Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
…here are some posts made over the weekend on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson looks back on some American political scandals, and reveals what Labour women think of Gordon Brown. Peter Hoskin wonders who is really playing politics over troop numbers, and sets out a framework for shelving tax cuts. Daniel Korski reports on the UK “surge” debate. And Clive Davis gives his take on Barack Obama’s wandering gaze.
The support for Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan is, for the first time, showing major signs of fraying. Nick Clegg broke ranks with the other party leaders last week, and this weekend the total number of British deaths went beyond the number of soldiers killed in Iraq. Understandably, the Sunday papers are filled with stories about the lack of troops and kit. The Observer reports that an emergency review is taking place in the MoD to see if more soldiers need to be sent out. So what to make of it all? First of all, it is clear that there were too few troops and civilians deployed to start off. I
For those of you who missed it, Radio Four has just broadcast a piece about what the women who worked with think Gordon Brown think of him. Not a lot, it seems. Here are some of the quotes: Jane Kennedy “Well I think that the Labour Party is expecting us to do better. The Parliamentary Labour Party were told in the first meeting after the election in June we were promised that there was going to be a change. We haven’t seen that change yet, we haven’t even really seen the kind of clarity and willingness to listen to what the voters are telling us about policy. I’ve had lots
Just when you thought Brown’s government couldn’t sink any lower, you go and read the Sunday Times’s lead story today and the comments it contains from “senior Labour figures”, including a minister. Here are the first few paragraphs: “Senior Labour figures accused the head of the army last night of playing politics as he said that there were too few troops and helicopters in the Afghan war zone. One minister expressed fury that General Sir Richard Dannatt, the chief of the general staff, had attended a private dinner with Tory MPs and suggested an extra 2,000 troops were needed in Helmand province. The general’s remarks put him at odds with
Earlier this week, Lord Malloch Brown announced he’s resigning his brief as Africa Minister in the Foreign Office. I’m sure this will cause some rejoicing, including among my Coffee House colleagues. It was, after all, the Spectator that went to town on the former UN staffer’s grace-and-favour appartment in Admiralty Arch and the other niceties offered to him by the Prime Minister a few years ago. However, I have always found Malloch Brown professional, courteous, and insightful. He may have struggled to find his proper role immediately upon appointment – foolishly describing himself as a Richelieu-type character to David Milliband’s king – and sometimes allowed his sense of self-worth get
Ok, let’s get the hard, grim facts out of the way first: Jacqui Smith was an ineffective Home Secretary whose expense claims were dubious, to say the least, and who rightly lost her job in government. But – having said that – it’s hard not to feel slightly sorry for her as she discusses the embarrassment caused by her husband’s porn rentals in an interview with the Guardian today. The whole piece is a remarkably candid exchange: she also discusses how she “did wrong” with her expenses, and how she’d “definitely” be voted out “if the general election was tomorrow”. But this passage struck me more than any other: “[Smith]
On 6 December 1648, Captain Thomas Pride, an officer in Cromwell’s army, stood at the door of the House of Commons chamber. He and his colleagues on that day prevented 140 MPs from taking their seats and arrested over 40 of them. The door was then locked, and the key — together with the Mace — was carried away by a Colonel Otley. Today, Britain is in the midst of another lacerating, and self-lacerating, parliamentary crisis which has long to go before its course is run. Political swine flu has not only doomed the Labour government, but damaged parliament — the ‘origin of all just power’ — and the country’s
The debate over the 10p tax controversy on Tuesday was more like a requiem for the Labour party than a rebellion. MPs spoke mournfully about how — yet again — their government would hit the poorest hardest. Gordon Brown had used the 2007 Budget to trick newspapers into reporting that he had lowered the basic rate of tax — when, in fact, he had doubled the 10p starting rate, and left millions of low earners worse off. The Prime Minister had chosen deceit over principle, and Labour MPs had gathered, once more, to discuss what this said about their party. Why, David Drew, MP for Stroud, asked, is the government causing such ‘hurt
So, a ComRes poll for the Daily Politics has Cameron leading Brown on the issue of which party leader would be more honest about spending cuts. It echoes a poll that we conducted a few days ago; the results of which we figured we’d share with CoffeeHousers, before our work experience at the Speccie comes to an end. Basically, we hit the streets of London (avoiding Westminster and all the party hacks), and asked around 350 people: “Who do you trust more, Gordon Brown or David Cameron?” Sure, it may not be as scientific as a YouGov or ComRes poll, but the results are still striking. Cameron polled a comfortable
Kevin Maguire’s Commons Confidential column in the latest New Statesman contains this intriguing little snippet: “Home Secretary Alan Johnson was a picture of innocence during the plot to oust Brown and replace him with a former postie with the initials A J. Not so his entourage. It has come to the attention of No 10 that one of his team offered a job in Downing Street to a hackette.” After his article for the Indy earlier this week – and his fizzy performance in Manchester yesterday (covered by John Rentoul as part of his AJ4PM series) – you suspect Johnson is being a little more active than the Dear Leader
Though Nick Clegg has greater pre-existing international experience than either David Cameron or Gordon Brown (having worked in Brussels), he cannot help but see international affairs through a narrow political lens. Last year it was Israel’s targetting of Hamas, now it is Nato’s Afghan mission. Clegg wants the British troop contribution to ISAF either massively expanded or for the boys to come home. Simple enough. But it is also a sign that the Lib Dems, despite having such foreign policy luminaries like Ming Campbell on their benches, lack depth. It would be great for the number of British troop in Helmand to be expanded. But with almost 9000 troops already
Christopher Caldwell’s New York Times Magazine profile of David Cameron has finally been published; Caldwell first interviewed Cameron for it last year. I expect the Tories will see it as an important non-electoral milestone for them, a sign that the American establishment expects Cameron to be the next Prime Minister. The piece is, as you would expect with a Caldwell article, well written and, as it is written for an audience that knows little about Cameron, offers a good overview of the project. Caldwell proposes that there are two types of modernizers. “There are really two strands of modernizers in the Tory party. There are the green-friendly, diversity-oriented, welfare-state-defending ones
Some useful insights from PR Week’s David Singleton, who reveals that Labour are planning a concerted effort to paint Andy Coulson as a “sleazeball” ahead of – and perhaps during – the next election campaign. Here’s a snippet: “One senior Labour source in regular contact with Gordon Brown’s inner circle told PRWeek: ‘Cameron wants to present himself as the man who’s going to clean up politics. That’s going to be difficult if the public think his right-hand man is a complete sleazeball.’ Another Labour insider said that senior party figures had been thrashing out a strategy to target Coulson since the news emerged yesterday. The source said the aim
There was a wonderful outbreak of wit and erudition at Parliament this morning. The sketch-writers Simon Hoggart and Matthew Parris appeared before the Public Administration Select Committee to discuss the perils of political jargon. Simon Hoggart kicked off by imagining Churchill’s war-time speeches re-written by a local government wonk. ‘We will fight on the beaches’ turned into ‘an ongoing programme of hostile engagement in littoral sectors.’ The committee chairman, Tony Wright, wondered if his anxiety about jargon was misplaced. ‘Does this drivel matter or does it just irritate us?’ Matthew Parris pointed out that jargon is attractive because it confers an aura of learning and makes idiot politicians sound like
So David Cameron has said that Andy Coulson’s job isn’t endangered by the News of the World wire-tapping allegations in this morning’s Guardian, and you can see where the Tory leader is coming from. After all, there are very few – if any – new revelations about Coulson in the Guardian piece. We already knew that the Tory communications chief resigned the editorship of the NotW after a phone-hacking scandal involving the royal editor Clive Goodman. And we already knew that he claimed no knowledge of the hacking but, as editor, he took responsibility for it. No evidence has yet emerged that Coulson was more implicated than he’s letting on.
There was great excitement here in Old Queen Street when Lord Carlile, the Government’s own adviser on anti-terror law, announced that Alan Johnson can and should help poor Gary McKinnon. McKinnon is the computer nerd who hacked into the Pentagon looking for evidence of UFOs, but who is soon to be extradited and tried as a terrorist in America. Lord Carlile – not usually a dovish man – thinks a great injustice is being done (Mckinnon might get 70 years in a ‘supermax’ prison) and has said that the Home Secretary should prevent it. So we called the Home Office to find out when Alan Johnson was planning to act.
Sir Hugh Orde, the new president of ACPO, has predictably come out against elected police chiefs. Andrew Sparrow has the key extract from his speech: “If people seriously think some form of elected individual is better placed to oversee policing than the current structure, then I am very interested in the detail of how that is going to work – and happy to have that debate. Every professional bone in my body tells me it is a bad idea that could drive a coach and horses through the current model of accountability and add nothing but confusion. I note that our partners here in the [Association of Police Authorities] are
Brown’s away at the G8, so it’s a Harman-Hague-Cable match at PMQs today. Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200. 1202: Here we go. Harman leads with condolences for the servicemen killed in Afghanistan over the past week. She adds condolences to those killed in the fire in Camberwell. The first question comes from Malcolm Wicks: would Harman agree that “we need to develop a robust social policy” which deals with the costs of an ageing population. Harman: “We’ll bring forward a Green Paper which makes sure there is choice in the provision of services … and affordability.” 1205: Stephen Dorrell stick to the same issue, asking why the Government
Brace yourselves. According to some great research by David Herdson at Political Betting, Gordon Brown could refrain from holding a general election until 2013. The loopholes by which he could manage it are a bit arcane and convoluted – so I’d suggest you read Herdson’s post in full – but this snippet gives the idea: “The only statutory requirement to move writs for a general election is under the Meeting of Parliament Act 1694, which allows no less than three years between the dissolution and the writs being issued. In other words, technically, the election doesn’t have to be held until June 2013.” Sure, it’s highly, highly unlikely that Brown
Edie Lush encounters Riversimple, a car project with a corporate philosophy that’s as unconventional as its technology and an urge to give away its secrets on the internet Riversimple is either completely revolutionary or totally nuts. At a time when electric cars are the big green fashion, Riversimple’s founders have invented a hydrogen-powered car, and they’re giving away the design for free on the internet to anyone who’s interested. They plan to sell no cars (they’ll lease them instead) and to have a corporate structure in which a variety of ‘stakeholders’ have as much say as shareholders. They freely admit they’re not interested in building a money-spinner — but they’re