Politics

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

Wednesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Meet the real Joe Biden: Vice-President Plonker

It has become fashionable to blame Sarah Palin for John McCain’s election defeat. Sure, say Washington insiders, Palin invigorated the conservative base — add contemptuous sneer — but she alienated the independents and undecideds. The God-fearing mother-governor of Alaska was not fit for high office. Her television performances were an international embarrassment. In choosing Palin as his vice-presidential candidate, McCain proved that he was over-impulsive, cynical, foolhardy. All true to an extent. It should be recognised, however, that Senator Joseph Biden, the man who will now be sworn in as vice-president in January, is just as disastrous a public figure as Sarah Palin. In fact, he might be worse. At

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The example that Obama sets for Cameron

It’s strange hearing US pundits solemnly explain that the banking turmoil of the last month was always going to hurt the incumbent government, because it hasn’t hurt Brown. Yet the UK and the US both went through the same reign of error: profligate spending, huge deficits, a housing bubble created by underpriced debt. The Bush-Brown economic policy has led both countries into a painful recession, but leaders do not self-destruct. It takes an Opposition politician to hold them to account. Since Lehman’s collapse, which put the economy at the centre of politics, Obama has succeeded – brilliantly. The Tories have so far failed, abjectly. Obama had both a critique, and

Dominic Midgley

He’s the voice of the crash, but the words are all his own

Financial crisis has transformed Robert Peston from egghead to celebrity, says Dominic Midgley, but the BBC business editor indignantly denies he’s a government mouthpiece The cover of the hardback version of Who Runs Britain?, Robert Peston’s masterly dissection of how the global economy got into the mess it’s in today, features an abstract version of the Union Jack. On the front of the paperback version published last week, however, we are treated to a portrait of the man himself. And we all know why the publishers made that change. In the past six months or so Robert Peston has gone from being the highly respected but faintly obscure business editor

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Remembrance day salutes man’s ancient instincts

War has a fatal attraction for men, says James Delingpole. Those who fall in combat are indeed the best and the bravest — and we shall certainly need their like again Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, and I’m sorry to repeat such a hoary cliché, but the reason it’s so hoary is it’s true. There’s barely a chap I know who doesn’t wonder how he’d fare if forced to undergo the ultimate male test — combat. And the ones who claim not to wonder such things I find frankly a bit weird. Are they not in denial of almost everything it means to

Reihan Salam

Obama’s America will be more equal but less mighty

Reihan Salam says that the President-elect is no socialist and it was desperate of McCain to claim as much. Obama’s policies more closely resemble European social democracy — with the attendant risk of economic sclerosis in the face of Asian competition While walking to work on the morning of Election Day, I was struck by the number of times I encountered Barack Obama’s beaming countenance on posters and bumper stickers. To be sure, I live in a neighbourhood in the District of Columbia that is particularly thick with the politically obsessive, but I’ve also encountered striking portraits of America’s next president across the country. Will the Obama iconography fade away

Tuesday

Matthew Dancona

This campaign has diminished John McCain – but he remains a great American

Honey, they shrunk the candidate. It has been a sadness to watch John McCain, a towering figure in US politics, diminished by the campaign trail and by the errors he has made along the way. The nominee who stands before America today is a very different creature to the prospective candidate I interviewed for The Spectator in 2006. McCain’s whole mission then – and one which made him identify with David Cameron – was to stretch a hand out to non-Republican voters, to ditch the Bush-Rove strategy of wooing the “base” above all else. Lest we forget:  McCain was one of the first politicians of the Right to engage sensibly

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

In anticipation of an Obama victory…

Some thoughts on the campaign in advance of the last day of voting tomorrow… Timing matters and, as any sports coach will tell you, it can’t be taught. You have it or, alas, you don’t. The same might be said for good fortune. That’s to say, success in political campaigns rarely has a monocausal explanation. Hindsight permits one to assemble the jigsaw and see how it all made sense, but that’s a far cry from presuming that it was inevitable that this kind of puzzle could only be put together this way. Nonetheless, the genius of the Obama campaign – and, I assume, the candidate himself – was recognising that

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 3 November 2008

Here are some of the posts made over the weekend on Spectator.co.uk: James Forsyth reports from the US on the latest developments in the Presidential race.  He identifies what’s wrong with John McCain’s message here.  And provides an election night viewing guide here. Fraser Nelson says the government are losing the war on drugs, and claims that Barclays took the right path. Peter Hoskin marks the return of the New Labour Old Crowd, and writes on the government’s failure to properly equip the armed forces. Daniel Korski outlines the situation in the Congo. And Clive Davis decodes the Presidential election.

Saturday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Politics | 1 November 2008

A nanosecond is easily measured in Westminster as the time between a politician’s hearing of a colleague’s impending resignation and wondering ‘What’s in it for me?’ It takes perhaps a full second to construct a theory as to why the unfortunate soul had it coming and probably deserved it. It takes about a minute to draw up a shortlist of potential successors, and half an hour to start some gentle plotting. Sympathy comes last, if at all. So for the few hours when George Osborne’s future was in doubt last week, the corridors and the urinals of Westminster were abuzz with versions of his political obituary. If he went, one

Friday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The Illustrated Brown Bust: negative equity

Estimated number of households in negative equity, 2003-10 If you’re a homeowner, turn away now. CoffeeHousers may remember recent reports of 1.2 million houses at risk of negative equity  – well, that may just be the start of a negative equity tsunami. This Citi graph, the latest in our occasional series, shows what would happen if prices do fall 30% as is widely expected. The left-hand scale is million, not per cent. It presumes 0.5m in negative equity now, rising above 3m – or one in four British households. As Michael Saunders from Citi says in his note: “These calculations are uncertain. But the key point is that, with house

Daniel Korski

From Motherwell to Malawi – but to do what?

A few weeks ago, Gordon Brown appointed former first minister, Jack McConnell MSP, as a Special Envoy for Conflict Resolution – provoking accusations that the move was “blatant political manipulation” to avoid the possibility of a by-election defeat in McConnell’s Motherwell and Wishaw seat. The idea had originally been to appoint McConnell as the High Commissioner in Malawi – which would have sparked a by-election. Instead, the Scottish politician will have a non-resident, part-time role as a special envoy for the Prime Minister. But what his exact job will be apparently remains unclear and the subject of some debate across Whitehall. There is no reference to the appointment – or

Peter Hoskin

The question the Tories must answer

Before George Osborne gave his speech at LSE today, I just coudn’t get a handle on what his message would be.  In his interview on the Today programme, he was making positive noises about reducing the tax burden.  “The best way to help people is through targeted, funded tax-help … certainly not increasing taxes like the government are planning to do,” he told listeners.  But the FT seemed to have a different take.  Their preview of the Shadow Chancellor’s speech began: “George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, will pave the way for tax rises under a Conservative government while warning against a ‘tax con’ short-term cut by Gordon Brown.” Thing is – as

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

A lack of clarity

Like Darling’s Mais lecture, Osborne’s speech to the LSE was rather long with no discernable points of action. No matter how much you say the word “responsible” (ten times, in his case), it just doesn’t add up to a policy. First the good news – Osborne uses Japan as an example of Keynesian spending. That’s the right analogy. Next he says he will “help people directly by getting money into their pockets through the tax system” – ie, tax cuts. Great. They can be easily funded by scrapping government waste, or abolishing failing government programmes. But Osborne goes on to complicate the issue and his signoff is this: “There is

Thursday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Osborne needs to recast his policy for the new era

Now that even Nigel Lawson says tax cuts are not the right way to go, why am I calling for them in my column? Lord Lawson did not issue a fatwa on all tax cuts, but warned against “massive tax cuts.” He is wary of so-called Keynesian fiscal activism – borrowing massively, to cut taxes. As am I. You can argue it’s better than Keynsian spending, but both still do more harm than good. I am arguing that the new era of deficits (I don’t expect we’ll see a balanced British budget for five years) need not lead the Tories to abandon tax cuts. They need a new argument for

Mark Wallace

Poll suggests the public are against Brown’s spending splurge

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has published a new poll today, carried out by ComRes, which gives an interesting insight into the public’s view of the financial crisis and the Government’s response to it. Particularly striking is the public’s view of the big spending, neo-Keynesian response that Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling have been emphasising in recent days. Far from being the vote-winning approach they may have hoped, their plan to spend more and borrow huge amounts to deal with the recession has the support of only 18% of the public. Instead, a strong 59% majority believe tax cuts are the best way to respond to the economic crisis, and 68% also want an “immediate

Peter Hoskin

Darling demands cheaper petrol

The government’s demands that oil companies cut petrol prices are now getting beyond parody.  Alistair Darling repeated them on GMTV this morning – blithely ingnoring the fact that fuel taxes account for well over half the cost of petrol at the pumps.  Fern Britton, for one, wouldn’t have let him get away with it. The question hovering over all this is whether the Treasury will go ahead with a planned 2p rise in fuel duty.  There’s always the chance that Brown ‘n’ Darling could try and gain some political capital – and attept to steal Nick Clegg’s “reduce the burden on low-income earners” thunder – by scrapping it in the

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Darling reads the last rites over the fiscal rules

Alistair Darling has not set out a new fiscal framework in his much-delayed Mais lecture – but he has read the last rites over the so-called the financial rules. “To apply the fiscal rules in a rigid manner today would be perverse,” he says. Not to say impossible: the rules set a 40% limit on net debt and it was 43.4% last month. Instead there is assurance that “people should be in no doubt that Government will take the decisions necessary, to ensure sustainability in the medium term.” George Osborne – back in action, and with a major speech planned on Friday – has released other Brown quotes which pledge

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

PMQs verdict: Clegg gets the message right

Finally, the right line from Prime Minister’s Questions – and it’s one that Gordon Brown will fear the most. “What people need now is more money in their pockets. He could deliver big tax cuts for people who desperately need help”. It was from Nick Clegg. You can argue – as I do –  that the Liberal Democrats’ proposed tax cut is paltry. But the rhetoric and positioning is precisely right. It’s a binary distinction: Brown trusts the state, and wants to spend his way out of a recession. Clegg is saying he trusts the British public, and wants to stimulate the economy by letting them keep more of their own money.

Peter Hoskin

Who will triumph in Glenrothes?

According to today’s Herald, the betting markets are continuing to move towards Labour: “The bookmakers are making it an increasingly close contest. William Hill said yesterday that they had not taken any bets on the SNP winning the seat since Prime Minister Gordon Brown campaigned there at the weekend. The bookmakers have the SNP as narrow favourites, with Labour rapidly closing the gap.” Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised that Labour are in the running for a seat where they currently enjoy a 10,644 majority.  But, should they triumph, expect it to be milked for all its “Brown bounce” worth.