Politics Archives

Wednesday

10 Jul 2013

Can Theresa May avoid a Tory row on the European Arrest Warrant?

Walk down a corridor in the Palace of Westminster today and you’ll likely be taken aside by a Tory backbencher who wants to vent their frustration about Britain opting back into the European Arrest Warrant. At the moment, the mood is of concern rather than rebellion — a reflection of the fact that Tory MPs are in a fairly positive frame of mind after a good couple of political weeks for the party. But what should alarm Downing Street is that it isn’t just the usual Eurosceptic crowd expressing concern. Indeed, some of those who are most concerned are those who David Cameron has relied on recently to defend his

Isabel Hardman

Labour MP makes amusing attempt to wreck Tory EU referendum bill

The Conservatives are a happy bunch at the moment. But for how much longer? They might be riding on the crest of a wave after the second reading of James Wharton’s Private Member’s Bill for an EU referendum. But already forces are at work to disrupt the happy harmony. Labour MP Mike Gapes has this week tabled a rather amusing series of amendments to the legislation which are almost certainly an attempt to sow division in the Tory ranks. They call for: – A referendum on the terms of Britain’s membership of the EU rather than just on whether Britain should be a member. – A referendum on a date

Isabel Hardman

Miliband’s challenge is an opportunity for the Tories to reach out to union members

The warm reception to Ed Miliband’s speech yesterday was so eerily positive that it could never have lasted. Today we get the first taste of the real battle to come, with the GMB warning that they’d be ‘lucky if 10% of our current affiliation levels say yes, they want to be members of the Labour party’ and that as a result the union could disaffiliate from the party. This is a challenge for Ed Miliband to show that he is determined to force these changes, even if it means calling a party-wide ballot to overrule the union bosses But this is also an opportunity for the Conservatives. If the unions

Tuesday

9 Jul 2013

Isabel Hardman

What do the Tories think about zero hours contracts? They don’t seem very keen to tell us…

MPs held a debate in Westminster Hall today about zero hours contracts. Actually, to be specific, Labour MPs held a Westminster Hall debate today, which Jo Swinson replied to as the employment minister. Adjournment debates aren’t often that newsworthy, but what made this debate noteworthy was that it marks another example of the Conservatives failing to respond to a social phenomenon, instead leaving a vacuum for Labour to stamp their own argument on it. What do the Conservatives think about these contracts, under which workers are not guaranteed a set number of hours per week? You could probably guess that MPs on the right would say there is a compelling

Douglas Carswell

Let’s have iMembers in our parties and really change politics

Ed Miliband got it right. Faced with a fiasco in Falkirk, where the trade union, Unite, attempted to fix the Parliamentary selection process, the Labour leader has come out on the right side of the argument about political reform. In our eagerness to attack him, we Conservatives are in danger of putting itself on the wrong side of the debate. Falkirk-type fixes have been going on for years. Safe Labour seats have been run as trade union fiefdoms for as long as anyone can remember. What Falkirk demonstrates is not that tiny cliques have been manipulating party selections, but that that old school way of doing politics is no longer acceptable.

Steerpike

Ed Miliband tries to make friends

Ed Miliband struggled to reach ‘the journalistic community’ at his big speech and press conference today. ‘Where’s Sky, ah there, Mark isn’t it?’, asked Ed. ‘Alistair’ came the reply. Not content with this faux pas, Miliband failed to recognize the BBC’s Nick Robinson and managed to slight Channel Four’s pompous political editor Gary Gibbon. And there was some discussion in Fleet Street’s watering holes afterwards about whether Ed had called a Tim ‘Jim’. The Labour leader was clearly distracted. In the course of relating an anecdote about US politics, Miliband used the term ‘congressmen’. Mr Steerpike nodded sagely — knowing the meaning of this innocuous noun — but Miliband, who

Isabel Hardman

Wot, no bad news? The bigger problem for Labour

Journalists in the Westminster bubble like to point out on Big Speech Days like this that the public couldn’t care a jot about whether Ed Miliband is having a Clause IV moment. They’re right, but that doesn’t stop everyone in the bubble getting rather overexcited about a speech in a sweaty room off Fleet Street as they did today. Miliband might be wiping his brow with relief this afternoon given his unions speech has gone down rather well with a surprising range of grandees, but he’ll know only too well that the more awkward news has nothing to do with Len McCluskey. The International Monetary Fund announced this afternoon that,

Alex Massie

Ed Miliband’s Surprisingly Bold Plan for A New Model Labour Party

Tony Blair has welcomed Ed Miliband’s “big speech” on reforming Labour’s relationship with its Trade Union backers. And so has Len McCluskey, chief potentate at Unite, the Union whose allegedly nefarious activities in Falkirk have prodded Miliband towards reform. Blair expects Miliband’s proposals to change everything; McCluskey, presumably, is confident any changes will prove largely cosmetic. They can’t both be right. But, actually, it is a little unfair to put “big speech” in inverted commas. This was, or at least has the potential to be, a transforming moment for the Labour party. Granted, no-one is quite sure how this will happen – and the detail matters – but everyone agrees

Mark Wickham-Jones

If Labour is to be democratised, Ed Miliband must reform how his party chooses its leader

By insisting that trade unionists must opt-in to party membership, Ed Miliband has taken a bold and brave first step in reforming Labour’s troublesome relationship with its affiliated trade unions. At a stroke, he has gone far beyond the achievements of his modernising predecessors, John Smith and Tony Blair. Considerable fanfare accompanied the introduction of one member one vote for party elections in 1993 but John Smith’s initiative proved to be flawed – an outcome demonstrated by the role that trade union leaderships were able to play in the 2010 Labour leadership contest. The abolition of Clause IV in 1995 was little more than a symbolic reform.For all the furore

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband is back on the front foot, for now at least

There was a point in Ed Miliband’s speech on a ‘better politics’ where it became clear that for the rest of our lives we’re all going to be trapped in an endless cycle of opposition politicians announcing that they are going to forge a ‘new politics’, as though some other chap hadn’t said the same thing only a few years before. There really is nothing new under the sun. But it would be unfair to dismiss the Labour leader’s speech as meaningless simply for saying what others have said before him: perhaps he was hoping that the goldfish bowl of the Westminster Village would turn out to contain a bunch

The Spectator

Ed Miliband’s speech on reforming Labour’s relationship with trade unions: full text

Let me start by saying how pleased I am to be here at the St Bride’s Foundation. Only a few hundred yards from where the Labour Party was founded over a century ago. And especially to be here with so many community organisers and Labour Party members from right across the country. I am here today to talk about how we can build a different kind of politics. A politics which is truly rooted in every community of the country. And reaches out to people across every walk of life. That is what I mean by One Nation. A country where everyone plays their part. And a politics where they

Rod Liddle

God forbid that unions try to influence the Labour Party

I think it was the arrival into the debate of those Blairite ghosts Mandelson and Reid which helped me make my mind up. Somehow, Ed Miliband has been coerced into taking on the Unite union on the grounds that they are doing shady business on the matter of selecting candidates. Mandelson and Reid are both demanding Miliband stand firm (an interesting thought) and stick it to Len McCluskey: Unite is trying to influence Labour’s agenda, they howl. Well god forbid that unions have any input into the Labour Party’s policies. I don’t know what Len and the boys have been up to, but the real disgrace about candidate selection is

Isabel Hardman

Who owns Labour? Unite turns on the Right

Ed Miliband’s speech today isn’t an attempt to close down the row over Falkirk, but to get back on top of the issue, rather than appearing to be bounced along by events. What it will do is open a huge row with the union bosses: one the Labour leader needs to be seen to have won at the end of it all. Here is a briefing on what to expect from Miliband. The Tories are pleased this morning that Len McCluskey has written in this morning’s Guardian that ‘switching to an “opt-in” for the political levy wouldn’t work… would debilitate unions’ ability to speak for our members and would further

Monday

8 Jul 2013

James Forsyth

Can Ed Miliband dodge the ‘weak’ tag?

When a political party repeatedly uses an attack line it is nearly always because their polling shows that it works. This is certainly why the Tories keep calling Ed Miliband ‘weak’. Indeed, they’re so keen to keep hitting him with this charge that they’ve stopped accusing him of knifing his brother for fear of undercutting it. This is one of the many things that makes Miliband’s speech tomorrow so important. The Tories are desperate to portray Miliband as a weak leader being pushed around by the ‘bully boys’ of the trade union machine. If Miliband is seen to have ducked the issue, the Tories will have yet more ammunition for

Isabel Hardman

The long-term political benefit for both Coalition parties of Abu Qatada’s deportation

If you had the misfortune to miss Theresa May’s statement on the deportation of Abu Qatada this afternoon, it would hardly stretch your imagination to work out how the occasion went. It involved MPs cheering May, May making it clear that the government has done very well and then pointing out (again) that she does want reform (which the Lib Dems disagree with). MPs took care to praise the Home Secretary, mindful of all the chatter about Qatada’s departure being good for her own leadership ambitions. Even if you’re not on the TM4PM bandwagon, you might as well ingratiate yourself with her in case something unexpected happens. All pretty formulaic

Steerpike

Top spin, Dave

The prime minister’s appearance at Wimbledon yesterday, and his invitation of Andy Murray to Downing Street, has got some miserable lefty tongues wagging. No doubt they are livid that the ‘Curse of Cameron’ has lifted, while the memory of Gordon ‘Jonah’ Brown putting the mockers on British sporting endeavour lives. Moaners will always moan that our politicians try to muscle in on sporting greats; but there is no doubt that the Prime Minister is a tennis fan. Despite his rather odd decision to wear a dark business suit on the hottest day of the year, he was clearly enjoying himself in the Royal Box and his face was a picture of delight

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: How the Tories plan to attack Ukip

Last week Lynton Crosby and David Cameron briefed Conservative MPs on the threat posed by Ukip. Their timing was impeccable: today’s YouGov poll showing 19 per cent of Conservative members would seriously consider voting for Nigel Farage’s party could have sent Tory MPs into orbit, but instead they have been reassured that the party has a proper plan to deal with the enemies to the right, rather than the messy ‘fruitcake’ strategy of the past few years. I am told by a number of MPs who were present that Crosby talked generally about what attracts people to Ukip, rather than the specific problem of next year’s European elections. This was

Isabel Hardman

Mayor of London’s quiet attack on the creaking government machine

It is interesting enough that Boris Johnson has attacked high-speed rail in today’s Telegraph: the Mayor is undermining the priorities of the current government (while attacking Labour a little too), and reminding them that they are dithering on aviation policy. He warns that the project’s costs will balloon to well over £70 billion. But the Mayor makes one very important comment about the government machine that should not go unnoticed. He writes: Talk to the big construction firms, and they will tell you the problem is not the cost of actually digging and tunnelling and putting in cables and tracks. Those are apparently roughly the same wherever you are in

Boris Johnson

A phallic protrusion and a whopper: Boris Johnson goes fishing

You remember the climax of Jaws — the primeval moment when Quint the crazed Ahab-like fisherman goes mano a mano with the monster of the deep? He comes to the rear of the listing boat and straps on a leather belt with a phallic protrusion: a metal receptacle into which he shoves the haft of his puny fishing rod. And you look at this terrifying mismatch between a man’s tackle and the might of nature, and you think, ‘How the hell is that going to work?’ Such were my feelings, amigos, on a blustery day in the Indian ocean when I realised I had a whopper on the line. ‘That is a big fish,’

Isabel Hardman

New curriculum offers political points to Tories

The funny thing about the new National Curriculum, published today, is that after all the fuss of the past few months, particularly over the history curriculum, it’s probably the last ever national plan from the government. As more and more schools convert to academy status, and more free schools pop up to compete with poorly-performing schools, there will be fewer and fewer who must conform to this: the rest have been given freedom to teach what they judge is best for their pupils. Michael Gove’s critics like to argue that he is a great centraliser, dictating the curriculum from Westminster while claiming to give schools freedom. But he only remains