Politics Archives

Wednesday

16 Apr 2008

Is Smith breaking the rules?

(CoffeeHouse regular Tiberius asked that we write something on this, so here goes…) Jacqui Smith’s created a bit of a political storm today, over her announcement that 300 extra police will be directed towards combating terror and radicalisation. The Tories claim this is in “blatant breach” of pre-election campaign rules. After all, most of the areas which would benefit from these police are up for grabs on May 1st. Are Labour naughtily splashing public cash to influence local voters, and thereby boost their poll results? One indication of the Government’s intentions might be that there was no mention of these extra police in the recent National Security Strategy. This document was

James Forsyth

Ken’s supporters come under question again

Today’s Evening Standard leads with the headline, “Suicide bomb backer runs Ken campaign.” The Standard alleges that Azzam Tamimi, who is a leading figure in the Muslims for Ken campaign, is on record as both praising suicide bombing and suggesting that he himself would be prepared to be one. “If I can go to Palestine and sacrifice myself I would do it. Why not?” If this quote is accurate, then Ken must disassociate himself from Tamimi and accept no help from his organisation.

James Forsyth

Shared values

Gordon Brown’s visit to the USA shows that his team really has developed the reverse Midas touch. The Embassy has secured meetings with all three presidential candidates and on home turf to boot, an impressive demonstration of diplomatic clout that few countries—if any—could match. But by arriving at the same time as the Pope, the Prime Minister has guaranteed that he’ll be over-shadowed. (Tomorrow’s US front pages are going to be dominated by pictures of the Pope blowing out the candles on his birthday cake at the White House). As Pete notes, Brown’s Wall Street Journal op-ed is hardly likely to make any American mist up—as Tony Blair’s speeches so

James Forsyth

An ally let down

The total lack of interest surrounding Gordon Brown’s visit to the United States is a testament to how shamefully detached from the Iraq project Britain now is. Back in the hey-day of the Bush and Blair relationship, the arrival of the British Prime Minister the week after Congress had held hearings on Iraq and the President had outlined his strategy for the next few months would have been a major event. But now it is little more than a footnote—Brown makes page A12 of The Washington Post while The New York Times does not deem his landing worthy of even one column inch. In the highest reaches of the Brown

Peter Hoskin

Gordon in the U.S.A

The idea is for Brown to take America by storm – to reinvigorate the special relationship, and all that. However, it’s not started well. Our Prime Minister’s had a few transportation issues, and the Pope’s stolen his thunder in a major way. And today – just to confirm that he’s no natural statesman – Brown writes a painfully dull article in the Wall Street Journal. It reads like the appendix to one of his Budgets – a six-step plan to a “renewed and extended” relationship between the UK and US. Here are some of those steps: “First, I am proposing moving cooperation between our universities at a far higher level… Fourth, building on

Peter Hoskin

Grim predictions

As James said the other day, May 1st is becoming increasingly important for Gordon Brown. A better-than-expected set of Labour results, and he can start to reassert his dominance. A bad set of results, and the chatter about his political demise will only get louder. Unfortunately for our Prime Minister, the latter scenario looks more and more likely. In today’s Times, a group of experts marks Labour down for a local election battering. One even predicts that Labour’s share of the vote could drop to around 25 percent – that significantly undercuts the 28 percent share that party insiders allegedly expect, and would be the their worst performance for 30 years. Of course,

Rod Liddle

Here in Transylvania, it feels okay to be proudly English

As nationalities proliferate, the English want their turn, says Rod Liddle — who considers himself British first. St George’s Day and ‘Englishness’ have been partially decontaminated, but we are no closer to a definition of what ‘England’ is — and quite right too Miklosvar, Transylvania It is very easy for the majority Hungarian population in this most wild and beautiful quarter of Europe to define their essential Hungarian-ness: they are defined, principally, by what they are not. They are not Romanian, for a start — a rather backward people, they feel, a confused, hysterical, limping hybrid of two mutually exclusive racial types, the Slav and the Latin. Imagine an unsuccessful

Tuesday

15 Apr 2008

Alex Massie

The End Is Not In Fact Nigh

Gordon Brown flies to Washington today (where, inter alia, he will have meetings with McCain, Clinton and Obama) so, naturally, this is the cue for fresh fretting over US-UK relations. Nile Gardner, currently exiled at the Heritage Foundation, duly volunteers for duty: Divine intervention might be required to improve the state of U.S.-UK relations, which have deteriorated since Blair left Downing Street last June. While the Anglo-American “special relationship” continues at many levels behind the scenes — from intelligence cooperation to collaboration over missile defense — significant signs of strain are beginning to show over the handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the broader war against Islamist

Fraser Nelson

Brown overlooks our allies

Can someone please give Gordon Brown a crash course in recent world history? “European leadership did not support President Bush in Iraq other than Britain and one or two other countries,” he tells CBS before his trip to the US . “I feel I can bring Europe and America closer together for the future.” Hmmm. Only one or two countries? Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Italy, Slovakia and Denmark supported the Iraq war. He would do better bringing them together if he had the faintest idea about their role in the Iraq conflict. I suppose he was so deep underwater at that stage avoiding making any supportive speeches himself

Peter Hoskin

A liability, but one who’ll stick around until 2010

A brief addendum to today’s “Will Brown be deposed?” stories. Ninety percent of the respondents to this PoliticsHome poll think that Gordon Brown is an electoral liability for Labour. But the vast majority also believe he’ll still lead the party into the next election. Do Coffeehousers agree?

Peter Hoskin

The wrong long-term decisions

If you feel like smashing your computer monitor in frustration, then head over to this Sky News story. The headline: “Brown: we’re getting economy right”. Yes, that’s the outrageous claim our Prime Minister made in an interview earlier today, adding that: “I am making the right long term decisions for our country”. It’s almost getting dull to point out how far out of touch our Prime Minister is with reality. Instead, I’ll point you to Fraser’s post of a few days ago, for the low-down on just how horrendous Brown’s previous “long-term decisions” have been.

Peter Hoskin

The Brown ultimatum

Yet more talk of Brown’s potential demise. This time in today’s Standard – a story (not online) about how backbenchers are giving the Prime Minster until May 2009 to “improve or stand down” (quite how they’d force this through is another question…). Here’s what a “former minister” had to tell the paper: “I do not believe Gordon would want to lead the party to a severe defeat if it could be avoided by the positive momentum that a change of leader could provide …. If the party’s position has not improved by May next year; it will probably mean it is irreparable without a fresh face in charge.” It’s difficult to

Fraser Nelson

The Tories should reward the strivers

Tory splits are rare nowadays, which is why it’s good to see Lord Forsyth talking sense about tax in the Telegraph today. It is “mad” for the Tories to propose to bring back the 10p starting rate of tax (which – in his seminal tax report (pdf) – he proposed to abolish long before Brown did it in his ‘tax con’ budget). Instead, Forsyth said, the Tories should lift the low-paid out of tax altogether. Ensnaring millions of minimum wage workers in the income tax system is one of the more morally deplorable acts of the Brown Treasury – as if he has any right to what little is earned

Peter Hoskin

A reshuffle for the better?

Can things get any worse for Gordon Brown? With the news this morning that a minister is threatening to quit, our Dear Leader needs something to change. And quick. On that front, he seems to be pinning his hopes on a cabinet reshuffle this summer. According to the Telegraph, those due a promotion include Jim Murphy, Liam Byrne and – surprise, surprise – Ed Miliband. Whilst Hilary Benn, Des Browne and Hazel Blears can expect to be flung from the battlements. This isn’t so much a reshuffle, then, as a dilution. Whilst Murphy et al. may be capable in their own right, their youthful presence will hardly reassure voters in

Monday

14 Apr 2008

James Forsyth

One of Gordon’s goats is abandoning him

Tomorrow’s Times splashes on the news that Digby Jones will resign before the next election as he is not prepared to say that he supports Gordon Brown during an election campaign. The Times reports that the former CBI head made the remark at a private event at the end of January. Brown must wish that the news had leaked out earlier as coming now it fits all too well into the current narrative that this is a government in disarray and on the way out. Expect plenty of Labour backbenchers to say I told you he was a rat, many had always questioned the wisdom of making someone a minister

Fraser Nelson

Channel 4 fact check

George Osborne had a bit of a rough ride on Channel Four news at 7pm and the Labour Party has gleefully sent around a transcript. Jon Snow put to him that “the IMF says that our growth is going to be 1.6%, not only this year but next year as well, and that outstrips any other country in the whole of Europe and the United States.” Utter nonsense, of course, but Osborne did not correct him when asked to name a country that would do better. Again Snow said to Osborne that “on the IMF figures, Britain comes out on top” and later “you reject the absolutely key finding which

Peter Hoskin

Who should you vote for?

Still undecided on who you’d have as London mayor? If so, this nifty “Who should I vote for?” quiz that Sky have put together should help you decide. It asks questions on a policy-by-policy basis, and then picks your man for you. Simplicity itself. Any surprising results for CoffeeHousers? Do tell…

Peter Hoskin

A change of address

So – in an effort to save taxpayers’ money – David Miliband is to permanently vacate his lavish official residence. Over at Three Line Whip, Con Coughlin is disappointed by the move, thinking it will undermine the stature of the Foreign Secretary – “Foreign visitors expect to be received in some style when they come to London”. David Hughes counters by pointing-out that “there’s hardly a dearth of venues for official receptions and dinners”. I’m with Hughes. Foreign visitors may have their expectations, but British taxpayers expect something too – namely, that their cash isn’t used to fund the gravy-train. And – whilst there’s a slight whiff of opportunism about Miliband’s decision – it’s still good to

Fraser Nelson

Britain is “bust” says Osborne

A first for British politics – standing room only in a speech about economics. George Osborne was at Policy Exchange laying out his “alternative view” and, as he went, ticking many of the boxes I had for him. The first half of his speech was a punchy critique of Gordon Brown, pointing out times where he and David Cameron had mentioned the debt problem. He “imported deflation from Asia,” he said. – and two years ago the Tories had warned about “an economy built on debt is an economy living on borrowed time.” That phrase is very true now. Labour has repeated the mistakes of its past. Anyway, you can

Peter Hoskin

A cut lead for Boris

As Centre Right reveal, today’s Evening Standard records a cut poll lead for Boris. Their latest YouGov poll has Our Man on 45 percent (down 4 on the last poll); Livingstone on 39 percent (up 3); and Paddick on 12 percent (up 2). Things look rosier when second preferences are allocated – Boris lands 54 percent of the vote, compared to Livingstone’s 46 percent. The slimmer advantage is testament not only to Livingstone’s resilience, but also to a week in which Boris has seemed oddly deflated. His performance in last week’s Newsnight debate was less-than-stellar, and A.A. Gill’s article in the Sunday Times described the Tory candidate as unusually “glum and uninspiring”. The