Politics

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

Saturday

David Blackburn

Miliband: We can’t go on like this

It’s odd how political leaders often address their parties in the clichéd terms of soap operas’ most tortured romances. Ed Miliband pre-trailed speech to the Labour’s National Policy Forum in Wrexham is replete with protestations of having grown apart and the need to listen and be more open with each other. “We cannot continue as we are,” he implores. But there is some substance to Miliband’s rhetoric of reconnection. He has already announced his intention to appoint his own shadow cabinet, which caused some consternation among Labour’s more reactionary elements. In an interview with the Guardian, Miliband defends his decision on grounds that shadow ministers should not be “looking over

The Spectator

Advertisement Feature: Heart of the home

There’s nothing more appetising than a Sunday roast. There’s nothing more appetising than a Sunday roast. For the perfect taste, the meat must be sealed just right, trapping inside the flavoursome juices. Neff understands the passion for cooking required to make delicious food and has put that concept at the heart of its innovation for almost 40 years. And to this day, Neff is committed to helping cooks of all abilities rustle up the tastiest roasts in their very own kitchens. With high-performance ovens at the heart of its range, Neff prides itself on its pioneering CircoTherm® technology, a method of forced-air cooking, which has set the benchmark for all

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

What women want

The Tories are desperate to regain the female vote – but they have a very patronising idea of how to do it You’d never think it to look at them, but the Tory party used, for much of the 20th century, to be the natural party of women. That’s right: women are, contrary to what most feminists like to think, instinctive Tories, if you judge by the voting record since the advent of universal suffrage. Not in recent elections, admittedly, but in general. And women liked David Cameron — until about six months ago, when, judging by the figures, as a sex we started going off him. And that has

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Alexander technique

Brown’s former disciple is now trying, very gingerly, to reconcile Labour with Blairism Douglas Alexander is a politician who has risen without a trace. He is now shadow foreign secretary, the third most senior member of the shadow cabinet. He has spent his career in the service of bigger beasts, first Gordon Brown and then David Miliband, so few know who he is or what he stands for. Now, at age 43, he is determined to make himself heard. As he tells me when we meet in his Commons office, ‘One of the vanishingly few consolations of opposition is having a more public voice for what I believe and where I

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Could Warsi’s next job be High Commissioner to Pakistan?

Sayeeda Warsi’s upbraiding of Pakistan for not living up to Jinnah’s ideals is another sign of how the government believes Baroness Warsi to be uniquely able to speak to Britain’s most difficult ‘ally’. David Cameron and his circle were thoroughly impressed by how Warsi managed to cool tempers in Islamabad following the Prime Minister’s criticism of Pakistan, in of all places India, for facing both ways in the war on terror and have been using her since to speak to the country’s leadership. Given that the Tory high command does not believe Warsi to be suited to being an election-campaign party chairman or to running a department, this raises the

David Blackburn

Britain makes new senior diplomatic appointments

From the Number 10 website: The Prime Minister is pleased to confirm the following senior appointments: Sir Peter Ricketts, currently the Prime Minister’s National Security Advisor, to become HM Ambassador to France; Sir Jon Cunliffe, currently the Prime Minister’s Advisor on Europe and Global Issues, to become the UK’s Permanent Representative to the European Union in Brussels; Sir Kim Darroch, currently the UK’s Permanent Representative to the EU, to become the Prime Minister’s National Security Adviser; and Sir Peter Westmacott, currently HM Ambassador France, to become HM Ambassador to Washington. These changes will take effect from January 2012. These appointments were approved by the Prime Minister and for the appointment

Martin Bright

Why David Cameron should be bothered about unemployment

With the publication of the latest unemployment figures, the government allowed itself a little moment of smugness as the figures appeared to be going in the right direction. Coalition ministers claimed credit for this just days after they introduced the new Work Programme: a cheeky if understandable piece of political chicanery. But David Cameron cannot afford to be smug on this issue. I know there is serious concern about youth unemployment in government and a growing understanding that the new system will not address the needs of the under-25s. Losing a significant proportion of this generation to joblessness is not something this society can afford. Politically it may seem impossible

David Blackburn

Cameron: no more bailouts

It’s another of those special Cameron victories in Europe: we’re in for a second Greek bailout, but not quite as much as we might have been. Britain will contribute a sum through the IMF; however, it will not be contributing to EU funds. Cameron has succeeded in ensuring that the European bailout will be conducted under the permanent European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), to which only eurozone members are signatories. Although it should be noted that some Brussels experts doubt that the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism (to which Britain has subscribed) could have been used in this instance, which further devalues the government’s victory. Anyway, attention now turns to Greece

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband tries to strengthen his hand

Ed Miliband is to abolish shadow cabinet elections. Tony Blair, fearful of the reaction of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), shied away from doing this. But Miliband has decided that it is a necessary move to give him the freedom to craft his own top team and to strike against the old, factional Labour culture. Miliband has asked Tony Lloyd, chair of the PLP, to hold a secret ballot of Labour MPs on the change before parliament goes down for the summer. If they approve, it will then be passed to the NEC with the process ending with a vote at conference. Under Miliband’s proposed new arrangements, the PLP will be

Jonathan Jones

Poll round-up | 23 June 2011

We haven’t dwelt on the polls very much on Coffee House recently, although we have flagged up some nuggets on Twitter. Here are some of the measures of public opinion that provide an interesting backdrop to Westminster’s machinations: Labour in trouble despite poll leads Two weeks ago I reported on a poll that showed the extent of Ed Miliband’s unpopularity. There have since been a few more polls to compound his unease. ICM found that he had worse approval ratings even than Nick Clegg: YouGov find that 58 per cent of the public think he’s doing a bad job, but perhaps more worrying for “Red Ed” is that he even

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Abusing Winston

Whenever an American conservative uses Winston Churchill to make a cheap political point you can be sure there’s nincompoopery on the way. Hats off to Peter Kirsanow for this contribution to the file: In 1940, Churchill appeared before the House of Commons and described Britain’s goal in World War II: “I can answer in one word: victory; victory at all costs, victory despite all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.” This hyperbolic rube was too unsophisticated to appreciate that the goal doesn’t apply to overseas contigency [sic] operations or kinetic military actions.  I’m sure you too are persuaded by the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

In defence of the Oxbridge interview

Simon Hughes’ desire (£) to stop Oxbridge academics interviewing potential students is muddle headed as well as an attack on the right of these universities to run their own affairs. If the coalition wants universities to pick on academic potential rather than academic performance to date, then the interview is a crucial part of this process. Sitting down with an applicant gives academics a chance to assess how this student’s mind works, to ask questions that they haven’t been drilled for. It allows them to use their professional discretion in choosing to make, say, a lower offer to a pupil from an underperforming school who in the interview demonstrates that

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How the Tories intend to keep Westminster talking Balls

When Ed Balls is around, there are no shortages of stories. Balls, as is so often the case, has been the talk of Westminster today. First, there was the chatter generated by the FT’s story that members of the shadow Cabinet were irritated that Balls’ proposed VAT cut hadn’t been run past them. Then, there was Alistair Darling strikingly failing to endorse Balls’ VAT cut on the Daily Politics and to round it all off the shadow Chancellor was leading for Labour in its opposition day debate on the economy. The Tories are convinced that Balls’ relations with his fellow shadow Cabinet members is a weak spot for Labour. Indeed,

David Blackburn

World Service reprieve the latest step in FCO’s rehabilitation

The BBC World Service has been reprieved. An additional £2.2m will be spent to preserve the Arabic service, in line with some of the wishes of Foreign Affairs Select Committee Chairman Richard Ottaway and Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC and occasional consigliere to David Cameron. I don’t share the Foreign Office’s sometime view that this is a ‘massive u-turn’, but it is a significant development. Opposition to cuts to the World Service budget came from across the House; but it originated from Tory backbenchers, who were very confident that they would secure a concession. The subsequent climb down suggests that Downing Street is prepared to consult with and

Daniel Korski

Euro-bondage

At a time when the Euro is looking so weak, it is a wonder that so many countries are still queuing up to join. Estonia has recently joined, while Hungary and Bulgaria are keen as mustard to join as well. Make no mistake, these countries want to join. They go to lengths to stay for two years in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, while keeping inflation inline with the EU average. At a meeting this morning, the Hungarian foreign minister capped off his country¹s EU Presidency by declaring that Hungary is still focused on joining. But, even if these countries did not want to join the Euro, or felt perhaps

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Miliband May Know the Detail But His Policies Are Wrong

For all the talk of Cameron and his grasp of detail the fact remains that Miliband may, as Swot of the Lower Fourth, have the nuts and bolts but he’s wrong – hopelessly, utterly wrong – on policy. To recap, today he asked the Prime Minister: “Around 5,000 people each year are arrested on suspicion of rape and not charged … in certain cases these individuals have gone on to commit further offences and be convicted as a result of the DNA being held on the national database, but his proposal is that for those arrested and not charged the DNA would be disposed of straight away. “I ask him

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Miliband’s myopia

The Prime Minister declared war at PMQs today. Not once but twice in the same sentence. ‘We’re at war in Libya and in Afghanistan,’ he said, in a throwaway footnote to some ritual noises about his ‘huge respect for our armed forces.’ Until this historic moment Britain had been engaged in peace-keeping and nation-building in Afghanistan, and in civilian protection and tyrant-bothering in Libya. But now it’s official. We’re mobilised on two fronts. Ed Miliband might have made more of this but he was too busy mentally preparing himself for this week’s shock ambush. This week’s shock ambush wasn’t quite as shocking as it might have been because it had

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 22 June 2011

VERDICT: Ed Miliband repeated the same tactic as last week, concentrating on a specific policy area to test Cameron’s command of the details — and again it had the desired effect, although not quite so tellingly as before. The Prime Minister floundered and generalised on the issue of rape arrests, but managed to turn some of his discomfort back on the Labour leader, and ended their exchange sounding more confident than perhaps he was. He was then consideraby more surefooted throughout the backbench questions, particularly when it came to public sector pensions and to attacking Labour’s unfunded VAT cut. But, on the whole, this was another session to relieve the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris versus Osborne

One of the staples of the Westminster summer party season is speculation about future leadership contests and so I rather suspect that Ben Brogan’s piece on the coming George Osborne Boris Johnson leadership contest will be much referenced in the coming weeks. Any speculation about a future leadership contest is, obviously, absurdly premature. If a week is a long time in politics, six years is almost a geological era. But the prospect of Obsorne versus Johnson is, as Tim Montgomerie puts it, so ‘delicious’ that Westminster Village people will take any excuse to talk about it. What makes the contest so appetising is that Osborne and Johnson’s strengths are so