Politics

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

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

There are still plenty of hurdles in Brown’s way

Recession.  Glenrothes.  Unimpressive poll gains.  Whilst Gordon Brown may be enjoying the recent, Mandelson-orchesrated hijinks, there are certainly plenty of potential blots on his horizon.  Martin Bright adds a relatively undernoticed – but oh-so-significant – one to the list, in his latest blog post: “The polling remains dismal for Labour, though. The government’s electoral recovery is slipping despite admiration for Brown’s handling of the crisis within the Westminster village. The latest Guardian/ICM poll had the Conservatives on 42 per cent and Labour on 30 – a 12-point gap, which remains unchanged from the same poll a month ago. As we move towards this winter’s pre-Budget report, the thoughts of Labour backbenchers will turn once more

Peter Hoskin

Poll round-up

It’s been a poll-a-ramic few days, with the overall picture still being that Labour have enjoyed some post-bailout gains – particularly on economic competence – but remain trailing the Tories by some margin. Today’s Ipsos MORI poll is a case in point.  It has the Tories down 5 on last month, and Labour up 7; but the Tory drop has to be seen through the prism of a “freakishly” high result for them last month, and – besides – they’re still 15 points clear of Brown & Co. Perhaps the most encouraging poll for Labour supporters is the YouGov one conducted in marginal seats and broadcast by Channel 4 earlier.

Matthew Dancona

A class apart?

When David Cameron became leader in December 2005, Labour strategists hoped desperately that class would become an issue once more in British politics. Their hopes were dashed, however, by the public’s apparent decision to buy Dave’s mantra: “It’s not where you come from, it’s where you are going.” The playing of the “toff” card in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election backfired spectacularly, as have Gordon Brown’s intermittent attempts to present Cameron and Osborne as “public school bullies.” But there have always been nuances to this. Very senior Cameroons have expressed fears to me over the past three years that class could indeed return to haunt the Conservative Party if its

Peter Hoskin

Osborne won’t sue

According to today’s Standard, George Osborne and Andrew Feldman have ruled out court action to clear their names over the Rothschild allegations.  Rightly or wrongly, this development could encourage the view that the Tory pair have something to hide.

Peter Hoskin

The pressure’s still on Osborne

George Osborne’s hanging on – for now.  The chronology the Tories released seems convincing, and he has the backing of David Cameron.  But the forces against him are ranking up.  Yesterday evening, Nat Rothschild unveiled a witness to back up his allegations – one New York fund manager, James Goodwin.  The basic position, though, remains the same – it’s essentially one man’s word against another’s.  And as CoffeeHouser Ricardo so rightly put it yesterday: We’ve got to decide who’s word to accept: a politician or a man who runs a hedge fund. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Where did I put that coin? This uncertainty comes across in this morning’s papers; few come down completely on one side or the other. 

Melissa Kite

Osborne stumbles: but is there a bigger story about Mandelson?

Melissa Kite says that the shadow chancellor should have known better than to cross the most brutal spin-doctor in Westminster, or flout the conventions of the super-rich. But we should not be distracted from the Business Secretary’s true role in this saga If George Osborne survives the spectacular fallout of his now notorious Corfu adventure he may want to review the way he spends his holidays. If a bespoke travel agent arranged his recent sojourn he should be asking for his money back, because sunshine breaks don’t come much more disastrous than this one. Not since John Fowles’s character Nicholas in The Magus has a man stepped on to a

Bill Jamieson

Scotland counts the cost of its financial Culloden

Number 35, St Andrew Square in the heart of Edinburgh’s New Town has no name plate or corporate signage. It is an anonymous executive office used by Sir Fred Goodwin, Royal Bank of Scotland’s now-departing chief executive, for discreet meetings away from the bank’s out-of-town campus headquarters at Gogarburn. From its elegant Georgian first- floor windows you can look out along the timeless thoroughfare that is George Street, past the scrubbed sandstone of Standard Life — Edinburgh’s archetypal investment institution — to some of the city’s most expensive boutiques and auction houses. Last week Number 35 was closed, and along George Street few were lingering at the shop windows. This

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

What Harman calls a ‘distraction’, the rest of us call debate

It’s very difficult to get one’s head around the moral and ethical implications of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill on a damp and frowsy October afternoon after perhaps one too many stiffeners. I came away from my research with a vague notion that the Roman Catholic Church wishes to prevent scientists from experimenting on dead lesbians, but that the House of Commons is determined to let this iniquity go ahead and that some progressive left-wing MPs wish to proceed further and allow scientists to monkey around with lesbians who are not yet dead, regardless of whether they give their consent. I must admit that it had never occurred to

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Wisdom of Crowds

The extent to which one considers the general public an uncannily perceptive bunch or a gathering of witless, no-good know-nothings naturally correlates with the degree to which the public endorses any given opinion one holds oneself. That being so, it’s obvious that British voters are smarter than many of the pundits paid to interpret and analyse the latest froth and nonsense emanating from the Westminster village. That is to say, the public seems to agree with me: Gordon Brown’s is not a magician, far less a miracle worker. Today’s Guardian/ICM poll reports that the government’s response to the international financial crisis has not impressed the public. Or rather, the public

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Leaving the drama behind

How bad are the Deripaska allegations for Osborne? At the very least, climbing on board that yacht raises questions over his judgement. But, as with so many Westminster scandals, all hangs on what more is to come. Labour will gun for him as hard as they can, knowing how important he is to Tory strategy. If nothing more emerges than what’s in today’s Times, he’s okay. But if it turns out that he was part of some operation to solicit an illegal donation, he’s finished. For my part, I can’t believe he would be so stupid as to do this, or to take the view that what happens in Corfu

Peter Hoskin

Tory leadership odds

Courtesy of Ladbrokes, the odds for the next permanent leader of the Tory Party: William Hague — 2/1 Boris Johnson — 5/1 George Osborne — 5/1 Liam Fox — 16/1 Chris Grayling — 20/1 David Davis — 25/1 Michael Gove — 25/1 Dominic Grieve — 33/1 Justine Greening — 50/1 Zac Goldsmith — 50/1 John Redwood — 100/1 George Osborne was at 4/1 before today’s Deripaska allegations.

Daniel Korski

Obama’s Cabinet

With an Obama administration almost statistically inevitable, attention is turning to the post-election struggle for positions and power.  His current aides include Gregory Craig, Scott Gration, Ben Rhodes, Richard Danzig, Samantha Power, Tony Lake, and Susan Rice – a team which is said to funnel through Denis McDonough, an Obama confidante, who briefs the senator. But when it comes to populating the administration’s key slots, many of these aides may have to take a back seat in favour of more well-known and politically-connected candidates. Joe Biden has warned that an Obama administration would face an international challenge in its first six months. Faced with such a prospect – or at least fears of

Peter Hoskin

The debt adds up

Well done Brooks Newmark, who’s taking on Gordon Brown over his fiddled debt statistics.  The Tory MP, and member of the Treasury Select Committee, releases a report today which builds on Coffee House’s work by adding together some of the more recent off-balance sheet debts and liabilities that Brown has swept under the fiscal carpet.  The grand debt total?  Some £1,854 billion – around 127 percent of GDP, and over 3 times greater than the Govenrment’s 40 percent debt ceiling.  Here’s what’s included in that: It you throw in the potential costs of the banking bailout, that figure climbs to £2,354 billion – some 161.1 percent of GDP. Of course, at these levels, national debt is set to be one of the biggest

Monday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Making Northern Rock disappear

He’s done it. I blogged a while ago about how Gordon Brown lost his battle to have Northern Rock struck off the books, causing trouble for his oft-repeated Brownie that he has reduced debt from 43% to 37% of GDP. In August, the ONS showed National Debt was 43.3% – and had actually been at those levels for a year. So what was Brown to do? Last week, I reported a rumour that he’d ordered up a new debt series to exclude NR. I said something daft at the time, like “he couldn’t – could he?” Well, he did – and in fact he had by the time I blogged. There is now a new

Peter Hoskin

Squeezed out

Today’s YouGov poll for the Mirror tells a similar story to those released at the weekend – i.e. fairly unimpressive Labour gains, given the wall-to-wall coverage Brown’s enjoyed recently.  But there’s a chapter to that story that I didn’t pick up on in my post of a couple of days ago – and that’s just how poor the numbers are for the Lib Dems. They’re on 14 percent today, and were stuck on 16 percent in yesterday’s ComRes poll.  It’s similar to how they’ve been polling for the last few months.  But what makes the latest numbers stand out is that they come on the back of a couple of good weeks for the party – perhaps the best since Nick Clegg

Daniel Korski

Hague’s Bosnia paradox

This week William Hague is visiting Bosnia, trying to highlight the problems in the country 13 years after the Bosnian War that saw 100, 000 civilian die. His visit provides welcome attention to the country’s slide towards conflict; while he can helpfully distance the Tory party from the dastardly Conservative policy at the time, which saw Douglas Hurd argue against aiding the Bosnian Muslims. So what is happening in Bosnia? A lot – but hardly any of it is particularly positive. Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik, a moderate-turned nationalist, has adopted a secessionist agenda. His long-term policy seems clear, the peaceful secession of the Serb province as Milo Djukanovic

Peter Hoskin

Brown counts on the Sarah Effect

According to today’s Daily Record, Sarah Brown is set to “spearhead” the Labour campaign in Glenrothes.  It’s hardly suprising news – talk of her involvement has been doing the Westminster rounds since her much-vaunted cameo at last month’s Labour party conference.  But it shouldn’t be forgotten that this is far from normal practice.  As the Record points out, “It’s believed Sarah will be the first Prime Minister’s wife to actively campaign during a by-election”; raising all kinds of questions about how involved PM’s partners should be in the political process.  Whether they’ll undermine the “Sarah Effect” remains to be seen.

Peter Hoskin

Recession bites

Although it comes as little surprise, the warning from the Ernst & Young Item Club that the UK is already in recession is the most significant confirmation that we’ve had so far about the poor state of our economy. Using the same forecasting model as the Treasury, they also predict that inflation is set to fall – giving more scope for interest rate cuts – and that the economy will start growing again in 2010. The question remains about what the political effects of recession will be. Will a prolonged downturn erode the Our Saviour Brown narrative, along with the poll gains he’s made over the past few weeks? Or have Brown and