Politics

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

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Labour stumble into tomorrow’s tuition fee vote

Oh look, Alan Johnson has performed a hasty Reverse Cable. Only a few days ago, the Shadow Chancellor suggested that he didn’t believe a graduate tax – Ed Miliband’s chosen policy – could work. Yet, in a wilting Thunderer column (£) for the Times today, he now claims that “there is a very strong case for a graduate tax.” From unworkable to strong, in only four days. Sounds like a disclaimer for Ikea flatpack furniture, not a policy position. In a separate article, the Times characterises this as a minor victory for Ed Miliband – and so, in some respects, it is. He has managed to rein his Chancellor on

Tuesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clegg will vote for fees hike

The wait is over. We have just been told that Nick Clegg will definitely vote for the coalition’s policy on tuition fees. Clegg announced this, according to his spokeswoman, at the meeting of the Lib Dem parliamentary party that is currently going on. He told the meeting that to govern is to choose, and that the coalition had to chosen to invest in early years education rather than in scrapping fees.   Clegg’s spokesperson said that he had urged the party to ‘walk through the fire together’ but that he accepted and respected that not every Lib Dem MP would vote with him. We will, apparently, be told this evening

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why we must remember the lessons of the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment

The Adam Smith Institute kindly asked me to speak at their Christmas reception last night, and yesterday I was mulling what to say. When at The Scotsman ten years ago, I would sometimes visit the great man’s grave in Edinburgh, and be surprised to see only Chinese tourists paying tribute. It was a pretty good sign of how political power would play out. Edinburgh is, with Prague and Stockholm, among the most beautiful cities in Europe; itself a monument to the Enlightenment. And how tragic that students – even Scottish ones – are taught about the E word only in the context of the French Enlightenment. The likes of Rousseau,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Bercow vs McLoughlin

Iain Dale has news of a remarkable exchange between the Speaker and the Chief Whip last night (see from 22:16:30 in the video above). The coalition were attempting to pass a motion limiting the debate on tuition fees to three hours. Labour was trying to prevent this.   The Labour front bench shouted ‘object’ at the wrong moment so Bercow, with a broad grin on his face, coached them through it. At which point, Patrick McLoughlin heckled, ‘give them an indication, won’t you?’ McLoughlin then goes to leave the Chamber. At which point, Bercow explodes, wagging his finger and ordering the Chief Whip to remain in the Chamber.   This

Peter Hoskin

Compromise time for Nick Clegg?

Where are we with the tuition fee rebellion? Nick Clegg has an article in the FT claiming that the coalition’s policy is fairness codified, but he is running out of time to persuade his own MPs either way. Barring various unlikelihoods, the crunch vote will be held on Thursday. Before then, a handful of PPSs could well resign their bag-carrying roles. And, judging by today’s Sun, a few ministers might even join them (Norman Baker, of course, as well as Steve Webb and Lynne Featherstone). The plan to present a “united front” has already crumbled to naught. What’s left for Clegg, ahead of his meeting with MPs later today, is

Peter Hoskin

Now the Tories have an issue to get stuck into…

While Nick Clegg battles on the tuition fee front, another internal conflict breaks out for the coalition today: prisons. And rather than yellow-on-yellow, this one is strictly blue-on-blue. On one side, you’ve got Ken Clarke, who is controversially proposing a raft of measures for reducing the prison population. On the other, Tory figures like Michael Howard who insist that prison works – and that there should be more of it. Philip Davies, the Tory MP for Shipley, even told Radio 4 this morning that millions of Conservative voters would be disappointed by the coalition’s plans. Clarke’s argument is, as we already know, twofold: i) that we cannot afford to keep

Monday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Never trust a traitor

You can’t trust traitors, any of them. And some of us have long memories. Mike Hancock was once a Labour MP but defected, along with a bunch of other opportunistic monkeys, to the SDP. He is now a Liberal Democrat. It is Mike who hired a young, leggy, blonde Russian babe as a parliamentary researcher, a woman who has subsequently been given notice to get the hell out of the country as a consequence of her involvement with the Russian secret service. Mike’s had quite a lot of young blonde leggy Russian babes working for him, according to a European colleague of his. You wonder if maybe he gets them

James Forsyth James Forsyth

DD joins the tuition fees rebels

Now, there’s a Tory rebel too. David Davis has told the BBC that he’ll be voting against the coalition at the end of Thursday’s fees debate. Those Lib Dems who do vote for tuition fees can now expect to be mocked as being to the right of David Davis. So far, there’s no sign of other Tories following DD’s lead. One friend of his fears that his decision to rebel against the government on this issue makes him look like a serial rebel and will undermine the effectiveness of his interventions on the constitutional and civil liberties issues he cares so deeply about it. But I expect DD’s stance will

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A day of gaffes

You really couldn’t make this up: it wasn’t Michael Moore’s PPS who was on the World at One resigning but someone impersonating him. The actual PPS, Michael Crockart, is still trying to make up his mind. I suggest that he doesn’t try and call in to a radio show to announce his decision. (Who would have thought we have lived to see the day when Lib Dem PPSs have impersonators?)   One has to feel sorry for Radio 4 today. It had the whole Jeremy Hunt business this morning on the Today Programme and Start the Week, and now it’s other flagship news programme has been very publicly duped.  

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Lib Dem rebels make themselves heard

Here in Westminster we are all brushing up on the names of Lib Dem PPSs, as we try and work out who might quit the payroll vote over fees. The latest is that Michael Crockart, PPS to Michael Moore – who is himself the most anonymous Lib Dem Cabinet minister – looks set to walk. But one of the better known Lib Dem ministers has now put his head above the parapet. Norman Baker has told the BBC that quitting over fees is one ‘option’ but he hasn’t yet made up his mind. (Oddly enough, these comments seem to have been made on the South East edition of the Politics

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 6 December 2010

…here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson charts the Passion of Nick Clegg. James Forsyth wonders what the Lib Dems will say at the next election, and watches Alan Johnson making Ed Miliband’s life more difficult. Peter Hoskin check on the OBR’s growth forecasts, and tracks the latest confusions in the Lib Dem tuition fee saga. Nick Cohen reports on how Islamism is being indulged in East London. Alex Massie gives his take on an abysmal Australia side. Melanie Phillips highlights a video that says it all. The Spectator Arts Blog celebrates the enduring appeal of Mastermind. And the Spectator Book Blog congregates for Larkin

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

What will the Lib Dems say at the next election?

The rapidly increasing likelihood that the Lib Dem payroll vote will vote to increase the amount that universities can charge in fees to £9,000 is a reminder of how different the next election is going to be. The Lib Dems will not be able to stuff their manifesto with eye-catching but unrealistic commitments designed to grab votes from this or that interest group. The experience of coalition means that their policy positions will receive far more scrutiny than usual and have to be defensible. Already, those around Clegg talk of a very different kind of Lib Dem manifesto at the next election. They drop heavy hints that the empty gestures—like

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The official indulgence of Islamism in East London

Imagine that the British National Party controls a church and community centre in the East End of London. Imagine that it receives respectful visits from politicians, and grants from local and national government. Imagine that Prince Charles extends his already unhinged beliefs in pseudo-science and homeopathic quackery to include neo-fascist race theory, and signals his approval of the BNP by visiting the church. Imagine that Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson follow him. Imagine that the Lord Chief Justice chooses a BNP church of all places to demand restrictions on the rights off immigrants. Imagine finally that the liberal media stay silent because the BNP has convinced them that it was

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The Passion of Nick Clegg

You almost feel sorry for Nick Clegg this week, with the tuition fees vote in prospect. Being hated is difficult for LibDems because they didn’t expect it. Not so with the Tories. As a conservative, you usually realise early on that you’re going to be a small fish swimming against the current of fashionable received wisdom – and that will involve various tribulations. Like having to persuade your non-political friends that you do not advocate slaughter of the firstborn, and that there is a difference between believing in empowering people, and wanting to let the devil take the hindmost. If you turn up to the Islington Conservative Carol Concert (as

Saturday

The Spectator

Leader: Less heat, more light

We have heard surprisingly little about the climate change jamboree currently underway in Cancun. Before last year’s Copenhagen summit, there was much hullaballoo. Gordon Brown told us that we had ‘fewer than 50 days to set the course of the next 50 years’. Yet he and 100 of his political counterparts could not stop the conference from collapsing under the weight of its contradictions. This year, only two dozen world leaders are likely to make the carbon-consuming trek to the Mexican coast. David Cameron, to his credit, will not be one of them. He will not miss much. One paper prepared for the Cancun summit, by Prof Kevin Anderson of

Peter Hoskin

Brown struggles on beyond the crash

Today’s Guardian calls it his first interview since leaving office, although I think the Independent beat them to that one back in July. But, in any case, Gordon Brown’s chat with Larry Elliot is another staging post on his slow path back to public life. Here’s my quick summary: 1) Sniping from the moral high ground. A bit late now, but Brown is making a desperate scramble for the moral high ground. Not for him, he says, scurrilous memoirs that sift through the “arguments” of the past. No, he’s got far more important things on his mind than muck-raking and innuendo, like the future of financial regulation across the world.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Alan Johnson’s degree in making life difficult for Ed Miliband

There he goes again. Another Alan Johnson interview, another reiteration of his differences of opinion with his leader and another Tory press release claiming Ed Miliband’s writ doesn’t even run in his own shadow Cabinet. This time, Johnson has told Mary Riddell, “Well, I don’t think [a graduate tax] could [work]. Frankly, there’s a difference of view.” If this was not enough he continued to say, “I feel it’s going to be very difficult to make a graduate tax a workable proposition.” This must be so frustrating for Ed Miliband. First, it takes some of the heat off the Lib Dems who are all over the place this weekend on

Peter Hoskin

The Lib Dem tuition fee confusion continues

Who knows how, and whether, Vince Cable is going to vote in next Thursday’s tuition fee decider? Not even the man himself, it seems. A few days ago he suggested he might abstain for the sake of party unity. Yesterday, he told his local paper that “I have a duty as a minister to vote for my own policy – and that is what will happen.” And yet this morning’s Guardian has a “party source” saying, “a final decision has not been made. It is still possible Vince could abstain.” At least we haven’t heard that he might vote against the proposal – although, at this rate, I wouldn’t be

Andrew Gimson

White mischief

Boris Johnson’s enemies are hoping for a final snow-down London woke to snow and people wondered whether this time Boris Johnson would show true grit. His enemies reckon there’s no business like snow business for catching him out. They trust he will be found wanting, as he was by the unexpected snowfall in February 2009, when the city ground to a halt. Many people treasure the belief that the Mayor of London is fundamentally incompetent, and are disconcerted to find that sometimes whole months go by without any real evidence that the Tories have, in the words of the immortal Polly Toynbee, ‘put up a clown to run a great