Politics

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

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

The Tory MP who thinks Vince Cable is ‘obsolete’

Out on the party scene, Mr S enjoyed BIS minister Matt Hancock’s description of his job to the Institute of Directors bash: ‘Working at BIS is a lot a like sending a telegram. You have to speak in short sentences. With a clear message. With everything going through an increasingly irrelevant and obsolete Cable.’ Boomtish, though Hancock was quick to stress that since he attends cabinet now, he doesn’t have to clear everything through mean old Vince. A point he felt must be stressed. One joke that is already getting old is anyone standing up at an event, without notes, and making a laboured attempt to ‘remember to mention the deficit’. 

Steerpike Steerpike

Angry Dave’s jibe at ‘fat arse’ Reckless

While last week’s Labour conference felt like a wake, the mood is a little better here in Birmingham for Tory party conference. There is a certain amount of gallows humour in the bars, with regard to both the resignation of Brooks Newmark, and – more significantly to Tory fortunes – the latest defection to UKIP. From the very top down, the word Reckless is a dirty one. The Prime Minister toured the regional receptions getting steadily more pumped up in his anger about Reckless’s duplicity. Rumour is rife the words ‘effing Reckless’, ‘fat arse’ and ‘dick head’ were blurted out in various versions of a tub-thumping turn by Cameron. The Tories are

Steerpike Steerpike

Did Osborne’s speech just finish with an ode to Trainspotting?

George Osborne has just finished delivering his speech at the Tory party conference. More analysis to come, but Mr Steerpike couldn’t help noticing a distinct flavour to it. Edinburgh. Drugs. Irvine Welsh. Ringing any bells? The final part – ‘choose the future’, ‘choose David Cameron’ – felt very much like a re-run from the opening scene of Trainspotting. Who knew Welsh’s cult film about Scottish junkies was so close to Osborne’s heart…

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

George Osborne’s speech in six graphs

George Osborne normally shines at Tory conferences. A historian by training, Osborne knows the power of narrative and he had a clear one for the activists today: the recovery started when he took office and its progress has been extraordinary. Many of his claims were well-founded, some less so. Here’s my selection. Let’s start with his statement that ‘Britain is the fastest-growing most job-creating most deficit-reducing country on earth. Britain we did this together.’ listen to ‘George Osborne’s speech to the Tory conference’ on audioBoom

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

White Dee: I might back Ukip instead of Labour

Back in February, Benefits Street star ‘White Dee’ promised to give David Cameron a ‘run for his money’. In her Spectator diary, she described how ‘Ladbrokes has made me 50-1 to be the next MP for Birmingham Ladywood, and until I read that patronising nonsense I wasn’t going to stand. Now, I think I will. As an independent, mind. How far will I get? Let’s just see.’ Dee hadn’t yet made it clear which party she was thinking of joining. She’s speaking at the Tory conference today, although she has been a strident critic of their policies. Previously, she has indicated that she used to vote LibDem, until they joined forces with

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Conservative conference: Liz Truss and Sajid Javid hit Labour

Two of the brightest rising stars in the Conservative party, Sajid Javid and Liz Truss, addressed the Tory conference. After an angry day yesterday where Grant Shapps and the PM furiously attacked Ukip and their backbench colleagues piled in to savage Mark Reckless, the pair needed to use their slow to re-focus party minds on fighting Labour in the general election. They are both well-equipped for such a task: Javid started his speech with a passage on his values as a British Tory, then moved onto attacking the snobbery he encountered from the Labour Party when he was appointed Culture Secretary, and Ken Livingstone’s comments that he saw Javid as

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

What George Osborne should learn from the Scottish ‘yes’ campaign

George Osborne will give his speech in a few minutes, and we’ll analyse it straight after. But I’d like to pick up on something he said this morning on Radio 4. It was an aside, a claim that For the first time in my lifetime, the march of the separatists in Scotland has been reversed This is, of course, not quite true – the SNP have been pushed into reverse many times. Depressingly they tend to bounce back, stronger than ever. After devolution, it looked as if their fox had been shot. After Salmond quit the first time, they looked like a quaint irrelevance. Yet just eleven days ago the ‘yes’ campaign won 45pc

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne’s task: to make his party enthusiastic about government

There’s a funny mood at this Tory conference. It has more energy than the Labour conference, but partly that energy is anger at Mark Reckless’ defection, rather than enthusiasm. MPs and advisers are jittery that another defection will come at another terribly inconvenient moment. A third MP leaving the party will suggest real momentum. So George Osborne’s task when he speaks a little later this morning is to turn the energy that’s buzzing about the hall into enthusiasm for government. The Labour conference, for all its desire to get the Tories out of office, lacked that sincere excitement about the idea of the party being in charge. The Tories need

Ros Altmann

Seven things you need to know about George Osborne’s abolition of the pensions death tax

The good news on pensions just keeps on coming. Today, at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, George Osborne will today announce the abolition of the draconian 55 per cent pension death tax. There’ll be no inheritance or income tax if funds passed on as pension. There had been expectations of this being cut, perhaps to 40 per cent, but the Chancellor has decided to abolish this altogether. I gather this wasn’t due to be announced until the Autumn Statement on 3 December, but the Chancellor has brought the news forward to gather some positive headlines. A chunk of his speech has been trailed: “People who have worked and saved all their lives will be able to pass on

Sunday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Don’t trust this woman: Tory whips warn MPs off Brooks Newmark trap

If you’re a Tory MP who hasn’t been paying much attention to the news and is wearing paisley pyjamas tonight, the Conservative whips are looking out for you. They’ve sent a message out to their party warning them off the ‘woman’ who managed to entrap Brooks Newmark into revealing his bedwear and long-term economic plan. The message, passed to Coffee House by an amused Tory, reads: ‘Please take care with a “Sophie Witams”. You follow her on Twitter. “She” is the person who ensnared Brooks Newmark. Please check you haven’t been approached. You should certainly having no contact and take care.’ It’s nice to know whips are so concerned about protecting their

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

William Hague’s warming warm-up speech

William Hague has just warmed up the Conservative party conference with a lovely, personal speech about his time as Leader of the House. It was tribal, claiming that he had never seen a frontbench that was worse or weaker than the current Labour one, and that with no John Prescott around, there was no-one to make it entertaining either. He listed his own achievements in the party, and praised George Osborne for ‘completely’ turning around the British economy, an interesting line not just because the Chancellor has missed his own targets, but because until recently ministers were still giving out lines to the effect that there is a great deal

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tories accuse Reckless of lying

The Conservatives have decided that the best way to respond to Mark Reckless’s defection to Ukip is to accuse him of lying. On first glance, this may seem like a slightly crude strategy: of course the man was going to lie until the point of his defection, rather than say ‘yes, I am thinking of going over, but don’t mention it to anyone if you can’. But the reason this works is that it rather undermines Reckless’s claim to be a man of principle, or at least, the Tories clearly hope it will. He registered and paid for this Tory party conference, and told his whip three days before the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories think that Mark Reckless is beatable — and they have the anger to fight

The Tory Party is angry. Making my way into the conference centre, every Tory Minister and MP I bumped into wanted to vent about Mark Reckless. Unlike with Douglas Carswell, there is no personal warmth towards him and there is a real sense that Reckless lied repeatedly about his intentions. Grant Shapps gave voice to that frustration in his speech. In an extended attack on Reckless, he declared ‘We have been let down by somebody who has repeatedly lied to his constituents and to you’. He then added, ‘He lied and he lied and he lied’. listen to ‘Shapps: Reckless ‘lied and lied and lied’’ on audioBoom

Steerpike Steerpike

Tory conference: Bitter jokes at the Tax & Spend Inn

The Conservative conference pub is back again this year, with its usual bitter jokes about Labour. Mr Steerpike had an exclusive peek at the posters they’re using to poke fun at Ed Miliband’s party. The pub this year is called the ‘Tax & Spend’. Funnily enough, they’ve decided to remind the Labour leader of the deficit, just in case he’s forgotten: Perhaps someone could set up a Campaign for Real Deficit Reduction.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron: I’ll put immigration at the heart of my EU negotiating strategy

If David Cameron needed reminding of how his conference agenda had been stamped on, it came on the Marr show. The Tories’ conference curtain-raiser of reducing the benefit cap, limiting access to benefits for the under 21s and creating more apprentices was eclipsed by Syria, the Reckless defection, the EU renegotiation and Cameron’s Royal gaffe. listen to ‘Cameron: ‘Immigration will be at the heart of my renegotiation strategy’ with the EU’ on audioBoom

Saturday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Mark Reckless: The away day row that made me lose my faith in David Cameron

What made Mark Reckless decide to defect? Coffee House earlier revealed the timeline that led to the Tory MP standing on the conference stage in Doncaster today, but after his announcement, he sat down with a small group of journalists and explained why he’d decided that Ukip was the right party for him. It started with a row in Oxfordshire. Before explaining, Reckless first refused a glass of wine, and when it was pointed out that sipping water was a little unusual for a Ukipper, he told the group that ‘I’m not a big drinker’, adding sheepishly ‘I had an unfortunate incident some time ago as some of you will

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brooks Newmark quits after sending explicit photos of himself in paisley pyjamas

The Tory MP Brooks Newmark has quit the government – after having been tricked into sending “inappropriate messages” on WhatsApp to a journalist posing as a 20-year-old Tory activist. As the Sunday Mirror puts it:- As part of a series of exchanges, he sent a graphic picture exposing himself while wearing a pair of paisley pyjamas No laws were broken and the paisley pyjamas at least show that some Tory traditions are being upheld. He’s not standing down as an MP – as we know, sending such pictures need not end a political career (Labour’s Chris Bryant says this increased his majority). But it doesn’t help a ministerial career: Newmark is out as civil society minister.  He

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

How The Spectator stopped Mark Reckless from reaching parliament in 2005

When Mark Reckless stands for election as a UKIP candidate for Rochester and Strood, The Spectator will be against him. But we were against him when he stood as a Tory in 2005. Indeed, in that general election The Spectator backed the Conservatives (as you’d expect) but made a specific exception for Reckless, running for what was then Medway. Peter Oborne, then political editor, went so far as to draft a campaign statement for Bob Marshall-Andrews, the Labour MP whom Reckless was trying to depose. Marshall-Andrews, Oborne argued, was the true Conservative candidate. Peter Oborne’s leaflet was distributed very widely during the campaign and Reckless was defeated by a fairly narrow margin (213 votes). So we’re bold enough to think

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tories ready for tough by-election fight

When Douglas Carswell defected, many Tory MPs were quick to say that an aggressive campaign against him would be counter-productive. There is none of that talk today. listen to ‘Podcast special: Mark Reckless defects to Ukip’ on audioBoom Listening to Tories this afternoon one is struck by how so many of them view the Reckless defection as different to the Carswell one. They point out Carswell didn’t regularly deny that he was going to defect in the way that Reckless did. Reckless’s timing is also far more clearly designed to hurt the Tory party than Carswell’s was. Judging by the conversations I’ve had this afternoon, the whips won’t find it