Politics Archives

Tuesday

15 May 2012

Tim Morgan

How Britain is using spin to con the bond markets

Austerity, austerity, austerity. The A-word is cropping up everywhere at the moment, whether in France or Greece or Germany. And the UK isn’t immune from it either. If there is anything on which Britain’s political factions agree, it is the reality of fiscal austerity. Whether it’s Ed Balls banging on about ‘too far and too fast’, or the coalition saying that their programme of painful austerity is essential if the UK is to defend its triple-A ‘safe haven’ status, this is something on which our political class has reached consensus. But, as we at Tullett Prebon argued in a briefing paper yesterday (available here as a pdf), the tale

James Forsyth

Brooks charges mean more trouble for Cameron

The news that Rebekah Brooks and Charlie Brooks have been charged with perverting the course of justice means that there’ll be at least one trial involving friends of the Prime Minister before the next election. In cynical political terms, that Charlie has been charged as well as Rebekah creates an additional political problem for David Cameron. Part of Cameron’s explanation for how close he got to Rebekah Brooks has always been that she married an old school friend of his. Undoubtedly, the Charlie Brooks connection added a genuine layer of friendship to relations between Rebekah Brooks and Cameron. I suspect that if it was not for Charlie Brooks there would

Monday

14 May 2012

James Forsyth

The battle for the ’22

Elections to the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers have always been a test of the relative strengths of the right and left of the party. But this year, the split is between those who are backing the broadly pro-leadership 301 Group slate and those who view the ’22 as more of an alternative voice. The contest has become particularly heated after last week’s fiery meeting of the ’22 Committee. Intriguingly, Stewart Jackson, who was barracked when he tried to defend Nadine Dorries for her ‘posh boys’ attack on Cameron and Osborne, is standing for the executive. Given what he wrote on Sunday and that he resigned as a PPS over

Jonathan Jones

Clegg goes mobile

Just as David Cameron is trying to move on from a tough few weeks by returning to themes that worked for him earlier in his leadership, Nick Clegg is also focusing on familiar territory. He’s given a speech this morning on the pupil premium — which he made a key component of his Lib Dem leadership bid back in 2007. And today’s speech marks the start of a two-week push on a key Clegg concern: social mobility. It’s not as if Clegg’s been silent on the topic recently, but this is the first time it’s been at the top of his agenda since he launched the government’s social mobility strategy

James Forsyth

Boris keeps on charming his party

Not since Michael Heseltine has there been a politician who is so adept at finding the g-spot of the Tory faithful as Boris Johnson. His column today in the Telegraph is a classic example of this. There’s some witty and perceptive BBC bashing, mockery of the Lib Dems and their priorities, and a demand that the Tories get what they need out of the coalition. His line ‘If we are really going ahead with Lords reform (why?)’ sums up Tory feelings on the subject far better than more earnest tracts have done. ConservativeHome is certainly impressed, saying that the Mayor of London is ‘real and raw in an age when

Sunday

13 May 2012

Sebastian Payne

Pickles struggles for an answer on growth

The government is desperate for economic growth but where can it find it? This was the question posed to Eric Pickles on the Sunday Politics today, but sadly he was unable to provide much of an answer. The Communities and Local Government secretary gave a blustering interview, where he reaffirmed William Hague’s view that ‘growth will come from government creating conditions for us to work a little bit harder.’ But when pushed by Andrew Neil on what this (slightly condescending) idea actually means, Pickles jumped on the chance to blame Labour for the ‘something for nothing culture’. Pickles did add that the government’s chosen sources of prosperity are business investment

Peter Hoskin

Hammond speaks out

Generally speaking, Philip Hammond is one of the Cabinet’s quieter members; a sort of human calculator designed to run a department efficiently and with the minimum of fuss. Which is why his interview with the Sunday Times this morning (£) is so eye-catching. There’s very little that’s understated about it at all. ConservativeHome’s Matthew Barrett has already put together a useful summary of the main points, so suffice to say that Hammond is dismissive about both Lords reform… ‘He believes the upper chamber “works rather well” as it is and that voters are “probably largely indifferent” on the subject.’ …and gay marriage: ‘He believes gay marriage is too controversial for

Saturday

12 May 2012

The Spectator

Barometer | 12 May 2012

Before the Golden Dawn A neo-Nazi party called the Golden Dawn won 7 per cent of the vote in the Greek elections. The party denies being inspired by the Nazis, even though its flag bears a resemblance to the Swastika. Its name, however, may be inspired by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an occultist society founded by William Wynn Westcott, a coroner from Leamington Spa. — The society was founded upon rituals and teachings which Westcott claimed to have obtained by deciphering letters from Anne Sprengel, an imaginary illegitimate child of Ludwig I of Bavaria. In 1888 the society opened a temple in London, followed by others in

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 12 May 2012

If you want proof that we have not got over our banking crisis, you need look no further than the reaction to Mervyn King’s Today programme lecture last week. Almost all of it reflected — although it did not, of course, directly express — the rage of bankers at the Governor’s criticisms. ‘Already we see vested interests rise up to defend their bonuses and profits,’ said Sir Mervyn. They still find plenty of allies in the media to do so. Comment focused on how King’s own mea culpa had not been big enough. But the most important, virtually unreported point his lecture made was that none of the problems which

Sebastian Payne

Friends in north?

For the Tories to have any hope of winning a majority, they have to face up to reclaiming seats in the North, but can they do so under Cameron? David Skelton from Policy Exchange suggests not in an interview with the Northern Echo today, where he outlines the ‘Cameron problem’: ‘You can’t get away from the fact that the Tory party looks pretty public school, pretty Southern and quite gilded. The fact is that the Tories can’t win an election if they can’t appeal to aspirational working-class voters in the North and the Midlands…If the Tories can’t find a way to get across the fact that voting Tory has become countercultural in

James Forsyth

Politics: Why a European referendum is now almost certain

The Romford Pledge might not have the same ring to it as the Tamworth Manifesto. But Boris Johnson’s decision while campaigning last month to sign up to the campaign for an in/out referendum on EU membership could be a key moment in the history of the Conservative party — the moment when the party’s balance of power tipped decisively in favour of a referendum. As with so many of Boris’s actions, it is hard to know whether his pledge was spontaneous or a calculated move. Certainly, the Mayor hesitated before signing. Then, according to those present, the seat’s Eurosceptic Tory MP, Andrew Rosindell, told him it wasn’t party policy to

Rod Liddle

What really makes the Tories toxic

So, who is to blame for the Conservative party’s supposedly appalling showing in last week’s council elections? The party leaders seem to have concluded that the loss of Birmingham and Southampton councils and more than 400 councillors nationwide is somehow down to the poofs, and their incessant clamouring to be allowed to marry one another. Perhaps the party sources who suggested, the morning after the elections, that out of contrition the government would ‘backtrack’ on the commitment to legalise gay marriage are right; it was this commitment which, through some complex psychological process, possibly rooted in Freud, turned the voters against the government. Their personal financial worries and more general

Emily Rhodes

Brideshead re-elected

David Cameron and George Osborne have been repeatedly accused by a fellow Conservative of being ‘posh boys who don’t know the price of milk’; ‘arrogant posh boys’, moreover, ‘who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others’. This, say some, is why their party did so badly in last week’s elections. Perhaps this pair of Oxford toffs should learn a lesson from the quintessential Oxford toff, Brideshead Revisited’s Sebastian Flyte. He would never dream of buying a pint of milk from the corner shop; his milk would be poured for him, from a jug, at teatime. Sebastian is certainly arrogant and far

Hugo Rifkind

Cameron is quite conservative enough, thank you

Find me a person who stopped voting Conservative last week because of David Cameron’s vague, half-arsed, lacklustre stance on gay marriage. Go on. I dare you. Or because of the even vaguer, totally-not-going-to-happen proposals to reform the House of Lords. I’ll settle for one of them instead. Just one, and then I’ll shut up and leave you alone. Anyone? Anyone? Oh, look, there’s probably one. Maybe there are even as many as eight. And I don’t really want to meet them. They’re representative of nothing. ‘But the Ukip vote soared!’ I hear you cry. ‘Their share of the vote is five points higher than a year ago!’ Yes, indeed. But

Friday

11 May 2012

The Spectator

From the archives: the coalition is born

It is two years to the day since David Cameron first entered 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister. To mark the occasion, here’s James Forsyth’s cover story from the time on the deal that put him there: Can this marriage of convenience work?, James Forsyth, 15 May 2010 ‘It is not the prize. It is a means to the prize.’ This is how one long-time political ally of David Cameron described the Tory leader’s entrance into Downing Street at the head of a coalition government. The deal with the Liberal Democrats which has put Cameron in Downing Street is, as this Cameron ally admits, ‘an arranged marriage not a love

The Spectator

The week that was | 11 May 2012

Here is a selection of articles and discussions from this week on Spectator.co.uk… Fraser Nelson looks at what Hollande’s win means for Cameron, questions Nick Clegg’s economic competence and examines Cameron’s gay marriage folly. James Forsyth says the Tories are shaping up for an EU referndum, reports the first blood on Lord’s reform and thinks Andy Coulson easily handled his Leveson appearance. Peter Hoskin asks if the Milibands have Hollande fever, thinks Cameron was reassuring backbenchers in the Queen’s Speech and asks if Hollande and Merkel can meet in the middle. Jonathan Jones reports on Michael Gove’s attempt to take on private schools and trade unions and looks as the Greek tragedy rolls on.

James Forsyth

Embarrassment for Cameron, trouble for Hunt

Rebekah Brooks’s testimony at Leveson was embarrassing for the Prime Minister — but no worse than that. I suspect that tomorrow’s papers will have much fun with the fact that Cameron used to end his texts to her with the letters ‘LOL’ in the mistaken belief that it meant ‘lots of love’. But, as one friend of the PM’s pointed out to me, No.10 would have definitely settled for that being the headline story this morning. Jeremy Hunt, though, again finds himself in some difficulty thanks to a Fred Michel email which indicates that the Culture Secretary was seeking News Corps’ guidance on how to deal with hacking. As with

Jonathan Jones

Get set for more Greek elections

A second Greek election is looking more and more likely, with party leaders unable to form a coalition. I reported on Tuesday that Antonis Samaras — leader of the largest party, New Democracy — had admitted that he couldn’t put together a government and had passed on the mandate to Alexis Tsipras, leader of Syriza. Well, Tsipras also failed to build a coalition, as he couldn’t convince ND and centre-left Pasok to turn against their austerity plan, and so the baton has been passed to Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos. His hope was to convince Democratic Left — which holds 19 parliamentary seats — to join his and Samaras’s parties in

Alex Massie

An Epidemic of Not Scoring

Watching Andy Coulson answer the Leveson inquiry’s questions with a dead bat yesterday, the likes of Robert Shrimsley and Tim Montgomerie tweeted that viewing Coulson testify was akin to watching Chris Tavaré bat. Those of you who remember Tavaré will appreciate that this was not meant altogether kindly. This will not do. I concede that as a child no cricketer infuriated me more than Tavaré. He seemed to me, then, to be some kind of anti-cricketer, forever forgetting that scoring runs – preferably with style – was a batsman’s chief objective. I fear I disliked poor Tavaré as keenly as ever any gum-chewing Australian did. There was, after all, so

Jonathan Jones

The coalition: two years in

As the coalition celebrates its second birthday, it seems as good a time as any to take a look at how it’s doing in the eyes of the public. First, here’s how the government’s approval rating — as measured by YouGov — has changed since its formation: As you can see, the coalition took office with reasonably good ratings, but the first ten months or so — which included the Comprehensive Spending Review and the tuition fees vote — saw public opinion turn against it. For the rest of 2011, the ratings stayed fairly flat, with the government neither regaining ground with the public nor losing any more — and