Uk politics

Thursday

James Forsyth

Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and the return of Tory wars

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_13_March_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth discusses Gove vs Boris” startat=722] Listen [/audioplayer]From the moment he took his job, Michael Gove knew that he would make energetic and determined enemies. The teachers’ unions, local councillors and even his own department all stood to lose from his reforms — and all could be expected to resist them. What the Education Secretary did not expect was hostile fire from those who should be his friends. At the start of the coalition, Gove and Nick Clegg were allies. With a moral passion rarely seen in British politics, they used to argue that social mobility should be the centrepiece of the government’s reform agenda. Two years ago,

Sebastian Payne

Is Ed Balls scared of Question Time?

Like it or not, Question Time is Britain’s most popular forum for political debate. Two million viewers regularly tune in, and Thursday evenings on BBC1 is when and where ordinary people are most likely to encounter a secretary of state or shadow cabinet minister. For politicians, it’s a golden opportunity — a huge audience to which they can sell both themselves and their party’s policies. The choice of guests usually causes an uproar on Twitter — mostly along the lines of ‘why is X appearing again? ‘ and ‘ I’m sick of seeing Y party getting so much airtime’ — but who actually appears most frequently? Digging into to the IMDB’s

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Gove’s last stand, the march of the dog police and the future of conservatism in America

Why is Michael Gove under attack from his coalition partners, his own party and numerous enemies? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Toby Young, James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson ask whether the Education Secretary’s attitude and policies are his own undoing. Is he, as Anthony Horowitz describes in this week’s magazine, an unsettling character who is too abrasive in his approach to reforming education? Which of Gove’s friends are out to get him? Should he be worried about the threat from Boris Johnson? Are we witnessing a return of the Tory wars? And is Rupert Murdoch involved? James Delingpole and Freddy Gray ask if conservatism is in a better

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Jobs for the girls | 13 March 2014

Martin Vander Weyer tells an interesting tale in his Any Other Business column this week of Business Secretary Vince Cable demanding that companies appoint more women to senior positions: ‘The Business Secretary has been busy behind the scenes, too. “We had a letter from Vince telling us we should appoint a female non-exec…” one chief executive told me last week “…and we’ve found a really good one, totally one of the boys, she even likes shooting.”‘ Martin points out that Cable’s campaign is ‘about equality for its own sake rather than the distinctive qualities of female decision-making, and the otherwise already emancipated objects of his support feel themselves patronised’. He

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Ed Miliband adopts a rope-a-dope strategy on Europe

Hopi Sen is not alone. There are many people in this country supremely indifferent to the whole and vexatious question of whether or not there should be a referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the European Union. Yes, yes, they will tell pollsters that if they must they suppose they might fancy having a referendum some day. But they don’t really care. They mumble about a referendum because that seems the done thing to do and because when a pollster asks you if you’d like to have a say on something it sounds better to say Yes than No thanks, I really can’t be bothered. And sure, if pressed, they

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Douglas Alexander’s weasel words on Labour’s EU pledge

Unsurprisingly, Douglas Alexander’s Today interview about Ed Miliband’s pledge to not give the British people a referendum without saying he’s not giving you a referendum wasn’t the most edifying performance. Alexander admitted that what Miliband is promising is an ‘unlikely’ referendum, saying: ‘He will say that our priority in government would be tackling the cost-of-living crisis and getting the economy back on track, not getting Britain out of Europe. He’ll set out some very practical and I think needed changes to make Europe work better for the United Kingdom. And he’ll also be open that we are not, as a prospective Labour government, proposing a further transfer of powers to

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband rules out EU referendum

Why is Ed Miliband going to rule out a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU in a speech tomorrow? The Labour leader has written in the FT that he would legislate for a new referendum lock which would force an In/Out referendum if there was another transfer of British power to Brussels, which essentially means he supports the current situation under the Coalition. And he says in the piece that the transfer is unlikely in the next Parliament. Which means no referendum. He writes that Labour’s position on Europe… “… is clear and principled: we strongly believe Britain’s future is in the EU. And my priorities for government after

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Revolts over Immigration Bill loom in House of Lords

Awkward rows about who employs ‘cheap foreign labour’ aside, the immigration issue is going to blow up again in the next couple of weeks when the Immigration Bill reaches report stage in the House of Lords. There are two main problems with the legislation which could lead to some very awkward votes at this stage – and both are being highlighted in the current committee stage. The first relates to fines for private landlords who do not make adequate checks on tenants who then turn out to be illegal immigrants. It has been unpopular ever since it was announced, with landlords arguing that the government is trying to recruit them

Steerpike Steerpike

Alistair Carmichael: Chris Huhne put the ‘T’ in Cancun

Jovial Lib Dem Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael addressed lobby journalists over lunch today. Speaking from his experience as the party’s former chief whip, he managed to praise the discipline of his party in the Coalition. But he also recalled a rather tense episode with Chris Huhne refusing to return to the UK to vote: ‘One thing which I was thinking about recently was that Chris Huhne, in the interests of tackling climate change, had managed to be at some big summit in Cancun, so was not available to take part in the division on the day and it was one of the features of Chris’s political operation that when the

Sebastian Payne

Renewal offers a vision for a Tory workers’ budget

How can the Tory party broaden its appeal? Renewal, a group founded to do just that offered its answer at a packed Westminster pub yesterday evening. With just eight days to George Osborne’s 2014 budget, Robert Halfon MP and Renewal’s David Skelton offered their vision of a ‘workers’ budget for the Workers’ Party.’ Arguing that ‘what happened in Scotland [to the Conservative party] is slowly happening in the North’, Halfon outlined why he believes the Conservative Party needs to change its narrative, mission and structures to go beyond its traditional reach, particularly with working class and ethnic minority voters. Firstly, to address the Conservative party’s lack of a ‘moral mission’,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Bob Crow, 1961-2014: An old-fashioned trade unionist

Bob Crow’s death is a shock – he was only 52 – but it also signals the end of old-school style union operating. Crow was a real old-fashioned union boss. He cared only about the deals for his workers, not the wider party political machinations that other leaders such as Len McCluskey and Paul Kenny like to embroil themselves in. As Ed wrote in March, he focused on the interests of working people without much regard to anything else, including regular rage from commuters. His union was the first to be booted out of the Labour party after a series of rows which culminated in RMT refusing to sever links

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Powys County Council reaches dizzy new heights

This must count as the most bizarre government decision in a long time. But from 31 March, Powys County Council will take over the Office for Fair Trading’s role as the lead enforcement body for all UK estate agents. When I was first told this, I assumed it was a joke. Powys County Council might have many strengths but one struggles to see how they are qualified to be the lead enforcement agency for estate agents in London or Birmingham or, frankly, anywhere other than Powys. But when you check Hansard, it is confirmed by the relevant minister the Lib Dem Jenny Willott: ‘The Office of Fair Trading has a duty

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The British constitution has never made sense or been fair. Why expect it to do so now?

Well, yes, Hamish Macdonell is correct. A coherent devo-max option could win the referendum for Unionists. Some of us, ahem, have been arguing that for years. There were, of course, good reasons for insisting that the referendum vote be a simple Yes/No affair. A single question cuts to the heart of the issue and, notionally, should produce a clear outcome. Nevertheless it also greatly increased the risk – or prospect, if you prefer – of a Yes vote. A multi-option referendum would have killed a Yes vote. But if Hamish is correct I am not, alas, so sure the same can be said of Comrades Forsyth and Nelson. James writes

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Browne: Some bosses are a bit ‘control freakish’

What makes a good Secretary of State? Today Jeremy Browne was interviewed on the Daily Politics about what it’s like to be a junior minister, from his experience of working in both the Foreign Office and Home Office. Towards the end, Jo Coburn asked whether it was true that he’d been given more freedom at the Foreign Office than he had when working for Theresa May at the Home Office. He said: ‘Well that would be telling tales, but I think… anybody who’s ever been in any workplace will know that some bosses are willing to give you a little bit more freedom and discretion and others are a bit

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Number 10 tries to defend Brokenshire speech

What fortunate timing it is that Home Office questions falls this afternoon, during the aftermath of one of the worst debut speeches a minister has managed in this Parliament. Doubtless Labour will have a great deal of fun with James Brokenshire’s ‘metropolitan elite’ speech which appears to have been rather disowned by figures in Number 10 over the weekend. Today at the Number 10 lobby briefing, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘The speech was setting out the government’s approach to immigration policy, it’s a policy the Prime Minister very much supports. We want to attract the brightest and the best, people who want to work hard and get on,

Sunday

Rod Liddle

I’m not surprised at David Cameron’s Nepalese nanny

Why the surprise? Of course the Prime Minister would employ a nanny from somewhere like Nepal. David Cameron is simply taking part in the familiar upper-middle class game of ‘Exploited Third World Labour Top Trumps’. The more backward, far-flung and desolate the country of origin, the higher your nanny scores. And, incidentally, the cheaper she is likely to be. Nepal scores a very commendable fifty points. Right now I’ll bet Osborne is trying desperately to source a skivvy from Kyrgyzstan, or perhaps a member of the Melpa tribe from Papua New Guinea, with their strange binary counting system and facility for pig-rearing. Nick Clegg has gone for easy points with

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg loves Britain, and fighting Farage

Nick Clegg’s spring conference speech seems to have been written entirely with Nigel Farage in mind. The Lib Dem leader has decided to go after the Ukip chief, and today’s address was the latest example of the old party of protest directly engaging with the new one. Where Farage had a slogan about loving Britain and voting Ukip (which would have been better if it hadn’t been borrowed from the BNP), Clegg had a whole Love Actually-esque speech about it, ranging from affectionate asides about cups of tea and queues to this country’s love of freedom and its generosity. It was pretty difficult to disagree with anything that the Deputy

The Spectator

Nick Clegg’s ‘I love Britain’ speech: full text

Since I became the Deputy Prime Minister I have had the privilege of spending a bit of time representing Britain’s interests in other parts of the world. I have visited Latin America and Asia to boost exports. I have been to Africa, where we are building better education systems as well as helping fight corruption, poverty and disease. I have travelled to different parts of Europe and the United States to promote British trade. And while each trip varies from the last, there is a thread which runs through them all: you get to see Britain through other people’s eyes. Everywhere I have been – every nation around the planet

Sebastian Payne

Iain Duncan Smith ties himself into universal knots over welfare reform

Will Universal Credit ever become universal and will the lowest paid still face an effective tax rate of a sometimes outrageous 76 per cent? Iain Duncan Smith took a grilling over his plans for welfare reform on the Sunday Politics today, but didn’t give a clear answer to either of these questions regarding his reforms. Firstly, on the progress of implementing Universal Credit, the Work and Pensions Secretary claimed that ‘Universal Credit is already rolling out and the IT is working’, despite just 6,000 people currently on the ‘Pathfinder’ stage. In his initial plans, a million people claiming six existing working-age benefits were due to be on the Pathfinder stage by

James Forsyth James Forsyth

David Cameron pays the price for another lazy shuffle

The Tory leadership is not best pleased with James Brokenshire, the Immigration Minister whose ill-judged speech turned a media spotlight onto the Cameron’s nanny. There are mutterings in Downing Street about the speech having being submitted for clearance very late. But Number 10 can’t escape its share of the blame for this fiasco. First, the speech should never have been cleared. The problems it would cause were obvious, which is why one Lib Dem tells me ‘we all fell out about laughing when we read it.’ Second, Brokenshire should never have been appointed to this job. When Mark Harper resigned as immigration minister because his clearner was working in the