Uk politics

Wednesday

Daniel Korski

A new world order – don’t be silly

Go to any international think-tank conference and you will hear one complaint repeated ad nauseam: the intenational system, built after World War II – and incorporating the UN, NATO, the IMF, WHO etc. – is no longer fit for purpose. It needs to change to accomodate new threats, like climate change, and new powers like India and Brazil. The last point is particularly oft-heard. If India provides the majority of UN peacekeepers, should Delhi not have a permanent say on the UN Security Council? Now that China has become a pillar of the global economy, should the Beijing government not have more votes on the IMF board? The limited representation

Peter Hoskin

Something the Tories could do without…

…Alan Duncan saying on video that MPs are treated “like sh*t”, and that they’re forced to live on “rations”.  He’s just apologised, saying that the remarks were meant in jest.  And I’m inclined to believe him: he was, after all, in conversation with the political pranksters over at Don’t Panic (although he didn’t know he was being filmed).  But, either way, it’s easy work for his opponents to take these things out of context.  And many will argue that the expenses fiasco isn’t a laughing matter in the first place.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown’s children

Why is this recession so cruel to the young? The unemployment figures – now up to 2.44 million – are bad enough. It’s the largest single quarterly drop since data began in 1971. But look deeper and there’s a striking disparity amongst the age groups. The under-18s – school leavers – are hit the most, with their employment numbers down 17% year-on-year. The 18-24 year olds are next worst hit. But there is actually a rise in pension-aged people returning to work. The bottom line: unemployment amongst the under-25s is a third higher than when Labour came to power. CoffeeHousers may remember how full of pious anger Gordon Brown was

Peter Hoskin

When Mandelson can’t launch a convincing counterattack, you know things are bad for Labour

Whatever you might think of George Osborne’s speech on progressive politics yesterday – and I have some doubts of my own – it’s hard to take Peter Mandelson’s Guardian article about it particularly seriously.  As Tim Montgomerie says over at ConservativeHome, there’s little in there beyond personal attacks on Osborne and a caricature of the Tory position, all underpinned by the insistent claim that progressive ends can only be delivered by Labour means.  For someone who lambasted the media for not “not talking about policy” in his interview with the Guardian on Monday, it’s a rather poor show. But, worst of all for Labour, is that Mandy’s position is confused

David Blackburn

Renaissance of the Prince

‘Kindly pussycat’? ‘Minister for fun’? ‘A benign uncle?’ This was how Lord Mandelson described himself in that pantomime of an interview with the Guardian earlier this week. But this morning, the Prince of Darkness returned. Perhaps running the government for three days maligned the would-be Widow Twanky of Monday, but it is more likely that Mandy couldn’t resist crossing swords with George Osborne again. He launches a scathing personal and political attack on Osborne and his progressive agenda in today’s Guardian. Here are the key sections: ‘To be a progressive is to believe that we can make a better society and improve the conditions of individual lives by acting together…It

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Supplementary notes on Osborne’s progressive speech

Earlier, I wrote that Osborne’s speech today seemed to be a significant moment for Project Cameron.  Having attended the Demos event a few hours ago, I still think that’s the case.  Sure, there wasn’t anything particularly new in it – and the delivery didn’t quite zing – but its central point that Brown’s approach to the public finances is regressive, while spending cuts and the right reforms could deliver better services for all, is a necessary refinement of the Tory message.  Come election time, Brown is going to deploy all kinds of attacks on the “nasty Tories” and their “cuts in frontline services”, so it’s important for Cameron & Co.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The press’ obsession with the Tories, Rachel Whetstone and Google is immature 

Nearly all the papers have run articles on Rachel Whetstone today. These pieces concentrate on the fact that she’s the partner of Steve Hilton, Cameron’s chief strategist, and that the Tories mention Google quite often. Frankly, this strikes me as a nothing story. The Tories are mentioning Google so much because it is the kind of modern, successful brand that they want to be associated with, not because Whetsone, who was Michael Howard’s political secretary and who used to be close for Cameron, works there. Also, considering how Google has become shorthand for so much of the technological change going on around us, it would be rather hard for a

David Blackburn

Another Conservative MP won’t be standing at the next election.

Michael Ancram is standing down at the next election on grounds of ill-health, you can read his resignation statement here. Former leadership candidate Ancram was embroiled in the expenses scandal, claiming £98.58 on swimming pool repairs and more than £4,250 in one year on cleaning and maintaining his second home. According to the Telegraph, he is understood to have been unhappy with David Cameron’s handling of the expenses scandal. William Hague paid tribute to Ancram’s work as Conservative Party chairman through what were the Tories’ “darkest times in opposition.”

David Blackburn

The trials of being in a power couple

It seems Hillary Clinton is smarting from her husband’s Korean coup. Exhibit A: her Q&A session with Congolese students yesterday, where her translator relayed this question: “Mrs Clinton, we’ve all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country. The interference is from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton and what does Mr. Mutombo think on this situation?”    The Secretary of State offered a stark clarification: “My husband is not secretary of state, I am. I am not going to be channelling my husband.” Here’s footage: The official line is that it was all down to a mistranslation and

Peter Hoskin

Gove stirs up trouble for Balls

I gave it a passing mention in my last post, but it’s worth highlighting Michael Gove’s mischievous comment piece in the the Guardian today.  Why “mischievous”?  Well, because its purpose seems to be to rile Ed Balls and mobilise his internal opponents: ‘In a series of not so subtle signals to the grassroots, Ed has been emphasising, whenever the opportunity arises, that he is the socialist candidate for anyone in the party who wants to move away from the sullied compromises of Blair era. In a recent interview he explained that the battle for the leadership would be a struggle between David Miliband and himself – setting up the contest

Peter Hoskin

Osborne makes progress

It’s a big day for George Osborne.  The Shadow Chancellor is using his new platform at Demos — the think-tank which is credited with much of the brainwork behind the initial New Labour project, but which is now turning to the Tories as well as to the Purnellite wing of the Labour party — to deliver a speech on progressive politics.  I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but the snippets which have been published in the papers make it seem like a significant moment in Project Cameron: when the Tories extrapolate their attacks on Brown’s fiscal legacy further, and perhaps more resonantly, than they have done before.  Here’s a

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Putting the “public” into “public spending cuts”

My old colleagues at Reform have put together a very useful analysis of the Canadian spending cuts programme – which got that country’s debt-to-GDP ratio down by 20 percent during the late 1990s – over at Centre Right.  I’d suggest you read the whole thing, but this point deserves repeating: “The key lesson from the Canadian reforms is that, as Andrew Haldenby recently argued, getting the public to support tough measures requires them to feel part of the process. This need for openness with the public contrasts with the approach of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has argued that it would be a mistake for the Government to set departmental

James Forsyth James Forsyth

If the Tories are serious about being ready to govern from day one, they should be examining whether or not Vat needs to be raised

The Tory response to the story that they plan to raise Vat to 20 percent after the next election, worried me. The Tory line is that there are no plans to do this and that there have been no high-level discussions about it. But, frankly, there should have been. Not because increasing Vat is necessarily the right thing to do, but because the Tories should be exploring what can be done to get this country out of the huge fiscal hole that Brown has dug it into. I find it less than encouraging that less than a year out from an election, the opposition hasn’t even — or so it

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Mandelson’s lines to take for the press

Peter Mandelson’s spat with Starbucks is clearly over. In February he went on a tirade after seeing the chairman of Starbucks talking the UK economy down on US TV: “Why should I have this guy running down the country? Who the fuck is he? How the hell are they [Starbucks] doing?” But today he is pictured on the front of G2 drinking out of a Starbucks cup. The most interesting thing, though, about the G2 interview is how Mandelson seems determined to almost write it himself, producing quotable line after quotable line. When Mandelson describes himself as a “kindly pussycat” or details how Carole Caplin converted him to green tea

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Mandy’s class war avoids the real problems

I don’t for a minute believe that Mandelson believes this class war nonsense, brilliantly rubbished by Melanie Phillips today. His decision to reprise the “posh unis don’t let in poor kids” theme is a more a sign that even someone as horribly powerful as Mandy feels the need to kowtow to a certain element of the Labour Party. The Sutton Trust is absolutely correct to point to social segregation as being one of the biggest problems in Britain today – but the problem lies with the schools, not the universities. The suggestion that snobbish admissions tutors are somehow to blame does the working class no favours by deflecting attention from

Peter Hoskin

Is Brown starting to accept defeat?

The FT report on how Labour MPs aren’t putting themselves forward to be parliamentary private secretaries – or “ministerial bag-carriers”, as they’re known around Westminster – says a lot about the party’s confidence in Gordon Brown.  After all, as one source tells the newspaper: “Why would you bother if you know that there is no chance of becoming a minister in the next government?” But it’s this snippet from the FT’s analysis which could be more noteworthy: “One Downing Street insider said the prime minister was more relaxed because he now realised that he was certain to lose the next election and was powerless to defy political gravity.” Sure, another

David Blackburn

To restore confidence, there must be an inquiry into alleged British involvement in torture. 

Following Alan Johnson’s and David Miliband’s denial of British collusion in torture, Sir John Scarlett, the head of MI6, has inadvertently added a further denial. In a Radio 4 interview, recorded prior to the publication of Johnson’s and Miliband’s joint article, and which will be broadcast this morning, Sir John asserted that there has been “no torture and there is no complicity with torture.” Asked if Britain was ever compromised by its allies’, and particularly the Americans’, “different moral standards”, Scarlett replied: “Our American allies know that we are our own service, that we are here to work for the British interests and the United Kingdom. We’re an independent service

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Can Cameron afford Lansley?

Is Andrew Lansley using his untouchable status* to bounce David Cameron into a three-year budget settlement? On the Marr sofa (or the Sophie Raworth sofa as it was today), he announced that the Tories are planning “real term increases to the NHS year on year.” Well, David Cameron has only said he would protect health from cuts – but he has not specified how long for. It could be as little as one year. In my political column for this week’s magazine I recommend Cameron keeps uses this to wriggle out of what is now an unaffordable promise. He should freeze NHS spending for a year, then take a scalpel

The Spectator

Why Mandelson isn’t deputy PM

As the country prepares for Peter Mandelson’s week in charge, The Mail on Sunday reports that the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, put the kybosh on him acquiring the title of Deputy Prime Minister. O’Donnell may well have said that it was inappropriate for a peer to be deputy PM but I would have thought that Harriet Harman would also have objected. As the elected deputy leader of the Labour party, I can’t imagine she would have taken kindly to somebody else grabbing the title of deputy PM which Brown had conspicuously failed to offer her. Given all of Brown’s women trouble at the time of the mid-plot reshuffle, I

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

Preparing for a lengthy presence in Afghanistan

So what do we learn from the Times’s interview with David Richards, the man who is set to replace Richard Dannatt as the head of the British Army?  Both a little and a lot.  Most of the piece is made up of nice anecdotes and flatering quotes about the general, and he deflects a lot of the weightier questions with utterly uncontroversial answers – i.e. declining to say whether the army is properly resourced, and adding that “our own tactics must reflect the equipment and troop numbers we have.”   But some of his responses are much more eyecatching; as when he claims the “whole process [in Afghanistan] might take