Politics

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

Saturday

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Will Ireland follow Greece into the abyss? Never mind the markets, watch the rugby

Martin Vander Weyer’s Any other business In the spirit of Richard Ingrams, who as our television critic many years ago reviewed a programme he had not seen but had heard through a hotel-room wall, I felt moved to write about Ireland on the strength of perusing a discarded copy of the Irish Times at a petrol station en route to Manchester for a day at the Tory conference. That tells you how dull I find party conferences, but there are also lessons to be drawn for the UK from the experience of a neighbouring economy whose crisis is both more profound and chronologically more advanced than our own. It is

Friday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Chris Huhne makes a Tweet of himself

Chris Huhne has fallen into the Twitter direct message trap. I’ve done it myself.* When you think you’re privately messaging someone then — horror! — it is broadcast to the world. In his case “From someone else fine but I do not want my fingerprints on the story C'” He deleted the tweet but — sorry, Chris! — that doesn’t work on Twitter either because you can be retweeted. What’s he up to? As a former Sunday newspaper journalist I have a fair idea. It’s Friday night, 6pm — witching hour for MPs briefing a Sunday hack, with the intention of damaging a colleague or the government. “From someone else,

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Lessons in How Politics Works: Chris Huhne Edition

Presumably Chris Huhne didn’t send this Tweet either? Clearly this was supposed to be a private message text message sent to some lobby hack, presumably with Huhne complaining about George Osborne or something like that. It’s getting to the stage where it’s more embarrassing – that is pitifully humiliating – to keep Huhne hanging around in the cabinet than it would be to send him off into the wilderness of the Lib Dem backbenches.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Yesterday’s Men for Tomorrow’s Woman

If Murdo Fraser can boast that a bare majority of his colleagues are backing his leadership campaign, Ruth Davidson enjoys the support of many of the party grandees. Indeed with the likes of Michael Ancram and Lords Forsyth and Sanderson in her corner it’s tempting to suggest her campaign amounts to Yesterday’s Men for Tomorrow’s Woman. The best thing Ruth – whom I’ve known for many years – has done in this campaign is pledge to support cutting income tax. Not because there’s any prospect the Tories will be able to deliver this any time soon but because it sends an overdue signal about what the party believes in. It

The Spectator

The week that was | 7 October 2011

A selection of posts from the past seven days at spectator.co.uk Fraser Nelson explains Cameron’s debt U-turn and says that party conferences are now more for lobbyists than activists. James Forsyth says the Tories knew the importance of Boris’ speech and that Cameron did enough in his. Peter Hoskin says Gove’s school reforms provided the sunshine in Manchester Jonathan Jones says Ken Clarke won his bet against Theresa May, and reports on the big developments in the US presidential campaign. David Blackburn reports on “catgate”, and the deeper Tory split on human rights. Ed Howker declares the Winter Fuel Allowance indefensible. And Will Straw gives his view on Tory conference.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brendan Barber’s champagne habit, and other stories

The Tory conference was so forgettable that it’s hard now to remember it took place earlier in the week. But, for what it’s worth, here are my conclusions from the whole conference season: 1. The search for Osborne’s growth strategy has been called off. This ‘leadership’ theme was short for ‘leadership in the crisis, which we’ve now decided is inevitable’. Printing £75 billion will be  prelude to printing £400 billion, the inflation tax is back. Osborne perhaps thinks this new magic gold will bring economic recovery. So did the Emperor in Faust, when the devil suggested that printing money would avert fiscal crisis. This scheme ended in tears in Goethe’s

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Murdo Fraser’s Eightsome Reel

With one notable exception most of the Tory “establishment” appears to be backing Ruth Davidson in the Scottish Conservative leadership election. That exception is David McLetchie. The former leader has announced he is endorsing Murdo Fraser. But, as befits an Edinburgh lawyer, McLetchie’s support is not perhaps quite as forthright as Fraser would like. Although he praises Murdo’s “ability, experience and vision” he adds: “So far this campaign has been dominated by discussion of Murdo’s proposal to realign the centre right in Scottish politics in a new party of which the present Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party would be an integral part. Indeed it would be an essential and necessary

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband tries to re-energise the Opposition

The Labour reshuffle is an attempt to bring more energy and aggression into Ed Miliband’s top team. It is also a recognition that the party has failed to cut through on public service reform, hence new shadows at both health and education. Chuka Umunna’s rapid promotion to shadow Business Secretary will, I suspect, dominate coverage of the reshuffle. Having been an MP for less than 18 months, Umunna now finds himself up against Vince Cable. If he succeeds in this role, he’ll rapidly become the leader in waiting. But there’s also a danger that it might all be too much, too soon for him. Umunna is one of five new

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Fox under pressure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTOskAPgL9c The Westminster Fox-hounds think they have picked up the scent this morning. Enemies of the Defence Secretary, of whom there are many, are convinced that they’ll be able to bring him to ground over his links to Adam Werrity. Werrity was Fox’s best man and is a good friend of the Defence Secretary. But the problems stem from the fact that Werrity, who holds no official position, was dishing out cards saying he was an “adviser” to Fox, arranging meetings for him and attending diplomatically important events with the Defence Secretary. Fox has tried to kill off this story by asking the permanent secretary to investigate whether he has

James Plunkett

Tories dodge a bullet on childcare

In the past year the government has proven good at cauterising self-inflicted wounds. This morning’s announcement from Iain Duncan Smith on childcare stems another potential bleeder. His department have found an extra £300 million to prevent further cuts to childcare support. It’s a welcome reversal of an ill-advised plan and a narrowly averted political foul-up. The extra money is needed because of IDS’s big welfare reform project, the Universal Credit. One of the big advantages of the UC is that it will smooth out all those ugly ‘cliff-edges’ in the benefit system, particularly rules that say you don’t get help if you work fewer than 16 hours a week. In the

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Healey and Denham depart the shadow Cabinet

John Healey and John Denham have resigned from the shadow Cabinet ahead of Ed Miliband’s reshuffle. Healey is, officially, departing for family reasons. But I doubt that many of those closest to Miliband will particularly mind his departure. I expect that Miliband may also take this chance to move Andy Burnham, who knows the health brief from his time in government and is an effective if one dimensional media performer, from education into the health brief. These two resignations free up a couple of the big shadow Cabinet jobs as Miliband prepares to shuffle his pack. It is almost certain that the Labour leader, who has just won himself complete

Ed Howker

The Winter Fuel Allowance is indefensible

Freed from the shackles of elected office, Steve Norris remains an electrifying speaker. He is also refreshingly honest. So, when I met the 66-year-old former mayoral candidate at a Tory conference fringe on the future of London, he was only too happy to admit how spent his Winter Fuel Allowance: “I’m amazed by the Chancellor’s annual gift. I spend it on Claret,” he said. In fact, he said that when paid to the wealthy, the allowance is “a complete waste of money” and “a bribe to older voters”. I mention this only because the Allowance was referred to again in a different context this week: during David Cameron’s own address.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Where Do Asylum Seekers Come From?

A useful chart of the “Top Ten” nationalities of asylum applicants to the UK in 2010: I suppose one mildly happy consequence of the fuss over immigration from eastern europe (and elsewhere) is that there is less talk than there used to be about Britain being “flooded” by “bogus” asylum seekers. Doubtless there remain some claims that could be thought questionable but one need not be blessed with too much imagination to accept that there might be excellent reasons for fleeing Iran or Zimbabwe or China or Sudan or any of the other countries on this list. Soft-touch Britain? That’s not something supported by these numbers. [Hat-tip: Matt Cavanagh]

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Cabinet cat-flap continues

The Ken Clarke and Theresa May cat-flap has sparked up again this morning, with the Justice Secretary accusing the Home Secretary of using “laughable child-like examples” to attack the Human Right Act. In some ways, it’s hard to take a political row about a cat particularly seriously. But this back and forth between May and Clarke is actually exposing something very important: the Liberal Democrats are not the only brake on Tory radicalism. At the moment, lots of Tory ministers – up to and including the Prime Minister – like to imply that they’d be doing far more on Europe, immigration and the Human Rights Act if it wasn’t for

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Catflap Latest: Sack Theresa May!

Good god, #Catflap shows no sign of abating. And people are losing their minds over it. Poor old Tim Montgomerie is the latest fellow to see the rumpus as an excuse to get rid of Ken Clarke. Apparently a “Cabinet minister should never publicly attack a colleague” and so Ken must be sacked as soon as possible. Personally, I’d rather Cabinet Ministers ceased behaving like idiots and since May is the idiot in this case, if a head must roll it should be the Home Secretary’s. She started the Catflap after all and only in the topsy-turvy political land could Ken carry the can for telling the truth while May

Will Straw

Another voice: Five lessons from Conservative party conference

Here’s the latest in our Another Voice series of posts, which give prominence to viewpoints outside the normal Coffee House fold. This time it’s the IPPR’s Associate Director, Will Straw, with his five-point take on the fringe events of Tory conference, and the lessons that might be learned from them: 1. The Tories know that winning a working majority in 2015 is no easy task. The most popular fringe event according to Fringelist.com was ConservativeHome’s event on ‘How the Conservatives can win the next election.’ Reflecting his remarks from the panel, YouGov’s Stephan Shakespeare wrote yesterday that, “today’s electoral maths makes an overall a majority a mountain to climb”.  

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Cameron’s gay marriage gambit

An odd definition of what it is to be a Conservative from the Prime Minister in Manchester yesterday: “We’re consulting on legalising gay marriage. To anyone who has reservations, I say: Yes, it’s about equality, but it’s also about something else: commitment. Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us; that society is stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other. So I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative.” I suppose by the same token you could say you were a Conservative because you supported the union of a man and a goat, say, for exactly

David Blackburn

What did Fleet Street make of Cameron’s speech?

Not a lot is the short answer. Many commentators argue that the speech failed to match the gravity of this moment in time; that it was safe; that it was not prime ministerial. Steve Richards believes that Cameron was timid, choosing to reassure rather than challenge. He writes: ‘Yesterday in his address David Cameron did Ed Miliband an unlikely favour. He made Miliband’s seem deeper and substantial. The Labour leader’s address last week was poorly structured and delivered, yet compared with Cameron’s it had an argument and was at least an attempt to address the scale of tumultuous change sweeping across Britain. In contrast Cameron’s speech was a giddying guided tour

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Live Aid Tories

If one hype video was weird, the other shown to delegates in Manchester this afternoon (but designed to be seen on blogs and Facebook and so on) was good politics in the service of a good cause. Or, if you really must, vice versa. As Matt d’Ancona tweeted, the Cameroons aren’t just Maggie’s children, they’re  Live Aid kids as well…

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Tory Party Conference, Inc.

The empty chairs for David Cameron’s speech said it all: the party conference is no longer a political event. This was my eleventh Tory conference, and, even in this short time, I’ve noticed a creeping corporate takeover.  The difference struck me yesterday, when I attended a packed fringe meeting in something called the ‘Freedom Zone’. It was set up to discuss banned topics: how to cut taxes, the case for a referendum on EU membership, etc. The crowd was younger, of a libertarian bent — all activists and enthusiasts of some kind, a refreshing change from the sanitised and often lifeless feel of the rest of the official conference. As