Politics Archives

Sunday

10 Jan 2010

Our Dismal Politics: Charlatanry and Deceit All Around

Fraser rightly draws our attention to the highly entertaining extracts from Peter Watt’s book published by the Mail on Sunday. Granted the whole enterprise is accompanied, as is traditional in these matters, by the sound of many an axe being ground and some of the details – to say nothing of the quotations – are close too being in the too-good-to-be-quite-true camp. Nonetheless, the general spirit of the thing seems persuasive. So it’s worth highlighting another, minor, passage that actually doesn’t have anything to do with Gordon Brown at all: Some of our politicians could be touchingly naive. During the 2001 General Election campaign, some bright spark came up with

Saturday

9 Jan 2010

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 9 January 2010

Like millions of listeners to the Today programme on New Year’s Eve, I rejoiced at P.D. James’s inquisition — the more deadly for its courtesy — of the BBC Director-General, Mark Thompson. Like millions of listeners to the Today programme on New Year’s Eve, I rejoiced at P.D. James’s inquisition — the more deadly for its courtesy — of the BBC Director-General, Mark Thompson. Mr Thompson is not a bad or stupid man, but his very locutions were typical of the modern bureaucrat. Where Lady James respectfully called him ‘Director-General’, he tried to ingratiate himself by calling her ‘Phyllis’. Where she used metaphor exactly — a well-extended image of the BBC as an ‘unwieldy ship’,

The Spectator

A golden age for fascism

The re-emergence of fascism in Britain is highly inconvenient for our political parties, it is a distraction from the election campaigns they are all so overly keen to begin. They deal with the BNP by ignoring it, by banning MEPs from parliament to make sure no one has to pass Nick Griffin in a corridor. They pretend the BNP is a strange anomaly, too small to be dangerous with ‘only’ a million voters, and they claim to be baffled as to how such support could emerge. The events of this week left two large clues. The first is the fascist march being called in Wiltshire. No one describes Islam4UK’s proposed

Fraser Nelson

Inside the Brown operation: the loathing, the cluelessness and the sulks

Remember Peter Watt? No one in Team Brown did either –and that, it now turns out, was a big mistake. As general secretary of the Labour Party when the Blair-Brown handover happened (and cash-for-honours was in the air) he was in a brilliant position to know what went on. And, after being abandoned by all of them, he has a motive to tell. His revelations are pretty explosive, but this jumps out at me the most – from Douglas Alexander, the man everyone thought was Brown’s little Mowgli raised by a fellow son-of-the-manse in the jungle of politics. This is what Alexander (the would-be co-ordinator in the election that never

Daniel Korski

Security and Defence Review 101

Defence geeks are waiting to see how the Conservative Party intends to conduct a Security and Defence Review, if they are elected. By the time a new government comes to power, the Ministry of Defence will in all likelihood have produced a Green Paper, setting out initial thoughts on the future of the military, which is meant to lead on to a more substantive Strategic Defence Review. But if the Tories want a process (and ultimately plans and ideas) that encompasses not only the MoD, but also the Foreign Office, DfiD, the security services and even parts of the Home Office, then a new kind of institutional vehicle will have

Peter Hoskin

Darling’s honesty is good news for the country – but tricky news for Labour

Well, well, well – Darling’s Times interview, which James reported earlier, sure is a significant moment, and one which more than deserves a place on the spending cut timeline which I put together last week. In fact, let’s see what it would look like alongside a few of the most recent entries: 9 December 2009: Pre-Budget Report 2009 forecasts Public Sector Net Borrowing of £176 billion, and Public Sector Net Debt of £986 billion, in 2010-11. 10 December 2009: Alistair Darling puts in a bizarre performance on the Today programme, claiming that the PBR implies that departmental budgets would remain “pretty much flat.” 10 December 2009: The IFS works out

Ed Howker

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Inside the Chilcot Inquiry

Alastair Campbell emerged from that kind of shining silver limo more accustomed to transporting the likes of Jordan and Paris Hilton than former directors of communications. He got their entourage too: a vicious ‘pap’ scrum so tight that The Chilcot Inqury’s latest star witness required the assistance of four burly coppers to get to the doors of the QEII Conference Centre, temporarily affecting the exaggerated swagger of a TV detective as he did so. Seven years after the UK first deployed troops in Iraq and more than a year, indeed, since we withdrew, Mr. Campbell is still answering questions about the preparations for war. They are the same questions

David Selbourne

There’s little comfort to be found on Cameron’s woolly centre ground

‘It’s a brand new year’, Mr Cameron told his Oxford audience last Saturday as he launched his election campaign. ‘It’s a brand new year’, Mr Cameron told his Oxford audience last Saturday as he launched his election campaign. Why, so it is. He also has a ‘new politics’ on offer — new, new, new — but without a coherent philosophy, Tory or any other, to underpin it; no Disraeli, or Balfour, or Thatcher he. Indeed, at a time when many of Britain’s institutions have been debauched during Labour’s period in office, when the nation has largely lost its sense of moral and political direction, and when citizenship of an increasingly

Peter Oborne

Cameron is our Disraeli

There is a certain type of bovine political intelligence which hates David Cameron. It cannot forgive the Tory leader his popularity, his beautiful wife, his upper-middle-class ease — and above all his astonishing success in rebuilding the Conservative party. The core criticism works like this: David Cameron is an empty and opportunistic former PR executive, interested only in power for its own sake, utterly devoid of ideas let alone principles, morally indistinguishable from Tony Blair, and in the pocket of Rupert Murdoch. And it must be acknowledged that this portrait contains some truth. He also lacks that visceral connection with ordinary voters that marked out Margaret Thatcher. But it is

Iain Martin

Charlie Whelan’s war

Gordon Brown’s chief fixer is ensconced in Unite, the increasingly militant union. Iain Martin asks if the comrades can be persuaded to hold back a wave of strikes Where is Charlie Whelan these days? What’s the old rascal up to? The trade union fixer, spin-doctoring confidant and close friend of the Prime Minister was on my mind after I returned from a trip to my native Scotland for Christmas. I had booked a rail ticket to take me northwards in time for the big day — £112 first class with Virgin. My only choice, seeing as the Unite trade union had engineered a British Airways strike, rendering my £190 British

Alex Massie

Bullseye Britain

It’s been a depressing few months, hasn’t it? The papers are full of stories about British decline. In such trying times it’s a comfort to turn to an activity in which Britain still rules. I speak, of course, of darts. Most of the world’s greatest games were made and built in Britain but in football and cricket and rugby and so much else the rest of the world long since over-took the original masters. That’s the problem with globalisation. Darts, however, remains a Great British Success Story. For all that darting missionaries preach the gospel of the oche overseas, this country still reigns supreme on the dartboard. The rise of

Friday

8 Jan 2010

Martin Bright

Overestimating the Labour Party

I am forced to admit that I misjudged the nature of the Hoon-Hewitt plot. I credited them with having lined up some sort of serious Cabinet-level support (I have to say I assumed they had squared it with Mandelson). Whatever flaws you might attribute to the pair, they were once serious players in the New Labour world. But such is the collapse of confidence in the party that no one looks like they know what they are doing any more. I made the mistake of thinking that because Hoon and Hewitt were once part of a finely honed Labour machine, they were still at the top of their game. Daft

James Forsyth

More trouble lies in wait for the government

Labour lost the first week of the long election campaign. The Hoon and Hewitt plot and the late and tepid endorsements of Brown from key members of the Cabinet have highlighted the divisions within the Labour party. Hoon and Hewitt were right that stories about these decisions will not go away. They will run and run right up to polling day. The weekend papers will also not be good for Labour. To compound Labour’s woes, it looks like the big political story of early next week will be Alastair Campbell’s testimony to the Iraq inquiry, which threatens to dredge up memories of spin and Iraq. It should be remembered, though,

The Spectator

The week that was | 8 January 2010

Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. Fraser Nelson watches the Labour party lose the plot, and thinks that David Cameron is cowering in the face of Labour attacks. James Forsyth reveals what we have learnt from the failed H&H coup, and argues that any action that wounds Brown without killing him is nectar to the Tories. Peter Hoskin wonders whether he’s found Labour’s election slogan, and wonders why H&H stuck their heads above the parapet. David Blackburn predicts a post-election bloodbath for Labour, and is concerned that the Civil Service’s impartiality is being compromised. Lloyd Evans witnesses an intriguing exchange at PMQs be

Peter Hoskin

Gordon Brown on fighting and winning…

Ok, I know Labour circulars will always fly the party flag – but the email that’s just gone out in Gordon Brown’s name has to win some sort of prize for sheer party political effrontery. With the subject line “When we fight we win,” here’s how it begins: “If there’s one thing that our recent by-election successes and this week’s coverage about the £34 billion credibility gap in the Tories’ spending plans shows us, it’s that when we fight, we win. I know that despite the icy conditions, so many of you are preparing to go out campaigning this weekend. That, for me, says it all about the spirit of

Peter Hoskin

Is it the leadership or nothing for David Miliband?

A cracking post from Paul Waugh on the prospect of shadow cabinet elections for Labour. For those who can’t remember the last time they took place (14 years ago), they’re the annual elections which Labour MPs hold, when in Opposition, to help determine who gets to sit on the front bench. The party leader and deputy are immune from the process, but everyone else is subject to the whims, fancies and dispositions of all those backbenchers. In which case, Paul’s observation about David Miliband is worth noting down: “Word is that David Miliband and Douglas Alexander would do disastrously, given their reputation for aloofness and failure to gladhand in the

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s only strength is the weakness of his rivals

So who got what? Today’s Times has a great summary of the concessions and promises that Brown has had to make to keep his Cabinet colleagues on side, including: “In a series of negotiations: — Harriet Harman demanded and received a promise to have more day-to-day control over the election campaign. Labour’s deputy leader also demanded to be treated with more respect from Mr Brown’s staff. — Jack Straw told Mr Brown that he must not rely solely on a “core vote” strategy aimed at shoring up Labour’s heartland support. — Alistair Darling urged the Prime Minister to be more honest about the cuts in public spending needed to pay

Daniel Korski

In preparing for war, the Tories differ from Labour in one respect – they would be prepared

In today’s Times, and on the occasion of George Osborne and William Hague’s visit to Helmand, the Tories are publishing proposals for how to improve the Government’s approach to post-conflict operations. Their central idea: to create a stabilisation force in the military, complete with the necessary expertise, training and so on to win the peace after combat. If it was not already abundantly clear, the Iraq Inquiry has shown how ill-prepared the British state – civil service, military and government – was for post-combat reconstruction. Though much has changed since the Iraq War – e.g. a dedicated department, the Stabilisation Unit, has been set up in Whitehall, and General David

Thursday

7 Jan 2010

Daniel Korski

Cancel the London Afghanistan Conference

In a few weeks time, a slew of foreign ministers will descend on London to attend a conference on Afghanistan. No.10 will use the event to sell Gordon Brown as a statesman, confidently dealing with the nation’s threats. The Conservatives, in turn, will probably try to score the usual points about Britain’s failure, alongside its NATO allies, to make any in-roads in the fight against the Taliban. Together with Tony Blair’s evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, the conference may create one of the few moments in the drawn-out election campaign when the three party leaders stop talking about the NHS and focus on national security issues instead. Too bad, then,

James Forsyth

The plot’s gunpowder is extinguished

The atmosphere is flat in Westminster today. The plot finally fizzled out this morning but not before having highlighted how little support in the Cabinet Brown has. It was telling that it was Shaun Woodward, not anyone more high profile, who turned up on the Today Programme to defend the PM. Plots that wound but do not kill Brown are perfect for the Tories. They make the voters see Labour as divided and add to the mood that it is time for a change. This one also had the benefit of being ideally timed from a Tory perspective, obscuring a week which had seen Cameron make a rare blunder. YouGov’s