Politics

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

Friday

Sebastian Payne

Michael Gove’s schools ultimatum pushes up standards

Michael Gove’s reformation of the education system from top to bottom has so far been unstoppable. Often though, the Education Secretary’s detractors bellow there is a lack of proof that his reforms are doing any good. Today’s news (£) that hundreds of primary schools have benefited from Gove’s tougher approach to internal management adds credence to the view that his freeing up of our education system is working. This year, the number of schools below the government’s baseline target dropped by more than half: ‘League tables of this year’s primary school test results showed that 521 were beneath his minimum threshold. Of these, 37 have since been replaced by academies with new sponsors

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why Ed Balls is so confident about benefit wars

The debate over benefit uprating will run and run because both sides think they are winning. George Osborne thinks the public resent generous benefits rises. Liam Byrne and Ed Balls want to call this a ‘strivers tax’ and think blue collar workers will fall into their arms. Byrne told Coffee House yesterday that Labour will be hurt opposing to the Welfare Uprating Bill. I understand that the Shadow Cabinet reached its decision after YouGov’s polling showing C2DE  voters  – the three lowest socio-economic groups – saying benefits should have been increased in line with inflation. Osborne’s Bill would increase welfare by 1pc, behind expected inflation. Some 42 per cent of C2DE respondents said it was

Douglas Murray

Arab Winter update

Rachid al-Ghannouchi is a great British success story. This Muslim Brotherhood leader sought asylum in Britain in 1989 and stayed here throughout the reign of Tunisian dictator President Ben Ali. After the recent Tunisian revolution Ghannouchi returned to his native land, bringing with him the values of tolerance and democracy he learned in the UK. Whoops – that last part is wrong. Since returning to Tunisia this Brotherhood leader and leading Hamas fan, has – through his leadership of the major Brotherhood party in the coalition – helped to lead Tunisia down the road of Islamic fascism. The latest news on Great Britain’s export is that he recently took part

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Gay marriage: no culture wars, please, we’re British

Ever since the issue of gay marriage returned to British politics, we have seen the debate become crazier and crazier.  When Tony Blair handled this with his Civil Partnerships Act 2004, he did so with care and discretion, mindful of deeply-held opinions on either side of the debate. David Cameron seems to pursue gay marriage as some kind of defining mission statement, and seems to have driven his party quite mad. Nick Clegg released a speech drawing a distinction between the supporters of gay marriage and ‘bigots’. He revoked the b-word, but his tactic was clear. We are witnessing an attempt to bring American-style culture war to a country that

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

One Nation Labour can’t just be about reassuring voters

Ed Miliband is giving another one of his repositioning speeches today: this time about immigration and integration. We’re going back to the Labour leader’s school and his family again, as well as reminiscing about Olympics: none of which are exactly groundbreaking territory, given Ed explored the first two at length in his conference speech, has explored his family history at length in many speeches since becoming leader, and that all three party leaders used the Olympics for their own purposes in their autumn conference speeches. Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis should start charging politicians royalties for using their names in speeches about culture: they appear, alongside Zara Philips, in Miliband’s

Thursday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

S&P puts George Osborne a step closer to losing the AAA rating

Standard & Poor’s has delivered its verdict on George Osborne’s mini-Budget. It has reduced its outlook to negative, as per Citi’s predictions (which I blogged about last week). Citi said the S&P thumbs-down would happen in the new year: it took days. S&P now thinks there’s at least a 33pc chance that the UK will lose its AAA rating. Little wonder, given that UK debt is rising faster than any country in Europe. S&P says the UK could lose its coveted AAA status… “in particular as a result of a delayed and uneven economic recovery, or a weakening of political commitment to consolidation.” I suspect this refers to what James Forsyth refers to as

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne isn’t clashing with Vince Cable: he’s starting to agree with him

By this stage in the Coalition, everyone would have expected at least one major bust-up between George Osborne and Vince Cable. But his evidence to today’s Treasury Select Committee suggested that the Chancellor isn’t so much involved in a stand-off with the Business Secretary as he is taking on his point of view. It was significant how many times Osborne had to explain a softening in what were previously hard-and-fast economic rules, and hard-and-fast policies. His refusal to rule out replacing the Bank of England’s inflation target with a growth target is the most significant sign of a coalescing between the two men. Osborne told the committee that the current

Oliver Duggan

Nick Boles attempts to soothe planning critics

Planning Minister Nick Boles admitted yesterday that he did not believe his controversial suggestion for Britain to build homes on two million acres of countryside should be put into practice. The new minister caused a storm last month when he supported a 3 per cent increase in UK-wide development to alleviate the housing shortages caused by high immigration. The plan was to build homes on green-field land, increasing development from 9 per cent to 12 per cent nationwide. But yesterday, Boles denied the claims, arguing that they were meant to illustrate a wider point about under-development rather than create a particular policy or target. His admission came after the Prime

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Liam Byrne interview: The welfare system is ‘completely out of whack’

Liam Byrne is a modernising, Blairite Labour MP, and in case you were in any doubt about that, he conducts his interview with Coffee House sitting next to a framed photograph of him with Tony Blair. The party’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary is well known for his modernising zeal, which has sometimes led him onto a collision course with his party grassroots and other MPs on the left. This week, though, he’s on a collision course with the Conservatives, who hope they’ve managed to corner Labour into admitting it hasn’t quite modernised its welfare policy enough to win voters back. The Welfare Uprating Bill, launched in last week’s Autumn

Wednesday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 12 December 2012

Here is a point about the coalition which is so obvious that I have not seen it expressed. When a single party is in power, the approach of a general election is the key discipline: almost however much colleagues disagree, they unite. When there is a coalition, the opposite applies. Each partner needs to disown the other. Because the coalition foolishly legislated to fix the life of this Parliament, the parties are bound together until May 2015. It is like the pre-war situation of marriage as satirised by A.P. Herbert in his novel, Holy Deadlock. The only means of divorce is to behave appallingly. The effect is that what began

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Ed Miliband, the political vulture

PMQs today revealed just how dependent Ed Miliband is on Britain’s future performance. The public finances have shaped his entire career. In government, he watched Gordon Brown screw the economy. Then he watched the economy return the compliment. Now he hopes the economy will wreck the Coalition and propel him into Downing Street. But there’s a snag. The economy has to tank, and to carry on tanking, for Miliband’s Mission Zero to succeed. And today, in defiance of all the soothsayers, the economic news is good. Employment figures are rising. Nearly 30 million Britons are in work. And those tricky youth unemployment totals are moving into sunny territory too. Ed

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Insults fly at PMQs

Today’s PMQs was visceral stuff. Ed Miliband accused the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of being Bullingdons Boy who were taking decisions about ‘people they’ll never meet, people, people whose lives they’ll never understand.’ Cameron gave as good as he got, attacking Labour as the ‘party of unlimited benefits’ and said that Miliband ‘only stands up for those who claim.’ These exchanges over the decision to limit the increase in working age benefits to 1% in the autumn statement cheered up both side of the House, the Lib Dem benches looked a bit glum though. Labour and the Tories are both comfortable with these battles lines—convinced that the public is

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The ‘Stop Boris’ Hunger Games: an interview with Michael Gove

On Monday, I interviewed Michael Gove for the new Christmas double issue of The Spectator. It’s out tomorrow but here’s a longer version, arranged in subheadings so CoffeeHousers can skip over bits they’re not interested in. This is the picture that stands behind Michael Gove’s desk: an imposing McCarthy-era poster which saying: ‘Sure, I want to fight Communism – but how?’ In their less charitable moments, Tories may argue that his Department of Education is as good a place as any to start. The strength of its grip over state schools has long been the subject of political laments and Yes, Minister sketches. Confronting the educational establishment was too much

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Downing Street defends Maria Miller’s special adviser

Downing Street has defended Maria Miller’s special adviser over the way she warned the Telegraph about the Culture Secretary’s connection to Leveson as it prepared a story on her expenses. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman has just told the lobby: ‘My understanding is that the special advice was raising legitimate concerns about the way in which the investigation had been handled. It was perfectly reasonable for her to do that. ‘The Secretary of State raised these concerns directly with the editor. It is reasonable for someone in the government to raise these kinds of concerns about the way a newspaper is conducting an investigation.’ Asked whether the Prime Minister still

Douglas Murray

The 2011 census proves why politicians are distrusted

What do people take away from the 2011 census? I cannot help but see the clearest possible reason for why trust of politicians is at an all-time low. Perhaps other voting members of the public remember as far back as 2004 when the Labour government predicted that fewer than 20,000 people would come to Britain from those Eastern European countries given full access to the UK labour market. As of last year the Office of National Statistics confirmed at least 669,000 people from these countries working in the UK. Or they might remember Labour immigration minister Phil Woolas promising in an interview with the Times in 2008 that, ‘It’s been

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Maria Miller’s adviser reminds us why politicians can’t be trusted with press regulation

An email from an Asian friend last night pointed me to a piece in the Telegraph  saying: ‘This is the kind of thing they do in Singapore! I’m amazed it’s happening in Britain.’ She was referring to Maria Miller, the Culture Secretary, whose adviser told the Daily Telegraph to be careful about exposing her expenses because the minister now has power over press regulation. The story is here: a classic example of the ‘chilling effect’. As soon as you give these politicians a hint of power over the press, they will abuse it. As Maria Miller’s case has shown, they will abuse it even before they get power. They will

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Maria Miller’s Leveson threat

Journalists don’t normally reveal their conversations with special advisers to ministers, no matter how grumpy they are about a forthcoming story. So it is significant that the Telegraph has chosen to disclose a warning from Maria Miller’s adviser Joanna Hindley about the minister’s connection to press regulation when reporters were preparing a story on her expenses claims. This is the key passage: When a reporter approached Mrs Miller’s office last Thursday, her special adviser, Joanna Hindley, pointed out that the Editor of The Telegraph was involved in meetings with the Prime Minister and the Culture Secretary over implementing the recommendations made by Lord Justice Leveson. “Maria has obviously been having

Sebastian Payne

Tory minister says yes to EU and no to immigration to win at 2015

David Cameron’s Conservative modernisation agenda is struggling. Several of today’s front pages highlight how traditional Tory issues — immigration and family values — have returned to the centre stage. And many of Cameron’s attempts to modernise his party on big issues (climate change, green energy, gay marriage, HS2) have met with a negative responses. How can he retool his modus operandi to win a Tory a majority at the next general election? Policing and ex-immigration minister Damian Green has a few suggestions. In a speech he will give to Bright Blue this evening, Green suggests Cameron’s modernising agenda is not yet an ex-agenda, and can still be refashioned to work in 2015.

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Thank men for women’s lib

Let’s get this straight. I’m a feminist. That’s the way I was brought up. My mum was a passionate women’s libber and I always agreed with my mum — even when she was wrong — but she was right on that one. The struggle to free one sex has liberated both. The human species is now freer, more dynamic and more fulfilled than ever. But here’s the oddity. When I read histories of the women’s movement I rarely find any hint that men were involved at all. Men are either sidelined completely or portrayed as a bunch of sexist wreckers who strove to hold women back at every turn. Quite untrue,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Our person in Brussels

One of David Cameron’s great skills is his ability to separate the cares of office from the rest of his life. Samantha Cameron is never likely to say, to misquote Clarissa Eden, that ‘in the past few weeks, I have really felt that the terms of the European renegotiation were flowing through my drawing room’. This Christmas, however, the Prime Minister’s working hours are likely to be dominated by Europe. For in the new year he is expected to give a speech setting out how he wants to change the terms of Britain’s EU membership. Several new European treaties will be needed in the next few years as eurozone governments