Politics

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

Friday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why the green shoots won’t help Brown

I have so far treated Gordon Brown’s green shoots strategy with derision. He has convinced himself that a recovery is going to take root and make the nation realise that they do, in fact, love the Dear Leader. Whereas I first believed his green shoots were a mirage – now, I am not so sure. For the last few weeks, analysts have been revising up their forecasts – ending what seemed to be about 18 solid months of downwards revisions. Take the housing market – which had been expected to bottom out next year. If you look at it on a simple house price to salary ratio, it has a

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Are Smokers Dumber than George Will?

In a word, no. Though George Will thinks they are: Someday the ashtray may be as anachronistic as the spittoon, but fear of death may be a milder deterrent to smoking than is the fact that smoking is dumb and déclassé. Dumb? Would you hire a smoker, who must be either weak-willed or impervious to evidence? The rest of Will’s column is a reasonable, if hardly surprising, run through the contradictions and absurdities that abound whenever the US government turn its mind to tobacco policy. The latest example of this: decision to further restrict tobacco companies’ freedoms via  a bill passed with the enthusiastic support* of Philip Morris who know

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The BNP Has No Future – Unless the Tories and Labour Decide to Help Them

It’s hardly breaking news that the British [sic] National Party are a bunch of racist goons. But it’s a little unsettling to see a Tory MP such as Eric Pickles* suggest that “They are going to be a very serious force in British politics and the mainstream political parties have got to get their act together and start confronting them.” On that latter point, we can agree. But, again, the suggestion that the BNP are going to become a force, let alone a serious one, in British politics gives these clowns much more credit than they merit and does a grave disservice to the collective wisdom and decency of the

Wednesday

Martin Bright

Goodbye Kitty

So now Kitty Ussher has gone too. This really is becoming a significant clearout as hopes for the next generation of Labour politicians fall away. I always rather liked Kitty, who seemed decent enough and even spoke out against Tony Blair’s failure to speak out about the Lebanon war. But it’s difficult to see how she could stay in the government. An old colleague has just tweeted me that I shouldn’t be too soppy about her as she was “a Blairite SPAD who was parachuted into safe seat of which she knew nothing”, which is a little unfair, but not completely off the money.  His comments remind me that she was

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

A shift at the whopper-factory<br />

Crack! The sound of the whips lashing Labour MPs into line today was deafening. And the truth didn’t have a prayer. What a draining, depressing, undemocratic spectacle it was to see Labour’s doomed time-servers put in yet another shift at the government’s whopper-factory. Cameron went to the House with a single tactic, to get the PM to admit that Labour must and will cut spending. Did Brown admit it? Fat chance. Instead he insisted that spending was going up. Not just current spending but capital spending too. Up, up up. He hammered home the notion that the Tories will lower spending by ten percent and lower inheritance tax ‘for the

David Crow

Setanta: the Gordon Brown of sports broadcasting

David Crow says the Irish-based football channel — like the Prime Minister — looked a winner during the boom years but failed to attract fans and will struggle to survive You have to hand it to Michael O’Rourke and Leonard Ryan, founders of sports broadcaster Setanta. Three weeks ago it was hard to find anyone who thought their firm would still be afloat today. Analysts pointed to annual losses of £100 million; the Scottish Premier League complained of missed rights payments; deadlines loomed for £35 million of fees due to the English Premier League. Fears were reinforced when Deloitte was lined up as administrator and Setanta’s call centre refused to

Toby Young Toby Young

Fathers have become second-class citizens

Toby Young says that Father’s Day is nothing to celebrate: today’s neutered dads have become overworked assistants to their children rather than paternal role models I cannot say I am looking forward to Father’s Day — not if it is anything like last Sunday. I was woken at 5.45 a.m. when my wife Caroline delivered a sharp jab to my ribs. Charlie, our one-year-old, was crying and it was my turn to get up. I knew from experience that there was no prospect of getting him back to sleep. My best hope was to whisk him down to the kitchen before his howls woke up the other three. For a

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown does the Time Warp again

For those who missed Rory Bremner doing an impersonation of Gordon Brown’s dancing on YouTube, the Prime Minister has just done a repeat version during his atrocious speech in Blackpool. You wonder if he has been watching aerobics videos, instead of “how to improve your diction” videos. It was all hands up, then hands down. He did a jump to the left, then a step to the right. It was a Prime Ministerial version of the timewarp, and it made you dizzy watching it. Except, who will have watched it? I did: I’m paid to. But Brown’s problem is that when he shows his coupon on television people reach for

Monday

Matthew Dancona

Following a dividing line to oblivion

Following on from Fraser and Pete’s earlier posts: the spat in today’s Guardian between Ed Balls and Jackie Ashley is fascinating and relevant to George Osborne’s milestone article in The Times. Balls remains an unabashed proponent of what I would call ur-Brownism: emphasise “dividing lines” that distinguish Labour from Tories at every available opportunity, especially when they concern public spending. Brown has always believed that elections are won by the party that persuades the electorate that it is (a) economically competent and (b) less inclined to cut public spending. Hence the twin prongs of Gordon’s rhetoric over the years: “no return to Tory boom and bust” and “Labour investment versus

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 15 June 2009

Here are some of the posts made over the weekend on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson sets out the two sorts of cuts. James Forsyth reports on a morning of Mandelson and Miliband, and says that the next Speaker must command cross-party support. Peter Hoskin watches Ken Clarke both clarify and muddy the Tory position on Europe, and claims that the sword still hangs above Gordon Brown’s head. Martin Bright reveals his thoughts on Labour’s predicament. Clive Davis talks about immigration. And Alex Massie presents the best case for Scottish independence.

Sunday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Caption Contest: Ahmadinejad Edition

TEHRAN, IRAN – JUNE 14: Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad holds a press conference on June 14, 2009 in Tehran, Iran. Photo: Majid/Getty Images. Well, you’d be chuckling if you’d stolen an election too, wouldn’t you? Suggestions for what Ahmadinejad is saying here are, of course, encouraged…

Martin Bright

My Thoughts on Labour’s Predicament for Demos

I have written an essay for a Demos pamphlet called What Next for Labour? In it I have compared two campaigns, John Prescott’s Go Fourth and my own New Deal of the Mind. I recommend you look at the whole collection of essays but my argument is pretty simple. I suggest the Labour Party needs to rediscover its verve for campaigning.  In the European Elections there was no real evidence of Labour activist. It has much to learn from Prescott’s movement, which has been surprisingly successful. Following from the reserach we have been doing at NDotM, I also recommend that the party concentrate on the coming crisis in unemployment. As James Forsyth

Alex Massie Alex Massie

What Should Obama Say About the Iranian Elections?

Since I’ve been sceptical about some of Barack Obama’s rhetoric on democracy promotion and human rights, Stephen Hayes’s comments at the Weekly Standard merit some attention: Obama could tap into the enthusiasm and frustration of the protesters with a few well-chosen words about democracy, the rule of law, the will of the people, consent of the governed and legitimacy. He could choose a compelling story or two from inside Iran to make his points most dramatically, perhaps an anecdote about sacrifices some Iranians made to vote or an example of post-election intimidation. When Barack Obama was elected, his supporters promised that his foreign policy would seek to effect important change

Saturday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 13 June 2009

Labour got 15 per cent of the vote in the European elections, in which only 34 per cent of the electorate voted. That is roughly five per cent of those entitled to vote. When you add those too young to vote, this means that, on average, only one in every 25 people you pass in the street voted Labour last week. So when Mr Brown emerged triumphant from the meeting of his parliamentary party on Monday, his slogan was really ‘The Audacity of Hopelessness’. When people bemoan (or applaud) the decline of the British Establishment, they reckon without Lord Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool. He presents himself as the only

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Shared Opinion | 13 June 2009

Each time the BNP has to tone down its rhetoric, it’s a victory for everyone else It’s oddly unsettling, watching the media establishment trying to deal with the BNP. On Channel 4 News the other night, Krishnan Guru-Murthy was interviewing Andrew Brons, the thinner of their two toadish, loathsome MEPs, and I’m not sure that his impartiality really shone through. He had Margaret Hodge in the other chair, which didn’t help of course, because when that stricken Air France jet plunged out of the sky above the Atlantic last week, it probably sounded less shrill than Hodge at her most calm. Still, there was an edge of apoplexy there, which

James Delingpole James Delingpole

You know it makes sense

Let’s not get too worked up if Guy Gibson’s dog ends up with a PC name This week’s vexed columnar question: should Guy Gibson’s dog still be called Nigger in The Dam Busters remake? Some of you no doubt think you know already what my line will be. And it’s true that as a second world war enthusiast of the retired-blustering-colonel persuasion, I am indeed the sort of fellow who spits in his gin when filmmakers take liberties with the period. When Steven Spielberg made out in Saving Private Ryan that the Americans won D-Day on their own, that was annoying. When the film U-571 told us that it was

James Forsyth James Forsyth

‘There must be a reckoning if Gordon is to survive’

Jon Cruddas, tribune of the left and foe of the BNP, tells James Forsyth his support for the PM is not unconditional, and praises James Purnell for being ‘true to himself’ Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham, isn’t your typical 21st-century politician. He’s relaxed, unconcerned about his appearance: the amount of spare cloth in his suits would appal a Cameron or a Clegg, and his hair is more barber-shop than salon. When I meet him in his Westminster office it quickly becomes clear that his political worries aren’t those of your average ambitious MP either. His Labour colleagues are obsessing over the wave of resignations and how best to

The Spectator

Whose country is it anyway?

It is an exquisite irony that Gordon Brown, so determined to deny the British people the general election they obviously crave, has made the centrepiece of his (latest) relaunch an investigation into the Westminster voting system. Refusing to play the game, he launches a full-blown inquiry into its rules. It is the most insultingly scarlet of red herrings. There appears to be a measure of support on the Labour side for the so-called ‘alternative vote’ procedure. Under this system, voters rank the candidates in order of preference. If no candidate secures more than half the votes cast, the one who has fewest first-preference votes has his or her votes re-allocated

Friday

Martin Bright

The Madness of New Labour

A subject close to my heart is the fear of mental collapse that lies just below the surface of New Labour. So I wrote about it for this week’s Spectator magazine. You’ll find it here.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Paul Krugman’s Rather Odd Love Affair With Gordon Brown

I wouldn’t ever dream of debating economics with Paul Krugman*. Politics, however? Well that’s a horse of a different colour. The Nobel laureate is, it seems, in Britain and he has this to say: Weird politics here in London, with Gordon Brown desperately unpopular even (or maybe especially) among those who surely share his general ideological outlook. And yet … …It’s not far-fetched to imagine that Britain will soon be experiencing at least a modest recovery, even as its neighbors languish. Yet that possibility doesn’t seem to factor into any of the political discussion. Even if one grants that is true – and, who knows, perhaps it is! Let’s hope