Politics Archives

Monday

10 May 2010

Just in case you missed them… | 10 May 2010

…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk Fraser Nelson describes the rolling political drama, and understands that there will be no compromise on Conservative education plans. James Forsyth identifies the two meanings of PR, and examines the Tory coalition. Peter Hoskin asks where are Labour’s manners, and watches Clegg leave the smoke filled rooms to address adoring fans. David Blackburn wonders if Brown will stay or go, and says that Labour must dump Brown. Martin Bright returns to a favoured topic: National Government. Alex Massie argues that Cameron won, full stop.

Peter Hoskin

So now we know how Boris feels about coalition government

Aside from a few quips about Walls sausages and Meccano, Boris has kept his views relatively private since the events of last Thursday. But you can always count on the Mayor of London to open up for his Daily Telegraph column, and, today, he does exactly that. Here’s his take on a Lib-Con coaltion – which, to my eyes, seems more than just a little bit dismissive: “The Lib-Con negotiations are still going on, in a foretaste of the Belgian orgies of tedium and paralysis that proportional representation will inflict on the country. Everyone is trying politely to work out exactly how many Cabinet seats to give a party that

Alex Massie

What A Carve-Up: The Glittering Prizes Awaiting Cameron and Clegg

These are interesting times, aren’t they? Interesting but scarcely simple. Nick Clegg may have suggested that a deal must be done by close of play, Monday if it is to be done at all and all the signs may still point to David Cameron coming to an arrangement with the Liberal Democrats but, clearly, difficulties remain. How could it be otherwise given the complexity of the situation and the stakes? Policy is the least of the problem. If one accepts that the old left-right labels are increasingly outmoded and that the defining divide today is between the centralisers and the localists, between the liberal and the statist then, theoretically at

Sunday

9 May 2010

Martin Bright

Confession Time: I Voted Labour

I left the Labour Party in 1994 and re-joined on May 6th 2010. There, I’ve said it. I had always intended to vote Liberal Democrat in this election, but changed my mind in the polling station. It seems I wasn’t alone. I couldn’t ever quite buy in to the New Labour project, but I would like to be involved in whatever it is that happens next. Unlike others on the left, I would not be horrified by a Conservative/Liberal Democrat government, although I would be happier with a grand coalition/government of national unity. I voted Labour with a heavy heart. My local MP, Lynne Featherstone is exemplary and the local

Fraser Nelson

A rolling Westminster drama

Another extraordinary day in Westminster. A deal looks likely to be agreed by Clegg and Cameron tomorrow morning, put to backbench MPs in the afternoon and then Brown will advise the Queen to send for Cameron on Tuesday. (Brown may choke on those words, but if he says ‘send for Ed Balls’ I don’t think she will fall for it.) This evening at 6pm, the handful of Tories MPs who are in London met Cameron at the Commons to discuss the coalition talks. Rumours still fly but as I understand it a deal has been reached where the LibDems will vote for Tory cuts – thereby fulfilling Vince Cable’s pledge to

Alex Massie

John Wilkes Rises From His Grave

John Redwood says it is “Time to speak for England” while over at ConservativeHome Paul Goodman argues that this is something which needs to be addressed. As he notes the Tory manifesto does contain a theoretical commitment to answering the West Lothian Question and creating a de facto English parliament. And in theory there’s nothing wrong with that. Quite the contrary in fact. Few people in Scotland, I think, would consider this either unfair or unreasonable. Indeed, if my memory is correct, polling suggests that a majority of Scots think this would be a fair way forward. Certainly, there are excellent arguments for revisiting the Barnett Formula – though Barnett

David Blackburn

No Lib-Con deal for at least 24 hours

William Hague has just emerged from the Cabinet Office and spoken of the ‘positive, constructive and substantive talks’ between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Discussion has encompassed political reform, reducing the deficit, banking reform, regulation of small businesses, environmental issues and civil liberties. Hague says that a further meeting will take place at some stage in the next 24 hours. ‘That meeting,’ he added. ‘Will concentrate on deficit reduction and economic stability’. The language of the statement suggests that an informal pact is more likely than a formal coalition. It is surely indicative that the follow-up talks aim to secure economic stability in the interests of the country, rather

Fraser Nelson

My understanding is that Cameron will not sacrifice schools reform

During coalition talks, wild rumours can fly – and some of them can be true. That’s why Michael Gove would have stopped many a Tory heart this morning by telling Andrew Marr that he was by no means wedded to a Cabinet job and then heaped praise on David Laws. The Gove schools policy is ranked by The Spectator as reason in itself to vote Tory and by The Economist as the best single policy of the election campaign. Might it be sacrificed? The 10am radio headlines were suggesting so. I bumped into Gove just afterwards and asked him: panic over. He had simply sought to make clear that he

Daniel Korski

Don’t forget the Party, David

Days, perhaps only hours away from the expected announcement of a Con-Lib deal, the Tory party rank-and-file is getting increasingly restive. Many MPs and party activists do not feel that Team Cameron has been sufficiently attentive to them and their concerns. They look longingly at the Lib Dems, whose democratic set-up enables MPs and party members to make their views known to Nick Clegg and the leadership. In a Tory party that has always favoured single-minded leadership, the options for representing rank-and-file views are few, particularly as the chairmanship of the 1922 committee remains vacant. As a result, many senior MPs have been reduced to calling hacks to find out

Alex Massie

Scotland Will Save England From PR

That’s right. There’s a genial irony here. The very same Scottish MPs whose election helped prevent the Conservatives from winning a majority will be the men – and they are mostly men – who will prevent electoral reform. Those English voters who think it unfair that the great phalanx of Labour MPs returned from these chilly northern climes exercise an undue (in their eyes) influence upon the affairs of state might also pause to reflect that the people who will prevent electoral reform may well be those same Scottish Labour members. Not that this stops the deluded left from dreaming of some grand so-called progressive alliance. They’re all at it

Alex Massie

A Liberty Government? Also: Clegg is Not Kingmaker

No, not a libertarian government, but an alliance between liberal Tories and Orange Book Liberal Democrats is arguably the closest thing we can get to it. Peter Oborne has a splendid column in the Observer today which makes the key point: Indeed the prime minister and his supporters are wrong to argue today that the Liberal Democrats and Labour have far more in common than Lib Dems and Conservatives. Ideologically, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats share one massive idea. They are both doctrinally suspicious of central government. They favour localism, decentralisation, individual freedom and accountability. The want to destroy the big state and all of its paraphernalia: bureaucracy, secrecy

David Blackburn

A long day’s journey into night

Sky News are reporting that Brown is to hold a meeting with Cabinet ministers tonight. Lord Ashdown made it pretty clear on Andrew Marr this morning that there would be no ‘progressive coalition’ with a Labour party that has been comprehensively rejected at the polls, and which would rely on backroom deals with celtic nationalist parties prepared to sell their support for a measure of protection from necessary spending cuts. You’d have thought that tonight’s meeting is the beginning of the end for the Labour government.

David Blackburn

Swords around a throne

The Sunday Times reports that the Cabinet is suggesting to Gordon Brown that he resign as Prime Minister, and that Labour goes into opposition against a weak Conservative government facing an unenviable economic task. The ‘Caretaker Prime Minister’ did not fly to Scotland to consider a re-shuffle, though that would have provided some light entertainment. And his swift return to London this afternoon suggests that Brown’s premiership is gasping its dying breaths. With the exception of a brief lapse on the telephone, Brown’s conduct has been dignified in recent days. For once, he has led. Will he remain as Labour leader if he resigns as PM? He might; he’s stubborn

Alex Massie

Cameron Won. Get Over It.

The people who need to get over it, of course, are the headbangers on the Tory right. It’s not a surprise that Simon Heffer and Lord Tebbit think Cameron a failure, nor that they believe that a set of policies more closely aligned to their own beliefs would have produced a Tory majority of, what, 20? 40? 100? Maybe they are right but I’m not sure they’ve presented much evidence to support these conclusions. Consider these facts: Cameron’s Conservatives won nearly two million more votes than Michael Howard’s party managed in 2005. Even if you accept, reasonably, that Labour’s record in government ensured they would lose votes it does not

Saturday

8 May 2010

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 8 May 2010

At the time of writing, no one knows the result of this election. Whatever it happens to be, one must salute David Cameron for his courage in being the first party leader in modern times to fly to Northern Ireland during the campaign to try to unite the politics of the whole of the United Kingdom with those of the province. In this, he defies the might of establishment opinion, and strikes a blow for party democracy. His virtue deserves to be rewarded, should any coalition deals need to be done. Unlike many commentators, I have found this election campaign highly enjoyable, but, as it ends, I do rejoice at

The Spectator

Gordon’s ghost

Gordon Brown’s physical presence in 10 Downing Street, while irksome, was not really the problem. Gordon Brown’s physical presence in 10 Downing Street, while irksome, was not really the problem. As Prime Minister, he struggled to achieve anything positive: his skills lay mainly in destroying rivals and terrorising Conservatives. The power he exerted derived from his ability to programme the government machine, and advance his agenda: five-year plans, faith in bureaucracy and the idea that money was the solution to every given problem. It is these ideas, not the man himself, which David Cameron must vanquish. In many respects, Mr Brown can be regarded as an astonishingly successful politician. His

Alex Massie

Let’s Talk About Tax

We know that europe and perhaps electoral reform will be difficult for the Tories and Lib Dems to agree upon. So let’s talk about something else: tax. Cameron’s email to Tory members today strikes just the right tone and says most of the right things. It makes it clear that he thinks there’s a deal to be done and, importantly, reminds the membership that the Tories will have to give some things up too if the partnership is to be stable enough to last at least two years. That’s important because it’s one way of building trust and convincing the other party that you’re serious. So, on tax, I’d suggest

Alex Massie

A Better Electoral System?

As I say, FPTP is a defensible system and so is STV and so is AV: each brings something useful and each has its drawbacks. But why limit ourselves to these options? From a voters’ point of view I think there’s something to be said for adapting the French system. It’s a majoritarian system that would sit comfortably with British traditions but, importantly, it also allows voters to make a more informed choice. It is also simple. If any candidate wins more than 50% of the vote in their constituency he or she is duly elected after the first round of voting. Something like half of all our constituencies fall

Daniel Korski

Cameron’s Clause 4 moment

David Cameron never really had a Clause 4 moment. True, the Conservatives never believed anything so absurd as socialist economics. But the fact that he never had a genuine dust-up with his party made many voters think that he had rebranded but not reoriented them. In the end, it made many would-be supporters wary of voting Tory. Now, the Tory leader may have a Clause 4 moment thrust upon him by virtue of the Lib Dem talks. For if a Con-Lib pact is to be made, it will include a lot of things the party finds unpalatable. Like Tony Blair’s experience with the Labour Party over the Clause 4 discussions,

Peter Hoskin

Clegg laps it up

Ooh, a touch of drama just now, as Nick Clegg addressed the 1,000 or so protestors calling for voting reform in Smith Square. He said that the demonstration was “wonderful,” and got big cheers for saying that PR is “in the national interest”. But there were no hints, either way, about how the Lib-Con talks are going, or whether PR was a dealbreaker – which may have left the people shouting “Don’t sell out!” a little dissatisfied. For all the banners and flags, this one will still come down to the decisions of men in suits, behind oak doors. UPDATE: The Beeb’s Laura Kuenssberg tweets that the protestors are moving