Uk politics

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Inflation falls: but will voters notice?

Today’s drop in inflation is good news for the government. The Consumer Prices Index grew by 2.4 per cent in the year to April 2013, down from March’s 2.8 per cent, with the biggest falls in transport costs, particularly petrol and air fares. Prices for food, alcoholic drinks and tobacco saw the biggest rises, with a 0.7 per cent rise for food, and a 2.3 per cent hike for booze and fags. A continuing rise in the cost of the former is less reassuring. But this marks the first time growth in inflation has slowed since the autumn of 2012. While ministers will hope that this continues, they also know

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Will Nigel Farage and UKIP help ditch Alex Salmond?

Yesterday’s Survation poll reported that UKIP (22%) are, for the moment, just two points behind the Tories (24%) and therefore and given the margin of error in these things possibly tied or even ahead of the senior governing party. Blimey!  It is understandable, therefore, that the idea we are on the brink of a Great Realignment in British (or rather English) politics is popular today. See Iain Martin’s Telegraph column for an excellent example of this. He says it feels as though the right has split irrevocably. He may be right! British politics has been extraordinarily stable since the Labour party supplanted the Liberals. Nothing, really, has changed. At least,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s tax tightrope

David Cameron didn’t spend yesterday wringing his hands in Downing Street about the progress of his gay marriage bill: he was meeting his business advisory group. He allowed Google CEO Eric Schmidt to sneak out via the No 10 back door, a rather awkward metaphor for the company’s tax arrangements. The Prime Minister is well aware of rising public anger about tax avoidance, and the rise of Margaret Hodge, who has a Calvinist preacher tendency in her role as chair of the Public Accounts Committee. His spokesman yesterday explained that ‘we don’t talk about individual companies’ tax affairs’ (forgetting perhaps that Cameron managed to irritate Starbucks when he told multinationals

Monday

Isabel Hardman

MPs defeat ‘wrecking amendment’ as Cameron tries to patch things up with grassroots

MPs have just defeated Tim Loughton’s ‘wrecking amendment’ to the Same Sex Marriage Bill by 375 votes to 70, after approving the Government and Labour amendment (more on how that works here) which will introduce a consultation on heterosexual civil partnerships. Those in favour of gay marriage will, if this Bill does make it out of Parliament and into law (and we still have all the stages in the Lords to go through) give David Cameron credit for continuing to push when many faces were set against him. But Labour has played a very impressive game today, appearing to save the legislation by making a tweak to an existing government

James Forsyth James Forsyth

David Cameron should be out there making the case for gay marriage

David Cameron’s approach to the gay marriage debate inside his own party has been to take a low profile. The passion and eloquence he displayed on the subject in his first conference speech as leader, has been replaced by a strategy of keeping his contributions on the matter to a minimum. This is, I think, a pity. There is no better Conservative advocate of the case for it than the Prime Minister. The crucial point about Cameron’s position, and why he might have been able to carry some more socially conservative minded people with him, is that he starts from the position that marriage is one of the most important,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

William Hague: Case for changing arms embargo on Syria ‘compelling’

William Hague set out the government’s latest thinking on the horror in Syria to MPs in the Commons today. He explained that if the UK were to consider arming the rebels, it would be under three conditions: A decision in co-ordination with other nations. Carefully controlled circumstances. In accordance with obligations under national and international law. Hague said: ‘The EU should give strong support to this diplomatic process, including by agreeing further amendments to the arms embargo, without taking any decisions at present to send arms to the Syrian opposition. ‘The case for further amendments to the arms embargo on Syria is compelling, in order to increase the pressure on

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour tries to defuse civil partnerships row – by backing government amendment

This morning, Labour was facing a rather awkward choice on the Same Sex Marriage Bill. This afternoon, the opposition party has turned the situation around so that it appears to be on the front foot. Initially the party needed to decide whether it would back Tim Loughton’s ‘wrecking amendment’ to introduce heterosexual civil partnerships, or whether to take heed of Maria Miller’s pleas and reject it. The first would have demonstrated that Labour does want equality in civil partnerships as well as in marriage. The second would have demonstrated that the party doesn’t want to delay the first gay wedding any longer. But Yvette Cooper announced on the World at

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Will civil partnerships kill the gay marriage bill?

There’s a conspiracy theory doing the rounds in Westminster that the ‘wrecking amendment’ for the gay marriage bill is a nifty way of the government dropping the legislation because it is unaffordable, and blaming Labour for backing a reckless proposal. At the morning lobby briefing, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman wouldn’t directly speculate on what might happen if the amendment does pass, simply saying ‘the government has a legislative programme’ and reiterating Maria Miller’s point that ‘there are a number of complexities’. I’ve spoken to a government source, though, who insists that even if the suggested £4bn price tag for pension liabilities as a result of heterosexual civil partnerships is

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Maria Miller on defensive against gay marriage ‘wrecking amendment’

The final stages of the Same Sex marriage bill in the House of Commons were never going to be easy, but it is still an odd situation when the minister guiding the legislation through Parliament is pleading with the opposition party to reject an amendment which ostensibly makes things a lot fairer. Maria Miller thinks that an amendment tabled by the most unlikely group of MPs could significantly delay the introduction of gay marriage itself. This proposal, signed by Tim Loughton, Caroline Lucas, Craig Whittaker, Stewart Jackson, Mark Durkan, Greg Mulholland, Charlotte Leslie, Christopher Chope, Steve Baker, John Hemming and Simon Hughes, removes the phrase ‘of the same sex’ from

Alex Massie Alex Massie

UKIP, Pierre Poujade and a political class that’s seen to be “out-of-touch”.

Parliament is a “brothel”. The state is an enterprise of “thieves” engaged in a conspiracy against “the good little people” and the “humble housewife”. Time, then, for a party that will stand up for “the little man, the downtrodden, the trashed, the ripped off, the humiliated”. Not, as you might suspect, the most recent UKIP manifesto but, rather, the sentiments expressed by Pierre Poujade during the run-in to the 1954 elections to the French National Assembly. Poujade’s party, the Union to Defend Shopkeepers and Artisans,  shocked France’s political elite by winning 2.5 million votes and sending 55 deputies to Paris. Charles de Gaulle sniffed that “In my day, grocers voted for

Sunday

James Forsyth

The Liberal Democrats, the natural party of government?

If four years ago, a Liberal Democrat politician had attempted to portray the Lib Dems as the natural party of government we all would have laughed. But that is just what Danny Alexander tried to do on The Sunday Politics. Being interviewed by Andrew Neil, he implicitly contrasted Lib Dem steadiness with Tory in-fighting. He said: “You know some people at the time in 2010 said that it would be difficult to keep a coalition going because one party might not be able to remain united and disciplined. Let me reassure you and your viewers that Liberal Democrats will make sure that this government continues to be strong and stable

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lord Mandelson gives Miliband two big tasks

There is always something quietly devastating about a pronouncement from Lord Mandelson. Today more polls reveal the Labour party is failing to make headway when the Tories are in an almighty flap, and the New Labour peer gave his tight-lipped, politely-delivered prescription on the Marr Show for how Ed Miliband can salvage things: ‘I think that Ed Miliband has two tasks. He has one, to continue building up his economic credibility and confidence people have in Labour’s ability to manage the public finances and people’s own money. He has made a very good start at doing that. Secondly he has got to do something even harder, what he has got

Saturday

Alex Massie

The swivel-eyed loons in the Conservative party are revolting. And they are right to revolt.

Clearly it is not a good idea for the Prime Minister’s chums to call members of the Conservative party “swivel-eyed loons“. No, not even at a “private dinner party”. I suspect that the identity of the “senior Conservative” who is “socially close” to David Cameron will be out by close of play Sunday and that he – it seems most unlikely it is a she – will, as James says, be removed from whatever position of responsibility he currently enjoys. I also suspect most voters will have no idea who this man is even once his name is revealed. That doesn’t matter. Adrian Hilton wrote a good piece at ConservativeHome last

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Top Tory calls party activists ‘mad swivel-eyed loons’

Insulting your own side is a dangerous thing to do in politics and in the current circumstances for any prominent Tory to do it is positively incendiary. But one ‘senior figure, who has strong social connections to the Prime Minister and close links to the party machine’ is quoted on the front of The Telegraph and The Times describing Tory activists as ‘mad swivel-eyed loons.’ Given the row the Tories have had over Europe and are about to have over gay marriage, the timing could hardly be worse. James Kirkup, Sam Coates and James Lyons — the three journalists who broke the story — have started a major row which, if

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Hammond on manoeuvres? The other Tory MPs who fancy a crack at the leadership

There’s plenty of speculation in Westminster today that Philip Hammond is busy positioning himself as a future leadership contender. Last night he had some pretty strong words about the Government’s proposals for same-sex marriage, saying: ‘There is a real sense of anger among many people who are married that any government thinks it has the ability to change the definition of an institution like marriage.’ Meanwhile the FT identifies him as a reluctant cutter of his own department’s spending in its report about George Osborne’s £9bn black hole. Hammond certainly features on the list of names that I’ve compiled from conversations with Tories about who has either told their nearest

Hannah Fearn

Labour is the party that should be worrying about its record on cities

Last month, in a rare and refreshing piece of pre-local election commentary written outside the Ukip prism, author and urbanist Leo Hollis stated that the government does not understand cities. His argument amounts to the claim that, because Labour has a stranglehold on city councils, the coalition’s efforts to engage with cities and their leaders are a shallow, meaningless attempt to force an economic ideology onto self-sustaining left-wing communities. Hollis is wrong; ask the people leading our urban communities how they feel and they’ll tell you the opposite. The Conservative party has has taken up the mantle, connecting with the people and the industries that matter to the future of

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why was Nigel Farage so rattled on the radio?

Nigel Farage seemed rather rattled when discussing his Edinburgh escapade on Good Morning Scotland today. You can listen to the full clip below, which culminates in the Ukip leader announcing ‘I wouldn’t have met with such hatred as I’m getting from your questions and frankly, I’ve had enough of this interview, goodbye.’ listen to ‘Nigel Farage interviewed on Good Morning Scotland, 17 May 2013’ on Audioboo

Jonathan Jones

Nate Silver on predicting the 2015 general election

I’ve interviewed one of the heroes of last year’s US elections — forecasting expect Nate Silver — for the books blog, but I thought CoffeeHousers might be interested in what he had to say about UK elections. Silver’s attempt to predict the 2010 election didn’t fare so well (his model significantly underestimated Labour and overestimated the Lib Dems) and he explained the difficulties facing those who try in 2015: the lack of constituency polls, the multi-party system and tactical voting. Here’s what he told me: ‘I think you’ll have a big increase in the number of poll-driven forecasts here. We need more polling here. If you don’t know what’s happening

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Nigel Farage Comes to the Brave New Scotland

I am not quite sure I understand why Nigel Farage opted to launch UKIP’s Aberdeen by-election campaign in Edinburgh. Then again, UKIP are a puzzling party. In any event, it all went rather well. Not just because forcing Nigel Farage to “flee” and take “sanctuary” in a pub is the kind of hardship up with which the UKIP leader can fondly put, but rather because the sight of Mr Farage being jostled and shouted down by left-wing “radicals” is one of the few things liable to provoke some measure of sympathy for UKIP north of the border. UKIP thrives on farce and chaos. The goons from something calling itself the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Turnips, bread-throwing and public weighing: the life of an MP

MPs don’t always enjoy the best of reputations with the voters they represent. In fact, if an MP is notorious and disliked, then at least they are doing better than their colleagues: the Hansard Society found this week that barely 20 per cent of voters can name their MP. So if a politician doesn’t fancy sparking a row with the whips by flying to the jungle to make a name for themselves, how do they connect with their constituents? I’ve written a piece in today’s Telegraph that explores some of the bizarre and humiliating rituals that MPs have to endure in their constituencies. Initially I thought that being weighed in