Politics

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

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

And the winner of PMQs is …  Boris Johnson

The best part of PMQs came just after it ended, in the form of an irate Boris Johnson. “I am sure the Prime Minister inadvertently misled the House when he said I want to cut spending on the Metropolitan Police”…. Brown was walking out the door, to Tory roars. “I’m the only one who has to stay and listen to it” says Michael Martin. Boris had just done what the other Tories should do all the time: refuse to put up with falsehoods said by the Prime Minister. There were plenty. Brown said the Tories opposed increases in education spending. Untrue. He told MPs recently that inflation is down from

Peter Hoskin

Tories getting tougher on crime

David Cameron’s interviewed in today’s Sun, and he outlines new Tory plans to increase the stop-and-search capabilities of policemen: “We are never going to deal with [violent crime] unless we free the police to do far more stopping and far more searching. I am quite clear the current rules have to go. In the British police service there were problems with racism, there were problems with attitude. That needed to change. I think it has now been changed. That change is a good thing. But it’s now time to recognise that it is now possible for the police to carry out more stop and searches without being accused of racism.

The Skimmer

So Conway’s punished, but not by the BBC…

So farewell, then, Derek Conway. You will not be missed. But his departure is no thanks to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Tory MP Roger Gale was put in to bat for Conway yesterday morning and Caroline Quinn (or was it Sarah Montague — it’s quite hard to tell the difference) was such a soft touch that listeners could be forgiven for thinking that Conway had some right on his side. Gale, a thoroughly unpleasant and bitter man, steam-rolled over her and Quinn/Montague was too poorly briefed to deal with him. It needed somebody equally unpleasant and solipsistic to deal with Gale — where was John Humphries when he was

Andrew Neil

European inaction

Consider the response of America and Europe to the current financial turmoil. In Washington, the US Federal Reserve slashes interest rates by 75 basis points and the Bush administration proposes a $150bn stimulus package of tax cuts, which will probably win bipartisan support in Congress.   Back on this side of the Atlantic, Gordon Brown summons the leaders of France, Germany and Italy (plus the boss of the European Commission) to a meeting in 10 Downing Street. After an afternoon of deliberations, the British Prime Minister emerges to mouth all his usual cliches about stability, transparency and co-operation. Not a single measure that will make a blind bit of difference

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

“Administrative shortcomings!”

Ordinaily Derek Conway wouldn’t interest this blog. But the Tory MP, who has had the party whip withdrawn after defrauding the taxpayer by paying his sons to “work” as his parliamentary researchers has performed a great service nonetheless. Though, Mr Conway was reprimanded by the Standards Committee after “no record” was found of Freddie Conway doing any work for him as a researcher. The student was paid more than £40,000 for his three-year employment period. we should be exceedingly grateful to Mr Conway for his contribution to the Lexicon of Political Euphemism. According to the MP, using his parliamentary allowance as a family allowance to pay for his child’s boozing

James Forsyth James Forsyth

First Florida Exits

National Review has some early exit poll numbers from tonight’s potentially decisive Republican contest and they show just how close the race is. McCain apparently has 34.3 percent of the vote to Mitt Romney’s 32.6. Our new US politics blog, Americano, will have full coverage as the night unfolds.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Hanging chads close

Once more, an election in Florida is crucial to the future of America. If John McCain wins here today then he almost certainly will be the Republican nominee. If not, then this contest will go on beyond Super Tuesday on February 5th, when more than 20 states vote, and that helps Mitt Romney who has the money to compete in every state. The polls show that the race is far too close to call. Indeed, it will be a major surprise if either candidate wins by more than a point or two. Perhaps, the most amazing thing about this contest though is how irrelevant Rudy Giuliani seems. He is currently

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Is withdrawing the whip enough for Conway?

After saying he wouldn’t withdraw the whip from Derek Conway last night, Cameron has finally performed the U-Turn and done so now. Good. A night of dithering is better than a decade of it. So all eyes now on Old Bexley & Sidcup Conservative Association (a rather bashful lot, judging by their photo gallery) – will they deselect him? And what do CoffeeHousers think – is withdrawing the whip punishment enough? Or is it time for him to be deselected like Howard Flight was for talking about tax cuts?

Peter Hoskin

Conway “reported” to the police

In the headline to my earlier post on the Conway scandal, I wrote: “Conway row to escalate” – and my how it’s escalating.  The latest news is that a Lib Dem candidate has reported Conway to the Metropolitan Police.  If this leads anywhere, then David Cameron will certainly live to rue the statement that the Tories issued last night: “Derek Conway has apologised fully on the floor of the House of Commons and the Whip has not been withdrawn. The appropriate punishment is being administered” Many feel that Cameron’s actions have been “decisively wrong” on this matter, although Nick Robinson notes that there are “small procedural reasons” and “one very big political reason” for why Conway’s not in

Peter Hoskin

Conway row to escalate, as Tory poll lead shrinks

Following yesterday’s initial revelations, it’s since emerged that Derek Conway employed another of his sons using taxpayers’ money.  The news is like manna to the Government, and has spurred the Labour MP John Mann to call for another formal investigation into Conway’s actions. All this is backgrounded by another poll showing decreased Tory leads.  Today’s Independent / ComRes poll places Labour on 30 percent (unchanged since last month); the Conservatives on 38 percent (down 3); and the Lib Dems on 17 percent (up 1).  Significantly, this was conducted after Peter Hain’s resignation. I speculated yesterday that the Tories might not be offering enough of a change agenda.  But – even if

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Driving change

After ten days behind the counter here at CoffeeHouse, I have at last had my inaugural kicking – for my earlier piece on the Conservatives and their current “negative politics”. So it is with a rather sadomasochistic spirit that I enter the fray again.   Numerous commentators are slating the Tories for failing to capitalise on Brown’s misery in the polls. Why this failure? I see a link between the Tories’ rather lowly showing and their engaging in some more bluntly adversarial politics (of the name-calling variety) over the past few weeks. Exhibit A would be Cameron calling Brown “that strange man in Downing Street”. Quite right, you may say, politics is a brutal business. However,

Peter Hoskin

Disclosing expenses

Just a very brief post to say: you should check out Robert Winnet’s important post on MPs’ expenses over at Three Line Whip.   There’s clearly something very wrong with the system when, as Winnet puts it: “[Derek Conway] hired his son – a full time university student – as a researcher, who received about £50,000 in taxpayer-funded salary, pension and bonuses without any evidence of any work actually being carried out.”

Peter Hoskin

The Tories’ negative brand of politics

After the findings of the latest Guardian/ICM poll – which placed Labour on 35 percent (up one point) and the Tories on 37 percent (down two points) – there’s a hard-hitting article by Trevor Kavanagh in the pages of today’s Sun.  Kavanagh laments the Tories’ inability to capitalise on recent political events: “Maybe Gordon Brown is a lucky politician after all … The dour Scot has endured the most brutal battering of any new Prime Minister in history — mostly self-inflicted … His Government is adrift, dithering and indecisive … It is under siege on immigration, street violence, squandered cash and rampant hospital superbugs … Yet voters seem remarkably forgiving …

Sunday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Does the Republican party deserve to be saved?

Thanks to John-Paul Pagano for ensuring I didn’t miss this while on hiatus. In an illuminating passage National Review’s Kathryn-Jean Lopez reveals the reasons why John McCain cannot be considered a conservative: I’m second to none in praising him on his surge leadership. But on a whole host of issues — including water boarding, tax cuts, and the freedom of speech — he’s not one of us. Rush Limbaugh has emphatically stated that McCain is not a conservative — and he has more than a few listeners with similar instincts. John McCain, of course, opposes water-boarding, taking the old-fashioned view that the United States should not be subjecting prisoners to

Peter Hoskin

Is Brown the heir to Blair?

James Purnell’s clearly trying to set some Stakhanovite record for delivering soundbites today.  After the “full employment” claim on Marr this morning, he issues an even-more-startling declaration in today’s Observer – that “Gordon Brown is clearly the heir to Blair”. Whilst I’m sure Coffee-Housers will enjoy analysing which aspects of the Brown regime are a continuation of the Blair years, what Purnell’s suggesting here is that Brown is developing the Blairite reform agenda.  And – just like the full employment claim – this is patently false.  Reform is being rolled back not forward – city academies are increasingly obliged to follow the national curriculum; funding for independent health centres is being

Matthew Dancona

The slow erosion of government

Black Wednesday exercises such a grip over our imagination that we sometimes forget that governments collapse because of the slow erosion that precedes the big storms. It is the drip-drip, not the tsunami, that does for them. In John Major’s case, it was the daily farce of Back to Basics and the never-ending saga of ‘sleaze’ – as much as Britain’s ignomious exit from the ERM – that ensured electoral disaster for the Tories in 1997. For Gordon Brown, the involvement of Alan Johnson in yet another donations story must be the cause of something approaching despair: were any of the candidates for the Labour deputy leadership paying attention to

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Purnell’s deceiving himself over “full employment”

James Purnell made his Marr debut today, filled with the Brownite script. Our new Work & Pensions Secretary should have looked more closely at those fake statistics he was given to regurgitate, because he repeated the most outrageous claim they make: that Britain has reached full employment. As he told Marr:- “We used to even worry as the Labour Party if we could commit to aiming for full employment. Now we’ve reached it. We have the lowest unemployment for 30 years.” If he genuinely believes this, God help us. I recommend he downloads this table (click here) from his own department, memorises its most egregious points, and sees what “full

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Clegg and spending

Nick Clegg continues to say the right things. This passage from Steve Richards’s interview on GMTV Sunday Programme this morning: “We understand that the years of unprecedented increase in public spending, and let’s remember the increases in public spending since 2000, three years after New Labour came into power, is probably without precedent anywhere in the Western world since the war.  There’s been an explosion in public spending.  That is not going to continue, in fact it’s going to very much level off.” Of course, he “envisages” that taxes will lower – while the Tories say taxes will fall “over the cycle”. So the Tory policy is still harder. But

Saturday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Reihan Salam is in excellent form

Barack Obama: still not a muslim. No word, as far as I can tell, from Hillary Clinton explicitly condemning the Obama-is-a-muslim-which-means-he-wants-to-destroy-America whispering campaign… Reihan, again, puts it most splendidly: I was wondering. What do you think would happen if Islamist radicals were a more important constituency in Democratic primaries than voters who instinctively distrust anyone who may have at some point spent time in a majority-Muslim country? I imagine Clinton would don a burka and issue a fatwa against Obama on grounds of being an apostate, which is of course technically true, and then perhaps calling for his beheading. That is the great charm of the Senator — her flexibility.

Peter Hoskin

Maybe Hain’s the lucky one

Matthew Parris’ lucid article in the Times fuels my suspicion that Gordon Brown will come out of the past week in worse shape than Peter Hain.  Media outlets may have given Hain a kicking, but they’ve delivered an unprecedented broadside into the hull of Battleship Brown.  Parris outlines the main source of ire – Brown’s indecision – nicely: “Come on, Gordon, admit the truth: you did not have complete confidence in Mr Hain, you never cared for him much anyway, you hated all that “donor-gate” stuff, but when it came to giving this minister the chop you funked it, hoping events might fashion a peg on which to hang his removal: a peg other than your