Politics

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

Monday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Break free from the spending shackles

William Rees-Mogg yesterday added his voice to the many suggesting that, now the economic outlook has changed, so should the Tories’ daft proposal to match Gordon Brown’s spending pledges. Iain Martin, Iain Dale and my good self are just a few who argue that now Brown has been found out, the Tories should think twice about copying him. Cameron is doing nothing original in aping Brown’s spending plans. This pledge was made by Portillo in 2001 and Letwin in 2004. If the electorate didn’t want it then, why should they this time? Or, to borrow a Cameroon analogy, if voters didnt want ham and cheese in the last two elections why

Sunday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Will the broken referendum promise break the Lib Dems?

At last, some life in the Lisbon Treaty debate – and from the least likely party. All LibDem MPs stood on a manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution and quite a few (perhaps as many as half) believe they should not break this trust with the voters as Labour has done. Ergo much unhappiness about Clegg’s decision to play follow-my-leader with Brown, without any proper consultation or debate. Clegg has already admitted his party is split on the issue, and yellow brickbats are flying in the blogosphere. But, Clegg can tell his nervous party, no one cares. It’ll never break out of Westminster.   He can

Peter Hoskin

Defend yourself

John Rentoul writes a typically-perceptive piece in the Independent on Sunday, doubting that Gordon Brown will ever seize back the political initiative.  For Rentoul, Brown’s major problem is that he’s not engaging in “the drama of a dialogue in his own defence” – mainly because he hasn’t identified a position to defend:  “If he was a ‘change’ from Blair, what had he changed to? Brown himself made a telling mess of answering that question on the BBC’s Politics Show last weekend. ‘The changes that we are making are to recognise that the world has changed over the last 10 years. We didn’t have the environmental problems we have now. We didn’t have the global

Peter Hoskin

Tories on the offensive?

Another poll, another decreased lead for the Tories.  The latest ICM/Sunday Telegraph poll – the first conducted after both Peter Hain’s resignation and the Derek Conway furore – puts Labour on 32 per cent (down 1 from last month); the Conservatives on 37 per cent (down 3); and the Lib Dems on 21 per cent (up three). I suspect the Tories’ uninspiring poll performances are down to their complacent politics since New Year.  Now, however, there are signs that the complacency’s fading, and proactivity’s reigning once again. The Sunday Telegraph contains the double-punch of an interview with George Osborne and a comment article by David Davis.  Both pieces set out a different agenda to the Government’s. Osborne’s headline-grabber is the claim that

Rani Singh

This is reality, folks

Party chiefs launched their manifestos at Imperial College in London this week. No slick Anglo-American electioneering with carefully choreographed speeches and prepared questions here, this was raw Pakistani politics where missiles fire unguided. The chiefs each had 15 minutes to speak and had been given specific questions to address, which they mostly ignored. They ran over time and had to be restrained. The evening quickly degenerated into a slanging match with personal attacks. A panellist mocked Imran Kahn’s political ambition, calling him a “Playboy.” His representative, Shahid Dastgir Khan, stood up and raised his hand. “I object to my leader being called a playboy!” he complained. The PML (N) representative,

Saturday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 2 February 2008

The appointment of a Permanent Secretary at No. 10 Downing Street shows that the office of Prime Minister is swelling fit to burst. Everyone says that the man with the new post, Jeremy Heywood, is excellent. Nothing is known against him beyond his atrociously New Labour recreations in Who’s Who — ‘child-care, modern art, cinema, Manchester United’ — but it is not clear why his job needed to be invented. The Prime Ministership is not a government department. It is easy to list all the people who are annoyed by the new role — the permanent secretaries of real government departments, the Cabinet Ministers for whom they work, all the

Peter Hoskin

Election Watch

Be sure to check out Rani Singh’s Coffee House coverage of the forthcoming Pakistani elections.  Rani’s first post is an unmissable primer in the issues, parties and individuals that will dominate the contest.  She will continue to provide insight and commentary until election day, on February 18th.  And for views on the US Presidential race, head over to the Spectator’s latest blog – Americano.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown is all that stands between Blair and the EU presidency

What started off as a joke is growing more serious by the hour. Bets are being laid on the next EU president and the favourite is one Anthony Charles Lynton Blair. Ladbrokes has cut him from 3/1 to 2/1, perhaps after the Guardian piece this morning. Put aside the (rich) comic value of all this, the appointment has its logic. If you want the EU to pack a diplomatic punch (I don’t) then this depends to a huge degree on getting heavy-hitter who knows how to work the circuit. Who better than the globe-trotting Blair? Next, it will help keep Britain onside. The Tories would find it that bit harder

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Will Obama face McCain? We’ll know after Super Tuesday

If the Democrats vote with their heads on Super Tuesday — 5 February— Barack Obama will survive the Clinton assault and go on to become the party candidate in November. He already appeals strongly to Independents and Republicans. In Iowa, Obama won 44 per cent of the Republicans who shifted registration to take part in the Democratic caucus, and he won 41 per cent of Independents. Even though he lost in New Hampshire, he beat Clinton there among Independents by ten points. In South Carolina, Independent support is what drove up Obama’s numbers among whites. Furthermore, he does better in polls against every possible Republican opponent than Clinton does. This

The Spectator

After Conway, heed Coulson

Here are some brute facts: the Conservative party still has fewer seats than Michael Foot won in the 1983 general election. To win an overall majority in the House of Commons, David Cameron requires a national swing of 7.1 per cent (compared to the 5.3 per cent achieved by Margaret Thatcher in 1979). For all Gordon Brown’s travails, the most recent opinion polls suggest that the Tory lead is soft: a ComRes survey in Tuesday’s Independent put the Conservative party on 38 points, eight points ahead of Labour, but well short of the 45 point threshold at which an opposition can start to feel quietly confident. It is in this

Eric Ellis

Farewell to Asia’s greatest kleptocrat

The strangest moment of the elongated théâtre de mort of the billionaire Indonesian dictator Suharto came islands apart on the day after the old crook died. In Central Java, the remains of the despot the United Nations last year declared to be the 20th century’s biggest thief were interred in his family’s crypt in a funeral that blended Javanese mysticism with the pomp of state. Indonesia’s elite attended in mourning dress, uniform or ceremonial sarong. Foreign ambassadors and head of state bowed in reverence, following the hypocritical lead set by Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew: the Asian statesman acclaimed for his aversion to corruption had earlier rushed to honour his dying

Neil Collins

Why it’s raining dividends in Wales

Neil Collins meets Nigel Annett, who runs Welsh Water — a unique utility company which operates without shareholders and distributes profits back to its customers It does sometimes stop raining in Wales. When the sun comes out, it’s pretty stunning, thanks to the green all that rain produces, but much of the time the residents must wonder why they pay so much to get what the Lord deposits on their heads so liberally. But then, following the pain of the water bill, comes a £20 bonus — call it a dividend, rebate or discount, it’s real money. Every water company charges the maximum the regulations allow, but only Glas Cymru

Friday

Peter Hoskin

A Labour poll lead?

ConservativeHome are reporting on a previously unseen Ipsos-Mori poll which gives Labour a 1 per cent lead.  The full figures are: Labour on 38 percent (up 6 percent from the previous poll); the Conservatives on 37 percent (down 5 percent); and the Lib Dems on 16 per cent (up 1 per cent). It should be stressed that the poll was conducted before Peter Hain’s resignation – but the start of the donations scandal; the run on Northern Rock; and the general-election-that-wasn’t should all have been fresh in respondents’ minds.  I wrote earlier that Gordon Brown “clearly sports a superior brand of Teflon suit” – after these results, his tailor certainly deserves a pay-rise.

Peter Hoskin

The wacky race for transparency

The three main parties are tripping over each other in the race for transparency over MPs’ expenses.  As Fraser reported earlier, David Cameron lead the way by confirming that he’ll tell his MPs to formally declare whether they employ any relatives.  Labour and the Lib Dems have subsequently moved to identical positions.  Cameron’s actions – and the catch-up politics of the other two parties – will have won him some political capital.  But maybe it’s wrong to talk about “winning” in this case, when the reputation of the whole House has been so thoroughly tarnished.  The always-perceptive Frank Field yesterday equated the Conway case with “embezzlement”, and told the House that: “It is difficult to think how much lower our collective reputation might sink among voters generally.” And so –

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The broom, not the dust?

Francis Urquhart will be spinning in his fictional grave. Once Tory whips were the MI5 of the Commons. They put a bit of stick about, knew every skeleton in every closet – and provided the  best early-warning to the leadership. So Cameron should have been warned about the full horrors of the Conway crisis months ago – now he’s fire fighting. And today he’s taken a gamble – he’s saved the Sunday papers time and announced 70 of his MPs employ family members. He wants to take the initiative cleaning this mess up – and portray his party as the broom, not the dust. But he won’t know what lurks

Peter Hoskin

Cameron on Thatcher

 Last night, David Cameron presented Margaret Thatcher with a lifetime achievement award, and he follows it up with an article on the Iron Lady in today’s Telegraph. The article begins boldly: “Those who say that the modern Conservative Party is breaking with the legacy of Margaret Thatcher are wrong.” And mixes praise for Thatcher with swipes at Brown: “She tackled inflation through getting control of the money supply, an enormously difficult task which not only makes Gordon Brown’s sole monetary decision – to hand over control over interest rates to the Bank of England – look puny in comparison; it made it possible in the first place… …Margaret Thatcher is

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Whither should we turn – America or Europe?

In a speech today, Liam Fox spelt-out what the Lisbon Treaty means for defence alliances.  As he sees it, the treaty would cause greater integration of European security forces, to the detriment of NATO: “The Lisbon Treaty should be viewed as a warning to the British public and Atlanticists across Europe. On a recent trip to Washington I couldn’t help but notice some of the isolationist rhetoric coming from that side of the Atlantic. Closer to home we are dealing with forces in Government that are pushing for closer European integration. Both American isolationism and European integration threaten to tear the tried-and-tested NATO alliance apart. Consequently, the defence innovations included

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Follow the BoJo revolution

There’s an old joke that the word “lies” is banned in the House of Commons because it would be used so often that you’d get no business done. The actual reason is that MPs (hilariously) judge themselves above telling untruths. Yet we do hear rather shameless porkies at PMQs. And Tiberius makes a point: why don’t Team Cameron object more about Brown misleading the House like Boris Johnson did today?   One of Brown’s main tactics is using misinformation, repeated with such force that no one objects to it (such as “Tory cuts” in the last election where the Tories, alas, would have raised spending and the tax burden with it).

Peter Hoskin

Why isn’t Brown acting?

As Andrew stressed earlier, the European response to the credit crunch has been anaemic (How anaemic? Check out the footage below of Gordon Brown and his EU compatriots agreeing the “way forward for [the] global economy”).  By contrast, the Americans have been the very model of proactivity – introducing sharp interest cuts and proposing massive tax relief programmes.   What’s holding the British Government back?  I suspect it’s a combination of economic and political motivations. Economically, there’s the argument that America’s experiencing things worse, so Britain doesn’t need to act quite as decisively.  If Brown believes this, then he’s going against the wisdom of commentators such as Anatole Kaletsky, who recently wrote that: “At the beginning of this year I wrote that if the