Labour party

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_5_June_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Delingpole and Michael Heaver debate whether Ukip stands for anything” startat=1222] Listen [/audioplayer]There are many words that you might associate with Nigel Farage, but moderniser probably isn’t one. Yet the Ukip leader is embarking on the process of modernising his party. He has concluded that it cannot achieve its aims with its current level of support. So he is repositioning it in the hope of winning new converts even at the risk of alienating traditional supporters. If this sounds similar to what David Cameron did after winning the Tory leadership in 2005, that’s because it is. Interviewing Farage during his triumphant European election campaign, I was struck

Two years ago a well-known MP told me that the Centre for Social Justice was wasting our time chasing political action against slavery, because it wasn’t a ‘doorstep issue’. I’m rather glad I didn’t take that advice because, as Theresa May has said, our 2013 report It Happens Here sparked the vital changes we will hear from the Queen today. Later this morning Elizabeth II will open Parliament for the 61st time. Labour claims she’ll have nothing much to say, with Shadow ministers attacking an impending ‘zombie parliament’. This is unfair. Especially because nestled in Her Majesty’s speech will be a landmark Modern Slavery Bill. The publication of that Bill,

In the past few weeks, Sadiq Khan has made a couple of interventions that show how hopelessly confused the Labour Party is on issues of race and diversity – and Ukip looms large in the background. First up, a couple of weeks ago, Khan made a Labour’s pitch ethnic minority votes in a speech to Operation Black Vote. He said: ‘The fact is that if you are black or Asian in Britain today: you are significantly more likely to be unemployed. You will earn less and you will live a shorter life than your white neighbours.’ Invoking Policy Exchange’s recent ‘Portrait of Modern Britain’ report, he added: ‘Entire racial groups are significantly

Will Labour do well in the Newark by-election? While all the focus has been on the fight between the Tories and Ukip (watch our exclusive interview with the candidates here), Labour has been mostly forgotten. Yet in this morning’s poll of the seat from The Sun, Labour are on 27 per cent — four points ahead of their result in 2010 and one point ahead of Ukip: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/4CGHl/index.html”] This is a rather good showing for a party with a pretty basic ground operation. During my visit to Newark-on-Trent yesterday, I did not spot a single Labour canvasser in the town centre. Their election HQ was smaller than any of

My trips to meet Russians in Russia these days are a little less controversial than my encounter with them in Corfu. The Corfu trip, though, did have the bonus of throwing me together with George Osborne, whom I had not known previously. Returning from St Petersburg I awoke on Saturday to his interview on the Today programme. If the Tories win the next election (unlikely in light of last week’s performance) it will be down to his political skill and determination. And his being joined at the hip to Cameron. If Blair and Brown had managed the same double act, Labour would still be in power today. The St Petersburg

Tax Freedom Day, which falls today, is cause for celebration. It marks the point in the calendar when someone’s income stops paying for their tax bill and they start keeping the money they have earned. It is an annual reminder that people who work hard and play by the rules deserve to keep their hard won earnings. It is why cutting tax has always been a priority for Conservatives. Four years ago we inherited a tax system that was designed to be as complicated as possible. Gordon Brown’s stealth taxes doubled the revenue the Treasury raised through taxation and National Insurance. In total, Labour put up taxes 178 times, and

Moments of grumpiness aside, Ed Miliband’s fightback speech this afternoon was very worth listening to. listen to ‘Miliband: It’s ‘dead wrong’ that Labour has been too radical’ on Audioboo

For more than year Westminster has assumed that David Cameron would have a Tory crisis to deal with after the European Elections. Whenever anyone remarked on the Tories unifying, someone would say ‘well, wait until after the Euros’. The conventional wisdom was that the Tories coming third would lead to a slew of senior Tories pushing for more robust policies on immigration and Europe and more and more Tory MPs calling for a pact with Ukip. But this morning, Cameron has fewer problems than either Ed Miliband or Nick Clegg. The fact that the Tory party has responded so calmly to coming third in a nationwide election for the first

We now have both the BBC’s projected national vote share and Sky’s Westminster projection of what this result would mean in parliamentary seats. Both show Labour ahead but not by much. They are on 31 percent of the vote to the Tories’ 29 according to the BBC. While Sky’s parliamentary projection has Labour a handful of seats short of a majority. With a year to go, and with the economy expected to grow strongly, in the next 12 months, this is not a comfortable place for Labour to be. There’s a reason why more Labour MPs than Tory ones have been taking to the airways to sound off about their

Now the waiting begins. If you’re interested in the results of around 50 councils which expect to declare overnight, here they are: Basildon, Basingstoke & Deane, Bexley, Birmingham, Bolton, Brentwood, Broxbourne, Bristol, Cambridge, Cannock Chase, Carlisle, Castle Point, Colchester, Coventry, Croydon, Daventry, Derby, Eastleigh, Enfield, Fareham, Gloucester, Gosport, Hammersmith & Fulham, Haringey, Harlow, Hartlepool, Hastings, Havant, Hertsmere, Ipswich, Kingston-upon-Hull, Kingston-upon-Thames, Lincoln, Liverpool, Maidstone, Merton, Nuneaton & Bedworth, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Purbeck Redbridge, Richmond-upon-Thames, Rochdale, Rochford, Rotherham, Runnymede, Rushmoor, Sandwell, South Tyneside, Southampton, Southend-on-Sea, Stevenage, Stratford-on-Avon, Sunderland, Sutton, Swindon, Tameside, Tamworth, Tandridge, Thurrock, Walsall, Wandsworth, Welwyn Hatfield, Wigan, Worcester. Here are some particularly interesting results to look out for: Kingston-upon-Thames: The Conservatives hope