Politics

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

Friday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Pulling back the curtain

The drama of the last week in politics defies analogy – but one celluloid parallel has stuck in my mind. As it is Friday, I thought I’d share. This clip from the Wizard of Oz encapsulates for me the psychological change in the Tory party. The pilgrims (Tories), having reached the Emerald City (the election), are standing scared, knees shaking, in front of the Powerful Courageous Clunking Great Wizard. But thanks to Toto (George Osborne) they soon find he’s not enigmatic and all-powerful after all – just a small man pulling levers behind a curtain. When Cameron challenged Brown to that election, he pulled back the curtain. And the Tories are

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

How Barroso and Brown could stitch up the press

If I were Barroso, I would pick a huge, fake fight with Gordon Brown before the EU constitution, sorry, treaty is signed. His plea today that Britain should not be “closed to Europe” is what the PM needs. The two have to pretend to be at loggerheads, let the press write up a split, then a “bulldog Brown triumphant” headline at the end. Brown’s problem is that he’s already claimed his so-called “red lines” have been met. So how can he claim they are suddenly under threat again? We’ll see.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How long can Ming hang on?

When it looked like there was going to be an autumn election, Ming Campbell’s position was safe for the simple reason that there wasn’t time to replace him. But now with no election likely until 2009, the Lib Dems have time to pick a new leadership team and bed them in before the next election. The Lib Dem’s poll ratings are barely in double figures and it is hard to imagine that they would do any worse with a new leader and the murmurings against Ming are starting to become more public. But this quote that a senior Lib Dem frontbencher gave to Andrew Pierce is particularly brutal:  “Time is up.

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Cameron vs Brown

Video of yesterday’s assault on Gordon Brown. A friend emails: By god, Cameron destroyed Brown. Michael Howard on the Newnight panel astutely pointed out that Blair would have made a self-deprecating remark that would have admitted the charge, but defused the pressure. It is so true. Remember Blair’s remark about Cherie and the allegation that she shouted ‘That’s a lie’ whilst watching GB’s speech last year where he paid tribute to TB? Blair came out with the line ‘At least I don’t have to worry about her running off with the next door neighbour.’ It admitted the fundamental truth, but killed the story dead.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown’s Euro-vision

Do read Mark Mardell’s piece on Gordon Brown’s meeting with Jose Manuel Barroso. Particularly interesting, is his account of Brown’s European vision. “I’m told he argues that there are three phases in the European Union project to create stability on the continent. The first was establishing democracy and prosperity after the war. The second was reuniting Europe after the iron curtain came down. But the third phase has only just started. That is to engage Muslims within Europe, both within existing borders, but also by making welcoming noises to Turkey, Albania and depending what happens there, Kosovo.” As Mardell points out, this means that Brown is on a collision course

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Is this the new ‘John Major tucks his shirts into his underpants’?

One of the many things that undermined John Major’s authority was the idea, first put about by Alastair Campbell, that the PM tucked his shirt into his underpants. Now, it looks like the same is being done to Ming Campbell. Here’s Kevin Maguire in this week’s New Statesman:  “Does Ming the Merciless wear sock garters? I ask only because a colleague swears he saw a clip hanging out of the bottom of the Edwardian gentleman’s trouser leg.” Let’s see if this story has legs, so to speak.

Toby Young Toby Young

The Muhammad Ali of British Politics

Has David Cameron rope-a-doped Gordon Brown? “Rope-a-dope” was the phrase coined by Muhammad Ali to describe the strategy he used to achieve his famous victory over George Foreman in the 1974 World Heavyweight Boxing Championship. In essence, it involved lying back against the ropes during the first six rounds of the fight and allowing Foreman to punch himself out before launching a ruthless counter-attack in the eighth round that culminated in a knock-out punch. There’s certainly a striking similarity between the Rumble in the Jungle and the battle between Brown and Cameron. Foreman was an old-fashioned heavyweight, relying on his punching power and methodical cunning to win his fights, while

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

They don’t like it up ’em, you know

The House of Commons returned today with the first Prime Minister’s Questions since the party conference season. And, as expected, it was a corker. Sometimes the Punch and Judy show remains great entertainment – and provides a telling snapshot of the respective health of the major combatants. This was one of those occasions. The first Tory to ask a question drew attention to his local council’s excellent recycling record and asked the Prime Minister if he fancied visiting “some of our bottle banks”. Ha! Then it was David Cameron’s turn: could he capitalise on the Prime Minister’s embarrassment over the election-that-never-was and his pilfering of Tory proposals on inheritance tax? 

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

First blood to Cameron

Cameron is at his derisive, aggressive best. Everything Brown says is being greeted with hoots of derision.  Brown’s “I will take no lectures” was weak to the point of being helpless. It looks, feels and sounds like he is taking a spanking. Labour faces are ashen, as Brown attempts to defend himself by reeling off statistics. The cheer from the Tories after Cameron called for “the past to make way to the future” was perhaps the loudest I have heard in this chamber. You can almost see the power shifting.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The first PMQs of term

Real first-day-back-at-school atmosphere in the Commons, in a good way. Andy Coulson has taken a perch in the press gallery, Alex Salmond is making a rare appearance but there is only one Brown aide here. The Tories are already making far more noise. Great “bottle bank” opening gag, suspect there will be more to come.

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Move along now son. Or else…

Via NHS, I see Henry Porter is doing good work. You could hardly make this stuff up. It makes Anthony Blair look like a beacon of modesty, transparency and honesty. Yes, it’s not just our Labour masters but all the “authorities” that are to blame – but at every available opportunity Labour has enabled and encouraged this sort of madness… Which brings me to the third panel in the triptych of Gordon Brown’s conference pieties – his love and support of the freedom to protest. Clearly this does not extend to the demonstration tomorrow, timed by its organisers, CND and Stop the War Coalition, to coincide with Brown’s statement on

The Spectator

The City Cottons on to the IHT con

By Fraser Nelson Pennies are dropping in the city about the inheritance tax con. Here is Nigel May at MacIntyre Hudson:  “The Chancellor has done some wonderful arithmetic here by adding together two allowances that already exist, and passing it off as doubling the allowance.  Any married couple receiving advice about reducing their inheritance tax bill would have been able to use both allowances by either passing on assets or using a nil-rate discretionary trust on the death of the first spouse.” Does the Treasury really believe it’s worth this, just to fool the TV news for a few hours? Truly pathetic.

The Spectator

The impact of the PBR

By Fraser Nelson • Buy-to-let bonanza: Previously, if you sold a buy-to-let house you’d pay between 24% and 40% on the capital gains. Now it’s 18%. Great news, which may help housing market liquidity.  • Welfare: Might Brown be aping Cameron on welfare reform as well? The CSR balances by assuming a fairly heroic 5% annual reduction in the UK welfare bill until 2010-11. I’m all in favour of this, but it’s an ambitious undertaking.  • More aping Osborne: The Tories proposed a £25,000 charge on non-doms. Brown will introduce a £30,000 charge – but after they have been non doms for seven years. NB, this is just a proposal and there will

The Spectator

How much have taxes risen by?

By James Forsyth The Tories, who have been pumping out information at a ferocious rate all afternoon, are saying that taxes will rise by £2.2bn over the next 3 years. They are basing their calculation on page 164 of the Pre-Budget report and Comprehensive Spending Review, which is—in tune with the political buzz word of the day—entitled Meeting the Aspirations of the British People.

Matthew Dancona

The Tories force Darling to play catch up

The most important line was George Osborne’s: “From this day on let there be no doubt who is winning the battle of ideas.” That’s right. Darling was chasing the Tories in this statement in a way Gordon Brown never did – or had to – when he was Chancellor, although there was a hint of the future in Mr Brown’s last, supposedly “tax-cutting” Budget earlier this year. For a decade, the public bought into the line that the priority was to “invest” in health and education and that Conservative proposals to make even the most modest tax cuts would lead inexorably to the closure of schools and hospitals and the

The Spectator

Live Blog Darling’s speech

3:30pm: The House is in confrontational mood and Darling is off on a party political point scoring exercise straight away. First mention of aspiration, the new political buzz word. 3:35 Darling has just, as expected, downgraded his growth forecast for 2008 to 2 to 2.5%. Darling has adopted the Brown strategy of death by figures and throwing international comparisons around like confetti—a sure sign that  there is something to hide. 3:40pm Here’s Fraser’s early take: 1)      Language. It’s pure Brown! Right up from the preamble to weird sentenced like “Britain: the fastest growing major economy in the world”. You’d think the speechwriters would attempt a slight stylistic change. The result

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The blame game

The fall out from the election debacle continues this morning. The ‘young Turks’ surrounding Gordon Brown—principally, Douglas Alexander, Ed Balls and ED Miliband—are receiving much of the blame. One junior minister tells Rachel Sylvester, “I’m in despair about the cack-handedness of these arrogant little sods…These people don’t understand politics, they speak at think-tank seminars, not public meetings.” None of the young Turks want to end up carrying the can for this mistake. Hence, all the newspaper reports about who was much less gung ho than we’d realised and urging caution on the PM. A senior MP reports to Sylvester that the three of them are “fighting like ferrets in a

Monday

The Spectator

Listen live, tomorrow at 6:45pm

Tomorrow night from 6:45 pm, we’ll be broadcasting via this site a debate on the motion, “We should not be reluctant to assert the superiority of Western values.”  There is an all star cast of speakers involved.  David Aaronovitch, Douglas Murray and Ibn Warraq are speaking for the motion while Tariq Ramadan, William Dalrymple and Charles Glass are opposing it. Click here to read a piece that Douglas has written for us setting out his position.