Politics Archives

Monday

4 Feb 2013

Ministerial aide could defy whip on gay marriage vote

Downing Street is very keen to emphasise that Tory MPs who vote against the second reading of the gay marriage bill tomorrow are not ‘rebels’. This is a free vote, and MPs can vote with their conscience. But this ignores the fact that there will be a rebellion tomorrow: not on the second reading, but on the programme motion. I understand that at least one ministerial aide is likely to rebel against the three-line whip on this motion, which sets out how the Bill will proceed through the Commons. Other MPs who oppose the bill are also expected to defy the whip, although not in the same numbers as will

James Forsyth

Chris Huhne resignation: CCHQ cranks up the by-election machine

Chris Huhne’s guilty plea alters the political landscape. There’s now no need for a reshuffle to accommodate his return to the top table of British politics. Huhne, who ran for the Lib Dem leadership twice and some thought would do so again, is now standing down as an MP. In this respect, Huhne’s departure from the scene makes the coalition more stable. But the coming by-election in Eastleigh will be quite a fight between the coalition parties. Even Tory ministers are looking forward to landing a few blows on their coalition partners. One I spoke to just now, declared ‘we’ll throw everything at it. You have to win by-elections’. I

Isabel Hardman

No 10: No last-ditch pitch from PM on gay marriage

Downing Street always knew tomorrow’s gay marriage vote was going to provoke tensions. But what’s interesting is how unsure Number 10 is about how to approach the free vote on the issue. The whips are not supposed to get involved on these votes, and besides a number of those normally twisting colleagues’ arms to extract some loyalty are considering voting against the bill. But there are around 50 Tories whose votes will mean the difference between a Conservative majority for the legislation. Even though David Cameron is, as James explained in his column yesterday, personally committed to the legislation as a matter of principle, finding himself in the minority of

Isabel Hardman

The same-sex marriage bill and religious freedom

Parliament is entering the frenzied final hours leading up to the second reading of the same-sex marriage bill. MPs will vote on the legislation at around 7pm tomorrow, and today’s papers are full of reports that while there is no whipping operation on the free vote, the Conservative leadership is doing its best to encourage MPs who are wavering to support it. Beyond those who are implacably opposed to the idea of gay marriage are others who worry that though the government has done its best with the ‘quadruple lock’ to protect religious institutions that wish to opt out of same-sex ceremonies, the matter isn’t really in ministers’ hands. Michael

Sunday

3 Feb 2013

Isabel Hardman

Labour prepares to enter the battle of the best ideas

Tony Blair usually grows rather awkward when asked about the current direction of the Labour party under Ed Miliband. Clearly afraid of appearing a backseat driver, the former Prime Minister tries as hard as he can to avoid delivering any kind of verdict, other than a vaguely supportive bundle of words. He certainly did the latter in his interview on Marr this morning, but Blair also made some important points about how crucial this year will be for Labour. He said: ‘So I understand the Labour party message. And by the way, what Ed’s trying to do is tougher than what I had to do. When I became Labour leader,

James Forsyth

William Hague: Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan is where the threat to the British homeland is coming from

On the Sunday Politics, William Hague confirmed that the greatest terrorist threat to the British homeland come from Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. But he argued that without intervention, the Sahel could become as dangerous to Britain. Those hoping for Hague to put flesh on the bones of the government’s European strategy will have been disappointed. The Tory leadership remains determined not to give out anything akin to a renegotiation scorecard. When pressed by Andrew Neil on whether he would advocate leaving if only the status quo was on offer, Hague said that the government would have to ‘use our judgment at the time.’ On gay marriage, Hague reiterated his support

Saturday

2 Feb 2013

James Forsyth

More Tory splits and plots

David Cameron arrived back in the UK this morning to newspapers full of talk of Conservative splits and plots. The moment of unity that followed his Europe speech has well and truly passed. There’s no doubt that the gay marriage is causing a ruckus in Conservative Associations up and down the country and that Conservative MPs will go through different lobbies on Tuesday night. To some extent, this division in the Conservative ranks was priced in. What was not is the continuing and increasingly frenzied leadership speculation. The Mail and The Independent this morning detail plans by allies of the Home Secretary Theresa May to position her for the leadership

Friday

1 Feb 2013

Isabel Hardman

Winter fuel payments, broken promises, and the EU referendum

Another day, another confusing briefing about public spending. Yesterday Downing Street got itself into a lather over defence spending. Today it’s pensioner benefits. The Independent’s story that the Lib Dems would only consent to further welfare cuts in the 2015/16 spending review if the Tories were prepared to cut pensioner benefits came up at the Number 10 Lobby briefing this morning. The Downing St spokeswoman said: ‘We’ve done an awful lot to help pensioners but, clearly, speaking generally there are some difficult decisions to be made and the Treasury is leading on the spending review for 2015/16. The Prime Minister stands by what he set out in the Coalition Agreement.

Fraser Nelson

David Cameron rebuked for telling porkies about the national debt

Where was Andrew Dilnot in the Gordon Brown era? The head of the UK Statistics Authority has just rebuked the Prime Minister for telling porkies about debt on his ITV broadcast last week. CoffeeHousers will remember that the PM made the flatly untrue claim that: ‘though this government has had to make some difficult decisions, we are making progress. We’re paying down Britain’s debts.’ The truth is that his government will increase Britain’s debt by 58 per cent, and by more over five years than Labour did over 13 years. Just last week, we learned the national debt had hit £1,111 billion and it’s heading to £1,534 billion. Put this into perspective:

Isabel Hardman

Why are the Afriyie plotters bothering?

David Cameron clearly rated Adam Afriyie’s ‘stalking horse’ plot as a sufficiently ridiculous threat to make a joke out of it at Prime Minister’s Questions this week. After their premature outing in the papers last weekend, the plotters might sensibly have gone to ground for some time while Afriyie fended off lunch invitations from journalists trying to get the measure of him. But according to the Mail and the Guardian, they’re still at it, now with George Osborne in their crosshairs. They’re clearly a determined bunch, plotting to deliver an ultimatum to the Prime Minister in May to replace his Chancellor if the Budget fails to revive the economy. That’s

Fraser Nelson

The Cameron doctrine: Britain’s new foreign policy

David Cameron is continuing his tour of Africa today and is — according to the New York Times — ‘boasting a sheaf of commitments to new partnerships in the fields of defense, counterterrorism, intelligence-sharing and military training’. He was in Tripoli yesterday, where his approval ratings ought to be sky high having been instrumental in the operation to depose Gaddafi. He was urging a no-fly zone at a time when even the Pentagon was mocking him for the idea. Last week, he upped the stakes and spoke of a ‘generational battle’ in Mali. The PM is turning into quite the hawk: after Afghanistan and Libya, the decision to contribute C-17s and

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 — Leveson debate special

The Spectator hosted a sell out debate on Thursday night on the motion ‘Leveson is a fundamental threat to the free press’, and you can now hear what happened. As Fraser reported yesterday, it was a lively affair, with the motion carried albeit with a significant swing to those speaking against. Although the quality is not as good as we had hoped, you should still be able to follow what happened. You can hear the individual speakers at: 2:30 – Richard Littlejohn (for) 11:25 – Chris Bryant (against) 23:26 – Guido Fawkes (for) 32:21 – Max Mosley (against) 40:44 – John Whittingdale (for) 51:50 – Evan Harris (against) 1:05:13 – Questions

Thursday

31 Jan 2013

Isabel Hardman

Tory battle of the letters intensifies

It’s the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice this week, so perhaps it’s the passionate letter from Darcy to Elizabeth that’s inspired such an enthusiastic burst of letter-writing from Conservative MPs complaining about stories in the press today. Earlier, we had Jake Berry complaining to the BBC, and now there are more. Sadly, the latest missives I’ve got hold of from Harriett Baldwin don’t contain declarations of love, or any insults for the recipient’s mother: instead, Baldwin is angry about an article by Ed Miliband in today’s Sun. Plugging his party’s policy for every big firm receiving a government contract to train young people, the Labour leader writes:

James Forsyth

Govt confusion on defence shows how painful the next spending review will be

The government’s position on defence spending is, to put it politely, confused. After the completion of the SDSR and the defence spending settlement, there was an expectation that the military budget would begin to rise again in real terms from 2015. There has long been talk in Whitehall that David Cameron assured senior military figures that this would be the case and, as James Kirkup notes, he told the Commons that he believed that this would happen. So, this morning when we woke to the news from the Prime Minister’s plane that the defence budget would rise in 2015-16, it seemed that Cameron had imposed his will on the bureaucracy.

Alex Massie

Half of the British Army’s officer corps is privately educated. Does that matter? – Spectator Blogs

An interesting spot, courtesy of the good chaps at Think Defence. From Hansard: Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North, Labour) To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proportion of new recruits to the Army at (a) soldier and (b) officer level previously attended state school. Andrew Robathan (South Leicestershire, Conservative) The proportion of soldier recruits that had previously attended a state school is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Including the most recent intake of officer cadets to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, in January 2013, 53.5% of the UK educated intake over the last 12 months came from state schools. While the

Alex Massie

Is the press biased against the SNP? Probably. But we are all nationalists now. – Spectator Blogs

So we have a question and it is a simple one. Should Scotland be an independent country? There, that wasn’t so difficult was it? It is, after all, the nub of the matter. Granted, one might agree that Scotland should be an independent country but still conclude that being so is a different matter. That might be a metaphysical matter beyond the Electoral Commission’s ken. Nevertheless, it is not an unreasonable question. Some reports seemed keen to spin this as some kind of ‘setback’ for Alex Salmond. Apparently dropping the preamble ‘Do you agree’ – included in the SNP’s favoured wording – is yet another indication the nationalists are on the ropes.

Douglas Murray

No-go Britain

In 2008 one of Britain’s best and most courageous men, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, said that there were parts of Britain which had become no-go areas for non-Muslims. For these comments he was met with widespread scorn and denial. Nick Clegg – then merely leader of the Liberal Democrat party – said the Bishop’s comments were ‘a gross caricature of reality.’ William Hague said that the Bishop had ‘probably put it too strongly’, while the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) accused him of ‘frantic scaremongering.’ So how interesting it is to read of the arrests made by police in recent days of a number of men for a string of incidents

Isabel Hardman

Cameron: defence spending is protected. Hammond: no it isn’t

After Cabinet tensions on the matter, David Cameron was trying to reassure those worried about further defence cuts while visiting Algeria. The Telegraph reports a senior government source saying the Prime Minister will honour his pledge to increase defence spending from 2015. The source told the newspaper: ‘The Prime Minister does not resile from anything he has said about defence.’ But rather less reassuringly, Philip Hammond decided to clarify that reassurance this morning. The Defence Secretary told Sky News that the PM was only referring to the equipment budget, and that he would continue to make the argument for maintaining the ‘resources that we need to deliver Future Force 2020’:

James Forsyth

Cameron will have to fund his Mali adventure

‘This is the hour of Europe, not the hour of the Americans,’ Jacques Poos, foreign minister of Luxembourg, declared in 1991. Yugoslavia, he said, was a problem in Europe’s neighbourhood and Europeans would solve it. In the end, a decade of genocidal ethnic conflict was only ended thanks to substantial US involvement. The hour of Europe has arrived again with the conflict in Mali. This time, though, it is the Americans telling the Europeans that it is up to them to solve the problem. The Obama administration has wasted no time in making clear that it thinks France’s aims in Mali are overly ambitious. It is also dragging its feet

Hugo Rifkind

Gerald Scarfe isn’t anti-Semitic – but David Ward is

I’m turning into a Holobore. I can feel it happening, and it’s sapping at my soul. What a week. It started with David Ward, the Lib Dem MP and anti-Semite. No, shut up. Yes he is. If you say ‘the Jews’ should have ‘learned the lessons of the Holocaust’ and that they clearly haven’t because of their ‘inflicting atrocities on Palestinians’ then you’re ticking every box. And he did say these things. So he is. It’s ‘the Jews’ that rankles first, obviously. I’m a Jew. Am I inflicting atrocities on Palestinians? Me and Lenny Kravitz and Woody Allen? Oh, you cretin. But as bad, if not worse, is the shameless