Uk politics

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

Conservative conference: Nick Boles says Labour’s immigration policy contributed to housing failure

Nick Boles started his first fringe as a minister this evening by saying that after years of trying to make controversial points at party conference events, he wasn’t going to say anything interesting. The new planning minister’s attempt at being boring wasn’t thoroughly successful: Boles’ version of being dull and unreportable is still more fascinating than some politicians will ever manage. He opened his speech to the IPPR event by praising the good intentions of the Labour government in building more homes. But there was one fatal flaw in that plan, he said: ‘The last government had many good intentions in this area. They made life a lot more difficult

Matthew Sinclair

Why George Osborne had to kill the mansion tax

This morning the Mail on Sunday reported that George Osborne has promised there will be no mansion tax, no wealth tax and the council tax freeze will be extended. Homeowners are safe for now, but why has Osborne made that call? It might be something to do with a past Conservative Party Conference back in 2007 when the party was in a similarly dire situation. The then Shadow Chancellor pledged to cut inheritance tax by increasing the threshold, put Gordon Brown off calling an early election and ended the honeymoon it is now hard to believe he ever enjoyed. Britain already has the highest property taxes of any developed economy

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Conservative conference: the Tory attack on Labour

If the next election is simply a referendum on the government’s performance, I doubt that the Tories will win. But if it is a choice about which party you want to govern Britain, then they are in with a chance. So, today we’ve seen a determined attempt to draw contrasts with Labour. Notice how quick David Cameron was to turn to the question of what Labour would do on Marr. The most detailed attempted takedown, though, came in William Hague’s speech. He ran through his holy trinity of coalition reforms—economic, education and welfare. Then, said: “they are all opposed by a Labour Party that in its addiction to borrowing, belief

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Conservative conference: William Hague doesn’t want a minimalist Europe

When it came to the passage in his speech on Europe, William Hague was clearly building up to a crescendo. He thundered out the lines ‘which will require the fresh consent of the British people’, and then paused for what he expected to be a rapturous round of applause from a Tory audience thrilled to have received more red meat on Europe. The applause certainly came, but it wasn’t exactly full of enthusiasm; more a perfunctory round of clapping. The first thing holding back the cheers was that everyone in the hall had already heard this line. The promise had been that there would be more details at autumn conference

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Conservative conference: Shapps pushes ‘shy’ Tories to shout out about their achievements

Grant Shapps used his speech this afternoon to the Conservative party conference to encourage Tories to not be shy. It’s not a charge you could level at the Conservative party co-chair himself, especially after he devoted the first section of his speech to talking about himself and his own election battles. He also revealed to the conference ‘exactly’ what David Cameron had told him on reshuffle day: ‘The day of the reshuffle I went to see the Prime Minister in Downing Street, and today I can reveal precisely what he said. “Grant, you’ve got one task as chairman, get out there and kick-start our campaign, rally the troops, take the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Will the Lib Dems veto welfare cuts?

If the Lib Dem conference was all about proalition, the Conservatives seem determined to at least start their conference in a less coalicious frame of mind. This morning Chancellor George Osborne made very clear on Murnaghan on Sky News that he would not introduce either a wealth tax or a mansion tax: measures Nick Clegg has called for as the price of the Lib Dems supporting further welfare cuts. Osborne said: ‘I don’t think either of those ideas are the right ones. I don’t think a mansion tax is the right idea because, I tell you, before the election it will be sold to you as a mansion tax and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

David Cameron gets political on Marr

David Cameron was in feisty form on the Andrew Marr Show  this morning. Cameron, who has finally woken up to the need to be more political, defended his record — including his decision to cut the top rate of tax — with vigour. Cameron stressed how the richest 10 per cent are paying 10 times more towards the cost of deficit reduction than the bottom 10 per cent. But he argued, correctly, that the 50p tax rate was dangerously uncompetitive. He said that he was determined ‘to always be fair and seen to be fair’ which suggests to me that some new tax on the rich, something the Liberal Democrats

Saturday

Shiraz Maher

Should British citizens expect British justice?

The High Court yesterday issued a final ruling on the extradition of Abu Hamza and four other men saying they will be handed over to American authorities to stand trial on terrorism charges. It’s unusual for the courts to lump different cases together like this, and that’s one of the things supporters of Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan are particularly upset about. Abu Hamza’s case is relatively straightforward. He will be tried on 11 charges, including the charge that he tried to create a terrorist training camp in the United States. Two of the other men, Khaled al-Fawwaz and Adel Abdul Bary, are accused of being linked to Osama

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Abortion: Jeremy Hunt may be stupid, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong –

Jeremy Hunt: what a card! A row about abortion is just what the Conservative and Unionist party needs to kick-off its conference week! The MP for South West Surrey is certainly entitled to say he favours outlawing abortion outwith the first trimester; the Secretary of State for Health would have been wiser to have kept quiet. The problem is Hunt’s political judgement, not his moral compass. Nevertheless, some of the reaction to Hunt’s comments has bordered on the hysterical. Talk of a Tory “War on Women” is as ugly as it is absurd and another example of how the witless American brand of partisanship has leaked into our political discourse.

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Deliver us, Lord

Why has David Cameron made his conference slogan ‘Britain can deliver’? That word ‘deliver’ is revolting. Cameron clearly likes it: ‘Britain delivered’, he said after the Olympics. But if only Dave and his handlers read the Spectator’s Dot Wordsworth more closely, they’d know better. In 2003, Dot wrote: ‘Politicians and managers who use the word deliver should think again . Until recently, the most frequent use of the word deliver was in the phrase ‘deliver us from evil.’ The sense ‘liberate, set free’ had been conveyed by the Latin liberare . But in late Latin this meaning had been taken over by the emphatic deliberare, which in classical Latin meant

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Michael Gove: why I’ll never run for leader

Today’s Guardian magazine runs a Michael Gove profile, colouring him blue on the cover as if to alert readers to the threat he poses. “Smoother than Cameron,” it warns. “Funnier than Boris. More right-wing than both. Are you looking at the next leader of the Tory Party?” There is nothing unusual about leadership speculation following a  prominent Tory frontbencher, but there is something unusual about the way Gove has ruled it out in almost any way imaginable. He has combined General Sherman and Estelle Morris, saying he wouldn’t and couldn’t do  the job. It is now being said that Gove is protesting too much, but he has been clear about this

Friday

Matthew Pennycook

Universal uncertainty

Brushing aside recent criticism of his universal credit scheme, Iain Duncan Smith claimed that nothing now ‘demoralised’ him. After surviving two years of gruelling denigration as Conservative Party leader, he can perhaps be taken at his word. Yet the line between a thick skin and complacency is a thin one. For all the sniping from opponents, the Work and Pensions Secretary would be wrong to ignore the very real threats that confront his flagship scheme. One of the more striking aspects of Universal Credit which has so far failed to make the headlines is that from April 2014, financial support for people already in work will become conditional rather than

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The real story of the 2007 ‘election that never was’

‘The election that never was’ is one of the most important events, or non-events, in recent British political history; if it had gone ahead, David Cameron might never have become Prime Minister and there might not have been a coalition at all. Equally, Gordon Brown could have seen Labour’s majority slashed and had to quit long before the financial crisis hit. The story of what happened that day has been told several times. But I don’t think I’ve read a more gripping account than Damian McBride’s. McBride did disgrace himself but he can sure as hell write. If you like the political game, you really sure read it. (There’s also

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Senior Tories pile pressure on Cameron to chase core vote

David Cameron has a tough task ahead of him for this week’s Conservative conference – a task that got a little harder when Ed Miliband surprised almost everyone by producing a cracking speech this week. The Prime Minister has a number of problems to tackle when he arrives in Birmingham. These include a rowdy party growing increasingly agitated about a number of issues including Europe, a chief whip sent in to control said rowdy party whose authority has been undermined before he has even started twisting arms, a chancellor struggling with his own authority on economic policy, and a Mayor determined to steal the show with his own conference speech

Julian Huppert Mp

Why the ‘snooping’ Communications Data Bill will not pass through Parliament

I believe in evidence-based policy, and if the Home Office or anyone else claims that they need new powers over the people of this country, the onus is on them to demonstrate what they need and why. They should never assume that they will always get what they want, simply because they ask for it. Politicians owe it to the people to question the needs, not just roll over and concede our hard-earned freedoms on request. Obviously there is always a balance to be struck when deciding how many powers to give the state. We benefit from having an effective police force – but give the police too many powers, and

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Five lessons from the Labour party conference

Believe it or not, Labour’s party conference has finally ground to a halt. Here are the key lessons from the past six days in Manchester: 1. Ed Miliband is no longer a joke leader of the opposition. The Labour leader’s speech showed that he can now talk a good game, and even though much of that performance was no more than a good game, Miliband gave his party and voters a glimpse of the more authoritative figure that he has grown into over the past two years. It’s worth watching his speech to the 2010 autumn conference where he appeared completely floored by bursts of applause to see quite how

Jonathan Jones

Labour conference: Ed Miliband’s speech boosts his ratings

Labour leave Manchester today with a 14-point poll lead over the Conservatives, according to YouGov. That’s their biggest lead in a YouGov poll since June, although one last week showed them 13 points ahead, so we shouldn’t rush into declaring a big conference bounce for them. It does seem, though, that Ed Miliband himself did get a decent boost out of his hour-long speech on Tuesday. 10 per cent of people say they watched or listened to the whole thing, and a further 49 per cent say they’ve seen or heard reports about it. And it seems Ed did manage to change at least a few of their minds about him.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

He’s behind you! Michael Gove is the pantomime villain who inspires Labour

There was plenty of panto on the conference floor this week in Manchester. Ed Miliband encouraged delegates to boo several villains in his speech, and one of them was Michael Gove. In fact, Michael Gove popped up as the villain on Tuesday and in the Labour leader’s question-and-answer session yesterday, too, and again when Stephen Twigg spoke just before the close of the conference today. This is odd: of all the reforms that the coalition government has introduced so far, Gove’s have been the least surprising to Labour members given he’s pushing ahead with what Tony Blair and Andrew Adonis started. There was one baffling moment when a delegate started

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Stephen Twigg to launch New Deal for teachers

It doesn’t seem entirely fair that Stephen Twigg’s speech has been left to the final day of the Labour conference, when many have packed up and left Manchester already. But today Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary is to announce more reforms to education as part of the party’s new One Nation project. The idea is to make teaching an ‘elite profession for top graduates’, and Twigg plans to achieve that by offering incentives for high-flyers to work in tough schools such as paying off some of their student debt, funding for teachers to do master’s degrees and a National College for Teaching Excellence to develop new teaching standards. The centrepiece of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why the Cameroons have grounds for optimism

With Labour conference winding down, attention shifts to the Tories. They will head to Birmingham facing several challenges. First, the loss of the boundary changes means that winning a majority requires them to be on, at least, forty two per cent — six points up on where they were in 2010. Second, Ed Miliband has shown this week that he has more political life in him than many Tories appreciated. Third, the government’s reputation for competence has taken a beating over the past few months. But despite all this, one finds a renewed sense of confidence among the Cameroons. The listlessness of a few months ago has gone to be