Uk politics

Wednesday

David Blackburn

With friends like these | 25 November 2009

Bob Ainsworth has publicly criticised President Obama’s slothful deliberation on an Afghan troop surge. The Defence Secretary said: ‘We have suffered a lot of losses. We have had a period of hiatus while McChrystal’s plan and his requested uplift has been looked at in the detail to which it has been looked at over a period of some months, and we have had the Afghan elections, which have been far from perfect let us say. All of those things have mitigated against our ability to show progress… put that on the other side of the scales when we are suffering the kind of losses that we are.’ I don’t agree

Tuesday

David Blackburn

There are more pressing financial concerns than this

The two top dogs at the Treasury Select Committee, John McFall and Michael Fallon, give remarkably different reactions to the news that ministers withheld details of emergency loans to RBS and Lloyds for over a year. McFall argues that secrecy was necessary to avoid a run on the banks; Fallon expresses outrage that Lloyds’ shareholders were not privy to all information when considering the disastrous purchase of HBOS, urged on them by the Prime Minister.   Both have their points. Blind panic is the defining recollection of those autumnal days. If the situation had been exacerbated by full disclosure of the mess RBS and Lloyds were in then God alone

David Blackburn

Will Chilcot be any different?

The Chilcot inquiry’s precedents don’t auger well. It’s unfair to describe the Hutton and Butler inquiries as ‘whitewashes’, but their colour was certainly off-white. That said, the condemnatory characterisation of Sir John and his panel as ‘establishment figures’ is redolent of a lower-sixth common room circa 1968. Who else could conduct this inquiry? Mohammed al-Fayed? Pete Doherty? The Bishop of Bath and Wells? The Iraq controversy has not abated and a panel of angels would not be pure enough for some. But it’s absurd to suggest that anyone besides officials and foreign policy experts, with an intricate knowledge of the practices and issues concerned, should or can decide such matters.

Peter Hoskin

Yet another poll for the mix

After the Ipsos MORI hullabaloo, it’s tempting to treat the YouGov/Telegraph poll on Westminster voting intentions in Scotland with extreme caution.  But, for the record, here are the headline figures, and a hefty rise for Labour: Labour — 39 percent (up 9 points from August) SNP — 24 percent (down 2) Conservatives — 18 percent (down 2) Lib Dems — 12 percent (down 6) As this fits in with another recent poll, it’s safe to say that Labour have solidified their support in Scotland during and after the Glasgow North by-election.  And there’s more discouraging news for the SNP: at 29 percent, support for Scottish independence is hardly overwhelming –

Peter Hoskin

Mandelson downplays Van Rompuy and Ashton – and bigs up the EU’s financial influence

To my eyes, there’s more than a little dose of mischief in Peter Mandelson’s article for the FT today.  Discussing the recent EU jobs grab, he seems to suggest that the new economic and financial commissioners may have a more important role to play than either Herman Van Rompuy or Lady Ashton, the EU’s president and high representative, respectively: “Some commentators felt that the EU’s choices for its new president and high representative for foreign affairs lacked this kind of continental ambition. Herman Van Rompuy and Lady Ashton will no doubt aim to prove them wrong. But Europe’s dilemma is not just one of influence projection. Europe’s influence will inevitably

Peter Hoskin

Osborne’s recycling giveaway is actually an Age of Austerity measure

I don’t want to be a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to an idea which is actually quite promising, but it’s worth pointing out that George Osborne’s plan to pay people to recycle – featured in quite a few of today’s papers – was first mooted by him back in July 2008.   The difference between then and now?  That this particular nudge was worth up to £360 a year for families who took advantage of it – whereas now the figure has come down to £130 a year.  In which case, it’s probably better to regard at least this part of Osborne’s announcement today as an Age of Austerity-inspired cutback,

Peter Hoskin

A debased database

As with much police work, the questions surrounding a DNA database come down to one thing: striking a balance between civil protection and civil liberties.  Going off a new report by the Human Genetics Commission, reported on the cover of today’s Times, the government are getting that balance seriously wrong: “Jonathan Montgomery, commission chairman, said that ‘function creep’ over the years had transformed a database of offenders into one of suspects. Almost one million innocent people are now on the DNA database… …Professor Montgomery said there was some evidence that people were arrested to retain the DNA information even though they might not have been arrested in other circumstance. He

Monday

James Forsyth

A poll taken at the same time as the Ipsos-Mori poll had the Tories 14 points ahead

The Observer’s Ipsos-Mori poll has dominated political discussion since its publication on Sunday. But two things that I have heard tonight have increased my scepticism that it marks a dramatic shift in public opinion. First, I hear that another of the big pollsters had a survey in the field at the same time and it showed a fourteen point Tory lead. Second, a new poll for Political Betting has Labour down on 22, only a point ahead of the Lib Dems. With polls it is the ones that are surprising that make waves; I’m sure we’ll all run down a few more rabbit holes before election day. The odd surprsingly

David Blackburn

Satire is dead

I laughed more at the Antiques Roadshow than I did at The Thick of It. In fact, finding the louche Eric Knowles delivers more cutting gags per minute than Malcolm Tucker has become a feature of my weekends. And it’s a sad one because The Thick of It was the sharpest and most savage programme on television – a welcome focus for one’s anger at the Labour government. Truth is, Armando Iannucci’s show has dated. The outwardly crisp style of government it satirised has descended into a very public ‘omnishambles’. The reality is funnier than the fiction. The Prime Minister’s belief that he’d saved the world; a 24 hour pursuit

Peter Hoskin

Dodgy expenses referred to the CPS

And so the expenses scandal rumbles on.  This morning’s Telegraph lead with home-flipping allegations against Andrew Dismore, a member of the Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges.  And now it’s emerged that the Met have referred the cases of four parliamentarians to the Crown Prosecution Service.  All of which makes Brown’s decision not to mention expenses in the Queen’s Speech seem even more unwise.

Peter Hoskin

Hold your horses | 23 November 2009

The blogosphere is alight with all kinds of chatter about yesterday’s Ipsos MORI poll for the Observer, which showed Labour closing the gap between them and the Tories to 6 points: from James Macintyre’s claim that the Labour fightback has begun to Nick Robinson’s call for calm.   Myself, I’m on Team Robinson.  Sure, the poll is an eye-opener for CCHQ – but, by itself, it’s hardly evidence of a tidal shift in voting intentions.  Indeed, going off two very useful posts by Anthony Wells and Stephan Shakespeare, there’s a considerable chance that this is a rogue. Polls will always be imperfect, but they’ve been particularly volatile recently.  Since party

Peter Hoskin

Bradshaw goes to war against the Sun

Peter Mandelson has already claimed that the Tories and the Sun have “effectively formed a contract”, but today Ben Bradshaw takes the insinuations even further.  Here’s the relevant passage from his interview with the Guardian, with my emphasis in bold: “Echoing the views of the business secretary, Lord Mandelson, Bradshaw says of News International and the Tories: ‘There is no doubt there’s a deal … The Tories have basically subcontracted their media and broadcasting policy to News International. It’s brazen.’ He fires off a list of Tory policies – including a commitment to TV news free from impartiality rules and Cameron’s promise to rein in the media regulator, Ofcom –

Peter Hoskin

Brown goes for growth – fails

So the dividing line persists.  Today, both Gordon Brown and David Cameron will talk about “going for growth” at the CBI’s annual conference.  But it all, more or less, comes down to the same, dreary “investment vs cuts” line that we’ve heard countless times before.  According to the Times, Brown is going to say that growth is the best way of tackling the deficit, rather than those nasty Tory cuts.  And, what’s more, “he hopes investment from China will drive the recovery”. Of course, growth will have a role to play in reducing the deficit.  A vibrant economy will have a better chance of tackling record deficits and debt levels

Sunday

David Blackburn

What should be in the British Bill of Rights?

The success or failure of Cameron’s EU policy rests in part on the promised British Bill of Rights. What is clear is that Tories are unclear what should be included in it. One question that is yet to be answered is whether aspects of the constitution should be entrenched? Writing on the Blue Blog today, Michael Howard writes: ‘Any decision about these rights requires a balancing of competing rights. The fundamental question is who should be responsible for striking that balance: elected MP’s or unelected judges? On terrorism, Parliament twice, after great debate, reached its view. Yet twice the judges have held that Parliament got it wrong. In doing so,

Peter Hoskin

A fine line between love and hatred for Peter Mandelson

So far as Downing Street is concerned, this morning’s Sunday Times cover is a presentational nightmare. It reports that Peter Mandelson is calling on Brown to make him Foreign Secretary – a move which would create all kinds of internal difficulties for the PM. Sounds a little bizarre to me: we all know that Mandelson would, in theory, like the role which was once occupied by his grandfather, but would he really want it under such controversial circumstances and for what would likely be only six months? Perhaps not. But, true or no’, it still feeds into the idea that the government is divided and self-obsessed. It’s also the kind

Saturday

David Blackburn

Where to start cutting

Michael Portillo believes that a future Tory government, like those that came before it, will not succeed in cutting public spending. I agree with Pete: public finances are so parlous that cuts have to be made. Demolishing the state is not an overnight job; it will take time and cost money, and so it should because the stakes are too high for a quick fix, cowboy politics solution. But, immediate savings are to be made through efficiencies. ‘Efficiency savings’ are derided as being insubstantial. Such an analysis is simplistic. Endemic waste is perpetuated by irrational systems. The Department for Work and Pensions runs an administrative budget of £2.7bn. That is colossal – half

Peter Hoskin

Behind the closed doors of Brussels

Today’s Times carries a cracking account of all the wheeling and dealing that went on during the EU jobs fair this week.  Here are some of the most striking points that I’ve culled from it: i) Brown rejected advice from Mandelson and other ministers that he should try and secure one of the EU’s financial roles for a British candidate. ii) There are claims that Brown was “persuaded” into accepting the EU High Representative role for Britain by Europe’s Socialist leaders along with José Manuel Barroso. iii) There are also claims that Brown did a deal with the French to get Baroness Ashton appointed, by which a French MEP, Michel

Friday

Peter Hoskin

Portillo: the Tories won’t succeed in cutting public spending – they’ll have to raise taxes

Ever the contrarian, Michael Portillo makes a case that you don’t hear from many on the right in his interview with Andrew Neil on Straight Talk this weekend.  George Osborne has given “a fair amout of detail” about the Tories’ debt-reduction plans, he says, but that could be the wrong approach: “I wouldn’t seek probably to give very much more detail ….  You know, I was with Margaret Thatcher when she came in to Government in 1979, we faced a big public spending problem.  It was terrible.  It was a hard slog but she didn’t cut public spending.  I was Chief Secretary between ’92 and ’94 – big public spending

Daniel Korski

The Baroness and the bore: right for the EU jobs

Among a batch of unpopular blogposts, this is the one that will get Coffee Housers to grab their pitchforks and hunt me down. Because I think the appointments of Belgium’s Herman Van Rompuy, as president of the European Council, and Britain’s Catherine Ashton, as EU “high representative” for foreign affairs, are not bad at all. First, I have to eat my words. I thought Gordon Brown would fail to shoehorn a Briton into a top EU job. Credit goes to him and Britain’s diplomats, chiefly Kim Darroch, the UK’s Permanent Representative in Brussels. Diplomacy is the art of the possible. Brown did what he should have done: he pushed Blair

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Elected police commissioners are a test of whether the Tories are serious or not about their agenda

Sir Hugh Orde, the head of the Association of Chief Police officers, has issued another broadside against Tory plans for locally elected police commissioner. Orde has warned that senior police officers will resign over the plans and that, “Even the perception that the police service of this country… is under any political influence, I think that suggests you cannot argue that you are a proper democratic society.” This is an absurd argument. The idea that you are not a proper democratic society because the police commissioner is accountable to the public via the ballot box is obviously nonsense. But the Tories will face a lot of this kind of criticism