Politics

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

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories’ simple moral purpose

Education is the area where the Cameron agenda inspires most. The supply-side revolution the Tories are planning to enable, will transform education for the better in this country. This morning, the Tories launched the education section of their draft manifesto at the Walworth Academy in south London, one of the ARK schools.  The event was memorable for a compelling performance by Michael Gove. Gove, speaking with the passion of a preacher, set out the ‘simple moral purpose’ of expanding opportunity that lay behind his education reform proposals. He detailed how the gap between rich and poor grows as children spend longer in school and how more boys at Eton get

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 18 January 2010

…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Fraser Nelson is relieved to see George Osborne talking sense. James Forsyth asks if Mandelson has won a lasting victory, and says that Nick Clegg has one great policy but he doesn’t know how to sell it. Peter Hoskin observes the insiders biting back, and argues that Labour’s policy is a hostage to their internal struggles. David Blackburn thinks that John Cruddas’ faith may prove his undoing, and believes that the burka should not banned.   Rod Liddle is adamant that no one should vote UKIP. And Alex Massie examines the essence of Palinism.  

Sunday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Don’t Vote UKIP

I see that UKIP thinks it a good idea to ban Muslim women from wearing the veil in the public. The burka and “other face covering veils” should be outlawed, Farage pronounced today. His reasons given are that full veils are socially divisive and symbolic of the subordination of women. What a low and filthy attempt to suck up a few more right wing votes. To pass a law legislating what people can wear and what they can’t. Except not “people”, but Muslims – that is the only section of the population to whom this stricture applies. So it is quintessentially racist – much as is our demands for the

David Blackburn

The burka is a symbol of division, but it should not be banned

On the face of it, Nigel Farage is right: “There is nothing extreme or radical or ridiculous” about banning the burka. It is a manifestation of many British Muslims’ indifference to society; it is an expression of wilful separation and a symbol of a nation riven with cultural division. In the sphere of private behaviour becoming political, the burka engenders intolerance – reactionary Islam’s intolerance of liberal democracy and vice versa. In this atmosphere, writers and politicians of all hues have drawn the same conclusion and there is capital to be extracted (perhaps cynically) by taking the seemingly sensible decision to ban the burka. To do so would be misguided as well

Peter Hoskin

Labour’s policy is a hostage to their internal struggles

So Gordon is selling himself as a champion of the middle classes.  There is, as various commentators have pointed out, more than a little bit of hyposcrisy about that.  But the thing that strikes me most about our PM’s change of tack is how similar it is to Darling’s honesty over cuts last weekend.   Like Darling’s admission, it represents some sort of progress for Labour: on paper, the politics of aspiration should play better – and have wider appeal – than the crude class war that they’ve engaged in recently.  But, also like Darling’s admission, it highlights just how inconsistent the government have been over the last few months. 

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clegg has one great policy but he doesn’t know how to sell it

Nick Clegg has one policy that he should be talking about at every opportunity, his plan to make everyone’s first ten thousand pounds of income tax free. It is a radical idea that would lift millions of people out of tax altogether and be a massive step towards making work pay. As one Tory candidate fighting a marginal seat said to me this week, ‘I wish we had something like that to offer people.’ But as Clegg’s appearance on Andrew Marr this morning showed, Clegg doesn’t know how to sell his policy. Rather than emphasising the first ten thousand point, he mainly talked about his plans for a mansion tax

Peter Hoskin

The insiders bite back

Another weekend, another set of embarrassing revelations for Gordon Brown.  The Mail on Sunday continues its serialisation of Peter Watt’s Inside Out; this time focusing on what Watt wryly describes as Labour’s “plans … for swapping the most electorally successful Labour Prime Minister in our history for Gordon Brown.”   Ok, so the Blairite-Brownite wars are nothing new, but this alleged Brown quote, made at the time of the cash-for-honours scandal, deserves adding to the notebook: “Later, rumours swirled in No10 of a furious bust-up between the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. ‘I’ll bring you down with sleaze,’ the Chancellor was said to have yelled.” Although, to my mind, this

Daniel Korski

“Conservative” silence on the British Council may undermine their value-promoting credentials

The Conservative party’s security proposals have sparked a bit of debate, with many on the right concerned that democracy-promotion is getting short shrift. A lot of the attention has focused on Pauline Neville-Jones’ role in a future government, rather than anything the documents say. Though she is likely to take over Lord West’s job, rather than become the Prime Minister Cameron’s adviser -– in their security blueprint, the role of National Security Adviser is described as being taken up by “an official” –- many fear Dame Neville-Jones’ old-school, realist instincts will unduly influence Tory policy.  But if the Tories want to underline that the party remains committed to promoting democratic

Saturday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 16 January 2010

At the turn of the year, William Hague, launching the new round of election campaigning, told an interviewer that David Cameron was the sanest party leader whom he had ever met. He has unintentionally put his finger on the only thing that is wrong with Mr Cameron. Most of us regard sanity as an unqualified benefit, and Mr Cameron certainly has that reassuring quality. His character seems rather like the snow in ‘Good King Wenceslas’ — deep and crisp and even. The problem, though, is that politics requires some sort of insanity, especially when there is a crisis, as there is now. The political leader’s belief that he or she (I’ll

David Blackburn

Gentlemen interrupt their lunch for no one

Why did it take Peter Mandelson so long to support Brown on the afternoon of the snow plot? Well, his lordship was taking luncheon. His interview with the Telegraph contains the disclosure: ‘As the scheming by Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt unfolded, the Business Secretary ate haddock with an old friend. “We had a good talk which did not focus on events back at Westminster. When I got back, I put out a statement suggesting that it was a very minor storm in an even smaller teacup. I called it right. By teatime it had become a two-hour wonder.”’ Mandelson must eat at a Gladstonean pace. The Business Secretary is

David Blackburn

Will faith prove Cruddas’ undoing?

What intrigues me most about the Cruddas/Purnell axis is their commitment to faith in public life. Many politicians discuss faith carefully and define its role in society as essentially passive – remember David Cameron’s recent interview with the Evening Standard. Cruddas and Purnell envisage faith and the civic mutualism it engenders as an active ingredient to renew both party and country. Writing in the Guardian earlier this week, Purnell wrote: ‘The Labour movement was built upon organisation, the practices of reciprocity and mutuality that, if successful, led to a shared responsibility for one another’s fate… There are deep conservative elements in the Labour tradition, and we should honour them –

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour’s cycle of deceit?

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics There is something wonderfully self-perpetuating about mutiny in politics. Any attempt to depose a leader, successful or otherwise, triggers a cycle of rebellion. The danger for Labour after last week is being sucked into this cycle where treason begets treason. Indeed, the conspirators against Brown cite his actions as justification for their own. As Barry Sheerman put it, when challenged about whether he was betraying his leader, ‘I don’t need anyone who undermined the previous Prime Minister and who was utterly disloyal telling me that I am disloyal.’ When a leader has broken the bonds of party loyalty, he struggles to demand loyalty

Max Hastings

The Tory defence policy will be simple: cut, brutally

The British military has been horribly overstretched by the wars of the Labour years, says Max Hastings. But the Tories’ only option will be to cut further still. Hideous decisions lie ahead Britain’s armed forces sometimes suppose that they get a better break from Conservative governments than Labour ones, but their recent experience suggests otherwise. After 11 years of Margaret Thatcher, it proved necessary to cannibalise the entire armoured resources of the Rhine Army to deploy a weak division for the First Gulf War. Today, the services welcome the prospect of a Tory government after a long period of policy paralysis. But they are also braced for bad news. They

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Iris Robinson could not live up to her own bigoted standards

Rod Liddle says that Northern Ireland’s First Minister and his wife held religious beliefs that made ordinary life — and marriage — impossible Help me out here — we need a wholesale supplier, and quickly. If we are to save the soul of Iris Robinson, we need huge vats of the blood of Christ, in which she might humbly immerse herself. I have tried eBay and — ironically, you might think — the Vatican, but there seems to be a run on the blood of Christ right now — we are all after a sprinkling, here or there, to assuage our multifarious sins. Total immersion — which would require gallons

Dennis Sewell

Michael Gove vs the Blob

Dennis Sewell says that the political cage fight between the Tories and the educational establishment will be the most thrilling contest of Cameron’s first hundred days The Russell Group, representing Britain’s top 20 universities, warned this week that Gordon Brown’s cuts would bring to its knees within six months a higher education system that has taken 800 years to create. The destruction of our schools system has been a slower, more drawn-out process. There is, fortunately, one last chance to save it. Of all the dramatic political battles that will begin only once the general election has been safely won, the most thrilling — and the one that more deserves

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The government caves in to the Muslim Council of Britain

The government has caved in its dispute with the Muslim Council of Britain. The government broke off relations with the group over its deputy director-general Daud Abdullah signing the Istanbul Declaration. Indeed, Daud Abdullah even instigated legal action against the then Communities Secretary Hazel Blears over her statements about what the declaration called for. But now Stephen Pollard is reporting that the government is bringing the MCB back in. A DCLG spokesperson tells Pollard that an MCB commitment to examine “their internal processes and ensure that the personal actions of all members, including senior leaders, remain true to the organisation’s agreed policies, avoiding a repeat of the issues which arose

The Spectator

The week that was | 15 January 2010

Fraser Nelson congratulates Ross Kemp for giving both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian debate. James Forsyth believes that Jon Cruddas may be Labour’s coming man, and scents Labour’s plotters gathering to oppose international jurisdiction. Peter Hoskin is stunned to hear Ed Balls say the same stuff differently, and praises the Tories sensible re-think of their marriage tax proposal. David Blackburn watches Alastair Campbell appear before the Chilcot Inquiry, and believes it is immaterial who fronts Labour’s election campaign. Martin Bright on the Labour revolt against Israel. Susan Hill rails against edu-cay-shun. Alex Massie debates a political pizza strategy for Labour. Rod Liddle bemoans our deepening double standards. Melanie Phillips ponders Tories, spliffs

David Blackburn

Boothroyd slams quotas for women and ethnic minority MPs

Andrew Neil’s guest on this week’s Straight Talk (BBC News Channel – Saturday at 0430 and 2230 and Sunday at 0130, 1530 and 2330) is former Speaker Baroness Boothroyd. There is a delicious anecdote about the time Boothroyd invited herself round to Bercow’s flat and advised him on several weighty matters, but I’ll leave you to discover what was said. With characteristic independence, Boothroyd set herself firmly against the decision to impose, presuming the election doesn’t alter the social make-up of Commons’ membership, quotas on parties to increase the number of women and ethnic minority MPs.    Andrew Neil:  If this General Election doesn’t make a major change in the number

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The cost of saving the Army

We have led the magazine this week on coming Tory defence cuts, with a brilliant piece by Max Hastings. Look closely at the cover image (our second by Christian Adams) and you can see the guillotine blade will hit he RAF and Navy guys before the Army. This, Hastings argues, will be the effect of the Tory Strategic Defence Review. And even this will leave cuts of up to 20 per cent across the defence budget under the Tories. How could Cameron justify that, in this dangerous world of ours? David Cameron prepares the ground today with an important speech in Chatham House promising “one of the most radical departures

David Blackburn

The Tories may raid the aid budget to fund the military

The think tank, Chatham House, is the next venue for Cameron’s intermittent policy blitz. He will unveil his national security strategy, part of which, the Telegraph reports, will enable the government to raid the international development budget to fund military projects. ‘The Conservatives are committed to increasing the international development budget to meet a United Nations target of spending 0.7 per cent of gross national product on aid. However, some Tories believe the party can honour that pledge by counting some spending done by the Ministry of Defence as development aid, since the work of the Armed Forces contributes to the development of countries like Afghanistan. Taking that approach could