Politics Archives

Saturday

23 Jan 2010

The Spectator’s Notes | 23 January 2010

One small sign of the approaching election is a renewed courting of the Muslim vote. Unfortunately, this seems to mean sucking up to the Muslim Council of Britain, even though that body’s ability to represent the real range of Muslim opinion is hotly contested (see Stephen Pollard, p20). Last year, the government suspended its dealings with the MCB after Daoud Abdullah, the MCB’s deputy general secretary, signed the Istanbul Declaration, which threatens those who impede the violent work of Hamas against Israel. At the time, our government said that the Istanbul Declaration ‘does call for attacks on foreign warships, potentially including the Royal Navy, and also advocates violence against Jewish

The Spectator

A conservative revival?

It is likely that David Cameron regards this week’s stunning Republican victory in Massachusetts with a mixture of excitement and terror. It is likely that David Cameron regards this week’s stunning Republican victory in Massachusetts with a mixture of excitement and terror. It marks an incredible conservative comeback. For the Republicans to take the seat vacated by the death of Senator Edward Kennedy is impressive; that their candidate, Scott Brown, was only strengthened by the Democrat’s vicious attack ads — the very type that Labour has in mind for Mr Cameron — is extraordinary. Massachusetts was once seen as the most dependably Democratic state in the union; now the left

Alex Massie

Panopticon Britain

At the very least, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised by this sort of caper anymore: Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ”routine” monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance. The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police. Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained

Peter Hoskin

Labour have Osborne in their sights (and on their fridges)

It’s only a small thing, but does anyone else find this detail from today’s Times interview with Alastair Campbell a little, erm, peculiar: “On the [Campbell] fridge is a Christmas card from David Miliband, a clipped photo of George Osborne in the Bullingdon Club shooting pheasant, a GCSE revision schedule. It is the type of handsome but unostentatious London professionals’ house that the Blairs once owned in Islington.” I mean, it’s no secret that the Labour hierarchy loathes the shadow Chancellor – but putting what I assume is this photo on your fridge? Armchair psychologists, the comments section is yours…

Peter Hoskin

Good advice for Dave

Ok, ok – so PMQs may be of more interest inside Westminster than out. But, love it or loathe it, it’s still one of those things which affects the mood music of politics and how it is reported. Far better for a party leader to do it well, than to be bludgeoned by his opponent at the dispatch box. Which is why Team Dave should internalise Matthew Parris’s article in the Times today. Not only is it typically readable, but it’s packed full of sound advice for how the Tory leader should present himself in the weekly knockabout sessions. Here’s a snippet: “Millions are now eyeing Mr Cameron up as

Peter Hoskin

Don’t be surprised if Jowell is kept on by a Tory government

As Ben Brogan outlined in his Telegraph column last November, there are plenty of Tories placing a good deal of emphasis on the London Olympics. By the time it comes around, they may well have spent two years cutting spending, raising taxes, and generally struggling against the fiscal problems that Brown has hardwired into our nation’s fibre. A successful Games, the thinking goes, could be just the tonic for their midterm government – as well as for the country as a whole. Which is why today’s story about the Tories somehow keeping on Tessa Jowell, the current Olympics Minister, is unsurprising. The thinking is clear: a bit of continuity could

James Forsyth

The Tories plan a radically different education system, with new schools

James Forsyth reviews the week in Politics It is not often that David Cameron lavishes praise on a Labour achievement. But that’s exactly what he was doing on Monday morning at Walworth Academy as he lauded the school for having almost doubled the number of pupils getting good GCSE results. As one of Tony Blair’s academies, Walworth is a rare Labour success, a state-funded institution free from local education authority control. Yet Labour has turned its back on the academies, leaving Cameron and the Tories free to swoop in and claim them as their own. A Tory government would see the academy model become the norm. Schools would be state-funded

Ferdinand Mount

David Cameron should honour his marriage vow

Labour’s Green Paper on families makes it clear that the party is opposed to promoting marriage. Ferdinand Mount says it’s crucial that the Tories don’t waver, but stick to their promise of a financial incentive What, if anything, should David Cameron promise in order to shore up family life in general and marriage in particular? Would some sort of tax incentive help to improve social outcomes and make people happier? Or is this a retro dead end, at once patronising and impractical and prohibitively expensive? Doesn’t Cameron’s self-confessed slip-up when explaining his commitment show how devilishly tricky and unrewarding the whole business is? He can at least claim to be

Lloyd Evans

Balls’s god delusion

Ed Balls has had enough. He’s finally decided to haul in Britain’s absentee fathers and teach them a thing or two about parenthood. ‘All the evidence,’ says the Families minister, ‘is if fathers are properly engaged and involved, then they stay, they’re supportive to their children, they do all the things which lead to better child outcomes.’ Balls has fallen victim to two whopping fallacies here. One is statistical. Labour’s tax system encourages cohabiting parents to pretend to be living apart, so large numbers of invisible dads are absent only in Whitehall graphs. In fact they are at home already, exactly where the government is spending money urging them to

Martin Vander Weyer

How the brewers of Smethwick became the plaything of Barbados billionaires

Martin Vander Weyer’s Any Other Business If you don’t follow hospitality-trade news closely, you could be forgiven for thinking of Mitchells & Butlers as a Midlands-based brewery notable for its handsome Edwardian pubs. But it has not been that for decades, and if it was once an icon of progress in the beer trade, its name these days symbolises everything that’s depressing about modern corporate wheeler-dealing. Let me simplify the history. The Smethwick breweries of Henry Mitchell and William Butler merged in 1898; their company’s heyday lasted until 1961 when, during a fever of consolidation across the industry, it merged into what became Bass Charrington. After Margaret Thatcher’s Beer Orders

Friday

22 Jan 2010

The Spectator

The week that was | 22 January 2010

Here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the past week: Fraser Nelson warns that the EU is slithering onto the world stage. James Forsyth says that the Obama presidency is in big trouble, and wonders what Labour will do with their extra £1.5 billion. Peter Hoskin watches Alistair Darling struggle for consistency, and says that Tory marriage policy is now Labour’s favourite target. David Blackburn blames Brown for the anti-terror cuts, and highlights the government’s IT bungles. Daniel Korski welcomes David Miliband’s Big Idea. Martin Bright calls Jack Straw the Ultimate New Labour Politician. Susan Hill says that, no, amateurs aren’t just as good as pro’s. Rod

Peter Hoskin

The public aren’t seeing Brown’s “green shoots”

We’ve been rather starved of opinion polls over the past week, which is probably no bad thing. But this PoliticsHome poll on the economy has come along to give us at least something to mull over. And its findings aren’t good news for Labour. First, only thirty-four percent of repondents think that the economy has turned a corner into recovery. And, crucially, only 36 percent are willing to give Labour “a lot” or “some” credit for their handling of the recession (down from 40 percent last August). That’s against 29 percent saying “not very much,” and 34 percent saying “none at all”. As we saw on Wednesday, Labour is eager

David Blackburn

Has Brown got anything to hide?

Proof positive that Brown listens, sometimes at any rate. The Prime Minister will give evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry before the election. Chilcot has been resolute in his wish to keep politics out of the probe, which suggests that No.10 may have put in a call following the mounting clamour for Brown to appear. Brown is something of master in expressing defiance with a single line: “I have nothing to hide,” he averred on Wednesday. Might this sudden decision prove to be, as Sir Humphrey might have said, courageous? As Daniel Korski noted two weeks back: ‘Brown’s role in the Iraq War, not that of Blair, that is the most

Thursday

21 Jan 2010

Peter Hoskin

Will the civil service help Cameron rein-in his frontbenchers’ spending ambitions?

In his Telegraph column today, Ben Brogan asks one of the most important political questions of all: do the Tories have a plan for dealing with the mess they face in government? They talk tough on debt and spending, for sure, but the details are still kinda lacking. Is there anything behind the rhetoric? And, if there is, will they pull it off? Of course, the only proper answer is: let’s wait and see. The proof of this particular pudding will come in the event of a Conservative election victory and, then, in the Emergency Budget that George Osborne has pencilled in for June or July. On that front,

James Forsyth

Confusion surrounds the Tory position on the Muslim Council of Britain

The government broke off relations with the Muslim Council of Britain over Daoud Abdullah, its deputy secretary-general, signing the Istanbul declaration, which the government believed encouraged attacks on British forces if they attempted to enforce a weapons blockade on Gaza. Last week, the government retreated; inviting the MCB back in despite Daoud Abdullah’s signature remaining on the document. The question now is whether the Tories are going to go along with this surrender. The first test of this is a fundraiser that the MCB is holding on the 22nd of February. The invitation boasts that Jack Straw and Nick Clegg will be attending and says that Chris Grayling has been

Peter Hoskin

Forget inheritance tax – Tory marriage policy is Labour’s new favourite target

For some time, Labour has been trying to push the line that behind the Cameron facade there’s an old-school, “nasty” party waiting, drooling, for an opportunity to engineer the country as they see fit. Over the past couple of days, it’s become clear that they’ve struck on a new variant of that attack. Yesterday, we had Ed Balls on Today saying that the Tories’ marriage tax break was a “back to basics” policy. And, today, as Paul Waugh reveals, Harriet Harman described the same agenda as “modern day back to basics. It is back to basics in an open-necked shirt.” The reference, of course, is to John Major’s ill-fated, relaunch

David Blackburn

Ultimately, Brown is responsible for these anti-terror cuts

Seriousness comes naturally to Gordon Brown and yesterday he gave a speech detailing how Britain is defending itself by striking at the heart of the ‘crucible of terror’. What Brown has in seriousness of delivery, he lacks in realism. Britain has not fought for such a sustained period since the high-water mark of empire; but the ambitions of two prime ministers, and to be fair the severity of the threat that Britain faces, have outstripped resources; Britain is now completely over-extended. Hours after Brown’s speech, Baroness Kinnock divulged that anti-terror measures run by the Foreign Office have been cut – anti-narcotics campaigns in Afghanistan and de-radicalisation programmes in Pakistan. These

Wednesday

20 Jan 2010

James Forsyth

What will Labour do with the extra £1.5bn?

Labour’s tax on banks that pay big bonuses was budgeted to yield £550 million. But because the tax has failed to change behaviour it is going to bring in far more than that, at least 2 billion according to recent reports. This raises the question of what will Labour do with the extra 1.5 billion? The responsible thing to do would be to use it for deficit reduction. We can expect, Darling who has said that his “number one priority is to get the borrowing down”, to take this position. But we can expect the more party politically minded members of the government to want to use this money for

Daniel Korski

David Miliband’s big idea: an Af-Pak-India Council

An idea that has received little media attention in Britain, but is giving Foreign Office diplomats sleepless nights, is David Miliband’s push for a “regional stabilisation council” involving Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, to be unveiled at the international conference scheduled for January 28. The idea is seen as an innovate way to bring the three countries together, while at the same time allowing the Foreign Secretary, who will formally host the conference, to show leadership and initiative. The pretender to the post-election Labour throne needs something to get rid of his “Banana Boy” epithet. So far, however, the idea is not meeting with local support. Pakistan, in particular, is opposed

Alex Massie

The Rules of Punditry

More on Massachusetts later, but Conor Friedersdorf makes a necessary point that applies to pundits from all quarters most of the time and not just to this election in the Bay State: It is particularly amusing to see folks call the outcome stunning in one breath and aver in the next that they can explain why it happened mere hours after the fact, without any new data save the result. This is especially grating when it’s so obvious that the election turned on all the issues that were most important to me, that the outcome so clearly vindicates my world view, and that the wisest course in light of the