Politics Archives

Monday

11 Jul 2011

Where we are on phone hacking

David Cameron’s speech on public service reform is being crowded out today by all the other news about hacking. First, there was there were the emails News International has allegedly passed to the police, which apparently contain information about payments to Royal protection officers. This was followed by an angry statement from Scotland Yard claiming that there is a ‘deliberate campaign to undermine the investigation into the alleged payments by corrupt journalists to corrupt police officers and divert attention from elsewhere.’ The police statement goes on to say, ‘At various meetings over the last few weeks information was shared with us by News International and their legal representatives and it

Peter Hoskin

Clegg puts the boot into Murdoch’s BSkyB bid

What Jeremy Hunt’s letter this morning started, Nick Clegg has just finished. Thanks to the Deputy Prime Minister, it is now even clearer that the coalition is reluctant for Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB deal to go ahead. “Look how people feel about this, look how the country has reacted with revulsion to the revelations,” he exhorted in interview with the Beeb, “so do the decent and sensible thing and reconsider, think again about your bid for BSkyB.” The question now is what’s meant by that “reconsider” — whether it means the government is pushing for a delay, or for Murdoch to drop the bid altogether. But, either way, it’s several degrees

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 11 July 2011

…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Fraser Nelson bids farewell to the News of the World. James Forsyth wonders where the phone hacking scandal will end, and reacts to John Major’s proposals on the future of Scotland. Peter Hoskin says that the phone hacking scandal is sticking to Downing Street, and previews the public service reform White Paper. David Blackburn examines Chris Huhne’s stance on rising energy prices, and looks at the latest twist in the GOP’s race for the White House. And Nick Cohen says Ed Miliband has been speaking for Britain.

David Blackburn

The wheels come off the BSkyB deal

The BBC reports that Jeremy Hunt has written to Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading about Rupert Murdoch’s proposed takeover of BskyB. Hunt asks the regulators if they now have any ‘additional concerns in respect of plurality over and above those raised in your initial report to me on this matter received on 31 December 2010.’ Hunt concentrates on Murdoch’s provisions about maintaining the independence of Sky News. His concern with plurality is ironic given that the British media has become much more plural following the demise of the News of the World. This favours Murdoch’s takeover bid, on the face of it at least. Hunt also touches on

Sunday

10 Jul 2011

David Blackburn

Huhne pooh-poohs rising energy bills as ‘nonsense’

Chris Huhne was on the Andrew Marr show this morning. As you might expect on a day when the Sunday Telegraph broke the news that fuel bills will boom by 30 per cent as a result of green taxes, the Energy Secretary was asked to ruminate at length on all matters Murdoch. Eventually, though, Huhne had to answer searching questions pertaining to his brief. Confronted with the Sunday Telegraph’s story, Huhne described it as ‘nonsense’ because it did not take potential savings into account. Huhne also pledged to introduce more competition to shatter the grip that the ‘Big Six’ utility companies have on 90 per cent of the UK’s energy market. Greater

James Forsyth

Major proposals on the future of Scotland

There have long been suspicions in Westminster that David Cameron uses John Major as an out rider, the last Tory Prime Minister advances an idea that allows the current one to gauge opinion on it. Certainly, Major and Cameron are close. Remember how Major was used by Cameron in the days following the indecisive general election result. So there’ll be suspicions that Major is out riding for Cameron with his speech, covered in the Sunday Telegraph, arguing that the Scottish Parliament and Executive should be handed powers over everything apart from foreign, defence and economic policy. In exchange for this, the Scots would accept a reduction in the number of

Peter Hoskin

Miliband primes his weapon of choice

There’s a lot to sift through in the papers this morning, even apart from history’s final edition of the News of the World. I mean, a report that Rebekah Brooks is to face police questioning over the phone hacking scandal; an interview with the assistant commissioner of the Met, who apologises and flusters over the original police investigation; and claims from Paddy Ashdown that he warned No.10 “within days of the election” about the Coulson-shaped trouble that was heading their way. But more politically significant is the news that Ed Miliband could push for a Commons vote, on Wednesday, to block News Corp’s takeover of Sky. The Labour leader outlined

Saturday

9 Jul 2011

Peter Hoskin

The story sticks to No.10

Big and bold, the contraction “No.10” appears on most of this morning’s front pages. Or, failing that, the words “former Cameron aide”. After the arrest of Andy Coulson yesterday, it was ever going to be thus. But it’s still a sign of how closely Downing Street is being bound into the phone hacking scandal. Cameron’s call, yesterday, for a judge-led inquiry into the whole, stinking affair — which was, you suspect, intended to deflect some of the heat away from his prime ministerial pulpit — is treated almost as a footnote. It’s all Cameron, Coulson, Cameron, Brooks. There’s more emphasis on Downing Street inside the papers, too. Continuing his recent

Peter Oborne

What the papers won’t say

Let’s try a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that BP threw an extravagant party, with oysters and expensive champagne. Let’s imagine that Britain’s most senior politicians were there — including the Prime Minister and his chief spin doctor. And now let’s imagine that BP was the subject of two separate police investigations, that key BP executives had already been arrested, that further such arrests were likely, and that the chief executive was heavily implicated. Let’s take this mental experiment a stage further: BP’s chief executive had refused to appear before a Commons enquiry, while MPs who sought to call the company to account were claiming to have been threatened. Meanwhile, BP was paying what

Fraser Nelson

Pushing back at Brussels

The most striking thing about David Cameron is how well rested he looks. You wouldn’t guess that he was the father of a ten-month-old baby, let alone Prime Minister. He has no bags under his eyes — unlike his staff. He also seems relaxed. He jovially beckons us in to his Downing Street office and then flops down into one of the two high-backed chairs and urges one of us to take the other: ‘the Chancellor’s chair’, he calls it, with a chuckle. The last time we interviewed him, during the general election campaign, he was a different man, tired and tetchy. High office evidently suits him better than scrambling

Freddy Gray

Thank God it’s Thursday

Whitehall’s four-day week ‘What you doing here?’ says a cheerful security guard as I walk through the Houses of Parliament at four o’clock on a Friday afternoon. ‘It’s early closing day.’ He’s right. The corridors are silent; the chambers are bare. There are a few tourists with their guides, some more guards, the odd cleaner … and that’s it. Where is everyone? Well, Friday is constituency day, as people in politics are quick to tell you. Our elected representatives and ministers are off running ‘surgeries’ with real people. What the insiders tend not to divulge, however, is that when the bosses aren’t around, their underlings sneak off early for the

Matthew Parris

Machismo is no way to beat the unions: I prefer Cameron’s quiet approach

David Cameron is absolutely right to avoid at all costs a confrontational tone in ministers’ approach to the coming showdown with the public sector unions. David Cameron is absolutely right to avoid at all costs a confrontational tone in ministers’ approach to the coming showdown with the public sector unions. Our editor, Fraser Nelson (‘Strike and counterstrike’, 2 July), is absolutely right to insist that the Prime Minister and his Cabinet must not blink. But The Spectator’s and Mr Cameron’s approaches are entirely reconcilable. The bigger the stick you carry, the more softly you can speak. Implicit in Fraser’s column is a linkage between Cabinet decrees that ministers should avoid

Friday

8 Jul 2011

James Forsyth

Ofcom to rule on Murdoch’s purchase of BSkyB

If News Corporation was not trying to buy the whole of BSkyB, there’s a good chance that phone hacking would not still be in the news today: that decision was one of the things that led to a revival of interest in the story. As has been said many times during the past few days, securing full ownership of BSkyB is regarded as crucial by the Murdochs and that is one of the reasons they were prepared to take the dramatic step of shutting down The News of the World. But the letter from Ofcom about the takeover and the possibility of Labour forcing a vote in the House of

The Spectator

The week that was | 8 July 2011

Here is a selection of posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the last week. James Forsyth says that the phone hacking saga will damage the reputation of the police, and watches David Cameron take a beating at PMQs. Peter Hoskin argues that the phone hacking saga is testing the ties that bind the coalition, and sees Ed Miliband grab the initiative. David Blackburn unpicks the political implications of Bombardier’s job losses, and asks if Murdoch is out of the woods? Daniel Korski urges the Eurozone not to be so Moody. Martin Bright asks where volunteering stops and exploitation begins. Nick Cohen rails against a press that has the morality of a

Peter Hoskin

Miliband is running out of attacks — but he’ll use what he’s got

It’s a strange thing, amid all venom and spite over the phone hacking scandal, how the three main parties are actually converging on the same responses. A judge-led inquiry? That’s now party policy for them all. The end of the PCC? Likewise. In his press conference earlier, Cameron even came close to saying that Rebekah Brooks should have lost her job. For once, there are trace quantities of Agreeing With Ed in the air at Westminster. This is both a boon and a bitterness for Ed Miliband. A boon, because he can at least claim that Labour led the debate, and Cameron followed. A bitterness, because the politics of the

Peter Hoskin

Clegg: don’t let’s be beastly to the eurozone

If you strain your ears, and listen very carefully above the din of the phone hacking scandal, then you may just hear Nick Clegg’s voice wafting across the Channel from Paris. Our Deputy Prime Minister is on the Continent today, delivering a speech that, in other circumstances, might have made more of a splash. This is, after all, a speech in which he stands up for the eurozone, and chastises those eurospectics — some of them within the coalition parties — who are eagerly anticipating its collapse. Or as he puts it himself: “A successful eurozone is essential for a prosperous UK. So there is no room for Schadenfreude here,

James Forsyth

Cameron makes poor start on the long road back

This was David Cameron’s most difficult press conference since becoming Tory leader. The Prime Minister refused to distance himself from Andy Coulson, a man he said was still his friend. But this loyalty to his ‘friend’ placed Cameron in an almost impossible situation. Cameron remarked defiantly that you’d be ‘pretty unpleasant if you forgot about him’ but the longer Cameron defends Coulson and his decision to hire him, the more this scandal will stick to him. Cameron repeatedly said that he gave Coulson ‘a second chance’. This is an awful line because it sounds like Cameron thinks he deserves credit for hiring him. Cameron needs to say urgently that he

Thursday

7 Jul 2011

Grace Palmer

Boris or Dave?

Schoolboy rivalries never quite go away – just look at the ongoing competition between Boris Johnson and David Cameron. Even though it was Cameron who held up Johnson’s arm in a symbolic victory gesture after Boris became Mayor of London in 2008, you wonder if Cameron had his doubts. After all, Cameron never actually approached Johnson about the post, initially choosing Nicholas Boles as the Conservative candidate. Furthermore, Boris Johnson refused to rule out a future bid to become Prime Minister. With the increasing unpopularity of the coalition government and its leaders, the Spectator decided to conduct a(n admittedly unscientific) poll of 75 people: would Johnson, the ‘cycling mayor’, make

Peter Hoskin

The phone hacking scandal tests the ties that bind the coalition

Gosh, this phone hacking scandal is moving at a pace. Fresh from the wire comes news that even the government is reviewing its advertising contracts with the News of the World; signs that Jeremy Hunt won’t budge on the BSkyB deal; as well as further interventions by everyone from Ed Miliband to Boris Johnson. Overarching all that, though, are the hardening differences of opinion between the Tories and the Lib Dems. The yellow half of the coalition is going further and further in pushing for both an enforced pause to the BSkyB deal and a judge-led inquiry into the whole mess. Both Lord Oakeshott and Simon Hughes have called for

Fraser Nelson

Web exclusive: Extended interview with David Cameron

We interview David Cameron for today’s issue of The Spectator. Here’s an extended version of that interview for CoffeeHousers: The most striking thing about David Cameron is how well rested he looks. You wouldn’t guess that he was the father of a ten-month-old baby, let alone Prime Minister. He has no bags under his eyes — unlike his staff. He also seems relaxed. He jovially beckons us in to his Downing Street office and then flops down into one of the two high-backed chairs and urges one of us to take the other: ‘the Chancellor’s chair’, he calls it, with a chuckle. The last time we interviewed him, during the