Politics

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

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Gove’s Royal yacht proposal in full

This morning’s Guardian scoop about Michael Gove’s suggestion that the nation should present the Queen with a new Royal yacht for the Jubilee is the talk of Westminster. But the full correspondence indicates that Gove was not proposing any taxpayer funding for a new Britannia.   Gove refers to ‘David Willetts’s excellent suggestion for a Royal Yacht’. This proposal was made in a letter from Willetts to the Prime Minister on the 5th September, which was copied to various colleagues. Willetts writes that Rear Admiral Bawtree sees The Future Ship Project for the 21st Century ‘as a potential replacement for the Royal Yacht Britannia’.   Willetts says that ‘The proposed

Peter Hoskin

Clegg versus vested interests (and the Tories)

‘Another week, another speech about the evils of capitalism.’ So joked Nick Clegg at the start of his speech to Mansion House earlier, and there was some truth in this particular jest. All three parties are jostling to be seen as the harbingers of a new economy at the moment — one that doesn’t reward failure; that benefits everyone ‘fairly’; that won’t seize up as the old one did; that etc, etc. Ed Miliband sketched out his rather insipid vision for this economy last week; David Cameron will hope to do a better job later this week. Today, though, was the Deputy Prime Minister’s turn. So what did Clegg say?

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

How to ensure the Union ends with mourning

Those photographs of North Koreans wailing, weeping and gnashing their teeth in grief over the death of Kim Jong-il have suddenly become a little more explicable. Apparently people not observed to be extremely distraught faced six months in a labour camp. Perhaps we could introduce a similar stricture for when the Scotch people vote to be independent of the United Kingdom. That might put an end to the various street parties currently being organised with festive finger food, paper hats and dancing south of the border. Such celebrations would be unbecoming and ungracious, at least in public. I am not sure that it was wise of David Cameron to pick

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A Cameron-friendly backbench group

The 301 Group is the nearest that David Cameron has to a loyalist backbench support group; it is named after the number of seats the Tories will need at the next election to win a majority. The Times today reports the group’s concerns that the Tories are in danger of forgetting the importance of a broad agenda that goes beyond the party’s staple issues. I suspect that several people in Downing Street will nod along at these concerns. The group has certainly been encouraged by Number 10, which has difficult relations with the 1922 Committee. Its early speakers have included the chief whip Patrick McLoughlin and the vice-chairman of the

Peter Hoskin

Osborne visits China, but can’t escape Europe

Yet another day here in Westminster that’s all about the economy. Nick Clegg has just delivered a speech on the subject to Mansion House, focusing on ‘responsible capitalism’, which we’ll blog shortly. And two prominent forecasting groups, the Ernst & Young ITEM Club and the Centre for Economic and Business Research, have suggested that we’re effectively back in recession. They both reckon that the economy shrank in the final quarter of last year, and is wilting even further in this current quarter. But, like the OECD, they also predict that this ‘double dip’ will be relatively short-lived and relatively mild. Against that backdrop, enter George Osborne. The Chancellor spoke from

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 16 January 2012

…here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: James Forsyth reports on Ed Miliband’s defiant performance on the Marr show, and reports on Simon Hughes’ comments about the benefits cap. Jonathan Jones reckons that Ed Balls’ attempt at credibility fell short, and sees Miliband trump Miliband in the polls. Martin Bright says that Labour needs to get used to being the third party. Alex Massie has some Saturday morning country for your listening pleasure. And the Spectator Book Blog interviews its latest Bookbencher, Robin Walker MP.

Sunday

Jonathan Jones

Miliband beats Miliband in the polls

Ed Miliband’s poll ratings are going from bad to disastrous at the moment. Last week his YouGov approval rating dropped to its worst ever, with just 20 per cent of respondents saying he’s doing a good job, and 66 per cent saying he’s doing a bad one. And today they slip even further. Again 20 per cent say he’s doing ‘well’, but now 69 per cent say ‘badly’: And, most worryingly for the Labour leader, the number of Labour voters giving him the thumbs down (49 per cent) now outnumbers those giving him the thumps up (46 per cent). That’s compared to the 95 per cent of Tories who think

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband, dented but defiant

In the news bulletin after Ed Miliband’s interview on the Andrew Marr show, the headline was about Miliband saying he does listen to criticism of his leadership. It rather summed up Miliband’s problem at the moment: he can’t get beyond all the chatter about his leadership. In terms of the substance, Miliband’s explanation of Labour’s new economic position showed just how difficult it is going to be to explain it to the public. Miliband argued, as Balls did on Saturday, that the cuts are currently going ‘too far, too fast’ but that he can’t promise to reverse them. As one Tory said to me yesterday, Labour is saying that the

Saturday

Jonathan Jones

Labour’s new strategy in the cuts blame game

Even as Ed Balls embraces the need for austerity today, he takes a very different position to the coalition on why it’s necessary. The government has always blamed the need for cuts on the ‘awful economic inheritance’ bequeathed it by Labour. Balls, on the other hand, puts the blame squarely at George Osborne’s door. In his Fabian Society speech, he said: ‘George Osborne’s economic mistakes mean more difficult decisions on tax, spending and pay.’ His argument is that, by cutting ‘too far and too fast’, the coalition has caused the economy to stagnate and thereby created the need for more austerity. Labour has, of course, long been trying to shift

Fleur Macdonald

Bookbenchers: Robin Walker MP

Robin Walker, the Conservative MP for Worcester, is this week’s bookbencher. He tells us about the influence that his father (Peter Walker) had on his reading, and his love of Elgar. Which book’s on your bedside table at the moment? When Christ and his Saints Slept, a historical novel about Stephen and Matilda by Sharon Penman and The Arabs, a History by Eugene Rogan. Neither is an entirely cheerful read but they are both fascinating in their own right, well written, full of detail and personal colour and deal with the sufferings of people and nations when they are let down by weak or divided leadership. I think understanding history

Martin Bright

Labour is the third party, get used to it

This has been a terrible week for the Labour leader – truly, bone-crunchingly awful. Inevitable comparisons have been made with the IDS era of the Tory wilderness years, but this is different because it is Labour. Conservative leaders are trophies, symbols of the best or worst the party can aspire to at any given time. But Labour leaders are expected to embody hopes and dreams: they are pragmatic Utopianism made flesh. If all political careers end in failure, then Labour leaders always fail better. Could Ed Miliband fail best of all? Patrick O’Flynn of the Express tweeted this week that the Labour Party’s irritation at their ideas on executive pay

Jonathan Jones

Balls’ attempt at credibility falls short

‘I must be responsible and credible in what I say.’ No, it’s not Bart Simpson writing on the blackboard at the start of The Simpsons, although it may have been said with just as little enthusiasm. It’s Ed Balls on the Today programme this morning, explaining his decision to endorse George Osborne’s public sector pay freeze. Balls’ interview in today’s Guardian is his biggest effort so far to sound ‘responsible and credible’ on the economy. His admission that ‘we can make no commitments to reverse any of [the cuts], on spending or on tax’ is nothing new – in his September conference speech he said ‘no matter how much we

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Politics: Alex Salmond’s three-card trick

Not since 1745 has the union been in such danger. It now seems certain that there’ll either be a referendum on Scotland leaving the union in 2014 or that Westminster will have to resort to using the Supreme Court to stop Holyrood holding the vote, handing the Nationalists a huge propaganda victory. Support for independence in Scotland may stand at about a third, having not moved much over the years. But the campaign for it will be led by the most able politician in Scotland, the tactical equal of any politician in Britain, who runs the best campaign machine in the British Isles. No one should underestimate Alex Salmond and

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Cameron’s follies

Was a political brickbat from the left ever more elegantly lobbed than J.K. Galbraith’s jibe that conservative governments create ‘private affluence and public squalor’? It came to sum up perfectly the feelings of many people towards Britain in the 1980s, when Londoners would step over the homeless as they made their way back to flashy new homes. It is not an accusation David Cameron cares to risk being levelled at his own Britain. But this (partly) Conservative government is suffering from an equally pernicious problem: pointless, gimmicky public spending. We may be deep in austerity measures, but they seem destined never to reach the sports stadiums, the high-speed rail lines

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A strong dose of Devo Max

Edinburgh Something astonishing is happening in Scotland. For the first time in a political generation the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party has an opportunity to become relevant to public life north of the Tweed. And it is all thanks to Alex Salmond, now the unlikely potential saviour of Scottish right-of-centre politics. The First Minister is a formidable politician who appreciates that politics is frequently pregnant with irony. This is one such occasion: the Conservatives, steadfast opponents of devolution, can be saved by a stronger dose of Home Rule. That is, Tories should insist on the third option which Salmond wants to offer voters in the referendum on independence. This would

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Tony Blair is relentlessly self-sacrificing. He’s an example to us all

How can we persuade our former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to devote a little more time to making money for himself and rather less time for his many charitable concerns? There is only so much a man should be expected to give, especially after a lifetime of public service. We have forgotten too quickly, I think, that he gave of himself — relentlessly and for a pittance — when he led this country for more than decade. It seems that now he is unable to get out of the habit and I am worried that he may well end up in penury, unless we can get the message across to

James Delingpole James Delingpole

I need you to tell me exactly where to go

Do you fancy playing God? Well now’s your chance. This week I’m offering one of you a unique proposition: you get to decide what happens to the rest of my life. Not just my life but, more importantly, the lives of Girl, Boy and the Fawn. (But not the Rat: he’s OK, he has grown up and moved out.) You get to decide where we live, and, by logical extension, who our new friends are, what we do in our spare time and, ultimately, whether or not we die hideously in a pool of abject misery or go on to experience a modicum of happiness in this vale of tears.

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Any other business: The ‘non-partisan’ High Pay Commission that’s there to prove ‘the left can win’

I set out my argument on the unfairness of soaring executive pay back in November, when I pointed out that ‘in all the years I’ve been writing about the socially divisive nature of this trend and the impossibility of justifying it performance terms, the fat cats have multiplied their take more than fourfold’. So I welcome the Prime Minister’s sudden interest in the subject: I hope he really intends to empower investors to do more about it, and is not just mouthing concern in order to upstage Ed Miliband on the only issue on which the failing Labour leader threatens to gain traction. But I also hope Cameron’s team will

Friday

Jonathan Jones

From the archives: Saving the Union

With Scottish independence very much the issue of the week, we thought you might enjoy this Spectator leader from 1979, arguing for a ‘No’ vote in that year’s referendum on Scottish devolution: To preserve the Union, 24 February 1979 ‘So, Sir, you laugh at schemes of political improvement?’ ‘Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things.’ The Scotland Act, which comes before the judgement of the Scottish people on Thursday, is certainly laughable. Would that it were no more than that. If the Scottish Assembly is instituted it will be the most important constitutional change the United Kingdom has known since the Irish Free State came into

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Pound, the Euro and Other Scottish Pink Herrings

The crisis in euroland continues unstaunched and, perhaps, irrevocably. Naturally, being self-obsessed sorts and this being the week it is, one is drawn to consider the impact this must have on Alex Salmond and the prospects for Scottish independence. Plainly, the currency question is a difficult one for the First Minister. While the euro seemed solid it was at least straightforward, even though one wondered if swapping monetary policy set by the Bank of England for monetary policy set by the European Central Bank would necessarily be a great bargain. But the euro is no longer solid and uncertainty reigns. So one can appreciate why George Osborne has intervened, arguing