Politics

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

Thursday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The great Lord Tebbit

Lovely to see Lord Tebbit at The Spectator summer party. I reminded him that he had once written a short letter to me, which I still cherish. Back when I was editor of the BBC Today programme I had written to lots of famous people to get their views about religious belief and faith, for some feature we were doing. I also asked if they thought there was a heaven or hell. Norman replied thus: ‘I do not know if there is a heaven or hell, but if there is, I sincerely hope you burn in it for eternity.’ I think that is the best letter I have ever received.

Boris Johnson

Is my rod big enough? Boris Johnson’s fishing notebook

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

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

EU referendum plotting meeting: exclusive details

As trailed on Coffee House yesterday, MPs in favour of an EU referendum met today to discuss how to advance James Wharton’s private member’s bill and how to pressure Labour and the Lib Dems to change their stance on the issue. I hear colleagues from all parties agreed with Wharton’s warning that amendments in the Commons could endanger the Bill, while the Stockton South MP also suggested that though trouble looms in the Lords, any attempts to wreck the legislation there could provide a nice opportunity for a debate about the legitimacy of the Upper Chamber turning down legislation sent up from the Commons. As with gay marriage, dark mutterings

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Another wretched day for Ed Miliband

Today Ed Miliband headed for the favourite destination of faltering leaders: abroad. Any crisis-stricken banana republic will do. At PMQs the Labour leader decided that Egypt would fit the bill. Knitting his brows into a gap-year frown of munificent superiority, Miliband asked the PM to tell us how Britain is encouraging President Morsi ‘to secure a negotiated settlement in advance of the army deadline.’ Yes, Ed. Absolutely. The whole of Tahrir Square is hanging on your every word. Cameron might have come clean at this point and told us what Ed was playing at: ‘I may not save Egypt from its looming civil war but its looming civil war may

Steerpike Steerpike

Lord Bell savages ‘pygmy’ Cameron

Lord Bell, AKA the King of Spin, made some noise at the annual Freedom Dinner (established by libertarians to mark the anniversary of the smoking ban) last night at Canary Wharf’s cavernous Boisdale. He had stern words for the anti-tobacco lobby: ‘There is not one shred of scientific evidence of the existence of passive smoking and it’s one of the more terrible lies told by a democratically elected government in the world.’ Bell, though, was only getting going. He aimed his real fire at some recent prime ministers, saying: ‘We could do that Blair devil eyes campaign, because he is actually the devil.’ He expanded on the demonic theme (although it

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Ed Miliband and David Cameron get personal in PMQs

When Ed Miliband began at PMQs by asking about Egypt, it looked like he was going to do six high-minded questions on foreign affairs and thus dodge the political attack the Tories had lined up for him. But that wasn’t Miliband’s plan, after a couple of questions on Egypt he shifted to education. I suspect that by the end of session, he wished he stuck to what’s going on in Tahrir Square. For Cameron took the return to domestic politics as an opportunity to relentlessly batter Labour over its links to Unite and Unite’s behaviour in Falkirk. Cameron and Miliband went at each other with real needle. There was a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How Peter Mandelson’s HS2 intervention will change the debate – and how it won’t

Peter Mandelson’s surprise rejection of high-speed rail in this morning’s FT is another sign that the wheels are coming off this project. But while the project’s critics on the backbenches – particularly those on the Tory side such as Cheryl Gillan and Michael Fabricant who are campaigning vociferously against the plan – will be thrilled, the continuing cross-party consensus means you won’t hear Cameron being probed on this at Prime Minister’s Questions, for instance, or Maria Eagle castigating Patrick McLoughlin at the next departmental question time in the Commons. But Mandelson’s concerns about the project are about its spiralling cost, not the impact on one MP’s constituency (or their majority,

Tuesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Theresa May’s modernising moment on stop and search

Theresa May’s statement in the Commons today on stop and search strikes me as an important moment. Here, we had a Tory Home Secretary standing up and saying that she understood why some communities felt that stop and search was used unfairly and announcing a review of it. This is, as I said on Sunday, is quite a change in Tory attitudes. William Hague, who was Tory leader at the time, criticised the Macpherson report for making police reluctant to use stop and search. Just five years ago, David Cameron was emphasising the need to ‘free the police to do far more stopping and far more searching’. Now, May doesn’t

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

‘Weak, weak, weak’ Labour will have to avoid looking panicked on any referendum pledge

David Cameron’s statement on the European council was another example of how easy it is at the moment for the Tories to portray Ed Miliband as a weak leader. He made it perfectly clear what he wanted those watching to take away by stealing Tony Blair’s ‘weak, weak, weak’ line in 1997 when attacking John Major (which is well worth watching again). Today the PM told the Commons that Ed Miliband’s position on Europe could be summed up in three words: ‘weak, weak, weak’. He said: ‘What I thought was interesting about the right hon. Gentleman’s response was that we heard not a word about the referendum that we are

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

‘Who governs Labour?’ is perfect new Tory attack line on Miliband’s weakness

A row in Labour over union influence that doesn’t benefit the Tories in some way is as rare as hen’s teeth. But the latest revelations about Unite’s attempt at ‘transforming Labour’ (as reported by Rachel Sylvester in her explosive Times column) are even more of a gift to the Conservative party than usual because they feed perfectly into the line of attack the party has chosen. As Coffee House reported recently, Lynton Crosby told Tory MPs that he wanted to focus on Miliband’s weaknesses as leader, identifying clear weak spots rather than the ‘he makes the coffee’ line. That the unions are enjoying such success in stitching up the selection

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Pro-referendum MPs to plot for Labour and Lib Dem manifesto commitment

MPs from all parties who want a referendum are meeting this week to discuss how to get a pledge into the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos, I hear. The All-Party Parliamentary Group for an EU referendum will meet tomorrow, partly to look ahead to James Wharton’s Private Member’s Bill on Friday, but also to draw up a strategy for a referendum commitment from the other two parties. Speaking alongside Wharton at the meeting will be Labour’s Kate Hoey and Lib Dem John Hemming, who backed John Baron’s Queen’s Speech amendment. Labour donor John Mills, who the Times reports this morning as warning that his party could lose the next election

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Ian Austin: Hunger expert

Handbags at the ready in the Department for Work and Pensions questions in the House of Commons this afternoon, as Gordon Brown’s former lick-spittle Ian Austin attacked the government benches for never having gone hungry. Something, of course, that the shouty MP for Dudley is somewhat of an expert in. In 2007 he was among the 32 MPs to claim the full £400 in cash available  – without showing a single receipt – each month for food under the old expenses system. Iain Duncan Smith responded by calling Austin ‘an empty barrel’. In pocketing £4,800 in one year on top of his salary, Austin was certainly rolling in it.

Chi Onwurah

Consumers suffer because this government doesn’t know how to regulate

The current Government has squandered  the competitive environment it inherited from Labour, tolerating quasi-monopolies who abuse their position to harm consumers.  The policy responses to these monopolies should be strong and decisive, not weak and acquiescing. In all the ‘utility’ sectors (gas, water, telecommunications) and some emerging markets, such as search, there is a compelling need to redress the balance between incumbent vested interests and consumers. In the late nineties the Labour Government put in place one of the best competitive regulatory environments in the world. It ranked third behind the US and Germany in an independent review by KPMG. ‘Light touch’ evidence-based economic regulation was the order of the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Do pay rises really lead to better MPs?

It was entirely predictable that any MP who opposes a pay rise or wants to show how in touch they are with the public would seize the opportunity to say so today. Nick Clegg said he wouldn’t take the raise himself at his new monthly press conference this morning, followed by Vince Cable, who told Sky News that ‘I think everybody will understand the wider context and the attitude of the public, which I think will be very hostile if the political class decides to put its own interests first’. Former minister Tim Loughton, while suggesting he might withdraw his amendment to the Finance Bill calling for tax breaks for

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why Nick Clegg is so keen to talk to the media

Liberal Democrat leaders are used to having to do more to get noticed than the other party leaders. But it is still striking just how much the Deputy Prime Minister is doing to try and inject himself into the national conversation. Joining Nick Clegg’s weekly phone-in on LBC is a monthly press conference. One of the reasons Clegg is doing all this is to try and drain away the anger created by the compromises of coalition and, specifically, the broken promise on student fees. After 23 press conferences, even the lobby will tire — or so the Lib Dems hope – of asking Clegg about the U-turn on tuition fees,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cross-party EU referendum campaign aims to counter partisan problems

The Tory campaign on James Wharton’s EU referendum bill has been very slick but very partisan – I examined some of the problems with this last week when eurosceptic Labour MP John Cryer announced he had been put off by the Let Britain Decide campaign and would abstain on the bill. So today campaigners in favour of a vote launched a cross-party campaign called I Support a Referendum. They hope that their emphasis on the referendum itself rather than the party politics will help bring MPs from other parties into the fold where previously they felt excluded. Wharton was present at the launch, and he insisted that he was keen

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Do MPs deserve a pay rise?

A small group of MPs have put their heads above the parapet in a brave and commendable fashion by demanding that they and their colleagues should not receive large pay rises. My own view is that MPs should be paid substantially more than what they currently receive, not least because it might improve the intake a little. The Guardian quotes Lib Dem Jo Swinson, Conservative Tim Loughton and Labour’s Keith Vaz as being opposed to a large pay increase. Mr Vaz supplements his income by writing for newspapers, fairly frequently. Ms Swinson is married to another Lib Dem, Duncan Hames, and so has the benefit of being a young double

Douglas Murray

Kenneth Minogue RIP

The weekend brought the sad news of the death of Kenneth Minogue. Intellectually and physically active to the last, he died on Friday at the age of 82, while returning from a conference on the Galapagos Islands. Spectator readers will remember his essays and reviews for the magazine stretching over many decades. Some may have been fortunate enough to have been taught by him at the London School of Economics. Ken was, needless to say, one of the most brilliant conservative political thinkers of his generation. He was also the most wonderful man. He had that rare mixture of great intelligence and twinkly, irrepressible good-humour. Spotting him across a room

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Will Tory party calm survive MP pay row?

Coffee House readers will be unsurprised by the interest taken by the newspapers and the Today programme in MPs’ pay: this blog predicted that it could be the next big row in the Conservative party at the start of June. It is politically sensible for the Prime Minister to say that he disagrees with a pay rise recommended by Ipsa if it raises overall costs, even if he has no formal veto over a raise. All he can do is send a formal response to the pay consultation. But he will need to work hard to keep his party behind him, and so will the other party leaders. This is not