Politics

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

Thursday

The Spectator

Spectator letters: Scottish Tories, ambulances and Florence Nightingale

The other Tory split Sir: With regard to the article by James Forsyth (‘The great Tory split’, 6 September), there is another dimension to the future of the Conservative party of which the Scottish independence vote is symbolic. The Conservative and Unionist party looks as though it lacks the leadership and the political skills to keep the Union together, certainly to make a convincing job of it. Whichever way the vote goes, it will not reflect well on the Conservative leadership. They are seen as part of an ‘out of touch’ Westminster elite which has neglected not just Scotland but much of England, becoming a party of the south-east rather than

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What would the Tory party really do if Scotland voted ‘yes’?

Even when it is at peace, the Conservative party deals in hypotheticals all of which involve David Cameron being ousted in one way or another. That’s why backbenchers have been wargaming what will happen to David Cameron if Scotland votes ‘Yes’ next week. It’s why 1922 Committee executive members have been calling fellow MPs, or pouncing on them in the corridors (one spent a good long time lurking in one particular corridor in Parliament yesterday, snaring backbenchers) to find out what they would do if the worst happens in the referendum. Everyone agrees that a ‘Yes’ vote would be seriously damaging to the Prime Minister and that it would lead

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Unionists must prepare for a second vote on Scottish independence

Tonight will bring another YouGov poll on the Scottish referendum and this may change the mood again. But right now, the pro-Union side is in far better cheer than it was. It feels that it has not only held the line in the last few days but begun to turn the tables on Salmond. There is a sense in the No camp that they have disrupted Alex Salmond’s momentum and prevented him from turning the final week of the campaign into a procession towards independence. They feel that the economic warnings from various business mean that the consequences of the choice are becoming more apparent. While the promise of a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Alex Salmond’s persecution complex

Alex Salmond gave a very good speech earlier today about why Scots should vote for independence. It was full of the sort of emotion and rhetoric that the ‘No’ campaign is only now beginning to summon in the final few days of campaigning. He said: ‘A ‘Yes’ vote is about building something better. It is about the growing acceptance across virtually every community in Scotland that no-one, absolutely no-one, is better-placed to govern Scotland than the people here ourselves. No-one cares more about this country, and no-one will do a better job of governing this country than the people of Scotland.’ listen to ‘Salmond: ‘This is the moment to believe’’

The Spectator

‘Please, stay with us’: the best of Spectator readers’ letters to Scottish voters

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_11_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, Tom Holland and Leah McLaren discuss how we can still save the Union” startat=50] Listen [/audioplayer]At 9.30 p.m. last Saturday news broke that Scotland’s ‘yes’ campaign had established its first opinion poll lead. Since then, the country has been confronting the possibility of its impending dissolution. The vote will affect all 64 million people in the United Kingdom, and most have neither a vote, not a voice. Last weekend, The Spectator asked readers to submit letters to Scottish voters, saying why they are hoping for a ‘no’ vote. Those printed here are a small selection from the hundreds we received. Strikingly, almost no one talks (as

Jenny McCartney Jenny McCartney

So, Ken Livingstone, do you like Boris personally? ‘No’

I am standing outside Ken Livingstone’s family home in a pleasant row of terraces in the multi-ethnic, north-west London suburb of Willesden Green (commemorated in the novel White Teeth by the novelist Zadie Smith, perhaps the most widely celebrated daughter of the parish). If the authenticity of a Labour politician’s socialism can be gauged by the size of his house after leaving office, then Livingstone certainly has the edge on Tony Blair: it’s a long way from the hauteur of Blair’s main residence in Connaught Square. I ring the bell, but no one appears to be in. Then the 69-year-old former London mayor strolls up the street after doing the

Merryn Somerset-Webb

What it means for your savings if Scotland votes yes

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_11_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, Tom Holland and Leah McLaren discuss how we can still save the Union” startat=50] Listen [/audioplayer]I bet that until a few days ago you thought the referendum in Scotland was a mildly amusing sideshow. Perhaps you still do. Perhaps you are convinced that the ‘silent majority’ that Better Together are so sure will step up to the plate at the last minute really exist. Perhaps you think that the reasons many people are giving for voting ‘yes’ are so vague that voters will change their mind on the day. Or even if they don’t you might think it is all an irrelevance. Perhaps you know about

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Britain’s demographic timebomb (and how to profit from it)

Demography is destiny, they say, and if that’s the case then Britain’s future looks wrinkled and grey. Today, one in six Brits is over 65. By 2050, on current trends, it will be one in four. There are now three million octogenarians living here, a figure that is expected to double by 2030 and reach eight million by 2050. Retirement? Sorry, dears. The government will have to keep pushing back the state pension age, so many of us should expect to carry on working until senility or death intervenes. It’s grim stuff. But here’s the good news: geriatric Britain presents a huge investment opportunity. It’s hard to think of a

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

New poll puts No ahead in the Scottish referendum campaign

Tonight brings the first morale boost for the No campaign in a wee while, a Daily Record poll has them 53-47 ahead. Including don’t knows, the numbers are No 47.6%, Yes 42.4% and don’t know 9.9%. A while back, a 53-47 poll would have been regarded as alarming by the No camp. But a week is a long time in politics and tonight’s numbers will be seen as a reassuring sign that a Salmond victory is not inevitable and that independence doesn’t have unstoppable momentum. Particularly reassuring for the No side is that the number of Labour voters backing independence has fallen, which suggests that the bleeding on that front

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The result of the Scottish referendum will be seismic whether yes or no

It is very difficult to see how David Cameron would survive a ‘Yes’ vote in the Scottish referendum. There are certainly Conservatives who are making detailed plans to oust the Prime Minister if Scotland does vote to leave. But it is also worth noting that a ‘No’ vote would not ensure an easy ride for the Conservative leader with his party. A number of Tory backbenchers are unsettled by the speed at which the parties have moved to promise devo-more. They say they can’t see the point at which the government moved from resisting devo-max to all three Westminster parties promising a significant transfer of powers. And they will cause

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The row over Bercow’s clerk choice rumbles on…

A little later today, MPs will move from discussing ‘Ukraine, Middle East, North Africa and Security’, a debate title that shows how dreadful the international scene is at the moment, to discussing the governance of the House of Commons. This, for those who had been distracted from the issue by other less important matters, is the latest stage in the row about the Speaker’s plan to appoint Carol Mills as the Clerk. Two camps have emerged in the past week. There are those who are after the Speaker himself, who see him as ‘damaged goods’ and don’t think he can command the respect of the House. And then there are

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron and Miliband have panicked well today

While Westminster sent its own plea to Scottish voters, David Cameron and Ed Miliband were both making fine, impassioned speeches that both tried to scotch the SNP line that a ‘Yes’ vote was the only way to achieve a fairer Scotland. David Cameron had to address to specific – and quite beguiling – argument that this is Scotland’s chance to get rid of the Tories, that from independence onwards, it will never be governed by parties poorly represented within its borders. He did so by being a little attention-seeking: ‘I think the third thing that can come across in the remaining part of this campaign is the scale of the

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Strange allies and a fake truce makes for weird times in Westminster

Weird times in Westminster. PMQs was downgraded today so that the evening news wouldn’t carry pictures of a remote House of Commons debating the referendum in a complacent and uncaring manner. Passion is today’s watchword. Urgency too. And the personal touch. The party leaders are up north, right now, engaged in a three-legged race to lose the union. Possibly they’ll fail and save it instead. If so, it’ll be an accident. Down here, MPs offered a show of unity. Unfortunately this created the very impression they were hoping to avoid: a crew of smug southern cronies chatting away on comfy leather upholstery, many hundreds of miles from the front line.

Steerpike Steerpike

Missing: One Secretary of State for Scotland

Don’t they know there’s a war on? Given that the government has finally woken up to the very real threat of a ‘yes’ victory, Mr S was rather surprised to hear where the Secretary of State for Scotland has been. Spies report that Alistair Carmichael spent the day in London yesterday. Presumably someone had to be in charge of handing out the Saltires. Witnesses reported him ‘loafing’ around Portcullis House, and he was even papped popping out for a casual coffee: I’m not quite sure what Alistair Carmichael Scotlands Sec found so funny this morning maybe Cameron losing the Union! pic.twitter.com/MezuUcXeqB — Political Pictures (@PoliticalPics) September 9, 2014 The Scotland

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

PMQs: Harman and Hague drop the questions and give a joint speech to save the Union

PMQs was an odd affair today, and not just because there was no PM. It was more that William Hague and Harriet Harman, left in charge while their respective leaders try to save the Union, didn’t really do a question time at all. Their entire exchange was one speech pleading with the Scots to stay, stitched together. What questions Harman did ask were merely rhetorical ‘doesn’t-he-agree’ sorts, rather than an attempt to extract information from the Leader of the House. It was a very positive joint speech about the benefits of the United Kingdom and the success of the Union. But we learned nothing – which was the point, really,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Britain gets better European Commissioner job than expected

Jean-Claude Juncker clearly appreciated that high-five David Cameron gave him in Brussels recently: he’s appointed Lord Hill to a sizeable economic portfolio as the UK’s European Commissioner. The full list of jobs, published here, is being billed as a ‘strong and experienced team standing for change’, and Hill, who Juncker reportedly had to google, takes the Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union portfolio. This means that has oversight of a key interest: regulations affecting the City. David Cameron is a little more worried about another Union today, but this appointment is a boost to his plans to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the European Union. It shows that he did

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Indyref panic spreads to cool heads

There’s nothing wrong with a bit of last minute pressure to concentrate the mind, if it produces the right sort of results. The problem is that the pressure of the last few days of the Scottish independence referendum seems to be getting to a lot of the coolest Westminster politicians. Alistair Darling sounded genuinely unsettled when he sat in the Today programme studio on Monday, and today it was Sir John Major’s turn to sound panicked. The problem with this sort of panic was that the former Prime Minister failed to make much of a positive case for the Union while sounding utterly terrified of the impact of Scottish independence,

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Westminster is definitely not panicking or cobbling together anything

Here are a number of things that the Westminster parties’ response to the narrowing Scottish independence polls have definitely not been. Absolutely definitely not. 1. A cobbled-together response The three parties deciding to announce the new powers for Scotland and timetable for the handover of those powers in the event of a ‘No’ vote may, to the untrained eye, have looked like a last-minute, last-ditch attempt to reverse the fortunes of the Better Together campaign. But no, argued Nick Clegg today when he sat before the the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. ‘I don’t accept the characterisation this has all been sort of cobbled together at the last minute.’ The

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Why I am voting No

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_11_Sept_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson, Tom Holland and Leah McLaren discuss how we can still save the Union” startat=50] Listen [/audioplayer]Once upon a time, a long while ago, I lived in Dublin. It was a time when everything seemed possible and not just because I was younger then. The country was stirring too. When I arrived it was still the case that a visa to work in the United States was just about the most valuable possession any young Irishman or woman could own; within a fistful of years that was no longer the case. Ireland was changing. These were the years in which the Celtic Tiger was born. They were

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour learn a valuable market lesson

A wincing Douglas Alexander told Newsnight last night that the tightening of the referendum polls ‘saw more £2 billion worth of value wiped off the stocks of Scottish companies.’ His pained expression revealed concern for ‘real people’s pensions and the threat to real people’s jobs… on the basis of a single opinion poll.’ Better Together are clinging to the markets as an indicator of the consequences of independence: ‘You don’t need to take my word for it, look at the judgement of the market this afternoon – look at the judgement in relation to Scottish shares.’ But does Labour’s general election coordinator have any experience of speculation and mere words wiping out huge amount