Politics

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

Thursday

Grant Shapps

A clear message for the second half of this Parliament

Yesterday in the House, both parties welcomed the re-election of Barack Obama. An incumbent leader has been returned to the White House. Incumbency is of course a massive factor in US politics – an incumbent has been unseated only a handful of times in history. The reason for this is clear. For all the bumps and knocks you get along the way as a government, getting your message out is much easier when you’re already standing on the podium. For the four years of his first term, Obama’s grassroots and digital campaigns never ceased. It’s an important lesson for UK politics. This week, as we enter the second half of

Steerpike Steerpike

Sir Jeremy ‘the Master’ Heywood

Mr Steerpike is back in print in today’s Spectator. Here’s a taste of what to expect: ‘Hats off to Sir Jeremy Heywood. The Cabinet Secretary’s bid to delete himself from everyone’s Christmas card list is proving a great success. Ministers were not amused by Sue Cameron’s Telegraph column hailing Sir Jeremy as ‘the only person trying to impose some order on the chaos’. She described him as the PM’s de facto political enforcer and she gushed lovingly about his capacity to ‘excite the frisson of fear’ in Downing Street. In response, the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn tweeted that Sir Jeremy had become the ‘unelected epicentre of power’. One disgruntled Downing

Steerpike Steerpike

The real master of No.10, leaks at the Wolseley and Archbishop Justin

Hats off to Sir Jeremy Heywood. The Cabinet Secretary’s bid to delete himself from everyone’s Christmas card list is proving a great success. Ministers were not amused by Sue Cameron’s Telegraph column hailing Sir Jeremy as ‘the only person trying to impose some order on the chaos’. She described him as the PM’s de facto political enforcer and she gushed lovingly about his capacity to ‘excite the frisson of fear’ in Downing Street. In response, the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn tweeted that Sir Jeremy had become the ‘unelected epicentre of power’. One disgruntled Downing Street staffer whispered to me, ‘What next? An eight-page spread in Hello! magazine inviting us to

James Pinkerton

America’s carbon clash

What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? In US energy issues today, the irresistible force is broad public support for more energy consumption; the immovable object, on the other hand, is elite opposition to that energy consumption, specifically hydrocarbons. Four-fifths of American energy comes from fossil fuels, and so that accounts for a huge force of folks accustomed to driving their cars, heating their homes, and powering their workplaces by burning oil, natural gas or coal. Yet all that energy consumption — and the 5.2 billion or so metric tons of CO2 that it emits annually — is generating immovable opposition among green-influenced elites. US public opinion

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Good news for City job-losers: it’s your chance to be reborn as useful citizens

‘Like a scene out of Village of the Damned,’ one UBS banker describes the moment of collecting his redundancy envelope. He’s over-dramatising, I’m sure, but let’s not be unsympathetic: in my banking days I found myself on both sides of that life-changing moment, doing the sacking and being sacked, and it’s never painless, even when you’ve got a mass of fellow sackees for company. The Swiss group is culling one sixth of its worldwide workforce. Managers warmed to their task last week by cancelling the passes of 150 London staff, who join around 100,000 other City job-losers since the onset of the financial crisis; according to the Centre for Economics

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Angela Merkel: I can’t imagine UK quitting the EU

David Cameron and Angela Merkel are eating dinner together tonight, over which they will discuss the forthcoming European Budget summit. The discussion may make even the sweetest crème brûlée taste rather sour, with Cameron continuing to threaten to veto anything above a real-terms freeze in the budget. He has told reporters following him around on his tour of the Middle East that he will make the argument for a freeze ‘with vigour’. As she arrives in Downing Street, Merkel will be mindful, though, that she has a key role in trying to reach a consensus between the British position and the desire of other countries in the union for more money.

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Harriet Harman was not ‘bullied’ at PMQs today

Barack Obama’s re-election has naturally perked up the Labour party, on the optimistic basis that the Obama formula for success, sans Obama, could work perfectly well here. But there’s a limit to how far you can take that approach and it was reached, PDQ today, by the feisty editor of the LabourList website, Mark Ferguson, today. The key to Obama’s victory, he correctly observed, was his appeal to women, some of whom took a dim view of some Republicans’ attitudes to rape and abortion. The working equivalent of the Republicans over here, he went on, is obviously the Tories, whose antique and regressive attitudes to women could be observed in,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Kris Hopkins slams Douglas Carswell and the rebels’ tactics at tense meeting of the 1922

It was a stormy meeting of the 1922 Committee tonight. The cause of controversy was last week’s defeat of the government on the EU Budget and whether or not the rebels — led by Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless — had cooperated with Labour. Kris Hopkins, of the loyalist 301 group, read out Carswell’s letter to colleagues saying that he had had no direct contact with the rebels. He then said that seeing as the Mail on Sunday reported this weekend that Carswell had, everyone present should write to the paper and complain about its inaccurate report. The irony was, I’m told, rather effective. But this was not the end

Steerpike Steerpike

Oh say can you see, MPs on a jolly

Team Cameron, as my colleague James Forysth points out, are rather pleased with Obama’s victory. Downing Street’s finest have been pushing the idea that Barack Obama’s victory speech echoed, word for word, Cameron’s constant refrain that ‘we are all in this together’ and that the ‘inherited economic mess’ is slowly being overcome. Dave the Statesman, don’t you know? Obama has his admirers on the Opposition benches, as we know. The Labour Party was out in force at the two biggest victory bashes in central London last night: CNN’s opulent shindig at One Mayfair and the tackier affair at the US Embassy. I spotted Mr and Mrs Harriet Harman, Chris Bryant

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Harriet Harman enters her Elvis-in-Vegas phase

With the prime minister abroad flogging jets to tyrants, Nick Clegg was left to play the statesman at PMQs. He was opposed by Labour’s Harriet Harman. Once a plucky and hard-working performer, Harman is now entering her Elvis-in-Vegas phase. She can remember the words but can’t find the feeling. She accused the Lib Dem leader of various atrocities. Sacking policemen. Doing the dirty on tuition fees. Vandalising the Surestart scheme. Nobbling mums with extra taxes. But her meandering phrases were so vaguely scripted, and so feebly delivered, that she might as well have stitched them into a sewing sampler. Clegg had all the time in the world to sharpen up

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama’s victory is a great solace to Cameron, and No.10 will exploit it to the full

Four years ago, in opposition, the Cameron offices were a swing state in the US election. Most were for Obama but there was still a sizable number who held a torch for John McCain. But this time round it is hard to think of anyone in Downing Street who wanted a Romney win. I asked several people in No. 10 who would have voted for Romney, but only one name ever came up. The idea of a Tory Downing Street urging on a Democratic President would come as a shock to those who served in the Thatcher and Major governments. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had common

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Amidst Obama’s Triumph, America Enjoys A Libertarian Moment – Spectator Blogs

Amidst last night’s Democratic triumph and the confirmation that Obama is, in many respects, Ronald Reagan’s heir let’s not forget that this election was also a triumph for libertarians and libertarianism. True, Gary Johnson – shamefully treated by the GOP a year ago – “only” won a million votes and 1% of the vote but this was still the Libertarian Party’s best performance since 1980. In any case, this small but cheering libertarian moment did not depend upon and should not be measured in terms of the presidential race itself. The real action came at the state level and it was mostly encouraging news for those of us interested in

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cheryl Gillan steps up anti-HS2 campaign | 7 November 2012

Parliament was dominated last week by naughty backbench rebels: this week has seen the ascendancy of sacked ministers intervening in government business in a far more polite, but still very effective, manner. Tim Loughton and Nick Harvey made their own points yesterday at Treasury Questions, but Cheryl Gillan is still on the warpath over high-speed rail, and is now stepping up her campaign. The former Welsh Secretary made her concerns clear last week in an article for Coffee House, and has a question on today’s Order Paper which attacks the government’s decision to push decisions about expanding airport capacity into the long grass. The question, for Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Nick Clegg wins PMQs cheers from the most unlikely of MPs

I have rarely seen Nick Clegg enjoy Prime Minister’s Questions as much as he did today. Freed from the tyranny of the binder of answers, Clegg answered the questions in a confident and confrontational manner. The usual jeers from the other side of the House didn’t put him off his stride today. One thing that was striking was how often Clegg referred to the Lib Dem-inspired coalition move to raise the income tax thresholds. The Liberal Democrat leadership is convinced that this policy is beginning to pay dividends for the party and that they’ll receive the credit for the big increase in April. Clegg also took the chance to take

Hamish Macdonell

Alex Salmond, Scotland’s longest serving First Minister

So Alex Salmond has achieved the feat of becoming Scotland’s longest serving First Minister. This is a notable achievement. After all, he has avoided the fate of one of his predecessors – resigning in disgrace – and another: being defeated at the ballot box. Salmond has just served as Scotland’s First Minister for 2001 days, or five and half years, just eclipsing the term served by Jack McConnell between 2001 and 2007. But even he would agree that the field to contest this landmark is not a large one. Scotland has only had four first ministers since 1999. The first, Donald Dewar, lasted just a year before his death in 2000. The second,

Steerpike Steerpike

Goodbye Nadine Dorries, hello Louise Mensch

Let me salute Nadine Dorries’s principled ambition to bring I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here to a wider audience. For too long this edifying documentary series, which sheds light on the concerns of real voters, has been closed to Westminster’s lumpen commentariat; but no more: by inviting Nadine on the show, ITV has signalled its intention to stop treating MPs, lobbyists and political hacks as if they don’t exist. We do exist and we’ll be following our plucky heroine as she meets the challenges of the rainforest. We’ll be voting as well. (Many times, of course: fixing polls is one of our specialities.) Ms Dorries’ career is being closely monitored by

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

US election 2012: Obama’s victory is a relief for David Cameron

David Cameron welcomed Barack Obama’s re-election in the early hours of this morning, tweeting: ‘Warm congratulations to my friend @BarackObama. Look forward to continuing to work together.’ He later released this statement: ‘I would like to congratulate Barack Obama on his re-election. I have really enjoyed working with him over the last few years and I look forward to working with him again over the next four years. There are so many things that we need to do: we need to kick start the world economy and I want to see an EU-US trade deal. Right here in Jordan I am hearing appalling stories about what has happened inside Syria

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Obama keeps that hopey-changey thing going in victory speech

Even though Obama’s victory speech in Chicago was far less hopey-changey than his rockstar delivery four years ago, the re-elected president did still manage to sound a little as though he was delivering an address at a wedding, smoothing over the ugly bits and telling America that ‘the best is yet to come’. Both he and Mitt Romney made calls for co-operation between Republicans and Democrats, with Obama saying: ‘Tonight, you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours, and in the coming weeks and months I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

US election 2012: the broadcast election

One product of the modern communications age is that we can all follow what US outlets and Twitter are saying while watching the BBC coverage’s of the US elections. This creates a whole host of challenges for the Beeb. Back in the day, few would have noticed that there was a gap between the US networks calling the key state of Ohio for Obama and the BBC catching up. But this time, it stuck out like a poor thumb. The other great challenge for any international broadcaster is the sheer quality of the coverage on US television. One can chuckle at NBC and their political editor having a ‘Command Centre’.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nadine Dorries suspended from Tory party

Tory sources have confirmed that Nadine Dorries has had the whip withdrawn until she returns to Westminster to explain to the chief whip why she has gone on ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!’ Her constituency association was shocked by the revelation, which appeared in this morning’s papers, and a number of Conservative MPs have been suggesting she should resign as an MP. Dorries’ justification is that the programme reaches a far wider audience than Parliament usually does, but this is the latest in a long string of what teachers might call ‘challenging behaviour’ from the Tory MP. David Cameron and colleagues will not be well-disposed to her