Politics

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_5_June_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Delingpole and Michael Heaver debate whether Ukip stands for anything” startat=1222] Listen [/audioplayer]I’m worried about Ukip. It’s possible that my concerns are entirely misplaced but let me give you some examples of what I mean. First, a tweet from Ukip’s Newark candidate Roger Helmer (whose heroic stance on energy and climate change I greatly admire): ‘Meet Robert Jenrick, the Tory candidate for Newark: Gilded youth. Posh Tory boy. London property millionaire.’ Second, the party’s official response to a local newspaper interview given by Donna Rachel Edmunds, one of Ukip’s new councillors in Lewes, East Sussex, in which she argued — on perfectly sound libertarian principles — that businesses should

Penny Mordaunt, the Conservative MP for Portsmouth North, become the second women in the Queen’s reign to give the Loyal Address — Parliament’s formal thanks to the Monarch for her speech — this afternoon. It’s a fantastic speech, full of gags which had the House in stitches. As James remarked, Tory associations will be queueing up to book her for after dinner speeches. Listen to the audio in full here: listen to ‘Penn Mordaunt’s loyal address’ on Audioboo   Don’t have time for the whole thing? Here are the highlights: Mordaunt was one of two women involved in the Loyal Address – it was seconded by Lib Dem Annette Brooke. Are

The Conservatives have accidentally emailed a database of their activists’ details to other members, Coffee House has learned. The database, called ‘volunteer record NEWARK’ was accidentally attached to a generic thank you email for those campaigning in the by-election, and contained the email addresses of activists and MPs who had signed in at a certain station in the constituency. Sent from a generic email address belonging to the Tory chairman, the email thanked activists for visiting Newark, and asked them to continue campaigning by visiting the constituency again on polling day or making calls to voters from home or CCHQ. The database was attached at the bottom. This isn’t a

Today’s announcement that the UK Tory party is backing the full devolution of income tax to Holyrood, and will commit to that in its 2015 manifesto, is hugely significant. It means that both coalition parties now support some tax competition between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. By contrast, Ed Miliband has made clear that he will never sign off on any devolution deal that allows Scotland to undercut the rest of the UK on tax. Instead, he wants a system where the Scots could only choose to have the same tax rates as the rest of the UK or higher ones. This difference raises the possibility that