Politics

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

Saturday

The Spectator

Your nominations for The Spectator Threadneedle parliamentarian awards

A blue tide has washed over the latest nominations for The Spectator’s Readers’ Representative award. Last week, your votes were for parliamentarians from right across the political spectrum: Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, even the occasional Ukipper. This week, they are mostly for Conservatives. Perhaps this is a sympathy vote following Liam Fox’s resignation. Perhaps it is something to do with the phases of the moon. We cannot be certain. The Conservatives’ Philip Davies now faces competition from his party colleagues Nadine Dorries (of whom Libby Blaxall writes, ‘Nadine helps me to remember why politicians exist’) and Peter Bone (whose views, according to Ron Forrest, ‘coincide with those of the majority

Douglas Murray

Skeletons in the closet

Britain must publish the truth about Irish presidential candidate Martin McGuinness – before it’s too late Martin McGuinness is standing for the presidency of a cash-strapped Ireland. Soon after this paragraph is printed he may be among the world’s heads of state. If so he has promised to refuse the €250,000 salary and subsist on the minimum wage. It is ‘high time’, he has stated, that ‘those at the top shared the pain’. That McGuinness has had a lifelong interest in so doing is a point that should not need making. But, like his old colleague Gerry Adams, he is now trying to change history — not the future, but

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Politics | 22 October 2011

The government’s never-ending European problem In the hours after the coalition was formed last May, a minister and a group of Tory MPs sat around a table in a parliamentary cafeteria discussing what it all meant. One new MP said to the minister that it was a pity that, in the course of the talks, the Tories had agreed to ‘park Europe for the next five years’. The minister, high on the Panglossian spirit of the early days of the coalition, reassured her that this was for the best. The party could devote its full attention to Europe when the economic situation was less pressing. Yet almost 18 months on,

Friday

Martin Bright

How the Tories turned generous donors into sinister lobbyists

The Fox-Werritty story took an interesting turn this week with the news that Conservative Party treasurer Howard Leigh had been soliciting funds from wealthy Jewish donors. The Jewish Chronicle had the story first. It was then “revealed” by the Guardian a day later, although, to be fair, they did put some serious meat on the bones. The coverage of this story has been fascinating. It has been unedifying to watch the government scrabbling to blame sinister “lobbyists” for its predicament. Even now, the party is denying that it actively solicited cash from the three Jewish donors to Fox’s pet projects. The individuals involved, Poju Zabludowicz, Mick Davis and Michael Lewis

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Eustice: If the government won’t back my amendment, I’ll vote for the EU referendum motion

George Eustice’s comments just now that if the government doesn’t support his amendment  to the EU referendum motion, then he’s “minded” to vote for the original motion is a sign of how Downing Street is losing the parliamentary party on this issue at an alarming rate. Eustice having been press secretary to David Cameron is not an instinctive rebel nor can he be being accused of motivated by personal animus.   Equally telling is Eustice’s saying that he’s being pushed towards supporting the motion because “the government’s not going to deal with the party in a responsible way on this”. This is a sign of just how fed up normally

Clarissa Tan

The EU’s house of cards

What a weekend this is going to be. Or not. Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have said that EU leaders won’t be able to produce a bailout plan for the eurozone by Sunday, after their much anticipated weekend summit. Instead, they will only be able to come up with a plan after another summit on Wednesday.   The Sunday meeting, as some will recall, had already been delayed for exactly the same reason. The euro nations can’t agree — or, more precisely, the lynchpin nations of Germany and France can’t agree — on how to use the €440 billion bailout fund. They can’t see eye-to-eye on how much to boost

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron unmoved by the Eustice amendment

Sources in Number 10 tell me that the party leaderships feels it cannot support the Eustice amendment. They stress that it is not Conservative party policy. But I also detect a sense that there is no point even considering backing it as the Lib Dems would never accept renegotiation followed by a referendum being government policy. If Number 10 continues to be inflexible, it will have a sizable rebellion on its hands. Tory MPs — especially those who think they might have a reselection fight on their hands, and that’s a lot of them thanks to the boundary review — want something to take back to their constituencies. A hardening

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Amendment to EU referendum vote put down

Tonight, George Eustice, David Cameron’s former press secretary, and several other eurosceptic members of the 2010 intake have put down an amendment to the EU referendum motion that will be put on Monday. The amendment reads: “This House calls upon the government to publish a White Paper during the next session of Parliament setting out the powers and competences that the government would seek to repatriate from the EU, to commence the renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU, and to put the outcome of those negotiations to a national referendum.” As I said before, this renegotiate-referendum strategy is Cameron’s best chance of heading off a full-scale rebellion on Monday,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron needs an amendment – and fast

A third of Tory backbenchers have now signed the EU referendum motion. Worryingly for the whips, this isn’t the limit to this motion’s appeal. There are several Tories who plan to come out for it on Monday and one PPS, Stewart Jackson, has already made clear that he’s prepared to resign over the matter if necessary. Last night, Number 10 sources told me that they would be interested in a compromise amendment. But I think the Cameron operation will have to offer more than they were planning to. What’s needed to head off this rebellion is a commitment to renegotiation at the first available opportunity followed by a referendum on

Peter Hoskin

Cable can’t make any promises

Did you realise that today is the first anniversary of the government’s Spending Review? Neither did I until the politicians started making a fuss about it, starting with Vince Cable on the TV last night. We’ll post video footage of the Business Secretary’s performance when we can, but this write-up here just about covers it. He made a few earcatching remarks — among them that “we didn’t know that there would be a major crisis in our export markets and that energy prices would shoot up” — but one has captured the headlines more than any other. Asked whether he could promise that we wouldn’t experience a double-dip recession, Cable

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Cameron starts playing catch-up over the EU referendum vote

Adjust your calendars, CoffeeHousers. The parliamentary vote on an EU referendum is no longer set for next Thursday. As the Mail’s James Chapman revealed this evening, Downing Street has moved it forward to Monday so that David Cameron and William Hague can both attend. They would have been away on government business otherwise. What to make of this hasty measure? I suppose it could feasibly be seen as a scare tactic on the part of No.10: strengthening the current three line whip by making it very clear that Dave Is Watching You. But it’s far more likely that Cameron is appearing in order to set out the sorts of concessions

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The government’s never-ending European problem

We thought CoffeeHousers might appreciate an advanced viewing of James’ political column from tomorrow’s issue of The Spectator, so here it is: In the hours after the coalition was formed last May, a minister and a group of Tory MPs sat around a table in a parliamentary cafeteria discussing what it all meant. One new MP said to the minister that it was a pity that, in the course of the talks, the Tories had agreed to ‘park Europe for the next five years’. The minister, high on the Panglossian spirit of the early days of the coalition, reassured her that this was for the best. The party could devote

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Cameron outfoxed in PMQs

Alive or dead? At PMQs today we discovered whether Dr Fox is still an active toxin within Cameron’s government. Ed Miliband, using that special quiet voice he likes to try when he’s got a deadly question, described the affair as ‘deeply worrying’, and asked how on earth the prime minister could have let it all happen. Cameron, evidently relieved that Fox is already a stuffed and mounted exhibit in the Museum of Former Big Beasts, pointed out that his minister had resigned. ‘Not something that always happened under Labour.’  It turned very tetchy all of a sudden. Miliband, apparently miffed, struck out with this hoity-toity harangue. ‘Some advice for the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

What Cameron needs to do to avoid a rebellion over Europe

The backbench motion on an EU referendum has been cleverly crafted. Rather than just proposing a straight In/Out vote it includes a question on whether Britain ‘should renegotiate the terms of its membership in order to create a new relationship based on trade and cooperation.’ This has given the motion real reach into the Tory benches.   Number 10 needs to play catch-up on this issue, and fast. The whips yesterday were talking about limiting the rebellion to ‘30 to 40 MPs tops’. But 46 Tory MPs — including the chairman of the 1922 committee, Graham Brady — have already signed the motion.   It strikes me that there are

Tuesday

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

On not understanding Tories (3): Inflation

Being an occasional series in which the writer confesses that supporters of the British Conservative party leave him in a state of perpetual perplexity. Part one here and part two here.   In my political neighbourhood, the image of the Cameron is now set. He is the smiling assassin whose affable public image hides his ‘Thatcherite,’ ‘heartless,’ ‘Bullingdon Club,’ — fill in any other disobliging epithet you can think of — agenda. He is an extremist dressed up as a moderate; a phoney centrist, who is quietly destroying the welfare state. Whatever they wish to say about the rest of the coalition programme, on economic policy, my leftish colleagues have

Peter Hoskin

O’Donnell kicks Fox, but not too hard

It isn’t over. That’s the abiding impression after reading Gus O’Donnell’s report into the Liam Fox farrago. I mean, the outgoing Cabinet Secretary basically admits as much in the opening paragraph of the document: “more allegations about Dr Fox’s conduct have arisen,” it observes, “many of which will be the responsibility of others to answer, including the Electoral Commission which regulates political parties and their funding.” It goes on to clarify that, “This report looks into allegations relating to potential breaches of the Ministerial Code”. In other words, this investigation was specific, not far-reaching — and it shows. So what does O’Donnell actually conclude? As expected, he does kick Fox

Peter Hoskin

Gus O’Donnell reports — and Liam Fox responds

Gus O’Donnell’s report into Liam Fox, Adam Werritty and all that has finally been released. You can read all ten pages of it here. We shall have more on it shortly, but, for the time being, here’s Liam Fox’s statement in response: “I am pleased that the report makes clear that the two most serious allegations, namely of any financial gain sought, expected or received by myself and any breach of national security, have no basis. As I said in the House of Commons last week, I accept that it was a mistake to allow the distinctions between government and private roles to become blurred, and I must take my