Politics

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

Saturday

Clemency Burtonhill

I am proud to have been on Dave’s Rwanda trip

He was damned because he did, but he would have been equally damned if he hadn’t. David Cameron’s decision to come to Rwanda this week — which honours commitments he had made both to the country and members of his own party who are out here working on a two-week volunteering scheme called Project Umubano — appeared controversial because it was taken in the wake of terrible flooding in Britain and two thumping by-election defeats. Kigali He was damned because he did, but he would have been equally damned if he hadn’t. David Cameron’s decision to come to Rwanda this week — which honours commitments he had made both to

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes

David Cameron was in a tight spot because of the floods. He had arranged to address the Rwandan parliament, and this fitted with his wish to proclaim his welcome interest in development issues and his party’s new document on the subject. David Cameron was in a tight spot because of the floods. He had arranged to address the Rwandan parliament, and this fitted with his wish to proclaim his welcome interest in development issues and his party’s new document on the subject. He could not convincingly have told the Rwandans that the rains forced him to stay in Britain. And yet his absence has been a mistake. ‘Middle England’, as

Friday

The Spectator

Tony Blair meets the Simpsons

With Gordon jetting off to Camp David and the Simpsons movie coming out this weekend, here’s Tony Blair–he used to be Prime Minister, you know–doing a cameo on the show. Somehow, I think, that this is one invite Gordon will never get.  

The Spectator

Another Colgate Moment?

George W. Bush and Tony Blair famously bonded over their mutual use of Colgate toothpaste at their first meeting at Camp David. With Gordon Brown heading there this weekend, one can’t help but wonder which product he and Bush have in common? Anyone have any ideas? One thing we can be confident of, though, is that Brown won’t turn up in—what Christopher Meyer so memorably described as—“ball-crushingly tight dark-blue courdroys.”

The Spectator

How Brown is reversing Blair’s reforms

Doesn’t anyone spot what Gordon Brown is really up to? The great Peter Riddell isn’t convinced that he has altered the Blair reform agenda, and thinks that “changes are at the margins”. Well, you could say that. If you snap the brake cable of a car, change is at the margins – but the consequences will be rather profound. Brown has ingeniously sabotaged the City Academy programme, keeping the name but ensuring new ones will be indistinguishable from existing schools. Meanwhile the NHS establishment is freezing out (or, as happened yesterday, just sacking) independent healthcare providers. They will now never get the critical mass they need. The CBI says it

The Spectator

More poll woe for the Tories

Today’s Telegraph poll is disastrous for Cameron. That the Tories are 9 points behind Labour is not even the worst news in it for him; what should worry him most is how his personal ratings have plummeted. In February, 43% of the electorate thought he was proving a good leader and 27% that he wasn’t with 30% undecided. Those numbers have now been reversed. Today, 44% think he is not a good leader compared to the 27% who view his leadership positively (29% remain undecided). How to pull out of this nosedive is now priority number one for the Tories. Toby Helm reports this morning on a love bombing of

Matthew Dancona

Why Cameron should stand on the centre ground

Geoffrey Wheatcroft has a bizarre piece in today’s Guardian attacking Dave for hugging the “centre-ground” and for surrounding himself with a Blairesque “junta”. Too much energy is expended on defining – usually as a prelude to trashing – the concept of the “centre-ground”: it means no more or less than the political mainstream, what animates voters and makes them worried. Thus, the “centre-ground” should include a civilised response to people’s concerns over immigration, as much as an attention to environmental issues. Cameron, by the way, is perfectly well aware of this. As for Geoffrey’s attack on individuals such as Andy Coulson, Dave’s new communications director, and Michael Gove, his confidant

Thursday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

A few bright spots for the Tories

As Matt suggested, I’m getting some stick from Tories here in the Commons – mainly ones who have just seen today’s Spectator cover (Peter Brooke’s brilliant cartoon of Cameron about to be run over a bus) and asking if I’ve gone all Brutus. Quite the reverse. I merely sought to dangle regicidal Tories over the precipice and ask them to look down. Yes, things are grim. The Thames is still rising, the Daily Telegraph has a horrible poll tomorrow and the markets are crashing. But there are a few reasons for Tories to be cheerful:- 1. The Daily Mail is getting bored being so supportive of Brown, and its leader today

Boris Johnson

The will to win

“The present Mayor of London”: that is how Our Candidate refers, with terse menace, to Ken Livingstone, in today’s Telegraph. If I were Ken, those five words would give me pause. As charming as The Candidate certainly is, never doubt he has the steel to win.

The Spectator

The Tories have no plan b

Fraser’s piece is already making waves. The reason for this is that it poses the question that all Tories are thinking about but dare not voice – not least because they do not know the answer to the question: “If not Dave, then who?” To lose a fourth successive general election, as the polls suggest the Conservatives are on course to do, would be a savage blow to any party. The years 1992-94 (post-Kinnock, pre-Blair) have been airbrushed out of Labour Party history, but they should act as a terrible warning to those Tories who think that a bit of creative disunity now is what the party needs. As David

Wednesday

The Spectator

What if Cameron fell under a bus?

Fraser has a cracking piece in tomorrow’s magazine on who’d  take over if something happened to Dave. As Fraser reports, there’s no clear alternative—something that Cameron has reason to be thankful for considering the feeding frenzy currently going on in the Westminster village. I called William Hills earlier and asked them for the odds on who would be the next Tory leader and they make for interesting reading. William Hague 9/4 fav. David Davis 5/1 George Osborne and Andrew Lansley 10/1 Liam Fox and Alan Duncan 12/1 Nick Herbert 14/1 Theresa Villiers 16/1 Some other interesting odds: Ed Vaizey 20/1, Malcolm Rifkind, Ken Clarke and Julie Kirkbride 25/1, Michael Gove 33/1

The Spectator

Brown nabs another Tory idea

Gordon Brown’s announcement that there will now be a unified border police force removes one of the Conservatives’ favourite talking points on security. It also puts them in a tricky position as it was an essential balance to their opposition to other anti-terror measures such as 90 day detention: we’re not soft, they could say, just practical. The Tories now find their security see-saw distinctly unbalanced: another round to Brown.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Common mockery

It was almost like David Cameron was being bullied by the Commons today. When he stood up, all MPs cheered – the kind of sarcastic cheer they normally reserve for Ming Campbell. When he mentioned the floods and “people in this country are discussing this issue” an almighty laugh went up saying “what would you know, you were inspecting Rwandan latrines yesterday.” When Cameron spoke about Europe, the Labour MPs roared with approval saying “we’ve forced you to lurch to the right. Game over”. Overall it was bad for Cameron – even Ming Campbell mocked him. His ill-judged Rwandan trip stopped him venting fury on behalf of submerged Middle England

The Spectator

The boy who drank

Today’s papers carry a rather exasperated quote from the publicist of Daniel Radcliffe, the young actor who plays Harry Potter. Responding to questions about whether Radcliffe had, shock horror, been drinking at his 18th birthday party: “The question as to whether Daniel was or wasn’t drinking alcohol at his birthday party last night, I am not willing to discuss. Daniel is now 18 and the question of whether he chooses to consume alcohol at a private function or not is completely up to him.” But the publicist rather spoils her point by going to great lengths to deny that Radcliffe had been “drinking Fosters or any other lager” while watching

The Spectator

More bad news for Dave

Today’s Guardian ICM poll continues the run of bad figures for Dave. Now, all of this can be (and is being) dismissed by Tory optimists as part and parcel of the predictable “Brown bounce”: Gordon has not yet been PM for a month, after all. And I agree that Cameron would be daft to mould his strategy around the voting intention statistics drawn up by pollsters in the first few weeks of a premiership. The finding that should worry Dave is that a majority of Labour and Tory voters think that Brown has brought a change to government. This suggests that the public has bought Gordon’s mantra that he has

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Three cheers for the Tories. Yes, really.

David Cameron is receiving some grief for zipping off to Rwanda to talk about the Tories’ new policies on global poverty, leaving behind the whines of some that he is ignoring his flooded constituents so-called plight. Well, too bad. Cameron had a good, welcome message to deliver in Kigali: Tory leader David Cameron has called for an end to trade barriers that put developing countries at an “unfair disadvantage”, during a trip to Rwanda. He said all rich countries should end trade tariffs unilaterally and British aid spending should be speeded up. Launching a policy group’s report on global poverty, he said trade rules were “immoral”. The group’s proposals, which

The Spectator

Reading between Gordon’s lines

Gordon Brown’s new book, Britain’s Everyday Heroes (Mainstream, £10.99), is yet another important clue to the Prime Minister’s political trajectory. In inspiration, it is part Cobbett’s Rural Rides, part Eliot’s homage to “unhistoric acts”. In his portraits of 33 individuals engaged in various forms of service and community work, Gordon identifies those he regards as the “true celebrities” of our times, and hails “an age of engagement: with our culture and communities energised and improved by the choices and actions of individuals – people power.” In such enterprise, he says, we can see – you guessed it – the “greatness of Britain” as well as the “timeless values of the

The Spectator

Here’s some beef

Amidst all the hullabaloo about David Cameron heading to Rwanda while parts of his constituency remain flooded, it is worth noting that the report he is unveiling over there has some pretty sound ideas in it. Writing in the Telegraph this morning, Peter Lilley, the group’s chair, argues that trade is essential and that rich countries must do five things: “open their markets unilaterally to the products of all low-income countries; liberalise the “rules of origin” that result in 40 per cent of imports that should enter Europe tariff-free paying duties; give incentives to reduce the high tariff barriers between developing countries; abolish export subsidies that damage Third World agriculture;

James Forsyth James Forsyth

New EU treaty is 96% the same as the constitution

The invaluable think-tank Open Europe has translated the text of the European treaty formerly known as the constitution into English; something the government has so far failed to do.  Their work shows that 96 percent of the text is as it was in the constitution.  In some ways this doesn’t come as a surprise, Bertie Ahern said that it was 90 percent the same, but it does illustrate how disingenuous the government is in trying to deny people the referendum they were promised in the Labour manifesto. But Brown clearly believes that the Tories will be too nervous about ‘banging on about Europe’ to go after him on  this.