Politics

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

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The battle for Britain | 10 January 2012

So, Alex Salmond has named his date for the independence referendum: August 2014, a few weeks after the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn. David Cameron wanted it earlier, and may yet refuse to grant Salmond this date — No10 hasn’t yet responded. Cameron was forcing the issue on the grounds that he wanted to end uncertainty — Salmond is now offering certainty, at least in terms of timing. But he hasn’t said whether he wants a two- or three-question referendum. This is crucial, because Salmond is likely to lose an independence referendum and he knows it. So his game plan will be to have a third option, a consolation prize,

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Alex Salmond Claims his Date

Since I was watching the House of Commons just now, I needed twitter to tell me that it seems as though Alex Salmond, ever the tweaker, has announced he wants to hold his referendum in the autumn of 2014. Hurrah. That’s fine. No need, in my view, for Westminster to object to this. On the contrary all parties should welcome it. All that Westminster needs to do is make sure the referendum billl can survive any legal challenge. Then we can get on with the game. The most importat thing is that the principle of the thing is now agreed. The detail can be sorted out in due course. What

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Michael Moore’s Quietly Sensible Consultation

Michael Moore’s statement to the House of Commons on the question of how a referendum on Scotland’s constitutional future may be held was clear, composed, sensible and modest. In other words it was everything that the last few days have not been. The Prime Minister in particular – as bemoaned here, here and here – has not distinguished himself in recent times. Perhaps it is fairer (it is certainly kinder) to presume this was just as innocent a cock-up as any Prime Ministerial cock-up can be; regardless is was a desperate piece of floundering that made Mr Cameron look something of a chump. The Secretary of State’s consultation paper makes

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Ed Miliband is No Teddy Roosevelt

This is, I know, a statement of the obvious but Ed Miliband is no Teddy Roosevelt. There are two reasons to be thankful for this. First, TR was really a ghastly man; secondly, if Ed Miliband were able to muster a quarter of Roosevelt’s brio he’d be faring rather better than he is. In the present circumstances, the opposition should be thumping the government every day. Granted, this requires more credibility than either Mr Miliband or Mr Balls can boast but the fact remains that a) George Osborne’s economic hopes have been vanquished by events and b) there is little substantive difference between his proposals and those made by Alistair

Jonathan Jones

Can Scotland make it on its own?

What would an independent Scotland’s public finances look like? ‘Good, actually,’ says the SNP as they present their ongoing case for independence. They like to claim that, discounting the rest of the UK, Scotland was in surplus for ‘four out of the last five years’ — it’s Westminster, not Holyrood, that can’t manage the public’s money.  Which would be a powerful argument were it actually true. You see, the SNP are talking about the ‘current budget balance’, which excludes the £6.4 billion a year that Scotland spends on capital. When you include that spending — according to the Scottish government’s own figures — there has been a deficit for every

Peter Hoskin

Miliband’s speech fails to excite

Was Ed’s Big Speech worth the extended wait? Not really. It wasn’t a stone-cold terrible speech, but neither was it the rambunctious, attention-grabbing number that his leadership could do with. In fact, we could have saved ourselves the effort by simply reading his New Year’s message again. That was considerably shorter, and covered almost all of the same ground. Squeezed middle? Check. Tackling vested interests? Check. An admission that Labour will need to cut? Ch… oh, you get the point. The best that could be said about today’s speech is that it presented some of these arguments more clearly than in the past. Indeed, the attack on George Osborne’s fiscal

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband tries to get his message heard

Ed Miliband is trying to do something interesting today. He is attempting to answer the question, ‘what’s the point of Labour when there’s no money left to spend?’ This is the problem that Miliband has been grappling with since winning the leadership and there’s no easy answer to it. It seems that today Miliband will give us more of a sense of the ‘new economy’ which he wants to see in this country. The test of the speech will be whether it gets beyond generalities about a long-term vision for an economy that is ‘fairer’. The challenge for Miliband will be to make his subtle message heard above the chatter

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

David Cameron has given Alex Salmond an opportunity to play the statesman

Shockingly, it is possible some of you did not see my appearance on BBC News this afternoon. Thanks to the wonders of Youtube and the baffling enthusiasm some people have for clipping and sharing these things, you can catch up with it now. As is always the case, I forgot half the things I wanted to say. Jon Sopel asked if it was really plausible for David Cameron to “do nothing”. Well, of course it is. Indeed when you cannot offer anything useful it is best to offer nothing at all. The time – as a few of us argued back then – for Conservatives to back a referendum came

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Osborne the Unionist

There’s much chatter in Westminster today about the fact that George Osborne is chairing the Cabinet committee on Scotland. Osborne is, of course, the Conservatives’ chief electoral strategist as well as the Chancellor of Exchequer. This has led to some suggestions that he wouldn’t be too upset by a referendum defeat that would make it an awful lot easier for the Tories to win a majority at Westminster. This is unfair: Osborne is a Unionist. What those around Osborne have long been interested in is the option that the coalition seems to be ruling out: fiscal autonomy. The circle around Osborne have long believed that it is only when Scottish

Peter Hoskin

Enter, David Miliband?

‘Every day, in every way, it’s getting worse for Ed Miliband.’ That’s what I said last Thursday, and it has been more or less borne out since then. Friday, of course, brought that Twitter embarrassment. Saturday, the subsequent headlines, as well as Miliband’s unconvincing attempt to push back against them. Sunday featured some of the most vicious attacks on his leadership by Labour MPs so far. And even today we’ve got the sort of ‘helpful’ advice from a senior Labour figure — in this case, Alan Johnson, suggesting that ‘too often we sound like a debating society rather than a political party’ — that comes across as frustrated criticism. Forget

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Cameron’s Caledonian Gamble: Unwise and Unnecessary

So. it looks as though David Cameron is following the Spectator’s advice not mine. What a nincompoop! But if the reports are correct then Cameron is playing us for fools. That is, there’s nothing wrong with suggesting a referendum on Scottish independence be held sooner rather than later; adding conditions to it is a different matter. It matters little, really, whether a referendum is binding or advisory; a Yes to Independence vote would be impossible to ignore, politically and practically speaking, even if the referendum were only advisory. So, to this extent, Cameron’s suggestion that a vote can be binding if held within 18 months but only advisory if held

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 9 January 2012

…here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson asks why Ed Miliband stopped his brother becoming Labour leader. James Forsyth looks at the implications of HS2 on the Cabinet, and reports on Cameron’s latest attempt to redefine fairness. Peter Hoskin says Miliband’s position is under increasing threat, and asks what’s more important to David Cameron: actual fairness or presentational fairness? Jonathan Jones examines Ed Miliband’s boastful Guardian interview, and says that the Democrats stand ready to face Mitt Romney. Martin Bright says now is not the time for Ed to share his view of his own capacities with us. On the Book Blog, Pamela Nash

Peter Hoskin

Cameron’s balancing act over Scotland

The Cabinet is meeting about 5 miles away from Downing Street today, at the Olympic Park in Stratford. But its collective mind will be on a patch of land another 270 miles further on still. Yep, Scotland and Scottish independence are the matters at hand today. According to the Beeb, David Cameron and his ministers will discuss their ideas for the referendum, its content and its timing. It’s thought that they may allow a referendum that’s binding on the UK government – but only so long as it takes place in the next eighteen months, and offers a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ vote on independence. You can understand Cameron’s thinking

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why the battle over Downhills Primary School matters

Downhills Primary School in Haringey is fast becoming a political battleground. Before Christmas, David Lammy, the local MP, a bunch of union leaders, left-wing opponents of education reform and Labour councilors wrote to The Guardian complaining about Michael Gove’s plans to convert primary school with poor academic records into academies. In the New Year, Michael Gove responded with a speech in which he attacked those opposing to dealing with these sub-standards schools. He accused them of being subscribers to the “bigoted backward bankrupt ideology of a left wing establishment that perpetuates division and denies opportunity.” (Pete blogged about the significance of the speech at the time.) The power of Gove’s

Peter Hoskin

What’s more important to Cameron: actual fairness or presentational fairness?

James has already blogged the Sunday Telegraph’s interview with David Cameron, but some other things stand out from it — and not just the PM’s unthinking attack on Ed Balls either, for which he has since apologised. Take these paragraphs on tax, for instance: ‘The Prime Minister effectively rules out any move towards a “mansion tax” — a levy on high-priced properties proposed by the Liberal Democrats — or indeed any new tax on wealth. “I don’t believe, generally speaking, we should be looking at endless additional taxes.” However, he signals that the 50p top rate of income tax, on earnings above £150,000, will remain for the time being, despite

Peter Hoskin

Ed under siege — and under threat

There was a fun game we used to play during Gordon Brown’s premiership: counting the number of ‘buck up, or we kick you out’ ultimatums that Labour MPs delivered to their leader. There were, suffice to say, a lot of them. And tallying them up illustrated two things: the constant, sapping pressure that the Brown leadership was under, and Labour’s persistent inability to actually finish him off. I mention it now because of this story in today’s Mail on Sunday. It collects the increasingly public criticism of Ed Miliband by his own MPs, including Graham Stringer’s warning that ‘Ed has got to get a grip and turn it around before

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron’s fairness agenda

The politics of the ‘undeserving rich’ is again dominating the news this morning. David Cameron tells the Sunday Telegraph that ‘The market for top people isn’t working, it needs to be sorted out’. While the Mail on Sunday reports that George Osborne is planning to create a new criminal offence of ‘criminal negligence’ that could be used against those bankers who endanger the financial system. Perhaps the most significant aspect of Cameron’s Sunday Telegraph interview, though, is his attempt to redefine ‘fairness’. Cameron has tried to do this before, arguing that it isn’t just about redistribution but about people getting out what they put in. As Matt d’Ancona notes, this

Saturday

Peter Jones

Ancient and Modern: Korea’s imperial succession

With the death of Kim Jong-il and accession of his son Kim Jong-un, these are dodgy days in North Korea. It all goes back to Jong-il’s father Kim Il-sung, who became its first dictator in 1948 and also invented North Korea’s professional army. The first Roman emperor, Augustus, provides the model for what is happening. Since Rome had never had an emperor before, the big question became: what happened when the long-lived Augustus died? Augustus was all too aware of the problem and, with no male offspring of his own, could only watch aghast as, one by one, his personal choices dropped off the perch. According to Tacitus, it was

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 7 January 2012

Alan Titchmarsh says that ‘Gardening is more important than politics. It has a consistent point of view. And that is: that a piece of ground should be cherished.’ He is right, but he may not be fully aware that, in speaking as he does, he is expressing a political opinion. He is saying something conservative. One of the clever tricks that conservatism plays is to help people feel that things which, in reality, change often, are immemorial. Sure enough, Mr Titchmarsh goes on to say, ‘If you live in the countryside and look out of the window, you will see there is no ostensible difference between this year and 200

The Spectator

Save the union

‘Saving the union’ is unlikely to rank highly on David Cameron’s list of new year resolutions. Scotland is becoming a land about which most Westminster politicians know little and care less. It is being handled in 10 Downing St by Ed Llewellyn, who specialises in foreign affairs, yet neither he nor anyone else has the faintest idea what to do about Alex Salmond. The Scots around Cameron regard their motherland as a distant memory, a place where they lived before seeking political asylum in England. The Edinburgh parliament, its arguments and dynamics, are a mystery to the Prime Minister and his aides. And yet somehow he needs to fight and