Politics

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

Thursday

Simon Heffer

Vote yes, Scots – and set the English free

It is a sign of how no one expects Scotland to vote yes in September that no serious planning has been done about the consequences. By contrast, Gladstone shut himself away for days in the spring of 1886 drawing up the Bill that would have bestowed Home Rule on the Irish, plotting what it would mean for almost every aspect of the shared lives of Ireland and Britain. Scotland already has what Parnell would have called Home Rule. The creation of a Scottish Free State would be a different matter, and few have started to assess what that would mean. This is a pity, not just for practical reasons, but

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Miliband’s integer attacks dissolve into a whirl-pool of squiggles

It was damn close. And it scored top marks for effort. Miliband’s plan today was to prove that Cameron’s NHS policy is a disaster. And to prove it with Cameron’s own admissions. Or omissions. ‘It’s four years since his top-down re-organisation of the NHS,’ began Miliband in that quiet, meticulous manner that always foretells a forensic ambush. ‘Have the numbers waiting for cancer treatment got better or worse?’ Cameron instinctively dodged the question. Miliband moved on to A&E waiting times. Cameron shifted and ducked again. Miliband asked about numbers waiting over four hours on a trolley. Cameron ran for cover. With each refusal Miliband triumphantly recited the figures that the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

A lesser role in the EU for national parliaments is bad news for Cameron’s renegotiation

David Cameron may have got away with his failure to block Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, but that doesn’t mean that his MPs aren’t agitated about the way things are going in Europe. One aspect of last week’s European Council meeting that most people missed was a document setting out what appears to be a significantly reduced role for national parliaments in the EU. The Strategic Agenda was published as an annex to the European Council conclusions last week. It says: ‘The credibility of the Union depends on its ability to ensure adequate follow-up on decisions and commitments. This requires strong and credible institutions, but will also

Steerpike Steerpike

Yet another Labour attack on McDonald’s employees

What has Labour got against people who work in McDonald’s? Last week we had Liam Byrne’s burger flip, where he slammed the same fast food employer for which he used to sizzle with praise. Now Andy Burnham has told the Unite conference in Liverpool: ‘What sort of message are we sending out when we say social care is the lowest form of work – lower even than McDonald’s.’ In the UK there are 91,500 people currently employed by McDonald’s, and many of them are at the lower end of the pay scale. These are people that Labour should be trying to win over – not belittling.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour wants to stay in its NHS comfort zone and ignore immigration and the economy

PMQs taught us a number of things about Labour and the Conservatives. The first is that while Labour has a bumper economy week underway, it does not feel sufficiently confident to attack the Conservatives on this issue in an aggressive forum like PMQs. This is probably quite sensible, given the attack that Cameron launched towards the end of the session on Ed Balls. Looking very chipper indeed, the PM said: ‘What is my idea of fun? It is not hanging out with the Shadow Chancellor! That is my idea of fun! And so, I feel sorry for the leader of the Opposition because he has to hang out with him

James Forsyth James Forsyth

PMQs: Cameron and Miliband revisit their youthful indiscretions

Today’s PMQs will not live long in the memory. Ed Miliband led on the NHS and the debate quickly turned into a statistical stalemate. Indeed, at the end Andy Burnham tried via a point of order—with little success—to get Cameron to admit that one of his numbers was wrong. listen to ‘PMQs: ‘Cheer up folks, it’s only Wednesday!’’ on Audioboo Miliband was in a confident mood at the despatch box because he knew he was on strong ground on the NHS. But in a week where Labour is trying to burnish its economic credentials, it is telling that Miliband didn’t choose to go on the economy. Once the Labour leader

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Both the Conservatives and Labour lack momentum – the election won’t be easy for either party

What with his victory parade to celebrate a failure in Europe and Labour’s continuing muttering and complaining, David Cameron must be feeling pretty positive about Prime Minister’s Questions today. He’s managed to annoy some of his MPs with a Downing Street hint that it will not oppose Michael Moore’s bill to enshrine the 0.7 per cent aid target in law, but at least the Prime Minister can count on a good tribal feeling on his backbenches to tide him through today’s session. He could taunt Miliband with Jon Cruddas’ ‘dead hand’ quote, or Lord Glasman’s assessment that his party lacks a sense of direction. Or the former advisers who tell

Tuesday

John O'Neill

Miliband’s jobs ‘blunder’: who’s right?

There’s been a bit of a fuss over the claim in Lord Adonis’s growth report—repeated in a draft of Ed Miliband’s localism speech—that four-fifths of the private-sector jobs growth in the UK since 2010 has happened in London. The Prime Minister tweeted: Labour get their facts wrong on jobs – again. How can they ever be trusted with the economy? http://t.co/zTZJVadFhQ #AdonisReview — David Cameron (@David_Cameron) July 1, 2014 And NIESR’s Jonathan Portes (who has form taking issue with how numbers on ‘new’ jobs numbers are used) said: @eduardmead @bbcnickrobinson That said, Labour stat certainly wrong. Conservatives much closer, but not on basis of published ONS figures. — Jonathan Portes

Sebastian Payne

Briefing: The three main parties’ offers on localism

How much common ground do the political parties have on localism? As Isabel pointed out this morning, Labour and the Conservatives are engaged in an arms race to see who can out do the other on plans to devolve powers from central government. All politicians love to talk up localism — particularly in opposition, where there’s no Whitehall machine to deal with — but their dreams and slogans frequently change. This is what the three main parties have said, and currently believe, on empowering the regions: Conservatives In opposition, David Cameron put forward plans to devolve power in a more radical way than ever before. In the Conservatives’ 2010 manifesto,

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour run a mile from ‘nuts’ McBride return

Mr Steerpike’s suggestion that things could be getting so bad for Labour that they may have to call on the services of Damian McBride, based on the disgraced former spin doctor’s helpful recent interventions, has ruffled a few feathers in Westminster. A Labour source pours an ice bucket on the idea: ‘I think it’s an audition for a post-2015 role. But it’s nuts. The book killed him. It made any return a delusion. He could have apologised. Instead he was smug. Disgusting.’ We’ll take that as a maybe then. Predictably the Conservatives are gleeful at the prospect of McBride redux. A Tory source teases: ‘Labour need all the help they can

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Minister demands apology from Miliband after stats blunder

The Tories are very keen to sabotage Ed Miliband’s big speech about rebalancing the British economy, which is probably a compliment to the Labour leader as it suggests that they think he might be onto something. Both parties are certainly engaged in a localism arms race at the moment, arguing that they’re the party that really trusts voters and wants to give them back the power over their own lives. But Miliband appears to have made a bit of a statistical error which is allowing his opponents to create a bit of a sideshow to distract from the launch of Lord Adonis’ final report on growth. In his speech, the

Douglas Murray

Who would join the Iran lobby? MPs and Lords, it turns out

Who on earth would argue for a regime which hangs homosexuals, stones rape victims and sponsors terrorism across three continents? Who would act as a spokesperson or advocate of such a dictatorship? Well one answer appears to be ‘certain British Parliamentarians.’ In particular Labour MP Jack Straw, Conservative MP Ben Wallace and former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Lamont. It appears that Britain has developed an ‘Iran lobby’. In a fascinating piece in today’s Wall Street Journal on Britain’s Iran lobby Sohrab Ahmari says: ‘Messrs. Straw, Wallace and Lamont have in recent months criticized the obstacles posed by American sanctions to U.K. banks that do business with Iran. “The

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour’s localism arms race

How can politicians encourage this country’s economy to grow more evenly? Do you build a nice big railway line? Or try – and largely fail – to devolve greater power to cities using directly-elected city mayors? Today Labour sets out its answer in Lord Adonis’ growth review. Ed Miliband has already said that he will accept the central recommendation, which is to allow city and country regions to create combined authorities (like the Greater Manchester combined authority) which will gain control over all, rather than half, the revenue from business rates. George Osborne was making similar noises recently about greater powers for regional groups headed by elected mayors. There is,

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Damian McBride’s Labour audition

Is Damian McBride auditioning for a job as the saviour of the Labour Party spin operation? His re-energised blogging would certainly indicate as much. In the last few weeks the Brownite bad boy has left his job with Catholic aid charity Cafod, and returned to writing full time. He’s also managed to make a compelling argument for why his misdemeanours cannot now be compared to those of Andy Coulson, despite the best efforts of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor: ‘So if the Tories want to keep using the ‘What about Damian McBride?’ line, then so be it, but they cannot then dodge the follow-up question: ‘Fine, if you want

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron makes a success of his Juncker failure in the Commons

Normally when Speaker Bercow drags out a statement from the Prime Minister to over an hour and a half, the PM starts to look a bit pained. Today David Cameron looked as though he’d quite like a bit more: he’d spent most of the afternoon listening to Conservatives telling him how great he is and how pleased they are with him. It must have been an odd sensation to see MPs like John Redwood rising to congratulate him on his failure to block Jean-Claude Juncker. Some Tories went further: Stewart Jackson told the Chamber that this episode of Cameron standing up to Europe showed he had ‘lead in his pencil’

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The conservative case against Iain Duncan Smith

Labour held a debate on Iain Duncan Smith’s stewardship of the welfare state today. Tory MPs backed their man, as did the Conservative journalists, who have told their readers that despite the many disappointments of the Cameron administration, Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms make the excruciating experience worthwhile. If Conservatives were sincere, they would want him out of office now. They would suspect, as I suspect, that he has a Napoleon complex. Once the poor chap saw himself as a potential Prime Minister. Now he sees himself as a great reformer. As he no more has the capacity to be the latter than the former, Duncan Smith is engaging in crimes

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Proof that the Liberal Democrats are a party of ninnies

I know that it is unfashionable to feel sorry for Liberal Democrat MPs. Nevertheless there are times when, contemplating their unhappy lot,  it seems appropriate to feel the odd pang of pity. The latest polling from Lord Ashcroft furnishes one of these rare moments. He asked punters who they would like to see form the next government. As you would expect 77 percent of Tory supporters want a Conservative government while 14 percent actually rather like being in coalition with the Lib Dems and would be quite happy to see that arrangement continue. The picture is much the same amongst Labour voters. 80 percent say they want Labour to govern

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Angela Merkel offers a sop to the poor old British

The row over Jean-Claude Juncker was confected outrage which spectacularly failed to achieve what Cameron wanted. It was confected because the alternatives to the ghastly Luxembourg bureaucrat are scarcely less federalist than he is himself. But the real giveaway, the most significant moment, came in Angela Merkel’s statement, issued as a means of giving a sop to the poor old British. Don’t worry, she said, Britain can reach ‘ever-closer union’ – ie political union – at a slower speed. In other words, there is no question that we will eventually succumb, we’ll just do it more slowly than everyone else. Bring on that referendum. Rod Liddle’s new book Selfish Whining Monkeys is available

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour’s internecine squabbles mean it missed an open goal attacking Cameron over Europe

David Cameron is currently giving his statement to the Commons on the European Council and Britain’s new best friend forever, Jean-Claude Juncker. It’s a failure that his colleagues have given him room to spin into a success, but it’s worth watching how Labour manage it too. The party had an open goal at the weekend for the newspapers to pick over the Conservatives’ European strategy, Cameron’s suitability to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Europe and the chances of that renegotiation being successful now Juncker is at the helm. But instead, the narrative split so that the Sunday papers were full not just of Cameron and Europe but Labour tensions. This is

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Number 10 pours cold water on National Insurance story: why?

Why is Number 10 pouring cold water on suggestions that National Insurance and Income Tax could be merged? This story bobs to the surface every few months: it was suggested that National Insurance could be renamed the ‘Earnings Tax’ in the 2014 Budget, but then nothing came of it. Now the Times has splashed on the suggestion that the Conservatives will promise to merge the two in their 2015 manifesto. The principle is sound: it makes the tax system less confusing and stops parties from hitting taxpayers by stealth. Much better to have one tax than an income tax and and earnings tax. It’s also politically sound for the Tories