Politics

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

Saturday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown’s funding solution

Gordon Brown’s decision to create the post of finance director of the Labour party to oversee compliance with the law on donations is a bold one. Once Brown has appointed his own man to this position he will be unable to put any distance between himself and any subsequent fundraising scandal. Brown must, therefore, be confident that he can prevent any repeat of the Abrahams affair. If the Tories, though, are to get on the front foot in the funding argument they must answer the questions about Lord Aschroft’s status. As long as these questions remain unanswered, they will provide easy fodder for journalists and the Tory’s political opponents.

Rani Singh

Moving on from mourning…

As the mourning period for assassinated former Prime Minister and Pakistan Peoples’ Party leader Benazir Bhutto closes, various leaders from her party have been speaking. Asif Ali Zardari, her husband, is co-chairing with her son Bilawal. Zardari says he is not standing as a candidate in the election. He may have his hopes set on being Prime Minister in the event of a sizeable PPP presence in a post-February 18th government. As the PPP moves onto the campaign trail, Benazir’s image is everywhere. There are photos, banners and numerous tribute songs. Strategists are aware of the impact of the Bhutto name and legacy upon supporters and voters, and continuously allude

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Clarke lashes out

Charles Clarke throws the book at Brown today in an interview with the Daily Mail. A few choice quotes.   1) “You saw it with David Cameron over MPs’ expenses when he was out, very fast, dealing with the situation. Gordon must stop being a ditherer. He lacks courage. He looks at his papers, dithers and isn’t sure.”   2) “Gordon can only make the Cabinet seem heavyweight by changing the people he puts in it.”   3) “At first, I had thought it unlikely he would give me a Government job. But then, when he became Prime Minister, he said that he had nothing personal against me and he

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Trust in politics is dead: long live ‘wiki-politics’

If a museum were built to honour the ancestral political class, it would not look much different from the House of Commons. Its corridors are lined with portraits of the political greats and its staircases are adorned with old Vanity Fair caricatures. ‘Honourable members’ are still treated as if they were just that, with the right to jump to the top of the queue at canteens, bars and the post office. In other words: they live in a bubble of delusion, comfortably but perilously insulated from the growing hostility of the outside world. If a museum were built to honour the ancestral political class, it would not look much different

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

If we don’t bug a conversation between Khan and Ahmed, who do we bug?

Should members of Britain’s beleaguered and persecuted bombing community be subjected to intrusive surveillance techniques such as bugging? It seems a bit illiberal, given their very real difficulties in day-to-day life. Hard enough trying to find a safe place to hide all that fertiliser, castor beans, etc., without having to worry if your whispered conversations after Friday prayers are being eavesdropped upon by some spook. There is probably a European Union law about bugging Muslim terrorists, which insists you have to notify them in advance and also provide disabled access ramps if you’re bugging them in a public place. I remember an enormous furore a couple of decades back when

Simon Nixon

Farewell to Scottish & Newcastle …

Usually the passing of a major UK company into foreign ownership — and with it the ending of British pretensions to global leadership in another industry — is the cue for national soul-searching and recrimination. Not so the demise of Scottish & Newcastle, which finally agreed last month to be carved up by Denmark’s Carlsberg and its Dutch rival Heineken. Except perhaps in its native Edinburgh, the brewer of Fosters and John Smith’s bitter is likely to go unlamented — either by its shareholders or customers. Nobody who remembers the shabby state of British pubs until just a few years ago — the grotty furniture, the limited choice of mass-produced

Friday

Peter Hoskin

The wrong man for the job?

Malcolm Rifkind writes an acerbic article over at Comment is Free, on why Tony Blair shouldn’t fill the role of EU President.  He has two key points: 1) The role’s not that powerful, and 2) Blair spells bad news for Europe.  Rifkind lets loose on the second of these:   “Ultimately, however, the question is whether Blair is the appropriate person to do the job. The answer to that has to be no. At the time of the Iraq war, he divided Europe in a way not seen for 40 years. His foolish decision to side so unequivocally with George W Bush has damaged his own credibility across Europe to such an extent that

Peter Hoskin

Clegg Watch

Nick Clegg’s certainly proving his worth as a newsmaker; something the Lib Dems have lacked in recent times.  After his we-could-possibly-enter-a-coalition-with-the-Tories revelation in the FT, he has a very-readable piece in today’s Times on “how to stop future funding scandals”.  The article’s more noteworthy for it’s punchiness than for its ideas (although Clegg does recommend that non-doms should be banned from “taking a position in Parliament”).  And it neatly keys into the consensus that recent scandals relate to politics as a whole, whilst subtly reminding us that the Lib Dems have remained largely untainted by it all: “The Derek Conway affair is not the first, nor likely to be the last, in a long line of political scandals over money. While such scandals have

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Clegg cosies up to the Tories?

Nick Clegg is finally doing the clever thing and openly talking about backing the Tories in coalition. I’m in a BBC studio waiting to do News24 paper review, and just have the FT’s front page. But it quotes him saying that he:  “…could back a minority Tory government if David Cameron proposes genuine ‘liberal’ reforms.”  Now, I don’t believe him for a minute but it gives him more leverage with Brown to flirt with Cameron.

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Promises, promises…

From Is There More to Life Than Shoes: In the court case brought against him for breach of contract over a referendum on the EU Constitution, Brown’s personal barrister has just told the court that “manifesto pledges are not subject to legitimate expectation”. Given the content of most political manifestos, isn’t this a welcome relief? Imagine a world in which they actually did what they promised? Scarcely bears thinking about.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Digby goes off message

For some time I have been waiting for Digby Jones to return to his good old unpredictable self. It’s happening in tomorrow’s FT where Labour’s trade minister says Darling’s copycat clampdown on non doms will cost Britain.  Jones suggests that the non-dom rules have caused people to ask “does this mean you don’t want us?”  He adds:  “I can give you five reasons to invest in Britain before you invest elsewhere in Europe. But maybe there were seven and now there are five” Who has turned seven into five? His boss, Gordon Brown. 

Peter Hoskin

The theatricality of Ed Miliband

In his overview of PMQs yesterday, Fraser picked up on Ed Miliband’s startling facial gymnastics (and Coffee House regulars Austin Barry and Nicholas Millman identified the parallels with Japanese Noh theatre). Now here’s video footage of Miliband’s performance (you’ll have to navigate an advert first):

Peter Hoskin

Hague on Europe

William Hague delivered a masterful speech on “The Conservative agenda for Europe”, at Policy Exchange today.  In short, it’s the definitive statement of why Britain deserves a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, although it skips around many of the key questions. I’ve identified some of the best bits below, but the whole transcript’s well worth reading (when, that is, it becomes available on the Tory website). First, there’s an incisive attack on the Government’s failure to call a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty: “It is a puzzle why the most enthusiastic proponents of deeper European integration in this country are a referendum’s fiercest opponents. If this Treaty is such a good thing for Britain,

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

How much for a politician?

I never nod in agreement more with any piece than with Charles Moore’s diary, and in today’s edition of the magazine he says Derek Conway: “…exclaims that ‘An MP is paid less than a sous-chef in the Commons’ as if  this were a self-evident absurdity… he wants what he sees as the befitting lifestyle and thinks the taxpayer should pay for it.” As Charles points out, Conway has at least been frank in saying an MP should get between £80k and £100k. The problem is that MPs’ mates in the City regard this as a reasonable fee. I have heard several MPs say the same – that they want a

Rani Singh

81 million voters “enabled”

Pakistani officials keep telling us that all is rosy for the upcoming elections.  The Election Commission of Pakistan, which is overseeing procedure on February 18th, has announced that it will “enable” around 81 million to vote.  While the Punjab province President of the PML (Q) pro-Musharraf party spoke on Tuesday about reforms, which mean that there is “no chance of rigging the elections”. Not everyone’s convinced. Wajid Shamsul Hassan, the PPP’s UK spokesman, wrote a complaining letter which was published in the Guardian on Tuesday, pointing out that only recently “Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth for breaking democratic norms.”  Like Wajid Shamsul Hassan, Imran Khan’s UK representative, Shahid Dastgir Khan, has been

Matthew Dancona

Party queen

If a party can be judged by its parties, then the Conservatives are heading for office. Last night’s Black and White party, masterminded by the brilliant Anya Hindmarch, was a triumph. Michael Spencer, the Tory treasurer, looked understandably pleased with the money flowing into the party’s coffers (all legit: the auction programme included stern extracts from the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000). But the deeper significance of the event was its sheer stunning style, wit and aesthetic touch. Traditionally, the Black and White party is a chore for the party’s senior figures, a drab affair that resembles an explosion in a cummerbund factory with lots of talk of

Peter Hoskin

A bad deal | 7 February 2008

On Tuesday it was tax credits.  And now the Public Accounts Committee delivers a boot to another of Gordon Brown’s pet projects – the New Deal.  The findings should (but won’t?) put pay to those claims that the UK’s achieved “full employment”.  Some six million people now live in homes where “no-one has a job and ‘benefits are a way of life’”.  Put another way: one-in-six households are now benefit dependent.  And then there are the pots and pots of taxpayers’ cash that have been used to reach this unedifying position.  Those households cost some £12.7 billion a year in public money.  One New Deal scheme  found jobs for only

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Iain Dale asks, I respond…

Top Brit-blogger Iain Dale asks Ten Questions about the US election: 10. How long before Mitt Romney’s money runs out?9. What circumstances would encourage Michael Bloomberg to run as an Independent?8. Who will Al Gore endorse and when?7. How long will Huckabee’s ego hold?6. When and if should Bill Clinton be put out on the stump again?5. What will John McCain have to promise to gain Huckabee’s endorsement?4. How negative is Romney prepared to go?3. How important will the VP choice be for each candidate?2. Obama hasn’t yet made a gaffe – how bad would it be for him if he made a big one?1. Is Osama bin Laden the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

McCain snubs Brown

Gordon Brown will now be regretting briefing this morning that he was going to meet John McCain. The senator has pulled out (he could take the Vietcong, says Iain Martin, but not an hour with Brown). His (cancelled) destination was Germany but it does make you wonder how seriously John McCain takes the UK-US special relationship? Now that Giuliani is out, is there a single presidential contender that has mentioned Britain in speeches? France, yes, Germany, yes – but what about Britain? McCain’s focus is more on Brussels. This from his Foreign Affairs article: “Americans should welcome the rise of a strong, confident European Union. The future of the transatlantic

Peter Hoskin

Points don’t necessarily mean prizes

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne confirmed the final details of the UK’s point-based immigration system today.  The Australia-style scheme – first outlined in 2006 – will be rolled-out as of 29th February. I was struck by Byrne’s claim that: “The points system means only those migrants Britain needs can come to the UK” Which jars a bit with his previous statement that: “I am not the general secretary of a Soviet-style central planning system. I do not sit, together with my colleagues, in an office in the Home Office deciding what the needs of the British economy will be next year” Surely, the Home Office using a points-based system to determine which migrants