Politics Archives

Wednesday

4 Jun 2008

Brown’s “record employment”

Gordon Brown frequently asserts Britain has record employment or that Labour has “the best employment record in history” (Hansard, 16 Jan 08). In fact this honour goes to Nigel Lawson whose achievements Brown has never been able to come close to. Brown has specialised in finding alternatives to work – welfare, studenthood, etc. But here is the graph for economic activity percentage rates – ie, the proportion of people in work. It’s a strange graph because, aside from the industrial realignment of early Thatcher years, it basically oscillates between 78% and 80%. Sadly, this is not adjusted for immigration – which accounts for 82% of new jobs since 1997 according

Peter Hoskin

PMQs footage | 4 June 2008

Thanks to the great Politics Home, here’s footage of the Cameron and Brown exchanges in PMQs:

Fraser Nelson

Brown and Cameron do battle over statistics

Many CoffeeHousers have asked why Cameron doesn’t lampoon Brown for using his trademark dodgy figures as per our Brownie series. Well today he did – not on economics but on vehicle excise duty. Brown said 24 of the 30 most popular car models won’t be affected. Then Cameron pounced. “once again, dodgy statistics from the PM” he said. “In any other walk of life” he said “the trading standards officer would have him clamped in irons”. Brown counts the Ford Focus as one model, disregarding the 40 variations such as saloon, estate etc. This may sound strange coming from me, but I’m not sure the stat picking worked. When you start

James Forsyth

What are the odds?

Apologies for the confusion folks, but William Hill has sent over the actual odds for ministers to lose their seat. (What we had before was rather mangled thanks to a misunderstanding between me and them). Here are the numbers and, again, apologies. To lose their seat: 2/7 Smith 13/2 Darling 8/1 Straw 10/1 Denham 12/1 Purnell, Hoon 14/1 Johnson, Alexander, Blears, Ed Miliband, Cooper 16/1 David Miliband, Burnham 40/1 Brown

Peter Hoskin

Boris stands down as MP for Henley

So, Boris has formally announced he’s standing down as MP for Henley. No surprise. But it’s a welcome announcement nonetheless. As Stephen’s already said, Boris should avoid cultivating the “part-time major notion”. And this should go some way to dispelling worries on that front. It also means that the Tories can get into by-election mode proper. We already know who their candidate will be – one John Howell – and now it’s almost certain that the date will be 26 June. Now all Labour and the Lib Dems have to do is figure out how they can overturn a 12,793 majority in just three weeks… P.S. The Guardian has point-by-point

Tuesday

3 Jun 2008

Alex Massie

Britishness parties? No thanks.

The government hasn’t given up on plans to compell us to celebrate our Britishness. Immigration Minister Liam Byrne: is due to make the case for the August Bank Holiday to be a national British day in a wide ranging speech on national identity to New Labour think tank Progress. The immigration minister will say a “clear majority of people” support the idea of a national day of celebration, based upon his own discussions with voters in recent months. He will tell Progress there is a “strong sense that the time is right for Britain as a country to do more to celebrate the things we have in common”. “And one

Fraser Nelson

The wacky world of Lib Dem policy

I know one shouldn’t take Liberal Democrat policy seriously, but I went along to their first lobby briefing today just to see. Anyone who believes Gordon Brown is detached from reality should have taken a seat as Nick Clegg and Norman Baker faced lobby journalists. It was on their transport policy, to reverse Beeching cuts with a new generation of railways as seen in, em, no other country in the world. What cost? They haven’t worked that out yet. But the money would come, Baker explained, from train companies in return for even longer franchises. One problem though: train operating companies don’t have money of their own other than what

James Forsyth

The odds on ministers losing their seats

If you fancy a punt on various cabinet ministers losing their seats here are the odds from William Hill and, where relevant, the swing required for the Tories to take it: RUTH KELLY BOLTON WEST 86 (4.9%) 7/4 JOHN HUTTON BARROW AND FURNESS 115 (6.25%) 2/1 JACQUI SMITH REDDITCH 41 (2.3%) 5/2 ALISTAIR DARLING EDINBURGH AND SOUTH WEST 161 (8.25%) 14/1 JACK STRAW BLACKBURN 178 (9.6%) 20/1 JOHN DENHAM SOUTHAMPTON ITCHEN 198 (10.45%) 33/1 JAMES PURNELL STALYBRIDGE AND HYDE 50/1 GEOFF HOON ASHFIELD 50/1

James Forsyth

No unadulterated good news for Gordon anymore

Gordon Brown should be breathing a large sigh of relief over the fact that Jacqui Smith has apparently won over enough Labour backbenchers to stave off defeat. But it seems that Brown has reached that stage where all good news for him is qualified. Smith’s impressive performance has led to Nick Robinson tipping her as a contender “to succeed Gordon after he stands down or maybe after he’s pushed.” So, even though Brown looks like avoiding the massive blow to his authority that would come from a Parliamentary defeat he still finds his position being undermined, albeit more subtly, by the chatter about who will be the next Labour leader.

James Forsyth

The best case for 42 days

The piece by Peter Clarke, the former head of the Met’s anti-terror command, arguing for 42 days detention in the Telegraph today is essential reading. As I said the other day, I’m still undecided on the issue but Clarke makes the most persuasive case for it I’ve seen. Here is Clarke’s crucial point: “When I was asked, in 2005, by the home affairs select committee how many terrorists I had been obliged to let go through lack of time to investigate, I inwardly despaired. It was the wrong question. We should look forward, not back. The fact that we have been able to convict more than 60 terrorists in the

James Forsyth

The Brown question

Gordon Brown timed the Crewe and Nantwich by-election so that MPs would be heading out for the recess as the result came in. With Labour MPs scattered to the four winds, leadership plotting failed to get off the ground. This and the Labour party seeming to row in behind the government on 42 days do not mean that Brown is out of the woods, though. As Rachel Sylvester notes this morning, “Labour MPs will no longer give Mr Brown the benefit of the doubt. The next crisis (a funding scandal, another U-turn, a ministerial resignation) could be fatal.” It is revealing how frank various cabinet ministers are prepared to be

Monday

2 Jun 2008

Alex Massie

Good news for Gordon!

At least one person thinks he can still win! This man is on much more comfortable ground discussing his work with overseas politicians, including his contributions to Blair’s 2005 campaign, which include dreaming up the slogan “Forward Not Back”*. “Part of the reason I’ve been so successful in so many different foreign countries,” he says, “has been that I’ll come to people who are locked into a world that they see only from their political context … and be able to say ‘No, no, no – let’s take a look at the numbers.'” He seems remarkably sanguine about the current prime minister’s problems. “Look, obviously, Labour and Gordon Brown are

James Forsyth

Andrew Grice: 42 days rebellion fading

The Independent’s Andrew Grice reports that Jacqui Smith’s performance at the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting was well received. It appears that the rebellion is diminishing rather than meta-sizing. Smith was frank about the consequences of losing the vote next Wednesday: “We have gone a million miles. Meet us on the way. Make no mistake. Defeat will have a political message.” Ever since the local elections, Tories have been saying that they expected Labour to rally to Brown on this measure and it seems that this might be beginning to happen. The PLP is not yet prepared to deal the kind of blow that defeat would entail to the Prime Minister.

James Forsyth

Blunkett: Things can only get better

David Blunkett’s attempt to be helpful on 42 days is a classic: We’ve hit a rock bottom in my view and we can only get… climb out of it, so I think that, whilst it would be yet another knock, it would not be a knockout blow

James Forsyth

Is Clegg about to do a left turn?

Nick Clegg is the subject of The Independent’ s ‘You ask the question..’ feature today. His answer to this question is particularly interesting: Who was a worse PM, Blair or Brown? Saurav C, by email Clegg: Blair was more wrong, Brown’s more incompetent. Now, I may be reading way too much into a pithy response but it rather suggests to me that Clegg is shifting his political positioning leftwards. It might be that this is in response to the stories about him becoming Home Secretary in a Tory government or he might have decided that given the current political environment, the Lib Dem’s best chance of gains at the next election

Fraser Nelson

The economy points to a two term Tory government

I’m now back from the recess and checking up on all the news I missed – the most striking of which seems to be how the economic stars are aligning for a Tory second term. Three things jump out:- 1. The downturn has only just begun: The political soap opera is so compelling that it’s easy to overlook that the property market is now falling faster than at any point in the 1990s. Commercial property down 16 percent and residential down 11 percent, on an annualised basis. As Britain has one of the closest links between house prices and consumer spending, you can’t say this will be isolated to the property

James Forsyth

Brown makes the case for 42 days

Tonight, Jacqui Smith will address the Parliamentary Labour Party. Brown will not attend the meeting but he has outlined the compromises he is prepared to make in an article for The Times this morning. Brown stresses both the complexity of modern terrorist plots and how rarely this power would be used. As someone who is agnostic on 42 days, the least persuasive part of the piece is when Brown says that if the Home Secretary decided to use the 42 day power, Parliament would then have to ratify this decision. This seems to confuse the role of the legislature and the judiciary. The level of public debate it would entail

Saturday

31 May 2008

James Forsyth

Brown has been phoning round since 1997

The story that Gordon Brown personally calls members of the public who write him critical letters gets more bizarre with the news in today’s Guardian that he has apparently being doing this since 1997. This suggests that he can’t be calling that many people as otherwise this would have surely leaked out before now. Someone who has received one of these calls told The BBC: ‘the prime minister apologised on behalf of the government “for what had happened to the people of Iraq”.’ This flags up another potential problem with the scheme: people who have been phoned could start coming forward and announcing that government policy on x,y or z

James Forsyth

Labour’s money woes

Peter Oborne’s column in The Daily Mail reveals just how bad Labour’s financial position is. As Peter notes, there are doubts as to whether the party can be deemed a ‘viable going concern.’ Incredibly, there is a real chance that the Labour party might actually go bankrupt and that members of the NEC could find themselves personally liable for Labour’s debts: “This threat of personal liability is now being taken very seriously indeed, so much so that the GMB trade union has already taken the extraordinary step of discussing at its last executive council meeting whether its two representatives on Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) should be indemnified against

The Spectator

The fumes of failure

‘We have no plans not to implement our budget’: the double negative employed by Phil Woolas, the Environment Minister, on Tuesday’s Newsnight, and the familiar ‘no plans’ formula, told you all you need to know about this government’s collapse of confidence. On the matter of retrospective Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) increases, ministers are desperate to execute a U-turn as quickly and as painlessly as possible — one which, in any case, they fear they will be forced into sooner or later. Equally, Gordon Brown does not want to be seen to be bowing — yet again — to popular pressure, so soon after the 10p tax debacle. It is hard