Uk politics

The visit of President Obama on Tuesday has not yet inspired rapid British soul searching about the ‘special relationship’, not by comparison to David Cameron’s trip to America last July at any rate. After an awkward beginning, the Obama administration has been at pains to stress that America’s alliance with Britain is inviolable even in a changing world. The administration’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, said “there’s no closer ally for the US than the UK” last week. But like all close alliances, the two parties have their differences. The Sunday Telegraph reports on a strategic divergence in Libya, where Britain apparently wants greater American leadership and the US

Chris Huhne “cannot be sure” whether he might, after all, have been driving his car that fateful night. Ken Clarke cannot be sure why he spoke about rape in that way. Andrew Lansley cannot be sure. All this we learn from the Sunday newspapers: three ministers are for the chop — it’s just a matter of time. They will sit in the Cabinet death row alongside Caroline Spelman, unforgiven for her handling of the forests fiasco, and Vince Cable, caught on tape boasting about his “nuclear option” of resignation. This makes no fewer than five dead men walking — and that’s before you think about the party chairmanship. As I

I didn’t expect to be overwhelmed by Ed Miliband’s speech to the Progress Annual Conference today, but neither did I expect to be quite so underwhelmed. This was meant to be his Great Exposition of how, as he put it his introductory remarks, Labour “will win the next election”. But what we got was a straighforward list of some of the major themes of his leadership so far: the “squeezed middle,” the prospects for young people, community breakdown, and so on and so forth. These are all worthwhile areas for debate, but Miliband has dwelt on them before now, and more persuasively — such as in his speech to the

My favourite part of the Guardian’s interview with Vince Cable today? When the business secretary says that his sermonic prescriptions from during the crash are of “enduring relevance” now. But there’s more to the article than self-aggrandisement, not least Cable’s gloomy overview of the British economy. It’s not quite the same as Alastair Darling’s Guardian interview in August 2008, but there is a touch of that here. “I think it is not understood that the British economy has declined by 6 or 7 per cent — it is now 10 per cent below trend,” says Cable, “Britain is no longer one of the world’s price setters. It is painful. It

The Ken Clarke media storm continues. But, talk to lawyers and they complain that the Justice Secretary did not have sufficient command of his brief to redirect Victoria Derbyshire’s line of questioning. There was one particularly illustrative example when she said: “(The starting points) for single offence of rape by a single offender are 10 years’ custody if the victim is under 13, eight years’ custody if the victim is 13 but under 16, and five years’ custody if the victim is 16 or over.” Those numbers look a little light and they create the impression that the justice system is soft on rapists. Clarke should have countered that Derbyshire’s

What has Ken Clarke done wrong — other than commit the political sin of making a media gaffe? Nothing. In yesterday’s now infamous BBC interview, he was simply attempting to explain his position on rape sentencing, which may or may not be the right one. It’s a difficult question — and, under some antagonistic interrogation, he stumbled and got flustered. “Rape is rape,” said the radio interviewer. “Not it’s not,” the Justice Secretary replied. He later talked about “serious, proper rape.”   Bad phrasing? Certainly. Injudicious? Sure. But Clarke’s essential argument — that not all rapes are the same, that some rapes are worse than others — is quite obviously