Uk politics

Revealed: the cringeworthy horror of Ukip chat-up lines

The Roger Bird-Natasha Bolter saga continues. Text messages between the Ukip romantics have revealed by the Telegraph which paint Bolter in a less favourable than Bird. While the Ukip investigation is ongoing, Bird has told Guido that they demonstrate a ‘gradual development of the relationship and make it clear that there was no impropriety involved’. That’s as maybe, but is there anything proper about text flirting of this appalling calibre? Here are some more text messages from Botler to Bird: Nov 9, 17.26: “I am really missing u bird…” Nov 6, 19.05: “I have sang you praises to Nigel for 12 minutes” Nov 6, 00.24: “U r not coming back and accordingly my life

Isabel Hardman

The Tory voters who are still vulnerable to Ukip

Today’s conclusion from the British Election Study that Ukip will hurt the Tories far more than it will damage Labour at the General Election is unsurprising, but still important as its warning that the Conservative party could lose nearly two million voters to Nigel Farage’s party underlines the need for the Tories to find a decent solution to Ukip. Thus far the Tories have tended to capitulate to Ukip on policies, with Nigel Farage becoming a think tank for policy development by applying pressure on nervous MPs who eventually secure concessions from David Cameron in the form of policies he didn’t really want to announce. But last month David Cameron

The last days of the Cameron administration: Part 1 The Gove Delusion

Faintly stunned Liberal Democrats report that Michael Gove is an absentee chief whip. He is simultaneously there at the coalition whips’ meetings but not there: a ghostly presence; a bored, miserable figure who has not forgiven or forgotten David Cameron’s decision to demote him from his beloved Education Department. It’s dangerous to humiliate a man and then give him the power to humiliate you. Even in the fag end of a fixed-term parliament, which long ago ran out of useful business to conduct, a government needs a good whips office if it is to stay out of trouble. The Cameron government does not have one and is always tripping over

James Forsyth

We have a choice between competence and chaos, according to the Tories

Competence versus chaos—that’s what the Tory leadership want to frame the next election as a choice between. Hence George Osborne’s repetition of this phrase five times in one brief interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson. The Tories want to make the voters think that they offer competence and everyone else chaos. As George Osborne puts it, ‘And it’s not just Liberal Democrats, it’s Labour, UKIP, you can put them all into the same mix. What they’re offering is a chaotic alternative of higher taxes, higher borrowing, a return to economic chaos.’ One of the reasons why the Tories are so keen to polarise the contest in this way is, one

Steerpike

Nigel Mills goes cold turkey on crushing candy

When the Sun found Nigel Mills had spent most of a select committee session playing Candy Crush on his iPad, the MP’s first response was to say he’d ‘try not to do it in the future’. This sounded rather as though he couldn’t promise that he couldn’t resist the urge to line up jelly beans and lemon drops, feverishly inviting furious Facebook friends to join in all the while. Since then, the Tory MP has clearly faced up to his addiction and decided to go cold turkey, releasing a statement saying ‘I guarantee it will not happen again’. Perhaps he’s discovered that Bejeweled is even better…

Isabel Hardman

How long will the fragile consensus on food banks last?

Frank Field just about managed to hold together a cross-party consensus on the need to tackle hunger in this country at the launch of the ‘Feeding Britain’ report. At the end of the launch, at which Justin Welby and all the politicians involved spoke, the Labour co-chair of the inquiry said brightly ‘there you have it, a range of views and yet we have a united report!’ It was a tricky job though. Baroness Jenkin didn’t help herself by telling the room in a rather garbled response that ‘poor people can’t cook’. Here, for the avoidance of misunderstanding, is her full quote: ‘There is some amazing best practice out there

Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage are pursuing the same electoral strategy

What is the reasoning behind Nigel Farage’s recent spate of apparent gaffes? Following his breastfeeding comments last week, the Ukip leader blamed his lateness to an event in Wales on open-door immigration, as well as problems navigating the motorway: ‘It took me six hours and 15 minutes to get here – it should have taken three-and-a-half to four. That is nothing to do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a country in which the population that is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be.’ listen to ‘Farage blames the

Isabel Hardman

Food bank report is a chance to end the toxic political stand-off

It has been quite difficult for anyone following the growth food banks over the past few years to avoid growing dispirited. The debate in Parliament runs along the lines of the Tories pretending food banks and food bank demand don’t exist and Labour claiming that food banks and rising food bank demands are all the Tories’ fault. This makes for the unedifying spectacle of both parties throwing mud at one another about people going hungry in this country without appearing to make any progress on addressing the many different factors driving families to food banks. This morning’s report, Feeding Britain, from the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger in the United

Ukip hires BBC’s Paul ‘Gobby’ Lambert as new Director of Communications

Ukip has announced that BBC political producer Paul Lambert will be the party’s new Director of Communications. Ukip has offered the job to various prominent figures but it has not been filled full-time since Patrick O’Flynn, another media defector, was elected as an MEP in May. Lambert is one of the most well-known journalists in Westminster, usually found outside Downing Street heckling ministers with awkward questions, hence his nickname of Gobby. Bringing in an experienced Westminster journalist like Lambert is another sign that Ukip are attempting to beef up and professionalise their media operation. It’s unlikely Lambert would allow ill-conveived events like the Ukip Carnival to take place. In a statement, Lambert said he believes ‘Ukip is today the place

Isabel Hardman

Coalition wars: What are George Osborne and Nick Clegg up to?

If the Coalition started cohabiting earlier this year, it has now moved into the phase where the two parties are posting mean things about each other on Facebook and trying to get the kids to take sides. George Osborne has a grump in today’s Sunday Times about the emphasis that the Lib Dems want to place on tax rises to plug the gap after the 2015 election. He writes: ‘The Liberal Democrats are now arguing with themselves, so it’s hard to work out exactly what they think. While they sign up to deficit reduction, they want more tax rises rather than spending cuts. But they shouldn’t pretend to people that

Tories attack Nigel Farage over breastfeeding remarks

Ukip’s crisis is the Conservatives’ gain. Following Nigel Farage’s comments about ‘ostentatious’ breastfeeding, Conservative HQ have been promoting this graphic online, with a title noting that Farage is ‘making it up as he goes along’: This kind of graphic is just another example of how the Tories have become more proactive in promoting their point of view on social media over last year, using Twitter as an opportunity to attack others while protecting their position. This Farage one is an example of both: it hits out at Ukip for their perceived flakiness — expect to see much more of this in the coming months — while reminding voters that Ukip also has a

Should politicians grumble about awkward stories?

A lot of political types are very cross with the ‘biased media’ today. Ukip is currently the most aerated because some journalists ‘fabricated’ (which is today synonymous with ‘transcribed’) some remarks Nigel Farage made about whether or not restaurants are right to tell women to put napkins over themselves when breastfeeding. Number 10 is very angry with the BBC’s Norman Smith because he talked about the Road to Wigan Pier which is not an OK way of describing the public spending cuts still to come (but the IFS describing them as ‘grotesque’ and ‘colossal’ apparently is). Labour has been annoyed for months that journalists keep pointing out mistakes that Ed Miliband makes. Unusually,

Isabel Hardman

Nigel Farage: Women should avoid ‘ostentatious’ breastfeeding

Nigel Farage has waded into the row about a mother being asked to cover up while breastfeeding her baby by suggesting that women should avoid ‘openly ostentatious’ behaviour. The Ukip leader told LBC: ‘I’m not particularly bothered by it but I know that a lot of people do feel very uncomfortable and look, this is just a matter of common sense, isn’t it?’ Nick Ferrari then asked what was common sense. Farage replied: ‘Well, I think that given that some people feel very embarrassed by it, it isn’t too difficult to breastfeed a baby in a way that isn’t openly ostentatious.’ He then suggested that breastfeeding women could ‘perhaps sit

Tony Blair reaches out to Gove

Tony Blair has taken some time out from posing awkwardly with his wife in order to pen a piece for the New York Times. While he tries to avoid getting drawn on talking about UK domestic politics explicitly, his feeling are poorly hidden: ‘…there have grown up powerful interest groups that can stand in the way of substantial and necessary reform. Anyone who has ever tried to reform an education system, for example, knows how tough and bitter a struggle it is. The bureaucracy fights change. The teachers’ unions fight change. The public gets whipped up to defeat change even when it is in the public’s own interest. The nearest

Revealed: where George Osborne’s axe will fall hardest

If you think George Osborne has been a mad axe man, just wait to see the cuts he has planned for the next Parliament. To return a budget surplus by the end of the decade, government spending will have to be slashed — but which departments will bear the brunt of his axe? The answer (shown in the above chart) is buried in the OBR’s report on the Autumn Statement. Assuming ring fences on health, education and overseas aid spending, ‘other’ departmental government spending stands to be slashed by 42 per cent, or £61.3 billion over the next five years. The Home Office, Ministry of Defence and Business Department would all be vulnerable. As well as these cuts to the other

Fraser Nelson

Breaking: Tory MP Mark Pritchard arrested on rape allegations

Mark Pritchard, MP for the Wrekin in Shropshire, was arrested on Tuesday following an allegation of rape. The Metropolitan Police said in a statement: ‘We can confirm that a 48-year-old man voluntarily attended a north London police station on Tuesday, 2 December where he was arrested, following an allegation of rape in central London. He has been bailed to a date in early January 2015 pending further enquiries.’ It wrote said the following in a letter sent to the Speaker’s Office: ‘I write to inform you that on 2nd December 2014, Mark Pritchard MP was arrested at 6.14pm at Holborn Police Station in London by MPS officers. Mr Pritchard was questioned by police

James Forsyth

The three Tory vulnerabilities Osborne is hoping to shut down

In the last few days, George Osborne has moved to close down three Tory vulnerabilities ahead of the election campaign. First, there was the decision to put another £2 billion into the NHS. Osborne has always believed that support for the NHS is the most important feature of Tory modernisation and this extra money has rather undercut Labour’s commitment to spend another £2.5 billion on the health service. The Tory hope is that this extra money, and the party essentially signing up to Simon Stevens blueprint for the NHS, will prevent health from becoming the major election issue that Labour need it to be. Second, Osborne has tried to neuter

Isabel Hardman

The BBC is right to point out failure on debt. Osborne is wrong to complain about it

George Osborne has in the past year assembled a coterie of advisers to help him become more human, more stylish, thinner and more in touch with voters. But this morning it seemed he’d turned to his Cabinet colleague Iain Duncan Smith for media training before popping up on the Radio 4’s Today programme, as the Chancellor quickly became tetchy when asked the ‘wrong’ sort of questions. He gets angry about 7 minutes in… listen to ‘Osborne: ‘I’m the first to say there is more to do’ ’ on audioBoom