Politics

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

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The surprise winners from the referendum? Scotland. Politics. Big ideas are back at last

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_4_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman, Fraser Nelson and Hamish Macdonell discuss the referendum” startat=700] Listen [/audioplayer]Let us take a trip to America in 1976. The unelected incumbent president, Gerald Ford, is being challenged for the Republican party’s nomination by Ronald Reagan — and does not take it seriously. Sure, Reagan may have served as governor of California but, still, come on, is this Grand Old Party really going to choose a two-bit B-movie actor as its standard-bearer? And isn’t he the candidate of fruitcakes and loonies? Say what you will about Gerry Ford but you know where you stand with him. But not everyone sees it that way. Reagan is winning

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Rona Fairhead will be good for the BBC – but who was so keen to nobble her rival?

Hats off to Rona Fairhead, the former Financial Times executive who will succeed Lord Patten as chairman of the BBC Trust. It requires a brave spirit to take on this poisonously politicised role — and Fairhead starts with the disadvantage that everyone thinks they know the roll call of candidates who might have been preferred but declined to apply, including her own former boss Dame Marjorie Scardino, for whose job as head of Pearson, the FT’s parent, Fairhead was passed over last year. But a mole tells me she’s ‘as steely as she’ll need to be’; and leading ladies of the non-executive circuit (she’s on the boards of HSBC and

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Tory MP accuses Speaker of misleading House over Clerk row

This story ran first in tonight’s Evening Blend. Get more scoops, analysis and insight into the day’s political news by signing up for free here. Speaker Bercow has been accused of misleading the House of Commons over his plan to appoint Carol Mills as Clerk of the House. In a letter to the Speaker, seen first by Coffee House, Conservative MP Michael Fabricant suggests that Bercow may have ‘inadvertently misled the House’ on whether the recruitment firm advising on the appointment of the Clerk was prevented from giving evidence about the suitability of Mills for the job. Today in the Commons, Bercow told Fabricant that he was ‘unfortunately, but fairly

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Justine Greening: Cameron’s government needs more people who have worked at Morrisons

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_4_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss the Tory civil war” startat=60] Listen [/audioplayer]David Cameron is in need of advice right now and there’s plenty of it in the new Spectator – not least from Justine Greening, his International Development Secretary. Her interview with Melissa Kite makes clear that the party needs to focus more on social mobility – and tell the story which is not exactly hardly embodied by its Etonian and Pauline leadership. “I know what it is like growing knowing you are not starting in the best place, and that people are having a better start than you are,” The party needs “understanding what

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Was Carswell right all along?

Calamities crowd in every side. Nuclear-armed Russia is already waging war with Europe, according to our NATO ally, Lithuania. At home, Douglas Carswell’s defection threatens to rob the Tories of power. Yet these crises were barely mentioned at PMQs. One source of international conflict has been resolved, at last. Is the name Islamic State? Or is it ISIS? Or is it IS? Or is it Isil? Isil it is. Both leaders used that term today as they condemned the latest savageries. Cameron made a vague attempt at karaoke Churchill. And no one particularly minded that it wasn’t up to much. ‘A country like ours will not be cowed by these

Steerpike Steerpike

Exclusive: David Cameron mocks Bercow to Tory MPs

It was widely noted that the Prime Minister remained grinning in his seat after PMQs to hear a Point of Order directed to the Speaker from Tory MP Simon Burns. Burns wanted to know whether the Speaker would withdraw his letter of recommendation for Carol Mills as Clerk of the House. The letter is currently languishing in Number 10. What’s more, Mr Steerpike hears that a guffawing David Cameron fired up his backbenchers for today’s skirmish at last night’s meeting of Conservative MPs in the Boothroyd Room. ‘What does he want me to do with this letter?’ quipped the PM, adding: ‘Shall I just stuff it down the side of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

PMQs: Fighting suspended as leaders respond to Iraq terror

A few days ago, one would have expected the first PMQs of term to be a rowdy affair as Labour went for Cameron over the Carswell defection. But the recent, hideous events in Iraq have changed all that and today’s PMQs was instead a sober, statesmanlike affair which reflected well on both Cameron and Miliband. listen to ‘PMQs: ‘Universal sense of revulsion’ at the murder of Steven Sotloff’ on Audioboo

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

PMQs highlighted the Speaker’s diminishing authority

John Bercow, the self-styled champion of Parliament, is now being scrutinised by MPs via a series of increasingly hostile points of order. The Speaker’s response to today’s barrage of points was so poor that he has put himself in jeopardy. First Simon Burns asked him about a letter to the Prime Minister recommending the appointment of Carol Mills as Clerk of the House. Bercow said the matter was ‘very straightforward’ and gave Burns a small lecture on the importance of a spirit of goodwill and consensus. listen to ‘Bercow: House should ‘rise to the level of events’ over Clerk debacle’ on Audioboo

The Spectator

How can Cameron save the Conservatives? Daniel Hannan, Lord Tebbit and Andrew Roberts respond

We asked Daniel Hannan, Lord Tebbit and historian Andrew Roberts what – if anything – David Cameron could do to rescue his party. Here’s what they had to say: Daniel Hannan, MEP At this stage in the Parliament, there are no legislative tricks to pull out of the hat. In any case, as far as policy goes, David Cameron has got the basics right: lower spending, welfare reform, free schools, support for enterprise. But it all risks being thrown away because of a divided Centre-Right vote. Ukip will do to the Conservatives what the SDP did to Labour 30 years ago. Our first-past-the-post system doesn’t allow space for two competing parties

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

GQ kills irony as Tony Blair wins Philanthropist of the Year

Satire died when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, said Tom Lehrer. Now irony has followed it to the grave. GQ’s Philanthropist of the Year is Tony Blair. And no, this isn’t some cunning wind-up by the magazine. They gave the former PM a bauble at a ceremony last night. I’d like to say that Blair looks suitably embarrassed holding it, but nope. Neither he nor the lady wife ‘do’ embarrassment. Even nice Gary Lineker had a go at GQ on Twitter. ‘People will be greatly concerned and wonder if this was the right decision,’ he tweeted when the news came through. They will indeed wonder. Employing four-letter words, I suspect.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How can Ed Miliband make the most of Tory chaos over Carswell?

Ed Miliband would never have seen it coming, but he’s starting his first PMQs of the autumn term in a jolly good place. Labour MPs that I’ve spoken to over the past few days are now panicking not about how they can convince voters to back them but what on earth they’re actually going to do when they are in government. Naturally the Labour leader can attack on Douglas Carswell’s defection to Ukip, but there are two reasons why he might not want to make this his first question. The first is that he would surely want to contrast some of the serious things that Labour has been talking about

Steerpike Steerpike

The Sun shows Miliband how to party

It’s what you might call a Millwall strategy: Mr S hears the Sun will be parking a very large, metaphorical tank on Ed Miliband’s lawn following the row over the Labour leader apologising for being snapped supporting the paper. The paper will be throwing a bash at the Labour Party Conference, despite delegates tearing up copies on stage in 2009 when Murdoch switched its allegiances to the Tories. News UK, formerly News International, have been keeping their heads down on the political scene in the last few years. Their public profile has been closer to the courtroom than the conference hall. Long gone are the champagne fueled knees-ups of the

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Jim Murphy laments the ‘energy of nationalism’. Where’s the energy of unionism?

“It’s part of the energy of nationalism,” sighed Jim Murphy on Newsnight. “They’re never knocked down.” He’s right, and that that is why the Scottish referendum polls show the gap between the two narrowing – YouGov has that gap at 6 points, down from 22 last month. If even Labour’s Jim Murphy accepts that the momentum is with the nationalists – and says that the momentum is with them because they are nationalists – then it’s a rather depressing state of affairs. Where is the passion and energy of the campaign to save the United Kingdom? This isn’t a criticism of Murphy: he is certainly energetic, and as he wrote on

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Welcome home… to a world of beheadings and Bake Off

Apologies for the lengthy interregnum. I was away in the USA for almost three weeks and my mobile phone provider decided I should not be allowed to make or receive any calls while abroad, for which many thanks. Similarly, Hotmail decided I should not be allowed access to my own email account because I could not prove to them that I was myself, having failed to answer the question ‘Who is your favourite fictional character?’ I can’t remember who I chose when first asked. I guessed at ‘Baroness Ashton’ this time around and this was, apparently, the wrong answer. So, anyway, devoid of all the modern appurtenances of life –

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Tory Clacton selection will be an open primary

How do the Conservatives make the Clacton by-election more difficult for Douglas Carswell? I hear from two extremely well-placed sources that the selection for the Tory candidate will be an open primary. Carswell himself bemoaned the demise of this selection method when he announced he was leaving the party to join Ukip, and party sources have been muttering for a few days that the authority of the new Ukip candidate is rather undermined by his decision to shunt the poor, bewildered local Ukip chap, Roger Lord, out of the way. Now sources tell me that the party will revive open primaries for this election to make it more difficult for

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris: No-one seriously approached me to stand in Clacton

If the Tories did want to really fight Douglas Carswell in the Clacton by-election, then Boris Johnson would have been a jolly good way of driving a steamroller over Ukip’s chances of doing well. James explained at the weekend that when David Cameron reached the same conclusion and put the feelers out to the Mayor, word came back that Johnson felt Clacton was too far away. But today Johnson suggested that those feelers weren’t particularly robust ones. He told the World at One that he had ‘no serious approach’ to ask him to stand as the Conservative candidate: ‘Do you know what, what I always do with this one, Martha,

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Alex Salmond is within sight of his promised land: Scottish independence is more than just a dream.

I don’t want to appear too immodest but, you know, I told you so. Back in February I wrote an article for this paper warning that Scotland’s independence referendum would be a damn close run thing. That was true then and it remains true now. Today’s YouGov poll reports that, once undecided voters have been removed from consideration, 47 percent of Scots intend to vote for independence while 53 percent will back the Unionist cause. If the odds remain against Alex Salmond it’s also the case that the price on independence is shortening. Paddy Power’s over/under calculation of a Yes vote now stands at 46.5 percent. A few weeks ago it was

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg: No agreement on TPIM measures is not an argument

Nick Clegg had a stab at being René Magritte on the Today programme this morning, telling us that a disagreement between the two coalition parties over anti-terror measures that were sort-of announced yesterday was ‘not some argument between two political parties’. It was clear from the way the Deputy Prime Minister described the additional measures for TPIMs that the Lib Dems accepted David Anderson’s demand that the government do more, but that only the first option, the expansion of exclusion zones, is something that will wash. Relocation powers, the key power removed from control orders when the Coalition scrapped them, would prove far more controversial, even though the Tories are

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Scottish referendum: ‘no’ lead falls to 6 points, from 22 points last month

Tonight brings a reminder that the Union is in real danger. A new YouGov poll has the No camp’s lead in the Scottish referendum down to just six points. Just a month ago, No had a 22 point lead with You Gov. This poll is particularly striking as YouGov’s polling has not been as favourable to Yes as that of other pollsters; this is Yes’s highest ever score with YouGov. Particularly worrying is that undecided voters are going Yes by a margin of two to one. If this poll is right about how much the gap has narrowed and the undecideds continue to break in the same way, then this

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s anti-terror statement sets out autumn battles

So, after the horsetrading of the past few days, the Conservatives appear to have won their battle to add relocation powers to the terrorism prevention and investigation measures. In his statement in the Commons this afternoon, David Cameron said: ‘We will introduce new powers to add to our existing terrorism prevention and investigation measures, including stronger locational constraints on suspects under TPIMs either through enhanced use of exclusion zones or through relocation powers.’ The Prime Minister also confirmed: Police will gain the power to seize passports at the border temporarily so that they can investigate an individual. This power will include safeguards and oversight arrangements. The government will start preparing