d like to live in a

Isabel Hardman

Score draw at PMQs as leaders bicker about energy bills

Perhaps David Cameron got up super-early to open his birthday presents today, or perhaps he’s a bit tired after his fortnight of party conference and reshuffle mayhem, but the Prime Minister wasn’t on top form today at PMQs. Neither was Ed Miliband, for that matter. Both men bickered about who had the best energy policy, like two kids comparing birthday presents in a playground. Neither really got in a deadly shot, with both seeming a little halting. listen to ‘PMQs: Cameron v Miliband on energy prices’ on Audioboo