Politics

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

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why Miliband doesn’t need to agree with Nick

Ed Miliband’s comments in the Independent today were clearly based on the assumption that Nick Clegg will not be around if and when it comes to negotiating a possible Lib-Lab coalition in 2015. Vince Cable has already thrown his fedora into the ring to be the next Liberal Democrat leader, and Miliband backed the calls for a change of chief in his interview today. ‘I would find it difficult to work with him,’ he said, when asked about Clegg. Clegg cannot go from being Deputy Prime Minister in one government to Deputy Prime Minister in the next: it would look ridiculous. A coalition with Labour would also not suit Clegg’s own political

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The coalition trial of strength

The coalition is most fragile when both party leaders feel that they have a point to prove to their own side. We are, post the Lords reform rebellion, in one of those moments. Nick Clegg has to show the Liberal Democrats that he’s no push-over, that he’ll exact something from the Tories for the death of Lords reform. In the last few days the Clegg circle have been suggesting that not only will there be no boundary changes if there is no Lords reform but that the deputy Prime Minister also has fresh resolve to fight the green agenda’s corner in government. For his part, the Prime Minister is trying

Jonathan Jones

Briefing: HSBC, money laundering and Lord Green

What’s HSBC done wrong? Put simply, HSBC was not rigorous enough in preventing money laundering through its banks. Last week, the United States Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a damning report finding that HSBC had ‘exposed the US financial system to a wide array of money laundering, drug trafficking, and terrorist financing risks due to poor anti-money laundering controls’. In particular, the committee criticised the way HSBC treated its Mexican arm. HSBC Mexico, the report says ‘operated in Mexico, a country under siege from drug crime, violence and money laundering; it had high risk clients, such as Mexican casas de cambios [bureaux de change] and US money service businesses; and it offered high

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The caveats to nil Zil lane usage for ministers

How many ministers will be using the Zil – sorry, Games – Lanes during the Olympics? The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said this morning that the lanes would be used on a flexible basis, and that ministers would stick to public transport. ‘The approach is that where possible they will use public transport,’ he said, but he added that ‘operational or security reasons’ might mean ministers are forced to use the lanes. ‘Operational’ and ‘security’ offer a conveniently wide range of situations in which someone might have cause to hop in the ministerial car and zoom down a clear road,  including the tube being too rammed with tourists for a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron to meet Mitt

Downing Street confirmed today that the Prime Minister will meet US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Downing Street this week. It sounds like a sensible plan, given Romney is so close to Obama in the polls at present. But there’s just one tiny little problem. I have, in my shorthand notes from a lobby briefing on 5 March 2012, a quote from the Prime Minister’s official spokesman, which says the following: ‘As a general rule we do not meet candidates in foreign elections.’ Then the spokesman was talking about David Cameron’s failure to meet François Hollande, who was in Britain while campaigning against Nicolas Sarkozy for the French presidency.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The new rebel PPS

Tim Montgomerie has some excellent intelligence on ConHome this morning that Francis Maude is about to gain a new PPS. The Cabinet Office Minister’s former aide was Angie Bray, who was sacked after voting against the government at the second reading of the House of Lords Reform Bill. But Maude’s replacement PPS, Stuart Andrew, is also a rebel. He was one of the 81 who defied the three-line whip in the autumn to vote for a backbench motion calling for a referendum on Britain’s relationship with the European Union. As Tim points out on his blog, this is a sign that rebels might still have a hope of a job in the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The UK Border Agency’s Bermuda Triangle

Bringing the UK Border Agency to heel has been one of the mammoth tasks facing ministers since the coalition formed. Ministers have recently been rather keen to suggest that backlogs in claims and migrants disappearing without a trace were coming under control – Immigration Minister Damian Green said at the start of this month that ‘we have gripped it and dealt with’ the problem of people overstaying their visa, for instance. But lest senior staff at the UK Border Agency were starting to pat themselves on the back for a good job well done, the Home Affairs Select Committee has released a damning report this morning which says performance is

Sunday

The Spectator

Bookbenchers: Jamie Reed MP | 22 July 2012

Over at the Books Blog, the Labour MP and shadow health minister Jamie Reed has answered our questions about his summer reading. He is taking Joe Bageant’s Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir on his travels. It’s one of 4 non-fiction recommendations about US politics, supplemented by some Herman Melville, The Grapes of Wrath and a novel about Abraham Lincoln. It’s an American dominated list, but none the worse for that. You can read it here.

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Joining Harriet Harman’s feminist club

If feminism is ‘a creed of women’s solidarity’, do you pick and choose about which women you’re in solidarity with? In the case of Harriet Harman, the answer is, well obviously. If you’re a Tory you can’t really join in the creed. In an interview with Total Politics magazine she was incredulous at the notion that the Home Secretary, Theresa May describes herself as a feminist. ‘If you’re actually political, you can’t be a Conservative and a feminist,’ she said. So there you have it. But why? Because it’s ‘all about equality and fairness’. ‘Ultimately, delivering for women in this country – in equality, childcare, helping with the elderly, maternity

Matt Cavanagh

Troubled families policy deserves cross-party support

The report published this week by Louise Casey, the Government’s ‘Troubled Families’ Tsar, has attracted a fair amount of criticism, but what it does illustrate is the chaotic lives these families lead – and the implausibility of thinking that their problems can be solved by the kind of flagship social policies traditionally favoured by either Conservatives or Labour. As Isabel put it, Conservative ‘reform of the welfare system will pass many of the families by. In these stories there is no calculated decision to opt out of the labour market because of generous benefits, more an endless failure to cope with life and the way it has worked out’. Likewise,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The secret seven

David Cameron’s decision to convene an inner Cabinet of seven Tories to advise him is a sensible move. As I say in the Mail on Sunday, calling this group together shows that Cameron knows he needs help handling his party. I understand that it meets regularly with a particular emphasis on the Conservative party side of coalition management. One Cabinet minister told me recently that the Prime Minister spends more time on coalition management than any other subject. To date, this has too often been at the expense of party management. Inevitably, if you spend most of the time thinking about what the Liberal Democrats will accept you begin to

David Blackburn

Osborne’s grim morning

‘Unfortunately, it’s not enough.’ That is, broadly, the conclusion of John Longworth, the director of the British Chamber of Commerce, who has penned a visceral critique of the government’s economic policy in the Observer. Nothing, it seems, is sufficient: half-hearted infrastructure investment, non-existent aviation policy, lethargic borrowing to business, and regulatory reform that leaves businesses ‘mired in a thicket of red tape’. Longworth laments economic policy being determined by ‘political short-termism, electoral calculation and presentation’. This swipe at George Osborne adds to the sense that professional and international bodies are turning on the chancellor, after the IMF’s warning last week (rather callous of it, considering that Osborne has been following

Saturday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 21 July 2012

Having asked around, I can fairly confidently report that the government’s efforts to push ahead with some even slightly elected House of Lords will not work. The rebels are quite rightly holding their ground. Only if the Labour party comes to the government’s rescue can the plans get through, and why should it? People are coalescing, however, round a collection of reforms not involving elections which they see as modest and sensible. Perhaps that is good politics, but I would argue that a wholly unenlightened position is preferable. If you look at these changes — reducing the numbers, getting rid of the hereditaries, formalising systems of appointment, kicking out peers

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cable on the move

Vince Cable’s decision to speculate publicly about a post Nick Clegg leadership race is a significant moment. To be sure, saying ‘I wouldn’t exclude it’ about running for the job is a long way from launching an actual challenge. But it is not the answer that a politician gives if they want to stop all speculation. There’s long been gossip at Westminster that Cable’s interest in the leadership has revived — and this interview appears to confirm that. It is worth remembering that Cable only didn’t run last time because he thought that the party wouldn’t pick another veteran as leader after the Ming Campbell disaster. So, there’s unfulfilled ambition

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

No, honestly, I want to know: why haven’t the Lib Dems quit

Why would you be a Lib Dem? That’s a rhetorical question, obviously, because I think we all know that the bulk of well-meaning, ineffectual perverts actually read the New Statesman. But still, imagine you were one. What’s it all for? And, more to the point, why are you still in government? I keep asking this question of people cleverer than me, and they keep chuckling, as though I’m making a gag. But I’m serious. Why are the coalition’s junior partners still in there? Even the numbers of people prepared to have weird sex with them must be dropping on a daily basis. Why do they keep turning up for work?

Friday

Andrew Neil

Sir Alastair Burnet, 1928-2012

It is with much sadness and regret that I have been asked by family and friends to announce the death of Sir Alastair Burnet. He passed away peacefully in the middle of the night at the Beatrice Place Nursing Home in Kensington, where he was being cared for after suffering several strokes. He was 84. Alastair was one of the greatest journalists of his generation, as much at home in print (he edited The Economist and the Daily Express) as TV news and current affairs, where he was a legendary figure as Britain’s premier newscaster and anchorman. He played a pivotal role in the rise of ITN as Political Editor,

Steerpike Steerpike

No red for Ed

If the new Labour HQ was meant to reflect a reinvigorated party then the blank white walls made for an obvious joke. With hacks and hackettes assembling for Ed Miliband’s summer drinks Labour command and control was going strong – red wine was banned, lest some spill it on the pristine new grey carpet. Expertly manoeuvred around the room by his spinners ex-Mirror man Bob Roberts and part-time standup comic Ayesha Hazarika, Ed looked like a man who knows he’s had a good few months. He’s got a long way to go to achieve the potential PM aura though. Sneaking out at the end unaccompanied does not really fit the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Hunt praises G4S

Jeremy Hunt has given an interview to House magazine this week which is well worth a read, not least because he deals rather graciously with the failure of his Liberal Democrat colleagues to support him when his back was against the wall over Murdoch. Even though Lib Dem ministers and MPs abstained on a vote calling for him to be referred to the independent adviser on ministers’ interests over his contact with News Corp during its takeover bid of BSkyB, the Culture Secretary says: ‘I never interpreted it as a personal thing. I think the Lib Dems wanted to make a political point that as a party that hadn’t been in power

Thursday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

When should George Osborne switch to Plan B?

Announcements from the International Monetary Fund are worded in such a way that everyone reading them comes away with something slightly different. So shortly after today’s report on the UK economy was released, Ed Balls put out a statement saying the report was a ‘very serious warning to the Chancellor that urgent action to boost jobs and growth is needed’. He concluded his press release by asking ‘how much worse do things have to get before the Chancellor finally changes course?’. Now, today’s report from the IMF is not cheery reading for George Osborne. It passes this bleak judgement on the economy: ‘Recovery has stalled. Post-crisis repair and rebalancing of the UK

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron’s odd behaviour over Europe

Europe, as everybody knows, is one of those issues on which a Tory leader needs to pay particular attention to the words he uses. This makes David Cameron’s behaviour in recent weeks all the odder. First, we had that Brussels press conference in which Cameron sounded rather too enthusiastic about the EU for his own side’s tastes. This was followed by his Sunday Telegraph piece in which he stressed that ‘the two words “Europe” and “referendum” can go together’ for him. Now, those close to Cameron complain that the two positions were perfectly compatible and that in the first instance he was quoted selectively. But given the importance that it is attached