Politics Archives

Friday

30 Oct 2009

Dangerous efficiency savings

The Times reports that the Ministry of Justice has produced proposals to close polling booths, hire fewer employees, raise candidate’s deposits and introduce telephone and email ballots in the hope of saving, wait for it, £65million – less than half of Manchester City’s summer transfer spending. In exchange for that trifling sum, the MoJ is prepared to chance the quality of democratic processes. Increasing candidate deposits may preclude minority parties from standing. Fewer electoral staff will increase the possibility of widespread counting errors, occassionally labelled ‘malpractice’ in other areas. Polling stations sited for the convenience of voters will be sacrificed, which would marginalise rural and suburban voters, and telephone and

Alex Massie

The Nonsensical Neather Plot

Conspiracies are all the rage these days. And since this has turned into Immigration Week here one might as well address the Neather Brouhaha. This, British readers will need no reminding, refers to the uncovering of the nefarious New Labour plan to destroy Britain and spike the Tories’ guns forever by destroying this green and pleasant land and turning it into a multi-cultural hellhole. We are led to understand that this was indeed a deliberate plot, apparently borrowed from the Democrats’ presumed determination to make the United States a Spanish-speaking Banana Republic. The evidence [sic] for this rests upon two paragraphs from an article written by a former government speechwriter.

Thursday

29 Oct 2009

James Forsyth

Blair’s campaign falters

A contact just back from Brussels tells me that the putative Blair candidacy, which I wrote about this week, is in trouble. Apparently the supporters of Jean Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg PM, are frank that the purpose of his candidacy is to polarise the field with him—Federalist, anti-Iraq—on one side and Blair on the other. In typical EU fashion, the compromise candidate will then be looked for. Blair’s problem is that he is the high-profile front-runner. He is the man everyone is either for or against and in a selection that is decided by consensus that person rarely gets the job. In the meantime, the Dutch PM Jean Peter

David Blackburn

Should MPs be given a free vote on Kelly’s reforms?

No, was Harriet Harman’s answer. With a very peculiar turn of phrase, the Leader of the House said that MPs would “have their say” without having a free vote, which is perhaps a recognition that there will be much chuntering in the bar after the whipped vote. With an eye on gentrification, Harman recently abolished ‘the stocks’ and invented the ‘Court of Public Opinion’. The public will, reasonably, be up in arms if freeloading MPs are seen to wriggle out of new proscriptions. Additionally, the argument that ‘normal employees do not control the terms of their employment, why should MPs?’ is powerful. A free vote is a risk the government

David Blackburn

Road to perdition

It is another black day for Gordon Brown. The financial news from America, contrasted with continuing decline here, indicts Brown’s recession strategy. Playing the long game, Osborne is being vindicated, and Guido is correct that the ongoing UK recession negates Labour’s attack line on Osborne: the novice has trumped the alleged master. More damaging though is the resurfacing of Damian McBride and the ‘omerta’ of Brown’s inner circle, with its sordid and cynical connotations. The news that Nadine Dorries will receive £1,000 from McBride reflects poorly on the Prime Minister. Worse still, there is possibly more to come – Dorries has two suits outstanding, against Number 10 and Derek Draper

Wednesday

28 Oct 2009

Alex Massie

David Cameron’s Watford Playground Problem

Brother Liddle is right to despair at the latest local government absurdity: banning parents from children’s playgrounds unless they’ve undergone a criminal background check to prove that they’re not paedophiles. There would appear to be no limit to local government lunacy. O tempora, O mores indeed. This sort of thing, however, also poses a problem for David Cameron. The Tories’ “localism agenda” is by some way their most interesting and, at least potentially, important idea. But there’s one obvious drawback: it means giving more power to local councils. And, as we are reminded on a daily basis, local councils are more than amply-stocked with fools. Decentralisation is an admirable and,

James Forsyth

Raging against the dying of the light

George Osborne’s speech on Monday calling for huge cash bonuses not to be paid this year drew an angry response from those hoping to receive huge cash bonuses – and various City and business pressure groups. A few years ago I would have felt deeply uncomfortable with what Obsorne proposed, but because nearly every bank has drawn heavily on state support over the last year, I think politicians do have a right – even a responsibility – to offer firm guidance to the banks. The FT led the charge against Osborne with both a critical news story, gleefully dissected by Iain Martin, and a harsh leader. Today, the paper follows

James Forsyth

Truss’s candidacy must stand

When the story of there being controversy over Liz Truss’s selection as the Tory candidate for South West Norfolk because she had once has an affair with a Tory MP arose last weekend, I dismissed it. My immediate reaction was that the media was just looking for a follow up story to the row over all-women shortlists. I imagined that no association would seriously be irritated by a candidate’s failure to bring up a personal matter that was already public knowledge. So I was shocked to hear that her selection has now been referred back to a meeting of the full association. It is now imperative that Truss’s candidacy stands.

Lloyd Evans

Dave misses his opportunity

Does Cameron fluff PMQs on purpose? Some theorists say he lets Brown off the hook in order to keep the weakling in his job. I don’t buy that. A politician’s natural instinct makes him want to win every session, every question. But Brown sometimes sneaks through intact because Dave rarely varies his tactics. He doesn’t prepare ambushes. He never ponders what Brown wants to hear least. Today the Tories had a great opportunity. Brown’s recent flip-flop over the training of TA soldiers for Afghanistan was inspired, in part, by Dave himself, who raised the issue a fortnight ago. But Dave’s tone was wrong. He thought he was the point –

Peter Hoskin

PMQs Live Blog | 28 October 2009

Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200. 1159: Still waiting for the main event. You can watch it here, by the way. 1203: And we’re off. Brown starts by paying tribute to British troops in Afghanistan, as well as aid workers killed in Kabul 1204: First question from Stephen Hepburn on whether pleural plaque victims will get compensation. 1205: Here’s Cameron now. As expected, he leads on Brown’s embarrassing U-turn of TA cuts; an issue the Tories have been pushing for the past couple of weeks. Cameron asks hopw Brown could have thought about cutting training during wartime. 1206: Strange. Brown responds by repeating his condolences – it’s basically a

Peter Hoskin

If you see an MP wandering around with a stopwatch, this is why…

So the details of Sir Christopher Kelly’s review into expenses are starting to leak ahead of their formal publication next week. The proposals will include an expected ban on employing family members, reductions in living allowances, and a ban on claming mortgage interest for a second home. Of all the measures, though, the most eye-catching is that MPs whose nearest railway station is within 60 minutes of Parliament will be unable to claim for a second home. Most of Westminster is expecting a parliamentary uproar over the proposals. And it’s easy to imagine how that last one, in particular, will be quibbled over and opposed during the next few weeks

Dan Jones

It’s Gin Lane all over again

Hogarth’s satire is as appropriate now as it was 250 years ago, says Dan Jones. What we need is a new approach to our age-old drinking problem In 1751, as the great Gin Craze was winding down, William Hogarth produced a series of six prints. It included ‘Gin Lane’, his cruel masterpiece. In the foreground a syphilitic old slapper lolls across a dirty flight of steps, pinching from the snuffbox as her baby tumbles to its death in the cellar of a gin shop. Behind her kale-eyed rioters tear themselves and their surroundings to pieces. Brawlers wield furniture as weapons. As Hogarth later wrote, ‘In Gin Lane… nothing but idleness,

Tuesday

27 Oct 2009

Alex Massie

In which, whisper it, I confess to feeling sorry for MPs

So, the expenses scandal may finally be coming towards a close. We can only hope so. The leaks emanating from the Kelly report suggest that MPs will only be able to claim for rent, not mortgages, on their second homes. This seems reasonable. Less sensible, however, is the proposal that MPs be banned from employing members of their family. Apart from the obvious potential for legal challenges to this proposal, it’s manifestly unfair and ridiculous in equal measure. In the first place, it’s not clear that MPs should be singled out in this fashion. Secondly, it creates the absurd situation in which it would, presumably, be OK for an MP

Peter Hoskin

Two polls to please the Tories

There have been two polls today which are worth mentioning belatedly. The first is YouGov’s voting intention poll for Wales, which Anthony Wells has analysed here and here. It’s not often you see a Welsh voting poll – which is a shame – and the results of this one are striking. Labour are on 34 percent; the Tories are on 31 percent; Plaid Cymru on 15 percent; Lib Dems on 12 percent. Overall, that’s much better news for the Tories than it is for Labour: the last time the Tories scored 31 percent in Wales was in the 1983 election. The second is the ComRes poll which appeared in today’s

James Forsyth

Cameron in front of the press

David Cameron was in confident form at his press conference this morning. Most of the questions were about the possibility of President Blair and Tory opposition to that. But three other things from the event were worth noting. First, Cameron’s announcement that the Tories will publish their top three or four priorities for each department shows the influence of the Institute for Government on Tory thinking. Michael Bichard, the director of the Institute, was David Blunkett’s permanent secretary at the Department for Education and Employment and Blunkett’s success in this job is largely credited to him and Bichard working out a few priorities and sticking to them. The Tories are

Daniel Korski

Can you be pro-British and pro-European?

Last night in a speech at the IISS, David Milliband laid out the case against the Tories’ Europe policy. As he started off saying: “It is very strongly in the British national interest for the EU to develop a strong foreign policy; that to be frightened of European foreign policy is blinkered, fatalistic and wrong; that Britain should embrace it, shape it and lead it.” In that one sentence lies the case for Britain’s role in shaping a liberal, open and outward-focused EU. It is probably also the line of attack that the Foreign Secretary will use against the Tories until election day and possibly beyond, if Miliband eventually assumes

Peter Hoskin

The Tories prime their shake-up of the civil service

One of the quickest wins that the next government could achieve is to change the power and accountability arrangements of Whitehall. At the moment, there’s a convoluted system in place where its difficult to apportion blame when a government department screws up. Sure, a minister may take the media flak if, say, a department loses a data disk. But the people in charge of the day-to-day running of a department tend to escape any substantive judgement on their performance. As James Kirkup points out in the Telegraph today, “no permanent secretary has been formally dismissed for more than 70 years.” That’s hardly a set-up to incite much more than complacency

Peter Hoskin

Who’s lobbying for Blair?

Isn’t it funny how things change? A few years ago, Brown could barely stand to talk to Blair. But now, according to the Guardian, he’s got civil servants lobbying on the former Prime Minister’s behalf in Europe: “Gordon Brown has asked two of his most senior civil servants to lobby discreetly within Europe for Tony Blair to become its new president amid warnings from allies in government that the former prime minister will lose his chance unless he launches a dynamic campaign. John Cunliffe, the prime minister’s most senior Europe adviser, and Kim Darroch, Britain’s EU ambassador, are taking soundings at senior levels. David Miliband, meanwhile, has also intensified Britain’s

Monday

26 Oct 2009

Alex Massie

Lessons from Reagan’s Generosity of Spirit

I’ve often written that the modern Republican party’s obsession with Ronald Reagan obscures as much as it illuminates. The deification of the Gipper isn’t a great substitute for addressing the particular problems the party – and the United States – faces today. Asking “What would Reagan do?” can’t provide the answers to every issue. Nevertheless, there’s at least one aspect of Reagan’s career that all political parties might bear in mind: his generosity of spirit and, correspondingly, the empathy he felt, genuinely I believe, for people whose circumstances were very different from his own. Among those people, whose dreams and aspirations and needs he understood, so my thanks to Kerry

Peter Hoskin

The Neather clarification

Plenty of CoffeeHousers are mentioning the Andrew Neather revelations in various comment sections. If you haven’t seen them yourself, the story is that Neather, a former government adviser, wrote a comment piece claiming that New Labour’s immigration policy was “intended – even if this wasn’t its main purpose – to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.” Many reports since have taken this as confirmation that Labour’s policy was exclusively politically-motivated. In which case, it’s worth highlighting Neather’s latest column for the Evening Standard, in which he claims his comments have been exaggerated and misinterpreted. Here’s the key point it makes: “As a