Politics

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

Saturday

Sebastian Payne

Revealed: Nigel Farage’s path to Parliament

Now that Newark is a no-go, Nigel Farage will be turning his thoughts to where he will stand as an MP. He said this week that returning its first MP will be a huge breakthrough for Ukip, so choosing a seat that he can win is vital. After declining to stand in the 15 by-elections that Ukip have contested since 2010, it looks as if Farage will wait until 2015 to run for Parliament. Coffee House understands that, ideally, Farage would like the seat to fit three criteria. Firstly, it needs to be a marginal seat. Secondly, he wants to have some local connection — he feels his lack of

Friday

Douglas Murray

We should have nothing but contempt for Peter Hain

Peter Hain has become a disgrace. Earlier this year it appeared that the Former Northern Ireland Minister was one of the people responsible for the cock-up over letters of amnesty for ‘on-the-run’ terrorists. Now he has gone several steps further. Just last month Hain was just telling everybody who has lost a relative during the Troubles in Northern Ireland and who never saw anyone convicted for the crime that they should just get over it. His line as of last month was that victims of unsolved cases must simply accept that they will never see justice. But now he seems to have decided that he is not merely a cack-handed peacemaker

Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

National Trust trusting in green dogma

Strange happenings at a place that many people think of as one of Britain’s National Treasures: the National Trust. As we point out in our leading article this week, the Trust and their director-general, Dame Helen Ghosh, seem to have done a 360 on fracking. Last year, Dame Helen had an ‘open mind’ when it came to fracking. But in an interview with the Guardian this week, Dame Helen revealed that she has turned her back on shale. She explained that the decision was made because: ‘We don’t believe anyone understands the environmental impacts, and because we as far as possible would want to avoid anything that encourages the continued use

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Rents are falling, in real terms. So why does Ed Miliband want state intervention?

In recent weeks, I have found myself defending Ed Miliband as much as attacking him. I do believe that his election would be a calamity for Britain, but that doesn’t mean I think he is an idiot pursuing a stupid strategy. On the contrary, I think what he is doing is bold, coherent, radical and chimes with the emerging populist mood. I also think that it is working – as things stand, he is on course to become the next Prime Minister. I look at this in my Telegraph column today. The rent control policy announced yesterday embodies this bold populism. Britain has a problem with buying houses – one

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Coalition letter war steps up a notch

Coalition relations are growing more fractious and sour. Even departments where the rapport between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems had been respectful, such as Justice, are starting to bicker publicly. Today the Mail splashes on a row between the two parties over knife crime, in the week of the stabbing of teacher Ann Maguire. Nick Clegg has refused to support mandatory minimum sentences for repeat knife offences, and the normally secret letters discussing the measures have made their way into the pages of a newspaper. Only a few months ago, ministers and advisers thought things were going sufficiently well in most parts of the Coalition (aside from Education, which

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Is Nigel Farage trying to distract us?

On location for The Sunday Times in the exciting by-election town of Newark-upon-Trent, I asked a nice local woman about her voting intentions. What way do you think you’ll be voting, I asked. This is what she said. “Um, yes, the poll. Well, I will turn right out of my house and walk down the road and then there’s usually a what-do-you-call-it, poll thing, in St Leonard’s Church, on the corner. I think that’s right..” I just thought I’d share that response with you. It is interesting that the leader of UKIP. Nigel Farage, who is of course somewhat Eurosceptic, apparently believes that contesting a poll for election to the

Thursday

Peter Jones

What Boris and Pericles have in common

What is Boris’s great secret? Does it lie in the bust of the Athenian statesman Pericles (c. 495–429 bc) that he keeps in the Mayor’s office in London? The key can be found, perhaps, in Pericles’ passionate commitment to the idea of Athens as a ‘living lesson for Greece’. This was the central message of his famous Funeral Speech (430 bc) — not so much the heroism of the dead as the uniqueness of the city for which they had died and the contrast with its bitter rival, the conservative, inward-looking, military-obsessed Sparta. Athens was a model to others, Pericles affirmed, a democracy governed in the interests of the many,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband’s price control pattern

Ed Miliband has got the reaction he wanted to his speech on the private rented sector, which he used today to launch Labour’s local election campaign. Landlords and nasty right-wingers hate this latest stage in his ‘cost-of-living contract’. The Residential Landlords Association said rent controls ‘would critically undermine investment in new homes to rent and are not needed’ and the National Landlords Association said ‘the proposal for a three-year default tenancy is unnecessary, poorly thought-through and likely to be completely unworkable’. On Coffee House, Policy Exchange’s Chris Walker says ‘rent controls are at best misguided and at worst could be counterproductive, longer-term’. Grant Shapps suggested that these were ‘Venezuelan-style rent controls’. Which

Steerpike Steerpike

Nigel Farage joins the political greats

Nigel Farage has been ‘egged’ while on the campaign trail. He was pelted by a protestor as he left his car. The protestor was dragged away by police. Mr S can’t help but notice that Farage has joined a list of political greats, including such lights as John Prescott and Ed Miliband, who have been ‘egged’ while out on the stump. Truly, Ukip has arrived.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Yes voters are the Union’s secret weapon

Well some of them are anyway. Consider the tweet above. It’s since been deleted and you can see why. Gerry Adams’ arrest might not be an obvious element of the Pan-Unionist Conspiracy but if you think that you lack the imagination necessary to be the wilder kind of Scottish nationalist. Then again paranoia is a consequence of monomania and breathtaking solipsism. Of course it’s just a tweet and only a single one at that. But there are plenty others like it. And yes, for sure, there are loonies on the Unionist side too. There really are people who think Alex Salmond evil and, lord knows, there are any number of Unionists making

Charles Moore Charles Moore

One way to persuade me to vote Ukip

So far, I am disinclined to vote for Ukip in the forthcoming Euro-elections. Our area has been represented for many years by the great Daniel Hannan, the leading practising Eurosceptic of our times, so I have resisted the Faragiste temptation. But I felt a bit wobbly after reading an interview with Nigel Farage in the Guardian. According to its author, Decca Aitkenhead, Ukip supporters — though not the libertarian Nigel himself — want to make dressing up for the theatre compulsory. They are so right. It is now almost compulsory not to dress up for the theatre, even in the West End. This has had the predictable result that theatre-goers pay less attention, eat and

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Ukip isn’t a national party. It’s a Tory sickness

It can happen that something ought to feel wrong yet somehow doesn’t; and you wonder whether this means that in some deep way it could be right. Take for example a discussion on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday last week. The subject was the rise of the ‘Teflon’ United Kingdom Independence Party. I ought to have found the programme’s handling of this to be inappropriate; yet it felt both appropriate and natural. In this column I shall discuss why. Radio presenters do not give explanatory headlines to political interviews. At about 8.20 a.m. Evan Davis simply said ‘Let’s talk about Ukip’ and off they went, ‘they’ being himself

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Revealed: George Osborne’s plan to become Foreign Secretary

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_1_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss Osborne’s Foreign Secretary aspirations” startat=646] Listen [/audioplayer]Confidence is coursing through Downing Street at the moment. The economy is growing at a good clip and senior Tories feel more optimistic than ever about the result of the next general election. With this belief in retaining office comes more thought about what a second-term Cameron government would have to do. Minds are also turning to the question of how the top team should be reshaped after the general election. Politically, one issue towers above all others: Europe. Within 18 months of being re-elected, the government will have to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

If Ukip aren’t racist, how come so many racists seem to like them?

The most thought-provoking discussion about racism I ever heard took place five years ago on Channel 4’s Celebrity Wife Swap. No, it did. On the one side they had the former TV pundit and football manager Ron Atkinson and his wife Maggie, and on the other they had the former Olympic javelin thrower Tessa Sanderson and her husband Densign. Maggie Atkinson was the star. ‘Ron’s not a racist,’ she kept saying, with all the sincerity in the world. ‘He’s not. He’s just not.’ That’s all. Possibly I oversold it. The point was, this was about five years after Ron’s TV work had pretty much dried up, due to the way

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Ed Miliband slapped in the face by bouncy Dave

As the economy bounces back it keeps smacking Ed Miliband in the face. At PMQs today he tried to pose as the people’s champion fighting fat-cat capitalism. He started with Royal Mail, which is now worth a billion more than when it was floated. In hindsight, any privatisation can look like a Westminster mega-blunder or a Square Mile stitch-up. Miliband took the latter view. Referring to the clique of 16 ‘golden ticket’ investors, he asked why these lucky speculators had been allowed to flip their shares for an instant profit while the hard-working posties had been ordered to retain theirs for three years. Cameron spotted the trick. Posties got free

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Theresa May wins battle with Number 10 over stop-and-search reform

So Theresa May has won her battle with Number 10 on stop-and-search reform, sort of. She announced a number of changes this afternoon to the power for police – but they’re all voluntary. That the Home Secretary has managed to get any of these changes into a state where she can announce them is a victory – but the initial voluntary nature of the reforms was the compromise necessary to make this announcement happen. The changes are as follows: The Police and Criminal Evidence Act Code of Practice A will clarify what constitutes the ‘reasonably grounds for suspicion’ on which the police carry out the vast majority of stop-and-searches. If

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron is linking Ed Miliband to Labour’s past mistakes

What a very long PMQs today, presided over by a very bumptious John Bercow. The Speaker let the exchanges run into what he called ‘injury time’, made a rather poisonous jibe at Labour MP Fiona Mactaggart over her private schooling, and told the Prime Minister that as far as he was concerned, he had finished an answer when the PM didn’t believe he had. listen to ‘Cameron defies Bercow’ on Audioboo

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why Farage isn’t standing in Newark

I always thought that it was unlikely that Nigel Farage would stand in Newark. When I discussed the prospect of a by-election there with him on Monday, he seemed drawn to the idea of a local candidate; pointing out how the Canadian Reform Party had secured their key by-election breakthrough with ‘a completely unknown geography mistress, who lived in the town, who had lots of relations there’. Farage’s decision not to stand is a recognition that the Tories are bound to pick a local candidate and that their campaign would paint him as someone who is interested in what Newark could do for him, not what he could do for

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Farage (wisely) bottles the Newark by-election: ‘I’m a fighter, I’m a warrior’

Much relief in Downing Street this morning as Nigel Farage announces that he’s not standing in the Newark by-election. Coffee House readers had the best insight into the Ukip leader’s thinking when James posted the details of a conversation he’d had with Farage about the constituency. And his prediction that Farage may well decide to not stand was right. listen to ‘Nigel Farage says he’s not standing in Newark: ‘You have to pick your battles’’ on Audioboo Farage has bottled it, he’s frit. That’s what every relieved Conservative MP is saying this morning. It’s true: Farage got to the cliff edge, looked down, and edged away from what he saw.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Mercer mess

Patrick Mercer has gone out in style. One Tory MP, hearing that the whips had tried to dissuade him from triggering a by-election fight with Ukip at an extremely inconvenient time for David Cameron, told me: ‘It’s a waste of time. He’s determined to damage Dave. He’s Colonel Nicholson in Bridge on the River Kwai!’ Mercer has left Cameron a little present in the form of this by-election. Even if Nigel Farage announces today that he won’t stand in the contest (and James’s post from last night on the Ukip leader’s thinking is a must-read), Ukip can still repeat its success in Eastleigh by fielding an impressive formerly unknown candidate. In Eastleigh,