Politics

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

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Oborne: Cameron Will Eventually Have To Sack Osborne

My old chum and occasional cricket skipper Peter Oborne is at it again. Causing mischief, that is. Peter – who once compared David Cameron to Disraeli and still, I think, has great hopes for the Prime Minister – thinks the time will soon come for Cameron to sack his Chancellor. That’s not quite what he says but it is the logical implication of a column in which he complains that George Osborne is not much more than a part-time Chancellor of the Exchequer: Cameron is addicted to Osborne, in rather the same way that Tony Blair was addicted to Peter Mandelson, and for the same reasons. He feels that he

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Rowdy and raucous — but that’s how we like it

It was vicious. It was frenetic. It was full of rage and class-hatred. It was great political sport. If you like a serious punch-up, the Commons at mid-day was the place to be. The viewing figures at home were boosted by the many millions of strikers who couldn’t quite make their local anti-cuts demo and were sitting out the revolution with a nice cup of tea and PMQs on the Parliament channel.  Ed Miliband started by claiming that the PM had been seen in private rubbing his hands, like Moriarty, and boasting that ‘the unions have walked into my trap’. Cameron, although not denying this, slammed the Labour leader for

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Ed Miliband’s Strange Political Judgement

I know Ed Miliband isn’t trying to persuade me or, for that matter, many Spectator readers but I still don’t understand what he’s up to or trying to achieve. At PMQs today he had an obvious choice: attack the government on the economy or on today’s strikes by government-paid workers. Bafflingly he chose the latter, wrapping himself in the red union flag. Not for the first time, one’s left questioning Miliband’s political judgement. The easy answer, much-used by the Prime Minister today, is that Labour is paid by the Trades Unions without whose contributions the party would be bankrupt. Plainly there is some truth to this and perhaps Miliband has

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Dave and Ed strike each other

It was a real blood and thunder PMQs today. This was the politics of the viscera; whose side are you on stuff.   Ed Miliband chose to start on the strikes. David Cameron ripped into him from the off, calling him ‘irresponsible, left-wing and weak.’ Miliband came back with an attack about how he wasn’t going to demonise dinner ladies who earn less in a year than George Osborne’s annual skiing holiday costs, though he flubbed the line slightly.   The Tory benches were in full cry, and throughout the session Cameron kept coming back for another swing at Miliband and the union link. At one point, Cameron contemptuously declared

Peter Hoskin

Picketing Parliament

By way of Spectating, I thought I’d take a quick stroll along Westminster’s picket lines. And, to be honest, there isn’t a huge amount to see, as yet. The groups of around five or six industrial actioneers outside some departments trump the small pile of placards outside the Treasury. There are about thirty to forty people picketing Parliament itself. The photo I shot hastily on my iPhone, above, should give you the sense of it. The striking workers I spoke with, however, were bullish about people turning up later in the day, especially with the march that’s happening this afternoon — as well as for the strike’s general progress in

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Autumn Statement Makes a Tory-Lib Dem Electoral Pact More Likely

Amidst the economic doom and gloom (though all the forecasts are always wrong so who knows how things will look by 2015?), the politics of the coalition government remain interesting. So Danny Alexander’s performance on Newnight tonight was very interesting. The Chief Secretary of the Treasury told Jeremy Paxman that the Liberal Democrats were committed to the new spending and borrowing plans announced by George Osborne yesterday. Furthermore, the spending cuts announced for the first two years of the next parliament (though said plans can only be aspirational since they cannot, surely, bind the next parliament?) would be part of the next Liberal Democrat manifesto. I doubt Tim Farron or

Daniel Korski

Meanwhile, in Europe…

There probably hasn’t been a meeting of European finance ministers as important as the one tonight. The euro is still at risk; with new governments in Spain, Italy, and Greece incapable of calming the markets, and Angela Merkel unwilling to let the ECB act. In a speech in Berlin, Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski put it clearly: ‘I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity.’ It is a fear shared in London and Paris as well. The 17 finance ministers will discuss the range of options on the table: from setting up an EU Treasury to the possibility of eurobonds or establishing a supra-national process

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Osborne plays a tough hand well

Today was always going to be a difficult day for the Chancellor. The figures from the OBR were always going to dominate the headlines and the restrictions of coalition meant that there couldn’t be as much as the Tories would have liked on the supply side. It was striking that the loudest Tory cheer of Osborne’s statement came when he reiterated his opposition to an EU-imposed financial transactions tax. But the silver lining for Osborne and co is that Labour still lack economic credibility. It is hard for Labour to savage Osborne for borrowing more than he said he would — which he is to the tune of £158 billion

Robert Halfon-Mp

Fuelling the recovery

Today, the government has listened. In his Autumn Statement, George Osborne scrapped the fuel tax bombshell that was scheduled for January 2012.    As regular Coffee House readers will know, more than 100 MPs supported my cross-party campaign for cheaper petrol. At its height, it saw an e-petition attract more than 124,000 names — triggering a full MPs’ debate in Parliament. It has been a very long campaign, working with many organisations, from FairFuelUK and the RAC, to the independent forecourt industry, The Spectator and the Sun, to thousands of members of the public who wrote to me in support. Over several months, I have asked questions in Parliament, spoken

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Ron Beats Boris and George

The question of who will succeed David Cameron is, in every essential, a pointless parlour game. Obviously, then, it’s great sport for the press and just the kind of thing to entertain hacks and everyone else at Westminster. The “rivalry” between George Osbore and Boris Johnson is the sort of thing that, if it did not exist, would have to be invented by journalists. (Oh: hang on…) It is the successor to Tony vs Gordon and the Tory counter to the Warring Milibands and is a show that won’t close, we’re told, until 2018 or 2019. So you’ve only to endure another seven or so years of George vs Boris

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Osborne has made the right choice — but it’s not without its costs

Today, George Osborne had a choice. Growth prospects have evaporated, and tax revenues along with it. Should he reopen the 2010 Spending Review and cut the spending totals? Or stick with those totals, and finance this with extra debt? He chose the latter. And I think, on balance, he was right to do so. Credibility is the most valuable currency in this eurozone crisis, and Osborne said it was a fixed five-year plan. He chose more debt over less certainty, and it looks today like the markets believe he chose correctly.  But all this comes at a cost. The government will now run deficits higher than those which Labour proposed.

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Why are the Tories hell-bent on fouling up our countryside?

Your views, please, on the government’s new-found interest in Boris Johnson’s stupid idea of a huge new airport built on the Isle of Grain, in Kent. Johnson, with his recently acquired catamite, Sir Norman Foster, has been agitating for a new airport to be built for half a decade or more. The favoured scheme right now is to pave over one of Britain’s most important wintering grounds for wildfowl, the Isle of Grain, and reclaim more land from the Thames Estuary. There is precious little land left in the south-east of England for wildlife; it is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. The north Kent marshes,

Peter Hoskin

Growth has upset Osborne’s plans — and it’s likely to get worse

The real story, as everyone expected, wasn’t in the Pre-Budget Report ‘Green Book’ — but in the supplementary document produced by the Office for Budgetary Responsibility. Growth forecasts have taken a dive. And while that is both unsurprising and not all that revealing, it carries grim implications for so much else. I mean, just look at the graphs we produced in our last post: forecasts for debt, unemployment and borrowing are all up. It is not a pretty picture. But despite the dreariness of it all, I suspect that the numbers are far too optimistic. The clue comes at the start of the OBR report: ‘The central economic and fiscal

Alex Massie Alex Massie

In the Bleak Midwinter; Some Republican Entertainment

British politics is pretty depressing at the moment so thank god for the entertainment provided by the Republican candidates squabbling to become their party’s Presidential nominee. Dark times demand dark comedy leavened by appropriate measures of farce. Hurrah for Newt Gingrich, then. We are advised that he must be taken seriously now that he’s been endorsed by the Manchester Union-Leader even though that paper has in the past supported the likes of Steve Forbes, Pat Buchanan, Pete DuPont (1988) and Richard Ashbrook (1972). What’s more, the Union-Leader’s publisher thinks it sensible to say Newt “resembles” Winston Churchill. Yes, all this is supposed to be an important symbol and the kind

Jonathan Jones

The Autumn Statement: What you need to know

We’ve been posting some of these charts on Twitter, but here they are, collected, for CoffeeHousers. You can expect more as we mine deeper into the OBR’s supplementary document. Do shout out, also, if you spot anything yourself. 1. Weaker growth — except for a very optimistic figure for 2015 2. Higher debt — both in real terms and as percentage of GDP   3. Osborne borrowing more than he’d hoped 4. More persistent — and deeper — ILO unemployment 5. The squeeze continues until 2013

Peter Hoskin

On the road to break-up?

Before we plunge into the Autumn Statement, we really ought to mention the poison cloud hanging over Brussels today. European finance ministers, including George Osborne, are meeting there later — and it’s certainly not going to be good for their collective health. Klaus Regling, the head of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), is expected to tell them that there’s basically no chance of them boosting the bailout fund to €1 trillion in the near future, as was promised at the end of last month. Back then, David Cameron urged eurozone leaders to bring a ‘big bazooka’ to the fight. They have barely managed a cap gun. This is far

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Your Autumn Statement check-list

I very much doubt today’s Pre-Budget Report will be memorable; a shame, given the circumstances. The supplementary Office for Budget Responsibility document will be more interesting — and relevant to people’s lives — than the Budget itself. Sure, everyone focuses their attention on the Red Book (or Green Book, as it is for the PBR) and GDP projections. But even GDP isn’t really useful. You can manipulate GDP by printing money, or by borrowing money. Gets you nowhere. GDP is only useful insofar as it’s a proxy for national prosperity. And thanks to the OBR we’ll have other, more useful metrics today. Here’s my guide to them:   1. Net

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Osborne has a few cards up his sleeve, but no aces

In some ways, George Osborne will always be haunted by his 2007 Tory conference speech. That speech and the reaction to his commitment to raise all estates worth less than £1 million out of inheritance tax contributed to Gordon Brown not calling an early election. It has a claim to be one of the most important speeches in modern British politics — it is certainly the one that saved the Cameron project. But it has also created an expectation that Osborne has a set of aces up his sleeve every time he stands up to give a big speech. Tomorrow’s speech won’t see the Chancellor pull out any unexpected trumps.

Daniel Korski

Egypt may have voted, but don’t celebrate just yet

Many thought the day would never come. Even as recently as yesterday, some doubted it would happen. But today Egyptians went to the polls in the country’s first parliamentary elections since Hosni Mubarak’s fall, hoping to take a first step toward democracy. Under a complex electoral system, voters picked both party lists and individual candidates. The final results are due by 13 January 2012. As it stands, the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest and best organised group, along with Salafists, are expected to do well in the vote — after all, Islamists did prosper in the elections in Morocco and Tunisia. But it is not assured. Voters may feel that the