Politics

The drumbeat of criticism of David Cameron and George Osborne by various Tory MPs, summed up on the front page of today’s Telegraph, has drawn a reaction from those MPs loyal to the leadership. Kris Hopkins, the founder of the 301 group of Tory MPs, complains that the trouble is being whipped up by a ‘small group of disaffected people’ and that ‘the nature of their criticisms shows that this is about their egos not making the country a better place.’ At issue here is who speaks for Tory MPs. Hopkins claims that the vast majority of his colleagues are ‘committed and supportive of the Prime Minister and his team’

The grumbling in the Conservative party at the moment is reminiscent of Tudor court politics. No one is prepared to criticise the king directly so instead various personal favourites of the monarch are targeted. At the moment, the chief proxy for discontent is Andrew Feldman. To the Cameroons’ critics, he sums up everything that is wrong with the way the PM and his team do politics. Feldman is co-chairman of the party not because of his standing in the party or the country but because he is a friend of Cameron. To further irritate their critics, their friendship dates back to them serving together on the ball committee of their

To mark the 30th anniversary of the start of the Falklands War, here’s Ferdinand Mount’s column from the time: The last armada, Ferdinand Mount, 10 April 1982 A debacle speaks for itself. All things that inescapably follow — the humiliation, the indignation, the ministers hurrying in and out of Cabinet, the spectacular sitting of Parliament on a Saturday, the calls for the resignation of Mr John Nott, Lord Carrington and anyone else standing in the line of fire — are not only themselves part and parcel of the debacle; they help to explain why it happened. The Falkland Islanders are the last victims of our refusal to be honest with

George Galloway has tragically demonstrated that sectarian politics are now alive and well in Britain.  The other week Ken Livingstone appeared at a London mosque and promised to make London a ‘beacon of Islam’ and last week went on to dismiss Jews as unlikely to vote Labour because they are ‘rich’. Now we see Galloway flying in to one of the country’s most divided areas to sweep the Labour party aside in what he has termed ‘a Bradford spring.’ Much can — and should — be said about this depressing, and predictable, turn of events.  But for now I’d just like to make two quick observations. The first regards the

If Andrew Lansley thought he could rest easy after passage of the Health Bill, then he’s in for a rude awakening. Yesterday, the shadow Cabinet Minister Jon Trickett busted Lansley’s department for spending £109,017 since January this year to supply its employees and visitors with free refreshments — aka, tea and biscuits. Naturally, Labour aren’t telling the whole story here. The amount being spent has declined under the coalition, from £194,000 for the equivalent period in 2010, to £137,000 in 2011, to that £109,017 figure now. But, still, it’s another classic example of waste during a time of austerity. Perhaps it’s no surprise that obesity is thought to cost the

George Galloway’s victory last night is a reminder of a wider problem in British politics: the low regard in which all main political parties are held. By-elections can throw up quirky victories, usually ironed out in the general election. There won’t be an army of Galloway’s marching on parliament at the next election. It’s like Glasgow East: a classic Labour safe seat-cum-‘rotten borough’ taken for granted (and ignored) for so long that the ruling party’s apparatus had atrophied. Like John Mason in Glasgow East, Galloway won’t last long.    But the same phenomenon which took Galloway to victory last night, and humbled the main parties, is also at work in