Politics

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

Thursday

John Stokes

Staffing the Pentagon

Michele Flournoy is expected to be nominated today  by President-Elect Barack Obama as the first female Under Secretary for Policy in the Pentagon. Her appointment will be greeted on both sides of the Atlantic with a huge sigh of relief. The policy position became hugely controversial in the Bush years when Douglas Feith occupied the post and  argued strongly for the invasion of Iraq as a manifestation of the preeminence of Pentagon power. It was Feith who set up secret cell in the Pentagon to produce doctored intelligence that fitted the party line and justified the Iraq war. By contrast, Flournoy is a centrist, a well known figure among all

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

What options remain after rate cuts?

As expected, base rates are down half a point to 1.5% – so, yet again, drinks are on those lucky few with variable mortgages. I suspect they’ll hit 1% before Easter. Then what? “Nobody is talking about printing money” says Alistair Darling – but this is a little Brownie. Quantitative Easing – the equivalent of printing money – is being spoken about by everyone and can come in many forms. The Bank of England can start buying stuff – Treasury IOU notes, company bonds, or even shares. So you’d attempt to lower market interest rates by boosting asset prices. Darling is right: he can fund the deficit through issuing gilts,

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Ed Balls debuts the apprenticeships Brownie

Ed Balls never gets enough credit for the Brownies that he cooks up. One was served today, when he spent an interview with the Beeb denouncing those Tory plans to axe 220,000 apprenticeships. As he put it: “There is a choice for our country – a choice between a Government which says we must act to get through difficult times and the Conservatives, who on Monday announced cuts in public spending which would mean over 200,000 apprenticeships cut. In fact, it would mean almost no apprenticeships for young people at all.” Except there are no Tory plans to axe apprenticeships. Not one. It was concocted by Mr Balls, on the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Lib Dem MEP: Israeli government fundamentally racist

With neither Labour nor the Tories saying much about Israel, Nick Clegg spotted an opportunity in venting outrage today. His party love it – but a little too much. Here is an extract from the blog of Chris Davies, a Libdem MEP: “It is time for Liberal Democrats to call a halt to the attempt to ride two horses and to try not to upset the Israeli lobby. Our support for the Palestinian cause is well enough known amongst those (by no means all!) in the Jewish community in the Jewish community who will not countenance criticism of Israel. It is not well enough known amongst the majority who are

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Will Brown benefit from the interest rate cuts?

The VAT cut may have been economically and electorally irrelevant, but might all these interest rate cuts deliver for Gordon Brown? History will be made tomorrow when the Bank of England cuts rates to the lowest in its 315-year history – probably by half a point, to 1.5%. And even that will probably fall to 1% before Easter. A friend emails to say he has become a “reluctant buyer of Gordon Brown stock” – his mates are getting cheap mortgage deals, at 4% or 4.5%, saving hundreds a month. This will create a feelgood factor amongst a certain group. Once rates do fall to 1%, of course, the Monetary Policy

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Politics | 7 January 2009

Only when Tony Blair popped up on the airwaves did it become clear just how different it is this time. Israel is again at war — yet, unlike 2006 there are no MPs clamouring for Parliament to be recalled. There is no Prime Minister who regards himself as a peacemaker offering his opinion to the world. Nor is there even an opposition seeking to outflank the government by using loaded phrases like ‘disproportionate response’. There is a recession on — and strong opinions on the Middle East seem to have fallen victim to the credit crunch. When asked, Gordon Brown says he is alarmed by Israel sending troops into Gaza.

Richard Orange

Restoring the Taj is just part of Tata’s challenge

As guests made their way out of the Taj hotel in Mumbai after spending New Year’s Eve in its restaurants, many stopped to study a small memorial plaque erected to commemorate the 12 staff who died protecting guests from terrorists at the end of November. If it has the same dignified simplicity as a British village war memorial, that’s probably no coincidence. Because within the Tata Group — the Taj’s owner, through a subsidiary called Indian Hotels — the ideals of duty, loyalty, courage and grit, which seem to British sensibilities to come from another era, are still very much alive. ‘There was not a single person who did not

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Scottish Tory Dilemma

Someone needs to tell Tom Harris MP that the “Unionist” in the “Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party” referred to the Union with Ireland, not that between Scotland and England. Equally, the fact that the Conservatives (in London) and the SNP (in Edinburgh) sometimes seem to be reciting similar talking points should scarcely come as any great surprise: the Labour party is their common enemy. True, the Conservatives oppose the Nationalists north of the border but as far as the UK party is concerned that’s a secondary front and one, more particularly, on which there’s little need for a fresh offensive this year. If, as Alan Cochrane hints, the Scottish Tories

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Chump of the Day

The National Gallery of Scotland needs to raise £50m to prevent the sale of Titian’s Diana and Actaeon from being sold. The painting, part of the Bridgewater Collection, has been loaned to the gallery for decades but is now being sold by its owner, the Duke of Sutherland. Well, £50m is quite a lot of money. Then again, it’s a pretty nifty painting (though my own tastes run a little later – to Caravaggio and Velazquez in particular). Anyway, it’s hard to imagine there being any discussion in France or Italy or Germany of the rights and wrongs of committing public money to the fund-raising effort. And while I have

Alex Massie Alex Massie

This Britain

Since coming to power in 1997 Labour has created 3,605 new ways for you to break the law. That’s an average of 320 new offences a year or, to put it another way, more than one new offence is created every day Parliament is in session. Time to dust off an old and favourite proposal: every new offence or law should be accompanied by the repeal of an old one…

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Wedgwood’s contribution to the abolition movement

As Waterford Wedgwood goes bust and its obituaries written, it’s worth noting its contribution to an area for where it gets little credit: outlawing the slave trade. Much rot is spoken about the abolition campaign, mainly due to the vanity of MPs who like to portray it as the result of a parliamentary initiative. Rather, it was a grassroot social movement – in many ways a viral campaign which owes much the marketing genius of Josiah Wedgwood, the company’s founder, who joined the anti-slave trade campaigners in 1790. He had a genius for what is today called product placement. He’d find ways of getting his vases into famous paintings, for

The Spectator

Festive highlights

Here are some articles from Spectator.co.uk that you may have missed over the Christmas and New Year break: Andrew Lambirth previews some of the best exhibitions in the year ahead. Douglas Murray writes that studying Islam has made him an atheist. Fraser Nelson says that David Cameron needs a robust economic policy that will stand up in an election campaign. James Forsyth highlights some things to look out for in 2009. Matthew d’Ancona wonders what maps will guide us through 2009. Peter Hoskin says that the defeat of Hamas is a humanitarian cause. Toby Young delivers his New Year advice for journalists.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cameron’s plans crash into Brown’s debt mountain

Like James, I applauded Cameron’s tax-cutting plan – the right cut, in the right direction, for the right people. But there is one slight hitch. It is promised only if there’s an election this year. The 2009-10 budget starts in April, by which time Cameron probably wont be in power. If there’s an election next year, as is more  likely, then the plan will not materialise because there won’t be the money. All these headlines that he hopes to generate will be for nothing. The Tories don’t say so in terms. But I asked Cameron afterwards if his tax cut offer is valid in 2010-11 when he’s more likely to

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 5 January 2009

Here are some of the articles made over the weekend on Spectator.co.uk: Fraser Nelson highlights another Brown job James Forsyth picks up on Father Brown’s double-standard, and reports on rumours of talks between Labour and the Lib Dems. Peter Hoskin wonders whether there’ll be a second bailout, and observes Brown smiling for the camera. Melanie Phillips sets out the moral battleground. Clive Davis enjoys some gallows humour. And Americano marks the first bit of bother for President-elect Obama.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Another Brown job

Will anyone take Gordon Brown’s claim to create up to 100,000 jobs seriously? As a statistician will tell you, “up to” includes the number zero. And as any economist will tell you, government can’t create jobs. The best it can do is move jobs, from the private to the public sector via tax – or from the future to the present, via debt. And in this case, I suspect it’s all a hoax anyway. Sure, Brown can hire some builders to renovate schools. But first of all, how many of his 100,000 were going to be hired by the state anyway? And of those who weren’t, can he be so

Saturday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Transatlantic Differences

There are times when it’s good to be away from the hurly-burly of American politics. Doubly so when the subject of gay marriage comes up. Here, for instance, is a story it is hard to imagine happening in the United States: Nick Herbert, the Conservative party’s Shadow Justice secretary has apparently become the second member of David Cameron’s Shadow Cabinet, to enter into a civil partnership. It’s hard to imagine too many senior gay Republicans feeling comfortable doing this, let alone doing so with the blessing of the party’s leader and their constituency assosciation. Then again, gay marriage in Britain has, generally speaking, been decoupled from religion. (Of course, some

Eric Ellis

City Life | 3 January 2009

It’s early days in Indonesia’s election season, but already Jakarta is transformed into a riot of colour. Political bunting of all shades sprouts from every conceivable vantage point, brightening the grey of poverty; the green of the surging Islamist parties; the red and black buffalo of the party of Sukarno’s eldest daughter Megawati; the yellow of Golkar, the clan of the late kleptator Suharto and his cronies. Posters and promises garland walls, bridges and streetside food stalls. Some even sponsor the capital’s flotilla of kaki lima — literally ‘five feet’ — pushcarts that dispense snacks of sate, tropical fruits and sometimes salmonella. As our car sinks into another flooded pothole

Elliot Wilson

Let India 2.0 rise from the ashes of Bombay

Elliot Wilson says that an energetic form of political activism — principally on the internet — is needed in India and there are encouraging signs on Facebook, MySpace and other sites If there is any good to come out of November’s bloody terror attacks in Bombay, it can be found not on the city’s angry streets, nor in the Lok Sabha, New Delhi’s lethargic lower house, but in a more nebulous place, dismissed by both Hillary Clinton and John McCain but embraced by US President-elect Barack Obama: the internet. The Bombay bombings have galvanised urban professionals — traditionally the least-motivated bloc of Indian voters — forcing them to come out

Thursday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

New year; same old Gordon Brown

No.10 has come up with an ingenious solution to what could have been a yearly presentational problem: to have Gordon Brown’s New Year’s Message as a disembodied voice, with no video at all.  You can listen to it here. And that voice observes that an “old era of unbridled free market dogma was finally ushered out”. Remind us, who was Chancellor during the last ten years? It’s typical of Brown’s pettiness that he also includes in his New Year message a stab at the Tories, saying “The failure of British governments in previous global downturns was to succumb to political expediencsy and cut back investment across the board thereby stunting

Wednesday

Matthew Dancona

Apocalypse 2009?

Splendid to see Boris developing the Apocalypse Now theme for 2009 which he road-tested in the Spectator Christmas issue. Here’s what the Mayor says in his New Year message: I want to quote Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now when he says ‘Some day captain, this war is going to end’, and some day, this recession is going to end. We can speed the demise of this recession if we all help the poorest in our community and if we make the vital investment that we need in our mass transit system and in fighting crime, so that London emerges at the end better placed to compete and entrenched in its