Politics

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

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron has let the extremism row go on – and Labour go on the attack

Yvette Cooper has been granted an urgent question on the extremism row at 2.30 today in the Commons, focusing on the conduct of ministers within government. The Shadow Home Secretary is doing her job, making ministers uncomfortable by summoning them to the Commons to answer a question on whether they have broken the ministerial code. But it’s impressive that the row was left to spin out for long enough for Cooper to manage to make an intervention at all. The dispute between Gove and May made Wednesday’s front pages, but it wasn’t until Saturday that Labour decided to launch its two-pronged attack from Cooper and Tristram Hunt. Cooper argued that

Paul Nuttall

What ‘-ism’ sums up Ukip? Common sense-ism

Last week James Delingpole asked ‘does Ukip believe in anything anymore?’ As a fellow party member I just want him to assure him that we do. His question comes as the party is facing the most important three months in its twenty-one year history: over the summer we will choose our target seats for the general election next May, and simultaneously develop the policies that we will take into that election. We have been accused of having only two policies: withdrawal from the European Union and taking control of immigration, but I believe that this accusation is unfair. We have just fought European Parliament elections and we were the only party

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The next test for Cameron in school extremism row

Downing Street wants to move the May/Gove feud away from two ministers at war and back onto the substantive issue of extremism in Birmingham Schools. Naturally Cabinet ministers at war is a storyline the Prime Minister would like to end. But that doesn’t mean that the statement the Education Secretary gives this afternoon will move the government into more comfortable terrain. Both Labour and the Lib Dems are likely to use this row to argue for better oversight of academies and free schools (although not all the schools involved in the investigation were free from local authority oversight). Though David Blunkett’s proposals for better oversight aren’t a million miles away

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Tristram Hunt is planning his own Trojan horse

Tristram Hunt hasn’t lost much time using the Birmingham Islamist schools scandal to call for an end to the autonomy of free schools and Academies. It’s a bizarre non-sequitur. The ‘Trojan Horse’ scandal happened in schools run by the appalling Birmingham City Council (whose defects I’ve already written about). Yet Labour is using this scandal as its own Trojan horse – to take power out of the hands of parents, and give it back to the local bureaucrats whom the party (sadly) now represents: ‘Cameron’s schools policy has delivered a vacuum in the local oversight of our schools, leaving children exposed to falling standards and vulnerable to risks posed by

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Will Theresa May now become the Gordon Brown of this government?

You can judge a minister by their special advisers. Ambitious ministers surround themselves with aides who view their primary loyalty as being to the minister rather than the Prime Minister or the government as a whole. But those who are just happy to be in Cabinet accept the advisers they are sent by Downing Street and CCHQ. Theresa May was, without a doubt, in the former category. Her aides are ferocious defenders and promoters of her. Indeed, May is, in many ways, the Gordon Brown of this government. Anyone who her team thought was interfering in her domain got their head bitten off. Even on relatively minor issues like visas

Saturday

Douglas Murray

Labour’s radical schools hypocrisy

I see that the Labour party, and Labour’s shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt in particular, are trying to make political capital out of the ‘Trojan Horse’ Islamic schools scandal. I’ll write more about this in the coming week, but for the meantime let me point out what a steaming pile of political opportunism and hypocrisy this all is. Tristram says that Michael Gove ‘chose not to act’ and is guilty of ‘gross negligence’ on Islamic extremism in schools. Let me remind Tristram of a very recent piece of Labour party history. In 2009 it transpired that the Labour government was funding a school-running group called the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation (ISF). At that

The Spectator

Cameron should stop the Tory wars – or send for the man who can

Modern Conservatives seem to be allergic to success. Every time things are going right, the party spasms. Sir John Major’s government nurtured a remarkable economic recovery, yet was beaten after its infighting appalled voters. In opposition, David Cameron acquired a habit of blowing opinion poll leads — a habit he did not, alas, shake off in time for the general election. And now, just as a Conservative victory at the next election looks likely, war has broken out again. What should have been a day of success for Michael Gove has ended in his being forced to apologise for briefing against officials in Theresa May’s department. And the Home Secretary,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

May adviser resigns as Cameron takes control of extremism row

Theresa May’s adviser Fiona Cunningham has resigned as part of the fallout from the Cabinet row over extremism as David Cameron seeks to regain control of his ministers. The Prime Minister today received the results of Sir Jeremy Heywood’s investigation into the row, which exploded onto the front page of the Times and spread like wildfire through other media as the Gove and May camps briefed against one another. Both have been set tasks by the PM to demonstrate that this row is over. Gove has written to Charles Farr and Cameron apologising for his briefing over lunch to the Times which sparked the row. As for the furious response

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Michael Gove’s moral mission

Few modern-day political speeches need to be read in full, but Michael Gove’s today does. The speech to Policy Exchange’s Education Conference contains what must be the moral core of modern-day Conservatism, that disadvantage must not be destiny. Though, the speech does take a very Blairite approach to means. Gove declares that ‘what’s right is what works’. The headlines have been grabbed by Gove’s argument that illiteracy can be ended in a generation. This is a noble aim and there’s no reason why this country should be so accepting of educational failure as it is. It is hard to dispute this part of Gove’s argument: ‘How can it be right

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why politicians should turn, turn, turn to the bible for timeless prose

The Bible may be creeping its way back into England’s classrooms if advice from University of Exeter study is taken But it misses a trick by suggesting that kids are asked. to re-tell Bible stories – rather than study its best passages as examples of word craftsmanship. When the folk singer Pete Seeger died recently, a BBC announcer explained that he had written the song ‘Turn, turn, turn” (the Byrds’ version is posted above). He had a little help: the song is straight from Book of Ecclesiastes with one word, ‘turn’, slotted in by Seeger. As he knew, these words have lost none of their power over the millennia. The

Friday

Jeremy Browne

In a saturated political market, the Lib Dems must define themselves by their liberalism

The British political marketplace increasingly represents a busy bazaar. It is chaotic and unpredictable. The old assumptions about fixed allegiances are crumbling. Customers shop around. They feel little obligation to be loyal. Their attention can be attracted by innovative new propositions. To succeed in this furtive and fluid environment every political party needs to have a distinctive core proposition. The politicians who capture the public imagination have a clearly defined sales pitch. They stand for something unambiguous and argue for it with conviction. Their positions are black-and-white and their style is colourful. In this new era the absence of a unique selling point is a big problem. There is little

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How the Conservatives turned Labour’s attack dog into their PR agent

Here’s a clever way to get more exposure for your political slogan. You say it so often in speeches, press releases and planted questions from the whips that it seeps everywhere, you start dreaming it, and your opponents get very cross indeed. Then your opponents accidentally say your political slogan while all mithered. Then they get a bit jealous that it’s popping up in every single piece of government literature so they complain about this political slogan, which they mention, again, thus ensuring it reaches more and more and more people. Bravo to an opposition that stays calm in the face of a barrage of ‘long-term economic plans’ designed to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne has won over the IMF to austerity. Now can he win over Eric Pickles to planning reform?

Fresh from celebrating the Tories’ victory in Newark, George Osborne is continuing a very joyful day by celebrating the International Monetary Fund admitting that it got it wrong on austerity. Christine Lagarde today conceded that ‘we underestimated the growth of the UK economy in our growth forecast a year ago’. The report the IMF published today contains its usual mix of things that all parties can celebrate: plenty of compliments for the Government such as ‘the economy has rebounded strongly and growth is becoming more balanced’, along with criticisms that Labour finds useful for its press releases. Osborne has very little to worry about immediately from the main criticism, which

Sebastian Payne

Six things we’ve learnt from the Newark by-election

So, the Tories have managed to hold onto Newark with a surprising 7,000 majority. For Ukip, it was a disappointing evening as they failed to come close to taking the seat. Despite adding 22 points to their 2010 vote share, the march of the People’s Army has encountered some unexpectedly difficult terrain. There were some interesting signs about the state of the parties and some hints as to what we might see in the general election next year. Here are six things that we’ve learnt from Newark: 1. Ukip are far from a Westminster breakthrough Despite picking a local candidate in Roger Helmer and putting in a significant amount of

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Scotland’s mature teenagers make the case for all voting to start age 16

I went back to my old school last week, Nairn Academy, taking my family to my native Highlands for half-term. I learned two things: that the gorgeous northeast of Scotland is one of the best places in Europe to go with young kids, knocking the spots of any of the overseas venues where I stupidly tried to holiday before*. The second, more important lesson is that the pupils of Nairn Academy are not just ferociously bright but thought-leaders to boot. A few months ago, they rejected independence in a referendum – and a survey out today shows that two-thirds of the 16- and 17-year olds able to vote in September intend to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Tories have triumphed in Newark. Can they do the same in a national campaign?

The Tories now have a great deal of confidence after Newark. It’s not just, as George Osborne said on the Today programme this morning, that ‘this all shows that if you’ve got a plan that is working for the country and you’ve got a good local candidate, as we did in Robert Jenrick, people respond to that’. It’s also that the party managed to run a very slick and energetic campaign. listen to ‘George Osborne: Newark result a ‘disastrous result’ for Labour’ on Audioboo

Rod Liddle’s ‘humour with a philosophical purpose’

At times hilariously funny and full of insight, Selfish, Whining Monkeys is a profound analysis of how British culture has changed in the last 60 years. Rod Liddle advances his argument by comparing the attitudes and beliefs of his parents’ generation with the equivalent today and skilfully interleaves tales from his own childhood and early life. The values of his parents are summed up as ‘work hard, save money, don’t shag around, marry for love and for life, don’t get pissed, don’t gamble, do as you’re told’. He doesn’t want to go back in every respect. There have been many beneficial improvements but, he concludes, ‘I, and my generation, seem

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tories hold Newark with a 7,000 majority

The Tories have held Newark with a comfortable majority of 7,000 plus. The party will be relieved to have won and delighted with the size of their majority over Ukip which was far larger than the 2,500 that Nigel Farage had been predicting earlier in the night. There will be relief in Downing Street and CCHQ that they have sidestepped this banana skin. Considering that the by-election was a result of the disgrace of the previous Tory MP Patrick Mercer and took place only 11 days after Ukip had topped the poll in the European Elections, it had the potential to be a disaster for the Tories that could have

Thursday

Peter Jones

What Julius Caesar would have done about Nigel Farage

Our politicians are desperately keen to turn the toast of the people, Nigel Farage, into toast himself. But is that wise? Time to consider the career of the Roman general Marius (157–86 BC). Noble families — i.e. those who had held high office — dominated Roman politics. Marius did not come from a noble family, but it was wealthy, and it did have good connections, which Marius later improved by marrying an aunt of Julius Caesar. Thanks largely to his considerable military prowess, he worked his way up the slippery pole, and made his mark in 107 BC when he became consul on a people’s programme, and six times subsequently. First,

The Spectator

Now it’s Gove vs May – will Tory wars ever stop?

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_5_June_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Zac Goldsmith, Chris Skidmore and Fraser Nelson discuss the latest Tory wars” startat=40] Listen [/audioplayer]Modern Conservatives seem to be allergic to success. Every time things are going right, the party spasms. Sir John Major’s government nurtured a remarkable economic recovery, yet was beaten after its infighting appalled voters. In opposition, David Cameron acquired a habit of blowing opinion poll leads — a habit he did not, alas, shake off in time for the general election. And now, just as a Conservative victory at the next election looks likely, the party has decided to lose its head again. The feuding between Michael Gove and Theresa May is, in part, a problem