Politics

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

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Grayling wins the perceptions battle

Another day, another TV debate – only this time it was Alan Johnson, Chris Grayling and Chris Huhne behind the lecterns, talking crime on the Daily Politics.  Just like yesterday’s debate, the questions were incisive and insistent.  But the politicians conspired to turn proceedings into a mush.  There was very little clarity, a sizeable dollop of bickering, and proof, were it needed, that Huhne really can go on a bit. To my mind, it all boiled down to likely audience perceptions.  Chris Grayling was cornered on a number of issues (including a question addressing his “homophobic comments”), but he probably gauged those perceptions right when he emphasised the “sense” that

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Inflation is the price of Brown’s recklessness

Who would have thunk it? Inflation has again “surprised” on the upside – 3.4 per cent against a 2.0 percent target. Why so high? Even the return of 17.5 percent VAT does not justify this bounce. Might it have something to do with all those bank notes which were being printed by the Bank of England? Might interest rates be going up now to control this inflation – and, if so, what impact would this have on a UK economy which is already the most indebted of any major economy in history? The March figures show Britain has, by some margin, the highest inflation of any major European economy: it’s

The Spectator

The killer poster

So, as Daniel Korski wrote earlier, a vote for Nick Clegg keeps Labour in office – surely fertile territory for a killer poster? Here’s a selection of CoffeeHousers’  ‘Vote Nick Get Gordon’ posters. Remember him? – Sam Davidson                          ——————————————————— Buy one, get one free – Disillusioned                           ——————————————————— Don’t get duped again – Hamish                           ——————————————————— Trusting Pinocchio, Jonathan                       ———————————————————— The Marriage of Convenience, John Macleod (Used by the SNP in the 2003 Scottish Parliament election, but one we hadn’t seen before)                       ——————————————————————- The Puppet Master, RKing                            ——————————————————— Share and share alike, Greg                               ——————————————————– Labour’s Last Hope, Ed Turnham                       

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Who’s Afraid of a Coalition?

You English, sometimes you are the crazy people. Here’s Iain Dale for instance, dismissing any notion of a Tory-Liberal arrangement: All coalitions end in failure, the partners don’t agree, postponement and indecision become the order of the day. Britain today does not need a two-headed donkey. This, as anyone with any knowledge of politics anywhere else could tell you, is piffle. It’s not even true of British politics. Few people would argue that the Labour-Liberal coalition at Holyrood was one of democracy’s grander moments but it wasn’t obviously worse than, say, a majority Labour ministry might have been and it was, in fact, all too stable and all too able

Peter Hoskin

A bumpy ride for Brown on Radio One

Gordon, meet disillusionment.  Disillusionment, the Prime Minister.  Ask him questions on whatever you want: the economy, jobs, immigration, expenses – the ball is in your court.  Make him squirm, if you like.  Confront him.  He is, after all, here at your pleasure. For that was the set-up of Radio One Newsbeat’s interview with Gordon Brown earlier this afternoon.  It was one of those impossible situations for the PM.  He could hardly decline to be quizzed by a group of first time voters, aged between 18 and 28.  But it put him at the mercy of some pretty disgruntled members of the public.  And they took full advantage. The questions were

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Just another politician

Nick Clegg’s response to Andrew Neil’s question about his expenses at the Lib Dem press conference this morning, highlighted Clegg’s greatest vulnerability: he’s just another politician. As the question pointed out, Clegg’s own expenses were by no means perfect. The danger for Clegg is that many of his new supporters see him as totally different from Brown and Cameron. When they find out that he’s a lobbyist turned Eurocrat turned MEP turned MP who has had problems with his expenses they might not be so keen on him.  

David Blackburn

Not so squeaky clean

“All my life, I’ve opposed the old politics,” says Nick Clegg ad nauseam. Not so it seems. Peter Oborne’s Mail column reports that one youthful indiscretion has been omitted from Clegg’s CV: ‘In fact, he has a background as a Westminster lobbyist with the firm GJW, where he worked as an account executive for 18 months. (Something he has omitted from his curriculum vitae on the Lib Dem website).’ So, Clegg glosses over his stint of political kerb-crawling. Hypocrisy always makes a good story but the Tories should, and probably will, shun this story. They have lost the media narrative and the last thing Cameron needs is for the campaign

Daniel Korski

Where is the killer poster?

Most politicos agree that a vote for Nick Clegg will likely prop up a Labour government, even if it will be led by someone else than Gordon Brown. Most voters, however, may not realise this. So what the Tories need is a poster which shows in easy-to-understand ways, the causal link. CoffeeHousers, surely the idea of the Lib Dems propping up Labour lends itself to a number of images – if you have any ideas then either mention them below, or send them in to dblackburn @ spectator.co.uk or phoskin @ spectator.co.uk and we’ll post a selection of the best. 

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s leadership back under the spotlight

Things have clearly moved on since I wrote this back in March.  From Rachel Sylvester’s column today: “…those close to Mr Clegg have made it clear to senior Labour figures that it would be difficult for the Liberal Democrats to do a deal with a Labour Party led by Mr Brown. ‘The whole notion of change is so important to Clegg and Gordon doesn’t represent change,’ says one Labour strategist. ‘It’s hard to see how they could prop up Brown in a hung Parliament.’ With Cabinet ministers openly discussing the prospect of coalition, the question of the Labour leadership is back on the agenda. David Miliband is seen as the

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Is Nick Clegg really Robert Redford?

And not in a Cleggover* or Rentoul-bait sense either. No, you remember The Candidate? Of course you do for you enjoy political movies as much as we do. Which means you’ll also remember the movie’s strapline: Too Handsome. Too Young. Too Liberal. Doesn’t have a chance. He’s PERFECT! And you’ll also recall the movie’s final line, delivered after Redford’s character wins an unlikely victory: What do we do now? It was never clear that Redford had an answer to this and nor, frankly, is it obvious that Nick Clegg does either. Again and at the risk of repeating myself, how can Clegg be the “Agent of Change” if, once the

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clegg the politician

Every time a Conservative is asked by the media about Nick Clegg they should reply, ‘Nick Clegg’s a clever politician, a formidable opponent.’ This formulation won’t make the voters think that the Toires are being nasty about their opponent but it will remind them that Clegg is a politician which is a problem for him because so much of his popularity stems from being seen as not just another politician. This, obviously, isn’t the whole answer to stopping and then reversing the surge in Lib Dem support. But it would be of use and, to borrow a phrase, in the current situation every little helps.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Tonight’s Tory PEB

Well, what do you guys think of it? Not bad, I think, especially for a broadcast put together at the last minute (the Tories having pulled their planned anti-Brown PEB), But, as ever, there’s the problem that if people think Cameron a little too slick, a little too polished, a little too much the salesman then the slicker, more polished the Tory presentation the more it feeds into this (unfair) perception. Not that the alternative – incompetence – is any better of course…

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The growing sense that the worst is behind the Tories

These have been a grim few days for the Conservative party. But there is a sense, just a sense mind, that the worst might be behind them. Today’s ICM poll shows the Lib Dems still surging, up 3 to 30, but Tory support is only down one from Sunday’s ICM poll to 33. Labour is in third on 28, down one. Obviously, these polls numbers would have been considered pretty darn awful a week ago and no one would pretend that they are what the Tories would like to see right now. But they are not as bad as some feared they might be and as Julian Glover writes, “the

David Blackburn

Where will Clegg meet his Waterloo?

The FT’s Jim Pickard writes: ‘Cameron will be cursing the order of the debates. He’d much prefer to be attacking Nick Clegg on domestic issues than foreign affairs on Thursday.’ I’m not so sure. Foreign Policy is the arena where the Tories are concrete, populist and accessible. The same is not true for the Lib Dems. Along with Iain Martin and John Rentoul, Pete noted that Ed Davey is vague on the Lib Dem Trident replacement policy. Davey’s vague with good reason: the policy is hopelessly confused. The manifesto says: ‘Rule out the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system. At a cost of £100 billion over a lifetime

Peter Hoskin

No clear winner in the foreign affairs debate

Only defuse.  That seemed to be the approach of all three participants in the Daily Politics’ foreign affairs debate this afternoon.  The frequent questions from Andrew Neil and Mark Urban put David Miliband, William Hague and the Lib Dems’ Ed Davey on the collective back foot.  It was all they could do to take some of the sting out of proceedings. In Miliband’s case, that meant Iraq and defence spending.  On the former, he started with one of the bluntest statements we’ve heard from any government minister on the issue: “If we knew then what we know now,” he said, “we wouldn’t have gone into Iraq.”  You can see the

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Towards a Tory-Lib Dem Future?

I don’t really know if the Tories “Vote Clegg, get Brown” argument will work but if I had to bet on it I’d guess that it won’t. There’s a large enough constituency out there that doesn’t want either the Tories or Labour. Nevertheless, the post-election environment now becomes very interesting. Suppose, just for now, that Labour come third in the popular vote but actually win the most seats. What happens then? And this could happen. Consider this scenario: Tories 33%, Labour 28%, Lib Dems 29% – according to Electoral Calculus and, admittedly, on a crude national and uniform swing, this could produce a result something like Tories 258, Labour 265,

Martin Bright

Labour Cheery About Lib Dem Surge

Labour’s press conference this morning was a surprisingly cheery affair. Peter Mandelson was very much in control of proceedings and the media mob was clearly feeling benevolent on a lovely spring morning. I’m not sure it was entirely wise to run a spoof post-election news broadcast on the double-dip recession caused by Tory economic policy. It felt too much like the Labour high command has already accepted the inevitable. However, the focus wasn’t really on the Tories but the Lib Dem surge. The Labour Party has the right strategy on this: hug them close and emphasise how much common ground there is. They know the Tories stand to lose most from

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Land That Time Forgot

That would be Scotland, of course. Dear old Scotia, meek and mild and quiet as a well-nursed child. There was another YouGov poll released at the weekend and this Scotland on Sunday survey had its own startling findings. To wit: Labour – 40% SNP – 20% Lib Dems – 19% Tories – 16% Others – 5% You read that correctly. After 13 years and the worst fiscal apocalypse in 70 years 40% of my compatriots will still, like so many zombies, endorse the Labour party just as their faither did before them and, god knows, perhaps his faither before him too. True, this poll may slightly under-estimate currrent levels of

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Lessons for the GOP From a Tory Defeat?

Ross Douthat uses his New York Times column today to update Manhattanites on the British election. As you might expect, Ross is broadly supportive of Cameronism and goes so far as to call it “a more detailed and specific vision of what conservative reform might mean than almost any English-speaking politician since the Reagan-Thatcher era.” However: Even if they manage to pull out a win, the Tories will have to actually execute the transformation that they’ve promised. Here the American experience is not encouraging. From Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, almost every modern Republican president has pledged to decentralize government and empower local communities. But their

Peter Hoskin

And so to Brown…

Haven’t we been here before?  Investment versus cuts, I mean.  Because that appears to be the main message of Labour’s press conference this moring.  Gordon Brown set about the Tories’ Big Society, claiming that it “means big cuts in public services”.  Hm. It’s certainly a punchier, if similar, message to the “agenda of abandonment” one that Labour roadtested last week.  But will voters listen?  Well, amid all the excitement about Clegg and the Lib Dems, it’s easy to forget that Labour are now polling third – with a vote share which recalls the days of Michael Foot’s leadership.  They seem to be in a pretty desperate position themselves. This may