Politics

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

Friday

Peter Hoskin

London: the best of

Here’s one for whilst you’re winding down on a Friday afternoon: a Guardian article outlining Ken Livingstone’s 10 favourite London haunts. I’m not sure whether they’re in any particular order, but the restaurant Vasco & Piero’s Pavilion fills the number one spot. And Livingstone also finds room for Tate Modern and the Natural History Museum, among others. I quite like the format, and it got me thinking. What would Boris’ top 10 be? What – indeed – would my top 10 be? Without further thought, I’m not sure – but it would have to include St James’s Park, Sadler’s Wells and the Sir John Soane’s Museum. But this is one

Peter Hoskin

Put your questions to George Osborne

George Osborne has kindly agreed to a Q&A session with Coffee House.  So, post your questions for him in the comments sections below.  And, in a week-or-so’s time, we’ll pick out the best ten and put them to the shadow chancellor.  He’ll get back to us all a few days later.  And the commenters whose questions are chosen will all win Coffee House t-shirts and copies of the special 180th Anniversary issue of The Spectator.  

Peter Hoskin

Brown turns to the Blairites

“It worked for Tony, so it might just work for me.” That’s what must be going through Gordon Brown’s head at the moment, as – according to this story in the Independent – he’s turning to leading Blairite figures, such as Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, for advice. If true, it’s fairly astonishing – after all, these are people whom Brown undermined and attacked, for the best part of a decade, in his effort to reach the very top. But it’s perhaps even more surprising that the Blairites are going along with it all. Campbell, for example, is said to be “talking regularly” with Brown, and may even take up some

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

More poppycock from Gordon

Justin at Chicken Yoghurt is bang on: It’s difficult to think of another public-facing job where this kind of evasiveness and inarticulacy would be tolerated…. Picture Gordon Brown getting a job in a supermarket or in a bar. ‘Do you know when you’re getting more tuna in?’ ‘This store is working towards fulfilling its demand for tuna in the very near future.’ …or… ‘Pint of lager, please.’ ‘While we regret that supplies of lager are currently causing difficulties for the public, we have taken the right long term decisions to secure lager supply in the coming years.’ Also note how Brown continues to talk nonsense about Afghanistan while refusing to

Peter Hoskin

David Davis on Brown’s security strategy

We uploaded the content from the latest issue of the magazine this morning.  It includes an article by David Davis, which you can access here.  In it, Davis argues against Brown’s security strategy, and outlines why he’s opposed to the Government’s thinking on ID cards, 42-day detention and the use of CCTV, among other things.  Here’s the bottom line: “Mr Brown’s security strategy is the worst of all worlds — draconian, expensive and ineffective. This contortion of British security and liberty is the result of pervasive ministerial amateurism, driven by a desperate thirst for headlines. Policy-making for the news cycle cannot be properly assessed, checked and tested. That is why I

Peter Hoskin

Frugality, please

Today’s vote on MPs’ pay and expenses is one in which I hope Gordon Brown gets his way. He’s already frozen the pay rises of his ministerial colleagues. And now he’s pushing for MPs to accept a 2.2 percent pay deal that’s in line with what the rest of the public sector is getting. Trouble is, many MPs are keener on a 4.4 percent rise, and will vote accordingly. Many are also unhappy about the necessary – if not quite sufficient – changes to the expenses system which are being proposed. A victory for the 4.4-percenters and their greedy ilk would be disgraceful. After all the expenses scandals of recent

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cameron drops the Hoon bomb in PMQs

With a little help from the Daily Telegraph, David Cameron staged an ambush for Gordon Brown at PMQs today – the letter to Keith Vaz from Geoff Hoon promising he will be “rewarded” for supporting the government. It went up on the Telegraph website just before midday, and either David Cameron’s Blackberry is working with efficient speed or he had advance notice. Certainly more notice than Brown who was stuffed. Poor Hoon tried to look composed, knowing the television cameras would be turning to him. But his face went beetroot red, as Cameron read out his letter to Vaz. “I wanted you to know how much I appreciated all your

Peter Hoskin

Hoon to Vaz: “I trust you’ll be rewarded”

The Telegraph have scored a great scoop.  It’s a letter in which Geoff Hoon thanks the Labour MP Keith Vaz for his crucial U-turn over the recent terror bill – a U-turn which contributed to Brown’s eventual victory.  All fine, until Hoon gets onto Vaz being “appropriately rewarded”…  “Dear Keith…Just a quick note to thank you for all your help during the period leading up to last Wednesday’s vote. I wanted you to know how much I appreciated all your help … I trust that it will be appropriately rewarded! … With thanks and best wishes, Geoff.” I’m sure Downing St will be fuming that this made its way into the public realm, and that it was even

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Times they are a-changin’

If you haven’t already done so, do read this morning’s Times editorial on the Conservatives. It argues, correctly to my mind, that the Tories should not be satisfied to win the next election simply on the back of the public’s disappointment with Labour. It concludes that Cameron’s “challenge is to offer British voters a real choice.” The editorial took me—and Nick Robinson —by surprise. The brilliant Daniel Finkelstein recently became chief leader writer of The Times, but today’s leader seems to go against what Danny was arguing just a fortnight ago. Then, he wrote that the “party that is first to let the voters know what it really stands for…

Peter Hoskin

Eight new laws a day under Brown

This passage jumped out at me from Irwin Stelzer’s excellent article in the Telegraph this morning: “[Gordon Brown] has had some 2,823 laws passed during his first year in office – eight per day and 64 per cent more than Lady Thatcher averaged – many aimed at regulating businesses and commercial transactions between private parties, such as the buyers and sellers of property. This at a time when it is crucial to reduce taxes on entrepreneurs and small businesses, and the red tape that makes it so difficult for small businesses to start and to survive.”

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

A very English coup — and the end of our national church

On the eve of the General Synod and the Lambeth Conference, Theo Hobson says that the sleeping giant of evangelical and orthodox Anglicanism has been awoken by liberal agitation and Rowan Williams’s failed leadership. The church is damaged beyond repair Some years ago a vicar gave a sermon in which he tried to explain the latest developments in the Anglican Communion to his congregation. Afterwards an old lady came up to him, a bit bemused. ‘How does all this stuff about Anglicans affect us?’, she asked. ‘Well,’ he replied, smiling warmly at the old biddy, ‘we’re all part of the global Anglican Communion, aren’t we?’ She looked still more bemused:

David Davis

Brown’s security strategy is the worst of all worlds

It’s draconian, expensive and ineffective, says David Davis. All the evidence shows that the Prime Minister is eroding our civil liberties pointlessly As shadow home secretary for five years, it became an office joke that, faced with difficult policy questions, I would demand ‘get me the evidence!’ I am a scientist by training and, while 69 per cent of the public believe I took a principled stance in resigning from Parliament, that decision was also based on a rigorous empirical assessment of the evidence. The reality is that the relentless stream of repressive measures taken by this government over the last eleven years — whether 42 days pre-charge detention or

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Glasgow East is Brown’s dirty little secret: a hideous, costly social experiment gone wrong

Glasgow East symbolises — as few other places in Britain can — the fact that the problem Labour faces is not just lack of leadership but lack of mission. What is to be seen in this constituency encapsulates and dramatises Labour’s abject failures to comprehend, let alone tackle, the nature of the poverty which grips our council estates. For all the latest on the Glasgow East by-election, visit Coffee House When Tony Blair was Prime Minister he used to joke in private that his writ — like that of the Roman Empire — ended at Hadrian’s Wall. Beyond that lay Gordon’s land, a graveyard for Conservatives, home of the murky

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

SNP favourites to win in Glasgow East

Ladbrokes have released their odds for the Glasgow East by-election. They’ve chalked the SNP up as favourites to win: SNP — 8/13 Labour — 6/5 Conservatives — 100/1 Liberal Democrats — 100/1 Remember, Labour currently hold the seat with a 13,500 majority – that’s almost double the majority they enjoyed in Crewe and Nantwich before the Tories won there recently.  Yet still the bookies – as well as Politics Home’s panel of Westminster insiders – are predicting victory for Alex Salmond’s nationalists.  It’s almost getting to the point at which no seat can be considered safe for Labour.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Clarke waters down the West Lothian Answer

I have always considered the West Lothian Answer to be fairly simple. The Speaker decides if legislation is England-only, and if so then only English MPs get to vote on it. This has been in the last two Tory manifestos – but Ken Clarke today offers something different. He suggests all MPs vote on second readings of all legislation, but only English MPs vote at the committee stages of England-only legislation. Scots MPs would be unable to block any amendments, but would have the right to team up with government rebels and vote the whole thing down. Or, in the deplorable case of English university top up fees and foundation

Peter Hoskin

Brown faces another 10p tax rebellion

Oh dear. It looks like Brown and Darling could be facing yet another rebellion over the abolition of the 10p tax band. Last night, No.10 confirmed that there’ll be no compensation for those 1.1 million people who are still worse off as a result of Brown’s Great Tax Con. And, as a result, certain Labour MPs are pushing to defeat the Finance Bill as it passes through the Commons today. Perhaps we should be grateful that the Government won’t be adding to the £2.7 billion of extra public borrowing that the existing compensation package has already required. But that’s scant reward for those 1.1million taxpayers. Especially as they’re worse-off because

Monday

Peter Hoskin

And now Davis responds…

Here’s the text of David Davis’ response to Gordon Brown’s letter: Dear Gordon, Thank you for your letter of 26 June. This is the second time you have responded to me directly, since my resignation from the House of Commons in protest at your relentless assault on British liberty. First, you gave a speech on 17 June at the IPPR, a favoured Labour think-tank, hardly an environment that allows for the vigorous and open debate we so sorely need. Now, you insist that any questions I wish to ask on this vital national issue be raised within the narrow confines of Prime Ministers Questions, where you have developed the novel