Politics

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

Friday

David Blackburn

Labour’s spin machine needs a service

Has Alastair Campbell lost his touch? In his heyday, Labour’s spin was mesmeric, with the godlike Campbell blowing smoke and manipulating mirrors. Now their tactics are as obvious as Britney Spears. Having prepared the ground with Piers Morgan last weekend, Brown will attempt to divert attention from the dreadful state of the economy; his government’s collusion in torture; the steady increase of casualties in Afghanistan; the Labour party having a slanging match before the Chilcot Inquiry; Argentine posturing; James Purnell’s awkwardly timed resignation; and indeed the spectacle of Brown himself doing a Derek and Clive skit in the nude, which, if you want to make eating Sunday breakfast impossible, will

David Blackburn

Purnell leaves parliament but not politics

The news that James Purnell is to stand down is a shock. It is clear that Purnell was disenchanted with Brown’s continued leadership and with the direction in which the Labour party was heading. Purnell was marginalised in parliament and his much vaunted alliance with John Cruddas came to nothing. Plainly, he believes that he can exert more influence outside the parliamentary Labour party than within it. The Tories stole the limelight this week with their commitment to public sector co-operatives; Purnell’s response fell flat, caught in the contradictory statist language that even the most uber-Blairites cannot escape. Purnell’s journey into the wilderness is the firmest evidence that the Conservatives

Daniel Korski

Sunny side up?

Earlier this week I asked what Obama’s experience could teach a Cameron government. At the same time, there has been a well-argued debate in The Times about whether the Tories should go negative or not. There is one point where the two issues converge – and that is in how a newly-elected government should deal with the country’s economic legacy. Once in power, a Tory government will be tempted to be optimistic, to point to the sunny uplands. General Colin Powell said “positive thinking is a force multiplier” and the Cameron team come across as natural adherents to this viewpoint. There is also the fact that the modern Tory agenda

Peter Hoskin

The numbers spoil Labour’s narrative

Labour have certainly come out of the traps snarling and gnashing this morning.  For one, they’re making the most of two letters in the FT, signed by 60 economists, which ostensibly support their position on the public finances.  And then there’s Gordon Brown’s speech to European leaders, in which he implores them to tackle the “hatred” of “the right”.  Naturally, by “the right”, he means “David Cameron”. It’s those letters which really grab the attention, though.  Not really because of what they say, or who has signed them, but because they’re suggestive of how the debate over the public finances is going to go.  Yep, the Tories get 20 economists

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron and the power of the bully pulpit

I must be one of the very few people who would genuinely like to see David Cameron give another speech on chocolate oranges. There was much mockery of it but it contained a very important point: there are some things that a business can do that have negative externalities to which the appropriate response is not taxation or regulation but social disapprobation. So, it was good to see Cameron promising both to use the power of his office to call out companies that sell age inappropriate products and to make it easier for people to protest against such behaviour. There are other areas where I expect social pressure could be

Peter Hoskin

Introducing Dave

Readers of the magazine will be familiar with Michael Heath’s series of ‘Flash Gordon’ cartoons, based on the life and sulks of our glorious Prime Minister.  Well, now it’s got a successor – ‘Dave’ – which, naturally enough, focuses on the Tory leader and would-be PM, Mr Cameron.  Here’s the first of them, from this week’s issue, for the benefit CoffeeHousers.  Just click on the image to make it bigger:

Peter Hoskin

If Brown-Morgan can’t move the polls, what about the TV debates?

Brace yourselves.  There’s going to be poll after poll after poll in the weeks leading to the election.  And the onslaught starts in the Sun today, with the first of their YouGov daily tracker polls.  It is also the first to be conducted in the aftermath of the Brown and Morgan interview. So what’s the story?  Well, Labour’s vote is more or less unmoved – suggesting, in turn, that the public were more or less unmoved by Brown’s interview with Piers Morgan.  They’re on 30 percent (down 1), with the Tories on 39 percent (up 1), and the Lib Dems on 18 (down 1).  That’s a 9 point lead for

Wednesday

David Blackburn

Vote for the party of Frank Gallagher<br />

Following the success of the ‘I’ve never voted Tory’ spoofs, Tim Montgomerie has launched My Labour Poster and welcomes your contributions. I imagine it’ll receive po-faced censure from CCHQ, but Cameron&Co will be privately thrilled if activists get it up and running.

David Blackburn

The Tory wobble is over, for the moment

The media are obsessed with a Tory crisis. And why not? It’s a good story. The Telegraph is cheerleading the circus. It gave exhaustive coverage to the absurd hen-fight in Westminster North; on Monday it reported on more ‘rumblings and grumblings’ in the shires; yesterday, their subject was David Cameron’s heavy handed response to the ‘backwoodsmen’; and today Simon Heffer collates these events into the conclusion that ‘even if  Mr Cameron doesn’t see how disenchanted the public is by its lack of lack of choice and his lack of definition, many of his MPs do. The ride is about to get rocky.’ By accident or design, the Telegraph’s analysis is

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories needed to be negative

There is only one way the Tories can lose the election and that is if it becomes a referendum on them rather than a choice between them and the government. We are in such an anti-politics moment that the electorate is unlikely to give a positive endorsement to any politician or political party. This—not the poor choice of photo—was the real problem with the Tories’ opening ad of the year: it invited voters to judge Cameron in isolation. Cameron is the biggest asset the Tories have but he is their biggest asset when contrasted with Gordon Brown. This is why I think Daniel Finkelstein is wrong to argue that the

Daniel Korski

What can Cameron learn from Obama’s situation?

President Obama was going to be different. He was going to learn from Jimmy Carter’s failures. He was going to avoid Bill Clinton’s fate. Like his well-run campaign, Obama’s tenure in the White House was going to be cool, calm and effective. If Clinton failed by sending an over-cooked healthcare reform to Congress, Obama would succeed by leaving the details to lawmakers. If McCain’s campaign was psychodrama, Obama’s administration was going to be all collegiality.    It did not work out that way and now the knives are out for Obama’s team. First there was Ed Luce’s piece in the Financial Times. Now Leslie H. Gelb, a veteran DC insider,

Martin Bright

Why is Charlie Whelan allowed into Portcullis House unaccompanied?

The parliamentary pass system is supposed to be strictly adhered to in order to stop lobbyists and interest groups getting undue access to politicians (indeed I recently received a slap on the wrist for not updating the journalists’ register of interests immediately after I left the New Statesman. And quite right too).  Guests of passholders are supposed to be accompanied at all times. So I was surprised to see drunken thug Charlie Whelan, the Prime Minister’s mockney fixer, wandering around Portcullis House unaccompanied yesterday. Perhaps he had simply slipped his minder. But I would be interested to know how he qualifies for a pass as a trade union official. One Labour

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Branson’s comments are nectar to the Tories

Sir Richard Branson may often personify a leering joke, but, as Steve Richards observed this morning, this election is descending into a personality contest. Branson remains a symbol of British entrepreneurial success: his endorsement is crucial and I expect to see this story splashed across the right-wing tabloids tomorrow. The Standard quotes Branson saying: “I believe the UK’s record budget deficit does pose a serious risk to our recovery. “It would be damaging if we lost the confidence of the markets through delayed action and saw interest rates have to go up steeply. “We are going to have to cut our spending and I agree with the 20 leading economists

David Blackburn

Much to do if Britain is to manufacture its way out of trouble

The City had hoped that Britain would export its way out of trouble. Dream on City Boys: Britain’s trade deficit is £7.3bn. It is perverse that the Thatcher government is blamed for manufacturing’s decline. Certainly, deficits were a feature of the Thatcher years but Labour came to power with a £1.8bn trade surplus and the gap has widened every year thereafter; Britain was £56bn in the red by 2006. With a possible inflation crisis louring in the distance, precipitated in part by weak sterling and a dependency on imports, British manufacturing needs to be stimulated. John Redwood has a typically incisive post:       ‘It is quite possible to make things

David Blackburn

MPs, porkies, pigs and scum

The headline might almost be word association, but when it comes to Twitter the devil makes work for idle thumbs. Guido points out that tweets cannot be edited once posted. Labour whip David Wright has previous with labelling the Tories ‘scum’, and he maintains that on each occasion he has fallen victim to a would be Lisbeth Salander, who uses their genius to post inane political slurs in no more than 147 characters. Either that or he’s artless at deceit.     CCHQ scent blood and Eric Pickles is gunning for Wright’s head. He has written a letter arguing that Wright has breached the ministerial code. I can see this row

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why Adeela Shafi didn’t get a namecheck

There is real jumpiness in Tory circles at the moment about the prospects of more candidate disasters. So eyebrows were sent upwards when David Cameron failed to name check Adeela Shafi in a section of his speech this morning which mentioned many of the Muslim candidates standing for the party. The omission seemed surprising as Shafi was one of the people who spoke in the prestigious slot just before the leader’s speech at Tory conference in 2008 and is, I think, the only female Muslim candidate standing for the Tories. The assumption was that she had not been mentioned because of the recent stories about her financial problems. But the

David Blackburn

The age delusion

I missed Gordon Brown’s Peter Andre act last night (which reminds me, I hope there is a follow up series: The Browns Stateside or What Gordo Did Next for instance) Alas, last night I had a prior engagement: I was putting out the rubbish. Whilst performing this solemn duty I chanced upon a Sunday Times article by Bryan Appleyard. He has contributed to the cultural topic of the moment: Gerontophobia. Martin Amis’s publicity tour for The Pregnant Widow, David Willetts’s The Pinch, even The Last Station (the film of Tolstoy’s last weeks) – age has become Britain’s obsession. Appleyard is the eminence grise of reasoned disgust and he denounced society’s

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The three Tory pin-ups are brave

The three voters who have agreed to be featured in the Tories’ new ads are brave folk. I would wager a considerable amount that right now there are a whole slew of people digging into their pasts hoping to find some piece of evidence to discredit them. It might not be appealing but it is how politics is done. Remember how the American media hammered ‘Joe the Plumber’, the man who confronted Obama about his tax policy and the McCain campaign tried to turn into a poster boy for those worried about Obama’s economic policies, for owing income tax and not having the right kind of plumbing license. Just last

Peter Hoskin

The Tories’ new poster campaign is a massive improvement over the last

I know there’s a danger of expending too many words on poster campaigns, so just a quick post to flag up the designs the Tories launched this morning.  There’s one of them above, and two more based on the same theme – “I’ve never voted Tory before, but…” – which you can see here. To my eyes, at least, they’re a massive improvement over the last, graveyard poster: refreshingly positive, while also attacking The Way Things Are Now.   Now, I know there are CoffeeHousers who liked the Death Tax poster precisely because it got down ‘n’ dirty, taking the fight to Labour.  But, despite their sunnier front, these latest

Martin Bright

Is Jenny Tonge really sorry?

So Nick Clegg has acted against Jihad Jenny Tonge following her statement to the Jewish Chronicle that there should be an inquiry into stories that the Israeli army was harvesting organs in Haiti. But by removing her as health spokesperson in the Lords without removing the Lib Dem whip, he may just be prolonging the agony. If he had hoped to draw a line under the affair, it seems that Baroness Tonge has other ideas. She has already given an interview to the Iranian state TV channel Press TV, which appears to back the idea that she was pushed out by the “Zionist lobby”. [N.B. The Baroness’s interview with Lauren Booth looks like