Politics Archives

Friday

5 Oct 2012

The real story of the 2007 ‘election that never was’

‘The election that never was’ is one of the most important events, or non-events, in recent British political history; if it had gone ahead, David Cameron might never have become Prime Minister and there might not have been a coalition at all. Equally, Gordon Brown could have seen Labour’s majority slashed and had to quit long before the financial crisis hit. The story of what happened that day has been told several times. But I don’t think I’ve read a more gripping account than Damian McBride’s. McBride did disgrace himself but he can sure as hell write. If you like the political game, you really sure read it. (There’s also

Isabel Hardman

Senior Tories pile pressure on Cameron to chase core vote

David Cameron has a tough task ahead of him for this week’s Conservative conference – a task that got a little harder when Ed Miliband surprised almost everyone by producing a cracking speech this week. The Prime Minister has a number of problems to tackle when he arrives in Birmingham. These include a rowdy party growing increasingly agitated about a number of issues including Europe, a chief whip sent in to control said rowdy party whose authority has been undermined before he has even started twisting arms, a chancellor struggling with his own authority on economic policy, and a Mayor determined to steal the show with his own conference speech

Thursday

4 Oct 2012

Alex Massie

The Speech David Cameron Should Give Next Week – Spectator Blogs

This post s out-sourced to the almost-always-brilliant Hopi Sen who, despite being an incorrigible Labourite, has written a speech for David Cameron to deliver at next week’s Tory conference that is almost certainly better than the speech the Prime Minister will actually give. Among the many choice cuts: Mr Miliband spoke of Disraeli’s speech in Manchester. He spoke about it. I read it. I understood then why he was inspired. It must have sounded oddly familiar to him. Here is Disraeli on a dying radical government: “Extravagance was being substituted for energy… The unnatural stimulus was subsiding. Their paroxysms ended in prostration. Some took refuge in melancholy… their eminent chief

Isabel Hardman

Five lessons from the Labour party conference

Believe it or not, Labour’s party conference has finally ground to a halt. Here are the key lessons from the past six days in Manchester: 1. Ed Miliband is no longer a joke leader of the opposition. The Labour leader’s speech showed that he can now talk a good game, and even though much of that performance was no more than a good game, Miliband gave his party and voters a glimpse of the more authoritative figure that he has grown into over the past two years. It’s worth watching his speech to the 2010 autumn conference where he appeared completely floored by bursts of applause to see quite how

Jonathan Jones

Labour conference: Ed Miliband’s speech boosts his ratings

Labour leave Manchester today with a 14-point poll lead over the Conservatives, according to YouGov. That’s their biggest lead in a YouGov poll since June, although one last week showed them 13 points ahead, so we shouldn’t rush into declaring a big conference bounce for them. It does seem, though, that Ed Miliband himself did get a decent boost out of his hour-long speech on Tuesday. 10 per cent of people say they watched or listened to the whole thing, and a further 49 per cent say they’ve seen or heard reports about it. And it seems Ed did manage to change at least a few of their minds about him.

Steerpike

Gove kicks back at school bullies

A Labour conference delegate was heckled from the floor when she mentioned her school. Joanne, an immigrant who came to this country seeking political asylum and is about to read law, came face to face with the vested interests that blight education reform: the hall did not like the fact that she went to an Academy school. A delegate started shouting about comprehensive schooling, much to the horror of those around her. Michael Gove has come down on the girl’s side, he has just told me: ‘Heckling a schoolgirl because she goes to an academy is disgraceful. But it also shows the real face of Labour – a party where

Isabel Hardman

He’s behind you! Michael Gove is the pantomime villain who inspires Labour

There was plenty of panto on the conference floor this week in Manchester. Ed Miliband encouraged delegates to boo several villains in his speech, and one of them was Michael Gove. In fact, Michael Gove popped up as the villain on Tuesday and in the Labour leader’s question-and-answer session yesterday, too, and again when Stephen Twigg spoke just before the close of the conference today. This is odd: of all the reforms that the coalition government has introduced so far, Gove’s have been the least surprising to Labour members given he’s pushing ahead with what Tony Blair and Andrew Adonis started. There was one baffling moment when a delegate started

Steerpike

Dre departing?

Mr Steerpike is now available weekly in the magazine. This one’s been getting them talking today: It’s a hat-trick! Word reaches me that Dave may be about to lose his third spin doctor in a row. First Andy Coulson left to spend more time with his Fingertip Guide to the Criminal Law. Then Steve Hilton legged it to California. Now Craig Oliver, Coulson’s replacement, is said to be heading for the chop. Mr Oliver, once a BBC news chief, enjoys the rare distinction of being completely unknown to the general public and his friends tell me he’s been doing a superb job as the PM’s communications tsar. But Andrew Mitchell

Tim Wigmore

Mitt Romney raises (low) expectations in first presidential debate

It’s been quite a week for weird would-be national leaders. First we had Ed Miliband deliver the best speech of his life in Manchester. And, last night, Mitt Romney bettered Barack Obama in the first presidential debate. The two men are at very different stages of their political cycles – Romney has 30 days until his election, Miliband 30 months – but they face similar challenges. And, to their credit, both approached their performances – for that is what modern political speeches and debates amount to – with verve, poise and even glimpses of audacity. Where Miliband’s boldness came in his conception of ‘One Nation Labour’, Romney’s came in his

Wednesday

3 Oct 2012

Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Stephen Twigg to launch New Deal for teachers

It doesn’t seem entirely fair that Stephen Twigg’s speech has been left to the final day of the Labour conference, when many have packed up and left Manchester already. But today Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary is to announce more reforms to education as part of the party’s new One Nation project. The idea is to make teaching an ‘elite profession for top graduates’, and Twigg plans to achieve that by offering incentives for high-flyers to work in tough schools such as paying off some of their student debt, funding for teachers to do master’s degrees and a National College for Teaching Excellence to develop new teaching standards. The centrepiece of

Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Ed Miliband will attend TUC anti-austerity demo

If we learnt nothing else from this afternoon’s question-and-answer session that Ed Miliband held with delegates, it’s that Labour delegates are quite as eccentric as Liberal Democrat members, if not more so. The junior coalition partner has long enjoyed the reputation of having an eclectic following, but those gathered in Labour’s hall had bought an equally surreal selection of props with them today. They were waving Welsh flags, builder’s helmets, sparkly bags, light-up handheld fans, light-up pens, scarves, crutches, something that looked strangely like a strip light, flashing lights, and open umbrellas. The idea, as well as making the conference hall look rather like a bazaar, was to catch Ed

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband’s next big test as Labour leader

The good thing for Labour about Ed Miliband’s speech yesterday was that he didn’t talk about the deficit, or welfare or other thorny issues which make certain sections of the party very grumpy indeed. The Labour leader made only fleeting references to cuts to public services, too. So there was little to disagree on. It is when he comes to tackle issues such as these that Miliband will see his party mood sour considerably from its cheery response yesterday. The problem is that on these issues, the party is still struggling to work out how far it should go to meet voters’ demands without betraying what it sees as its

James Forsyth

The coalition take on Ed Miliband’s speech

Talking to senior Liberal Democrats and Conservatives about Ed Miliband’s speech, it is striking how similar their analyses of it are. Despite coalition, we’re entering into a period of stark government, opposition dividing lines. Pretty much everyone admits that Miliband has put to bed the question of his leadership of the Labour party and moved himself out of the IDS category. But they argue that he’s not dealt with Labour’s biggest weakness, the public’s belief that it spent and borrowed too much. One influential Liberal Democrat accused Miliband of ducking the generational challenge that is the deficit likening his speech to one in 1942 that didn’t mention there was a

Steerpike

Yvette Cooper fails her Peel history lesson

The Labour party’s love-in with great Tory statesmen continues. Yesterday Miliband went all Disraelian; today Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, has raised the spectre of Robert Peel in an attempt to paint modern Tories as out of touch with the police service in the wake of the Andrew Mitchell ‘pleb’ scandal. However, it seems that Yvette has not done her homework. Peel’s view of the average copper was closer to Andrew Mitchell’s alleged words. Writing to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in December 1829, Peel mused on the formation of the police: ‘for subordinate duties connected with the Police, Persons who have not the Rank, Station, and habits of Gentlemen,

James Forsyth

Doctor Hunt

‘I would like to be the person who safeguards Andrew Lansley’s legacy,’ says Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, as he sits in his new office. Hunt is touchingly eager to praise his predecessor. He predicts that Lansley ‘will be seen as the architect of the modern NHS’ and stresses that he is in regular touch ‘to make sure that I learn as much as I can from him, because I don’t think there is anyone who knows more about the NHS than Andrew’. But if Lansley was such a paragon, why was he moved? Hunt replies defensively: ‘You’d have to ask David Cameron about that.’ A few moments later, he

Matthew Parris

A pity that’s afraid to speak its name

On the Sunday just passed I sat alongside Polly Toynbee in Manchester as one of Andrew Marr’s two newspaper reviewers on his morning programme on BBC television. Arriving at dawn, we skimmed the weekend papers for stories we might discuss. Polly chose, among others, the latest reports in the Megan Stammers saga; the schoolgirl and the teacher she had run away with, Jeremy Forrest, had been located in Bordeaux; he was in a French jail pending extradition, and Megan had just returned to her parents. I wondered whether to say what I honestly felt. I sensed it would upset or annoy some viewers. But I’ve generally found it best to

Martin Vander Weyer

In the Governorship race, my money’s on the hedgehog to beat the fox

Like most country dwellers, I have a sneaking admiration for the fox but for the hedgehog I have real affection. So I was entertained to find references to these creatures which might help Downing Street decide who to appoint to the governorship of the Bank of England, for which applications close on Monday. Both draw on the philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s categorisation of great thinkers according to a fragment from the ancient Greek poet Archilochus: ‘The fox knows many little things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.’ In The Signal and the Noise, published this month, the US political forecaster Nate Silver argues that ‘hedgehogs’ with big, fixed ideas make

Tuesday

2 Oct 2012

Jonathan Jones

Labour conference: Great (Harvard) minds think alike

Listening to Ed Miliband’s conference speech, I was stuck by the similarity of one section of it to that of another speech given by someone else who’s taught at Harvard: law professor Elizabeth Warren. Today, in Manchester, Miliband spoke of ‘the system’ not working in much the same way as Warren — now running for the United States Senate — spoke of ‘the system’ being rigged in her speech at the Democratic National Convention last month. Just compare the two clips: listen to ‘Ed Miliband, 2 Oct 12 and Elizabeth Warren, 5 Sep 12’ on Audioboo

Steerpike

Will Philip Blond be back for more fun?

Ed Miliband’s ‘One Nation’ conference speech will have put the populist cat amongst Downing Street’s toffee-nosed pigeons. Now young Dave’s people will have to work out how to respond to this inspired piece of political cross-dressing, even if it is essentially diaphanous. One (alleged) Tory, though, is very happy with the direction in which the national debate seems to be travelling. Mr Steerpike found Phillip Blond, the ‘Red Tory’ and founder of the Respublica think-tank, cock-a-hoop after the speech: ‘Ed Miliband has thrown down a blue Labour challenge to the Conservatives. No. 10 needs a Red Tory response unless they want to see Ed’s One Nation politics win the next election.’ Despite

Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Miliband and Balls talk inheritances

One of the more sombre passages in Ed Miliband’s barnstorming speech this afternoon was when he tackled the thorny issue of what a Labour government would actually do about the cuts. While both the Labour leader and Ed Balls are keen to regain the trust of the British public on the economy, they are also trying to introduce a counter-narrative to the ‘are you ready to trust Labour with your money again?‘ line that Nick Clegg produced last week. Just as George Osborne and colleagues have spent the first two and a half years selling the line that they are ‘clearing up the mess’ of the last Labour government, Miliband