Politics

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

Thursday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown gets lively

Normally, interviewing Gordon Brown is like drawing blood from a stone. In the old days, the interviewer had to rely on someone like Charlie Whelan to call up afterwards and give a real story (like joining the Euro) to compensate for his boss’s reticence. I don’t know what the Times trio slipped into his tea today, but it seems to have worked. And does the headline “Decisive year ahead” mean that 2008 will be the year where he takes a decision? Anyway, here’s what jumped out at me. 1)      On party funding: “I don’t get into the detail of individual donations. That’s for other people.” Is this leadership? He takes

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour’s next rebellion

Mark Mardell has a fascinating post up about a forthcoming EU directive that would allow people to travel to another member state for medical treatment. Left-wing Labour MPs like Frank Dobson are, in typical levelling down fashion, worried about what this will do to the NHS as patients flee our MRSA-ridden hospitals. Already 33 MPs are objecting to it, worried that people might—heaven forefend—receive treatment from a non-state provider abroad and then claim the money back from their local health authority. Will this be the issue that revives Euro-scepticism on the soft-left?

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown’s artful dodger act

This time, Brown came ready for Cameron. If asked about one of the many embarrassing issues dogging him, he’d say “he has missed the opportunity to talk about substance” then indulge in his list of fake economic greatest hits. Cameron thought on his feet, pointing out that the substance is going wrong for the PM too. But Brown responded by again saying that Cameron can’t talk about substance, and produced another boast. So, much for the great exchange. I don’t have time here to Fisk it, but Brown’s list is disingenuous at best and downright lies at worst. It is a confidence trick: people believe that because Brown recites all

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour’s thin blue line on pay

At first glance, Labour’s decision to pick a politically damaging fight over police pay when avoiding it would cost £40 million at most is bizarre. But as Michael White explains in The Guardian this morning, police pay is just the first public sector pay battle that Labour will have to fight. With the public finances in a battered shape and inflation rearing its ugly head, the government has to keep a lid on public sector pay.  So, expect a series of rows like this one over the coming year. The problem for Gordon Brown is that these fights are going to alienate Labour from a key part of its voting

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Scotland, oh,Scotland

Well, that’s that. So close to glory, yet so far. If ever anyone asks you to explain the quintessence of the Scottish footballing experience you need merely point them towards this afternoon’s game at Hampden Park. Every essential element was duly present. Hope. Fear. Calamity. Melodrama. Passion. Joy. Purgatory. Glory. And finally, that familiar friend Disaster. As it always seems to be, watching Scotland play football was to hop on a switchback that would take you to the top of the highest mountain – with just a momentary pause to admire the splendour of the view and the freshness of the air – before plunging back into the deepest, darkest

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Belfast on the Euphrates?

Matt Yglesias sees walls going up in Baghdad and wonders if the US Army is using Northern Ireland as its template: I believe this technique comes to the US Army’s counterinsurgency theorists via Belfast, where I believe they have been effective in helping the British maintain a degree of order. To some extent, this brings us back to the question of strategy. If tactics employed in Northern Ireland can be made to work in Iraq (and maybe they can) even though Iraq has ten times as many people as Northern Ireland does and even though Iraqis don’t speak English and even though the sectarian violence in Iraq is undergirded by

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Foraging the answer for fat folk

The always estimable Kerry Howley draws attention to another lovely House of Lords moment: Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I speak as a member of the All-Party Group on Obesity. Why is it that in central London you can hardly find a thinly-sliced or medium-sliced loaf of bread to buy, and any sandwich you buy in any supermarket is now made with thick bread? While the House of Lords continues to use medium-sliced—and very nice—bread in its sandwiches, even the House of Commons has moved to thick bread. Surely at a time when we want to reduce people’s consumption, there should be more pressure from the Food Standards Agency,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why there’s so much talk about the Labour succession

Both Rachel Sylvester and Steve Richards cast their expert eyes over the Labour succession in their columns today. The current emphasis on who will succeed him must be absolutely infuriating for Gordon Brown, nothing makes a leader look like a lame duck more than everyone speculating about who will be next. The explanation for this emphasis on the coming leadership battle in the Westminster village is, as both Richards and Sylvester note, the belief that Gordon will only fight one election as PM. As Fraser first revealed back in August, the PM is sceptical about the chance of the public giving someone over 60 a mandate that would carry them

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Everything left to play for

Today’s poll in The Times shows how much in flux British politics still is. A Tory optimist looking at it might rejoice that the party has breached 40 percent for the first time in a Populus poll. On the other hand, a pessimist might wonder why the party isn’t at 45 percent, the level at which support becomes almost self-sustaining, considering the number of rounds the government has discharged into its foot in recent weeks. Equally, a Labour backer inclined to see the glass as half full will be heartened to see that even after a disastrous few weeks, Labour remains above 30 percent and in sight of the Tories.

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Can conservative blogs survive a Cameron government?

One of the puzzles of the blogosphere in Britain is why there is so much more energy on the right than the left. In Media Guardian today, Matt suggests that the reason for this is that blogging is an essentially oppositional medium. He points out that in the States the left is far more vibrant online than the right. All of which leads to the question of whether right-wing blogs will be as lively under a Cameron government. My hunch, and Matt’s, is that they will be. I don’t think anyone could accuse any of the big right-of-centre blogs in this country of being simple cheerleaders for the Conservative party and

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brown’s betrayal of Basra

When it comes to Iraq, we know all about the US surge and its effect – there are facts, figures and reporters in the US-controlled zone. But what’s happening in British-controlled Basra? We have little idea. When Brown pitched up yesterday to say he was handing over the security file because Iraqi police are now up to the job, we have to believe him. “There are now 30,000 Iraqi police and armed forces,” he said. “As a result of that we can move to provincial control over the next few weeks.” Now, I tend to mistrust any assertion from Mr Brown with a statistic in it. I am more inclined

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Searching for a solution in Kosovo

With the UN deadline for a final status agreement on Kosovo passing without success, we are now into a dangerous and unpredictable phase. The Kosovans will declare independence at some point in the near future, although the word is that they will wait months not week before doing so. A Kosovan declaration of independence will be regarded as unacceptable by the Serbians—egged on by the Russians. The challenge, as David Miliband acknowledged on Today this morning, is to find something to offer the Serbs to persuade them to accept Kosovan independence. Previously, Belgrade hinted heavily that membership of the European Union would make them take a softer line on Kosovo

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour plotters talking Balls

John Rentoul’s column in the Independent on Sunday illustrates how the Blair – Brown feud is still poisoning Labour politics. Rentoul points out that most of the September plotters against Blair have been rewarded with jobs under Brown, often in the departments run by the Prime Minister’s closest allies. Rentoul then goes onto reveal that, incredibly, some of these plotters think that Labour needs Ed Balls to take over as leader before the next election. This really does make you question their sanity. It is highly dubious whether Balls will ever have what it takes to be PM—he gets monstered nearly every time he goes on TV—but he certainly isn’t

Saturday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 8 December 2007

Charles Moore’s thoughts on the week We all know about spin in theory, but we are slow to notice it in practice. The approved version of the release of Gillian Gibbons, the ‘teddy bear’ teacher in the Sudan, is that the Sudanese government has seen reason thanks to the mission of two Muslim peers, Lord Ahmed and Lady Warsi. But is that so? Is it likely that the Sudanese government had no hand in the original, preposterous charge against her, and did not plan the game which followed? Is it credible that the demonstration calling for fiercer punishment for Ms Gibbons was not approved by the government? Was there any real

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How Gordon plans to reconcile with the Blairites

The big political story of the New Year will be how Gordon Brown tries to get his groove back. Peter Oborne reports in the Mail this morning that Brown’s plans include a regional tour,  a possible cabinet reshuffle and a rapprochement with the Blairites. To that end, Oborne reveals: “There is now lively talk inside Downing Street that Alastair Campbell might be brought back in a senior strategic role in the New Year and, apparently, there are indications that Blair’s controversial former Press Secretary would welcome such a role.  More striking still, I am assured that Cherie Blair is now certain to receive a peerage.” One wonders if a peerage

The Skimmer

Connections … between the BBC and Blair

The distinguishing characteristic of the three-part documentary on the Blair years which ended on BBC1 last Sunday was not just that it failed to tell us things we didn’t already know. No, what was most intriguing about it was the web of interconnecting BBC-Blairite links that lay behind it. Consider the following.   The series was made for the BBC by Juniper, an independent production company run by Samir Shah, who used to run BBC Westminster. An intelligent man of strong Blairite sympathies, he does more than just run Juniper — he is also a non-executive director on the board of the BBC.   Juniper’s managing director is Richard Clemmow.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Labour would get rid of Gordon — if the plotters had a real candidate

There is conspiring in the corridors once again in Westminster. Who could replace Gordon, they ask. Labour’s problem is that the young pretenders are too young and the idea of caretaker leader seems slightly ridiculous, it would look absurd for the government to change Prime Minister twice in the same Parliament. So, Brown will solider on while the battle of succession rages just beneath the surface.  After ten tedious years of firm party discipline, life is finally returning to the corridors of the House of Commons. A lobby journalist on patrol can once again gather intelligence, whether it be from ministers colluding behind the Speaker’s chair or clusters of Labour

Irwin Stelzer

Guess what? Gordon has done something right

Spare a moment for a story in which Gordon Brown is the good guy. Not as exciting as tales of the money trail from David Abrahams to the Labour party’s coffers; nor as bloodcurdling as tales of crimes committed by untold numbers of illegal immigrants; nor as nervous-making as the possibility of identity theft from tens of millions of lost HM Revenue and Customs files; nor as economically immediate as tales of a busted bank. But of more enduring consequence for Britain’s economy and its social structure. Soon, very soon if City rumours are correct, some top executives will face criminal charges — not from overzealous American cops, but from

Anne Mcelvoy

The Labour party has ended up as the unloved child of the Blair–Brown divorce

Deep party feuds never really die: they just lie buried under the flimsy covering of the good times. For Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, such times have been brief indeed. My yoga teacher tells her wobbly pupils that the point of balance in a perfect headstand is the point just before we fall over. Mr Brown has discovered this goes for politics too. Not least among his many horrors in a parliamentary session overwhelmed by a building society crisis, carelessly lost confidential files, inaccurate data on foreign workers and the funding scandal from hell, is the return of negative comparisons with his predecessor. As soon as I heard people close

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Changes in Murdochland

The BBC’s excellent Nick Robinson speculates that Rupert Murdoch’s decision to hand control of his european interests to his son James is more bad news for Gordon Brown: the man formerly known as Britain’s most powerful tycoon was personally, if not always politically, sympathetic to the prime minister. Rupert Murdoch admires Gordon Brown’s personal morality and his commitment to hard work. What’s more, initially at least, Murdoch Senior was not taken with David Cameron. Not so the man we will now have to get used to calling Britain’s most powerful media tycoon. James Murdoch does not share his father’s admiration for Brown or scepticism about Cameron. What impact will this