Politics

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

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The danger of another Balkans war

 Andrew Rawnsley has an important piece in the Observer this morning about how conflict could again break out in the Balkans. The issue this time is the final status of Kosovo. The Americans favour independence for Kosovo, the Russians oppose it and the EU is mostly for it but with conditions.  As Rawnsley explains, “Time is now very short. The mandate for the EU’s peacekeeping force in Bosnia expires this week and it is contested whether it can legally continue if the Russians wield their veto. There is a 10 December deadline for agreement in Kosovo. It is almost universally expected there won’t be any agreement. Then the really scary

Saturday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Blair’s warning

David Aaronovitch’s piece in The Times today based on his interviews with the former Prime Minister and his associates for his The Blair Years series on the BBC is fascinating. Once again Blair reiterates that he did Iraq because he believed that it was the right thing to do. His concluding remarks, though, are grim: “The enemy that we are fighting I am afraid has learnt . . . that our stomach for this fight is limited and I believe they think they can wait us out. Our determination has got to match theirs and our will has got to be stronger than theirs and at the moment I think

Matthew Dancona

The winners of the political year

This is the text of the remarks that Matthew d’Ancona, editor of The Spectator, delivered at the Spectator Threadneedle Parliamentarian of the Year awards lunch at Claridge’s Hotel. My Lords, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and welcome to the 23rd Threadneedle/Spectator Parliamentarian Awards. Yes, once again, this is the big one: the Oscars of Westminster, the Booker Prize of our lawmakers, the Blankety Blank cheque book and pen of the political cosa nostra. First of all: thank you to Mark Malloch-Brown for lending us his study for the ceremony. Second: if any of you are feeling a little light-headed please don’t panic: this is due not only to fine quality

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Here’s a Tory split on Europe you won’t have heard about

Oliver Letwin’s enemies thought they had seen the last of him at Blackpool. His idea of laying out a policy smorgasbord had almost sunk the party, they argued. Yes, there were some good ideas (mainly from Iain Duncan Smith) but having multi-millionaires like Zac Goldsmith proposing a Happy Planet Index and telling the shoppers not to use supermarket car parks was disastrous. Presenting contradictory policies to the public did not make the party look open-minded, it was argued, but downright schizophrenic. Once David Cameron fought his way out by deciding hard-headed policies for himself and announcing them at the Blackpool party conference, it was assumed he had learnt his lesson

Leo McKinstry

How labour unrest nearly lost us the Battle of Britain

‘The nation had the lion’s heart. I had the luck to give the roar,’ Winston Churchill said of his role in achieving victory in the second world war. The idea that the British people were united, steadfast and resolute in the face of adversity is one of the enduring themes of our island story, still cherished more than 60 years after the war ended. A central figure in this narrative of wartime glory is the Spitfire fighter, which became a much-loved symbol of national defiance through its heroic exploits in the Battle of Britain in 1940. Yet the Spitfire saga is no tale of unbroken success. The early years of

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Saddle sore

OK, this is obviously extremely odd behaviour. But where’s the crime here? There’s no victim. There’s no lewd or offensive public display. Nothing at all. And yet this poor sod is now on the Sex Offenders’ Register for three years. Madness. If they can convict you of this, what can’t they convict you of? A man caught trying to have sex with his bicycle has been sentenced to three years on probation. Robert Stewart, 51, admitted a sexually aggravated breach of the peace by conducting himself in a disorderly manner and simulating sex.Sheriff Colin Miller also placed Stewart on the Sex Offenders Register for three years.            

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A pillock on his gap year?

Bob Marshall-Andrews, the independent-minded Labour MP for Medway is a Whip’s nightmare. But he’s the sort of stout citizen any parliament worth the name needs more of. Years ago, we received good value from him when we invited him to speak at my undergraduate debating society. So, it’s nice to see that he’s lost none of his waspishness. Via Iain Dale comes this assessment of our boyish Foreign Secretary: Labour backbenchers seem to be getting uneasy about David Miliband. In Quentin Letts’s Daily Mail sketch today Medway MP Bob Marshall-Andrews describes Miliband as “this pillock* on his gap year**”. Letts insists that Marshall-Andrews was sober when he said this and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Can the Tories win black votes?

Clive points to a fascinating New Statesman story by David Matthews on whether the Tories can pick up significant black support at the next election—last time out they only got 2 percent of the black vote, compared to 80 percent for Labour. As the piece points out, the Tories now for the first time have black candidates, and a black MP, who could make it to the very top. Wary as I am about talking about blocs of voters in terms determined by their ethnicity, the Tories really should aspire to a far higher proportion of the black vote; especially as their idea of allowing non-state bodies, such as faith

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Who does Blair think his natural heir is?

The Independent have launched a string of new blogs which are well worth checking out. Open House, their comment blog, looks particularly promising—anything that offers us more of John Rentoul and Steve Richards can only be a good thing.  Rentoul, who is one of the great authorities on Tony Blair, flags up a rather revealing interview that the former PM gave to David Miliband’s local paper. Here’s the key passage: “Did Mr Blair ever think that the South Shields MP would be his natural heir? He glanced up at the Foreign Secretary again, asking: “Shall I answer that?” Mr Miliband nodded cautiously with his eyes closed. “I’m very proud of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Men in tights

Jack Straw has taken to the ceremonial trappings of his new role with a vengeance. The former firebrand NUS president never seems happier than when dressed in his finery. Now Kevin Maguire reveals that Straw has been in training for his new role, or at least the dressing-up part of it, for a lot longer than anyone had realised: Gold-coated Jack “the Lad” Straw put on a magnificent display of grovelling for the Queen, a republican reintroducing the deferential practice of walking backwards at the Ruritanian opening of parliament. The Blackburn boy looked fetching in his breeches, though not quite as charming as when he watches his local footie team

James Campbell

Howard’s end nears

There’s just over a week to go until the Australian election and it’s very hard to see John Howard winning it from here. Though there has been a slight narrowing over the course of the campaign, all polls are still showing Labor with a landslide winning percentage of the vote, 54-55%. Thanks to favourable electoral boundaries Howard’s Liberals could probably lose the popular vote by as much as 2% and still win, but they needed to be a lot closer by now. Unfortunately everything seems to be going wrong. Last week the Reserve Bank raised interest rates for the sixth time since Howard was re-elected in 2004 with the slogan

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Who is Clegg closer to?

Nick Clegg’s interview with the New Statesman is well worth reading for an insight into how he sees relations with the two main parties. Clegg describes himself as “an anti-Labour northern MP” and explains why he thinks that the Lib Dems’ room for growth comes from taking seats from Labour: “Something like 85 per cent of our MPs are in former Conservative seats. I want to hold on to those gains and improve on them. Look at the political map of Britain: the places where we are going to win the most seats in the next few years are in the Labour heartlands. One of the reasons I’m keen to

Thursday

The Spectator

Watch the Parliamentarian of the Year Awards live

If you want to watch today’s event live click here. The awards ceremony from Claridge’s Hotel in London will be broadcast live with welcome speech from 1-1:10pm and 1:50-2:30 pm. The awards will be presented by last year’s winner John Reid and hosted by Matthew d’Ancona, editor of the Spectator. To watch click here.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown and terror

Peter Riddell has a very wise column in The Times today. As he points out, what Admiral West said yesterday about 56 day detention was actually quite sensible even if it was a ‘gaffe.’ While the burden of proof should be high for extending the period of detention without charge, it would be glib to dismiss the possibility that it might be necessary at some point. (The current Tory position that it hasn’t been needed yet so is not needed is hardly an example of rigorous thinking.) Brown’s speech yesterday on counter-terrorism showed that politicians are beginning to grasp that the problem is not just terrorist violence but the ideology

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

How open government really works

The Daily Telegraph’s Christopher Hope wanted to know who Gordon Brown has been inviting to dine at Chequers since he became Prime Minister. Not an unreasonable Freedom of Information request you might think – especially to a Prime Minister who pledged a new era of openness and accountability. Well, how’s that working out? Not so well it seems… Here’s the reply Mr Hope received from Downing Street: Sir Humphrey would be proud.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown avoids a thumping

Brown lost over immigration at PMQs, but wasn’t thumped which is a result for him. He is desperate to tease out a Tory split on the EU referendum, and may be making progress. I notice that when Brown embarked on his usual misleading economic boast (incapacity benefit numbers are dropping about as fast as Venice is sinking), he did not claim to have created 2m new jobs. We now know immigration is to thank for most of this. The Tories should explode the rest of his myths, and leave him with no ammo at all. He seemed more assured today, but Cameron played better to the cameras. And that, of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Is this all that Gordon has left to do?

I guess all the other problems facing the government must be solved as Gordon Brown is now to turn his attention to making sure that premiership teams select more British players. As The Guardian sports section puts it: ‘British players for British clubs.’ Brown is a genuine sports fan and there’s public concern over the issue, but is this really an issue worthy of government time? If Brown really does want to do something about this problem, he should concentrate on reversing the decline of competitive sports in schools and access to playing fields; problems that government of both parties have largely created in the last forty years. He might