Uk politics

Thursday

Hugo Rifkind

Why do journalists think they’re not part of the ruling elite?

Look, we’ve known each other a while, you and I, so I think it’s time for a confession. It’s a big one, this. I haven’t even told my parents yet. But I think I might be a member of the ruling elite. Granted, it doesn’t feel that way of a morning, when I’m using my thumbnail to scratch baby vomit off my shoulder on the bus to Finsbury Park. But then, maybe it never does. Columnist for The Spectator, leader writer for the Times, the public school- and Oxbridge-educated son of a Conservative former Cabinet minister; hmm, hard to fight it. There have been five prime ministers in my lifetime,

Peter Lilley

Britain can’t afford to surrender to the greens on shale gas

The scandal of official reluctance to develop Britain’s shale gas potential is at last beginning to surface. It may prove to be the dress rehearsal for the ultimate drama — the inexorable collapse of our whole energy strategy. Most of us have by now heard about the US shale gas revolution. In little more than six years, shale gas has reduced America’s gas prices to a third of what they are in Europe, increased huge tax revenues, rebalanced the economy, created tens of thousands of jobs, brought industry and manufacturing back to the country’s heartlands, and given rise to a real prospect of American energy self-sufficiency by 2030. Britain may

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why the Tories need their own Nigel Farage

There are two talking points in Westminster this week. One is about who is up and who is down following the local council elections. This finds the Cameroons privately pleased that the Tory party has largely kept its head despite the Ukip surge, the Labour side worried about whether they are doing well enough for mid-term and the Liberal Democrats relieved that their vote is holding up in their parliamentary seats if nowhere else. The other conversation is more profound. It is about why close to one in four of those who bothered to do their democratic duty last week voted Ukip. The rise of any new party is a

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

The Hitler guide to rigging a referendum

In 1964 Harold Wilson was so afraid that a scheduled election-night broadcast of Steptoe & Son would cost him at least a dozen marginal seats that he successfully pressured the director-general of the BBC to postpone it. There are plenty of ways to manipulate an election, short of stuffing a ballot box. Another example is here, from 1938: This ballot paper crudely follows the advice of Dr Josef Goebbels, that ‘the most effective form of persuasion is when you are not aware you are being persuaded’. Translated, it reads: ‘Do you approve of the reunification of Austria with the German Reich that was enacted on 13 March 1938 and do

Wednesday

James Forsyth

MPs gear up for 2015 slugfest in Queen’s Speech debate

The Queen’s Speech debate is always a mix of MPs patting each other on the back and political combat. This year, in a sign that the next election is looming ever larger in the minds of the party leaders, there was far more of the latter than the former. Ed Miliband in his speech majored on what he considers to be Cameron’s weaknesses. He claimed that the PM had lost control of his party, was trying to ape Ukip and went on about the ‘millionaires’ tax cut’ and the poshness of the government. Miliband brushed off a string of pointed Tory interventions and had one particularly good joke, ‘they used

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Nadine Dorries reinstated as a Tory MP

Nadine Dorries has been given the Conservative whip back by Sir George Young, Coffee House can exclusively reveal. Sources in the Tory party tell me that the MP, who was suspended in November for appearing on the reality TV show I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, has just been told she can now return from exile. This is a huge relief for many Conservative MPs, who have been growing increasingly worried that the continuing absence of the Tory whip was beginning to look vindictive and sexist, and risked pushing the Mid-Bedfordshire MP into the arms of UKIP. As David Davis argued this weekend, Nadine Dorries is a working

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The bluffer’s guide to the Queen’s Speech

Want to know (or at least pretend you know) what the Queen was talking about when she addressed the House of Lords this morning? Here are the bills that the government will bring into Parliament over the next 12 months, and what they’ll do: National Insurance Contributions Bill – The £2,000 employment allowance for every business and charity announced in this year’s Budget. – Measures to combat tax avoidance, including an extension of the General Anti-Abuse Rule, which targets aggressive tax avoidance schemes, to National Insurance Contributions. – Further attempts to stop companies avoiding paying NICs using offshore employment payroll companies. – Measures minimising the tax advantages for limited liability

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne braces himself for economic Ofsted inspection

It is probably unfair to say that the Queen’s Speech will have nothing to do with the economy: we are, after all, expecting a deregulation bill among others, which the Treasury hopes will speed things up for small businesses. But if George Osborne looks a little distracted today, it’s probably because his mind is on events outside Parliament. The International Monetary Fund’s team arrives in London today for the start of a fortnight’s inspection of the UK economy. The Chancellor must feel sympathy with teachers who fear the approach of their school’s Ofsted inspection. Like teachers who suspect their Ofsted visit won’t go their way, Osborne’s allies have recently started

Andrea Leadsom

Lord Lawson is wrong that change in the EU is impossible

In its present form, the EU serves British interests very poorly. The time has come for us to finally take matters into our own hands. But I don’t agree with the idea that we should simply withdraw now. That day may come, but surely not before we have given fundamental reform our best shot.  Everything we do has to be to promote the UK’s interests, and then the referendum will finally settle the matter. Those who advocate withdrawal ignore the risk that the actual process of leaving, potentially taking years to negotiate out of the complex web of EU agreements and treaties, would have a damaging impact on our economy.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ministers hope to reassure backbenchers with Immigration Bill

One of the key bills to be announced in today’s Queen’s Speech is an immigration bill. This serves two key purposes: the first is to bring into legislation all those additional restrictions on access to public services for migrants that was briefed out following the Eastleigh by-election. The second is to answer Tory backbench concerns about deportation of foreign criminals. When it comes to restrictions for migrants – and these measures will, ministers hope, help calm nerves about the end of transitional controls on Bulgarian and Romanian nationals – temporary migrants will need to make a contribution before they can access the NHS, landlords will be required to check the

Tuesday

James Forsyth

What was Clegg’s priority in the last few hours of the coalition talks? Stopping a European renegotiation

The latest extracts of the Andrew Adonis’ book on the 2010 coalition negotiations couldn’t have been better designed to stir up Tory backbench bad feeling to Nick Clegg. Adonis claims that in the final phone calls between Clegg and Brown, the Lib Dem leader kept stressing—you’ve guessed it—Europe. Adonis reports that Clegg told Brown:  ‘Following our conversation this afternoon I’m basically finding out how far I can push the Conservatives on Europe. I genuinely take to heart what you said about that. We need some sanity on Europe. We can’t seek to renegotiate. I’m trying my best…’ I think this illustrates two things. First, how ideologically committed Clegg is to the

Oliver Lewis

Why David Cameron can’t copy Harold Wilson on EU renegotiation

It’s at times like this I’m glad I’m not a Europhile. I imagine that Lord Lawson’s article in today’s Times is causing Brussels-lovers up and down the land a number of headaches this afternoon, not least because it is incredibly detailed and hard to find fault with: The EU’s desire for ‘ever-closer union’ is undiminished? Accurate. British businesses are being hindered by the EU’s daft regulations? Very true. We need to start looking beyond Europe for growth opportunities? Another tick. From a purely economic perspective, Lord Lawson’s argument is spot on. However, there is a political problem with Lawson’s article which I can’t seem to get my head around –

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

European debate returns to Tory MP vs Tory MP

One of the inevitable consequences of Lord Lawson’s announcement that he’d vote ‘No’ in an EU referendum is that the ideological divides over Europe in the Tory party are starting to open up again. This lunchtime, two Conservative MPs debated one another on the issue, which must be confusing for the electorate, and also shows that it will be very difficult for any Tory leader to unite the party on the issue, even once the referendum has taken place. Margot James, a member of the new Number 10 policy board who also speaks for the pro-European Mainstream Conservatives on trade and investment, sparred with Bernard Jenkin, who isn’t just a

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Who is allowed to speak for, and to, Scotland?

I shall be on hiatus for the next week as I’m getting married on Saturday and I have an inkling that this is no time to be concerned that people are wrong on the internet. I leave you with my latest  Think Scotland column in which I consider some of the topics raised by Douglas Alexander in the Judith Hart Memorial Lecture he delivered last week. Douglas Alexander, probably the most thoughtful Scottish Labour MP (though I accept you may consider that only a minor accomplishment), delivered a typically interesting lecture last week. In it he suggested Scotland needs “a politics of opponents. Not enemies. We need a discourse of political difference,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lord Lawson doubts David Cameron’s EU power

The most damaging element of Lord Lawson’s intervention on Europe in today’s Times is not so much his decision that the facts have changed and that he would vote to leave the European Union in a post-2015 referendum, but his lack of faith in David Cameron’s ability to secure any notable reforms. He writes: ‘We have been here before. He is following faithfully in the footsteps of Harold Wilson almost 40 years ago. The changes that Wilson was able to negotiate were so trivial that I doubt if anyone today can remember what they were. But he was able to secure a 2-1 majority for the ‘in’ vote in the

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Ministers made a poor use of Parliament on press regulation

The government’s decision to delay signing off the Royal Charter for press regulation was initially heralded as a dramatic change of heart, before being re-sold by those involved in the process as just a box-ticking exercise to avoid legal action. Either way, there is a growing noise not just about the rival charters now on offer, but also about the way the government’s deal was brought before parliament. Shami Chakrabarti’s disquiet over the proposals was widely picked up at the weekend. But there is also a growing unease in the Conservative party about the way Parliament voted on the legislative aspects of the new plan at such short notice. ‘We

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Government caution makes Help to Buy warning all the more worrying

The introduction of the Help to Buy scheme was the only very small bone of contention in this year’s successful Budget (successful politically, that is, in that no-one talks about it a month and a half later). The announcement itself was a political win for Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, who believes that the only problem left now is access to credit, over those in the Treasury who had, at one point at least, hoped to re-open the debate about planning regulations in order to increase supply. It is too soon to tell, of course, whether the scheme itself will be a roaring success: it only celebrated its first completion a

Sunday

James Forsyth

The Tory party holds its nerve – for now

The dust is settling from the County Council elections and, crucially, the Tory party seems to have stayed steady. Yes, David Davis has had a pop at the number of Old Etonians surrounding the PM and 20 MPs have called for a mandate referendum. But there is no sense of mass panic or revolt. Partly this is because David Cameron had already started doing the things he was going to be told to do after this result. As one Downing Street source remarks, ‘the shift is already well under way.’ He points to the tougher measures on immigration and welfare coming up in the Queen’s Speech and Number 10’s new

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The coalition should have extended anonymity on rape cases

No one can ever recover from being wrongly accused of sexual assault, which is why I welcomed the government’s plan to ‘extend anonymity in rape cases to defendants‘. Turns out that Coalition Agreement pledge was a blunder: the Tories thought it was a Liberal Democrat idea and vice versa. When they worked out that neither of them wanted it, the idea was dropped – even though three-quarters of the public back it. Had this policy been introduced we might not know that Nigel Evans, a Tory MP and deputy speaker, was last night released on bail after being held on suspicion of raping one man and sexually assaulting another. He

Saturday

James Forsyth

David Davis and the Tories’ class war

To the relief of Conservative Campaign Headquarters, relatively few Tory MPs have taken the opportunity of the County Council election results to sound off. The most prominent exception to this rule is David Davis. Now, a DD intervention doesn’t have quite the same purchase as it used to—he’s made rather too many of them in recent years. But his comments are revealing of the huge amounts of class tension inside the Tory parliamentary party. He complains that the rebellions of Jesse Norman and Nadine Dorries have been treated differently because one went to Eton and one to state school. I suspect, though, that the actual explanation is that Dorries crafted