Politics Archives

Wednesday

27 Jun 2012

Miliband grows to relish PMQs

Ed Miliband had a bit of swagger about him at PMQs today. In a sign of how the two leaders fortunes have reversed, it is now Miliband who appears to be relishing their exchanges. From the off, Cameron was in a peevish mood. Miliband secured a fairly comfortable points victory. His ‘Cabinet of comedians’ line was a definite hit and Nadine Dorries keeps presenting him with new material. But Cameron will be relieved that Miliband is landing any knock-out blow on him; there was nothing said today that will stick long in the memory. Interestingly, the Tory whips had planted a question which allowed Cameron to open the session by

Samir Shah

The state of the political interview

The humiliation of Chloe Smith at the hands of Jeremy Paxman last night was likened by one twitterati to watching a cat playing with a mouse before devouring it. Of course, Smith was hung out to dry by Osborne&Co. But I want to address another, as yet unremarked upon factor: the age gap between Paxman and Smith. Paxman is 62; Smith is 30. In the words of Robin Day, politicians are ‘here today, gone tomorrow’. The result is that as the years go by, politicians get younger and political interviewers get older. In the days when the political class was a generation or two older than the interviewing class,

James Forsyth

The lesson in Chloe Smith’s car crash interview

Before David Cameron reshuffles his government, he should sit down and watch Chloe Smith’s interview on Newsnight yesterday. It was a reminder of how important it is how to have ministers in departments who can go out and do the media on difficult days for the government, something that there are going to be plenty more of in the next few years given the economic situation. One of the priorities of the shuffle should be to ensure that every department has at least one minister who can go out and get the government’s message across. The freezing of fuel duty should have been all about the government doing something

Tuesday

26 Jun 2012

Steerpike

Hunted Jeremy faces the media crowd

One time Tory leader contender (now cabinet dead man walking) Jeremy Hunt faced the suits last night at his first outing in media circles since being dragged through the gutter over his relationship with News Corp. Pencilled in to speak at the All Party Media Group’s summer drinks at Channel Four, the Culture Secretary tried to put on a brave face in a hostile crowd of media hacks, television types and lawyers. I can only think of rabbits and headlights. After the softest of digs from host Austin Mitchell MP, who noted that Hunt had been starring in his very own reality TV show for the last few

Isabel Hardman

Osborne’s handbrake turn on fuel duty

George Osborne’s U-turn today on fuel duty seems both canny and confusing. It comes just 48 hours after a denial from Transport Secretary Justine Greening that the Government would scrap the 3p rise in August, but appears to be warding off the threat of a backbench rebellion in the Commons next week on a motion submitted by Labour to the Finance Bill. Ms Greening told the Sunday Telegraph: So more power to the backbenchers, led by Robert Halfon, whose campaign against fuel duty increases now looks to have succeeded in part, although he might want to continue to push retailers to push costs down anyway. But it is still surprising

Hamish Macdonell

A solid, unspectacular start

Tomorrow, the Spectator and six guest speakers (including Kelvin MacKenzie, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Margo MacDonald) will debate the question, ‘Is it time to let Scotland go?’. You can find more details and information about tickets here. Below, Hamish Macdonell gives his take on the launch of the pro-Union campaign yesterday. As the pro-Union politicians filed out of Edinburgh’s Napier University yesterday, they passed an Independence Scotland ad-trailer. The lorry with the huge pro-independence poster on the back had been forced to pull over, just outside the campus where the ‘Better Together’ campaign had been launched, it’s progress halted ignominiously by a flat tyre. Like the ‘Yes Scotland’ campaign

Isabel Hardman

Long nights of Lords reform ahead

The concessions that David Cameron has reportedly offered the Conservative backbench on Lords reform are really not sufficient to keep them out of the no lobbies. Switching from a salary to a daily attendance allowance, which would keep peers’ earnings below £60,000 in most cases, is hardly going to set the benches alight. The reason for this is mainly that Tory MPs are opposing Lords reform as much for reasons of principle as they are for personal reasons. This is a deeply personal row with the Lib Dems that was a bit awkward and grumpy a month or so ago, but has turned to full-blooded revenge over the party’s refusal

James Forsyth

Cameron’s fuel duty gamble

Talk to anyone in Downing Street and they can give you the four main reasons that voters cite for switching from the Tories to Labour: the Tory leadership is out of touch, the cost of living, immigration and welfare. The first two of these reasons are why the government has been prepared to risk further ridicule by changing the Budget again to postpone the 3p fuel increase planned for August until the end of the year. The timing of today’s move, just hours after Ed Balls said Labour would call a Commons vote on the matter, will attract much Westminster comment. But the Tories are confident that this will pass

Alex Massie

Is Cameron just not that into Scotland?

Nearly a decade ago, a book called He’s Just Not That Into You became what is termed a ‘publishing sensation. I don’t know if this attempt to explain men to women was persuasive or not (the odds seem against it being so) but its title seemed pertinent to yesterday’s launch of the Unionist campaign to preserve the United Kingdom in a more-or-less recognisable form. Why? Because of the man who wasn’t there. David Cameron didn’t attend the Better Together event held at Napier University. This was not a surprise but his absence was still telling. Perhaps the Prime Minister has been persuaded his presence in Scotland is more liable to

Isabel Hardman

Osborne borrows his way out of a debt crisis

This morning’s borrowing figures from the Office for National Statistics are a blow for George Osborne, showing public sector borrowing up £2.7bn on the same time last year. The stats show the government borrowed £17.9bn in May, while the 2011-12 deficit is now £127.6bn, up £3.2bn. Labour have seized on the figures, saying it’s the ‘nail in the coffin of David Cameron and George Osborne’s failed economic plan’. It’s worth remembering, though, that Labour would be borrowing even more in this Parliament than the Coalition is, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimating that under Labour, borrowing would be closer to £76bn in 2016-17 than the £26bn forecast in the

Isabel Hardman

Gove goes on attack on academies

This morning at our Schools Revolution conference, Michael Gove came under sustained attack from academies architect Lord Adonis and Neil O’Brien from Policy Exchange, who pointed to a slowing-down in the number of primary sponsored academies being set up. O’Brien pointed out that the majority – around 80% – of academies set up under Gove are actually failing schools converting to academy status rather than new schools with a sponsor. Adonis told the audience that Gove’s success on academies was illusory’ because of the decline in the number of sponsored academies. But I hear that Gove is going to directly address these criticisms in his speech this afternoon. I understand

Monday

25 Jun 2012

Martin Bright

Meet Professor Bright

I have not often been called a ‘renowned political commentator’ (for readers of this blog it tends to be ‘hopeless naive leftie’ and elsewhere it’s ‘notorious Zionist neo-con’) so I was delighted to come across this description of myself in the Harlow Star. The article was prompted by my appointment as Visiting Professor at Harlow College, one of the best journalism training schools in the country. Over the years, this magnificent Essex institution has produced such stellar alumni as Alan Rusbridger, Roger Alton, Jeremy Clarkson, Piers Morgan and Richard Madeley. I intend to invite them all back over the course of the next academic year to discuss the future of

Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s welfare pledge to backbenchers

Why has David Cameron chosen to launch what is effectively a 2015 manifesto pledge on welfare today? The Prime Minister’s speech, which he has just finished giving, had quite interesting timing: we still, after all, have just under three years before the next general election. Cameron has already dropped hints about how much further the Conservatives could go on key areas – and specifically referred to welfare – without the Liberal Democrats holding them back, but this is the first instance where he has pinpointed a particular post-2015 policy. It leaves the Liberal Democrats once again on the back foot over benefits, suggesting to a public hungry for a more

The Spectator

Transcript: IDS on Today

Iain Duncan Smith appeared on the Today programme this morning. In a heated interview with Evan Davis, the work and pensions secretary was interrogated about David Cameron’s radical welfare proposals. Conversation ranged from cutting rental payments for under-25s to protecting non-means tested pensioner benefits. The bulk of the exchange was devoted to discussing Cameron’s intentions, as he seeks to make welfare reform a central part of the 2015 election. Here is a transcript of those passages: Evan Davis: Okay, I’m going to quote a couple of things that you wrote in your green paper. ‘Successive governments have made well-intentioned but piecemeal reforms to the system. None have succeeded in tackling

Isabel Hardman

Low marks for Labour’s Gove debate

Labour’s Opposition day debate tomorrow on Gove-levels might not reveal as much as the party hopes about where Liberal Democrat MPs stand on the Education Secretary’s planned reforms. True, you won’t see a Lib Dem lift so much as a finger in outright support of what Nick Clegg dubbed ‘a two-tier system’ created by scrapping GCSEs and replacing them with two sets of exams, but this might not be the forum for them to launch a rebellion. One key figure on the left of the party points out that ‘it’s not where the decision will be made’, while another MP says Labour’s motions are often so ‘over-the-top’ that they are

James Forsyth

The big beast Boris savages Lords reform

The coalition’s plan for House of Lords reform will go to Cabinet on Tuesday. It could have a trickier time there than expected: some Tory Cabinet ministers who favour an elected Lords are deeply unhappy about the idea of using regional lists. But, even before Cabinet, one active Tory big beast has come out against the proposals. Boris Johnson savages the idea in his Telegraph column, declaring it to be ‘a bunch of tidy-minded Lib Dem nonsense.’ He makes the standard Tory arguments against it: the Lords works as it is, two elected chambers would inevitably clash and reform will just expand the numbers — and cost — of the

Fraser Nelson

What’s the SNP scared of?

The Battle for Britain is heating up this week, with the pro-union campaign launched in Edinburgh this morning and a Spectator debate on the union on Wednesday. We have, as ever, a strong lineup – but the Scottish National Party is noticeable by its absence. I thought CoffeeHousers may like to know why not. We planned the debate ages ago, and from the offset wanted SNP to be on board. As Scottish separation would have implications for the whole of the UK we asked someone to make the case for English separation: Kelvin MacKenzie. And someone to speak up for the union: Sir Malcolm Rifkind. The Nats didn’t like this

Sunday

24 Jun 2012

Rod Liddle

Even more excitement for the Queen

Her Majesty the Queen must wish it was Diamond Jubilee year absolutely every year, such fun is she having. Watching Cheryl Cole duet with Gary Barlow must have been three minutes of almost incalculable joyfulness. How, she must have wondered, can they surpass this? Well, yet another treat is in store, for now she is being offered a trip to Northern Ireland — to shake the hand of Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuiness. This will be the veritable icing on the cake. And made even more pleasurable by the graciousness of Sinn Fein. As Gerry Adams said: ‘This is a very significant initiative by us. We don’t have to do it,

Andrew Adonis

Three lessons for Mr Gove, by Andrew Adonis

The Spectator’s Schools Revolution conference is being held on Tuesday next week. One of the special guest speakers, Lord Adonis, here gives the present government three lessons gained from his experience of the academies programme. Other speakers include Michael Gove, Michelle Rhee and Barbara Bergstrom, all of whom will take questions from the floor. There are still tickets available. Last year Mossbourne Academy in Hackney celebrated one of the most remarkable achievements ever recorded by a state comprehensive school with a largely low-income intake. It got eight students into Cambridge and another 70 into Russell Group universities. If every comprehensive was in this league, social mobility would take off and

Fraser Nelson

Danny, David and tax

What are we to make the split between Danny Alexander and his predecessor as deputy Chancellor, David Laws, over the size of the state? Laws says today it should be 35 per cent of economic output, which is an excellent ambition. In an interview with BBC1’s Sunday Politics today, Danny says 40 per cent. A split? When asked, Alexander said: ‘I think around 40 per cent is the right sort of range to be looking at. It’s only in the last four or five years that we’ve seen the share of the state taken up by spending rising to nearly 50 per cent, as it did in Gordon Brown’s years.”