Politics

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

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Regulators on the rack over phone hacking

The latest, hideous developments in the phone hacking scandal are emblazoned across all this morning’s papers — all, that is, expect the tabloids. And our political leadership is putting voice to its concerns, too. Only this morning, David Cameron said of the allegations surrounding the News of the World that, “If they are true, this is a truly dreadful act and a truly dreadful situation.” And Ed Miliband has since given an atypically firm and assertive interview, calling on Rebekah Brooks to “consider her conscience and consider her position.” Perhaps he was stung by Tom Watson’s criticism, last night, that all three party leaders have “let the Dowler family down”

Alex Massie Alex Massie

In Praise of Dan Hodges

It is important to praise Dan Hodges. He should be nurtured and honoured and bathed with tender affection by the right. Hug him close my friends, otherwise there’s a risk the left might start to listen to him. Since they would be wise to do so he should be cultivated by Tories so much the better to discredit his perfectly sensible analysis of Labour’s troubles. His latest post for Labour Uncut is a splendid thing indeed. Tearing in to Blue Labour, Purple Labour and all the rest* of it he concludes: But where in God’s name are the politicians? Where, more to the point, is the leader of the Labour

Monday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Barroso’s EU confidence trick

Say what you like about Jose Manuel Barroso, he’s a wily old card. The European Commission president makes public demands for Britain to surrender its rebate in European Union membership fees. The government refuses. Then, hey presto! Headlines suggesting that Brussels has been seen off. “Brussels bribe to buy off UK rebate,” says the Daily Mail. “Britain’s rebate is fully justified and we are not going to give way on it,” a Treasury spokesman tells the media. The quotation is true, Barroso did indeed offer £23 billion to tweak the UK funding formula, and a short-termist like Gordon Brown might have accepted. But the battle for Britain’s EU spending was

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Personality and politics

One of the things about the press that politicians frequently complain about is that papers concentrate more on personalities than policies. But reading the latest extracts from Alastair Campbell’s diaries you see just how much personality matters. Indeed, according to Campbell, Tony Blair excluded Gordon Brown from a discussion about what to do after 9/11 not because of any difference about how to respond but because he had become fed up with how difficult Brown was to deal with on a personal level. Now, there are nowhere near the personal tensions at the top of this government that there were in the last one. But because politicians are humans and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

To see whether the coalition will last, watch how the Lib Dems respond to Dilnot

The approach that the Liberal Democrats take to social care over the next few weeks and months will be the best guide we have to how they now view the future of the coalition. If, in the coming all party talks, they effectively ally with Labour and try to score points off the Tories by suggesting that their coalition partners are ‘too mean’ to fund a solution to the problem then it will be apparent that they have moved fully into distancing mode and are preparing to position themselves as the party who restrained the Tories. This would imply a Lib Dem exit from the coalition sometime well before the

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 4 July 2011

…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Fraser Nelson considers Osborne’s voteless recovery. James Forsyth notes that Boris has turned against HS2, and says the times are changing in Europe. Peter Hoskin watches Yvette Cooper attack the coalition’s immigration policy from the right. David Blackburn reviews IDS’ great expectations, and reveals that the government is confident it can defeat Jose Manuel Barroso over the EU Budget. Daniel Korski interviews Andrew Mitchell. And Martin Bright reacts to the Johann Hari affair.

Sunday

Daniel Korski

Coffee House Interview: Andrew Mitchell

The government has stuck to its guns on overseas aid, promising to donate 0.7 per cent of our national income to other countries. In the Chancellor’s words, the government will not balance the books on backs of the world’s poorest people. In fact, as the criticism of the policy was at its highest the Prime Minster hosted a development summit in London and pledged £814m to help vaccinate children around the world against preventable diseases like pneumonia. On this issue, David Cameron does not seem for turning — however many letters he receives from the Defence Secretary.   But Liam Fox is not alone. A slew of recent polls show

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Osborne’s voteless recovery?

This is a strange old recovery. The News of the World has an interesting ICM poll today, showing that 66 per cent think the economy is getting worse. It’s not: GDP is growing and we have the second-highest job creation in the G7. Rather than losing jobs to China, we’re flogging Coventry-made Jaguars to Beijing billionaires (one of the random gems uncovered by our new Twitter feed @LocalInterest). So why is everyone so glum? And why do 52 per cent think that David Cameron and George Osborne are doing “a bad job” with the economy?   In theory, Osborne’s recovery is coming on well. His “cuts” agenda is simply a

Peter Hoskin

Cooper takes on the coalition from the right

What an intriguing interview Yvette Cooper gave to Sky’s Dermot Murnaghan show this morning — and not just because she was standing, ruffled and incongruous, in a field somewhere. I was live-tweeting proceedings here, and there was much to anticipate even before she appeared. On top of today’s stories about housing benefit, social care and immigration, the shadow home secretary would also have to deal with the comments made by Lord Goldsmith during the show’s newspaper review. “It’s not clear what Ed Miliband stands for,” said Goldsmith, to cheers from the Tory press team. “I don’t think the rifts in the party have been healed.” But, in the end, it

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Europe, the times they are a-changin’

Before writing my column for The Spectator this week I asked one of the most clued-up Eurosceptics on the centre right what opt-outs Britain should push for in any negotiation over an EU treaty change. His answer, to my surprise, was “forget that, we should just leave”. This answer took me aback because this person had been the embodiment of the view that the European Union could be reformed from within. But people are dropping this view at a rapid rate for reasons that Matthew Parris explained with his typical eloquence in The Times (£) yesterday. I wrote in The Spectator this week that two Cabinet ministers now favour leaving

Saturday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris comes out against high-speed rail

The news, via a leaked letter, that Boris Johnson now opposes high-speed rail will come as little surprise to the government. Boris has been moving to this position for quite some time and the Department for Transport resigned itself to the mayor coming out against the scheme earlier this week. Recently, one of Boris’ senior aides visited the Department for Transport and said that the mayor would only support the scheme if there was an additional tube line from Euston as part of it. But when the Department for Transport pushed for details of where this line would go to, and how it would be engineered it became apparent that

David Blackburn

Britain’s ill-defined counter-terror strategy exposed by America’s clarity

In a post over at the Staggers, defence and security expert Matt Cavanagh has compared and contrasted Barack Obama’s review of US counter-terrorism policy and the coalition’s recent update of the Prevent strategy, together with David Cameron’s professed ‘muscular liberalism’. Here are his insights: ‘The new (American) strategy contains a fairly detailed discussion of the Arab Spring, arguing for applying “targeted force on Al Qaida at a time when its ideology is under extreme pressure” from events in North Africa and the Middle East. By contrast, Britain’s revised Prevent strategy published three weeks ago, mentions these events only once – in a footnote, saying with characteristic bureaucratic obtuseness that it’s

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Politics: ‘Best in Europe’ is no longer good enough

If there’s one phrase that infuriates Tory radicals more than any other, it’s ‘We’re the best in Europe at …’. If there’s one phrase that infuriates Tory radicals more than any other, it’s ‘We’re the best in Europe at …’. The words are used among the bureaucratic establishment as an excuse for accepting the status quo. The logic is that as long as Britain is the best in Europe, then all is well. But this is emphatically not the case. Europe is a continent in decline. According to work by the Prime Minister’s own office, it is probable that Europe will go from having four of the ten largest economies

Simon Hoggart

Kings and jokers

Last year I was having a thoughtful glass of champagne with the Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell at the Spectator party during the Tory conference. We were suddenly interrupted by the Prime Minister, who greeted us warmly — ‘Hello Simon, hello Steve’ — because he’s a first-name kind of guy. Or possibly an aide had reminded him of our names. It very soon became clear that what he wanted to talk about was the way that Steve always draws him with a condom over his head. Steve explained courteously that this was because he seemed to have incredibly smooth skin. At first he had thought of clingfilm, but a condom seemed

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Miliband’s Viral Moment: Fame At Last!

Nice to see that American political bloggers, including Adam Sorensen and Kevin Drum, have picked up on Ed Miliband’s absurd robot-interview. I think this must be just about the first time he’s made any kind of impression beyond this sceptered isle. So he’s got that going for him. Meanwhile, Duncan Stephen wins the day with his Ed Miliband Random Statement Generator. Here’s a 20-second car-crash: Finally, here’s Damon Green’s account of the interview. If Ed Miliband ever becomes Prime Minister, well, I’ll eat my hat join the Labour party.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Treasury notes reveal Osborne’s position on euro bailouts

There has been much talk about what George Osborne told Alistair Darling about the EU bailout mechanism during those days in May between the election and the coalition being formed. But notes of a conversation between Osborne and Darling released today show that Osborne did urge Darling not to commit to anything that would have a lasting effect on the public finances. Osborne also suggested that the UK government might abstain due to the fact that the country was between governments. To which Darling’s reply was that the Cabinet Secretary’s advice was that the government was the government until a new one actually took office. It remains to be seen

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A good day to bury boring news

When a Labour press release landed in my inbox saying, ‘Ministers must come clean over attempt to bury bad news on strike day,’ I was expecting quite a story. But the reality of it turns out to be rather underwhelming. Labour’s accusation centers round a shift in direction on charging points for electric cars, not exactly a subject that I would expect to keep the government’s communications director Craig Oliver up at night. Ironically, the Department of Transport did publish a press release on the story yesterday and it even attempted to set up a newspaper interview to trail the announcement but this effort failed as the story wasn’t deemed

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Small Election in Inverclyde; Not Many Bothered

Sorry Pete, but I don’t think there’s anything hugely ambiguous about the result from the Inverclyde by-election. This was a pretty solid victory for Labour and another reminder – if these things are needed – that Westminster and Holyrood elections are played by different rules. Labour and the SNP ran neck-and-neck in the gibberish spin stakes last night as some Labour hackettes, preposterously, tried to claim that the seat “was the SNP’s to lose”; for their part the nationalists tried to suggest they’d never been very interested in winning Inverclyde at all. More weapons-grade piffle. Then again, without this stuff how would anyone fill the weary hours of television before