Politics

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

Thursday

The Spectator

The great creep forward

It took Tony Blair about five years to work out what he wanted to do with his government and George Osborne appears to be on a similar, depressingly slow learning curve. It’s not that he lacks ideas. There were plenty of good ones in his mini-budget this week, including tax cuts for the low paid, and for companies. But none of this will speed the recovery. ‘It’s taking time, but the British economy is healing,’ the Chancellor said, to laughter in the house. We are not even halfway through the recovery. To go through the small print of the budget was to grasp just how vile the outlook is. At

James Forsyth James Forsyth

For the Autumn Statement, stability: for the mid-term review, ambition

After months of squabbling and not-so-civil war, the coalition now appears to be functioning again. This is one immediate consequence of George Osborne’s Autumn Statement. The Chancellor was allowed to present a package to the House that had not been leaked earlier by coalition partners in an act of preemptive spin. This matters not only for the orderly proceeding of affairs of state but also because the Autumn Statement was the first of a two-part coalition effort to seize the political initiative. The second will come in the new year with the publication of its mid-term review. Time is running out for further radical reform. The Autumn Statement was limited

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How George Osborne took on Ed Miliband on the cost of living

In addition to his effective attack on Labour’s welfare policy, George Osborne used the Autumn Statement to take on Ed Miliband on another key electoral battleground. Over the past few months, the Labour leader has been trying to convince voters that he has the solution to their cost of living woes. His biggest offer so far has been the Living Wage, which sounds lovely to voters because it involves them being paid more money, but actually doesn’t work (something Miliband is clearly sufficiently aware of to stop him pledging to make a living wage mandatory). The coalition already had its own offer in the form of the rise in the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Eric Pickles and the looming Tory split over the ECHR

Eric Pickles is one of the few characters in contemporary British politics. In an interview with The Spectator this week, he chides Vince Cable for not deregulating enough, admits that he gets ‘occasionally irked’ by George Osborne’s impatience on policy, and reveals that ‘‘I was asked by a senior member of the government, two weeks after the National Planning Framework had come into being, why it hadn’t worked.’ But Pickles also gives us a glimpse of a coming Tory split. He says that it is ‘ridiculous’ that individuals can appeal their cases all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. He wants to stop this, which

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The strivers vs scroungers battleground

Welfare will be one of the key battlegrounds at the next general election, and George Osborne’s Welfare Uprating Bill will certainly be one way the Conservative party can prod Labour on what is a hugely awkward policy issue for the party. It accelerates the internal debate about how Labour can appeal to the electorate on the issue of welfare while staying true to its own core beliefs, and, Tory strategists hope, will cause some ructions. While the party appeared united in Manchester at its autumn conference in September, it faces hard times ahead as it tries to answer some of the big questions about what a Labour welfare state would

Sayeeda Warsi

Ugandan Asians are part of Britain’s secret weapon for success

Few people who were alive 40 years ago will forget the scenes of thousands of Ugandan Asians arriving in Britain after being expelled from their country by dictator Idi Amin. Between 1972 and 1973, nearly 40,000 Ugandan Asians came here. Many originated in India and had British overseas passports, and the then Prime Minister Edward Heath said our country had a moral duty to help them. Amin had forced them to leave everything. But he could not make them relinquish their skills, their determination and their resilience – all of which they brought here in abundance. So 40 years later we are not commemorating the terrible circumstances of their departure

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour aims to change political dynamic around benefits uprating

It now looks almost certain that Labour will vote against the 1 per cent uprating for most working age benefits. Labour is pointing out that because this also includes tax credits, most of the people hit by this will actually be in work. The party hopes that this changes the political dynamic around this subject. But, as a Liberal Democrat minister pointed out to me last night, the coalition can portray any attempt to uprate by more than 1 per cent as special treatment for those on benefits. The minister stressed that public sector pay was only going up by 1 per cent and the threshold for the 40p rate

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

If Britain loses its AAA rating, Osborne will lose one of his key attack lines

George Osborne’s admission that he will not meet his target to have debt as a percentage of GDP falling by 2015/16 has serious consequences for one of his central messages. The Autumn Statement has led credit ratings agency Fitch to warn of a possible downgrade. The agency said: ‘Missing the target weakens the credibility of the fiscal framework, which is one of the factors supporting the rating.’ Ratings agencies aren’t the be-all-and-end-all by any means, and Osborne could quite easily point to just how wrong they were before the crash, giving collateralised debt obligations high ratings. But the problem is that the Chancellor tends to wheel out their approval to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Osborne is the St Augustine Chancellor – he wants to balance the books, but not yet.

After months of squabbling and not-so-civil war, the coalition now appears to be functioning again. This is one immediate consequence of George Osborne’s Autumn Statement. The Chancellor was allowed to present a package to the House that had not been leaked earlier by coalition partners in an act of preemptive spin. This matters not only for the orderly proceeding of affairs of state but also because the Autumn Statement was the first of a two-part coalition effort to seize the political initiative. The second will come in the new year with the publication of its mid-term review. Time is running out for further radical reform. The Autumn Statement was limited

Steerpike Steerpike

Tony Hall’s successor, organic government and the great Lib Dem shale plot

Rending of raiment and gnashing of teeth at the Guardian. I’m told that the paper’s veteran editor, Alan Rusbridger, is tipped to take over at the Royal Opera House once the BBC’s director-general designate, Tony Hall, relinquishes control. Quite a wrench for Rusbridger, who has stewarded the profit-averse newspaper since 1995. Last year alone he amassed losses of £44 million, so he’ll be relieved to know that the Opera House comes with an annual subsidy of £28 million from the Arts Council. Rusbridger was coy when Steerpike asked him about making a move this week, though he denied having spoken to anyone at the Royal Opera House. Fans of Rusbridger insist that he

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

America’s hounding of BP no longer has much to do with Louisiana’s sad pelicans

BP continues to pay a full price for the Deepwater Horizon disaster — deservedly so, you might say, given that 11 rig workers died in the April 2010 explosion that caused ‘the world’s worst oil spillage’ in the Gulf of Mexico. The contractor Halliburton and the rig operator Trans-ocean were also implicated, but blame has been heaped by all parties upon BP, which last month agreed a settlement with the Department of Justice that included pleading guilty to felonies and paying a $4.5 billion fine — to add to tens of billions paid in compensation to businesses along the Louisiana coast, manslaughter charges pending against BP executives, and the possibility

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Pickles plan

Some Cabinet ministers develop airs in office. Eric Pickles isn’t one of them. Sitting at the head of a conference table that looks like it’s been purchased from a discount office supplies catalogue, he explains his outlook on life. ‘There are two kinds of people,’ he says. ‘There are those who open that door and courteously speak to people, and there are those who bellow. There are those who write long memos on the temperature of your cappuccino and those who are just grateful if you get a warm beverage, and I’m the latter.’ He would place himself in an even rarer group: a minster who gets things done. He

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Is it grim up north? It’s too expensive to go and find out

My flight to Italy a couple of weeks back was held on the runway for a while because of some altercation back at the departure gate. After a while the pilot appeared at the front of the cabin and, full of self-righteous anger, explained that ‘two Italians’ had been rude to the gate staff. He would not be allowing them onto ‘his’ plane, he said, and then began to lecture the rest of us as to how he wouldn’t tolerate any form of rudeness on any of ‘his’ flights, certainly not to ‘his’ staff, it was something up with which he most certainly would not put, he barked, puffed up

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The autumn statement was the antithesis of the Budget

George Osborne was in good spirits when he turned up to address the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers. He received a warm reception. The sense was that the autumn statement had avoided the last Budget’s mistakes. As one senior Tory MP said to me afterwards, ‘it shows what he can do when he puts his mind to the job.’ This backhanded compliment sums up the mood among Tories tonight. In his speech, Osborne stressed the importance of cancelling the 3p rise in fuel duty. He told them that they should tell voters that this shows that the government understands how hard family budgets are being squeezed right now and is

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Autumn Statement sketch: Sub-arctic Chancellor warms up the Commons

From our sub-arctic chancellor this was a rip-roaring performance. Using all the arts perfected by Gordon Brown, he dazzled the house with his Autumn Statement. A chancellor should never be entirely candid. His job is to blame others for failure, to take credit for all successes, (no matter what their true origin), to engender confidence in the future and to attract cautious applause. George Osborne did all this. The bad news came out first. There were sharp intakes of breath as he revealed that the economy had shrunk by 6.9 per cent during the credit crunch. And he offered a personal confession which, in accordance with tradition, was masked in

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Autumn Statement: Lord Oakeshott claims George Osborne dances to donors’ tune

The Liberal Democrats are keen to use today to show that Coalition works, but Lord Oakeshott is in a less charitable mood. I’ve just had a chat with him about George Osborne’s explicit rejection of the mansion tax in his statement today as ‘intrusive’. The former Lib Dem Treasury spokesman in the House of Lords says: ‘I’m not withdrawing anything I have said about the Tories and the mansion tax. Intrusive is exactly what taxes on high-end tax dodgers have to be. George Osborne has performed a screeching handbrake turn on Tory donors’ orders.’ Nick Clegg’s aides have been trying to labour the proalition point in their briefings , though. A

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Autumn Statement: George Osborne moves into a stronger position

There’s a sense of satisfaction among Tories, and Osborne allies in particular, this afternoon. First, the Autumn Statement didn’t all leak out in advance. Instead, the Chancellor had some news to make on the day—notably the cancelling of the 3p fuel duty rise and a further increase in the personal allowance. Second, it has drawn political battle-lines that they believe favour them. Labour now has to decide whether to accept the coalition decision to up-rate most working age benefits by only 1 per cent for the next three years. This saves more than two billion pounds by 2015-16 and will, judging from previous polling on welfare, be popular. But Labour

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Leaked Autumn Statement briefing for Tory MPs focuses on ‘global race’ and spending switch

I’ve been passed the Tory ‘lines to take’ for MPs to use in media interviews for the Autumn Statement today. As I blogged a little earlier, the words ‘global race’ will be cropping up a lot over the next couple of years as a key Conservative phrase, and it looks as though today will be no exception, with the Chancellor using the image in his autumn statement. I note that MPs will also be expected to use it. The lines also focus on the decision to switch revenue to capital spending: ‘Today the Chancellor and Chief Secretary have told Cabinet that they will announce at the Autumn Statement over £5

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne’s race to persuade voters and colleagues to back his plan

George Osborne has managed, so far, to manage the run-up to the Autumn Statement far better than he did the Budget. There have been no cat fights across the pages of the newspapers, and the briefing over the past few days has been disciplined. After being told about the £5bn of Whitehall spending cuts to fund ‘shovel-ready’ projects including new schools and investment in skills, science and transport yesterday, one hack jokingly asked whether ‘this means that tomorrow’s statement is going to be horrendous’ given the news so far had been relatively positive. Osborne’s stock is up in Westminster at the moment – something James detailed in the magazine last

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Airports review is doomed to gather dust, British Airways chief warns MPs

The government’s airports review will simply end up on a shelf, and major airlines will still be operating from a two-runway airport at Heathrow in 2050. That was the stark warning delivered by the chief executive of British Airways’ parent company IAG Willie Walsh this afternoon as he gave evidence to the Transport Select Committee. Walsh told the MPs on the committee: ‘I think the decision of the government to establish the Davies commission has been seen by some as a step in the right direction. I think personally I’m not optimistic… My own view is that the issue is too difficult for politicians and governments to deal with and I’m