Politics

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

Isabel Hardman

Michael Gove kindly warns Stephen Twigg: people think you’re weak

What a lot of fun Michael Gove is having with Stephen Twigg’s latest policy pronouncements. The Education Secretary has written a fabulously long letter to his Labour shadow following up on Monday’s speech with 36 questions. He charmingly writes: ‘I am sure your speech was the result of a well-thought-through reflection on schools policy and all of the above questions were considered, and fully addressed, in preparation for your announcement and so you will be able to reply promptly and put to rest the idea, which more and more people are regrettably succumbing to, that Labour schools policy is a confusing, uncertain and incoherent assemblage of sops to the trades

Isabel Hardman

The Tories are still flummoxed by social media

The Tory party is currently offering a campaigning masterclass on James Wharton’s Private Member’s Bill. As Coffee House revealed last night, any member of the public can sign up to co-sponsor the backbench legislation, and the party has spent a great deal of time squaring backbenchers on the wording of the bill to prevent further amendments clogging it up unnecessarily. And MPs continue to tweet about #letbritaindecide, #labourdoesn’ttrustpeople, #onlytorieshavetheanswer or perhaps #itweetthisbecausemywhipaskednicely. But how easy is it to replicate this sort of slick campaign with other policies? When it comes to more conventional legislation and policy rows, the Tories are struggling to work out how to get their message across,

James Forsyth

Ed Miliband’s negative approach at PMQs looks set to become the norm

Ed Miliband’s approach at PMQs today was rather odd. He led, aggressively, on whether the government would implement the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards’ recommendation of a new criminal offence for negligent bankers. He asked the question in a manner that expected the answer no, but Cameron—predictably—said he would. At which point, the wind rather went out of Miliband’s sails. Cameron’s answer was eminently predictable because the idea of a new criminal offence for negligent bankers was first floated by George Osborne’s former chief of staff Matt Hancock at the start of last year. Given Hancock’s proximity to the Tory leadership, as one of those who prepares Cameron for these

Isabel Hardman

George Osborne’s Mansion House minefield

George Osborne is expected to respond to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards’s final report in his Mansion House speech this evening. The report is hefty and packed with recommendations, but there are two areas where the Chancellor will find himself treading a particularly tricky path. Both the proposal to defer bonuses and introduce a criminal offence of reckless misconduct in the management of a bank are designed to encourage responsibility and a greater regard of the consequences of bad behaviour. But Osborne will know that they also pose a threat to the success of the city. He will need to consider what effect deferring some remuneration for up to

It looks like we must hope for the best in Syria

Is there not something odd about a Prime Minister talking of getting involved in the Syrian civil war on the very day that another 4,500 British service personnel had their redundancy notices handed to them? It has always been my belief that you should never even tinker in a conflict unless you are prepared to go all the way should circumstances change (as they tend to). Britain no longer has the capability to get fully involved in Syria. So I suppose that we will all have to hope that Mr Cameron and Mr Hague possess an uncanny ability for identifying moderates, arm them nicely and just hope that everything goes

James Forsyth

Cable and Willetts: the house-trained ministers?

There are few worse insults for a minister than to be called ‘house trained’. It implies that the vested interests of your department have you under their thumb. So, Vince Cable and David Willetts should be rather alarmed that one notoriously left-wing academic is boasting that they pretty much are. In an article in Times Higher Education, Martin McQuillan of Kingston University describes the pair as ‘mostly house-trained.’ One person involved in the whole spending review conundrum irritably pointed me towards the McQuillan piece when asked how things were going with BIS. McQuillan’s essay is really a long screed against Michael Gove. His agenda is to stop universities being put

Isabel Hardman

G8: leaders agree Lough Erne declaration and Syria communique

Remember that last communique signed at a summit of world leaders, the really challenging one that they’re all worried they will never meet in reality? You don’t? How strange. David Cameron mused at the weekend that these agreements that take days to draft end up in an ‘elephant’s graveyard’, and to try to show that his rolled up sleeves are having an effect on this G8 summit in Lough Erne, he has insisted on a 10-point ‘declaration’ signed by the leaders. Here it is: Private enterprise drives growth, reduces poverty, and creates jobs and prosperity for people around the world. Governments have a special responsibility to make proper rules and

Ken Clarke the pragmatist suspends his pugilism over EU

It’s said that Ken Clarke would cross a motorway to pick a fight with a political opponent. His aggression is one reason why he thrived (eventually) under Mrs Thatcher: ambulance drivers, teaching unions and local government were all given a bunch of fives when Clarke reached Cabinet in the late ‘80s. Chris Patten (in the course of saying that he would go into the jungle with Clarke) told the late Hugo Young that ‘the key to Clarke is that he is anti-establishment – any establishment’. Yet pugilism is but one side of Clarke. He is not, by temperament or conviction, an ideologue. What matters is what works. And it worked

Rod Liddle

Met Office in crisis meeting as sun comes out

The Met Office is apparently holding a ‘crisis meeting’ today to discuss why Britain’s weather refuses to behave itself these days. No sooner had the camp, pirouetting, forecasters told us that we were in for weeks and weeks of gale force winds and torrential rain, stretching into July, better wear your wellies etc, than the sun came out, the birds began to sing again and the wind became a vague, if pleasant, caressing of the senses. Their meeting is really to ask the rhetorical question, the only question they know – is it global warming or what? – rather than the more immediately relevant question: why are we always completely

Isabel Hardman

Ken Clarke reignites What Would Thatcher Do? to argue for an ‘In’ referendum vote

Those cracking jokes about bears visiting the woods following Ken Clarke’s latest warning about the dangers of Britain leaving the EU miss the point. The former Chancellor and Minister without Portfolio is firstly echoing the stance of his boss, rather than briefing against him, and is secondly continuing to plug away at the case for ‘In’ which has struggled to gain as much momentum and noise as that for leaving. The Europhile faction of the Conservative party has been very poor at organising itself and going on the attack thus far. Clarke uses yesterday’s official opening of talks on the EU/US bilateral trade deal to warn in today’s Telegraph that

18 August 1979: Second class justice for immigrants

Since we launched The Spectator Archive, the most read piece has been the first ever published article by one Anthony Blair in 1979, before he switched to the more informal Tony. Here, the future Labour Prime Minister examines how immigrants were unfairly treated by the British justice system. Reportedly, the article was only printed because Blair was turned down from the New Statesman. Many thanks to @JohnRentoul for digging up this article. Last week’s case of the Patel children, three Indian boys who were deported from England on Tuesday after delay, and ministerial embarrassment, emphasised the uncertainty and ambiguity which surround the status of immigrants in this country. In fact, the experience

Isabel Hardman

How central government could slim down – and why it probably won’t

The Treasury is entering its last minute negotiations with recalcitrant departments ahead of next week’s spending review announcement. But for all the talk of ‘difficult decisions’, the settlement doesn’t look as though it will take some of the more difficult decisions about the shape of government itself. In a Free Enterprise Group paper published today, Tory MP Dominic Raab argues that ministers should be looking for savings by scrapping departments altogether, not coming to settlements which merely maintain the current messy setup. Raab argues that Britain has many more government departments than other developed countries such as the US, Germany and Sweden. He seems quite keen to rule himself off

Isabel Hardman

Labour is after the Tories’ localism crown

Stephen Twigg is, as he probably expected, coming in for a bit of flak on his U-turn on free schools this morning. Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary has launched his own plan for ‘parent academies’, which Toby Young and James Kirkup have had some fun with here. But he is basically doing what Lord Adonis has long hoped the party would do, accepting that free schools are a variant of the last Labour government’s academies programme anyway. He just needed to find a new brand that wouldn’t send the teaching unions into orbit. But what’s interesting is that Twigg also devoted large sections of his speech to trying to steal the

Isabel Hardman

William Hague: There are ‘no palatable options’ in Syria

While the G8 begins today with splits already clear on Syria, David Cameron will be aware, as he sits down for talks with world leaders, that the splits in his own Parliament are becoming increasingly vocal. It’s not just Boris Johnson’s column in today’s Telegraph in which the Mayor of London warns that ‘we won’t get a ceasefire by pressing weapons into the hands of maniacs’. Tory MPs have started openly discussing the lack of support for arming the rebels. Johnson’s intervention could be read by some as yet another attempt to undermine the PM who appears to be considering arming the rebels out of a deep personal conviction, given

James Forsyth

Cameron wants to change the military balance in Syria, but how do you do that without arming the Islamists?

David Cameron and Vladimir Putin have just concluded their pre G8 talks, the main topic of which was Syria. Cameron wants to use the next few days to try and persuade the Russians to stop backing Assad; the weapons they’ve been sending him have enabled him to gain the upper hand on the rebels militarily. Cameron instinctively wants to do something about the slaughter in the Levant for both strategic and moral reasons. As one figure intimately involved in British policy making on Syria told me earlier, ‘The one certainty is that, if nothing is done, not only will lives be lost, not only will Assad not negotiate, but we

Isabel Hardman

Will Parliament get a vote on Syria? PM says ‘basically yes’

David Cameron is far more optimistic than Nick Clegg about arming the Syrian rebels: that much has been clear for a while. He explained why he’s optimistic on Sky’s Murnaghan programme this morning, arguing that if the West doesn’t work with the ‘good’ rebels, then the ‘bad’ rebels will have more of an opportunity to flourish. He said: ‘I want to help the Syrian opposition to succeed and my argument is this: yes there are elements of the Syrian opposition that are deeply unsavoury, that are very dangerous, very extremist and I want nothing to do with them. I’d like them driven out of Syria. They’re linked to al Qaeda.

Fraser Nelson

What on earth went right? Iranians come to terms with a landslide election

The victory of Hassan Rouhani has stunned pundits, and it seems even Iranians can’t quite believe it. He is a moderate (if not, quite, a reformer) who defeated five conservatives. He was helped by the fact that other moderates had stood back to give him a clear run. His victory was massive – 51pc of the vote – and the Iranian authorities seem to have made no attempt to conceal it. There was no need for a second vote. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has congratulated the 64-year-old Glasgow-educated Rouhani:- “I urge everyone to help the president-elect and his colleagues in the government, as he is the president of the whole nation.”

Charles Moore has it just right on Woolwich

There is a terrific piece in today’s Telegraph by Charles Moore which I very much recommend. It is titled ‘Woolwich outrage: we are too weak to face up to the extremism in our midst’. In the piece Moore rightly criticises our societal inability to deal with Islamism. In particular he criticises the switch of attention which took place immediately after the murder of Drummer Rigby thanks to bogus claims of an ‘anti-Muslim backlash’. Moore also addresses the follow-up fib that a threat equal to the jihadis – or even the primary threat to our society – comes from the English Defence League. Incidentally, I saw that, whilst over for the

James Forsyth

Someone has got to win the next election

It is easy to make a case for why all three main parties should do badly at the next election. After five years of austerity, who will vote for the Tories who didn’t in 2010? And how will they stop those dissatisfied with the compromises of coalition from sloping off to Ukip? As for Labour, why would the public want to put them back in charge just five years after booting them out? This question has special force given that the Labour leadership is so identified with that failed belief that boom and bust had been ended. Then, there’s the Liberal Democrats—they’ve alienated their left-leaning supporters and lost their status