Politics Archives

Friday

21 Sep 2007

Will Brown go early to avoid the voters’ verdict

Andrew Porter has a must-read story on the chances of an early election in the Telegraph this morning. He reports that Brown will not decide whether to call an early election until after the Labour conference. Interestingly, Labour advisers seem to believe that an election called this year would be a ‘mandate poll’ which would allow Brown to run on his plans for the future. While if Brown delays, he’ll have to fight a verdict campaign that would require him to defend Labour’s record in office since 1997. I’m not sure that the split is this neat but it does seem that the chances of an early election are once

Thursday

20 Sep 2007

Lloyd Evans

The Ming Show

Lloyd Evans watches as Ming Campbell attempts to revive his party and leadership and witnesses a performance which is typically, well, Liberal Democrat. Lloyd Evans The final day of the Lib Dem conference and the leader’s chance to silence the ‘Sling Ming’ plotters. Mr Campbell strode into the hall wearing a dark suit and a lime green tie and shook hands with an Asian in a wheelchair. Beside him his glamorous wife Elspeth sported a white tunic with big Andy Pandy buttons. This sent a nicely judged message: I am clearly the First Lady and therefore the man beside me must be the prime minister-in-waiting (and waiting and waiting). At

The Spectator

Ming places Lib Dems decisively to the left of Labour

Ming Campbell’s speech to conference just now removed any doubt about where the Lib Dems fit on the political spectrum. In a passage criticising Gordon Brown he charged that “New Labour remains Blue Labour” and throughout Campbell sought to place himself to the left of Labour. Overall, the speech was strong with well-delivered jabs at both Brown and Cameron. His joke about Cameron that “Margaret Thatcher would have to concede: He turns if you want him to. The laddie’s all for turning” should get him some good play on the evening news. While his litany of Brown’s failings was powerfully delivered. The section on foreign policy was a crowd pleaser

The Spectator

What Cameron is missing

It was great to see Baroness Thatcher on such good form at the Rudy Giuliani dinner last night and with some choice words about the decision to bail out Northern Rock. I suspect David Cameron is quite pleased she doesn’t do public speaking any more. She told me a few months ago that “you can’t have stability without tax cuts,” a wonderful inversion of the current Tory mantra. Notice how Giuliani (and Fred Thompson) crosses an ocean to be pictured with The Lady an opportunity which Mr Cameron has conspicuously failed to avail himself of. His loss. When I saw Conservative Home’s Tim Montgomerie amongst the dinner guests, I decided

The Spectator

Has Britain failed Zimbabwe?

On Wednesday night, The Spectator and Intelligence Square hosted a debate on the motion of whether or not Britain has failed Zimbabwe. You can listen to the whole debate via this link and have your say by voting here. The motion in the hall was carried by 455 votes to 203. The Spectator’s theatre critic Lloyd Evans reviews the debate here.

The Spectator

THE SPECTATOR VERSUS THE GOVERMNENT: NOW HAVE YOUR SAY

It has always seemed to me that the controversy over the EU Reform Treaty and the Government’s refusal to hold a referendum was more about honesty and transparency than sovereignty and European integrationism. That was the essence of The Spectator’s call last week for a popular vote, under the headline “Vote for Honesty”. I am amazed that a Government so supposedly committed to restoring trust and building a “new politics” based on consultation, dialogue with the electorate and Citizens’ Juries can be so cavalier about ditching its pledge in the 2005 manifesto to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution. In the new Spectator, Jim Murphy, the up-and-coming Europe Minister,

Wednesday

19 Sep 2007

Alex Massie

Dishonesty and ignorance at any cost

Daniel Larison as already done yeoman work dismantling elements of David Gelernter’s appalling piece in The Weekly Standard. But more needs to be done and, that being the case, let’s have at it in this and a number of posts to follow. Gelertner’s piece, cheerily headlined “Defeat at Any Price” makes the case, natch, that Democrats and liberals in the United States want to see America defeated in Iraq. Of course, they’re devilishly clever and never actually come out and say this (Gelertner declines to buttress his case with any quotations from Messrs Clinton, Obama, Edwards et al that would support his claim that they believe “America would be better

The Spectator

Listen live

You can now listen to the inaugural Spectator / Intelligence Squared debate via this link. The motion is ‘Has Britain failed Zimbabwe.’ Update: At the debate the motion was passed by 455 votes to 203. You can vote here.The Spectator’s theatre critic Lloyd Evans reviews the debate here.

The Spectator

Gordon has reason to fear Cherie’s pen

Following on from Fraser: if I was Gordon, the news that Cherie is writing her memoirs would be one pre-conference headline I would not be happy about. The Campbell diaries were quite openly and systematically edited to avoid embarrassment to Prime Minister Brown. I would be amazed if Tony Blair’s autobiography is an exercise in score-settling. First, as I wrote in my Sunday Telegraph column at the weekend, the two men are getting on better than they have for many years. The arch-Brownite Ed Balls, once a ferocious critic of the ex-PM, has been telling colleagues that he hopes his new report on the prospective economic regeneration of the Palestinian

The Spectator

Coming soon: Cherie Blair’s memoirs

You have to hand it to her. Cherie Blair has beaten her husband to it, and signed a book deal. Blair hasn’t event started writing up his memoirs, but there’s cash to be had so the “bolshie scouser” (copyright T. Blair) is wasting no time. Read all about it at The Bookseller. Can any Coffee Housers help her our with possible chapter headings?

The Spectator

Join the debate

Tonight, The Spectator and Intelligence Squared are hosting the first in a series of debates. This evening’s topic is Zimbabwe and an all star cast of speakers will be debating the motion ‘Britain has failed Zimbabwe’ at the Royal Geographic Society here in London. If you can’t make the debate in person, never fear. We’ll be broadcasting it live on the site via this link from 6.45 pm onwards and a recording of the debate will be available to listen to from 9pm. Lloyd Evans, The Spectator’s theatre critic, will also be penning a review of the event which we’ll be posting on the site later this evening. Once the

The Spectator

Coffee House Blog Roll

Andrew Neil’s blog (Daily Politics) Archbishop Cranmer Bagehot’s Notebook Benedict Brogan Ben Smith Boulton and Co. Comment Central (£) ConservativeHome Conservative Voices Dizzy Thinks EU Referendum Euroseptic FP Passport FT Westminster Blog Guido Fawkes Harry’s Place Iain Martin John Redwood, MP John Rentoul Jonathan Martin LabourList Left Foot Forward Marbury Mark Steyn Muse, the Apollo blog National Review’s The Corner Nick Robinson Norm Blog Norman Tebbit No Sacred Cows (Toby Young) Our Kingdom Paul Waugh Political Betting PoliticsHome Politics on Toast Resolution Foundation blog Robert Peston The Spectator Arts Blog The Spectator Book Blog The Staggers Stephen Pollard Telegraph Blogs Tory Radio UK Polling Report

James Forsyth

What Gordon told Paddy

Michael White has the scoop on a classic exchange between Gordon Brown and Paddy Ashdown when Brown was trying to persuade Ashdown to come into his big tent: When Paddy Ashdown turned down a cabinet post – Northern Ireland – he explained: “I can’t support your attitudes towards civil liberties.” GB is supposed to have asked: “But could you keep quiet about them?” No. It is easy to see how Ashdown resisted this seduction attempt. But as White points out, the interesting question is what will happen when the various Tories and Lib Dems who were vain enough to accept Brown’s blandishments realise that he is taking advantage of them.

The Spectator

These polls really are awful for the Tories

The details of the polls this morning make for even grimmer reading for the Tories than the headline figures. Populus reports that, astonishingly, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling’s lead over David Cameron and George Osborne on the economy has actually grown in the past ten days from 34 points to 38. While the ICM poll finds that Labour is now ahead on all nine key issues. The lead on the economy is a whopping 25 percent and the Tory advantage on health, which was always more a function of dissatisfaction with Labour’s handling of the NHS than anything else, has now disappeared to be replaced by a 13 point Labour

Tuesday

18 Sep 2007

The Spectator

Tories down by eight in new ICM poll

The latest poll news isn’t good for David Cameron. ICM has the Tories eight points behind Labour and Cameron with the worst personal ratings of all the party leaders. The Lib Dems will be cheered to find themselves hitting that psychologically important 20% mark while Labour will be buoyed by reaching the 40% level. Grim as this news may be for the Tories, and the word is that there is more bad news to come, there is no need for panic. The Northern Rock crisis has probably killed off any remaining prospect of an Autumn election—if the Tories couldn’t make the idea that Brown is going now because everything is

The Spectator

How do you solve a problem like Ming?

Last night’s Newsnight interview with Ming summed up the problems the Lib Dems face. First of all, Ming only got 15 minutes at the end of the show compared to the full length, star attraction treatment that Brown and Cameron got. Second, the interview revolved around the Lib Dem’s leadership troubles—a trend Campbell exacerbated by choosing to quibble over every piece of polling data his inquisitors challenged him with. Third, Ming’s performance was poor. (Although, to be fair, he was much better on the Today Programme this morning.) The conventional wisdom is that the Lib Dems can’t afford to get rid of two leaders inside a parliament; especially as an

Fraser Nelson

Guess how much tax the rich pay?

Where would the Liberal Democrats be without the insinuation that the rich are let off lightly by the tax system? But I would like to let CoffeeHousers in on what seems to be a secret. The richest 10% actually stump up the majority (53%) of tax collected in Britain. And the richest 1% stump up a staggering 22% of the tax collected – twice their share of earnings. This is a statistic which should warm the heart of the most ardent redistributionist. It’s all in this Revenue and Customs excel sheet here – scroll to the bottom. And why do we have this situation? Not because of anything Labour’s done.

The Spectator

Darling’s rocky guarantee

The government’s unprecedented decision to guarantee every bank deposit in the country should be enough to stop the queues outside Northern Rock branches and any further meltdown in the financial system. However, no one has covered themselves in glory during this episode. Adam Applegarth, the chief executive of Northern Rock, has delivered a master class in how not to handle a crisis, The Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority have between them dropped the ball and the government has looked far from sure of itself. Indeed it is noticeable how despite Alistair Darling’s shaky performances, Gordon Brown has still kept away. One of the many questions that remains

Monday

17 Sep 2007

The Spectator

Free advice to Ming: Don’t declare yourself a failure

Mike Smithson has an interesting piece up at Political Betting arguing that if the Lib Dems are to be taken seriously by the media they need their very own Campbell or Coulson. Certainly, when you read about Ming Campbell declaring in a conference QandA “Well of course I’m a failure” the case for some proper media handling seems inarguable. (Yes, I know it was a joke—but when you’re in Ming’s position you don’t make such statements even in jest). So what I was wondering was, if you were Lib Dem press chief what would you tell the party to go big on? Personally, I think they should be hitting Brown

James Forsyth

Lib Dem conference gets bumped down the new agenda

The predicament of the Lib Dems is summed up by the media coverage, or lack thereof, of their conference. Looking at the papers today, the Lib Dem conference seems to be about, at best, the fourth item on the news agenda. The worrying thing for the Lib Dems is that this isn’t likely to change as the week goes on. It is hard to see Northern Rock shifting from the front pages and if it does there is bound to be another twist in the McCann saga to capture public attention. Perhaps, though, the audience for the conferences isn’t the general public. As Sam Coates points out, the Lib Dems