Politics

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

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

An outright victory?

A week ago, most people I spoke to in Tory HQ had the happy expectation that Boris Johnson was heading for a glorious defeat. i.e. – that he’d win on the first vote and lose the second. So Boris could be seen as a moral victor but robbed of his true throne by a voting system (like Jon Cruddas and the Labour deputy leader system). Now, the Tories are considering something which makes them a little more nervous – the prospect of Boris winning outright and something going wrong between now and 2010. As if. They should have more faith in BoJo.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Misrepresenting the welfare ghettos

I thought p8 of the Daily Mail looked familiar. It’s that table of benefits which we ran on Coffee House on Sunday (expanded from my News of the World column). But what’s this? “Tory research” it’s called. On closer inspection, the Tories have used recent welfare figures, and expressed them as a percentage of the mid-2005 poulation. So its a little Brown-style fiddle, as the population of neighbourhoods changes all the time – and the population of sink estates usually falls. New welfare rolls as a fraction of old population can be relied upon to produce a false, but higher figure. The News of the World would have been furious

Peter Hoskin

Remember to Quiz Clegg

Just a reminder that Nick Clegg has offered to answer questions from CoffeeHousers. Register your questions in the comments section to this post.  And early next week we’ll pick the best ones and pose them to the Lib Dem leader.  There are even CoffeeHouse t-shirts on offer…

Peter Hoskin

Disgruntled Labour

The two articles by the Labour MPs Jon Trickett and Charles Clarke in today’s Guardian are well-worth reading. Both are deeply pessimistic about the party’s prospects (perhaps indicative of the wider mood in the Labour camp), although they outline different ways to stem the rot. For Trickett, the Government needs to depart from the Blairism that it’s been espousing in recent weeks. Whereas, for Clarke, the Blairite agenda needs to be more boldly applied. Here’s Trickett: “In place of the New Labour promise of a modernised Britain, we saw an older Britain re-emerge: a class system where what your parents do counts for more than who you are; unrestrained markets; dominant private

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Al-Qa’eda’s secret UK gangs: terror as a ‘playground dare’

As Brown unveils his National Security Strategy, Fraser Nelson talks to those in the front line against Islamic extremism. MI5 has expanded successfully, but faces in al-Qa’eda an enemy that is organic, elusive and constantly mutating: gangs built on deadly bravado To defeat an enemy, one must first understand him — and this, for years, has been Britain’s principal problem in the war on terror. The identity and profile of the typical British jihadi was a mystery. Many argued he did not exist at all — until the July 2005 London bombings spectacularly proved otherwise. In those days, MI5 was tracking just 400 terror suspects. Now the figure is 2,000,

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

A holy man tipped to lead the nation’s Catholics

Mary Wakefield meets Dom Hugh Gilbert, the Benedictine Abbot of Pluscarden — said to be the Pope’s ‘dark horse’ candidate to succeed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor What is holiness? How do you spot it? I’ve come to Worth Abbey in Sussex to meet a monk often described as ‘holy’ — Dom Hugh Gilbert, OSB, Abbot of Pluscarden in Scotland — and I wonder as I wander around in search of him, what form his sanctity will take. What is a holy man, and where is this holy man? Worth seems deserted. Puddles lie low in sleeves of ice; clouds hang motionless over what looks like a spaceship but must be the

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Legislation is the Real Enemy of the People

There’s no stopping this blogging thing. The latest citadel to fall is, of all places, the dear old House of Lords. Hence Lords of the Blog which officially launched today. With any luck it will capture something of the upper House’s eccentricity… Lord Lipsey makes half a fair point here, for instance: I am in favour of very radical reform of the Lords, its arcane and inefficient procedures, a statutory appointments commission, the end of hereditaries, the eviction of criminals and tax evaders and much more taking of evidence and less speechifying. The only reform to which I am wholly opposed is election. Foreigners may find it charmingly British that

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tories up 13 in new ICM poll

The Guardian has just posted the headlines figures from its new poll which shows the Tories with a 42-29 lead over Labour. The poll also finds that David Cameron and George Osborne have an eight point lead on the question of who do you most trust with the economy.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why falling base rates have lost their sting

Now the Fed has cut US rates by another quarter, what’s next? The City expects UK rates to fall to 4.75% by year-end. Now and again, Gordon Brown likes to boast that he is able to reduce interest rates – unlike the Tories in early 1990s. One of Magician Brown’s favourite tricks is the “false proxy” – saying “base rates are falling, so homeowners can rest easy.” But as I have blogged before, the distinguishing feature of this credit crunch is the decoupling of the base rate from de facto mortgage rates, as the graph below from John Charcol shows. We are entering new territory, and the old financial relationships are

Peter Hoskin

Tories & tax cuts

With Philip Hammond suggesting that the Conservatives won’t cut taxes until a second term in government, there’s a lot of great reading material on the Tory tax debate in today’s papers and across the political blogosphere. The Telegraph’s Janet Daley is among the commentators who want the Tories to be bolder on tax.  Here are some key passages from her article today: “Mr Osborne had committed the party, as it were, to being uncommitted on the question of tax cuts: there would be no promises now of “upfront, unfunded” tax reductions, just a cautious wait-and-see-if-we-can-afford-it-at-the-time approach. Reducing the tax burden was, of course, an “aspiration” but it was an open

Matthew Dancona

On Boris and that poll lead

Who’s laughing now? Boris has stormed ahead in the polls today, with a 12 point lead over Ken in the Standard’s YouGov survey. With 45 days to go, 49 per cent versus 37 is a strong position – and quite remarkable for a Tory candidate in a city that Livingstone has run (to use his own phrase) as a “personal fiefdom” on and off for more than a quarter century.  The especially good news is that Our Man is ahead on second preference votes, although here the margin is narrower (20 to 17). But the evidence is clear both that Ken’s City Hall scandals and Boris’s star quality are bringing

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Place your bets | 17 March 2008

This is asking for trouble. Ladbrokes has opened a book on the first question David Cameron will ask in PMQs. There will be at least a dozen Tories who will know the answer to this on Wednesday morning, and be sorely tempted to ask their cousin to place a large bet. As you can see from the high ranking of taxes – and the featuring of MPs expenses – these bookies don’t always get it right. So there’s money to be made. Mind you, someone had to put Frank Roy out of business… Ladbrokes odds:- What will be the topic of David Cameron’s first question at this week’s PMQs? Childcare/Family

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 17 March 2008

Here are some of the posts made over the weekend: Peter Hoskin is impressed by David Cameron’s Spring Forum speech, and asks whether we should talk with terrorists. Fraser Nelson highlights Britain’s welfare ghettos. James Forsyth writes about the Tories’ commanding poll lead.  And, over at Americano, James also reveals how John McCain wants to define his candidacy.

Sunday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Dick Holbrooke as Captain America?

Dan Drezner’s at a high-powered conference in Brussels from where he relates this interesting tidbit concerning Richard Holbrooke: I have it on good authority that, not only does the former UN ambassador believe that he’ll be Secretary of State if either Clinton or Obama wins, he genjuinely thinks he’ll have a comparable position if McCain wins.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

More voters want Delia Smith as the next Chancellor than Ed Balls

Tucked away in today’s YouGov poll is a rather amusing question about who voters think would make the best Chancellor if Alistair Darling were to step down. Perhaps unsurprisingly considering the current anti-political mood, the politicians don’t do particularly well. Sir Alan Sugar tops the list at 21 percent, followed by Sir Philip Green at 11 percent with Gordon Brown coming in third. Rather embarrassingly for Ed Balls, who is said to covet the job, he comes in dead last behind both Jack Straw and Delia Smith. Although to be fair to Balls, he does beat Green and Smith among Labour voters.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tories spring into a 16 point lead 

Two new polls this morning offer real encouragement to the Tories. YouGov for the Sunday Times has them 16 points ahead of Labour at 43 percent, if replicated in a general election these figures would give them a three figure majority. ICM for the News of the World has the party on 40 percent, nine ahead of Labour. The details of the YouGov poll provide further cheer for the Tories. 59 percent think Brown is doing badly as Prime Minister, while 51 percent say Cameron is doing well as opposition leader. The Tories have a 12 point lead on who the electorate trust to raise their standard of living which

Saturday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 15 March 2008

In the cut and thrust of debate, David Cameron won easily against the Chancellor in the Budget battle. In the cut and thrust of debate, David Cameron won easily against the Chancellor in the Budget battle. He was crisp and effective. But Alistair Darling did not attempt thrust and certainly will not cut. The fact that his Budget had nothing in it and could barely be spun out for 50 minutes was wholly intentional, and was, in fact, the right thing to do. Mr Cameron said that Mr Darling and Gordon Brown were in a hole and were digging. That might be true of the government more broadly, but it

Peter Hoskin

A wider philosophy

David Cameron’s given his speech at the Conservative Spring Forum.  I haven’t got access to a television at the moment, so I don’t know what his delivery was like – (can any CoffeeHousers fill us in?) – but the content certainly reads well. As Fraser said yesterday, the big theme is family.  So plenty of talk about rewarding marriage in the tax system and extending parental leave etc. etc.  However, what’s particularly impressive is how Cameron makes this message part of a wider philosophy.  Take, for instance, this passage: “But let me make a firm commitment right now. Labour are planning an increase in outreach workers at Surestart centres, as

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The bard of Whitehall

Some cabinet ministers are not fully reconciled to the Brown era if a few lines of verse supposedly written by a cabinet minister that have been doing the rounds in recent days are anything to go by. “At Downing Street upon the stair,   I met a man who wasn’t Blair,  He wasn’t Blair again today,  Oh how I wish he’d go away.” Hat tip: The Guardian