Politics

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

Saturday

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

In bed with politicians

Who on earth wants to know about the leaders’ children, pets, kitchens and favourite biscuits? I am sitting in the audience at Labour party conference, watching a tribute video to Gordon Brown. As Brown smiles, walks, talks, scowls and moves his limbs up and down, giving a fairly decent impersonation of a soon-to-be-discontinued toy, I have a sudden realwisation. I don’t know if Stanley Baldwin liked Murray Mints. I have never seen Winston Churchill sob on Piers Morgan’s lap, like cheese melting on toast. And I – I – I have no idea whether Clement Attlee had a nice kitchen. Why is this? Is it because the private lives and

Friday

Tom Clougherty

Reforming the regulators

We all know that the state grew enormously under thirteen years of Labour government. The most obvious manifestation of this was public spending – an increase of 60 percent in real terms took Britain from having one of the lowest levels of government spending in the OECD in 2000 (36.6 percent of GDP) to having one of the highest in 2010 (52.5 percent of GDP). But while reducing spending is clearly the most pressing issue facing the coalition government, we should not overlook another area where the state has grown dramatically: regulation. The British Chambers of Commerce’s ‘Burdens Barometer’ estimates that net cost of major regulations passed since 1998 is

The Spectator

The week that was | 1 October 2010

Here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the past week. Fraser Nelson sees the penny drop at the Labour conference, and is sure that Liam Fox did not leak that infamous letter. James Forsyth watches Ed Miliband produce the bare minimum, and notes that the IMF has upset Labour’s plans. Peter Hoskin bids David Miliband au revoir, and says that Ed Miliband’s speech was neither here nor there. David Blackburn reckons Liam Fox doesn’t have David Cameron’s ear, and believes that Ed Miliband is stuttering for an authentic voice. Rod Liddle thinks that David Miliband is not dignified, he’s simply self-regarding. Alex Massie castigates Obama’s hit squad.

David Blackburn

BBC Tory conference strike suspended

The warnings from Auntie’s leading hacks have been heeded – the strike has been cancelled. There is no done deal and the government is still in the union’s crosshairs: the strike has been delayed to the 19th and 20th October, the day of the comprehensive spending review, pending further consultation. All this raises a few points. First, Ed Miliband scores by having urged the NUJ to drop its plans in favour of impartiality – very New Politics, now matter how opportunistic the initial impulse to further debase the moniker ‘Red Ed’. The BBC has, for the moment, denied its detractors a major publicity coup, not that I think that Jeremy

David Blackburn

Why Cameron’s conference speech is vital

Forget Ed Miliband’s promise of ‘optimism’ – a mantra that became so repetitive it had me reaching for the Scotch and revolver. Philip Collins has delivered a far more cutting verdict on David Cameron’s obsession with austerity. He writes (£): ‘Conservatives such David Cameron are not philosophers. The question to ask of Mr Cameron is not: what does he believe? It is: what problems does he inherit? Mr Cameron really does just want to fix the roof. The reason he wants to fix the roof is because it’s broken. The value he brings to this task is the insight that it is better to be dry than wet. He’s simple

David Blackburn

Many Lib Dems want to be part of the New Generation

Politics tends to ruin an evening in the pub. On Wednesday, I came across a friend who had been a card-carrying Lib Dem prior to the coalition’s formation. He confessed that he’d been impressed by Ed Miliband’s speech and had joined the Labour party. Several other Lib Dem supporters attending agreed that Ed Miliband is a more attractive option than David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Everyone else in this small band (mostly unaffiliated voters with the odd furtive Tory) believed that Labour has probably elected the wrong Miliband, but were antagonistic to Labour in any case. Politics Home has published formal research suggesting that only Lib Dems clearly favour Ed

David Blackburn

From the archives – Tories go to conference in government

Strange though it seems in hindsight, the Tory party was not uniformly enamoured with Mrs Thatcher in 1979. The Tories were in government, but doubts over her ability to confront a resurgent Labour party, her shaky presentational skills and the direction of her policy pervaded the 1979 conference. David Cameron goes to Birmingham this week pursued by reservation’s persistent hum, and he does not have winner’s rights to rely on. Ferdinand Mount recorded that Mrs T’s wooden speech did not allay concern or win gratitude; will Cameron fare any better? But do they really love her? Ferdinand Mount – 20th October 1979 Hmm. Or rather perhaps, to put it more

David Blackburn

Vince walks the line on Europe

Vince Cable was on best behaviour at the European Parliament yesterday afternoon. The twinkle of opposition was back, and he assured his audience that they would not be receiving one of those dour Hibernian lectures of blesséd memory. He had come, he said, merely to explain the coalition’s government’s European business policy.     Europe is a point of contention within the coalition, but one that is exaggerated. The coalition agreement is quite detailed on European policy, particularly on competences. Naturally, economic policy is more fluid, but the government, essentially, seeks further growth in the single market and closer economic co-operation to counter competition from the developing world. Cable danced those

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron needs to show that life is better under the Conservatives

The election of a new Labour leader means that proper politics has resumed. David Cameron now knows who he needs to beat to win the next election. As I argue in the magazine this week (subscribers), if the Tories are to secure a majority in 2015, they’ll need to do better among those in households with an income of thirty-odd thousand or so, what pollsters call the C1s. The last time the Tories won outright, they got 52 percent of the C1 vote—more than double Labour’s total. But in 1997, Labor and the Tories split this group evenly. The Tories have never fully recovered from this.  In 2010, the Tories

Thursday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

A small step for Labour, not a giant leap

I had expected Ed Miliband to do pretty well in the polls. He’s unknown, and voters haven’t had a chance to dislike him yet. That’s not an insult – familiarity breeds contempt in politics, and the public are normally quite quick to give a new guy the benefit of the doubt. Witness the Clegg bubble. But tomorrow’s Guardian shows precious little sign of a conference bounce. The two parties were level before the conferences – a remarkable achievment for a leaderless party. The Tories took three years to do the same. It was one of many reasons that inspired our cover story last week, “Labour leaps forward”. The illustration, by

James Forsyth James Forsyth

An example of union hostility against people who want to do their jobs

Amongst BBC political staff, there’s mounting concern about the plans for a strike during Tory conference. One of them said to me at Labour conference that they just didn’t know what to do, they had been put in an impossible position by the decision to call the strike on such politically important days. These journalists fear that striking during Tory conference would undermine the corporation’s reputation for impartiality. So, a whole host of them wrote to their union rep asking him to make representations on their behalf. His reply shows just the level of hostility these people — who are just trying to do their job — are up against:

Peter Hoskin

What to make of Warsi’s electoral fraud claim?

Exactly as the headline says, really. Interviewed by Mehdi Hasan in this week’s New Statesman, Sayeeda Warsi claims that the Tories “lost” at least three seats in the election because of electoral fraud. The article observes: ‘This is the first time a senior minister has made such a blunt and specific allegation about the impact of electoral fraud on the general election result. Can she reveal the names of those seats? ‘I think it would be wrong to start identifying them,’ she says, but adds: ‘It is predominantly within the Asian community. I have to look back and say we didn’t do well in those communities, but was there something

The Spectator

Who is the Greatest Parliamentarian of the Last 25 Years?

It is 25 years since The Spectator first began to recognise our better politicians with the annual Parliamentarian of the Year Awards. The inaugural winner of our main prize, the Parliamentarian of the Year award itself, was David Owen. Since then, the roll call of victors has grown to include John Smith, Nigel Lawson, Robin Cook, William Hague, John Major, Tony Blair and even, we must admit, Gordon Brown. The choices made by our judging panel of Westminster cognoscenti may not please all of the people, all of the time — but they are a reliable catalogue of the dominant players in modern British politics. But the Spectator’s judges won’t

Alex Massie Alex Massie

What Irish Austerity?

Next time you hear a Labour politician arguing that the markets are punishing Ireland despite its austerity drive (and therefore Britain should not rush to cut its own deficit) you might kindly point out that, because of the horrors at Anglo Irish and elsewhere, you can certainly argue that there hasn’t actually been an Irish austerity drive: In a statement, Mr. Lenihan conceded that the bank bailout would have an immediate and dire effect on Ireland’s budget deficit, pushing it up to an extraordinary 32 percent of G.D.P. Taking out the bank costs, Ireland’s deficit is expected to be around 11 percent, despite two years of an austerity drive. The

Peter Hoskin

Cameron road tests his anti-Ed message

After Fern Britton’s triumph over Gordon Brown a couple of years ago, we should know that This Morning interviews can have a certain bite to them. But if you needed more convincing, then how about David Cameron’s appearance on the show this morning? Lurking behind all the talk of baby Florence and the Obamas, was a sprightly discussion of both defence cuts and the new Labour leader. Cameron was combative on both. Most noteworthy were Cameron’s attacks on Ed Miliband. I imagine they will set the template for how the anti-Ed operation is conducted in future. The main aim, it seemed, was to defuse Miliband’s talk of an optimistic New

David Blackburn

Smutty Hattie closes the conference

Those earnest, pale and dimpled young men who staff the Labour party need to watch their drinks: Ed Miliband’s ‘New Generation’ is a haven for a well-heeled cougar. Inspired by Lady Bercow of Easy Virtue, Harriet Harman closed the Labour conference with a soliloquy in lust.   A cynic would say it was HRT talking, but Hattie was in playful and coquettish mood, as she often is – you know, young at heart and all that. More importantly, she was effective. Though I cringed through bits of her homily of the bordello – praying she’d segue into less alarmingly evocative subjects like gender equality, VAT and rape anonymity – she

David Blackburn

Forget the culprit, the MoD leak suggests that Fox doesn’t have Cameron’s confidence

Liam Fox is sombre rather than sombrero. A man to reckon with, you’d have thought – determined to fight dangerous cuts to Britain’s over-extended defence budget and an apostle of the Tory right. Which makes yesterday’s leak all the more extraordinary. The question is not who leaked this incendiary letter, but why Fox wrote it. The night before an important National Security Council meeting, and Fox has an important point to convey. Why not ring the Prime Minister? Go round to No.10 for chat? He is the Secretary of State, but he has to communicate matters of confidence and competence between himself and the PM with such formality, and in

Peter Hoskin

When Brown beat Blair in an election

With the merry dance of shadow cabinet elections upon us, it’s a good time to look back on the last time Labour went through all this. There’s a useful list of all the results from the 1992 Parliament here, but here’s my summary of some of the more eyecatching outcomes: 1) Gordon Brown, from hero to zero (to Chancellor). In 1992, Gordon Brown came top of the shadow Cabinet rankings. By 1996, he had dropped to 14th. And bear in mind that the number of MPs standing fell from 53 to 26 over the same time. As we all know, though, he still made it to the Chancellorship.   2)

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Farewell David Miliband

There we have it, David Miliband has announced that he is standing down from frontline politics. In his statement just now, he fluted all the anticipated notes. “The party needs a fresh start from its new leader,” he started, before adding that, “I genuinely fear perpetual, distracting and destructive attempts to find division where none exists, and splits where they don’t exist, all to the detriment of the party.” He said he will stay on as an MP, although he wants to do further work in the areas of education, the environment and foreign policy. It puts something of a fullstop under his career at the top of the Labour

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Ireland Tries to Pacify the Bond Market

Thursday is an important day for Ireland and, in the end, another reminder that Ireland’s economic woes and the measures taken to alleviate them don’t offer much of an example for other countries or their governments. The Irish government is going to have to announce its plan for bailing out (or not) Anglo Irish Bank’s bondholders. None of the options – outlined by the FT here – seem attractive. The political cost of meeting the bond market’s hopes will be severe; the economic cost of not doing so could be equally horrendous. Robert Peston has a good post explaining just why the Irish economic elite is so out of touch