Society

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

David Davis to be Tory civil liberties tsar

The Telegraph is reporting that next week David Cameron will invite David Davis to take on a role overseeing Tory policy on civil liberties. Presumably, the hope is that this will ensure that Davis is more inside the tent than out. It does not, though, solve the problem of the balance of the Tory top team. Davis’s resignation removed one of two the Tories who was most effective at connecting with the C2s and the party need to find someone to plug this gap. The most frequently touted solution to this problem is to move Eric Pickles into the role of party chairman. Turnout of 34.5 percent yesterday does not

James Forsyth James Forsyth

If Brown can’t win in Scotland, where can he win?

There is another set of depressing poll numbers for Gordon Brown today. A new YouGov poll for The Telegraph has the SNP ahead of Labour in general election voting intention for the first time—the SNP is on 33, Labour 29, the Tories 20 and the Lib Dems 14. Although as Anthony Wells notes, Labour would still have (if there was a uniform swing) the most seats in Scotland—31 to the SNP’s 14, with 10 for the Lib Dems and four for the Tories. The extent of dissatisfaction with Labour north of the border is demonstrated by the fact that 49 percent of voters there would like to see Labour lose

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The Glasgow East by-election shows us the two Scotlands

My wee film about Glasgow East will be shown on BBC Daily Politics today. I’ve blogged plenty about this, but if CoffeeHousers will indulge me here’s my take on the debate so far. There has been some controversy about the claim that life expectancy there is worse than the Gaza Strip; part of this is down to the left’s inability to comprehend the extent of the poverty their policies have nurtured there. But the Gaza comparison is actually a gross understatement. Male life expectancy for the whole of Glasgow, including its lush suburbs, averages 70.7 years – worse than Gaza’s 71.01 years. In East Glasgow, it goes right down to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour’s depressed MPs

If you want to get a sense for how demoralised Labour MPs are at the moment read John Kampfner in The Telegraph today. Kampfner writes that: “Several senior figures I have spoken to in recent weeks say they are considering standing down before the next election. This is a natural process, but such a retirement process accelerates as the prospect of opposition beckons. But my straw poll suggests the numbers thinking of quitting Labour benches may be unprecedented. They know that something terrible is afoot: the collapse of centre-Left politics, not only in Britain but across Europe.” Oddly enough, this sense of despair is one of the things keeping Brown

James Forsyth James Forsyth

David Davis gets the decent turnout he needed

David Davis cruised to victory last night in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election with 72 percent of the vote on a 34 percent turnout. Turnout was high enough for Davis to avoid embarrassment and attests to his popularity in his constituency. But one is still left wondering why he resigned as an MP forfeiting the chance to be the next Home Secretary to fight this by-election when his own party’s position was the same as his. The question now becomes will Cameron bring Davis back. It is clear that Cameron will not reshuffle straight away to return Davis to his team, he doesn’t need to and Davis’s rash actions have

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Beijing Olympic Spirit

There is an important piece in The Washington Post today detailing how China is imprisoning and harassing political activists in the run up to the games: As the Olympics draw near, Chinese security officials appear to be targeting people who could channel information about rights abuses and government corruption to foreigners by publishing, as Huang’s Web site does, in Chinese and English. The site, http://www.64tianwang.com, is hosted on a server in the United States and is blocked in China by government censors. “The government has locked itself into a fictional account that the Chinese population has no interest in human rights and no criticism against the preparation of the Olympic

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown’s Praetorians close ranks

Ben Brogan, one of the most plugged-in journalists in Westminster, has a great scoop about a Brownite whipping operation which bypasses Geoff Hoon, the chief whip, and reports directly to the PM. Now, as Ben points out, Hoon has actually been quite successful as chief whip. This suggests to me that the real reason for the move is that the PM and his most loyal supporters believe they can no longer rely on Hoon; they fear that he will put the good of the party above that of the leader. Hoon is mentioned in nearly every possible scenario for how Brown might be deposed. So in some ways it is

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Should Labour get the defeat out of the way as quickly as possible?

There is an absolutely fascinating post by Simon Carr over at Open House. Carr reports that Labour SPADs are kicking around the idea that a Cabinet delegation should force Brown to stand down, install a new leader and hold a snap election which Labour would lose. The thinking behind this scheme is that it would lump the Tories with governing in the worst of economic times and set Labour up for a comeback victory in 2012/13. Essentially, it is a Labour version of the argument that it would have been good for the Tories to lose in 1992 as that would have left Labour to deal with Black Wednesday and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The terminal dozen

The opening of Terminal 5 was a national humiliation but it seems that the problems there aren’t fixed yet. The trade union that handles the baggage at T5 claim that passengers have a one in twelve chance of losing their bag at the terminal if they are taking a connecting flight from there; incredibly there is no mechanical system for moving the bags that arrive on flights that land at Terminal 4 to the new terminal. I really do not understand why in this country both the public and private sectors are so incapable of pulling off what the French call le grand projet. I fear that the cost over-runs and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown’s confused media strategy

I must admit to being slightly puzzled by Gordon Brown’s interview in The New Statesman this week with GMTV’s political editor, Gloria De Piero. It is a full of the kind of humanising detail that would work well in a to camera piece but looks slightly strange on the printed page. One wonders why Brown’s spin doctors didn’t go the whole hog and send him off to the GMTV sofa to talk about these things? Indeed, this interview seems rather typical of the half in-half out approach that has so come to characterise the Brown government: sign the Lisbon Treaty, but turn up late to the ceremony; have the Olympic

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour pains | 10 July 2008

Another day, another slew of stories about how Brown—or Heathcliff, as we should perhaps now call him—might be removed. The Guardian reports that the PM has been holding meetings with small groups of Labour MPs in an attempt to shore up his position. However, the meetings are not going according to plan as Brown apparently just thumps the table and urges the MPs to tell their constituents about what Labour has done for them. The Guardian recounts that when Brown blamed Labour’s poor poll ratings on the global economic turbulence, one former minister challenged him, saying: “Many say you are the problem. What are you going to do about it?”

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Department of Free Markets Being Better than Black Markets

A BBC Scotland documentary on organ sales is on TV tonight. The reporter discovers, shockingly, that: There is a black market in kidneys here in the UK. I secretly filmed people trying to sell me their kidneys, exploiting the vulnerability of someone who is desperate to help a family member. They are also trying to exploit the very law that has changed to allow me to make a ‘stranger donation’. They wanted to fool the authorities – the first woman I met started with an asking price of £250,000, another man wanted the ‘price of a Mercedes’ – £60,000. I met them in cafes across the UK and their actions

Alex Massie Alex Massie

David Davis and Obama

Matt Yglesias writes: the reality is that as long as Obama thinks he’s going to be wielding executive authority, he’s going to be useless as a check on out-of-control executive authority. This is entirely, even obviously, correct. In a British context, this is why David Davis’s seemingly quixotic campaign is immensely valuable: his re-election and his determination to make liberty, justice and principle a major issue will, one hopes and trusts, make it rather harder for David Cameron to succumb to the worst temptations of office…

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Purnell on manoeuvres

A fraternal friend of Coffee House is in touch to say that at a recent TUC drinks-do James Purnell stayed longer than any other minister and shook hands with everyone he could. Now, one would not think of Purnell with his snazzy suits and Blairite politics as someone who would seek out the company of the brothers. But needs must, the Unions will have a third of the votes in any Labour leadership contest and any new Labour Prime Minister would need a large amount of Union money to finance a general election campaign. Combine this with the fact that Purnell has recently shaved off his sideburns and one might

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Fear or stupidity?

My first reaction on hearing of what Harriet Harman said at PMQs today about her becoming Prime Minister—she joked that if it wouldn’t be possible because there isn’t enough airport capacity to allow all the men who would want to, to leave the country—was that fear of Gordon’s henchmen had again led a possible leadership contender to go to absurd lengths to rule themselves out, remember how Alan Johnson declared he wasn’t intellectually up to the job of being PM on Desert Island Discs last autumn. But others told me I was being far too generous to Ms Harman and that she actually froze and couldn’t find a way out

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Is this Labour’s new argument for airport expansion?

Today, at Prime Minister’s Question Time, Harriet Harman—standing in for Gordon Brown—joked that she could not become PM because: “there aren’t enough airports for all the men who would want to leave the country” Well, at least it will give the “race and gender impact” study into a third runway at Heathrow something to look at.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Harriet Harman’s home should be protected

I think the idea of Harriet Harman as Prime Minister is ridiculous but she is a member of the Cabinet and would probably be the PM if Gordon fell under the proverbial bus. So, we should all be concerned about the frequency with which Fathers for Justice are able to climb onto her roof. It is a rather worrying statement about the level of protection afforded her that Fathers for Justice have for the second time in little over a month gained access to the roof of her house. Now, I can already hear people saying that it is a harmless protest. But what worries me is that the police are unaware

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Change on the plane

Airlines these days seem to be finding any number of ways to squeeze some extra cash out of us. Some are now charging to check a bag, others for priority boarding. But as Phillipe Reines, who has taken more plan flight this year than most of us have had hot dinners in his role as Chelsea Clinton’s press chaperone, points out in a rather witty Wall Street Journal op-ed, there are other, better ways for the airline to make an extra buck or two. I like kids, I swear. But I’d pay almost anything not to sit in close proximity to one who is misbehaving. I will fork over 15