Baroness warsi

The Conservative party still doesn’t attract enough ethnic minorities. In this week’s Mini Election video, I visit Essex to speak to the Culture Secretary Sajid Javid about what the Tories have done to increase their appeal to non-white voters. He thinks Baroness Warsi is wrong and believes that the Conservatives are not ‘set to lose’ the Muslim vote in May. We discussed whether Lord Bates’ comments about immigrant mothers having too many babies were likely to turn voters away. Javid acknowledged that there are real concerns about immigration that need to be addressed but did not explicitly say he disagreed with Bates’ remarks. With the proper campaign just one week away, is Javid at all concerned that

Baroness Warsi’s interview with the Sunday Times and Independent on Sunday is, unsurprisingly, not just about her discomfort with the government’s policy in the Middle East. The Independent on Sunday uses her jibe at public school Tories as its top line, while the Sunday Times splashes on the peer’s warning that the Tories have left it a ‘little too late’ to attract more votes from ethnic minorities. Her criticisms, aimed as a parting shot at her colleagues, may be discounted for being just that: nothing more than a sour parting shot from someone who found that a number of people who worked with her were only too pleased to see

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_07_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Tim Stanley discuss Baroness Warsi’s resignation” startat=462] Listen [/audioplayer]Baroness Warsi’s shoes have now been filled. Her ministerial roles have been divvied up, with Baroness Anelay appointed Minister of State at the Foreign Office, attending Cabinet, Lord Bates working as Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Home Office, and Eric Pickles taking on the faith brief. Lord Taylor of Holbeach is now chief whip in the House of Lords. But no-one has gained the title of ‘Senior Minister of State’, which was invented just to compensate Warsi for being moved from Tory chairman in 2012.

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_07_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Tim Stanley discuss Baroness Warsi’s resignation” startat=462] Listen [/audioplayer]Dear Sayeeda, Thank you for your letter today, in which you set out your reasons for resigning from the Government. I was sorry to receive this. I realise that this must not have been an easy decision for you to make and very much regret that we were not able to speak about your decision beforehand. I understand your strength of feeling on the current crisis in the Middle East – the situation in Gaza is intolerable. Our policy has always been consistently clear: we support a negotiated two state solution as the only way to resolve

The government has failed to produce an adequate strategy to tackle non-violent extremism because the minister in charge of it is said to disagree with the Prime Minister’s approach, sources have told Coffee House. Baroness Warsi is alleged by multiple sources in and out of government to have consistently resisted calls to develop a proper strategy on integration and tackling extremism at its roots, even though this is the Prime Minister’s policy and part of her job at the Communities and Local Government department. One source says: ‘Sayeeda made clear when she got the job at CLG that she didn’t agree with the Prime Minister and that she simply wasn’t

‘We don’t do God,’ was Alastair Campbell’s put-down when his charge, Tony Blair, was tempted to raise the issue of his faith. Unfortunately, it seems to have become the motto of David Cameron’s government. It is a month now since 276 girls were kidnapped from a school near the town of Chibok in northern Nigeria, and still the Foreign Office’s statements on the crisis read like a deliberate exercise in missing the point. ‘Continuing murders and abductions of schoolchildren, particularly girls in Nigeria by Boko Haram, are a stark reminder of the threat faced by women and girls in conflict-prone areas,’ Mark Simmonds, minister for Africa, said this week. ‘Young

How does a Prime Minister get a recalcitrant minister to agree to something? Well, if it’s not going to make any difference to whether some legislation passes and the minister isn’t directly responsible for the policy, then he can always let them avoid a vote, as he seems to be doing on HS2 today. But what if the minister is the one who needs to sign off on a policy change? I hear that David Cameron found himself in this situation late last year when trying to make some changes to the government’s counter-extremism strategy. Baroness Warsi (not his favourite minister) was refusing to accept the changes, which the Prime

After a few weeks of Boris vs George, Conservatives are now starting to gossip about something a little more immediate: a post-European elections reshuffle. I understand that the Prime Minister is currently experiencing concerted lobbying from many ministers and backbenchers to remove Baroness Warsi from her post as ‘senior minister of state’ after her decision to wave about a front page on the ‘Eton Mess’ in Number 10 on ITV’s The Agenda a few weeks ago. There was fury at a senior level in the Conservative party about Warsi’s behaviour: she was punching her party’s bruise on class. One minister says: ‘She should be dropped down a hole and a