Society

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Smith’s departure emphasises Brown’s helplessness

I suspect Jacqui Smith has done a Ruth Kelly – she knew she was going, so why wait to be knifed? Why not go at a time of her choosing, and take control? She doesn’t need to make an announcement. She just needed to let it be known that she will resign, and sooner or later it would reach someone like Joey Jones from Sky News, who broke the story.   This gives her a bit of dignity, and will frustrate Gordon Brown who would have liked to announce this himself. The reshuffle is one of the few weapons left in his arsenal – with Labour’s poll rating now below

Peter Hoskin

Brown won’t gain from a purge

And so the expenses fiasco looks set to claim its biggest scalp yet – in the form of the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith.  To be honest, it’s not much of a surprise: Smith – with her bathplugs and her husband’s porn rentals – became the embodiment of the scandal a couple of months back, and many expected Brown to at least move her in the forthcoming Cabinet reshuffle.  The word in Westminster has been that she’d rather welcome an opportunity to concentrate on defending her slim majority in Redditch: an impossble task, if you ask me. The question now is how Brown engineers the situation.  Does he downplay the expenses

James Forsyth James Forsyth

We are about to see Brown doing what he does best

Gordon Brown’s greatest political achievement was to be the heir presumptive to the Labour leadership for 13 years. For more than a decade, there was not a day when he was not the favourite to take over once Tony Blair had gone. Brown did this through a whole variety of methods, including plenty of brutal, low politics. But there was a deep tactical sense behind it. He had an ability to consistently outmanoeuvre his internal opponents, to manipulate the Labour tribe better than anyone else. This achievement has been part of the reason why Brown has failed so comprehensively as Prime Minister; it led him to over-develop certain muscles and

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

These delayed resignations make the case for an early election

After Patricia Hewitt, Beverley Hughes and David Chaytor we are now up to 16 undead MPs: ones who have decided to stand down at the next election, but hang on a year until they can get their payoff – which is up to £120,000 depending on age and length of service.  Go now, and they get nothing. Some of the excuses are just pathetic. If the job is such a toll on family life and health, etc, why not stand down now? Who else gives a year’s notice? You can bet their constituents will be getting a less-than-stellar service (“What you going to do? Sack me?”). As anyone who has

Peter Hoskin

A disgraceful approach to economic management

Absolutely worth reading Rachel’s Sylvester column in the Times today, on the growing frenzy inside the Cabinet.  There are plenty of noteworthy snippets about Ed Balls (e.g. “Lord Mandelson’s allies suspect the Schools Secretary of spreading rumours that he would be moved to the Foreign Office because he wanted him out of the way”), but it’s this passage on the Budget’s growth figures which jumped out at me: “In the run-up to the Budget, I am told that the Prime Minister tried to upgrade the growth forecasts to make the economic outlook appear rosier than it was; the Chancellor refused.” Thing is, the growth figures which actually made it into

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Why is Kevin Pietersen Playing in the Twenty20 World Cup?

Every so often someone at Lords remembers to trot out the line that Test Cricket is and must remain the pinnacle of the game; every time this happens something pops up that makes it harder than ever to take the ECB seriously when they say this. Not that the ECB are the only culprits; the ICC is just as bad. The latest evidence supporting the sense that given the opportunity to protect or devalue test cricket he people running English cricket will invariably choose the option that most damages the greatest form of the greatest game is the news that, despite being injured, Kevin Pietersen expects to play in this

James Forsyth James Forsyth

ComRes has the Tories down ten to thirty while The Guardian urges its readers to vote Lib Dem and The Independent calls on the Cabinet to dump Brown

A day of political drama has a twist in the tale: a ComRes poll which shows support for the Tories collapsing and Labour closing the gap to eight points. Anthony Wells, an authority on polling. is calling this result “frankly odd” and saying that he’d “be amazed if YouGov, Populus or ICM produced figures to support this poll.” But the atmosphere is so febrile at the moment, that it is hard to be confident in saying which sets of polling numbers are rogue. Another important development tonight is that The Guardian’s leader column is calling on Labour supporters to vote Lib Dem at the European elections. (At the 2004 European

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Three disastrous days for Brown

It is worth thinking for a second about how bad the past few days have been for Brown. We have had a poll showing Labour in third and then one with Labour recording the worst rating ever for one of the two major parties. What has, perhaps, caused equal damage to Brown is that he has done four major broadcast interviews—Marr, GMTV, Today and Sky News—and not generated a single positive headline for either himself or the government. Instead, they have all been about whether there are any circumstances under which he would go, emphasising how divided the Labour party is, or about the ethical problems of members of the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

These polls have Labour doing 50 percent worse than the Tories did in 1997

That Mori poll which has Labour on 18 percent is dominating conversation in Westminster tonight. Coming after the poll at the weekend which had Labour third, it has the speculation up another notch about whether a challenge to Brown might begin to materialise as early as Friday. Putting these polls into perspective, offers no comfort to Labour as Andrew Cooper tells Daniel Finkelstein: “Since the scandal broke over some MPs abusing their system of allowances, Labour’s average vote share in (11) published polls is 22.5%.  That’s nearly 10% below – fifty percent lower – than the Tories in 1997.  It is more than 5% worse than Michael Foot’s performance in

Daniel Korski

What election?

Today a Danish journalist came to ask me abut the campaign for the British European elections. “What campaign?” I asked him. Expensesgate has so dominated the airwaves that there has been little room for anything else, let alone elections to a legislative assembly that few people care, or even know, much about. With at least one of the government’s politically-appointed advisers telling me she has begun looking for another job in anticipation of Gordon Brown’s downfall, even most people in politics are focused on the House of Commons, not the European Parliament. That is a shame, because the European Parliament decides some pretty important things. Since Britain will not leave

Peter Hoskin

Has Charles Clarke’s moment come?

Anyone who thinks that Cabinet members will immediately come out against Brown in the aftermath of this week’s elections had better take a look at this quote in today’s Mirror: “One senior figure said pressure will ‘ratchet’ up on the PM if Labour slips to third or fourth place. He added: ‘There is no person in the Cabinet ready to do the damage, it needs a stalking horse. But we are running out of time.'” Like last summer, the signs are that none of the main candidates for the Labour leadership are willing to to bloody their hands over this.  In which case, if Brown’s going to be ousted, then

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Israel faces the prospect of an Iranian bomb

So when will Iran get enough nuclear material for a bomb? In evidence to the Knesset this morning, Israeli military intelligence has suggested this could happen as early as this year. Of course, the Iranians don’t (yet) have the right missiles. There was some concern about Russians selling a S300 anti-aircraft missile to China who could sell it to Iran – but when I was in Jerusalem a few weeks ago the officials I spoke to said they think the Kremlin has changed its mind. (Ditto with the sale of MiG31s to Syria). But with the material ready to go, it can only be a matter of time before Iran

James Forsyth James Forsyth

There could be utter chaos on Friday

In Westminster, the word is that Gordon Brown will reshuffle the Cabinet on Friday as the local election results come in. The thinking is that this will distract attention from the results, allow Labour to claim that the European election results on Sunday are a verdict on the past Cabinet not this one and, most crucially, to make it harder for any plot to get off the ground. The plan is that Ministers will have been offered new jobs before they know if the plot is on or not and that their self-preservation instinct will lead them to say yes, binding them to Brown. But in practise, there is a

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Sun shines on the Tories

Last week, the Sun’s editorial strongly implied that it wasn’t endorsing any of the main parties for the Euro-elections. The Sun said, “If the established parties have their way, the prospects for change in Brussels vary between fat chance and no chance.” But today, The Sun urges its readers to vote Tory, saying “If you want your vote to count in Europe, vote Tory.” The endorsement is a sign of the increasingly close relations between the paper and the Tories, something that former Sun man Andy Coulson has plated a key role in. All the signs are that The Sun will campaign hard for the Tories at the next election.

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 1 June – 7 June

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there’s no need to stay ‘on topic’ – which means you’ll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There’s also no constraint on the length of what you write – so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything’s fair game – from political stories in your local

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown struggles to push his “renewal package”

Gordon Brown v Evan Davis this morning – and while most Brown interviews before 9am have a soporific effect, this one was (by Brown’s standards) a belter. The Dear Leader had come with an announcement: he is proposing a National Council for Democratic Renewal and was inviting questions on it. Davis had other questions, and you could hear Brown’s irritation grow. “I want the BBC to join a debate about the future,” he said at one point –  Davis just didn’t care. He wanted the PM to join a debate about a whole range of topics: McBride, expenses, the whole shebang. And as for democratic reform, “When a criminal says

Peter Hoskin

Crunchtime for Darling

Oh dear.  The pressure really is on Alistair Darling now.  After the revelations about his serial flipping, today’s Telegraph flags up another potential misdemenour on the Chancellor’s part: that he claimed parliamentary expenses on a south London flat which he rented out, while also claiming second home allowances for his grace-and-favour properties.  Not only does this look plain bad for a minister who is supposed to be guiding the country through a recession, but – as the Telegraph puts it – it “would appear to contravene parliamentary rules that allow MPs to claim on only one property at a time.” The spotlight now falls on Gordon Brown.  What will he

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Your Sunday evening Fisk

The Dear Leader did Andrew Marr this morning – I’ve just returned from a beautiful day out to watch it online and give it a quick Fisk. Here are my top half dozen points. 1. “To be honest, what I’ve seen offends my Presbyterian conscience.” Is this the first recorded use of the phrase?  And what do the Presbyterians think about it? 2. “Do you want 10 percent cuts in your education services at a time when young children, teenagers need more education? Do you want 10 percent cuts in your policing at a time when we actually need to give people visible police presence in their communities? Now these