Was Ken a Tory?
Hm, I’m not sure about this. But according to Harry’s Place, Ken may once have been a Young Conservative. Discuss…
Politics
Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
Thursday
Local elections 2008: live coverage
Stay with Coffee House tonight for all the latest on the local elections. Expect frequent updates, as well as analysis from Matthew d’Ancona, Fraser Nelson, Mary Wakefield, James Forsyth and Peter Hoskin. In the meantime, you can always flick through the briefing that the Electoral Reform Society has put together. When are results coming in? Where are the key battles being fought? Find all the answers in its well-informed pages.
Your guide to tonight’s entertainment
The Electoral Reform Society has produced an invaluable briefing on tonight’s event. Handily, it includes the times that the key results are expected to be called—remember that the counting in London doesn’t begin until tomorrow although there should be an exit poll after the polls close at ten. The results to look for are Bury (expected at midnight) which is currently under no overall control, if the Tories can go from having a plurality of the seats to a majority it will suggest that the Cameron effect is spreading beyond London. North Tyneside (another one at midnight) is very possibly the win the Conservatives want most as it would show
Three essential columns
While we wait for the local election results, I’d thoroughly recommend reading this morning’s columns by Mary Ann Sieghart, Iain Martin and Martin Bright. The three of them, brilliantly distil what has gone wrong for Gordon Brown. Sieghart, reminding us of what we have been missing since she’s stopped writing regularly for The Times’s op-ed page, articulates why the Labour whips office is going to have such trouble enforcing party discipline if things gets worse for Gordon. Iain Martin explains why Stephen Carter’s organisational fixes can’t solve the Prime Minister’s problems which are essentially politically. While Martin Brights points to the tipping point question: So what would be so awful
The Evening Standard endorses Boris
Today, The Evening Standard formally threw its support behind Boris Johnson for Mayor. Here’s the conclusion of their very solid editorial: This paper believes that the key issues in this contest are honesty and competence. On both, Mr Livingstone falls down badly. His broken promises and the irregularities surrounding some of his closest associates – exposed by our reporting – show that he cannot be trusted to maintain the standards of integrity that his office demands. Boris Johnson can offer London a fresh vision. He has mastered the complexities of London’s government to come up with policies that offer a real alternative to those of Mr Livingstone. He has the
Do the Brown new guard see Alan Johnson as Labour’s saviour?
Last week, The Daily Mirror reported that Alan Johnson would be made the chief whip and the government front man in a post-May day reshuffle. Now, Kevin Maguire’s New Statesman column passes on word that Stephen Carter tried to persuade Johnson to take the job of deputy Prime Minister. Johnson would certainly be a good foil to Brown—he’s English and relaxed—but rumours like this are going to put a target on his back.
Is Blair eclipsing Brown in Israel?
I’ve just returned from Israel, but the issues have followed me to London. Tomorrow the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee convenes in the capital, to discuss the Palestinian situation. Gordon Brown’s expected to speak at the event, but – as I understand it – Tony Blair will be hovering around as well, in his capacity as Middle East envoy. Who – if either – will commandeer the limelight, I wonder? Whilst I was in Israel, not one person had a bad word to say about Blair – the consensus being that he’s doing a lot to promote economic development and peace in the Palestinian territories. I asked Olmert’s spokesman what the Israeli
It’s election time
It’s local and London election time, and Coffee House will be bringing you frequent news and analysis throughout today and tomorrow. For now, though, an overview of what the papers are saying… Are the local elections a dress rehearsal for the general election? Not so, says Peter Riddell in the Times: “The joy of local elections is their sheer unpredictability and the idiosyncrasies of the results. As even a glance at the candidates in the London mayoral contest shows, we are not seeing clones of Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg rehearsing for the big one in two years time… …So nothing will be quite what it seems, not
Wednesday
Major Carroll Advances
Heartening news from Ireland: when the government banned smoking in pubs in 2004, 27% of Irish folk smoked. Now 29% consume these little tubes of delight*. True, there’s a long way to go yet but every journey begins with a single smoke… *Dennis Potter’s description, if memory serves. [Hat-tip: Taking Liberties.]
How to vote for Boris
If you’re voting in London tomorrow, you are going to be given three ballot papers—one for the mayoralty, one for the constituency section of the London assembly and one for the proportional vote. In the mayoral vote, you can vote for a first preference—we’d recommend putting a tick next to Boris—and a second preference. If your first preference is Boris or Ken, then your second preference is irrelevant. But if you’re voting for one of the other candidates, your second preference is key. In reality, there’s not much point putting anyone other than one of the two leading candidates as your second preference as the votes will be reallocated between
Cameron is walking into an elephant trap on 42 days
Like Fraser, I thought that David Cameron went on the wrong topic today. But I think the bigger mistake the Tories might be making is in trying to turn 42 days into a trial of Brown’s political strength. Regardless of what one thinks about 42 days, and a good case can be made both ways, there is something deeply unappealing about people playing politics with the issue. Now, you can say that both sides are doing it but today Cameron looked like the main offender. The Tories also face the problem of what do they do if, as looks likely, they defeat Brown on this issue. The sight of them
In crisis, there’ll be an opportunity for Brown
If Livingstone loses on Thursday and the Labour vote slumps elsewhere in the country, the headlines for Gordon Brown will be dire and he’ll be plunged further into the mire. But in this crisis there will be a brief window of opportunity for him. The press will be in full ‘government in crisis mode’ and getting so excited by the remote prospect of a leadership challenge that Brown will actually have the freedom to carry out a drastic reshuffle. It will be embarrassing and humiliating for Brown to sack or demote those who he chose less than a year ago, but Brown will already be embarrassed and humiliated so he
A better PMQs for Brown
In a not-very-hotly contested category, this was perhaps Gordon Brown’s best PMQs performance. His content wasn’t any more accurate, but sounding confident is half the battle. And he did. He didn’t stutter or garble his words and looked much more relaxed. As ever, there’s a bit of Dr Johnson’s dog about this – but Cameron chose the wrong issue and if he expected Brown to crumble he was mistaken. A day ahead of the local elections, Cameron could and should have picked a doorstep issue. Instead he went on the case for 42 day detention without trial. Brown seemed quite optimistic about it. When he was defending it, I fancied
Today’s Brownies
Gordon Brown gives interviews like he is programming a computer. In his pre-election appearance on Today at 8.10am he fired off statistics, as if they spoke for themselves – sounding passionate, one might argue, and knowledgeable. But on several areas his information was misleading or simply false. Here’s what jumped out at me. 1). “We’re about to take a million children out of poverty”. A million children? The figure is 600,000 from the benchmark year of 1998/99, and that’s going by his narrow definition of children whose parents have incomes below 60% of the median. Choose a different threshold, say 40%, and it’s 400,000. Millions is spent trying to massage
What counts as a good result?
Over at the Red Box, Sam Coates has a very handy guide to what the parties are claiming would constitute success for them in Thursday’s elections.
Tuesday
What Bush Hath Wrought
Via Marc Ambinder, this graph is not, shall we say, good news for the Republican party’s long-term prospects. Sure, some of these young voters will likely drift to the right in years to come, but most people tend to fix their party identification early and hold on to it doggedly. And of course young voters today aren’t spooked by the legacy of the 1970s the way their parents’ generation is. Equally, to the extent (possibly exaggerated) that Iraq will have a lasting, quasi-seismic impact on American politics it seems, right now, likely to damage the Republican party more than the Democrats. That said, I suspect that it’s the GOP’s domestic
Brown plans a by-election bounce
Labour’s losing no time on the Crewe and Nantwich by-election – due three weeks on Thursday (May 22). I suspect they believe this will be a much-needed fillip to Brown. Sure, Gwyneth Dunwoody had a 7,000 majority – but it’s the type of seat Cameron needs if he is to win the kind of majority projected by the ICM/News of the World poll at the weekend. Therefore if Labour retains it, Brown can genuinely claim it is an achievement of sorts. Also you can bet the LibDems will turn up in their caravans, and gobble an unfair share of the anti-Brown vote. So a very small chance of a Tory
Hoey’s ‘clarification’ is perfectly compatible with voting for Boris
Reading Kate Hoey’s ‘clarification’, which Fraser just posted, this sentence jumped out at me. I will be voting for my party and Labour candidates on Thursday. Note, no mention of Ken. Now, considering that everyone who votes in London on Thursday will have the opportunity to vote on three ballot papers—one for Mayor, one for the constituency element of the London Assembly and one for the proportional element–a lawyer would tell you that Hoey could vote for Boris on Thursday while fulfilling her pledge to vote ‘for my party and Labour candidates on Thursday.’ Hoey says that she is not endorsing Boris for mayor, but you don’t need to endorse someone to vote
Hoey’s clarification
A chastened and whipped Kate Hoey has, via the Labour Party HQ, issued this “clarification”: “The key part of the Boris Johnson statement – ie that I will be the first member of his administration – is wrong. I have simply agreed to act in a similar position, for example to Conservative MPs John Bercow and Patrick Mercer – in that I have said that I will advise on a non-partisan basis in respect of my lifetime commitment to bringing sport to the people of London. This is not an endorsement of Boris Johnson for Mayor. I will be voting for my party and Labour candidates on Thursday. I am
Osborne didn’t strike out
I’m not so sure that George Osborne did gaffe when he hinted yesterday that he’d crack down on the power of public sector unions. Labour is stoking the row. But if this provokes Brown to pose as the strikers’ friend, then good luck to him. I know which side the public will be on. In the real world, final salary pension schemes are being closed to new entrants nationwide as funds adjust to Brown’s pension raid (which has depleted the value of our collective retirement cash by at least £100bn). We are all victims, not just Grangemouth workers. Most workers are getting a below-RPI inflation pay rise (average 2.9 percent