Politics

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

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff

Few writers can make a silly season story read like official history, so it’s worth drifting behind the Times’ paywall to read Rachel Sylvester on Boris and Dave’s mutual emnity. It is no secret that BoJo and DC are united in rivalry, but Sylvester adds a second dimension with insider quotations – a mix of arch witticisms and savage partisanship. Here are several of many from today’s column: ‘Most people at Westminster assume that Boris — compared by one of his editors to Marilyn Monroe, “another egomaniacal blonde” — still harbours ambitions to lead his party. As a boy he used to declare that when he grew up he wanted to be “world king”, so

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Darling’s Revenge on Brown and Balls

Not many Labour minister enhanced their reputations during the Last Days but, at least as far as the non-payroll vote was concerned, Alistair Darling was a rare exception. He seems to think so too, if today’s Donald Dewar Lecture at the Edinburgh Book Festival is any indication. Some extracts from his address: “Labour lost because we failed to persuade the country that we had a plan for the future. What is important now for our party is we take stock and be honest about what went wrong. “We rather lost our way. Rather than recognising that the public were rightly concerned about the level of borrowing, we got sidetracked into

Peter Hoskin

The task facing UKIP’s next leader

That didn’t take long, did it? After only a year in charge of UKIP, Lord Pearson has quit the role even more abruptly than he took it. In his resignation statement, he confesses that he is “not much good” at party politics – and it is hard to disagree. A memorable low was his interview on the Campaign Show in which he was only dimly acquainted with his party’s own policy. But more damaging, to my mind, was the general erosion of UKIP’s identity: Pearson’s policy of campaigning for Eurosceptic candidates from other parties may have been magananimous, but it also made you wonder whether UKIP are more a party

David Blackburn

Osborne emerges from the shadows

George Osborne has been quiet these past few weeks, tussling with ministers desperate to preserve some of their budget from his spending review. Today though, Osborne will emerge from the Treasury’s recesses to launch a political attack on the ‘deficit denying’ opposition. Come on, Osborne will ask Darling et al, where are these £44bn of cuts you planned?   And answer comes there none, not even an incredible one. Labour’s refusal to countenance a spending review in government means it has very little to offer the spending debate in opposition. There is also a suggestion that ‘investment versus cuts’ dividing line that paralysed the Brown premiership has yet to be resolved: Ed

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cable won’t be Coalition candidate for Mayor

The most bizarre story of the day is Michael Crick’s post saying that in Number 10 there’s discussion of Vince Cable running as a Coalition candidate for Mayor of London. Now, I’d be totally shocked if this was to happen and have made some calls it still strikes me as thoroughly unlikely. The three main reasons for this are that Boris Johnson wants to run for re-election, the coalition would be taking a massive risk to test its electoral popularity in this way (imagine if Labour won) and taking Cable out of the Cabinet would unbalance the coalition. On the London mayor front, we’ll know who the Labour candidate is

David Blackburn

Blair, magnanimous master of PR

It’s easy to be loose with a trifling £4.6m when you’re Tony Blair. Many will denounce his decision to give the advance and any royalties on his memoir to the British Legion as opportunistic – a cynical gesture characteristic of the man. As ever with Blair, there is more than a hint of a public relations exercise about this. But it is also extremely gracious, aiding people who prick his conscience. So I prefer to take his generosity at face value. As Con Coughlin puts it:   ‘Whatever you might think of Mr Blair, he always had the courage of his convictions when it came to defending our freedoms, whether

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Blair Donates Book-Lucre to British Legion

Smart man, Tony Blair: Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is to donate the profits from his memoirs to a sports centre for badly injured soldiers. A spokesman said Mr Blair would hand over the reported £4.6m advance payment plus all royalties to honour “their courage and sacrifice”. The Royal British Legion will receive the money, Mr Blair’s office has confirmed. Not that this will be popular with other politicians who may find themselves pressed to make comparable gestures when it comes to the proceeds – if there be any – of their own memoirs. How about it, Gordon*? Needless to say, there’ll be plenty of folk ready to interpret this

David Blackburn

Clegg must resist temptation

As Pete notes, Nick Clegg is moderating the debate over the spending review in David Cameron’s absence. It’s an unenviable task. IDS and Liam Fox have been the most cussed opponents of George Osborne, but all ministers are fighting for their budgets behind the scenes. This morning, reports suggest that Chris Huhne could break from the ranks of the silent. The Times gives details of ‘intense discussions’ over the future of nuclear clean-up and renewable energy funding, worth more than £2bn of the Energy department’s £3.4bn budget. Obviously, any reductions in environmentally friendly initiatives carry a political cost for the Liberal Democrats. Chris Huhne has already overcome the habit of

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 16 August 2010

…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. James Forsyth charts the university funding debate, and reports that the coalition is preparing to attack the new Labour leader. Peter Hoskin welcomes the appointment of Alan Milburn as social mobility tsar, and thinks that Simon Hughes has a hold over the coalition. David Blackburn argues that all eyes have turned to Liam Fox and the MoD budget, and notes that Ken Livingstone is playing red again. And Alex Massie praises Barack Obama’s magnanimity.

Peter Hoskin

An important fortnight for Nick Clegg

Another reason to be glad of the Brown government’s downfall is that there seems to be less silliness about the summer holidays. Today, Nick Clegg returns to London to steer government in David Cameron’s absence – but there’s no fanfare, nor energetic pretence that the Lib Dem leader is actually “running the country”. Unlike those times when Harriet used to have a go at it, followed by Peter, followed by Alistair, followed by Jack, the overriding impression is just business as usual. But that doesn’t mean that the next two weeks are insignificant for Clegg. Rather, he can make sweeping advances on a number of fronts. The most important, and

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

Simon Hughes and the deputy leader’s pulpit

My, what a busy character Simon Hughes is at the moment. Seems like hardly a day goes by without some fresh observations from the Lib Dem deputy leader – and he doesn’t even rest on a Sunday. Today, there are two Hughesbites worth noting down, both from an interview with Sky. The first: “We should have no preference at the next election between the Tories and Labour and other parties. We are going to stand on our own.” And the second: “Our party is committed constitutionally to standing in every seat. We will be standing in every seat at the next election. There will be no deals, there will be

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Readying the bombardment

Westminster might be in holiday mode, but behind the scenes the coalition is preparing to take on the new Labour leader. As I say in the Mail on Sunday, the coalition is determined to hit whichever Miliband wins early and hard. The Cameroons believe that Tony Blair’s decision not to attack Cameron straight away in 2005 was crucial in allowing him to present himself to the public on his own terms. By contrast, both Hague and Duncan Smith were made to look like losers by the Labour attack machine within months of becoming leader of the opposition. The result of the Labour leadership election will be announced on the 25th

Peter Hoskin

The return of Alan Milburn

Frank Field, John Hutton and now Alan Milburn – the red tinges to the coalition mix are like a Who’s Who of reforming Labour politicians. Milburn, we learn today, is to return to government as an adviser to David Cameron on social mobility. It’s a role he should be accumstomed to, as he was tasked with writing a report on the issue under Brown. That time, his suggestions were buried by a government which didn’t want to face up to the sorry facts. This time, you hope they meet with a more constructive response. But why wasn’t a Conservative (or conservative) appointed? That’s the question which Iain Dale asks over

Saturday

David Blackburn

Livingstone the insurgent

Ken Livingstone’s long reign as a Labour London Mayor was predicated on his supposed insurgency against New Labour’s orthodoxy. Well, he remains intent on dissociating himself from his party. For instance today, he has endorsed Eric Pickles’ abolition of the Audit Commission. ‘This is one Tory cut I support,’ he said. This contradicts John Denham’s position. Perhaps Livingstone recognises that Labour cannot give the public sector unqualified support; there are fat cats protecting vested interests in Whitehall, just as there are in the City. Livingstone scents capital in abolishing a public body that wants to pay its chairman £260,000 when ordinary voters are struggling with the bills and the Evening Standard

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Whelan suggests Brown will turn up to Labour conference

A poll in today’s Daily Mail might have the Tories down to 29 percent (in part due to a very large number of undecideds) but it is Charlie Whelan’s interview blaming Peter Mandelson for Labour’s election debacle that is getting all the attention. In a fit of campaign nostalgia, CCHQ has tweeted out a bunch of lines from it. But I suspect it is the last Whelan quote in the piece that has them smacking their lips.  Whelan says, ‘Labour has not fallen out of love with Gordon. Quite the reverse. If he tips up at the Conference – which I think he will – he’ll go on stage and

David Blackburn

PC Plod picks up a packet

Back in May, Sir Paul Stephenson, Britain’s most senior police officer, insisted that the police should forgo bonuses to prove that their sole motivation was a sense of public duty. Such grandiosity looks absurd when a freedom of information request reveals that the police were awarded more than £150million pounds in bonuses last year. The Telegraph has the excruciating details. ‘Bonus payments across all ranks have risen six per cent over the past three years. The extra payments were introduced in 2002 by David Blunkett, the home secretary at the time, to offer incentives for performance. Five types of bonus are available, including extra payments for officers who show “professional

The Spectator

Make work pay

Just occasionally, a government comes up with a proposal that is so sensible it makes the opposition’s kneejerk criticism seem pathetically misjudged. So it is with David Cameron’s plan to use data from credit agencies to trap benefit cheats who are stealing £5.6 billion annually from the taxpayer. Opponents will have to do better to explain why this is an incursion on civil liberties when exactly the same information is used on a routine basis by banks and retailers to judge customers’ creditworthiness. If a benefit claimant is spending £2,000 a month on his credit card while supposedly unfit to work, it is the government’s duty to pick this up.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The dangerous rows behind the scenes are between Tories and Tories

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics Coalition politics has thrown political journalists for a loop. For years we have been used to members of government claiming that there is not a cigarette paper of difference between them and their colleagues — even when the disagreements were obvious. But now Cabinet ministers happily admit that they differ. And when they disagree, the coalition partners set about resolving their differences in a civil and reasonable fashion. The lobby journalist’s bread and butter — the splits story — is in danger of disappearing. But the old politics is not dead. There are still vicious rows going on in government, but they are

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Welcome to the age of sleb politics

Is the hip hop artist Wyclef Jean the right sort of person to run Haiti? He has announced that he will run for the country’s presidential election as the candidate of the Viv Ansanm (Live Together) party. Wyclef is wanted in the United States, where he made his fortune, on tax avoidance issues. The IRS is claiming $2.1 million in back taxes from him. Added to that there are allegations that he salted away an estimated $400,000 from a charity he set up to, er, relieve the suffering in Haiti following the earthquake which struck the benighted country in January this year. In fact ‘salted away’ is not the technical

Venetia Thompson

How Jewish are the Milibands?

At last Britain’s Jewish community has something to celebrate. Not since Disraeli has Britain had a Jewish Prime Minister (although let’s not forget that Disraeli was a practising Christian); now we have not one, but two bright, young, attractive Jewish boys running for the Labour leadership. The Miliband brothers have left every Jewish mother in the country wondering if either of them is single. But we shouldn’t start dancing the hora just yet: both the Miliband brothers seem to be having a bit of an identity crisis: are they Jewish? Jew-ish? Ethnically Jewish atheists? Does it even matter? Apparently so, or neither brother would have bothered commenting on their ‘identity’