Politics

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

Monday

David Blackburn

Making the case for further tuition fees

Ever the opportunist, Ed Miliband recognised that university funding could be the coalition’s first test of resolve. Opposing a tuition fee hike has given him the chance to serenade disgruntled Liberal Democrats and to discard New Labour’s sheen (which so incensed Alan Johnson, the minister who introduced the fee in such difficult circumstances). Miliband is determined to mould the Labour party in his image. Speaking on the Politics Show yesterday (16:20 in), he said that the party, Johnson included, will strive to deliver a graduate tax. After a summer’s procrastination, the government has run out of time. The substance of Lord Browne’s recommendations is in the public domain and it

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 11 October 2010

… here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Ed Howker reveals the full tragedy of Britain’s welfare ghettos. Fraser Nelson argues that Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet is defensive, and highlights Cameron’s greatest weakness. James Forsyth discusses the consequences of the child benefit row, and examines Cameron’s motives. Peter Hoskin notes the transformation of kindly Alan Johnson, and says that the coalition shares Vince Cable’s discomfort over university funding. David Blackburn watches Andrew Lansley try to reassure the doubters, and believes that Labour will target Theresa May. And Alex Massie defends Nick Clegg from the Mail on Sunday’s shrill attacks.

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

Vince Cable’s discomfort is shared by the coalition

The trouble with holding a ministerial debate in public is that, when it comes to the crunch, it’s obvious who the winners and losers are. So it is with Vince Cable and higher education funding. A couple of months ago, the business secretary tap-danced onto the stage with a (problematic) plan for a new graduate tax. Now, it seems clear that the Browne Review will reject his advice (£) in favour of increasing tuition fees. And so Cable has had to send out an excruciating email explaining why a graduate tax was never really a good idea in the first place. After the flip comes the flop, so to speak.

Peter Hoskin

Alan Johnson, from affable to aggressive  

If Alan Johnson continues as he has started, then he may be a surlier, snarlier shadow chancellor than many of us expected. He’s got an article in today’s News of the World and an interview in The Observer – and, in both, he’s on unusually combative form. Osborne’s cuts are labelled as “deep and irresponsible,” and the VAT rise is highlighted as a measure that will affect “those on middle and low incomes the most.” Johnson even claims, with Balls-like stridency, that the coalition could drag us screaming into double-dip. And there’s more. With a disingenuousness that would impress even Gordon Brown, Johnson glowers that the coalition’s cuts are deeper

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Rochdale, revisited

Putting Ed Balls into Home Affairs is like trapping a bee in a jar: he’ll come out furious, and anxious to sting. In his new brief, he has immigration. And he’ll know Cameron’s vulnerabilities. The greatest threat facing the coalition doesn’t come from Ed Miliband. It comes from a deep dysfunction in Britain’s economy: that when it grows, we just suck in more workers from overseas. Balls knows this, and the resentment it causes in affected communities – which is why he was talking tough on immigration during the leadership contest. He knows where the economic bodies are buried: he dug the graves. He also knows that unless Cameron manages

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Abbott caps Miliband’s defensive reshuffle

Those months of campaigning have finally paid off for Dianne Abbott. She has been made a Shadow Health Minister – which resembles a proper job. She was against the Blair-Milburn reforms in the NHS, regarding them as too pro-market – so let’s see if she keeps this position in opposition, thereby throwing more soil on the grave of New Labour. One can imagine the fear running down Andrew Lansley’s spine at this new team: John Healey and Abbott. It’s just baffling. In the bars at conference last week, I met many Tories who are increasingly worried at the pace and preparedness of Lansley’s proposed NHS reforms. But instead of marking

Alex Massie Alex Massie

More Mail Fail: Clegg Edition

Apparently the print edition of the Mail on Sunday screams “Hypocrisy” because Nick Clegg, though not a believer himself, is not averse to sending his eldest child to be educated at the (catholic) London Oratory. Like you, dearest reader, I look forward to the Mail opposing school choice. The online version of this nonsense does its best to be faux-outraged with “Why is atheist Nick Clegg considering sending his son to the same exclusive school as the Blairs?” It is not clear whether the atheism or the Blair connection is the more pernicious. Never mind that Clegg’s wife is catholic and the children are being brought up as catholics. Never

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Salmond Derangement Syndrome

The main sufferers of this admittedly rare condition are London-based Scots. Fraser, I’m afraid, seems to have come down with a case of SDS if this post is anything to go by. The murder of Linda Norgrove is a ghastly, horrid business that might, one would think, be considered sufficiently awful to be above or beyond politics. Apparently not. I see nothing wrong far less anything political in the First Minister issuing a statement about the murder of one of his compatriots in Afghanistan. Criticising Salmond for making cheap political capital out of such an awful business is itself a cheap journalistic shot.  Consider this: if Linda Norgrove had been

Saturday

The Spectator

In it together

It has been a remarkable week for the bright young Tories who worked for John Major in the 1992 election campaign. At the time, David Cameron, Steve Hilton and their friends were young praetorians who, after the Conservatives were returned to office, credited themselves with snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. They nearly did the opposite in May, but there was no sense of disappointment at the Tory party conference in Birmingham. It looked and felt more like a victory parade for the New Establishment. The word Conservative could hardly be seen inside the conference hall, and the chosen motto, ‘Together in the national interest’‚ suggests coalition rather than

David Blackburn

Theresa May the target

I wonder if Theresa May felt faintly apprehensive this morning. It must bad enough to awake and remember that you’re the Home Secretary, held responsible for every immigrant, every strike and every crime committed in Britain. Northern Ireland is more poisoned ministerial chalice, just. Now, she is being shadowed by Ed Balls, a ravening attack-dog liberated by the opposition. Balls has re-invented himself as a traditional Labour politician, casting himself as the champion of the working class. He says, accurately, that the poor are the victims of crime and the victims of unbridled immigration and social dislocation and his opposition will be ardently authoritarian. May will have to cut police

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Who speaks for Scotland?

Ten years ago, when I was doing my tour of duty as a reporter in the Scottish Parliament, I had a talk with an SNP figure, who shall remain nameless, about their grand plan. Scotland was to be a nation, and that means its politicians perform in certain ways. They wanted to look like statesman, with a state. Their opportunity lay in crisis. “So when there is a disaster overseas, we will have Scottish aid leaving a Scottish airport,” he said. “When a Scot dies overseas, we have the Scottish First Minister sending condolences.” He didn’t say that, when a Libyian murderer wants to be released, the SNP can use

Toby Young Toby Young

Different class

Two years ago, I put together a proposal for a book about the coming sea change in British politics. It was going to document the resurgence of a political clique that, until recently, had been written off as a busted flush. How had David Cameron, the grandson of a baronet and a member of the Bullingdon Club, managed to overcome the anti-toff prejudice that had put paid to Douglas Hurd’s leadership bid 18 years earlier? The idea was for publication to coincide with the Conservatives thunderous election victory of 2010. I was going to call it The Return of the Eton Mob. I never got around to writing it, which is

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Politics: If Cameron is heir to Blair, Osborne is heir to Brown

In many ways, Gordon Brown and George Osborne are opposites. In many ways, Gordon Brown and George Osborne are opposites. When Brown became chancellor, he moved into the smallest, dingiest office on the Treasury’s ministerial corridor — eschewing the grand office that had been used by his predecessors. He also made great play of turning down Dorneywood, which was left to John Prescott. Osborne has restored the natural order of things. He has moved into the best office in the corridor and sent one of his advisers to work in Brown’s old room. He has asserted his claim to Dorneywood, leaving William Hague and Nick Clegg to country-house share. Indeed,

Allister Heath

The Irish problem

It isn’t spending cuts Those arguing against spending cuts have recently adopted a one-word argument: Ireland. The case it stands for is as simple as it is bogus. Ireland had a deficit, now even worse than Britain’s. It adopted an agenda of sharp public spending cuts, on the same logic used by the British government. The result? A double-dip recession and a fresh round of misery. The lesson from Ireland is that cuts don’t work — and that George Osborne is leading Britain into the swamp. The argument is seductive, but only if one is ignorant about what has just happened in Ireland. It is true that after bouncing back

Douglas Murray

Blackballed by Cameron

David Cameron’s Conservative party has several uniquely destructive traits. But perhaps foremost is that it believes the lies of its enemies. And even when it doesn’t, it panders to them. A perfect example arose three years ago when the shadow minister of homeland security, Patrick Mercer, gave a newspaper interview in which he mentioned the fact that he had heard racist comments while he was in the army. Even a cursory glance at the interview showed that Mercer was reporting — and deploring — these comments. But Cameron didn’t bother with a glance. Here was an opportunity to show the new Conservative party. So Cameron described Mercer’s comments as ‘completely

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The Tories’ lost leader

David Davis is the ghost at the coalition’s feast And then, somewhere behind the arras, there is David Davis. Every Conservative party conference has an arras, and this year’s arras is a very pretty one, embroidered in sky blue and a pale yellow the shade of stale egg yolks, hardly yellow at all, depicting a touching scene from the award-winning homoerotic film Brokeback Mountain. David Davis, a twice-failed leadership candidate, but a man somehow still in touch with the soul of the party, is somewhat less the focus of dissent right now than some expected him to be, although these are early days, of course. There is always someone behind

Friday

Martin Bright

Shadow Cabinet or Cabinet of the Weird?

The real problem for the Labour Party with the election of Ed Miliband is not the man himself, who is easy to like and, by instinct, a centrist politician from the New Labour tradition (however hard he tries to disown it now). No, the difficulty is the oddness of it the whole business. If the brother versus brother leadership contest had not been enough to cause the nation to raise a collective eyebrow, now we have the bizarre spectacle of a husband and wife taking the jobs of shadow home and foreign secretaries. This is just dead weird.  Every professional couple knows how difficult it is to hold together two

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Don’t Over-Estimate Ed Miliband

In the grand scheme of things there are few less important things than the Shadow Cabinet. Nevertheless it’s the only toy in town today and so must be chewed until something fresh and shinier comes along. Poor Ed Miliband, however, was in a lose-lose situation. Appoint Ed Balls to the Treasury brief and risk looking weak and in thrall to an over-bearing Shadow Chancellor; appoint someone else to the job and look weak too, scared of your erstwhile rival and a certified “Big Beast”. Nevertheless, looking for a compromise candidare was reasonable. But choosing Alan Johnson (rather than, say, Jim Murphy) is a blunder. By his own admission Johnson wasn’t