Politics

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

No, it is not a good idea for the Tories to raise the minimum wage

There’s so much to disagree with in Rupert Myers’ piece arguing that the Tories should raise the minimum wage that it’s difficult to know where to begin. Raising the minimum wage will be bad for the most vulnerable in the workforce and will lead to less employment. The question of whether it would win support for the Conservative party is another matter. This is really basic economics. Raising the price of labour by dictat will reduce the demand for it, other things given. Or as Paul Krugman put it back in 1998:  ‘The higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to unemployment.’  It might not necessarily

James Forsyth

Exclusive: Number 10’s plan to break the spending review log-jam

George Osborne yesterday set the date for completion of the 2015-16 spending review as 26 June. But it is hard to see how an agreement between the Treasury and the un-protected spending departments will be reached in the next 105 days. The Tory branch of the National Union of Ministers want the welfare settlement reopened before their budgets are cut further. For their part, the Liberal Democrats remain resolutely opposed to more welfare reductions. But I understand that the departing head of the Number 10 policy unit Paul Kirby has drawn up an alternative spending review plan which would break this log-jam. As I say in tomorrow’s Spectator, rather than simply

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Nothing changes, yet everything is different

There comes a moment in a PM’s journey when he crests the ridge and starts on the downhill leg. David Cameron made that unhappy transition today. PMQs began with a gag from a Labour backbencher. Tom Blenkinsop: ‘The prime minister may believe there’s no alternative to the double dip. But some in the cabinet believe there is an alternative. To him!’ Cameron replied by listing his usual trinity of attainments. Lower deficit, more jobs, interest rates at record lows. Then Ed Miliband had a go. Instead of raising an issue, he went for Cameron’s reputation. ‘Given the government’s U-turn on alcohol,’ he said, ‘is there anything the prime minister could

Isabel Hardman

PMQs: David Cameron flails as Tory backbench stays glum

Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was not a good one for David Cameron, but it could have been a great deal worse. With a U-turn on minimum pricing on the cards and open dissent in the Cabinet and on the backbenches, the PM arrived knowing he’d have his back up against the wall, even though Ed Miliband has struggled to make effective attacks on big issues in the last few weeks. The Labour leader had some good jokes, too. His opening line – ‘in the light of his U-turn on alcohol pricing, can the PM tell us, is there anything he could organise in a brewery?’ – was particularly good, and

Alex Massie

David Cameron won’t debate Alex Salmond because televised debates are for losers.

The standard assumption about political debates is that the campaign with most to gain in all in favour of them while the candidate presumed to be the front-runner wants nothing to do with them. Franklin Roosevelt refused to debate Wendell Wilkie in 1940, LBJ refused to debate Barry Goldwater in 1964 and, four years later, Richard Nixon (perhaps recalling his experience in 1960) declined to debate Hubert Humphrey. Indeed, you can argue that the modern American practice of Presidential debates might not exist at all but for the weakness of the position in which Gerald Ford found himself in 1976. As matters stand, I suspect there will be some reluctance

Isabel Hardman

Expected U-turn on minimum alcohol pricing is victory for May and relief for Osborne

The government’s expected U-turn on a minimum price for alcohol avoids a Cabinet revolt which would have included Home Secretary Theresa May. It’s good timing for May as she enjoys the spotlight on her apparent jostling for a future leadership bid as it shows that she enjoys power at the top of the Tory machine, and will again make her a rallying figure for libertarian Conservatives. But the U-turn is also, in the long-term, good for the Chancellor, too. George Osborne is under pressure to deliver a cost of living budget, and raising the minimum unit price would do the opposite, even for squeezed shoppers who drink responsibly. The last

James Forsyth

Tory loyalists strike back

Lynton Crosby spoke to Tory MPs this evening about the imporance of party discipline. With the Chief Whip in the chair, meetings of the Tory parliamentary party are normally fairly loyalist events. Tonight’s was no exception and with David Cameron and Lynton Crosby in attendance there was an even greater incentive to good behaviour. I’m told that James Morris, who sits for a West Midlands marginal, earned cheers when he implored colleagues to remember that when they sound off, they hurt those like him who are trying to cling on to their majorities. Kris Hopkins, the no nonsense leader of the 301 Group, complained about ‘self indulgent buffoons’ who keep

Isabel Hardman

The Tory leadership needs to make MPs feel valued, not stop them tweeting

Lynton Crosby is holding his election strategy meeting (first revealed on Coffee House) with Tory MPs at 5.30 this afternoon. One of the things he’ll bring up, as reported by Benedict Brogan this morning, is that MPs need to be a little less unruly on Twitter. Obviously that’s not their biggest worry, as there’s also the problem of MPs coalescing around different future leadership contenders, who are all thinking ahead to what will happen after the 2015 leadership election. I understand from friends of Adam Afriyie that their campaign has managed to stop seven or eight letters asking for a leadership contest to oust David Cameron going to 1922 Committee

Isabel Hardman

How the Coalition neutered Ed Balls’ mansion tax vote

The mansion tax – sorry, ‘tax fairness’ – debate is still rumbling on in the Commons, and Labour are trying to score as many political points as possible on the matter, as expected. Actually, the party’s idea to table the Opposition Day vote on this policy was a good piece of political game-playing when they announced it. But equally impressive has been the Coalition’s response to it. The Liberal Democrats were extremely nervous about talking about how they would vote before the Eastleigh by-election. One aide told me at the time: ‘We can’t have Labour putting about on leaflets that we are opposing our own policy: we don’t want a

Isabel Hardman

MPs get last chance to push Osborne on Budget

It’s the last Treasury questions before the Budget today, and MPs will have a final chance to push the Chancellor on what it is that they want from the Budget. There are those who are instinctively loyal to the Tory leadership and want a Budget that comes and goes without fireworks or failures. ‘Just steady as she goes, please,’ one loyalist says. Within that group are MPs who are desperate for a cost of living Budget. Then there are those MPs who are not loyal, and who, even if they don’t admit it, would quite like a messy Budget that shows George Osborne up. A wider group of backbenchers includes

Fraser Nelson

Liam Fox’s Plan A++

It’s been a day of competing economic prescriptions from two doctors: Vince Cable  (‘debt’s so cheap it’d be rude not to borrow more!’) and today Liam Fox, who has delivered a speech to the Institute of Economic Affairs. Here are Dr Fox’s main points. His main proposal is a freeze on state spending, so it would not rise with inflation (right now, it’s rising by just under 1pc less than inflation each year). This would set Britain on a far faster path of fiscal consolidation: the high road, if you like, versus the current low road where there is no longer a published plan to balance the books. It’d mean

Nick Cohen

The Sunday Times jails its source

In a long piece in the last issue of the Sunday Times (£) Isabel Oakeshott, its political editor, wrote of her relationship with Vicky Pryce. She sobbed and sighed. She was full of sympathy. You can almost hear the tears pitter-patter on her keyboard as she describes how Pryce had become a ‘broken woman’. The reader has to stare hard at her words to realise that Pryce was Oakeshott’s source, and that Oakeshott and her editor John Witherow had handed her over to the police. The eight-month prison sentence Mr Justice Sweeney gave Pryce today followed. Of course it did. Journalists once knew that if you betrayed a source they could

Breaking: Chris Huhne sentenced to 8 months

Former Lib Dem Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has been sentenced to eight months in jail, a judge has announced at Southwark Crown Court in the last few minutes. His ex-wife Vicky Pryce was also sentenced for eight months. It’s worth reading the interview that Chris Huhne gave to the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour before his sentencing at Southwark Crown Court this afternoon. He said: ‘I changed my plea for two reasons. I did not want to go to court and lie. I did not want to perjure myself further. In the past, people have got themselves into further trouble when they have tried to do that. That is the lesson people should learn.

Isabel Hardman

Tory pressure for EU referendum bill grows

David Cameron and Lynton Crosby are holding a meeting with Conservative MPs this week to discuss 2015 strategy, I understand. The party held a similar meeting with Andrew Cooper in January. One of the major topics that is likely to come up from the floor is whether the party should be trying to get legislation on an EU referendum into parliament at some point. There is of course already an opportunity for the party to do this, as there is a backbench bill already before parliament proposing just that. It’s from John Baron, who was the first Tory to break ranks and criticise David Cameron’s EU referendum pledge, writing on

Alex Massie

Liam Fox shows David Cameron how to lead the Tories to a historic defeat

I think it is fair to say that Dr Liam Fox has never been one of David Cameron’s chief chums. The former Defence Secretary has, as Paul Goodman notes, been closer to George Osborne. Be that as it may, his speech today is a fine reminder of Dr Fox’s political limitations. This is the kind of stuff – and the kind of man, frankly – that helps explain why the Conservative party has not won a general election majority since 1992. Think on that and think on how much Britain has changed these past 21 years and how little the Tory party has. Dr Fox ignored all this, delivering a

Will Owen Jones apologise?

Last November, during another exchange between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza, the left-wing columnist Owen Jones appeared on BBC Question Time. Invited to comment on recent events, what he read out (or so it appears from the tape) was a catalogue of errors about Israel. Among them were big, sweeping incorrect allegations – such as the claim that Israel is enforcing ‘a siege which stops basic supplies’ getting into Gaza. But there were also some new and more specific errors. Take his striking and emotive claim that Israel’s ‘onslaught’ included ‘targeted strikes’ which killed children. Here is one of the things he said: ‘I don’t want to just throw

Modern slavery: it happens here

Slowly but surely, British court cases are revealing a once great nation of abolitionists to be a shadow of its former self.  We often celebrate the nineteenth century anti-slavery movement and its precious victory.  We hail their achievement and honour our Parliament’s noblest hour. But like weeds in a neglected garden, slavery has returned.  Its roots remained intact – inherent in humanity’s darkest weaknesses.  Today, it is aggressive and hidden.  It lives in the shadows of Britain’s cities, towns and villages.  And as this morning’s Centre for Social Justice report reveals, too often it thrives uncontested. In the hands of international bureaucrats the problem has become better known as ‘human