Politics

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

Friday

The Spectator

Inside the mind of George Osborne’s newest adviser

Neil O’Brien’s appointment as a new special adviser for George Osborne has gone down very well in the Westminster bubble, partly because of the Policy Exchange director’s ability to look beyond that bubble. He has written a number of times for the Spectator, and as an insight into the man who will be advising the Chancellor, here are some of his key pieces: In this week’s magazine, O’Brien points to the North’s growing detachment from Westminster, with ‘an almighty 83 per cent of northern voters’ believing that politicians do not understand the real world. He writes: ‘Westminster politicians have repeatedly promised to close the North-South gap, but failed because they

Jonathan Jones

Labour’s safe seats stay safe

In the end, the threat from smaller parties came to nothing, and Labour easily retained all of the three safe seats it was defending yesterday. In fact, they extended their vote share in all three as well. Respect could only manage a distant fourth in Rotherham and sixth in Croydon North, where former Ken Livingstone adviser Lee Jasper lost his deposit. Instead it was Ukip who came second in Rotherham and Middlesbrough, and third in Croydon North. Both coalition parties saw their vote collapse in all three seats. The Conservatives ended up fourth in Middlesbrough and fifth in Rotherham (their worst results of this parliament), though they did manage to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour source tells Coffee House: govt could deliberately overcomplicate Leveson bill

Labour sources are not happy with the Prime Minister’s decision to draft legislation for statutory underpinning of press regulation. I’ve just spoken to one party source, who told me the worry is not that the legislation is being put together quickly, but that the government will draw up a bill that deliberately complicates the issue and undermines Lord Justice Leveson’s call for regulation backed by statute. The source says: ‘The issue with the draft bill is not the speed: we want speed. The issue is that there is a possibility that what they are going to do is overcomplicate and deliberately overload this draft in a bid to stop them doing

James Forsyth James Forsyth

George Osborne hires head of leading centre-right think tank to push through new Tory agenda

George Osborne has recruited Neil O’Brien, the director of the leading centre-right think tank Policy Exchange, as an adviser. O’Brien will start work in the New Year with a particular focus on the next phase of coalition policy development. I also suspect that O’Brien will have a major influence on Tory thinking heading to 2015 and beyond. The Northern Lights report he commissioned at Policy Exchange is regarded in Tory circles as one of the most important assessments of the challenge facing the party in trying to win a majority. I understand that Osborne has been impressed by the work that O’Brien has produced at Policy Exchange. At Policy Exchange,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Government to draft legislation on Leveson recommendations

The first of many cross-party discussions on the response to the Leveson Inquiry lasted 30 minutes last night. The ‘frank’ meeting resulted in David Cameron agreeing to draft bill to see if the proposals in Lord Justice Leveson’s report were workable. The idea is that the legislation will prove that the statutory underpinning of the new independent press regulator is unworkable, while Number 10 sources are briefing that the Prime Minister has ‘not shifted one inch’ on his position on the report. But agreeing to draft legislation, if only to prove those deep misgivings that Cameron retains, is a canny way of approaching the divide in Parliament over the response

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Press freedom has just acquired its most important defender: David Cameron

For precisely 99 minutes yesterday, it looked like press freedom in Britain was doomed. At 1.30pm Lord Leveson announced his plans for statutory regulation of the press – with his bizarre instruction that we were not to call it statutory regulation. Worse, respectable commentators seemed to buy it. A very clever compromise, it was being argued. Self regulation really was being given another chance, albeit with a device which puts a legislative gun to the head of the press. If they obeyed his demands, he would not apply the force of the state. But at 3.09pm, the Prime Minister rejected all this outright. The existence of such a device, he

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Leveson report: David Cameron left in a minority over press regulation

Following this afternoon’s statements I am certain that David Cameron is in a minority in the House of Commons in not wanting to create a statutory back-stop for a press regulator. But, so far, no one can explain how even an alliance of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Eustice Tories can force the Prime Minister to provide parliamentary time for a bill that he doesn’t want. Cameron got the tone and content of his statement right. I’m reassured that Cameron appreciates that while he set up an inquiry, he didn’t outsource his judgment to Lord Justice Leveson. He is also surely correct that a press law, however brief, would have worrying

Jonathan Jones

Leveson report: Prising politicians away from the press

It shouldn’t come as a shock that Lord Justice Leveson thinks the relationship between politicians and the press is ‘too close’. And he doesn’t think it’s a good thing, stating simply: ‘I do not believe this has been in the public interest.’ (Though he does say: ‘I am, of course, conscious of the limited extent to which the Liberal Democrat party (and its predecessors) have, in practice, fitted within that description.’) Leveson puts three specific allegations at the door of politicians: They ‘have spent a surprisingly large amount of time, attention and resource on this relationship in comparison to, and at the expense of, other legitimate claims in relation to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Leveson report: Nick Clegg backs statutory underpinning

As trailed on Coffee House over the past few days, Nick Clegg used his own separate Commons statement to declare his support for the statutory underpinning of the new independent press regulator. He said that nothing in the debate that he had heard so far suggested to him that there was a better system of regulation than the one before MPs today. ‘The long grass is the last place that this problem should end up in,’ he said, adding: ‘I am convinced that he has made a case for legislation.’ The Deputy Prime Minister said he acknowledged that ‘we now need to show how that can be done in a

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Leveson press conference sketch: the supreme authority of the Lord

The conference platform was surrounded by screens tinted a deep and easeful blue. At just after 1.30 pm, Lord Leveson ambled forth, sporting a white shirt, a grey suit and a slight stoop. He peered out at the assembled pack of journalists from beneath his curmudgeonly black eyebrows. Then he sat at his desk. Microphones at either end bowed towards him like praying mantises. He began to speak. His quiet voice and his dense, circuitous prose suggest that he’s used to being listened to in awed silence. So he was. Occasionally he slowed the pace and upped the volume suddenly. A court-room device, perhaps, to jog a dozy juror awake. ‘The

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Breaking: David Cameron says ‘I am not convinced statute is necessary’ for press regulation

David Cameron has just told MPs that while he accepts Lord Leveson’s recommendations for a new independent press regulator, he rejects statutory underpinning of the new regulatory system. The Prime Minister said: ‘I accept these principles… The onus should now be on the press.’ He said he was in favour of giving the press a period of time to implement the recommendations. But to roars of disapproval from MPs on the other side of the Chamber, he said: ‘I am not convinced… that statute is necessary.’ He also told MPs that he accepted Leveson’s recommendations on the relationship between the police and the press. The Prime Minister also took care

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Leveson report: what the judge said about Jeremy Hunt

Jeremy Hunt was one of the most controversial figures caught up in the Leveson Inquiry, with Labour calling for the then Culture Secretary to resign over contact between his office and NewsCorp lobbyist Fred Michel. But today Lord Justice Leveson’s report finds ‘no credible evidence of actual bias on the part of Mr Hunt’, but the exchanges between the lobbyist and Mr Hunt’s adviser Adam Smith gave rise to the perception of bias. Leveson actually praises Hunt for the ‘robust systems’ that he put in place to ensure that Rupert Murdoch’s bid for BSkyB would be handled with impartiality, writing: ‘Mr Hunt immediately put in place robust systems to ensure

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Leveson report: To pass a law you don’t just need a majority in parliament, but time too

There’s understandable excitement about whether a pro-Leveson Commons majority could be formed. At first glance, this looks likely if you add Labour, the Lib Dems and a handful of the Eustice Tories together you can get to 326 quite easily. But, in terms of passing a bill, you need more than majority. You need time. The vast majority of parliamentary time remains in the government’s gift. If the Prime Minister won’t let the government bring forward legislation, then there almost certainly won’t be a press law passed. David Cameron has tweeted that he’ll give a ‘clear sense of direction’ in his statement at 3pm. We will then after that have

The Spectator

Nadine Dorries: Why shouldn’t a working class MP take a few days off?

Fresh from the jungle, Nadine Dorries is the Spectator’s diarist for this week. As well as observing that each of her 11 fellow contestants on I’m a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here! was ‘probably more right wing than I am’, she also explains why she thought it was acceptable for a ‘working class woman to take a few parliamentary days off’ to go on the show, writing: Many MPs take jollies from the House of Commons, but in seven years I have never spent a day away from my Westminster duties. This is why I thought I would be allowed to devote a few days of my holiday to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg to give separate Leveson statement

Nick Clegg will make his own statement on Leveson in the Commons today after the Prime Minister has spoken. Party sources were saying yesterday that this would only happen if the two men disagreed on the government’s response to the report. The Lib Dems want to back the rapid creation of a statutory backstop for newspaper regulation, while David Cameron does not want to back any press law, at least for now. This is probably the biggest clue we’ll get as to the content of the Leveson report before the embargo lifts at 1.30pm. But it doesn’t necessarily mean a big split over the outcome: the coalition cabinet committee will

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The big flashpoints over Leveson

Nick Clegg and David Cameron will return, with their officials, to their speed reading exercise of the hefty Leveson report this morning. The Deputy Prime Minister wasn’t giving much away unsurprisingly, when he spoke to journalists a short while ago as he left his home. He said: ‘In this whole process, everybody wants two things: firstly a strong, independent, raucous press who can hold people in positions of power to account. And secondly to protect ordinary people, the vulnerable, the innocent when the press overstep the mark. That’s the balance we’re trying to strike, and I’m sure we will.’ There is still the possibility that Clegg may give a second

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Now is the time to buy stock in George Osborne

Few politicians have a more volatile share price than George Osborne. His career to date has been a tale of highs (the inheritance tax announcement, the 2010 emergency budget) and lows (yacht-gate and the aftermath of the 2012 budget). Westminster’s stockbrokers were waiting for next week’s autumn statement to decide if his stock was on the up again. But the Chancellor has beaten them to it. His success in persuading Mark Carney, the governor of the Canadian Central Bank, to take on the role of Bank of England governor, is a market-moving intervention. To be sure, few voters will head to the polls in 2015 determined to return to government

Emily Rhodes

The Wizard of Oz

The Conservatives’ next election campaign will be run by Lynton Crosby, an Australian whose success has earned him the title ‘The Wizard of Oz’. On examining L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s book, the nickname seems more pertinent than you might imagine. Lynton Crosby’s skill, according to Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph, is not so much a genius for strategy, but the ability to ‘instil direction and confidence’. The Wizard has a knack for this too. When Dorothy and her companions return to the Emerald City to see Oz, having defeated the Wicked Witch of the West as bidden, his rewards for them would be useless if they didn’t have confidence

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

The Goldman Sachs candidate wins, but spare a thought for the popular loser

So now we know. It’s not the popular insider, the All Souls professor or the Whitehall veteran. It’s not an Old Etonian — uniquely, they couldn’t find one for the shortlist. The winner of the Governorship stakes turned out to be the Goldman Sachs candidate, Mark Carney, currently at the Bank of Canada but formerly of the Wall Street investment firm, the ‘giant vampire squid’ whose tentacles get everywhere. And that’s just about the only jibe that anyone has found to aim at him, because his credentials are pretty outstanding. To call him ‘the best person in the world’ for the job, as the Chancellor did, is tempting fate —

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Arts cuts? What arts cuts?

Luvvies have never really liked Tory governments. Poor Tracey Emin was nearly lynched by the arts crowds when she had the audacity to let David Cameron hang  one of her neon pieces in Downing Street. Things are getting heated with the new no-nonsense Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, who seems to have upset the triumvirate of darlings: Danny Boyle, Stephen Fry and Stephen Daldry. They have all laid into the government this week for apparently choking off arts funding, with the less-than-subtle undertone being that Tories are philistines. Needless to say, their star quality has given the story some glittering legs. It is true that ‘the Arts’ are taking about a 30