Politics Archives

Saturday

11 Apr 2009

What McBride tells us about Brown

I woke up to a text message this morning from a friend in Whitehall. “I see Mc**** is in the doodoo”. An expletive preceded by “Mc” can only refer to one person – and indeed, as James and Pete have blogged, Damian McBride is back in the news with his redoubtable emails. I said a couple of years ago that McBride should be banned from electronic communication. Email is as proving as good for McBride’s career as it was for Oliver North’s. Here are two other things that strike me about the affair. 1. Brown’s Black Arts Strategy. His skill lies is attack, not persuasion. He bullied and plotted his

Martin Bright

Tribalism: The Curse of Labour

The official line from Number 10 is that Damian McBride’s emails were “juvenile and inappropriate” and that all staff will be reminded of the “appropriate” use of resources. Presumably they will also be reminded of how to be grown up. It has been an open secret for some time that there has been mission creep from McBride’s supposed backroom role. The formerly neutral Treasury civil servant was moved last October from his job as Gordon Brown’s frontline spinner because some, including cabinet ministers, believed he had become a liability. But McBride is an obsessive texter and emailer and it seems he couldn’t resist letting his fingers do the walking. Regular readers of this blog

Thursday

9 Apr 2009

Fraser Nelson

Barclays’ latest big deal leaves a bad taste in the mouth

What’s the difference between a banker and a pizza? A pizza can feed a family of four. So ran one of Vince Cable’s jokes when he presented the British Press Awards last week – but there is a crucial flaw. He reckoned without the financiers running an exchange-traded business fund named iShares. It is a subsidiary of Barclays and is 4.5% owned by senior Barclays staff. It has today been sold to CVC Capital, a private equity firm for $4.4bn – most of this money borrowed from, erm, Barclays (no difficulty finding credit there!). Result: payday for the lucky few with equity in iShares – about £1.6 million each –

James Forsyth

Is a 2009 election still a possibility?

Steve Richards reports in the New Statesman that Cabinet ministers are again talking about the prospect of an election this year not next. The thinking goes that if Labour clings on until the last minute they’ll lose so better to take the initiative and call an election as soon as they are within striking distance. One rumour doing the rounds in Westminster is that the Pre Budget Report in October will contain a second stimulus and Brown will then go to the country after that. But as Steve writes, “the dilemma for Brown is that, if he goes on to the bitter end, unlike Major, he is doomed to lose;

Fraser Nelson

The truth about conservatives and laissez-faire

Was it remarkable that George Osborne rejected laissez-faire economics in his speech yesterday? A CoffeeHouser, Marcus Cotswell, asks why I didn’t pick up on it in my summary yesterday. It is a very good point, and perhaps one worth addressing in a post rather than a comment. The Tories have never, ever believed in laissez-faire – this was a Liberal policy, a product of late Victorian politics. But the phrase is now said to caricature and attack the right (like “trickle-down economics” and “Washington consensus” etc). As Adam Smith observed, businessmen tend to collude with each other – you need laws and regulations to stop them. It’s a basic tenet

Wednesday

8 Apr 2009

Fraser Nelson

Osborne stands up for capitalism

So, whither Tory economic policy? It was George Osborne’s turn to discuss it today, and, overall, it’s very good news. The shadow chancellor’s speech appears to be a rejection of Brownite rules-based economics. Inflation targeting was not enough to prevent the crash, and Osborne appears to say he’d empower the Bank of England governor to take a free view to regulating the City. But, as with a lot of Tory speeches at the moment, the desire to devolve power clashes with the desire to tinker. So Osborne proposes greater freedom of regulatory powers, but he’d like the banks to be smaller. Anyway, his full speech is here. My ten-point take

James Forsyth

Labour embraces the Norma Major strategy

Back in September 1996, the Tories sent Norma Major onto the campaign trail. John Major said that his wife had been his “secret weapon for the past 26 years” and declared “Norma has been accompanying me on tours like this for a very long time. But she now proposes to do that a good deal more in the future. I am delighted she is here. She is a very great asset to me first and then to the Conservative Party as a whole.” The thinking was that, while the country might be bored of the Tory party and the Prime Minister, they would listen to his appealingly normal wife. The

Alex Massie

Ireland today, Britain tomorrow

It was Brian Lenihan yesterday and in a fortnight it will be Alistair Darling’s turn to announce the bad news when he delivers his emergency-in-all-but name budget. Or bloodget. Lenihan, the Irish finance minister, did his best to spread the pain around, announcing tax increases and cutting spending while leaving many of the most difficult measures to next year’s budget. The Irish economy is forecast to contract by 8% this year and, even after the cash-saving and raising measures announced yesterday, the government will run a deficit of 10.75% of GDP. Eye-watering and sobering stuff. In the Irish Times Mark Hennessy writes: For weeks, the Cabinet has debated the options

Tuesday

7 Apr 2009

Alex Massie

MPs Expenses vs Congressional Claims

Tim Montgomerie suggests David Cameron needs to do a little more to produce a proper, comprehensive policy on MPs expenses. That’s probably true. As we all know, any talk of reform at Westminster unnerves parliamentarians from all parties since, as we all know, no-one has clean hands in this affair. They’ve all been fiddling the system – legally! – for years, unaware that as far as the public’s concerned the legality of the system is pretty much irrelevant. MPs at Westminster might often envy their cousins across the pond – members of the House of Representatives enjoy a “Representational Allowance” of up to $1.6m for staff, office and franking costs

Fraser Nelson

Labour’s attack lines are self-defeating

Labour’s agony about how to attack the Tories continues. Is Cameron a spivvy PR man? A lightweight, unqualified for the job? Or is he actually an alright bloke; the acceptable face of an unacceptable party? The problem with the latter argument is that you accept that Cameron and Osborne are good things. But it’s the latter argument Labour are going for today. What I love about the Labour attacks is seeing who they wheel out – they seem to have a small number of Labour MPs who are deemed popular. Poor old Stephen Pound is made to say the most terrible things about the Tories. Now it’s the turn of

Martin Bright

When Lefties Fall Out We Do It In Style

Stephen Glover had an interesting take on the row between NIck Cohen and Sunder Katwala, head honcho at the Fabian Society, in his Independent column this week. Just to recap, Nick accused Sunder of being part of the left-wing consensus which failed to recognise the seriousness of the threat of extremist Islam. Sunder then gathered a group of writers and activists together to sign a letter to the Observer suggesting that Nick “needs to find another column to write”, a strangely ambiguous turn of phrase. I agree with Glover when he says the following: “Journalists should not sign letters to newspapers which might possibly be construed as an attempt to have another journalist sacked, and that, whether we agree with him or

Judi Bevan

No time to relax for BA’s fighter pilot

British Airways staff have sometimes been accused of ‘working without enthusiasm’, says Judi Bevan — but you certainly couldn’t say that of chief executive Willie Walsh Before meeting Willie Walsh, I take a stroll round Terminal 5, marvelling at the vast, elegant haven of calm and efficiency it has become compared with the pandemonium of last March’s opening. All looks serene until I ask the nice young press officer with me whether passengers are now allowed two pieces of hand luggage. We approach one of the check-in desks, where she politely introduces herself and asks the young woman behind it if this is indeed the case. The expression of glum

Monday

6 Apr 2009

Alex Massie

Turkey in the EU?

Like George W Bush, Barack Obama is in favour of Turkish accession to the EU. That’s grand, though those American progressives who would like to see europe do more, not less and project a more, not less unified approach to all manner of international issues – be they fiscal or military – should remember that Turkish membership makes a common european policy on just about any issue less, not more likely. For that reason, of course, so-called “euro-sceptics” ought to be enthusiasts for Turkish membership. Con Coughlin adds this reason for welcoming Turkish membership: Countries like France should also recognise that Turkish membership would strengthen, not weaken, the EU alliance,

Fraser Nelson

The debt counter is ticking

Sky News’s coverage of the recession has today taken on a powerful new dimension: a ” debt counter”, starting today, counting in real time how much extra debt Gordon Brown is saddling the public with during the financial year 2009/10. It started at zero at 7am and it’s rising at £4,800 a second as per today’s report from the IFS. This will drive home – in stark, simple terms – a major facet of this recession: the deferred cost to the British public when government refuses to cut spending. I suspect that Brown will be hurling his slippers at the TV screen because he is rather depending on national debt

Alex Massie

Lie-detector television? Not a bad idea!

In the midst of an otherwise risible* column on how if it weren’t for the BBC license fee all British TV would be as trashy as some of Fox’s output, Marina Hyde asks: Have any of these people seen the likes of Moment of Truth, one wondered idly, in which our hero Mike Darnell hooked up semi-witting participants to lie detectors, whereupon they were asked “Do you really care about starving children in Africa?”, or questioned about their porn-watching habits? The first of these questions would seem one worth asking Guardian journalists; the second is clearly a matter for the Home Secretary. *Risible because the US TV vs British TV

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 6 April 2009

Here are some of the posts made over the weekend on Spectator.co.uk: Matthew d’Ancona marks the rise of the neo-confs. Fraser Nelson reports on Alistair Darling’s less optimistic forecast, and laments Ed Balls’s take on education policy. James Forsyth thinks the Government is taking us for fools, and analyses Gordon Brown’s global temptation. Peter Hoskin highlights a frugal MP. Daniel Korski gives his take on NATO’s new man at the helm. Martin Bright reveals the plight of the lost generation. Clive Davis has an Obama-ish moment. And Alex Massie tells a tale of luck and greed.

Sunday

5 Apr 2009

Fraser Nelson

Pure Balls

Ed Balls isn’t quite sure how to attack the Tory ‘Swedish schools’ policy. But a story in today’s Observer about a Tory councillor sounding off about it gives him a chance to try. The words issued are from Jim Knight, but I put them below and by thoughts interspersed. “Once they know the truth about David Cameron’s risky and divisive plan to import the Swedish schools…” Risky? The Tories would allow charities, church groups etc to set up schools if they have enough support from parents. But Balls* is right to see community-driven initiatives as a risk – a risk to the bureaucracies serving British pupils and taxpayers so badly.

Matthew Dancona

The rise of the neo-confs

The G20 summit and its long build-up – Gordon’s world tour – clarified for me what has shifted in the geo-political landscape since the election of Obama. So dazzling is the President’s smile and so impressive his oratory that it is easy to lose sight of the content: or, more accurately, the form. But in London it became clear. The age of Obama is shaping up to be an age of multi-lateralism for the sake of it: grand summits and gatherings at which statesmen draw up communiques and statements of intent as if that was what made a difference. In today’s Sunday Telegraph, I call the new elite the “neo-confs”

Saturday

4 Apr 2009

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 4 April 2009

Charles Moore’s reflections on the week Only connect. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said that her family house in her Redditch constituency was her second home. This allowed her to claim £116,000 from the taxpayer for it. Then her husband, Richard Timney, who is paid by the taxpayer as her constituency assistant, claimed pornographic films as part of her parliamentary expenses. Nobody seems to have noticed the link. By her own account, Miss Smith spends four nights a week staying with her sister in London. Mr Timney, answering his wife’s constituents’ letters in Redditch, may, therefore, be bored and lonely. His claim for the cost of Raw Meat 3 (why

Martin Bright

The Lost Generation

I always get it in the neck here when I quote Polly Toynbee. But maybe I will get away with quoting her quoting Professor Danny Blanchflower, who, like me, is warning against losing a generation to the recession. Here’s the relevant passage from Polly’s column in today’s Guardian: “The man now on a mission to persuade Nos 10 and 11 to move fast is the only monetary policy committee member who saw the coming crash. Ministers are listening as Professor David Blanchflower urges emergency spending to prevent mass youth unemployment. With 800,000 under-25s out of work and another 600,000 leaving school this summer, he wants the budget to borrow £90bn to rescue