Politics

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

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

The Hunt becomes the hunted

The Eurocrisis may be nagging at our political class, but it’s got nothing on the Leveson inquiry. Today has been James Murdoch’s turn in the hotseat, and it has produced some of the most explosive testimony so far. There was the claim that, contrary to previous Tory insinuations, Murdoch Jr did chat about the BSkyB bid with David Cameron at that notorious Christmas Dinner in 2010. But topping that is the revelation that News Corp had all sorts of contact with Jeremy Hunt about the bid, mainly via their head of public affairs Fred Michel, as it was simmering along in 2010 and 2011. It doesn’t look good for Hunt.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The House of Lords Makes No Sense; Which is Why it Works

Of all the cockamamie ploys favoured by this government, House of Lords reform is close to being both the most pointless and the most aggravating. Iain Martin hints at this in his recent Telegraph post but he is, in the end, too kind to the Deputy Prime Minister. This is the sort of wheeze favoured by undergraduates blessed with second-class second-class minds. It is close to pointless because even if anyone outside the tiny world of “progressive” think tanks thought this a vital issue there is no evidence that it is in the slightest bit necessary. Which explains why it is aggravating. Th House of Lords, as presently constituted (that

Peter Hoskin

What good would an annual National Strategy do?

Another set of bad notices for Cameron & Co. this morning, chief among them the Public Administration Select Committee’s report into government strategy. It basically says that there is none: short-term fripperies are indulged at the expense of long-term objectives. Or as the report puts it in one of its most trenchant passages, ‘We have little confidence that policies are informed by a clear, coherent strategic approach, informed by an assessment of the public’s aspirations and their perceptions of the national interest.’ This is a diagnosis that many will agree with, partially if not in full. Most governments could do with more long-term thinking, let alone one that is split

Monday

Jonathan Jones

The race for London Mayor gets tighter

It looks as though the London Mayoral election isn’t the foregone conclusion some thought it was. A new YouGov poll for the Evening Standard has the gap between Boris and Ken down to just two points — well within the margin of error. That contrasts with the eight-point lead that Boris had opened up last month: One interesting finding is that, despite all the controversy over his tax affairs, Labour supporters are not turning their backs on Ken. In fact, they seem to be rallying around him. Of those Labour general election voters who express a preference between Ken and Boris, Ken now has the support of 89 per cent.

Peter Hoskin

Nadine Dorries: Cameron and Osborne ‘are two arrogant posh boys’

Nadine Dorries has form when it comes to attacking her party’s leadership, but this sets a new high water mark (from about 1:48 in): “playlist=http://playlists.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17813706A/playlist.sxml&config=http://www.bbc.co.uk/player/emp/2_0_39/config/default.xml&embedReferer=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/&domId=emp-17813706-76418&config_settings_showPopoutButton=false&mediatorHref=http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/select/version/2.0/mediaset/journalism-pc/vpid/&fmtjDocURI=/news/uk-politics-17813706&config_settings_showUpdatedInFooter=true&uxHighlightColour=0xff0000&config_plugin_fmtjLiveStats_pageType=eav1&config_settings_showShareButton=true&holdingImage=http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/59806000/jpg/_59806020_jex_1385918_de28-1.jpg&embedPageUrl=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17813706&config_plugin_fmtjLiveStats_edition=Domestic&config_settings_autoPlay=true&enable3G=true&config_plugin_fmtjLiveStats_pageType=eav6&config_settings_autoPlay=false&config_settings_showFooter=true&config_settings_showPopoutButton=false&config_settings_showPopoutCta=false&config_settings_addReferrerToPlaylistRequest=true”> Via the Daily Politics.

Peter Hoskin

Is Alexander ushering in Austerity Squared?

23rd April, 2012 — mark it down in your calendars, CoffeeHousers. For, after weeks of froth and fury about tax, today’s the day when the government focused on spending cuts again. In a speech to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Danny Alexander has announced what are, in theory, a couple of new restraints on spending. First, government departments will have to share information about their spending with the Treasury on a monthly basis, and let Osborne & Co. pore over it. And, second, they will also have to find extra capacity in their existing budgets for unforeseen expenditure, rather than just relying on the Treasury’s central reserve. Alexander described these

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 23 April 2012

…here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson reports on Ash Green School’s success story and puts forward the case for ignoring Strasbourg. James Forsyth looks at how the House of Lords would be elected, examines Cameron’s mid-term blues and thinks Clegg’s is using ‘absurdly patronising’ language on a Lords referendum. Sebastian Payne thinks Siobhan Benita might be Boris’ secret weapon. David Rodigan goes through the essential Bob Marley. And Liz Truss MP is this week’s Bookbencher on the Spectator Book blog.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cameron needs results that match his words

Further to James’s post on the Cameron interview, here’s what jumped out at me: 1. ‘Governments have difficult months. This government came together to dig this country out of the huge economic mess that it’s in…’ This is the official No.10 explanation about the last few months; that it’s the problems of the austerity agenda. As James Forsyth says in his political column in the current magazine, there are strongly-held alternative explanations. 2. ‘We’re not just a bunch of accountants dealing with the deficit…’ Cameron kicks off with this, an interesting phrase as it has been used by those criticising his Chancellor’s economic message. Osborne’s critics says he no agenda

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron tries to return to the big picture

David Cameron is out doing the media rounds today. He wants to, in his words, get back to the ‘big picture’, the argument over deficit reduction. Indeed, Danny Alexander’s speech today saying that departments have to indentify additional saving seems to have been timed to tee up this argument. Cameron’s Today Programme interview, though, was dominated by Abu Qatada, tax avoidance, Lords reforms and whether or not — in John Humphrys’ words — the PM is ‘a bit lazy.’ On Qatada, Cameron was insistent that the Home Office had ‘checked repeatedly’ with the European Court of Human Rights on the deadline. I expect that the Home Office will have to

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clegg stands firm against Lords referendum

In his interview with Andrew Neil on the Sunday Politics, Nick Clegg argued against a referendum on Lords reform on the grounds that the three main parties all agree on it and so, in an absurdly patronising phrase, there’s no need ‘to subcontract to the British people’ the decision. He also added that it would cost several hundred million pounds. Now having been on the wrong side of the AV referendum result, Clegg knows how potent the waste of money charge can be — remember those anti-AV posters. But I suspect that this is going to be a difficult line for him to hold for as supporters of a referendum

The Spectator

Bookbenchers: Liz Truss MP

Parliament is back from the Easter recess, and so is the Spectator’s Bookbenchers. First back into the hotseat is Elizabeth Truss, the Tory MP for South West Norfolk. She is inundated with children’s books, and wants to get to grips with some serious science. 1) Which book’s on your bedside table at the moment? Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities and Britannia: One Hundred Documents That Shaped a Nation by Graham Stewart. 2) Which book would you read to your children? Edward Lear Nonsense, Alice in Wonderland — and all the Julia Donaldson (Gruffalo) books. Kings and Queens of England by Eleanor and Herbert Farjeon is my daughter’s favourite, particularly

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The case for ignoring Strasbourg

If Theresa May loses her job over this kerfuffle over Abu Qatada’s appeals deadline, would anyone in the Cabinet be safe? If you were to rank the blunders this government has made, it wouldn’t even make the top 20. The Home Office is notoriously dysfunctional, and the real surprise is that May has made it thus far with only two or three major skirmishes. It’s fun for her enemies to claim she made a basic mistake, but it’s not clear-cut. In the weird world of European law, the number of days in a three month period can vary depending on things like the estimated postal time between London and Luxembourg.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Mid-term blues or something more serious?

The argument in the Cameron circle about what the government needs to do to get back on course has been the story of this week. As I say in the political column, there’s a divide between those who think that this month’s events have been little more than a bit of mid-term blues, and those who worry that they have revealed serious, structural problems that needs addressing if they are not to cripple the government. At a meeting of Conservative Cabinet ministers on Wednesday lunchtime, this divide came clearly into sight. Sayeeda Warsi, the Tory chair, asked for a freer rein to attack the Liberal Democrats, complaining that the Tories

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Alex Salmond’s Hampden and Murrayfield Strategies

I’ve written a column for Scotland on Sunday today looking at the SNP’s transformation into a proper national party: [T]wo SNP approaches have helped the party attain its present supremacy. They can be labelled the Hampden and Murrayfield strategies. They are different but complementary, designed to appeal to different branches of the electorate. The Hampden strategy appeals to working-class and lower-to-middle-class voters. It is populist, Saltire-wrapped and keenly, proudly Scottish. The Murrayfield tranche of the electorate is older, wealthier and more likely to consider itself Scottish and British. Though outnumbered by the Hampden vote, its influence – especially in business and the media – is disproportionately powerful. The Hampden voter,

Saturday

Sebastian Payne

Siobhan Benita: Boris’ secret weapon

With anti-politics on the rise, there’s one candidate in the May elections who is out to capitalise on the mood. Siobhan Benita, the independent running for London Mayor, has been making increasingly remarkable waves in the run up to 3rd May. She is a technocrat, priding herself on the absence of political views, but adds colour to the race — according to our wine correspondent, Simon Hoggart — whose other employer, the Guardian, has a soft spot for her: ‘Finally she arrived and, while I won’t say that the media swooned, she certainly had an impact. Tall, glossy-haired, elegant in a pencil dress with scarlet jacket, and a diamond wedding

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How would the House of Lords be elected?

In the debate over House of Lords reform, the Lib Dems are trying to say that they favour an elected House of Lords and anyone who opposes them is a reactionary in favour of the status quo. They believe that this is their best chance of winning the argument. But, in reality, things are more complicated than that. Some of the Tories most sceptical of the Clegg proposals are actually believers in an elected second chamber. They just don’t want it to be done through STV, a system that the Lib Dems favour because it would hand them the balance of power there. The issue of the voting system under

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Ash Green’s academy success story

I was a panellist on Radio Four’s Any Questions last night, in Bedworth outside Coventry. At the reception afterwards, I got talking to the pupils, teachers and even the local vicar of the school where the show was recorded. With so much gloom (and shambles) in Westminster, it was a heartening reminder of what is going right in Britain, aided by David Cameron’s government. I thought I’d share it with CoffeeHousers. Not so long ago, Ash Green School was seeing a pathetic 3 per cent of its pupils achieve what is now called ‘Five Good GCSEs’ (5 GCSEs at A-Cs, including English & Maths). Now it’s 65 per cent. Success has

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Politics: Cameron and the civil service coup

There is a split in the Cameron circle. The divide is between those who think that the problems of the past few weeks have been a blip, one that will end when Boris Johnson wins in London, and those — including some of the Prime Minister’s closest friends — who fear the problems are symptoms of a disease that could cripple the government. At stake in this debate is the future strategic direction, and the potential success, of the Cameron project. The Prime Minister, ever the optimist, is in the first camp. He is inclined to think that he is experiencing a normal bout of mid-term turbulence. But some of

Leo McKinstry

A mayor for Whitehall

Siobhan Benita’s sanctimonious and mystifying bid to run London Ken Livingstone wept last week at the launch of his election broadcast, but when it comes to narcissistic self-pity, he’s been outdone by Siobhan Benita. ­Benita’s the other candidate in the London mayoral contest, the one who isn’t Boris or Ken or Brian or that Green woman. A former civil servant now running as an independent, she’s spent the last month wailing about lack of coverage. She claims she is the victim of a media ‘blackout’ — excluded from televised debates and banished from the airwaves. So great is her fury that she has even demanded a meeting with BBC executives.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Job scheme

Chris Grayling’s job is to make sure that British people can get jobs. But he faces a problem. Since the election, 90 per cent of the rise in employment is accounted for by foreign-born workers. As Employment Minister, Grayling is painfully aware that there is a very large difference between importing workers and creating jobs. When we meet in his sparsely decorated ministerial office, he is frank about the scale of the problem. ‘There is no doubt,’ he says, ‘that a young person coming out of school, college or university without the experience [of work] is at a disadvantage compared to someone coming into the UK from overseas.’ To ram