Uk politics

Tuesday

Sebastian Payne

Labour are the real losers in Eastleigh

The Lib Dems are still on course to hold Eastleigh. Despite the loss of Britain’s AAA credit rating and the unfurling Rennard scandal, Lord Ashcroft’s latest poll today puts their candidate Mike Thornton on 33 per cent. Tory candidate Maria Hutchings is lagging five points behind on 28 per cent while Ukip are a little further behind with 21 per cent. Disappointingly for Ed Miliband, the Labour party’s celebrity candidate John O’Farrell is coming in with just 12 per cent. This confirms two things. Firstly, the by-election is only about local politics. As we discussed on last week’s View from 22 podcast, Chris Huhne has barely been mentioned on the doorstep. From the start,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Weary Italian voters can teach UK politicians lessons

Italian voters are clearly cheesed off: with the Establishment, and with the country’s austerity programme. The explosion onto the scene of Beppe Grillo – which Freddy examined in his post from Rome on Sunday – shows quite how cheesed off they are, and it also has wider lessons for the eurozone and for UK politics, too. The first is that voters clearly do not share eurozone leaders’ unswerving commitment to the euro project: Grillo made much of his party’s eurosceptic credentials and won 54 seats in the upper house, with Berlusconi’s centre-right on 116, while Mario Monti, the conduit for the EU’s austerity measures, won only 18. No alliance gained

Monday

Isabel Hardman

AAA credit rating: George Osborne gives Labour a (revisionist) history lesson

George Osborne was playing historian today as he responded to Ed Balls’ urgent question on the credit rating downgrade, charting Labour’s role in the UK’s loss of the AAA rating; particularly the deficit it bequeathed the Coalition. But he was in revisionist mood when it came to his own stance. As Ed Balls repeatedly leant across the despatch box and tried to hand the Chancellor a copy of the Tory 2010 manifesto in which the party lists ‘we will safeguard Britain’s credit rating’ as the first of its eight benchmarks, George Osborne told MPs that what he had always said was important was the confidence of the markets. MPs were

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Could Eastleigh go the way of Cleggmania?

The Liberal Democrats have a different relationship to the popular press than the other two main parties, both more afraid and more contemptuous. This I suspect contributed to the slightly unwise tone of Nick Clegg’s statement last night. His declaration that ‘I will not stand by and allow my party to be subject to a show trial of innuendo, half-truths and slurs’ was hardly what you would expect from a party leader trying to show humility. One of the reasons that the Liberal Democrats are particularly sensitive to press coverage is the party’s memory of the unraveling of the Cleggmania. Until then, the Liberal Democrats had simply not been covered

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Will the UK keep its AA1 rating until 2015?

Labour has been granted an urgent question in the Commons on the loss of the AAA credit rating this afternoon, and we can expect George Osborne to reiterate his comments over the weekend that this downgrade was a ‘clear message that Britain cannot let up in dealing with its debts’. But will he suggest that the UK can hold onto the AA1 status that it now holds with Moody’s until the end of this Parliament? Announcing the downgrade, the agency said it didn’t expect any changes in the rating over the next 12-18 months. But it added: ‘However, downward pressure on the rating could arise if government policies were unable

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Brave, the Oscars and the Scottish Cringe.

Hurrah for Brave, the little movie that could! And did! All Scotland salutes her Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Another triumph for the plucky underdogs at Disney-Pixar. That, at any rate, is the Scottish government’s view. This “Scottish film” (according to the SNP’s official twitter feed) is another example of Caledonian excellence. Only pedants and churls – of which the country possesses no shortage – can fail to be stirred by the movie’s victory in a minor Oscar category. Well, of course, there’s nothing wrong with liking Brave – a perfectly decent movie – and nothing wrong with preferring it to animated movies you most probably have not seen. But, really,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How will the Rennard allegations affect the Eastleigh by-election?

What effect will the Rennard allegations have on the Eastleigh by-election? Channel 4 has been working on the story for months, but it is obviously taking off at an inconvenient time for the Liberal Democrats. There is also – for both Coalition parties, although particularly for the Tories because this was a key pledge for George Osborne – the problem of the AAA credit rating loss. But don’t forget that the by-election was triggered by Chris Huhne’s ‘guilty’ plea for perverting the course of justice, and in spite of repeated references in Conservative campaign material to ‘trust’, Huhne appears to have had little effect on the by-election. One Conservative MP

Jonathan Jones

Markets shrug off Britain’s downgrade

It seems that Moody’s downgrade of UK government bonds on Friday night has — so far — had more effect on the headlines than the markets. After the news on Friday night, the pound fell by about a cent against the dollar, from $1.525 to $1.515. And against the euro it fell from €1.157 to €1.147 (it’s fallen a little further this morning, to €1.144). But that’s no bigger than the drop on Wednesday on the news that Mervyn King and two other members of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee had voted in favour of more quantitative easing. And it doesn’t seem to have raised the cost of

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lord Rennard: The key questions

As James observed last night, Nick Clegg’s statement on the Rennard allegations raised more questions than it answered. Lord Rennard continues to strenuously deny the claims of sexual harassment made on Channel 4 News last week and in other reports since. But the problem is that when allegations were being made and rumours were circulating, nothing was done, regardless of whether those claims would have been proven or not. And as Nick Clegg hasn’t closed down the row, here are five questions that the party and those examining it will want to answer: 1. There are discrepancies between the different accounts of when the Lib Dem leadership received the specific

Sunday

James Forsyth

Danny Alexander on why he couldn’t do more about Lord Rennard allegations

Danny Alexander has now issued a statement of his own on the Lord Rennard and the allegations against him. This follows Nick Clegg revealing that it was Alexander, then his chief of staff, who was responsible for dealing with general concerns about Lord Rennard in 2008. Alexander says that there was a limit to how far he could take these concerns following Rennard’s denial, a denial that Rennard stands behind, given that the ‘concerns were received indirectly and anonymously’. There is though, an issue, of how proactive Alexander was in attempting to find out what was really going on. Alexander’s statement also doesn’t address the question of the setting in

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Danny Alexander statement on Lord Rennard allegations

Below is a statement from Danny Alexander on his role in attempting to deal with allegations made against Lord Rennard: ‘As I said yesterday, I did not know about these specific allegations until the Channel 4 broadcast. When indirect and anonymous concerns about Chris Rennard’s conduct came to the attention of Nick Clegg’s office, in late 2008, we acted immediately. As Nick’s Chief of Staff, I put these concerns to Chris Rennard in strong terms and warned him that any such behaviour was wholly unacceptable. Chris Rennard categorically denied that he had behaved inappropriately as he continues to do. Chris Rennard subsequently resigned as Chief Executive on health grounds. As

Steerpike Steerpike

Lembit twists the Clegg knife

The Lord Rennard scandal is spreading, not least because of Nick Clegg’s willingness to bring in other characters. He even directly named Danny Alexander as central to the disastrous investigation five years ago. Clegg’s statement says they didn’t know the specifics involved or the names of the women. A line that does not hold much weight when one of the victims was his own Special Advisor. As many Liberal Democrats lie low, it would not be a ‘show trial’ without everyone’s favourite yellow clown. Enter stage left Lembit Opik who popped on Sky News. The last person that the party leadership would want to see, and he did not upset the punters:

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Nick Clegg’s statement on Lord Rennard raises as many questions as it answers

Nick Clegg’s statement this evening concedes that he was aware of general concerns about Lord Rennard’s alleged behaviour. He says that he asked his then chief of staff Danny Alexander to confront Rennard about these concerns in 2008. Rennard told Alexander, Clegg says, that there was no truth to the allegations. Again, it is worth stressing that Rennard denies all the complaints made against him. Clegg, though, angrily refutes suggestions that he was aware of any specific allegations. He complains about a ‘show trial of innuendo, half-truths and slurs’ against the Liberal Democrats. Following Clegg’s statement, most attention now will focus on the Alexander Rennard meeting in 2008. Was it

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Nick Clegg statement on Lord Rennard

Statement from Nick Clegg: The allegations made on Channel 4 concerning Lord Rennard last Thursday were extremely serious and distressing to the women involved. It is critical they are investigated thoroughly and dealt with properly and they will be. But I would like to make one thing crystal clear. I did not know about these allegations until Channel 4 informed the party of them shortly before they were broadcast. I have today spoken to one of the women in the broadcast who I respect and admire and who confirmed that she had never raised the issue with me. I am angry and outraged at the suggestion that I would not

Sebastian Payne

What Lord Ashcroft’s breakup with the Tories means for David Cameron

Now Lord Ashcroft has withdrawn his funding (£) from the Tory party, what implications does the move have for David Cameron? Much like losing Britain’s AAA rating this week, it’s less about the actual impact for his government but the message it sends out about where they are going. As the Sunday Times reports today, the Tory peer has lost all faith in Conservatives’ ability to win the next election: ‘It comes amid mounting pessimism among Tory supporters about the prospects of victory. Although Ashcroft has not publicly expressed doubts over the party’s ability to win, privately he is said to fear Labour is likely to secure more seats. A source close to Ashcroft said:

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Nick Clegg needs a QC to address the Rennard crisis

‘What did he know and when did he know it’ is one of the staples of modern journalism and it is the question Nick Clegg is struggling to answer over the Lord Rennard allegations. Before continuing, it should be stressed that Rennard denies the allegations made against him. But the situation is fast turning into a political crisis for the Liberal Democrats, it is splashed across a whole host of newspaper front pages this morning. (Michael Fabricant, who is coordinating the parliamentary part of the Tory by-election effort, has already tweeted a picture of Tory activists brandishing these front pages in Eastleigh.) At the moment, the Liberal Democrats are relying

Saturday

Rajini Vaidyanathan

Welcome to India, Mr Camerooon: how the PM fared with the local media

How did David Cameron fare with the local media on this week’s trip to India? The third day of his trip attracted the most headlines, when he visited Amritsar. If Mr Cameron, described as ‘Mr Camerooon’ by one enthusiastic TV journalist, and reportedly introduced as James Cameron by another, didn’t have a high profile amongst Indians at the start of his trip, this one act ensured otherwise. After he’d talked trade with business leaders, met a Bollywood star and performed the obligatory cricket photo opp,  he headed to Amritsar, to Jallianwala Bagh, the scene of a massacre which is etched in India’s history. It was here, in 1919, that hundreds of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

UKIP surge in Eastleigh

By-elections are notoriously hard to call. But everyone who comes back from Eastleigh says the same thing, UKIP are the party with forward momentum. This morning’s Populus poll bears that out. They are in third place with 21 per cent, with the Tories second on 28 and the Lib Dems ahead with 33. But, as the indispensable UK Polling Report points out, if you don’t reallocate some of the undecides to the party they voted for last time, UKIP are doing even better. The numbers then are UKIP 25%, Tories 26% and Lib Dems 31%. As I said in the magazine this week, UKIP are picking up support from all

Friday

James Forsyth

AAA loss is politically difficult for Osborne

The United Kingdom’s triple A rating is now lost with one credit rating agency, Moody’s. This is a politically difficult moment for George Osborne. Back in February 2010, he set keeping the triple A rating as one of the key tests of a Conservative government’s economic policy. His opponents will delight in pointing out that he has failed the test he has set himself, while nervousness on the Tory benches about the coalition’s economic strategy will be heightened by this news. Economically, though, I doubt that this will have much impact. In recent weeks, Britain’s debt has been trading more like that of France, which has lost its triple A

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why Britain lost its AAA rating

Even the pessimistic analysts had given Britain until September to lose its AAA rating. That it has happened now, before the Budget, shows just how fast things are moving. Moody’s has tonight downgraded Britan from AAA to AA1 and has also told us why. Don’t expect economic hell to break loose as a result: these ratings tend to follow, rather than lead, the markets. But this is politically devastating for George Osborne, given that he has asked us to judge him by the preservation of this rating (and made it a manifesto pledge). So what went wrong? 1. The markets now doubt that Osborne has a credible debt strategy. The