Politics

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

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

It is grim out there in the real economy

As Gordon Brown says, Britain is indeed “leading the world” – but into recession, a property market collapse and soaring unemployment. This—not the stock market indices which mesmerise a bewildered House of Commons—is what matters. Take today’s inflation data – it shows a 30 percent rise in electricity prices, 40 percent for fuel prices and 50 percent for gas prices. And that’s before the winter sets in and everyone puts their central heating on. Food inflation is 13 percent and within that meat is up 20 percent. Globalisation continues to push down the costs of imports in relative terms, so overall CPI inflation is 5 percent. But those who have

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

They Haven’t Gone Away You Know

The issue of whether the state can lock-you up indefinitely  for up to 42 days without even the courtesy of telling you why is back. Happily, the House of Lords seems certain to reject the government’s plans, sending them back to the Commons where, again hopefully, they will finally die. Here’s Labour MP Tom Harris, however, explaining that if you opposed giving the state these powers you’re a “civil liberties” (feel the sneer with which he writes these words!) nutcase and if there’s another terrorist attack on Britain, it will be your fault… It’s no secret that, along with the great, wise majority of our nation, I support a radical

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Hats off to Gordon Brown?

Commenting on this post, a reader asks: What does this do to Gordon Brown’s political future?  He sure looks like a world leader as the rest of the world falls in behind his bailout plan. Neither McCain nor Obama seem to have a clue what to do for the financial crisis, so I’m wondering if I should write in Brown’s name for President in here in the U.S.  Your opinion? This is a good question, not least because it permits one to escape from economics. My answer hunch, I guess, is that this will improve Gordon’s position in the short-term but that he is still extremely vulnerable in the long-term.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Political Advertising 18

Is this the most famous presidential ad of all? Perhaps! Anyway, we’re back in 1964 and LBJ wanrs that Barry Goldwater will end up incinerating your children. Tough stuff.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

He’s just making it up now

Another breathtaking Brownie at the Prime Minister’s press conference today: “I have to say we face this situation with relatively low national debt because of the steps we have taken since 1997, where we wiped off perhaps more than around £100 billion of debt by reducing the proportion of debt in our national income.” Huh? The ONS is unequivocal: net debt was £351bn in May 1997 and £632bn in August – or £545bn if you exclude Northern Rock. So where is his “wiping out” of £100 billion? Normally with a Brownie you can see how he cooked up the fake figure. But this time, it really does look like he

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Does the credit crunch weaken the case for Scottish independence?

So what would have happened to the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS had Scotland been independent? The Scotsman quotes an anonymous Edinburgh banker saying “HBOS would have gone bust and RBS would have followed five days later. The Scottish state simply wouldn’t have enough money to rescue two banks of that size as Iceland has done. As it would have been a Scottish problem rather than a British one – they’d both have gone to the wall.” In The Times, Jenny Hjul seductively argues that Iceland’s bankruptcy and Ireland’s woes expose the dangers of the small country model. Salmond even mentioned Iceland as a lodestar. He floated £100m –

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

What to expect from the Euro-zone meeting

The Euro summit is underway now, and I’ve spoken to a few of my better-informed contacts about it. Here are some thoughts:-   1)      The bailout model they’re meant to agree to in Paris does, indeed, seem to be that of Sweden ‘92. It’s being called that in France and Germany, but you can bet Brown will be calling it the British/Brown Model – he’s on a relentless mission to make political capital out of this. 2)      It is worth someone (like Cameron) pointing out that the UK is probably in the worst position of the EU countries. Not only were our banks the most over-extended but our household debt

Daniel Korski

We shouldn’t have to make Mandelson a Lord

Peter Mandelson is to take his seat in the House of Lords on Monday following his surprise return to the cabinet. But for one week he held the job of Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform without having a seat in either the Commons or the Lords. He was presumably allowed to take the job by the rule-keepers because he is a member of the Privy Council. Many traditionalists will say that the constitutional anomaly will be corrected once Mandelson is made a peer and the Business Sectary can be held to proper account. But scrutiny of ministers in Parliament is becoming increasingly lax. PMQs is a

Saturday

Irwin Stelzer

Politics | 11 October 2008

Gordon Brown’s critics are confused. For months they have been accusing him of dithering, of timidity, of being unable to make the bold moves that are needed if his government is to get a grip on the unfolding problems in the financial sector and, now, in the economy as a whole. Now that he has shown more than a bit of both decisiveness and courage by bringing Peter Mandelson back from what most fair-minded people recognise is a credible stint as European trade commissioner, the critics have shifted gears. Mandelson is not the man to help craft policies with which to fight the emerging economic crisis because… well, because he

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

“Ambition” is the new “Uppity”

Sarah Palin on Barack Obama and Bill Ayers today: This pattern raises serious questions about Senator Obama’s judgment.  It raises serious questions about his truthfulness.  But there is no question about his ambition. Ambition explains launching your political career in the living room of an unrepentant terrorist. Indeed. Because you too would start your decades-long conspiracy to steal the Presidency in the home of an “unrepentent terrorist”. That’s a sensible ambition! Who could possibly fail to see that? Doesn’t Obama’s association – no more than that – with Ayers undermine the “he’s a secret terrorist-sympathiser” narrative? Or have we, I suppose, now reached the point where the GOP skips the

The Spectator

The week that was | 10 October 2008

Andrew Neil reveals what Russia hope to gain from a deal with Iceland. Matthew d’Ancona reports on “That one”-gate, and observes that George Howarth has cemented the truce. The Skimmer takes on Gordon Brown for his delusions of grandeur. Theo Hobson argues that the Archbishop of Canterbury outclasses the atheists. Fraser Nelson gives his reaction to PMQs, and has a list of questions about the Government’s bailout package. James Forsyth predicts that Brown won’t be smiling for long, and claims that Tory economic thinking isn’t discredited by the current crisis. Peter Hoskin says the early signs aren’t promising for Brown’s get-out plan, and praises Nick Clegg’s performance in PMQs. Stephen Pollard

Peter Hoskin

The FTSE takes a hammering

At close of play, the FTSE was down a hefty 8.85 percent – putting it below the 4000 mark, and sealing what has been the worst week for the index since 1987.  No.s 10 and 11 will be praying furiously for a change in the tide.  As I wrote earlier, the longer this market slump goes on, the more their bailout package will appear to be one colossal waste of public moolah.  Problem is, investors are panicking over the prospect of a global recession – and there’s very little Brown and Darling can do to change that.

The Skimmer

Who does Brown think he is?

Is our Great Leader getting delusions of grandeur? He told the BBC earlier today that “We’ve had some success in getting the price of oil down …” So not only is Gordon Brown “leading the world” in bank bailouts and moving markets as he does so (mainly downwards, sadly), but now he (who even uses the royal “we”) thinks he controls the price of oil.   It is, of course, an absurd conceit. G Brown no more controls oil prices than he does the movement of the planets. Oil prices have tumbled (to as low as $80 today) because the markets (and now the IMF) think we’re heading for a

Peter Hoskin

Darling’s gamble

Alistair Darling’s refusal to guarantee the savings of those councils and other bodies which have money tied up in Icelandic banks could have some particularly nasty side effects.  Writes the Times: “…The Times learnt that some town halls were considering withdrawing all their cash from private institutions and putting it into more secure Government bonds. If dozens of councils follow suit this could lead to a damaging run on the banks, local government experts cautioned. Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea, two top London councils, said that they were looking at this option. Tony Travers, of the London School of Economics, said: ‘Local authorities hold tens of billions of pounds in

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s get-out plan

Is this the sound of Brown changing his story?  Seems to me he’s deploying a slightly different version of his “I’m trying to get other world leaders to follow my lead” theme.  Here’s what he said in a BBC interview earlier, explaining why the fruits of his financial labours will only start showing up in the medium term: “What we need now – as I said this morning – is other countries to do similar things [to our bailout package], because this is a global financial system.” It’s a subtle but significant shift.  The implication being that if other countries don’t do “whatever it takes”, then our bailout may not have the

Peter Hoskin

The early signs aren’t promising for Brown

It’s down, down, down for the markets – and how.  The Dow Jones closed down by 7.33 percent; Nasdaq down 5.47 percent; and the Nikkei down 9.62 percent.  Whilst the DAX is currently down by 9.25 percent, and our very own FTSE has plummeted by 7.34 percent. What’s more, three-month LIBOR rates – the rates at which banks tend to lend to each other – aren’t showing much sign of downwards momentum after the series of coordinated interest-rate cuts by central banks. Of course, it’s early days as far as the bailout package is concerned, but these latest indicators do suggest that the banks, the brokers and the analysts have their eyes

Thursday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Is Brown’s plan to rescue the world’s financial system really his?

Not content with saving us poor souls in Britain, our Dear Leader now wants to save the world – and says so in tomorrow’s Times. He is demanding that other dithering countries copy his bold plan. It’s become the major theme of Saving Private Gordon – that the rest of the world will be inspired by the Dear Leader and show their love for him by adopting a similar bank recapitalisation scheme. Brown has mentioned the international element of this so often that I have started to smell a large, whiskered rat and I’d like to run a theory past CoffeeHousers. Gerard Baker tells us that the G7 had been

Peter Hoskin

Why Brown is so happy

There is something unnerving about seeing Gordon Brown smile so much on television. Yesterday he saddled the British public with more debt than any peacetime Prime Minister – taking a massive gamble with money the public haven’t even earned yet. What’s he got to smile about? Well he believes that he has finally moulded the crisis into a party political weapon and whacked David Cameron with it. There is now plenty of polling evidence that the crisis is playing into his hands. Just three weeks ago, the Tories had a 17 point lead on economic competence (YouGov/Telegraph). After more news cycles dominated by the financial crisis this had narrowed to

Peter Hoskin

Clegg adopts the right level of cooperation

The most impressive moment in yesterday’s PMQ’s came courtesy of an unlikely source – Nick Clegg.  The Lib Dem leader generally toed the “we’ll cooperate with the Government” line, but he also stirred in a punchy addendum: that some of the money Brown’s splashing around might be better spent on reducing the tax burden for low-income earners. I happen to agree with him, but – whatever your views on that front – there’s little denying that Clegg’s found a message which enables the Lib Dems to operate in a spirit of cooperation whilst also saying something a little bit different and eye-catching.  After all, post-10p tax, there’s scant chance that Brown will dismiss Clegg’s concerns with a “Shut up, you’re meant to be working with us” response –