Politics Archives

Saturday

15 Jan 2011

Finding my voice

I was cured of a lifelong stammer by a technique even Lionel Logue, George VI’s celebrated speech therapist, never tried. The cure lasted exactly three minutes, and has never been repeated. In the mid-1990s, when I was stationed in Hong Kong as the East Asia editor of the Times, the BBC commissioned me to write and broadcast three three-minute pieces to be called Secrets in China. A producer arrived with a cameraman. What I had written was now in front of me on an autocue. I told the producer that I, a stutterer, couldn’t read smoothly from a text; when reading out loud stutterers can’t employ those little tricks —

Hugo Rifkind

Why I’m terrified of Ed Miliband

I’ve been trying quite hard to come up with some imagery for just how bad Ed Miliband is at being in charge of the Labour party. I’ve been trying quite hard to come up with some imagery for just how bad Ed Miliband is at being in charge of the Labour party. My best suggestion so far is that he’s leading as though he’s falling out of a building, desperately issuing responses and policy announcements before he hits the ground. It’s not perfect, I know. You’d want him to pass backwards through a hedge on the way down, ideally, and he’d also have to fall with petulance, which is quite

Friday

14 Jan 2011

David Blackburn

Cameron hopes to lessen fuel woes

Today saw the latest Cameron Direct event, and the Prime Minister defended his government’s position of bankers’ bonuses and Europe, and he devoted a section to profess the fortitude of the coalition itself. But Cameron realises that he needs to offer positive news, both to a country acclimatising to austerity and to a party that has broken out in a rash of ill-temper. Fuel duty was his chosen tonic. There were no commitments, but Cameron promised to review the level of duty or road tax as part of the March budget. This lends a little weight to the rumours that fuel duty and/or road taxes might be cut or a

The Spectator

The week that was | 14 January 2011

Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. Fraser Nelson introduces an Austrian perspective on the crash, and has the exclusive that Lord Adonis supports Michael Gove’s reforms. James Forsyth considers David Cameron’s party management, and says that Alan Johnson is running out of lives. Peter Hoskin has five more things you need to know about welfare, and notes that the coalition has decided to take the flak over bankers’ bonuses. David Blackburn introduces the new faces of Tory euroscepticism, and wonders if it is time for Nick Clegg to be airing his differences with David Cameron. Martin Bright asks if the coalition is doing

Daniel Korski

Decentralisation key to Afghan pullout, says David Miliband

It is fashionable to ridicule David Miliband’s search for a post-political career. But in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph the former Foreign Secretary showed that – for all his mistakes in office – his intellect, and judgement on a number of key issues, including how to bring the Afghanistan War to an end, was, and remains, razor-sharp: “Afghanistan’s battles are not just between the Afghan and foreign forces and the Taliban insurgency, but between (and within) Afghanistan’s often warring tribes. When Nato trains the Afghan National Army, it’s good – but not if you are a Pashtun who sees the predominantly Tajik army as the enemy.” The South Shields MP goes on

James Forsyth

Warsi’s ‘nasty party’ moment

Sayeeda Warsi’s attack on the ‘right wing’ of the Conservative party has had a predictable impact. There is fury that the party chairman is attacking a section of the party, it is something that a considerable number of Tories will never forgive her for. It is also being pointed out that there were a lot of Tory MPs campaigning in Oldham on Saturday and they came disproportionately from the right of the party. What to do about Warsi is quite a problem for the Tory high command. She does visibly show how the party has changed but she’s also not very competent. Cameron has already split her role, giving Cameron’s

Martin Bright

Is Labour really back in the game?

The Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election now raises the distinct possibility that Labour could win the next election by default. People on the left have been wondering for some time what could unite the multiple and often contradictory tribes of the Labour Party and it looks like “Tory cuts” and “Lib-Dem broken promises” could do the trick. Simple, crude, disingenuous – perfect. Krishnan Guru-Murthy is half-right when he tweets “paradoxically, real danger may be for Labour…if they conclude they are ‘back in the game’ already”. Collectively (and morally) this is true. But the bizarre situation we find ourselves in is that the electorate remains unconvinced by Ed Miliband and yet

Peter Hoskin

Warsi takes on the Tory right

After the result, the spin. We got the first drafts of each party’s response to the Oldham by-election in the dark hours of this morning – but the picture is solidifying now that the sun has risen. What’s clear is that both Labour and the Lib Dems are having an easier time putting on a united front than the Tories. The Labour response was typified by Yvette Cooper’s appearance on the Today Programme earlier. She broadcast the message that her party would have broadcast whatever the result: that this is defining proof that the public doesn’t back the coalition and its economic policy. And as for the Lib Dems, they’re

Peter Hoskin

Comfortable win for Labour in Oldham East & Saddleworth

And all on a turnout of 48.1 percent. So far as the Lib Dems and Labour are concerned, these numbers probably met expectations. Overall support for Elwyn Watkins has held firm since the general election, but he was always going to struggle to get within 103 votes of Labour once again. While a 10-point victory for Debbie Abrahams is encouraging for Labour, without quite suggesting a tidal shift in the public mood. The 14 percent drop in the Tory vote is a little more striking, though – and it’s telling that Andy Burnham dwelt on it in his response to the Beeb. For their part, the Tories are pointing to

Thursday

13 Jan 2011

James Forsyth

We await their lordships

The May 5th date for the AV referendum is under threat because the bill paving the way for it might not get through the House of Lords in time. The problem is that the referendum bill is linked to the plan to equalise constituency sizes which Labour is steadfastly opposed to. So Labour lords are blocking its progress. One Lib Dem lord complains that the problem is ‘all these Scottish ex-Labour MPs who are behaving like they are still in the Commons.’ Labour is stressing that it would happily allow the bill to be split in two and then vote through the May 5th date. But the coalition won’t agree

Fraser Nelson

The death of the Lib Dems

The latest issue of The Spectator is out today, and I thought CoffeeHousers might like to read the cover story by Nick Cohen. Its theme is brilliantly captured by Jonathan Cusick’s cover image (left) of the yellow Lib Dem bird shot through its heart with a Tory arrow – but there’s more to it than that. The era of spending cuts is returning us to two-party politics, says Nick, and the Lib Dems are being squeezed out of the equation. Here it is in full: Liberal England dies again, Nick Cohen In 1935, George Dangerfield published The Strange Death of Liberal England, one of those rare histories that survive long

Ed Holmes

Protecting the silent majority – and the Royal Wedding

David Cameron made significant waves yesterday both at Prime Minister’s Questions and in a Sun article about reforming Britain’s antiquated trade union laws. He was responding to a favoured tactic of the new wave of militant trade unionists: threatening action at times that most inconvenience or imperil the safety of the general public. We have seen this with the FBU’s dispute (over Bonfire Night), Unite with British Airways (over the Christmas period), and the RMT with London Underground (again, over Christmas). Some union leaders now seem prepared to ruin what should be the two biggest highlights on our national calendar: the Royal Wedding in April and the Olympics in 2012.

Peter Hoskin

More Tory discontent with the Speaker

Guido and Benedict Brogan have already drawn attention to Paul Waugh’s latest post. But a story this good deserves repeating, at length: “Tory MP Mark Pritchard is not one to swear. In fact he’s ribbed by colleagues in the Tea Room for saying “Schmidt” instead of sh*t. But today, he exploded when the Commons Speaker confronted him over an alleged breach of the courtesies of the House. It all started when Pritchard got to his feet towards the end of Business Questions. As he rose, the Tory backbencher was told by John Bercow that as he was not present for the beginning of Sir George Young’s business statement, he could

Peter Hoskin

Miliband talks the language of cuts

Much of Ed Miliband’s Grand Confession on the economy is wearily familiar. I mean, we’ve known his take on the deficit for some time: that the drop in tax receipts from a crumbling financial sector was to blame, rather than Brown’s spending. And to have him argue that Labour should have made the economy less dependent on the City is just another way of saying exactly the same thing. But there is something new in there, too. Miliband is set to admit that Labour didn’t “talk the language of cuts” soon enough. Not that he’s saying Labour should have – or still should – cut deeper and faster, mind. It’s

Alex Massie

Clegg Derangement Syndrome

There is, as you would expect, lots of good stuff in Nick Cohen’s article on the Lib Dems in this week’s edition of the magazine (subscribe today!) Among the several notable passages there’s this: Leaving the disputes between pollsters aside, not even Nick Clegg’s closest friends deny that he is the most hated politician in Britain. At a student demonstration outside Westminster, I saw a ragged man climb a lamppost and urge the protestors to join him in an obscene chant against Clegg. The crowd in Parliament Square roared as one, united in its loathing, and ecstatic at the chance he had given them to crush a man they had

Wednesday

12 Jan 2011

Alex Massie

How to Spin Defeat in Oldham

Since Labour are all set to prevail in the Oldham and Saddleworth by-election (as was always likely) the government, and specifically the Deputy Prime Minister, will need a line to sell. It’s made a little awkward by the fact that this unecessary election is the consequence of a lawsuit brought by the defeated Liberal Democrat candidate but, hey, nothing’s perfect and no-one ever said these things would be easy. So what to say? Well… All by-elections are unusual, unique affairs but this one was even more unusual than most. It was not fought because the incumbent MP had died but because a judge ruled that he had broken electoral law.

James Forsyth

An important test for the Lib Dems

Tomorrow’s vote in Oldham East and Saddleworth is the first big event of the political year. It is a marginal seat that Labour just held at the last election, beating the Liberal Democrats by a touch over a hundred votes. But the by-election has been caused by the Lib Dem candidate taking the Labour MP to an election court over false statements which has placed particular pressure on the Liberal Democrats to perform well. The polls at the weekend had Labour romping home. But the Liberal Democrats are confident that they will run Labour close, talking about a margin of a thousand or less. If the Lib Dems come a

Fraser Nelson

Exclusive – Adonis: I back Gove

Is Michael Gove’s school reform a hideous distortion of the Labour Academies programme, as Ed Balls put it, or the fulfillment of that agenda? Until now Lord Adonis, the architect of the Academies programme, has kept silent on the issue. But he’s interviewed in The Spectator tomorrow by Matthew Smith, editor of Attain magazine. Here is a brief extract: ‘Ed Balls has declared Gove’s plans for academies as ‘a total perversion of Labour’s policy, which was about turning round under-performing schools in disadvantaged areas’. Adonis’s response is rather different. ‘Neither I nor Tony Blair believed that academies should be restricted to areas with failing schools. We wanted all schools to

Peter Hoskin

Eric Illsley announces his resignation

With the Labour party motioning to unseat him, and David Cameron and Ed Miliband speaking out against him, it was always likely to end thus for Eric Illsley. The receipt offender has just issued this statement: “I would like to apologise to my constituents, family and friends, following my court appearance, for the distress and embarrassment caused by my actions that I deeply, deeply regret. I have begun to wind down my parliamentary office, following which I will resign from Parliament before my next court appearance. I will be making no further comment.” Which leaves us with the prospect of a by-election in Barnsley Central, probably in May. It’s one

James Forsyth

An ill-tempered exchange

The first PMQs of the year was a bad tempered affair. The Prime Minister had clearly decided that attack was the best form of defence, hurling insult after insult across the despatch box. He accused Ed Miliband of being a ‘nothing man’, told him that his Shadow Chancellor can’t count and that he doesn’t count and mockingly brought up Miliband’s brother. But Cameron didn’t do anything to politically detoxify the bonus issue, which is going to carry on haunting this government, note that Lloyds — partly state owned — is going to award its boss a £2million pound bonus. Miliband also scored when he pointed out just how different Cameron’s