Politics

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

Thursday

Douglas Murray

Matthew d’Ancona has unwittingly shown why people want to vote Ukip

Well it’s polling day, and if anybody wants a spur to vote Ukip they have two options: Peter Oborne’s stirring cover piece in the new issue of The Spectator and Matthew d’Ancona’s column in yesterday’s Evening Standard. If the sight of white activists pretending to be Romanians so that they could accuse black UKIP members of ‘racism’ did not push you over the edge, then d’Ancona’s column probably will. His article was headlined: ‘We must expose UKIP as the racist party it is.’ This is some promise: for years, Ukip’s enemies have been trying to suggest that the party is racist. D’Ancona’s evidence? Ukip seemed to be racist because it –

Sebastian Payne

Euro elections 2014: final polls put Ukip in first place

The final two polls are out on today’s European elections; both of which put Ukip in first place. YouGov, whose poll at the weekend had both parties tied, has placed Ukip just one point ahead of Labour with 27 per cent of the vote — well within their margin of error: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/hgc3p/index.html”] Opinium on the other hand put Ukip seven points ahead of Labour in their final poll, up five points on the last Opinium poll: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/W2nre/index.html”] Turnout will be key as to what happens in these elections, and the indications from YouGov’s likelihood to vote ratings are that Ukip supporters remain the most enthusiastic. Earlier in the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

‘Every pub is a parliament’: on the campaign trail with Nigel Farage

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_22_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss what will happen in this week’s elections” startat=921] Listen [/audioplayer]Ambushing your opponent’s walk-about is a classic tactic of the political insurgent. When a major party leader comes to town, you position guerrilla campaigners on his route, near the cameras. Then you pounce, so the local news features your posters and messages, rather than his. Senior Tories often complain about how often Ukip has done this to them. But in this European election campaign, it is the Tories who were trying to muscle in on Nigel Farage’s action. In Portsmouth, as Farage arrived to much fanfare, the wiry Tory candidate Flick Drummond was

Peter Oborne

How Nigel Farage gave British democracy back to the voters

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_22_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Peter Oborne debates Matthew Parris on Ukip’s impact on British politics” startat=41] Listen [/audioplayer]Whether or not Ukip wins, this month’s European election campaign has belonged to one politician alone: Nigel Farage. Single-handedly he has brought these otherwise moribund elections to life. Single-handedly he has restored passion, genuine debate and meaning to politics. Single-handedly he has reinvented British democracy. This is a superlative achievement, and Mr Farage deserves to be celebrated. Instead strenuous attempts have been made to turn him into a figure of odium and contempt. Farage has twice been physically assaulted, once when attacked with eggs whilst campaigning in Nottingham, once when struck on the head by

Sebastian Payne

The most shocking thing about young Ukip supporters: they’re normal

Close your eyes and imagine a young Ukip voter. Let me guess: mustard trousers, swivel eyes and foaming mouth, ranting furiously about the European Union, socialism, ‘lib-tards’ and so on. Now meet Dayle Taylor, a young Ukipper working at McDonald’s in Accrington. He’s no fruitloop, just a typical modern student who grills Big Macs to pay his way through university and feels that none of the major parties speak for him. What distinguishes him from your average British youth is a lack of apathy about politics. ‘I’m always encouraging Ukippers at McDonald’s,’ he says, ‘and I build up a rapport with the regulars who say they haven’t voted before but

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Forget about saving British big pharma – it’s little pharma we should be helping

Readers in all sorts of places — at the club bar, over a birthday lunch, even along the church pew — had been telling me I was wrong not to subscribe to the ‘save AstraZeneca’ campaign, and too complacent about the future of British science when I wrote: ‘the game is Pfizer’s for the taking, as soon as the price is right’. Now Pfizer has retreated, it looks like the battle has been won by the bandwagon I missed, whose crew included Ed Miliband, the Unite union, and former AZ chief Sir Tom McKillop — better remembered as the chairman of RBS who presided over its catastrophic merger with ABN-Amro,

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron defends government policy his Tory colleagues hate

A Prime Minister defending a government policy is usually quite unremarkable. But today David Cameron defended the Government’s free school meals policy, and given the amount of vitriol this has attracted between the two Coalition parties in recent weeks, that really is remarkable. He told the World at One: ‘I don’t really accept it was made on the hoof because, as I say, it was trialled, a decent amount of time has been set aside for its introduction, £150m… Any change is always difficult and I think you should judge the change as it comes in. ‘This Government has made a lot of difficult decisions, a lot of changes but

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Exclusive: Nigel Farage doesn’t want to lead the Out campaign

Nigel Farage has told The Spectator that he doesn’t want to lead the Out campaign come an EU referendum. In an interview, he said, ‘It needs a figurehead and I’m a warrior not a figurehead.’ Farage believes that if Ukip win the European Elections then a referendum will be inevitable. He says that come the referendum, he will play his part ‘I’m a fixed bayonet man, albeit that I don’t see myself as a private. But I see myself leading a division into battle, that’s where I fit in.’ The Ukip leader wants someone who ‘someone who has been very big in British politics’ to take charge of the No

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband’s weak shadow cabinet batting order

Most of the reshuffle-related excitement in Westminster is focused on a pending Tory one. But does Ed Miliband’s top team need a bit of freshening up too? I blogged last week that Labour backbenchers, including a number with serious experience of government, were unhappy with the way many of the Labour top dogs are failing to go out to bat for their leader. Miliband has certainly trodden on his stumps in the past few days with some broadcast gaffes, but he does have a problem with the batting order below him. Yvette Cooper has worked hard to turn around the Labour position on immigration from the Gillian Duffy days to

Steerpike Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Boris and Dave’s double act

Boris and Dave have been enjoying each other’s company on the campaign trail in Newark today. Just look how cosy they are at the station: But is that Boris sneaking a longing glance at the red box that the Prime Minister carries with him as a trapping of office? Anyway, the two men got along very well on the train: For a little while at least: Neither seem particularly excited about the sandwiches on offer in Costa, though. Perhaps like Ed Miliband, they’d rather eat a bacon butty…

Steerpike Steerpike

Naughty Tories quaff champagne rather than campaign

Tory whips have been haranguing backbenchers and ministers to campaign ahead of the European Elections and the Newark by-election. They have been keeping extensive lists of who is pulling their weight. Ever helpful, Mr S thought he would draw up a little list of his own. These Tory MPs were sipping champagne with Thatcher’s PR man Lord Bell at Bell Pottinger’s plush summer bash at Spencer House last night instead of canvassing for votes: Davis, D Duncan, A Duncan Smith, I Field, M Green, D Hancock, M Lidington, D Lilley, P Luff, P McLoughlin, P Menzies, M Mitchell, A Wharton, J Black marks all round.

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Why Nigel Farage was right about those Romanians

Here is a preview of Rod Liddle’s column from this week’s Spectator magazine Should we be worried about the vast numbers of German-born people living covertly in the United Kingdom? The Office for National Statistics estimates that in 2011 some 297,000 Germans were resident here, the fifth largest non-British-born contingent (after Indians, Poles, Pakistanis and the Irish respectively). What the hell are they all up to? Sitting in smartly furnished homes, biding their time, and waiting, waiting. That’s what I suspect. A report in the Guardian a while back suggested that our German community tended to ‘stay under the radar’, an ability which mercifully eluded them 70 years ago. The

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Scotching a myth: Scotland is not as left-wing as you think it is

Alex Salmond and David Cameron have more in common than a shared appreciation for Andy Murray’s tennis. Not, of course, that you would ever persuade either of them to admit that. At the very least, their supporters are more alike than either man would like you to believe. A new survey commissioned by Dundee University’s Five Million Questions project confirms as much. On a range of issues SNP supporters are as close, or closer, to Tory voters as they are to Labour voters: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/M9xAk/index.html”] This will not surprise diehard leftists, of course. If the First Minister was ever a socialist he ceased to be a comrade long ago and

Steerpike Steerpike

The Axelrod Effect

Are we finally seeing the effect of Ed Miliband’s expensive investment in David Axelrod? As the New Republic pointed out in 2010: ‘Food mishaps are central to the Axelrod mystique. He was famous during the campaign for having disabled a BlackBerry with a stray piece of donut glaze. He once convened a meeting with a gravity-defying clump of oatmeal clinging to the frame of his glasses.’ The magic touch of Obama’s famous strategist, hired at for inordinate sum by the Labour Party, seems to be rubbing off on Ed as he visited Covent Garden Flower Market this morning for a bacon sarnie.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Bearable Lightness of Being A British Scottish Nationalist

Backstory: I wrote a post suggesting that Scottish Nationalists’ rhetoric might these days usefully be compared to Doublethink. I suppose there were many who could have been chosen to serve as examples but I decided to pick on Pete Wishart, MP for Perth and North Perthshire. Unfairly I quoted him extensively, something I now concede was “point scoring” (though not, I protest, of the “pointless” kind). Anyway, Mr Wishart has now responded but not, I am afraid, with anything terribly persuasive. Let me, then, in a spirit of ecumenical pity, offer the response one of the many Pete Wisharts could have written… Patriot. Nationalist. Socialist. Whateverist. Multitudes lie within each

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Joint Ukip candidates is Farage’s second best option

Nigel Farage has stirred up talk again this morning of joint Conservative/Ukip or Labour/Ukip candidates. This has been doing the rounds ever since the Ukip leader mooted it in an interview with James in the Spectator, but neither main party is keen. The reason is that this would effectively outsource candidate selection to someone outside the Conservative or Labour party: only candidates Ukip considered sufficiently ‘sound’ according to its own standards would get the Farage kitemark, and therefore local parties with Ukip breathing down their necks might be tempted to choose a more Ukippish type to stand for them than otherwise. But there’s another point worth making about the joint

Tuesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Andrew Mitchell demands the police publish transcripts of ‘plebgate’ hearings

The plebgate scandal has flared back to life tonight with a letter from Andrew Mitchell to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bernard Hogan-Howe. Mitchell alleges that one of the police officers on duty on the night of the incident boasted to a friend ‘I can topple the Tory government’. According to Michael Crick, Mitchell gathered this evidence at the recent Met disciplinary hearings that he was allowed to attend. Mitchell now wants the transcripts of these hearings published along with the evidence presented to them. The Met’s response tonight suggests that they won’t agree to this. Those close to Mitchell are getting increasingly frustrated at how long this whole

Jonny Rose

Nigel Farage’s failed fightback in Croydon

Ukip held a carnival in my hometown, and I found myself caught up in it. They’d enticed us to the Whitgift Centre with talk of a steel band, their large number of local BME candidates and a chance to see Nigel Farage. After more accusations of racism, picking Croydon did make sense for the party. It is London’s most populous borough and the largest town in Europe. It can confidently describe itself as one of the ‘melting pots’ politicians love: 2011 Census data shows White British people make up less than 50 per cent of the population, with 18 different ethnic groups living in the borough. Ukip’s local candidates include

Shiraz Maher

The Abu Hamza case shows that Britain has outsourced terrorism trials

It must seem awfully peculiar to Americans that it should take their courts to convict Abu Hamza on terrorism charges, including a kidnapping he orchestrated in Yemen which resulted in the deaths of three British citizens. Both the Home Secretary and Prime Minister have welcomed yesterday’s verdict. Yet, to listen to them is to forget that it has taken more than 15 years and a foreign court to hold Abu Hamza to account for these crimes, circumstances which should be the cause of outrage – not celebration. This merriment is indicative of a discrete policy now being pursued by the Coalition which effectively outsources terrorism trials. In some cases there

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Carnival of the Ukippers

Ukip’s we’re-not-racist ethnic minority carnival in Croydon always looked as though it was going to provide plenty of material for sketchwriters and critics. It was another attempt by the party to showcase its non-white members and candidates, with local candidate Winston McKenzie on hand too. But the event aimed at spinning a line about the party’s open-mindedness spun out of control. The steel band told journalists they didn’t know they’d been booked by Ukip, and were pretty unhappy about it too. Then a group of protesters accused the party of being Nazis. Then McKenzie, explaining why Nigel Farage had pulled out of attending the event, described the town he is