Politics

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

Saturday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

British Politics Explained

I’m indebted to my friend Neill Harvey-Smith for summing up the British attitude to politics in just three sentences: I don’t know what it is. It sounds like a good idea. It probably won’t work. That’s in response to this: And you know what? Most of the time, I don’t know what it is. It sounds like a good idea. It probably won’t work is neither a dumb nor an irrational approach. But you can see why, in this instance at least, it might frustrate David Cameron and Steve Hilton.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

No time for pleasantries. Get ready for Osborne v. Balls

The night Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party, his advisers sent him to bed before midnight and confiscated his mobile phone. The night Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party, his advisers sent him to bed before midnight and confiscated his mobile phone. Half a mile away from where the new leader was sleeping, Ed Balls was holding a wake with his closely knit, leadership campaign team. Here, no one was going to tell him what to do. He was going to sing, sup and speechify for as long as he wanted. In the wee small hours of the morning, Balls kept rallying his troops.

Peter Oborne

Where’s the divide?

The outcry over Sayeeda Warsi’s speech on Islamophobia last week cannot be understood without a clear grasp of the balance of power within the coalition government. There are two factions, and the strongest can loosely be described as neoconservative. This faction remains an unconditional supporter of the United States of America, continues to defend the Iraq invasion, powerfully admires and in some cases worships Tony Blair, and automatically takes the side of Israel in the middle east. This section of the coalition also takes a hard line on domestic security arrangements, supporting control orders and the divisive Prevent strategy for confronting its special interpretation of the Islamic terror threat. Its

Friday

Daniel Korski

Coffee House interview: Ursula Brennan

Few government jobs are as demanding as that of Permanent Under-Secretary, or PUS, in the Ministry of Defence. With Liam Fox as your boss, General David Richards as your colleague, and an exhausted, overspent department to run, it is no surprise that when Bill Jeffrey retired many of the government’s most senior officials – including, it is said, No 10’s Jeremy Heywood – balked at the challenge. Forward stepped Ursula Brennan, who until then had held the ministry’s No 2 job before a career in the Ministry of Justice, and what is now the Department for Work and Pensions. Here, Mrs Brennan has kindly agreed to answer a few questions

Peter Hoskin

Poll catch-up

Other sites have already covered this week’s opinion poll results, among them Labour’s largest lead since September 2007 and the public’s confusion over the Big Society. But there are a couple of findings that are worth dwelling on as we drift into the weekend: 1) Labour gaining ground in the blame game. Ok, so PoliticalBetting’s Mike Smithson mentioned this a few days ago. But, here at Coffee House, we’ve translated the numbers into the graph below. It shows that, over recent YouGov polls, Labour have been slowly receiving less and less blame for the spending cuts, while the coalition are receiving more: Expected, perhaps – but still noteworthy, not least

Martin Bright

What happens when journalists become the story?

When spin doctors become the story or spokesmen need a spokesman, we know the game is up. So say Alastair Campbell and Andy Coulson, and they should know. So what happens when journalists become the story?   The re-opening of the investigation into News of the World phone-hacking case has sent a chill across Fleet Street. Collectively, journalists really had hoped this would go away. A prurient interest in the private lives of stars and public figures is nothing new. The pressures of a tabloid newsroom are immense, and it should come as no surprise that journalists looking for an edge were prepared to take such technological liberties. But no

Peter Hoskin

Cameron’s gloomy brand of optimism

A weird, sprawling kind of speech from David Cameron in Davos this morning. It started off on an unusually, if expectedly, gloomy note: all talk of Europe’s debt-induced decline in the face of competition from India, China and Brazil. And he emphasised, of course, that Britain would, and should, stick to its current trajectory of “tough” deficit reduction. But it’s where it went from there that was more striking still. Cameron contrasted his position with that of “the pessimists”. These people, he claimed, have a charter which includes propositions such as, “we in Europe are incapable of solving our debt and deficit problems,” and, “we’re attached to liberal values that

Peter Hoskin

Boris: George knows I’m right

David Cameron and George Osborne must have hoped that their message from Davos today would be broadcast unimpeded. It is, after all, a blunt message, designed to smash through all the radio chatter: we must continue with deficit reduction, there is no alternative, etc. But, inconveniently for them, there are other voices saying what we must do – among them Boris Johnson. The Mayor of London’s interview with the Telegraph is at once typical and quite intriguing. Typical, because he holds aloft the same standards as always. “I understand 50p tax politically,” he says, “but there has got to be a sense of where we are going and where we

Thursday

David Blackburn

Spelman’s a lumberjack and she’s ok

The coalition’s plans to privatise Britain’s woodlands have received what is euphemistically termed ‘a mixed reception’. Caroline Spelman’s consultation document and accompanying article in today’s Times (£) may change that fact. Both are historically conscious and upholstered with reassuring pastoral interludes – an elegant departure from most ministerial rambles.   But, this government’s politics breaks well clear from the literary immersion. There is a dose of Thatcherism. Spelman is adamant that the state should not be managing forests, and she wants private companies to exploit commercially valuable forests. She writes: ‘It’s time for the Government to step back and allow those who are most involved with England’s woodlands to play

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Limits of Hefferism. (And of Ed Miliband)

Anthony Wells sifts through IPSOS Mori’s latest poll: For David Cameron, 30% of people like both him and his party, 39% like neither. 17% like Cameron but not his party, 7% like the Conservatives but not Cameron. Hence, in total Cameron is liked by 47% of people (down 6 since before the election) and the Conservatives by 37% (down 1) – while Cameron’s likeability has dropped somewhat since the election, he is still viewed considerable more positively than the party he leads. Emphasis added. Like everyone else, I’m an admirer of Simon Heffer’s style (and he is sound on cricket too) but it might be worth remembering that his pro-Conservative,

David Blackburn

Nimrod: from a symbol of pride to one of decline

There are contrasting images of Nimrod the Hunter: the mighty king of the Old Testament, and the less fearsome figure of Elmer Fudd. Through no fault of its own, the Nimrod spy plane, the most advanced and versatile aircraft of its type, seems destined to belong in the Fuddian category. Several senior officers have written to the Telegraph, urging the government to reconsider its decision to scrap the aircraft. They argue, not for the first time, that Britain’s defence capabilities are being pulverised by political calculations. (Con Coghlin adds his strategic concerns in the same paper.) The top brass have found an ally in Unite, some of whose members build

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The dignified and undiginified parts of the constitution

There’s a febrile atmosphere in Westminster tonight. The coalition is poised for a frontal assault on the privileges of the House of Lords and there is an expectation that today’s dramatic developments in the phone hacking saga are the beginning of something not the end. The coalition’s actions on the Lords have been prompted by Labour’s filibustering of the AV bill. But there’s no guarantee that it will succeed. First, it has no majority in the upper house. Second, a lot of Tories peers are worried about just how many Clegg inspired changes to the constitution the coalition is pushing through. On the phone hacking front, there’s a sense that a dam broke today: the rogue

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Shocker! The Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead has no regard for the Constitution

Most entertaining, this Gerry Adams business. He may deny that he is now the Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead but if he ain’t then he hasn’t resigned as an MP. And if he is a paid officer of the Crown he would seem to be playing fast and loose with the Irish constitution. This may not surprise you or anyone else. However the constitution plainly states: 40.2.2: 1: Titles of nobility shall not be conferred by the State. 2. No title of nobility or of honour may be accepted by any citizen except with the prior approval of the Government. Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead is

Daniel Korski

Mandarined

One of the greatest challenges for any minister – and, by extension, the government’s programme – is to avoid being “mandarined”. That is, smothered by officials in the manner of Yes Minister. But it can happen to even the most powerful and outwardly confident politicians. Here is how. Reputation Management. First, the politician is thrilled to find herself or himself in office and is keen not to rock the boat – lest the Prime Minister is told by the Cabinet Secretary that the minister is under-performing. Tony Blair is said to have toyed with the idea of having report cards for ministers. As a result, the minister opts to push

Peter Hoskin

The Big Society in 1997

Titter ye might. The Big Society? In 1997? If the idea was of, erm, limited electoral worth in our last general election, then it was certainly of little use when Tony Blair hurtled into power all those years ago. Yet there is was, mostly speaking, in the “Civic Conservatism” espoused chiefly by David Willetts. Danny Finkelstein, writing for the pre-paywall incarnation of Comment Central, has already alluded to the intellectual debt that Steve Hilton et al owe to Willetts’ thinking back in the 1990s. Fraser did likewise in an interview with Willetts from four-and-a-half years ago. I mention this now for two conjoined reasons. First, the source texts of Civic

Peter Hoskin

The Lib Dems reject Ed Miliband’s overtures (again)

What a joy it is to watch Ed Miliband contort and twist so that he can offer a hand of friendship to the Lib Dems. It has been a three-act show, so far. First, during the Labour leadership contest, he described the Lib Dems as a “disgrace to the traditions of liberalism,” adding that, “I can see the death of the Liberal party to be honest”. Then, he said that he would actually work with those dying Liberals, but only if they ditched Nick Clegg first. And then today, in an interview with the Independent, he suggests that Clegg might be able to stay on, after all. As turnarounds go,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Winning in 2015

Danny Finkelstein’s column in The Times today (£) is well worth reading. Finkelstein sets out two worries, first that the Tories do not have enough of a strategy for winning re-election and second that the NHS reforms might compromise Cameron’s standing as a different kind of Tory. On the latter point, Finkelstein is echoing the views of an increasing number of Tory MPs and ministers. They worry that these poorly understood reforms have put the NHS back on the political table and that, as is so often the case when this happens, the Tories will suffer. Finkelstein’s first worry is that if the government sets out deficit reduction as its

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

A profession for snide hypocrites

One of the few pieces of writing that made me emit an admiring whistle last year, was by the Economist’s political correspondent Bagehot. He argued that Britain did not have the far-left and right political parties of Europe because the British media provided an outlet for hatreds their respectable European counterparts ignored. ‘To pick a recent case study,’ Bagehot continued, ‘the Sunday Mirror reported on September 5th that the estranged second wife of an obscure Conservative MP was working as a prostitute. The following day, the outwardly respectable Daily Mail carried abject quotes from the MP on his doorstep, saying he knew nothing of his wife’s actions, and could prove

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 26 January 2011

VERDICT: Ed Miliband had it all, going into today’s PMQs: weak growth figures, the uncertain demise of control orders, rising youth unemployment, and more. And yet, somehow, he let most of it go to waste. Barely any of his attacks stuck – or, for that matter, stick in the mind – and Cameron rebuffed them with surprising ease. It helped that the Prime Minister seemed more comprehensively briefed than usual, with a decent compliment of statistics, and one or two sharp lines, at his disposal. (Although, measuring by the Labour cheers, I doubt he will thank Jacob Rees-Mogg for invoking Thatcher immediately after his exchange with the Labour leader.) In

David Blackburn

From control to surveillance

Like husband, like wife. Yvette Cooper has begun shadowing Theresa May where Ed Balls stopped: by lacerating Nick Clegg’s naïveté in believing that control orders should be abolished. There is a faint note of animus in her politicking too. ‘National security,’ she said, ‘should not be about keeping Nick Clegg safe in his job.’ The government invited Cooper’s charge with its own crass political calculation. Spinning the new measures as a Liberal Democrat victory could only elicit that response from an opposition that is intent on exploiting the government’s broad weakness on law and order. In fact, as Lord West has remarked, the government has not even come close to