Politics

There is something about impending doom which focuses the mind. That is why the Tory conference in Blackpool was perhaps the most effective brainstorming session in the party’s history — albeit inadvertently. David Cameron arrived facing an election. He left the northern seaside resort having scared Gordon Brown away from going to the polls — and, in the process, launched a policy strategy more radical than he had ever dreamt he would be pursuing. The proposal to raise the inheritance-tax threshold to £1 million grabbed all the headlines and seems to have struck a chord in the Labour marginals that worried the PM very much. Much less attention was paid,

I suppose there must be someone left in Britain who is surprised or shocked that a minor member of the royal family has alleged homosexual tendencies and is partial to the odd snort of cocaine. Lord Charteris of Amisfield, for example — formerly the Queen’s private secretary — would at least have pretended to be appalled, but he’s been dead for seven long years. Frankly, I suspect most British people would shrug their shoulders with resignation and boredom even if it were reported that a fairly important royal had been photographed mainlining anthrax spores while fellating a pine marten. The newspapers, denied the right to inform their readers of the

Today, as the Tories are eager to remind us, would have been election day if Gordon hadn’t lost his nerve. What would have happened will be a great parlour game for years to come but Anthony Wells’s analysis is well worth noting: “More importantly looking at the current polls I suspect Labour would have been ahead in an election today. The polls straight after the Conservative party conference when Gordon Brown decided not to have an election were showing a temporary Conservative boost from a successful party conference. In this alternate universe they would probably have subsided. In the polls we’ve seen lately Gordon Brown’s approval ratings have plummeted and

Cameron again handled the immigration issue well today, and is linking it to welfare reform. Why do we have so many vacancies in Britain, asked Humphrys? Because of the perverse incentives of our welfare state, he says. While this may perplex the pollys of this world, it will make sense to the majority. It’s what David Davis calls “council estate politics”. People see immigrants come in to work, see the family over the road on benefits enjoying holidays they cannot afford, and conclude that something stinks. These were Thatcher’s people. It is great to see Cameron tuning in to them.

David Cameron braved The Today Programme this morning to talk immigration. The interview exposed the openings that the Tories have given with their pledge to reduce the overall level of net immigration. John Humphrys kept pressing Cameron on what his ideal number of immigrant would be and Cameron wouldn’t—or couldn’t—answer the question. Humphrys then moved on to asking him whether he wasn’t effectively seeking to stop black immigration to Britain as white Europeans would be able to come here without hindrance while Commonwealth or other migrants would be subject to quotas. Cameron dealt with this question well and listening to his tone it was impossible to imagine that race was