Politics

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

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

Cameron and Clegg’s message to Tory AV rebels

So, Cameron and Clegg end the summer break much as they started it: with a public statement on the aims and successes of the coalition government. Their article in today’s Sunday Telegraph hops across all the usual touchstones – reform, deficit reduction, people power, and all that – but it lands with an unusually combative splash. In anticipation of tomorrow night’s bellwether vote on the AV referendum and redrafted constituency boundaries, the two party leaders write: “This is an important moment for political renewal. We have different views on the future of our voting system. But we both recognise that there are genuine concerns about the current system. And we

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Most Useless Political Party in Europe

This is a subject that one could – and may! – return to frequently. David Cameron, not unreasonably, seems to have decided that there’s no point to the Scottish Tories at all. This is not a great surprise given that the Scottish Tories have declined to make any meaningful, let alone sensible, case for themselves. According to Hamish Macdonell – a reliable reporter – Cameron has had enough of his enfeebled North Britain platoon. By her own admission, Aunt Annabel Goldie hasn’t spoken to the Prime Minister since the election. And what would they have to talk about anyway? The sorry truth is that the Scottish Conservative & Unionist party

Saturday

The Spectator

Fox news

Perhaps the most surprising part of Tony Blair’s memoirs is the passage in which he reveals one of his deepest regrets: it’s not Iraq, but the fox-hunting ban. Blair now says that the 2005 reform was ‘a fatal mistake’ and even admits to having been swayed by a metropolitan bias against country dwellers. ‘I started to realise that this wasn’t a small clique of weirdo inbreds delighting in cruelty,’ he writes, ‘but a tradition, deeply embedded by history and profound community and social liens, that was integral to a way of life.’ Pro-hunting groups will see Blair’s admission as too little too late. Nevertheless, his remarks represent quite a change

Peter Hoskin

“Ed does not need to hold the broccoli”

A Thick of It style interlude from Ann Treneman’s interview (£) with Ed Miliband today: “There is also a visit to something called a ‘communiversity’ where he is confronted with what, for a Miliband, is a scary sight: a bowl of fruit. ‘Us Milibands are funny about funny shaped fruit,’ he notes, plucking out an apple and avoiding the yellow peril that gave his brother the nickname Milibanana after he was pictured holding one and looking, well, a bit bananas. Later, on a trip to a community farm I feel on the brink of a major news scoop when someone tries to make Ed hold a broccoli. ‘Ed does not

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Guardian Buys A Miliband Pup

If Labour members really want to vote for Ed Miliband then bully for them. Quite why they think doing so would advance their prospects of regaining power is something that’s lost on me. But if they do want to plump for Miliband Minor then at least they should do so for the correct reasons and not on the back of an utterly bogus poll. That’s the poll that “found” that 72% of “undecided” voters would be less likely to vote Labour if its new leader decided that New Labour was still a Good Thing. Ordinarily the Guardian likes to think of itself as a serious newspaper for serious people. Lord

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband D tries to break out of the Blairite box

With ballot papers out, the Labour leadership contest is entering its most critical phase. It is striking that David Miliband has taken this moment to co-author an essay with his most significant left-wing supporter, Jon Cruddas. Indeed, a casual observer looking at the piece would assume that the two men were running on a joint ticket. The language in the article is very Cruddas, it talks of a ‘new covenant’ (one of Cruddas’ favourite phrases) with Britain. The intellectual heart of the piece is an attempt to break away from the left right arguments within the party by proclaiming that Labour in government was “too hands-off with the market and

Peter Hoskin

Surmountable problems for Nick Clegg

Curious times, getting curiouser, for Nick Clegg. The Lib Dem leader might have thought that bringing his party into government would ensure him a triumphant reception at their conference in two weeks. But, instead, he faces a number of stories that could unsettle proceedings. Today, we hear that more Liberal Democrat councillors have resigned in what they claim is protest at the cuts being implemented by central government. What’s more, a number of Lib Dem figures have added their voices to the general cacophony surrounding Andy Coulson. And that’s before we consider the underlying, but most urgent, threat to the stability of the coalition: the Lib Dems’ spluttering poll position.

Philip Collins

Ed Miliband may win the Labour leadership, but he will never take the country

Philip Collins reviews the week in politics Other people’s families are always strange. How much stranger when the idea of a political fight within a family is no longer a metaphor. Ed Miliband recently told of his parents’ journey to England and his gratitude for their refuge here. This dramatic and effective story could have been a moment of emotional differentiation if it weren’t for the inconvenient fact that the other serious candidate has the same parents. The battle for the Labour leadership remains a curious contest which has provoked no curiosity. The public was asked this week which of the candidates would make the best prime minister: 64 per

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The rise and rise of Blair Inc

This memoir is not a requiem for Tony Blair’s past, says Fraser Nelson. It’s a manifesto for his future — as a highly paid freelance statesman with no electorate to hold him back Many prime ministers view their memoirs as their pension, but Tony Blair always had far greater ambitions. In the three years that it has taken him to write A Journey, he has become so wealthy that he does not need the royalties — and is giving them to charity. As his memoirs reveal, he has long thought it a shame great world leaders should have to retire. The example he cites is Condoleezza Rice. ‘She is a

Friday

Peter Hoskin

Labour turn up the heat on Coulson

As we drift into the weekend, Labour are stepping up their attacks on Andy Coulson. Already today, Tom Watson, Alan Johnson, John Prescott and Chris Bryant have all drawn noisy attention to the allegations made in that New York Times Magazine article about phone tapping and the News of the World – and their efforts have already pushed the story to the top of the BBC news agenda. Indeed, Bryant has even called for David Cameron to sack Coulson. Labour types will no doubt repeat that message constantly over the next few days. So far, the Tories are standing behind their comms chief. A statement from No.10 reiterated that Coulson

The Spectator

The week that was | 3 September 2010

Here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the past week: Fraser Nelson says that Tony Blair is aiming to become a freelance statesman. James Forsyth highlights the biggest threat to the coalition, and reports on cricket’s dilemma. Peter Hoskin says that Blair wants Labour to be more like the coalition, and argues that Labour needs a Byrne rather than a Balls. David Blackburn outlines Brown’s plan for the future, and watches the education battle open. Ed Howker highlights Blair’s contempt for the left. Susan Hill praises the NHS. Alex Massie gives his take on the Hague affair. Melanie Phillips laments that Londonistan continues to provide British hospitality

Peter Hoskin

Liam Fox rows back on carrier sharing

For a while then, it looked as though Britain and France really were going to share aircraft carriers as a mesure d’austérité. But, today, Liam Fox seems to have put a block on the idea, describing it in Paris as “utterly unrealistic”. He did, though, add that we could pool some of our transport planes and helicopters with the French (which sounds like the military equivalent of hitching a lift, if we happen to be going in the same direction). And Fox’s spokesman has since said that there still might be “strategic co-operation across the maritime domain,” whatever that means. So some sort of link-up with the French should be

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Blair’s Blindness on Torture

There’s lots of interesting stuff in Martin Kettle’s Guardian interview with the Maximum Tone but this struck me as a telling, revealing moment: One thing I want to say before the Guardian readership particularly is that this notion that I have ever condoned or would ever condone torture in any circumstances is complete rubbish. I totally disagree with it and I would never condone it, not in any set of circumstances. I think it is not just morally wrong. I think it is an extremely foolish and stupid way to try to gather information. I don’t know where this has all come from. I don’t know whether people in other

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Balls turns on the man he called Labour’s ‘greatest ever leader’

The ever-pugnacious Ed Balls was on the Today Programme this morning denouncing Tony Blair for saying that the coalition was, broadly, right in its deficit reduction plans. As Balls warmed to his task, he started reeling off Blair’s failings—his advocacy of entry into the euro, his one-sided account of things in his autobiography and the like— and I wondered: if this is his opinion of the man he called Labour’s greatest ever-leader, what on earth does he think of the other men who have led the party?   But in all seriousness, the coalition needs to start hitting back at the ‘growth denier’ charge that Balls keeps hurling at them.

Peter Hoskin

David Miliband strikes for the middle ground

It must be quite satisfying for the David Miliband campaign that they can commission a YouGov poll and get all the results they would have wanted. According to the Guardian, MiliD has a signigicant lead when it comes to which candidate is the “most effective alternative to Cameron”. But it’s this finding that is the most significant:   “The poll of 2,907 people, conducted between 25-27 August, also found that David Miliband enjoys a strong lead among voters who abandoned Labour – a key battle in the leadership campaign. He has a 25% lead over his brother among these voters on who would be the best alternative to Cameron, and

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Glenn Beck and the Tea Party Revolutionaries

Larry Sabato’s latest forecast predicts that the Republican party could pick up as many as 47 seats in the House of Representatives this November. He also thinks they have an outside shot at retaking the Senate. This is the background to Conservative Cabbie’s post tweaking me for this blog’s previous – and many! – suggestions that the GOP was in heaps of trouble. He’s right. I didn’t anticipate unemployment remaining close to 10% through the mid-terms and I didn’t think that Pat Toomey, for instance, would be well-placed to win in Pennsylvania. And he’s also right to suggest that I under-appreciated the impact the Tea Party movement might have, not

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Memo to the Left: Blair Won Because He Hated You

Over at Liberal Conspiracy our old friend Sunny Hundal calls out Tony Blair: It was always obvious that Tony Blair hated the left. His recently published book said nothing new on that front. What’s staggering is how easily he dismisses even close Labour colleagues and ministers. […] What does it say about Tony Blair’s loyalty to the party and the movement? What does it say about his committment to pluralism within the party? What it says is that Tony Blair was interested in winning elections. This is not rocket science. We may not like this aspect of British politics but, at the moment anyway, the public is extremely wary of

David Blackburn

A question of judgement

Up until today, the Hague-Myers story was confined to scurrilous rumour on Guido’s blog and the occasional cautious article in the Telegraph or the Mail; the rest of the media were uninterested. But, as James notes, Hague’s two extraordinarily frank statements, particularly yesterday’s impassioned denial to ‘set the record straight’, have forced the issue into the mainstream political debate. The personal always becomes political. What of William Hague’s judgement? John Redwood condemns Hague’s ‘poor judgement’ in personal matters before going on to cast aspersions on his policy judgements, particularly those relating to the EU. Iain Martin discusses Hague’s supposedly pro-Arabist sympathies: ‘Is Israel getting a fair hearing?’ he asks. Iain

David Blackburn

Brown’s plan for the future

Mr Blair’s former breathless lover will form the fully staffed Gordon and Sarah Brown Foundation, paid for by lucrative speaking engagements, which the Spectator revealed some weeks ago. He has accepted three pro-bono appointments – joining Queen Rania of Jordan’s Global Campaign for Education, working on a new programme to bring the internet to Africa and joining the board of Tim Berners Lee’s World Wide Web Foundation. He will also continue to write on the plight of the world’s poor. Presumably, he won’t now be seeking a spot at the Shadow Cabinet table. Like Blair, Brown’s ambitions are global. I can’t criticise Brown for any of this – they are