Politics

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

Thursday

29 May 2014

Europe’s extremists aren’t really on the right

This week, the European parliament took a strong lurch to the left. That is not quite the story that you may have read elsewhere — with most headlines stating that Europe has taken a lurch to the right — but it is the inevitable conclusion if you analyse the results from Sunday’s election from the perspective of what most people in Britain understand to be the left-right divide. Take any political issue in Britain, from schools to public spending, and the left-wing position is generally taken to mean one of greater state intervention, greater command of the economy by government. The right-wing position is taken to mean one of smaller government, freer

Steerpike

Tories, Tories everywhere

If you are a lobbyist looking to access a government minister but want to circumvent the tedious checks enforced by civil servants, then Newark-on-Trent is the town for you. This corner of Nottinghamshire is packed with reshuffle hopefuls and Tory big-wigs ‘doing their bit’ for the by-election bid. Education minister Liz Truss had taken her mum and kids along. George Osborne was milling about while wearing his favourite high-viz jacket. And Theresa May brought her characteristic sparkle to the stump: the Home Secretary told assembled arm-chewing hacks that the Tories’ “excellent candidate” would secure the future for the hardworking people of Newark, you will be glad to hear. Said candidate,

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband must be careful when he talks about suicide

Jim Waterson’s BuzzFeed interview with Ed Miliband is well worth a read. But the opening paragraph stands out in particular: ‘Ed Miliband was in Nottingham last Tuesday when a man approached him to say that his part-time job at a petrol station wasn’t paying enough to take care of two children. This is an anecdote of the sort Miliband is always telling in his campaign to lower Britain’s cost of living, but what the man said next was “chilling.” ‘“He was really, really desperate because he felt couldn’t properly provide for his family,” Miliband recalls. “He was thinking of ending it all because he just couldn’t make ends meet.” ‘“Suddenly

Sebastian Payne

A day in Newark: the Tories are winning the ground war against Ukip

With one week to go till polling day, the Tories are throwing the kitchen sink at the Newark by-election. When Patrick Mercer resigned last month, it was assumed the Conservatives would easily hold the seat. But since then, Ukip gave a strong performance locally in the Euro elections, adding an unknown element — a higher turnout in Ukip’s favour? A rise in the anti-politics sentiment? I visited Newark today to find out how the battle is going. My overall impression is that the Ukip’s operation is being completely dwarfed by the Conservatives. Over 1,000 Tory activists were here last Saturday, with the same expected again this weekend. MPs and ministers

Rod Liddle

Ukip are like the Russian rebels in Ukraine, says David Aaronovitch. Seriously.

The latest spurt of bile from the metro left about UKIP, and the people who voted for Ukip, comes from the extremely self-satisfied David Aaronovitch, a chap who grows more absurd each year as his waistline becomes ever more vast. Next to nobody voted for UKIP, he maintains. The 73 per cent of the population who didn’t vote for them (the majority of these, of course, did not vote at all) wish the party to simply “go away”. I thought you’d enjoy this extract – he is the first of his breed to compare UKIP supporters to the Russian rebels in Ukraine, who are of course another collective bete noir

James Forsyth

For a group of Lib Dem MPs, the war is already over

The anti-Clegg Liberal Democrats are fond of World War One analogies, likening their leader to a general sending wave after wave of troops over the top to their deaths. But a more fitting military analogy would be that around a third of Liberal Democrat MPs are cut off behind enemy lines and there is nothing that can be done to save them that wouldn’t endanger the rest of the army. The stark reality is, as I argue in the column this week, if you are a Lib Dem MP in heavily Labour territory you are going to lose your seat. This is a hard thing for any MP to accept

Alex Massie

What’s the matter with Scotland? It’s full of Scottish people.

Here’s the thing many people misunderstand about Scotland’s referendum on independence: it isn’t really very much to do with England. When someone starts chuntering on about Braveheart and Bannockburn you know you’re listening to a fruitcake. This is true whether the fruitcake is Scots or English. At least the latter have the excuse of ignorance, I guess. Anyway, the point is that as much as we may occasionally dislike or, more frequently, be irritated by the English they’re not the problem. The people we really hate are our fellow Scots. And with good reason. I mean, look at us. The worst part of losing the referendum (whichever side you favour) is having

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Cameron’s dilemma, the collapse of the Lib Dems and Salmond’s secret weapon

How can David Cameron appeal to his own natural supporters in Ukip? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Douglas Murray and Mats Persson from the Open Europe think tank discuss this week’s Spectator cover feature and whether it is too late for the Prime Minister to win back the Ukippers. How does the triumph of Ukip compare to the other populist parties in Europe? What kind of response can be expected from the European Union? And will other countries push for changes in the EU’s open borders policy? James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman also discuss the aftermath of the European elections in Westminster. Was it predictable that the Lib

Peter Mandelson

Peter Mandelson: Ed Miliband needs more policies and fewer promises

In his Spectator diary this week Lord Mandelson offers Ed Miliband some advice… Nigel Farage has no trouble in heaping praise on Putin because of their shared antipathy towards Europe. Farage’s party had a good week. The challenge for them is to build a genuine movement beyond a charismatic leader, a band of fruitcake candidates and a clutch of reactionary ideas. I doubt they will succeed. In my political career we’ve seen two similar ‘breakthrough’ moments, both in the 1980s: the SDP’s rise and fall, then the Greens coming and going. Those parties’ success was only due to Labour’s weakness. When Labour got its act together, their appeal faded. The same

Douglas Murray

Ukip aren’t going away – and David Cameron has no idea what to do

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_29_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Mats Persson discuss the aftermath of the Euro elections” startat=40] Listen [/audioplayer]It must have come so easily back then. In April 2006, the young David Cameron had already assumed the mantle of leader of the Conservative party as arranged by his predecessor, Michael Howard. And as he prepared to assume the next highest office, the insult fell from his mouth with extraordinary ease. ‘Ukip is sort of a bunch of fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists,’ he told his radio interviewer. Deadly. Though not, as it finally turned out, for the party he was attacking. Last week that same Ukip topped the British polls

James Forsyth

Why no one’s ready to oust Nick Clegg (except the Tories, of course)

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_29_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the Lib Dem’s internal warfare” startat=818] Listen [/audioplayer]Nigel Farage is pretty good at giving people hangovers, and on Monday morning all three Westminster party leaders woke up with one. Ukip’s victory in the European elections represents the first time in more than a hundred years that Labour or the Tories had not won a nationwide vote. It showed that the old allegiances on which our politics are predicated have broken down. It also reminded us that none of the parties are national affairs any more; Labour came third in four regions, as the Tories did in six. On this result, Ukip have

Rod Liddle

Labour has proved that it speaks for London – and nowhere else

So, now almost all the votes have been counted — except for those in the Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets, where the vibrant and colourful political practices of Bangladesh continue to keep the returning officers entertained. Allegations of widespread intimidation of voters at polling booths, postal voting fraud and a huge number of mysteriously spoiled ballot papers; so much more fun than the usual dull, grey and mechanistic western electoral procedure. You wonder, looking at the exotic political fervour of Tower Hamlets, how on earth the British people could be so mean-spirited as to have developed this sudden animus against immigration. White British people now make up less than one third

Freddy Gray

Meet Alex Salmond’s secret weapon: the England football team

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_29_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Freddy Gray and Alex Massie on Salmond’s secret weapon” startat=1363] Listen [/audioplayer]Why did Alex Salmond choose this year to hold the Scottish independence referendum? People have said it is because 2014 is the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn, Scotland’s greatest victory over the English, inspiration for that ridiculous last scene in Braveheart. Others believe it is because in July Glasgow will host the Commonwealth Games, after which the Scottish nationalists reckon they will be surfing a wave of yes-we-can enthusiasm. But maybe Salmond, canny fellow that he is, had another event in mind: next month’s Fifa World Cup in Brazil. Scotland won’t be going to Rio, of course: they

Hugo Rifkind

The truth about being a politician’s child

It was a Friday morning in 1992, Britain had just had an election, and I was on an ice rink. No special reason. You’re in Edinburgh, you’re a posh teenager, it’s the Christmas or Easter holidays, weekday mornings you go to the ice rink. It was a thing. Maybe it still is. I was only quite recently posh at the time, having moved schools, and I was — in both a figurative general sense and literal ice-skating sense — still finding my feet. My new boarding-school life was pretty good, though. The way you went ice-skating in the holidays was a bit weird, granted, but you could smoke Marlboro at

Wednesday

28 May 2014

Sebastian Payne

Five things you need to know about the Scottish independence papers

Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Scottish government have been at war today. Both have released papers with conflicting predictions about whether the Scots would be better off outside of the UK. The SNP says individuals would be £1,000 better off out of the UK, while the Treasury argues they’d be £1,400 better off in the UK. Much of this analysis is based on negotiations that haven’t happened and economic forecasts that could easily change, but both papers offer much food for thought. Here are the five key competing claims you need to know from the fiscal policy papers: 1. A £1,400 UK dividend? The Treasury’s Fiscal policy and sustainability paper

James Forsyth

Nick Clegg is safe, but his party will continue to glower a while longer

Nick Clegg is safer now than he was this morning. Lord Oakeshott’s outing as the source of these ICM seat polls and his resignation from the party has put the plotters on the back foot. MPs who were ambiguous in their support for the leader are now much more forthright. Vince Cable himself is preparing a further statement of loyalty to Clegg following his denunciation of Oakeshott yesterday. The Clegg operation is more interested in getting this story over with than settling scores. It is vigorously defending Cable, arguing that he can’t be held responsible for Oakeshott’s actions. But the problem for Clegg is that the Lib Dems’ internal structures

Nick Cohen

The Right loses as Ukip wins

In Brighton in 1996, an insurgent party held its first and as far as I can see only conference. Liberal journalists gazed on the gaudy spectacle with wonder and disdain. We could see that he Referendum Party was a sign of the coming age of the super-rich. It was created by Sir James Goldsmith, a corporate raider who inspired the English tycoon Sir Larry Wildman, in Wall Street, and, you may not be surprised to hear, was a vain and bombastic censor to boot. (He persecuted Private Eye in the courts for not treating him with the deference a mighty plutocrat deserved.) Goldsmith spent most of his time in Mexico

Priti Patel

Tax Freedom Day is a reminder of the choice in 2015: high tax Labour, low tax Conservatives

Tax Freedom Day, which falls today, is cause for celebration. It marks the point in the calendar when someone’s income stops paying for their tax bill and they start keeping the money they have earned. It is an annual reminder that people who work hard and play by the rules deserve to keep their hard won earnings. It is why cutting tax has always been a priority for Conservatives. Four years ago we inherited a tax system that was designed to be as complicated as possible. Gordon Brown’s stealth taxes doubled the revenue the Treasury raised through taxation and National Insurance. In total, Labour put up taxes 178 times, and

Isabel Hardman

Will Oakeshott’s demise kill off Lib Dem revolt?

Nick Clegg said this morning that ‘appropriate steps’ will be taken to deal with Lord Oakeshott after the peer was outed as the ‘Lib Dem supporter’ who had commissioned uncomfortable polling about the Lib Dems’ chances in 2015. As with other difficult situations with Lib Dem peers, though, Clegg doesn’t have that much power to remove the whip from Oakeshott, even if he’d like to. Speaking after his speech on international development the Deputy Prime Minister said: ‘I think it is wholly unacceptable for people in a campaigning political party facing very very difficult elections last week as we were to find out now with hindsight that a senior member

Alex Massie

Scottish Independence: The Cost of Living Like This

Yippee! The number-crunching boffins are at war again. The UK and Scottish governments have today released rival forecasts for life in an independent Scotland. It will not surprise you that the UK government’s projections run towards the pessimistic side of the ledger while their opponents in Edinburgh take a sunnier view of Scotland’s future economic circumstances and performance. Fancy that! The Scottish government suggests there might be £5bn windfall from independence; the UK government reckons each Scot receives a ‘Union dividend’ worth something like £1,400 a year. They can’t both be right. In fact the probability is they are both wrong. That is, Scotland’s fiscal and economic position would be

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