Politics

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

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Yes, Gay Marriage is a Conservative Cause

Melanie McDonagh makes a decent small-c conservative case against gay marriage based on a traditional procreation-based definition of marriage. This is fine as far as it goes but it doesn’t go quite as far as she, or other defenders of “traditional” marriage suggest it does. In the first place, as Stephen Hough reminds us in an admirable piece at the Telegraph, the Catholic Church itself has altered its views on marriage: One problem is that the argument about the meaning and ends of marriage has changed. The Church altered its teaching from the mid-20th century onwards away from the traditional ‘procreation first, relationship second’ to an equal billing for the

Sebastian Payne

Ed gets another kicking

Who let Ed Miliband out again? You’d have thought that Labour HQ would have learnt from the #AskEdM debacle but apparently not. Ed popped up on Radio 5 Live today following his Made in Britain speech to answer questions from voters. It’s hard to work out whether the callers were CCHQ staffers in disguise or ordinary members of the public, thanks to the extreme vitriol thrown at Ed. He had little of interest to say on the EU (he wouldn’t have signed the treaty), child benefit (he can’t promise to reverse the cuts) and Labour’s attitude towards business (he’s pro-, apparently). Instead, the callers took the opportunity to attack him

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

The case against gay marriage

Last night, we posted Douglas Murray’s conservative argument in favour of same-sex marriage. Here’s the opposite view: Consultations are, for the prudent, an exercise you only engage in when you’re quite sure of the outcome. I’m not sure, then, that Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, is entirely wise to go all out in galvanising the Catholic community into action against the Government’s plans to legalise gay marriage. As the Daily Telegraph reports today, he is issuing a letter to be read out in churches on Sunday to urge congregations to participate in the Coalition’s consultation exercise on the proposal — against. Two can play at consultations, and the very

The Spectator

The Matt Ridley Prize is open to everyone

The 2013 Matt Ridley Prize is now open. Click here for more details. We’ve already had some entries for the £8,500 Matt Ridley Prize for Environmental Heresy, and an inquiry as to whether it’s open to non-British residents. Misunderstanding of science and environment is, alas, a global phenomenon and CoffeeHousers hail from all over the world. So it’s open to everyone. The condition is a piece of 1,000 to 2,000 words which gores one of the sacred cows of the green movement — using facts to confront myths, and science to confront pseudo-science. The winning article will be published in The Spectator. Read Matt Ridley’s piece, laying out the scope of

Monday

Douglas Murray

The conservative case for equal marriage

With some right-wing voices — including Catholic Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Tory MP Peter Bone and the Daily Telegraph — speaking out against same-sex marriage, here’s a piece Douglas Murray wrote for The Spectator in October arguing that conservatives should instead be welcoming it: In America a new generation of Republicans is challenging the traditional consensus of their party on gay marriage. They — as well as some of the GOP old guard like Dick Cheney — are coming out in favour. In Britain the subject is also back on the agenda with the coalition government, at the insistence of the Prime Minister apparently, planning a ‘public consultation’ on the matter.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A significant moment in the battle for the 1922 Committee

It might mean little to people outside Westminster, but the decision of Mark Pritchard not to stand for re-election to his job as Secretary of the 1922 Committee is a significant moment. It suggests that the Cameroons might be making some progress in their attempt to gain control of the internal structures of the parliamentary party. Pritchard has been a thorn in Number 10’s side ever since he started warning against the ‘Purple Plotters’ who wanted to merge the two coalition parties back in January of last year. Since then, his positions on circus animals, his role in the rebellion of the 81 and his general willingness to speak out

Jonathan Jones

Cutting legal aid might actually <em>cost</em> money

This afternoon’s Lords debate on the government’s Legal Aid Bill promises to be a heated affair. The Independent’s interview with Baroness Scotland – Labour peer and former Attorney General — gives a taste, beneath the headline ‘Women and children could die because of legal aid cuts’. But even before we get into an emotional debate about domestic violence and hitting ‘the poorest and weakest’ — important though it is — there’s one potential flaw that could undermine the whole point of the proposal: it might not actually save us any money. Take benefit claimants, for example, who will now longer be entitled to legal aid when challenging decisions about their

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 5 March 2012

…here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson says Theresa May is showing Andrew Lansley how reforming public services should be done and explains Alex Salmond is following the Brownite economic path. James Forsyth says Steve Hilton’s return depends on Cameron’s radicalism and examines the Prime Minister’s pitch to women voters.  Peter Hoskin discusses Vladimir Putin’s dilemma.  Jonathan Jones says private policing is nothing new and questions which tax cuts the public want.  Alex Massie sees that dinosaur Labour is back in Scotland.  The Spectator Book Blog features Keith Simpson as its latest Bookbencher.  And the Spectator Arts Blog examines a cavalcade of clichés.

Peter Hoskin

Will Osborne accept the Lib Dem offer?

Try telling George Osborne that ‘tax doesn’t have to be taxing’ — I’m sure he’d laugh at the sentiment. The story this morning is that he has a grand, gritty choice to make ahead of the Budget: to tax income or to tax wealth. The Lib Dems have apparently agreed to relent on the 50p rate, but only if they get a mansion tax on properties worth over £2 million in return. The thinking is that, in the current political environment, the government must always be seen to be hitting the well-off in some way. So, will Osborne accept the offer? He and other Tories will certainly be tempted to

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Hilton’s return hinges on Cameron’s radicalism

It is a sign of the influence that Steve Hilton has on the Cameron project that there have been more column inches devoted to his departure from Downing Street than there would be to most Cabinet resignations. But even after he heads to California in May, Hilton will still be part of the Cameron brains trust. He is already scheduled to work on the Prime Minister’s conference speech. Hilton has, I understand, been mulling the idea of taking a sabbatical since last summer. His decision to go ahead and take next year off seems to have been motivated by a variety of factors. But those closest to him stress that

Saturday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 3 March 2012

Although I like and admire Trevor Kavanagh of the Sun, I feel that his article about the wickedness of arresting journalists at dawn, published two weeks ago, marked that moment which always comes during a scandal when the trade under attack fails to ‘get it’. The same happened with those MPs who protested at the exposure of their expenses, or with Bob Diamond of Barclays telling a Commons committee that ‘the time for remorse is over’. We in the media are just as powerful in our way as are MPs or bankers in theirs, and just as abusive of our power. We, collectively, have created a climate in which everyone

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron’s pitch to women voters

David Cameron’s speech today is another reminder of how concerned the Tories are about losing their traditional advantage among female voters. The message that the Tories are cutting so that the country is passed on in a better state to the next generation is a direct response to the fact that the party’s polling has found mothers to be deeply concerned that their children will not have as good a quality of life as they have had. At the away day for Tory MPs last week, Andrew Cooper — the PM’s chief political strategist — said that talking about deficit reduction in these terms was crucial to winning over female

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Dinosaur Labour Is Back

Considering the audience to which it was aimed, I suppose one could say that Johann Lamont’s first leaders’ speech to the Scottish Labour party conference was a success. Expectations for Ms Lamont were not quite at Obama-levels. I suspect Labour types will have been pleased by it. Which means, naturally, it should terrify everyone else. It was, naturally, a Unionist speech largely because it reminded one that Scottish Labour would be a powerful force in an independent Scotland and, by god, that’s enough to make one wary of the entire enterprise. England and Wales and Northern Ireland offer some protection, minimising the amount of damage Labour can do in Scotland.

The Spectator

Bookbenchers: Keith Simpson

This week’s bookbencher is Keith Simpson, the Conservative MP for Broadland. He tells us about a book which argues that the Cold War might have been avoided, and of his desire to be Tom Jones — the Fielding variety. Also, he wouldn’t save Shakespeare from the flames, because someone else would. Which book’s on your bedside table at the moment? Donna Leon’s novel Wilful Behaviour, which is one of her excellent ‘Commissario Guildo Brunetti’ series set in Venice and Frank Costigliola Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped Start the Cold War. His thesis is that FDR, Churchill and Stalin all valued personal relationships and if FDR had lived, maybe

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Why aren’t we asking what proportion of Syrians back the uprising?

What proportion of the Syrian population is fully in support of the continued uprising against the country’s authoritarian leader, Bashar al-Assad? It is not a question I have heard addressed often — not by our journalists bravely reporting from beneath the Syrian army’s mortar attacks, nor indeed by those sitting at home writing for outraged liberal broadsheets, demanding we arm the rebels, or at least do something. Still less have I heard the issue addressed by the European Union and its odd new allies in this struggle — al-Qa’eda, Hamas and the notoriously democratic government of Saudi Arabia. It is a complex question. News reports tend to focus on where

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Private property

Celebrities have a right to profit from the exploitation of personal information – and so do you Something has been bugging me about the Leveson inquiry, and it’s not a private investigator hired by News International. It’s the pervasive line of defence that you hear when it comes to the invasion of privacy, and with the Sunday Sun rising in the east, it’s worth addressing. There’s no chance the new Sunday red-top will revive the black arts of its predecessor and indulge in what the Met’s Sue Akers has called the Sun’s ‘culture of illegal payments’. But there is every chance that it will carry one basic assumption over intact.

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

After Hilton

Perhaps, the greatest testament to Steve Hilton’s influence in Downing Street is that everyone chuckles when you ask if anyone will replace him. His role in Number 10 as the senior adviser was one he had carved out for himself so that he could work on what he wanted to. It is deliberately designed not to fit on any ‘org chart’, the kind of document that the post-bureaucratic Hilton has little patience for. Hilton was for years caricatured as being not really right-wing. But, in reality, the opposite is true — he was, in some ways, the most right-wing man in Downing Street. Few matched him on subjects like 50p

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

25 February 2009: They wish we all could be Californian: the new Tory

With the news that Steve Hilton is heading back to the West Coast, we’ve dug up this piece from 2009 by Fraser Nelson. He discusses the last time Hilton decamped to California and the culture changes he could bring back to the Tories in Westminster. Once every fortnight or so, David Cameron’s chief strategist lands at San Francisco airport and returns to his own version of Paradise. Steve Hilton has spent just six months living in this self-imposed exile — but his friends joke that, inside his head, he has always been in California. Look at it this way: this is the place on Earth which fuses everything the Cameroons most like in

The Spectator

The week that was | 2 March 2012

Here is a selection of articles and discussions from this week on Spectator.co.uk… Most read: Matthew Parris calling on believers to be aware of the patronage of unbelievers. Most shared: James Forsyth reporting that Europe is being strangled by the Franco-German alliance. Most discussed: James Forsyth on Len McCluskey versus the Olympics. And the best of the rest.. Fraser Nelson suggests Michael Gove will never be party leader, and announces the Matt Ridley Prize for Environmental Heresy. James Forsyth imagines if Cameron hadn’t vetoed, and urges a private sector revival in Northern Ireland. Peter Hoskin asks what the UK’s proposed ECHR reforms will come to, and reports that the conflict

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Steve Hilton to leave Downing St

The Prime Minister’s strategy chief is heading to California to teach for a one year sabbatical, we learn. But who takes a one-year sabbatical in the middle of what’s supposed to be a five-year fight to save Britain? He did this before in Opposition, and came back. But this time, I doubt he’ll be back. He’s joining Stanford University as a visiting scholar, presumably to spend more time with his wife Rachel Whetstone who is communications chief for Google. Hilton’s friends say that, in his head, he never quite came back from California — his aversion to shoes (and sometimes manners) has led to much mockery. But overall, he is