Politics Archives

Wednesday

24 Nov 2010

The problem for Gove is that structures beget standards

As you’d expect, Michael Gove’s White Paper is a feast of good sense. His speech in the Commons was powerful analysis, and his rebuttal of Labour MPs fun to watch. He’s all for making kids learn properly in primary school, retaining order in the classroom, making detention easier and better modern language teaching. Amen, amen, amen. But, I fear that the White Paper will not be transformative, for a simple reason: the schools system is broken. It doesn’t respond to instructions. The Education Secretary does not run education – power rests with local authorities and the teaching unions. They’re not too keen on Gove, and have allies in parliament ready

Daniel Korski

Britain should have a Freedom Minister

Has liberal democracy lifted people out of poverty? To a casual observer, the answer is unequivocally yes. One part of the world – the industrialised democratic northern half – is both richer, and healthier than the (historically undemocratic) South or East. Coincidence? The West’s success may be a function of north Europe’s temperate climate, cultural mores shaped on the windswept British isles and European plains, the competition spurred by centuries of warfare, the invention of modern banking, the head-start provided by inventors, colonial conquests and possibly even the ideas and ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Judeo-Christian faith. But many other regions had similar in-puts. Perhaps the West was just blessed

Martin Bright

The Foreign Office responds

I have just received some answers from the Foreign Office about the Bangladesh war crimes tribunal. I asked if William Hague had sent a letter to his counterpart in Bangladesh saying that there were no war criminals from the 1971 independence war in Britain. A spokesman said that while they did not comment on leaked documents, the following points could be made with reference to the war crimes trials currently taking place in Bangladesh: 1) The UK wants to see all war criminals brought to justice. It is essential that all war crimes’ tribunals are held to internationally accepted standards and that anyone accused of a war crime is given

David Blackburn

Gove starts the revolution

The Spectator has been a long-term fan of Michael Gove – indeed, we named him the single best reason to vote Tory at the last election. His ‘free school’ reforms are laudable and the emphasis on improving standards is imperative. Under the previous government, Britain slid down the international rankings of educational attainment. A tide of politically correct initiatives robbed teachers of their classrooms and discipline suffered. The post code lottery under which state education operates sentences the poorest and most vulnerable in society to rot in under-funded sink schools. Reform is both a moral crusade and a necessity if Britain is to continuing punching above its weight in the

David Blackburn

PMQs Live blog | 24 November 2010

VERDICT: Ed Miliband did well. He exploited the Cabinet divide on school sport and also illustrated how teachers are wary of Gove’s plans. If anything, this reveals the complexity of the opposition facing Gove, and the extent to which it is ingrained, even within Conservative circles. There was also a withering and effective personal attack on Gove. Cameron laid out his government’s stall: Gove (and arguably Cameron) will stand or fall by it. For once, Labour’s opposition was very clearly delineated. So it should have been: courtesy of the long established system, state education is Labour’s natural territory and many of its MPs and councillors cut their teeth running it

Daniel Korski

Balkan promises still to keep

One of the many areas that the Conservative Party took a very different line from Labour was on the Western Balkans. William Hague travelled to the region, frequently asked questions in Parliament and had the war-torn region written into the Coalition Agreement as a government priority. Seven months into the government’s mandate, how has Britain’s Balkan policy changed? How has Britain been able to affect things for the better? The answer is a tad disappointing. There are no more British soldiers or diplomats in the region than there were before the election. Reconstruction funds are slated to decrease. At the Sarajevo Summit earlier this year, the Foreign Secretary had the

Alex Massie

Mandy, Gordon and The Thick of It

Hannah Rothschild’s BBC4 programme following Peter Mandelson during the months running-up to the election was, like almost everything involving the Prince of Darkness, a hoot. But, blimey, there were parts of it that seemed to come straight from The Thick of It. I mean, here’s the voice of frustrated image-makers and strategists the world over: If he [Gordon] can be normal and human with people as he walks through a railway station then let him do it. I want him both to be brainy – he can have his braininess, he can have all the braininess he wants – but i also want him to be sufficiently relaxed and approachable

Alex Massie

Dave Spart Returns to the Guardian

Well, perhaps he’s never left. There’s much to enjoy in – and something nostalgic about – this piece by Michael Chessum and Jonathan Moses in today’s Guardian. Apparently “politics as usual has failed” so, naturally, alternative methods must be sought. Now, as it happens, one can understand why students are disappointed by the Liberal Democrats’ flip-flop on university funding. But this is bunk: And mobilise we must. The coalition’s proposals represent a nigh irreversible transformation of higher education, and the commodification of knowledge and learning. Mobilise all you like, comrades. But while there’s an intrinsic value to knowledge and learning they are also, quite evidently commodities. That’s why they have

Tuesday

23 Nov 2010

David Blackburn

Caught REd handed

Hat-tip: Tim Montgomerie

David Blackburn

Coy Cleggites?

In a must read post, Anthony Wells notes that there is a new variant of the Shy Tory and Bashful Blairite: the Coy Cleggite. Traditionally, ICM and Populus have allocated up to 50 percent of undecided respondents to the party they voted for at the last election. Wells writes: ‘Polls are now showing a large proportion of people who voted Lib Dem in 2010 saying they don’t know how they would vote in an election tomorrow, and ICM’s reallocation of don’t knows is now favouring them. In ICM’s last three polls the re-allocation of don’t knows has bumped up the level of Liberal Democrat support by 2 points – yesterday’s

David Blackburn

Who will benefit from the Royal wedding?

David Cameron is playing down the effect the Royal Wedding will have on the 5th May elections, especially the AV referendum. Fleet Street’s having none of it however. On the one hand, Benedict Brogan can already hear the pops of champagne corks in the No to AV campaign offices. He reasons: ‘One consequence of the Royal wedding will be to make it even more difficult for AV supporters to get their campaign motoring in time for the referendum.’ On the other, Alex Barker makes the case for the Lib Dems’ Yes to AV campaign. He has a three point-plan, centring on low turnout following reduced campaign time. This, he thinks,

David Blackburn

Another coalition compromise, this time on immigration

Agreement has been reached on the troublesome immigration cap. The BBC reports that skilled non-EU migration will be limited to 43,000. This is just a 13 percent reduction from this year’s cap and there are numerous exemptions to be made; notably, inter-company transfers will not be included when workers earn more than £40,000 per annum. This is a considerable moment for the coalition because the cap was thought unworkable. The Conservatives have their cap, a pep pill for the embattled Home Secretary. But this is also a victory for Vince, who is being feted by businessmen across the airwaves this morning. Cable and May have also been praised by Migration

Monday

22 Nov 2010

Nick Cohen

Nick Clegg and the Jilted Bride

The Lib Dem press office is one of the sorriest sights in Westminster. A handful of untrained party officers are dealing with a wave of hostility nothing in their right-thinking, left-leaning lives has prepared them for. They thought that they were good. For as long as they can remember everyone they have met has assured them that they were good. Tories were mean and greedy, New Labour was authoritarian and war-mongering. They, by contrast, had always been the nice people in the nice party – maybe a little silly, maybe a little naïve, but fundamentally decent. Now they are hated. As my colleague Julian Glover reports in the Guardian today:

David Blackburn

Time for the real Ed Miliband to speak up

There is talk of Ed Miliband’s ‘New Generation’, but no indication of what it stands for. It has no clear views on the economy, student finance, defence and electoral reform. Despite his party’s lead in the polls, Ed Miliband is an inert political entity (and it did not help him that the party peaked in his absence). Tim Montgomerie has rightly diagnosed a leadership vacuum. Miliband is timid before a parliamentary party that did not select him, and is struggling to acclimatise to a political discourse that the coalition government is moving beyond the terse liturgy of left and right. So far, Miliband’s banal default tactic has been to seek

Alex Massie

A Christmas Present for George Osborne

You can get yours here. In passing, let’s observe that Osborne is right to offer the Irish whatever assistance he can. Not because of economics or even politics but because it’s the right thing to do. Friends help friends and that’s about all that really need be said on the matter. [Via Joe Wiesenthal]

Alex Massie

A Modest Proposal: Don’t Let Pensioners Vote

We often hear people suggesting that 16 and 17 year-olds should be allowed to vote. We don’t hear enough about voting at the other end of the spectrum: why are pensioners allowed to vote? The news that, despite everything, fully 28% of Irish pensioners still support Fianna Fail (compared to 17% of the population as a whole) makes one wonder if the oldies can be trusted with the franchise. We take driving licenses away from them when they prove too doddery to be anything other than a danger to others. Perhaps the same modest principle should be applied* to voting. If you think this harsh – though lord knows reforming

Alex Massie

The End of the Party

You’d never guess that Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan are members of Fianna Fail, would you? Oh, you would? Fancy that. Grotesque. Unbelievable. Bizarre. Unprecedented. Ireland has known crises before, many of them extremely serious. But the GUBU days now seem the stuff of comic opera when set beside the battering Ireland has taken these past few weeks and months. The game is up and all that’s left is the reckoning. Today the Green party pulled the plug on the coalition in Dublin. The Greens may not fare well in this poll but they deserve some modest amount of praise for recognising, as Fianna Fail patently did not, that an

Daniel Korski

Miliband should re-examine Cameron’s playbook for the real lessons

Ed Miliband has come roaring back from his paternity leave, keen to silence the growing chorus of criticism that he is not in control of his party and has let the Coalition determine the agenda. To do so, he has come out in favour of a permanent top rate of income tax at 50 percent, but is otherwise taking a leaf out of the Cameron playbook – by establishing a number of policy reviews. But he might want to take another look at Cameron’s experience. Reviews are a great tactical ploy – they show a willingness to “think big”, allow a leader to reach out to a range party

Nick Cohen

Good Afternoon

This is my first post for the Spectator. In the coming months I hope to be writing about the fight for liberal and democratic values in Britain – don’t worry I am not a Liberal Democrat, they are either sitting out the great struggles of our time or on the wrong side – culture, politics and anything else that comes along. The editor, a kind and caring man, warned me that posters here could sometimes be rather rough. I’m all for freedom of speech. But I in turn should warn you that I am an Observer columnist, and this is how we deal with readers who do not treat us

Rod Liddle

In celebration of Gordo

I know most of you are very glad to see the back of him, but as we watch the EU crumble before our eyes, we all have reason to be grateful to Gordon Brown. Joining the Euro was Tony Blair’s supposed “big project” of his second term but he was thwarted at every step of the way by his chancellor. Not least by Brown’s invention of those “five economic tests” which set the conditions for joining the single currency and which were, as we knew at the time, a lengthy synonym for “when hells freezes over”. It may well be that the main motivation for keeping Britain out was pure