Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

As ‘long-term economic plan’ goes global, will Cameron have an easy PMQs?

How will Prime Minister’s Questions go today? Both party leaders have had to deal with troublesome MPs this week, with Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind both falling prey to the Dispatches/Telegraph sting. But Ed Miliband may feel that he can continue his theme of cracking down on paid directorships and consultancies, which Labour is running an Opposition Day debate on later today. Rifkind’s response to the sting also dug him into a deeper hole than Straw, who decided rather wisely to talk about what a fool he’d been not to take the advice he had so kindly doled out to colleagues who’d been caught by the same sorts of

Steerpike Steerpike

Boris boards plane with mysterious blonde

Boris Johnson was on best behaviour during a recent trade trip to the USA. But the minute his top aides left his side, out came the Mayor’s famous charm. While waiting for a flight back to London in the private lounge of JFK airport, Mr S’s spy reports that Boris wined and dined a rather beautiful businesswoman. Mrs Johnson can’t have been too far from Boris’s mind though, as he and his mysterious blonde friend later nipped over to duty free to pick out some Valentine’s gifts, presumably for his missus back home. The two were still deep in conversation as they boarded the plane together. Both turned left, away from prying eyes. Alas, Mr S’s spy turned right. Mr

Alex Krasodomski

Twitter has become a barometer for the political issues of the day

Twitter has never been friendly to British politicians. From MPs’ gaffes that spread across the platform like wildfire to the incessant trolling, it can’t make good bedtime reading for anyone on the front benches. Most MPs would probably dismiss most of what they read on Twitter as either stupid or horrible. But as we approach the General Election, the volume of chatter is starting to get louder. Increasing numbers of people are turning to Twitter to have their say in the run up to May 2015. Much of it is neither stupid nor horrible. In work being done by the Centre for Social Media Analysis (CASM) for the Sunday Times, we have begun

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Do we now know what the Tory strategy for defence is?

For a while the Tories had hoped they could get away with dodging questions on defence spending until after the election. Even as the pressure within their own party for a commitment to the 2 per cent of GDP set by Nato, ministers were either saying they didn’t want to ‘pre-judge’ the Strategic Defence and Security Review, or trying to turn the question round and ask whether Labour was going to match the current level of spending by this government. Neither was a satisfactory answer, but ministers rather have the impression that with just weeks until Parliament dissolves, they needn’t worry too much. Of course, they reckoned without someone picking

Tuesday

Sebastian Payne

Douglas Carswell vs Nigel Farage (again) — but are these real disagreements?

Is Douglas Carswell happily at home in Ukip? The Clacton MP’s latest policy intervention, this time on immigration, adds to the sense that his beliefs differ somewhat from his party and its leader. His op-ed in the Times today for example stated that Enoch Powell was wrong about the dangers of immigration: ‘Immigration has not been without its challenges. Yet it has been, overwhelmingly, a story of success. Britain today is more at ease with the multi-ethnic society that we have become than once seemed imaginable — and not just to Enoch Powell. Like many before and since, Powell underestimated the ability of a free society to adapt.’ Nigel Farage on the other hand has backed the ‘basic

Eric Joyce

Charities love to lobby so why should they be exempt from the Lobbying Act?

In the next few weeks, you’ll hear endless grumbles from charities about the Lobbying Act. They will argue it restricts their spending on political campaigning during the run-up to general elections. Of course, charities aren’t supposed to be party-political, and until now the highly-partisan campaigns they’ve run at election time have somehow never fallen foul of charity law. The bosses of these organisations claim they’re on a higher moral plane than other political campaigners. This allows them to dodge questions about whether they have a partisan objective. The moral high ground is built, they say, on their aims, motivation and modus operandi. But are these charities really acting in the public interest? Many

Sebastian Payne

Listen: two disastrous interviews by Natalie Bennett

It’s been an inauspicious start to the Green Party’s election campaign. Natalie Bennett has given two radio interviews this morning where she produced rather poor answers regarding her party’s policies. On the Today programme, Bennett said Britain’s foreign policy should be centred around appeasing Russia: ‘What we need to do is put diplomatic pressure on Russia, put economic pressure on Russia, but we also have to understand that if we’re negotiating with Russia, it’s really important not to take what you might call the Versailles approach, to understand that President Putin has to walk away with something – things that we might not necessarily like. So we have to stand up for international law, for human rights,

Steerpike Steerpike

Kirstie Allsopp comes to Sir Malcolm Rifkind’s defence

Sir Malcolm Rifkind’s decision to stand down as the MP for Kensington at the next election after a ‘cash for access’ sting hasn’t pleased everyone. In fact the good people of Kensington seem rather dismayed by the move. While Rifkind’s claim that his salary of £60,000 is not enough to live on received ridicule from many lefties, those who reside in the affluent borough can at least see his point of view. Kirstie Allsopp, the television presenter, has voiced her sadness that her local MP is to quit. Oh bugger it, I might as well say it – Malcolm Rifkind is my local MP & I doubt very much they’ll manage to replace him with someone better. — Kirstie Mary

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The sad truth is that Malcolm Rifkind’s political career ended in 1997

For years I saw Malcolm Rifkind as an unusually principled politician, one of the very best and brightest talents in the Conservative Party. After the rout of Scottish Tories in 1997, he decided to stay and fight for his old seat, Edinburgh Pentlands, rather than follow Michael Forsyth and Ian Lang along the high road to the House of Lords. I was working covering Scottish politics for The Times then, and during the 2001 campaign I had a chance to see how hard he worked at at a time where he had little national profile. He was giving his all, fighting for Scotland at a time when his party had pretty much given up

Sebastian Payne

Malcolm Rifkind quits as ISC chair and will stand down at next election

Sir Malcolm Rifkind’s political career is over. Following the Dispatches/Telegraph lobbying expose, the former Conservative defence and foreign secretary and MP for Kensington has announced he is standing down at the next election. This has created a vacancy in one of the most sought-after Tory seats in the country, represented in a previous incarnation by Alan Clark and Michael Portillo. It’s hard to see how Sir Malcolm could have stayed on. His unforgiven attitude to the cash for access accusations — and remarks suggesting his £67,000 salary as an MP wouldn’t allow him to ‘have the standard of living my professional background would normally entitle me to have’ — were toxic for the Tories. His party withdrew

Sebastian Payne

A bad week for Ukip in the polls — and a good one for Labour

Ukip’s spate of bad publicity appears to be hitting it in the polls. The racism row over the Meet the Ukippers documentary comes as the party has dropped several points in two new polls. According to Lord Ashcroft’s latest national survey, the party is now on 11 per cent, while Labour is up five points to 36 per cent. This puts them four points ahead of the Conservatives, who are on 32 per cent. Another poll from ComRes/Daily Mail has Ukip down four points to 13 per cent, the Conservatives up three points to 34 per cent and Labour up two points to 32 per cent. YouGov has also reported that most voters

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ed Balls struggles to land punches in tax showdown with George Osborne

Naturally, when George Osborne and Ed Balls squared up in the Commons this afternoon for a showdown on the HSBC tax row, it wasn’t a particularly pretty affair. There was shouting, heckling, yowling – and the backbenchers were pretty aerated, too. Indeed, the Tories had turned up intending to throw the Shadow Chancellor off pace before he’d even started, shouting ‘ANSWER’ at him every time he tried to say a single word. Balls had clearly turned up thinking that dragging the Chancellor to the Commons to answer his urgent question was victory enough. But an urgent question is only a victory if the minister responding leaves the Chamber thinking that

Steerpike Steerpike

Ed Miliband attempts to build bridges with the arts world, but where will the money come from?

After Labour confirmed that they would not reverse Tory art cuts, the luvvies turned on Ed. During a spending plans onslaught from the Tories earlier in the year, the party spin machine proudly boasted: p.44 of Tory dossier says Labour will cancel cuts to the arts budget. We won’t. — Labour Press Team (@labourpress) January 5, 2015 Leading to a thorough pasting from all sorts of media darlings: This is not something to brag about. RT @labourpress: p.44 of Tory dossier says Labour will cancel cuts to the arts budget. We won’t. — Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) January 6, 2015 @labourpress And you’re proud of that? Jesus. — Simon Blackwell (@simonblackwell)

Steerpike Steerpike

Lord Brocket: Eddie Redmayne gives hope to Old Etonians

Chris Bryant found time to congratulate Eddie Redmayne on his best actor Oscar today despite previously claiming that British culture should not be dominated by privately educated actors of Redmayne’s ilk. While the shadow culture minister’s support for the Old Etonian may be lukewarm at best, The Theory of Everything actor can at least count on the constant support of his fellow alumni. Lord Charlie Brocket has come out to congratulate Redmayne on his win. The peer, who was jailed for an insurance scam in the 1990s, claims that Redmayne’s success will hopefully lead the way for more Old Etonian actors. ‘From a parents’ point of view, when you’ve put them through an Eton education

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How long will Tories voice concerns over defence spending?

Can the Tories really avoid any proper discussion of their spending plans for the Ministry of Defence before the election? Though the international situation is so unstable, the party has clearly decided that as defence spending is not an election issue, it won’t talk about it. Perhaps they’d get away with this given Labour is hardly more enthusiastic and defence and foreign policy, were it not for Tory backbenchers, particularly those who have served in the MoD at some point. They used Defence Questions today to press Michael Fallon repeatedly on the issue. Former ministers such as Andrew Robathan and Liam Fox, and former defence select committee James Arbuthnot asked

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The latest proposals make the TV debates less likely to happen

TV debates became a little less likely to happen today. The broadcasters have announced that their proposed timetable is for the two seven party debates to come first with the head to head between Cameron and Miliband as the final instalment. This schedule will make the Liberal Democrats even more reluctant to agree to the debates. For one of their main worries has been that in the two way debate, Cameron could say anything about what the Liberal Democrats have blocked in government without them having any chance to respond. With no seven way debate following the Cameron Miliband head-to-head, this problem has been compounded: there is no venue for

Steerpike Steerpike

Only a matter of free time: Labour candidate blasts ‘invisible’ MP Sir Malcolm Rifkind

Sir Malcolm Rifkind claimed to an undercover reporter during a Telegraph sting operation that they would be surprised by how ‘much free time’ he has, despite being the MP for Kensington. One person who would not appear to be surprised by Rifkind’s admission is his Labour rival Dr Rod Abouharb. Rifkind flaunting his free time, more evidence of him being the invisible MP for Kensington. Isn’t being an MP http://t.co/MO2iavJRYR — Dr Rod Abouharb (@kensingtonrod) February 23, 2015 Speaking ten days before the allegations broke, the Labour candidate claimed that only 17 people out of 100 surveyed in the Kensington constituency could successfully pick out their MP from a line-up of eight. Abouharb, who is a lecturer

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour demands David Cameron commit to TV debate with Ed Miliband

Will any of the General Election TV debates take place? Labour hopes they will, and today Douglas Alexander has written to Grant Shapps demanding that the Tories commit to doing the head-to-head debate with Ed Miliband, even if all the smaller parties are tying themselves up into fights over he seven-way debate. Alexander writes: ‘In the light of the previous comments from yourself and Mr Cameron, I am sure you will agree this is a “credible debate” and an excellent opportunity for the British people to watch the two leaders who stand a realistic chance of being Prime Minister after May 7. ‘I am happy to confirm on Mr Miliband’s

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The lobbyist’s web still threatens the reputation of MPs, parliament and politics

Allegations that Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind were involved in the latest ‘cash for access’ scandal is a reminder of the threat that lobbying poses to both the reputation of parliament and politics. In 2011, as Liam Fox was caught up in the Adam Werritty scandal, The Spectator examined how the lobbying industry works and how it threatens to skew our democracy: Old hands in Westminster are confident that they know what lies behind the Liam Fox-Adam Werritty relationship. With a knowing glint in their eye, they lean forward and whisper: ‘He’s a lobbyist.’ They’ve seen it all before, they say. It explains why Werritty thought it was worth spending tens

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Conservative party suspends whip from Sir Malcolm Rifkind

Even if the two MPs caught up in today’s sting, Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind, are found to have done nothing wrong, their parties cannot be seen to be protecting them. Straw was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party last night and this morning Sir Malcolm Rifkind has had the Tory whip removed. Rifkind says he will not stand down as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee unless the Committee calls for him to stand aside. It’s difficult to see how he can stay in the role while the investigation into his behaviour takes place. There will also be an immediate investigation carried out by the Tory party,