Politics

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

Tuesday

20 Apr 2010

Clegg Helps Cameron, Not Brown

Oh, sure, the rise of the Liberal Democrats is a problem for the Conservatives too and it doesn’t help their chances of securing an overall majority. But it may be an even bigger problem for Gordon Brown. Can anyone really remember anything Labour have said since Thursday’s debate? Not really. It’s as though Labour have been erased from the campaign entirely, leaving the field to the Conservatives and the Liberals. The Cleggathon has had another effect: it reinforces the case for change and strengthens and deepens the media narrative about change. This too must cost Labour dear. The media has constructed a campaign story that accepts that change is a

David Blackburn

The Pepys of the Blair Years

Fleet Street resounds to just one gag today: every ash cloud has its silver lining. Tony Blair is marooned in the Middle East and won’t be plugging his memoirs at this week’s London Book Fair. I wonder if he’ll adopt a few Semitic shrugs to accompany the gauche Cary Grant accent. Still, we must wait longer for the author of Blairism’s recollections. Blair may have degraded into self-caricature, but his premiership deserves a literary legacy. It was dominated by thrilling conflicting narratives. Blair’s obvious political skill was matched by convictions over which the three parties still battle: public service reform, choice and eradicating entrenched social divisions to name but three.

Peter Hoskin

Numbers which show why the TV debates are priceless for Nick Clegg

How valuable was the TV debate to the Lib Dems? Well, we’ve seen the poll numbers, of course. But the Electoral Commission has just released some figures which shine a different light on proceedings. They show that the Tories received party donations totalling £1.46m in the first week of the campaign. Labour, nearly £800k. And the Lib Dems were way, way behind on £20,000. So, Clegg & Co. are heavily outgunned financially – but they’ve still had the biggest upsurge in publicity and popularity. True, donations to the Lib Dems have risen dramatically since the TV debate – but it’s still unlikely that they’ll reach Tory, or even Labour, levels

Peter Hoskin

A poster that cuts to the chase

This feels like a first for this election campaign: a poster which gets quite specific on policy – and not another party’s policy either. It comes courtesy of the Conservatives, and, as you can see above, carries the message: “Let’s cut benefits for those who refuse work”. You can expect plenty of handwringing about whether this message is too tough, or whether it represents the Tories shifting rightwards in the aftermath of the Lib Dem surge. But I imagine it will play well with the many voters who are frustrated at the unfairnesses and inconsistencies of the welfare system. And it does, at the very least, present one reason to

Alex Massie

The Conservative Backlash Begins

Well this was entirely predictable. The authoritarian right insist that Dave’s efforts at making the Tory party electable are in fact what has prevented the party from storming to a landslide victory. We’ll be hearing a lot more of this nonsense if the Tories fail to win a majority but Melanie Phillips’s most recent post is a decent enough starting place and summary of the argument. Naturally she quotes Norman Tebbit at length and, presumably, it’s only a matter of time befre Simon Heffer and the others weigh-in too. Of course this analysis conveniently ignores the fact that it’s the manifest, obvious, failure of the right that has left Cameron

Peter Hoskin

Grayling wins the perceptions battle

Another day, another TV debate – only this time it was Alan Johnson, Chris Grayling and Chris Huhne behind the lecterns, talking crime on the Daily Politics. Just like yesterday’s debate, the questions were incisive and insistent. But the politicians conspired to turn proceedings into a mush. There was very little clarity, a sizeable dollop of bickering, and proof, were it needed, that Huhne really can go on a bit. To my mind, it all boiled down to likely audience perceptions. Chris Grayling was cornered on a number of issues (including a question addressing his “homophobic comments”), but he probably gauged those perceptions right when he emphasised the “sense” that

Fraser Nelson

Inflation is the price of Brown’s recklessness

Who would have thunk it? Inflation has again “surprised” on the upside – 3.4 per cent against a 2.0 percent target. Why so high? Even the return of 17.5 percent VAT does not justify this bounce. Might it have something to do with all those bank notes which were being printed by the Bank of England? Might interest rates be going up now to control this inflation – and, if so, what impact would this have on a UK economy which is already the most indebted of any major economy in history? The March figures show Britain has, by some margin, the highest inflation of any major European economy: it’s

The Spectator

The killer poster

So, as Daniel Korski wrote earlier, a vote for Nick Clegg keeps Labour in office – surely fertile territory for a killer poster? Here’s a selection of CoffeeHousers’ ‘Vote Nick Get Gordon’ posters. Remember him? – Sam Davidson ——————————————————— Buy one, get one free – Disillusioned ——————————————————— Don’t get duped again – Hamish ——————————————————— Trusting Pinocchio, Jonathan ———————————————————— The Marriage of Convenience, John Macleod (Used by the SNP in the 2003 Scottish Parliament election, but one we hadn’t seen before) ——————————————————————- The Puppet Master, RKing ——————————————————— Share and share alike, Greg ——————————————————– Labour’s Last Hope, Ed Turnham

Alex Massie

Who’s Afraid of a Coalition?

You English, sometimes you are the crazy people. Here’s Iain Dale for instance, dismissing any notion of a Tory-Liberal arrangement: All coalitions end in failure, the partners don’t agree, postponement and indecision become the order of the day. Britain today does not need a two-headed donkey. This, as anyone with any knowledge of politics anywhere else could tell you, is piffle. It’s not even true of British politics. Few people would argue that the Labour-Liberal coalition at Holyrood was one of democracy’s grander moments but it wasn’t obviously worse than, say, a majority Labour ministry might have been and it was, in fact, all too stable and all too able

Peter Hoskin

A bumpy ride for Brown on Radio One

Gordon, meet disillusionment. Disillusionment, the Prime Minister. Ask him questions on whatever you want: the economy, jobs, immigration, expenses – the ball is in your court. Make him squirm, if you like. Confront him. He is, after all, here at your pleasure. For that was the set-up of Radio One Newsbeat’s interview with Gordon Brown earlier this afternoon. It was one of those impossible situations for the PM. He could hardly decline to be quizzed by a group of first time voters, aged between 18 and 28. But it put him at the mercy of some pretty disgruntled members of the public. And they took full advantage. The questions were

James Forsyth

Just another politician

Nick Clegg’s response to Andrew Neil’s question about his expenses at the Lib Dem press conference this morning, highlighted Clegg’s greatest vulnerability: he’s just another politician. As the question pointed out, Clegg’s own expenses were by no means perfect. The danger for Clegg is that many of his new supporters see him as totally different from Brown and Cameron. When they find out that he’s a lobbyist turned Eurocrat turned MEP turned MP who has had problems with his expenses they might not be so keen on him.

David Blackburn

Not so squeaky clean

“All my life, I’ve opposed the old politics,” says Nick Clegg ad nauseam. Not so it seems. Peter Oborne’s Mail column reports that one youthful indiscretion has been omitted from Clegg’s CV: ‘In fact, he has a background as a Westminster lobbyist with the firm GJW, where he worked as an account executive for 18 months. (Something he has omitted from his curriculum vitae on the Lib Dem website).’ So, Clegg glosses over his stint of political kerb-crawling. Hypocrisy always makes a good story but the Tories should, and probably will, shun this story. They have lost the media narrative and the last thing Cameron needs is for the campaign

Daniel Korski

Where is the killer poster?

Most politicos agree that a vote for Nick Clegg will likely prop up a Labour government, even if it will be led by someone else than Gordon Brown. Most voters, however, may not realise this. So what the Tories need is a poster which shows in easy-to-understand ways, the causal link. CoffeeHousers, surely the idea of the Lib Dems propping up Labour lends itself to a number of images – if you have any ideas then either mention them below, or send them in to dblackburn @ spectator.co.uk or phoskin @ spectator.co.uk and we’ll post a selection of the best.

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s leadership back under the spotlight

Things have clearly moved on since I wrote this back in March. From Rachel Sylvester’s column today: “…those close to Mr Clegg have made it clear to senior Labour figures that it would be difficult for the Liberal Democrats to do a deal with a Labour Party led by Mr Brown. ‘The whole notion of change is so important to Clegg and Gordon doesn’t represent change,’ says one Labour strategist. ‘It’s hard to see how they could prop up Brown in a hung Parliament.’ With Cabinet ministers openly discussing the prospect of coalition, the question of the Labour leadership is back on the agenda. David Miliband is seen as the

Alex Massie

Is Nick Clegg really Robert Redford?

And not in a Cleggover* or Rentoul-bait sense either. No, you remember The Candidate? Of course you do for you enjoy political movies as much as we do. Which means you’ll also remember the movie’s strapline: Too Handsome. Too Young. Too Liberal. Doesn’t have a chance. He’s PERFECT! And you’ll also recall the movie’s final line, delivered after Redford’s character wins an unlikely victory: What do we do now? It was never clear that Redford had an answer to this and nor, frankly, is it obvious that Nick Clegg does either. Again and at the risk of repeating myself, how can Clegg be the “Agent of Change” if, once the

Monday

19 Apr 2010

James Forsyth

Clegg the politician

Every time a Conservative is asked by the media about Nick Clegg they should reply, ‘Nick Clegg’s a clever politician, a formidable opponent.’ This formulation won’t make the voters think that the Toires are being nasty about their opponent but it will remind them that Clegg is a politician which is a problem for him because so much of his popularity stems from being seen as not just another politician. This, obviously, isn’t the whole answer to stopping and then reversing the surge in Lib Dem support. But it would be of use and, to borrow a phrase, in the current situation every little helps.

Alex Massie

Tonight’s Tory PEB

Well, what do you guys think of it? Not bad, I think, especially for a broadcast put together at the last minute (the Tories having pulled their planned anti-Brown PEB), But, as ever, there’s the problem that if people think Cameron a little too slick, a little too polished, a little too much the salesman then the slicker, more polished the Tory presentation the more it feeds into this (unfair) perception. Not that the alternative – incompetence – is any better of course…

James Forsyth

The growing sense that the worst is behind the Tories

These have been a grim few days for the Conservative party. But there is a sense, just a sense mind, that the worst might be behind them. Today’s ICM poll shows the Lib Dems still surging, up 3 to 30, but Tory support is only down one from Sunday’s ICM poll to 33. Labour is in third on 28, down one. Obviously, these polls numbers would have been considered pretty darn awful a week ago and no one would pretend that they are what the Tories would like to see right now. But they are not as bad as some feared they might be and as Julian Glover writes, “the

David Blackburn

Where will Clegg meet his Waterloo?

The FT’s Jim Pickard writes: ‘Cameron will be cursing the order of the debates. He’d much prefer to be attacking Nick Clegg on domestic issues than foreign affairs on Thursday.’ I’m not so sure. Foreign Policy is the arena where the Tories are concrete, populist and accessible. The same is not true for the Lib Dems. Along with Iain Martin and John Rentoul, Pete noted that Ed Davey is vague on the Lib Dem Trident replacement policy. Davey’s vague with good reason: the policy is hopelessly confused. The manifesto says: ‘Rule out the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system. At a cost of £100 billion over a lifetime

Peter Hoskin

No clear winner in the foreign affairs debate

Only defuse. That seemed to be the approach of all three participants in the Daily Politics’ foreign affairs debate this afternoon. The frequent questions from Andrew Neil and Mark Urban put David Miliband, William Hague and the Lib Dems’ Ed Davey on the collective back foot. It was all they could do to take some of the sting out of proceedings. In Miliband’s case, that meant Iraq and defence spending. On the former, he started with one of the bluntest statements we’ve heard from any government minister on the issue: “If we knew then what we know now,” he said, “we wouldn’t have gone into Iraq.” You can see the