Scandal

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Illsley’s untenable position

After David Chaytor’s conviction last week, the dominoes just keep on tumbling. Today, it was Eric Illsley’s turn to confess to his expenses-related sins – and he did so by pleading guilty to three “false accounting” charges in Southwark Crown Court. Given that he’s still MP for Barnsley Central – although now as an independent, rather than the Labour MP he was elected as – that makes him the first sitting parliamentarian to face sentencing as a receipt offender. A dubious accolade, to be sure. In terms of day-to-day politics, the next question is whether Illsley will be able to hang on to his seat. He could, theoretically, remain in

Monday

James Forsyth

An arena where words are dangerous

‘it was a deranged individual living in a time and place where anger and vitriol had reached such a fever pitch that we had dehumanized those in public life’ The words of Andrei Cherny on the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords are worth reflecting on. Political discourse has a tendency to hyperbole. But sometimes people need to think through the logic of their rage. For example, all those people who carried round signs saying ‘Bush=Hitler’ should have considered the implications of what they were saying—who of us would not have thought it right to assassinate Hitler if possible? Equally, those who talk about people being traitors should remember what the traditional

Friday

Peter Hoskin

Chaytor in chokey

Log it in your diaries, CoffeeHousers: on this day – Friday, 7th January, 2011 – a former MP was sent to jail for abusing the parliamentary expenses system. Yes, David Chaytor has been sentenced to eighteen months for, ahem, “false accounting” his way to £18,000 of taxpayers’ cash. He’s the first former parliamentarian to be sent down since Jeffrey Archer in 2001. As fallout from the expenses scandal goes, it’s probably the most searing example yet. But the question now is whether there will be any fallout from the fallout, so to speak. While Chaytor’s punishment draws a line under his involvement in this sorry saga, it could yet turn

Thursday

David Blackburn

A tale of ego and hypocrisy

Sarah Ellison has profiled Julian Assange and his relationship with the Guardian for Vanity Fair. Read the whole piece for each petulant tantrum, sordid disclosure and twist of hypocrisy, but here are the opening paragraphs to get you started. ‘On the afternoon of November 1, 2010, Julian Assange, the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks.org, marched with his lawyer into the London office of Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian. Assange was pallid and sweaty, his thin frame racked by a cough that had been plaguing him for weeks. He was also angry, and his message was simple: he would sue the newspaper if it went ahead and published stories based

Saturday

David Blackburn

Dissecting operation Coulson

Tom Baldwin’s inaugeration as Labour spin guru occasions Tim Montgomerie to appraise Andy Coulson. For many, Coulson has committed the spin doctor’s cardinal sin and become the story, and not just his more voluble opponents on the left. Tim rejects that analysis, but concedes that Coulson may drift to pastures new in 2011. Coulson’s record is quite impressive. He snared the tabloid press, and, together with George Osborne, ended Gordon Brown’s short honeymoon, exposing the Labour leader’s indecision with well-timed tax cut promises. The Election That Never Was spawned a far more enduring theme: Labour’s internal fissures and the timidity of its senior figures. If Coulson goes, that will be his

Tuesday

Daniel Korski

Rome smoulders

I’m visiting a stylish but tense Rome today, just as the Italian legislature has voted down a non-confidence vote in Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s mogul-cum-leader. “Rome is at war” my taxi driver told me and numerous demonstrations are going on. Ill Cavaliere, as Berlusconi is sometimes known, put in a strong defence of his record in the Senate and managed to coax, cajole and, some claim, bribe enough parliamentarians in the Chamber of Deputies to secure a small victory. He pulled not a Full Monty but a “Full Andreotti”, using every trick and tactic in the book (and some scribbled in the margin too). For now, Berlusconi survives and can resume

David Blackburn

What now?

The BBC is reporting that the embattled Silvio Berlusconi has survived confidence votes in both of Italy’s Houses. The vote in the second House is understood to have been particularly close; apparently, there were just a couple of votes in it.   Theoretically, Berlusconi could soldier on. But his governing coalition is extremely fragile, and Berlusconi’s credibility is surely irretrievable. That said, the memory of Romano Prodi’s debacle of a government casts a long shadow and the opposition left remains totally disorganised by all accounts. Plus, Berlusconi was expected to lose both votes, particularly the second, so he now has a little momentum. Will it be a case of better

Monday

James Forsyth

Controlling the message

Shane Warne’s statement on his separation from his wife, which makes no mention of his alleged affair with Liz Hurley, is a classic example of how difficult it is for celebrities—or politicians—to both engage online and control a message. The first comment from a Greg Quinn says, ‘thanks shane for sticking it up the poms’. One imagines this was not the tone that Warne was planning to strike. The second is from someone calling himself Denis Angeleri and is a full-on assault on Warne’s character which includes the allegation that Warne pursued this man’s wife. Angeleri writes, ‘It is sad that all the comments are a bi product of people

Friday

James Forsyth

Woolas loses his appeal

Phil Woolas has lost his appeal against the election court declaring his victory in Oldham East and Saddleworth. As I understand it, Woolas has not exhausted his legal options and could take the whole matter to judicial review. Word is that no decision will be made on a by-election until it is known whether or not Woolas will appeal.   Interestingly, Woolas was accompanied to court today by John Healey, the shadow Health minister. Healey is extremely popular with his Labour colleagues, he came second in the shadow Cabinet elections, and his decision to stand by Woolas today is a sign of where the emotional energy in the Parliamentary Labour

Monday

James Forsyth

What’s with the Wiki-fuss?

The whole Wikileaks scandal reminds me of a recent conversation I had, at his request, with a member of a foreign diplomatic service. The country he represented is a long-standing British ally and I saw no harm in talking to him as I didn’t say anything which I hadn’t said, or wouldn’t say, in print. Most of the chat was the usual stuff: what are Cameron’s prospects, what does he believe, will the Lib Dems last out five years, who are the real powers in Downing Street, what will happen to Andy Coulson, who are the new MPs worth watching etc. I suspect that what we discussed, along with many

Thursday

Fraser Nelson

Flight’s loose tongue

Has Howard Flight just done a Keith Joseph? The latter’s run for Tory leader ended when he made a speech about poor people breeding.  As David said earlier, plain speaking can have its problems. But Flight’s danger is in being mistranslated. He sought to make a simple point: that many working families can’t afford to expand their families, while the state provides a substantial cash incentive for those on benefits to do so. But his use of the word “breeding” sounds like he’s into eugenics, and the language – talking about the poor – sounds dodgier still. Given his struggle with foot-in-mouth disease, it’s surprising that Cameron ennobled him.  But

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Coulson to stay

The indefatigable Paul Waugh reports that Andy Coulson plans to break Tom Watson’s delicate heart: the government’s communications director is not going to resign for whatever it is that he is alleged to have done. Pity poor Tom. Coulson may be an anonymous figure, certainly by comparison with Alistair Campbell, and the government may have problems articulating a growth strategy. But Coulson’s survival will warm the cockles of Tory MPs, who rely on him to uphold those issues the leadership ignores. Witness Coulson’s savage reprimand for Crispin Blunt over the prisoners’ entertainment plans. As Paul notes, Labour does not have a guru to match him at present, and it is

Friday

David Blackburn

Lord Young resigns

Yet another GOAT fails to stay the course. Sky News reports that the gaffe-prone peer, Lord Young, has resigned, following his ill-considered comments about the ‘so-called recession’. As the morning progressed, there was a growing sense of inevitability that he would resign. Once again, the government has been unable to steer a communications strategy through a brief and not very serious crisis: after all, Young was chatting idly to a journalist, not expounding government policy. I don’t think his position was totally untenable: if Nick Clegg can hold forth on the legality of the Iraq war, why are the loose private opinions of an underling so unacceptable? However, his comments were politically crass, regardless of some

Wednesday

Ed Howker

Phil Woolas, four investigations and a funeral wreath

It may take another week to discover if Phil Woolas has the right to challenge the election court ruling that destroyed his career. To the delight of his cadre of supporters in the House, judges have said there are “difficult questions to resolve” – not about the evidence of Woolas’ campaign making “false statements”, but about the specific application of the Representation of the People Act (RPA). Before the last die is cast, here are two quick contextual points. First, it is not just Harriet Harman who is keen to shut down this episode – many folks on all sides of the House of Commons would like to pretend skulduggery

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

The politics of the student protests

The student protests really are throwing up some extraordinary images. Who’d have thought that they’d end up smashing their way in to the lobby of Tory HQ, setting fire to placards, hurling bricks and other objects – and all as news helicopters buzz insistently overhead? It’s not Paris ’68, but it’s certainly not traditional British reserve either. I’d be tempted to say that this is the fury of a generation which, as I’ve written before, has generally been excluded from the political conversation – if, like Iain Dale, I didn’t suspect that this demonstration had been overtaken by a bunch of dubious fringe groups. So, instead, I’ll refer CoffeeHousers to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour’s Woolas trouble

This Phil Woolas business is fast becoming a rather large problem for Ed Miliband. Those Labour MPs who are organising a fighting fund for Woolas are effectively defying the party leadership. Remarkably, he is on course to raise £50,000 by Friday. There is a whole slew of explanations for why Labour MPs are, to borrow a phrase, standing by Phil. First of all, the idea of judges overturning election results isn’t popular. Second, he’s a well-liked and sociable colleague, and no one who has fought a Lib Dem has much sympathy with their complaints about dirty tactics. But after these explanations, we move into more murky territory. There is still

Peter Hoskin

Ten more highlights from the Bush serialisation

You know the drill: the second part of the Times’s Bush serialisation (£) is out today, so here are ten more highlights from their coverage. The book is also out today, so we can, as the former President suggests, draw our own conclusions. 1) Watching the towers collapse. “I caught enough fleeting glimpses of the coverage to understand the horror of what the American people were watching. Stranded people were jumping to their deaths from the World Trade Center towers. I felt their agony and despair. I had the most powerful job in the world, yet I felt powerless to help them. At one point, the television signal held steady

Monday

James Forsyth

Delay in Oldham is good news for the coalition

The longer we go before a date is set for the Oldham East and Saddleworth general election rerun, the better it is for the coalition. This delay allows the Tories to give the Lib Dems a head start; Nick Clegg’s party can pour resources into the seat while the Tories do very little until a date is set. There will be a Tory candidate in this election, but I doubt that a Tory victory would be a cause for celebration at CCHQ or in Number 10. The Tory leadership knows that a bad result for the Lib Dems would make their coalition partners jumpy and make it harder for the

David Blackburn

The vanity appointments

If this is what bespoke PR produces, save your money. The Standard alleges that Number 10 has hired 26 ‘civil servants’. These latter-day Sir Humphreys include: a photographer, a stylist, a PR consultant to run the PM’s personal website, a diary keeper for Sam Cam and another addition to the Behavioural Insight Team at the Cabinet Office. Now, I like a bit of behavioural insight as much as the next man. But most, if not all, of these recruits have worked together in CCHQ for years: how much more insight can they glean in their new surroundings? Open up the field, many say, which poses another problem because it may

Sunday

David Blackburn

A day of electoral positioning

Away from turbulent priests and the welfare battle, there have been important changes to electoral politics today. The coalition partners will fight one another in Oldham East and Saddleworth. The seat is a three way marginal, which was number 83 on the Tories’ target list – precisely the sort of seat they’ll need to win in 2015. However, as James noted on Friday, the Liberal Democrats’ need is greater at the moment. Already, tongues are wagging that a pimpled Etonian is destined to journey north of the Watford Gap, safe in the knowledge that gallant defeat will ensure he is the next Prime Minister but three. Enter Nigel Farage, opportunistically.