Politics

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

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

All to play for in Oldham East

The Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election is fast shaping up to be the event that will set the tone for the first quarter of the political year. The unique circumstances in which the vote was called makes it particularly hard to predict, no one is quite sure whether there’ll be a backlash against Woolas or one against the Lib Dems for going to court to overturn the result. As I say in the magazine tomorrow, if the Lib Dems were to win, it would give Clegg the breathing space he so needs at the moment. Lib Dem worries about what the coalition is doing to them politically would subside, temporarily

Peter Hoskin

Clegg: Read my lips…

This comment from Nick Clegg – speaking to the Evening Standard today – deserves pasting into the political scrapbook: “Let me be absolutely clear once and for all. The Liberal Democrats will fight the next election as we did the last – as an independent political party in every constituency in the country.” Which is considerably less equivocal than David Cameron and George Osborne have managed recently. When the Tory pair were pressed on the matter towards the end of last month, they said only that they “expect” the coalition parties to fight independently of each other come election time. Not that the Clegg quotation rules out electoral chicanery altogether.

Peter Hoskin

IPSA’s olive branch to angry MPs

The foreword to IPSA’s latest consultation document is certainly more conciliatory than combative. “The last eight months have been demanding, both for MPs and their staff, and for IPSA,” it starts – in subtle reference to the mutual frustrations that have overtaken the expenses operation to date – before asking whether the current system can be made more “fair and workable”. And that tone carries across into the main body of the text. Although IPSA insist that nothing has been decided yet, they do at least moot the possibility of raising certain allowances back up again. As James Kirkup writes on his Telegraph blog, this document is, in some respects,

Peter Hoskin

Khan to Miliband: What life experience do you have?

Ok, not quite. But this snippet from GQ’s interview with Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan is almost a description of Ed Miliband’s rise to the Labour leadership: “One of my criticisms of a lot of politicians of all parties is that they’re career politicians. Since they were 11 years old they dreamed of being an MP, being the Prime Minister, and so they’ll do A-Level Politics, Politics degree, get a job with an MP, work for a think tank, become an MP, Prime Minister. And my criticism is what life experiences do you have? The reason most MPs aren’t popular is that people can see through that.” He makes up

David Blackburn

Clegg and Cameron decouple

Cameron and Clegg are putting on a show for the in-laws. After mounting disquiet from the fringes of their respective parties, the two leaders are journeying to Oldham East to quash rumours of a merger and reaffirm that theirs is a marriage of necessity. David Cameron will travel north in due course. God knows what he will say? Presumably that he no longer wishes his partners well – get out there and biff ‘em, or words to that effect. On the other hand, Nick Clegg will declaim his lines today. His script is hyperbolic, replete with wishful fantasy about a ‘two-horse race between Labour and the Liberal Democrats’. Oldham is

Tuesday

David Blackburn

The Tories turn their fire on ‘lamentable’ Johnson

Come back, you insufferable relatives, all is forgiven: the political class has devoted an afternoon to trading insults about who said what about VAT and when. However, there have been some intriguing exchanges amid the New Politics’ latest outing. First, Labour seems to be fighting the two coalition partners as a single entity in Oldham East. Cameron, Clegg and Simon Hughes have received equal measures of opprobrium this afternoon and all have been lumped together. This was always a danger, but, as Fraser noted, Clegg and Cameron invited the manoeuvre by uniting their parties’ central operations in the cause of government. If Cameron and Clegg don’t differentiate in the general,

Daniel Korski

What to do about Belarus, Europe’s last dictatorship?

For a while it looked like the West had the upper hand. Belarus’ Aleksandr Lukashenko, Europe’s last dictator, seemed to be moving away from Russia and closer to the West. A succession of European ministers went to see him and returned to develop packages of support and assistance with his country. In that new “Great Game” played out on Europe’s periphery it looked like Vladimir Putin’s winning streak was finally coming to en end, after partial success in Georgia and outright victory in Ukraine. Or so European leaders hoped. But any hope of changing Belarus’ position has now been dashed with the violent crackdown in Minsk against pro-democracy activists following

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 4 January 2011

…here are some of the posts made at Spectator.co.uk over the Christmas holiday. Fraser Nelson considers the future of the newspaper industry, and welcomes you to a debt-filled 2011. James Forsyth says that the Oldham East by-election will determine whether Clegg or Miliband is under pressure, and previews the rebellions to come. Peter Hoskin argues that 2011 is all about growth, and notices that Ed Miliband’s party funding proposals are purely presentational. Melanie McDonagh ponders the parentage of Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish John. Sebastian. E. Payne disagrees with Fraser Nelson: there’s life in print yet. Dan Hodges says that the momentum is shifting against AV. Daniel Korski makes 6 predictions

Peter Hoskin

Osborne and Johnson battle over the new tax divide

Now here’s a thing: a radio appearance by Alan Johnson that actually clarified some details about Labour’s economic policy in the Miliband era. Sure, the shadow chancellor spent most of his time on the Today Programme setting about the coalition’s VAT hike, with all the usual arguments about jobs and growth. But there was also confirmation that Labour’s deficit reduction plan would split 60-40 between tax rises and spending cuts, and that they would raise national insurance levels rather than VAT. It repositions the argument some way beyond the simple Do/Don’t divide that was developing around VAT. Now there are two choices for voters to make. Do they prefer a

Monday

David Blackburn

Boles beats his old drum

To accompany Fraser’s suggestion that Cameron and Clegg are planning a merger, it is notable that the ubiquitous Nick Boles has renewed his calls for a formal pact. Previously, Boles averred that Liberal Democrat ministers should be protected in three-way or Conservative-Liberal marginals. This time round, his argument is more philosophical. He told Radio 4’s PM: ‘The Coalition has enabled the Conservative party to be more radical than it would have been able to had it formed a government on its own with a small majority… Jacob Rees Mogg who’s a fellow MP who’s certainly not a sort of liberal Tory like I am in the sort of modernizing sense. In five

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband on the trail

If you talk to Tory MPs privately and ask them which of the coalition’s budgetary decisions they are most uncomfortable with, they’ll generally indentify the VAT rise and the police cuts (the reductions in the defence and prisons budget are also often mentioned). So it is clever politics for Ed MIliband to be emphasising the VAT rise and the police cuts so heavily in Oldham East and Saddleworth. It enables him to oppose key bits of the deficit reduction programme without sounding like an out of touch left-winger. If Labour do hold the seat, it will be a boost to Ed Miliband. It will add to the sense that he

Daniel Korski

Wrong to be too Right

From a right-wing perspective, there are several things wrong with David Cameron’s leadership – not least the fact that he did not win the 2010 election outright. As an unassailable report by Lord Ashcroft showed, the Tory campaign squandered a historic lead over Labour. The policy disagreements – over the EU, civil liberties, and the AV referendum – are compounded by personal grievances. The Prime Minister, despite investing quite a lot of time placating quarrelsome  MPs – calling them, writing them letters, inviting them to No 10 – cannot shake the impression of a man who is buoyed by confidence verging on arrogance, and someone who is reliant on –

David Blackburn

Miliband swings into action by warning of inflation

The seasonal interlude has ended and Ed Miliband is sallying north to Oldham East. He will resuscitate old favourites from 2010: progressive cuts, fairness and a government bent of an ideological mission: but he will illustrate his point with reference to tomorrow’s VAT rise. Miliband will say: ‘Today we start to see the Tory-led agenda move from Downing Street to your street. At midnight VAT goes up, hitting people’s living standards, small businesses and jobs. The VAT rise is the most visible example of what we mean when we say the government is going too far and too fast, because it’s clear that it will slow growth and hit jobs.’

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Is it a merger?

When a Conservative leader wishes the LibDems well in a three-way marginal by-election, then what is going on? Andrew Gilligan’s piece today shows that the Conservative campaign there is muted, and my colleague Melissa Kite reported earlier that Cameron personally called off  the hunt supporters, Vote OK, who were planning to boost the Tory campaign. Little wonder that Conservative MPs are beginning to smell a rat. They are being told this is the cohabitation of rival parties; in the Daily Telegraph tomorrow, I ask if this is actually a merger.   From the start of this coalition, I’ve been struck by the differences between the coalition in Westminster, and that

David Blackburn

Control Orders: a pyrrhic victory for the Lib Dems?

Coalition is a tricky business, full of compromise and connivance. Emblazoned across the front page of the Sunday Times (£) is the news that Control Orders are to be scrapped. A victory for Nick Clegg, we are told, won to nurture wounded Liberal Democrats and preserve the coalition. The Liberal Democrat 2010 manifesto maintained that Control Orders would be abolished and many senior Liberal Democrats have been volubly opposed to Lord Carlisle’s report into Control Orders, which was understood to propose their retention. Certainly, Nick Clegg needs an outright victory on policy. The Oldham East by-election draws near, whilst the tuition fees debacle remains clear in the memory, harsh austerity

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A preview of the rebellions to come

Today’s papers are full of the Tory right asserting itself. In the Mail On Sunday, Mark Pritchard—secretary of the 1922 committee—demands that the Prime Minister and his allies come clean about any plans to create a long-term political alliance between the Tories and the Lib Dems. In The Sunday Telegraph, there’s a report that Tory rebels will vote with Labour to try and defeat the coalition’s European Union Bill. I suspect that these stories presage one of the major themes of the year, an increasingly assertive right of the Tory parliamentary party. For too long, Cameron has neglected his own MPs both politically and personally. The result is a willingness

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

‘Far-left’ and ‘far-right’: distinctions without differences

In my Observer column today, I talk about the growing repression in Hungary and my dislike of the terms “far right” and “far left”. Look for divergences between them and all you find are distinctions without differences. Dictatorial movements in Europe are merging; apparent opposites are turning out to be the same. The rather brave Hungarian artists I spoke to are threatened by fascistic forces. Yet when they fear for the future, they think of the fate of the subject people of “socialist” Belarus, whose dictatorship is being supported by the local representative of the supposed free speech lovers at Wikileaks, a story my Fleet Street colleagues ought to think

Peter Hoskin

Miliband’s first hundred days in five points

Ok, so Ed Miliband’s one hundred day anniversary actually falls on Tuesday – but what’s a couple of days between bloggers? Besides, even with two days to go, it’s safe to say that his will be a peculiar century. By some scientific measures, Labour are doing alright; sucking up Lib Dem voters to push ahead of the Tories in opinion polls. But that belies what has been an unconvincing start from their new leader. Here’s my quick five-point guide to his bitter honeymoon: 1) What’s the economy, stupid? One of Miliband’s boldest moves to date was his appointment of Alan Johnson as shadow chancellor. Indeed, at the time, I suggested that it could be

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

Ed by numbers

Ed Miliband’s leadership trundles on past the hundred day milestone tomorrow – so more on that, erm, then. But, in the meantime, here’s a quick graph transcribed from Ipsos MORI’s latest research. It depicts what, for want of a proper policy prospectus, is one of the most striking features of the Miliband era so far: that Labour’s support has risen while their leader’s personal ratings have slumped, reaching what today’s Mail describes as the “lowest of any new party leader at the same stage since former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith,” and lower even than his biggest fan, Neil Kinnock. Here it is:   To be fair, that still puts

Peter Hoskin

Rising costs: a problem for the public and the coalition in 2011

Ne’er mistake correlation with cause, I know. But, during the Brown premiership, the correlation between petrol prices and poll ratings was still pretty striking. Mike Smithson graphed it early last year, but the basic story was this: the Tories enjoyed their biggest poll lead over Labour when petrol prices were at their highest, and Labour closed the gap to only 1 percent when petrol prices were at their lowest. At the very least, it gives us a hypothesis to work from: prices up, the government suffers; prices down, the government recovers. And it looks as though we’ll be able to test that hypothesis soon enough. Today’s Express reports that –