Conservative party

Friday

Steerpike

Exclusive: Electoral Commission gives Al Murray’s party the green light

Oh dear, Mr S has some bad news for Nigel Farage. The Ukip leader’s South Thanet rival Al Murray has had his application to make the Freedom United Kingdom Party an officially registered political party approved. This means that he can now run for the coveted seat in May. The Electoral Commission has given the application the green light despite reservations from Ukip supporters that FUKP is too similar to Ukip so could muddle voters. A spokesman for the commission confirms the news:  ‘I can confirm that Al Murray’s party has had the name Free United Kingdom Party approved by the Electoral Commission. We have informed the party of our decision.’ The

Steerpike Steerpike

Ukip should not attack others for attacks

‘What I’m seeing in this election is the influence of these big American advisers and it’s becoming the most negative, personal and nasty campaign I’ve ever seen.’ So said Nigel Farage to LBC this morning, as he promised to ‘rise above’ personal attacks in the coming election slog. Stung by rumours about his declining health, fingers are being pointed about a certain antipodean master of the dark arts, but are Ukip really in any position to lecture on the Americanisation of our political process? Not only was Farage at CPAC last week to address the Republican right, his party’s official YouTube feed is littered with aggressive US style attack ads:

Steerpike Steerpike

Nigel Farage’s birthday message for Lord Ashcroft

As Lord Ashcroft turned 69 this week, the international businessman celebrated with a polling event on his birthday to announce the impending Labour bloodbath north of the border: ‘Good evening and welcome. If you have ever wondered what a pollster does to celebrate his birthday, now you know. Somebody kindly asked me this morning if this was the big “four-O”, and I was compelled to admit this estimate was outside the margin of error.’ Curiously, Mr S hears that the only party leader to wish the former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party a happy birthday was Ukip’s Nigel Farage. With Ashcroft’s polls currently putting Ukip slightly behind the Tories in South

Thursday

Toby Young

My plan for Question Time: mug up and fail anyway

I was invited on Question Time this week, which gave me a few sleepless nights. Natalie Bennett’s disastrous interview on LBC was a reminder that appearing on a current affairs programme in this febrile pre-election environment can be a bit of a minefield. Admittedly, I’m not the leader of a political party but that’s no guarantee I won’t make a fool of myself — a moment that will be preserved for ever on YouTube. There are no opportunities for glory on Question Time, but plenty for embarrassment. The most you can hope for is to get through the experience in one piece. By now you may well have seen what

The Spectator

If you really love the NHS, you know it needs to change

To adapt Aeschylus’s aphorism on war and truth, the first casualty in a general election campaign is objectivity. Over the next eight weeks NHS staff can expect nothing but saccharine praise from politicians who are falling over themselves to say how wonderful the health service is, how committed they are to it. The Conservatives may revive their ‘NH-yes’ slogan, promising to safeguard its budget. Labour proposes to protect it from what few reforms the Conservatives promise and even Ukip is posing as ‘the party of the NHS’. A true friend of the NHS, however, would accept that all is not well, and that ‘protecting’ its current structure is an act

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Even if there are ‘no votes’ in defence, Cameron must beware of mutiny in his party

Tory MPs are becoming increasingly agitated about defence spending and whether or not Britain will maintain its defence spending at 2 per cent of GDP. They do understand the pressures that protected spending for other areas puts on budgets such as defence, but as I explain in the Times today, they are unhappy that certain people who should know better have been telling them that there are ‘no votes’ in defence. ‘No votes in defence’ is an old saying, but it’s still striking that Philip Hammond used it at all when briefing Conservative MPs on foreign affairs and defence. Some of them have pointed to YouGov’s finding last weekend that 49

Ed West Ed West

Never mind Ukip’s immigration policy, Britain has an emigration problem

Ukip has unveiled its new Aussie-style immigration policy, just a week after the latest bad immigration news for the government. The news was bad only in a sense, as high immigration levels are a symptom of a healthy economy; after all, the Venezuelan government doesn’t break into a sweat every time the immigration figures come in, thanks to the genius of Chavenomics. But it’s all bad news for the Tories because most people would like restrictions on the rate of population growth, and of immigration-led social change, and the government made promises it clearly couldn’t keep. Yet the British economy is doing well and Ukip realise therefore that there is a

Steerpike Steerpike

Has a Tory MP been editing his Wikipedia page from the Houses of Parliament?

Thanks to the internet, it has become increasingly difficult for politicians to hide any past indiscretions. However, this hasn’t put some MPs off from trying. Mr S has noticed some edits have recently been made to Tory MP Craig Whittaker’s Wikipedia profile. The page has had some interesting amendments, with two negative references to the MP for Calder Valley being deleted. First, an edit in December saw all reference taken out to an incident in 2011 where Whittaker was arrested for an alleged attack on his son outside a petrol station. A second change was then made which saw a line deleted regarding claims that he had misled his constituents over cuts to the NHS. Whittaker has

James Forsyth James Forsyth

George Osborne interview: smaller government is not enough

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/putin-s-empire-building/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson discuss Osborne’s election manoeuvres ” startat=839] Listen [/audioplayer]Puccini’s doesn’t seem like George Osborne’s sort of restaurant. It is a pizza-and-pasta place in the safely Labour constituency of Salford and Eccles, Greater Manchester, most notable for the fact that Sir Alex Ferguson once took his whole squad there. (‘Penne alla Giggs’ is still on offer to prove it.) In recent years, however, the Chancellor has become something of a regular — he has even taken the Prime Minister along — and is made welcome to the point that when we met there last Thursday diners queued to be photographed with him. The Chancellor used

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

It’s now clear: David Cameron was never a real moderniser

I have a friend who was a Young Conservative. Just the one, I promise, and he’s grown out of it by now. I remember him, though, back from a party conference, freshly despairing, some time in the bleak, dandruffy Tory doldrums of 2000-ish. ‘It would be very easy,’ I remember him wailing, ‘for them to have some funky lights and Morcheeba playing in the background. Couldn’t they at least do that?’ Easy or not, it would be another five years and two bald leaders before they’d do anything of the sort. By then it would be the Killers, rather than Morcheeba, but the idea was much the same. It’s easy

Wednesday

Steerpike

Tories detect Alastair Campbell’s hand in latest education attacks on PM

Angry Conservative Party officials have hit back at attacks from the left on the education of the Prime Minister’s children. On Monday the PM’s spokesman claimed: ‘Like tens of thousands of other parents, the prime minister and Mrs Cameron expect to hear which secondary schools have offered a place to their daughter Nancy. If she gets more than one offer they will make a decision in due course.’ It is thought Nancy Cameron will attend a central London comprehensive, which would make Cameron the first Tory PM to send his child to a state comp. This has not stopped education campaigners weighing in. Fiona Millar, who lest we forget is Alastair Campbell’s partner,

Sebastian Payne

Two polls put the Tories ahead while the Lib Dems hit a 25 year low

Are the Conservatives beginning to pull ahead of Labour? Two polls out this week suggest this might be the case. Today’s YouGov/The Sun poll puts the Tories on 36 per cent and Labour on 34 per cent — a two point lead for David Cameron’s party and its highest poll rating since March 2012. Monday’s Ashcroft poll had a similar result, putting the Conservatives on a three point lead ahead of Labour on 34 per cent. Both of these are within the margin of error. While Ukip remain steady on 14 per cent in both polls and the Greens are hovering on high single digits, the most shocking thing to

Monday

Sebastian Payne

Tories launch new Saatchi poster campaign

You know the Conservative campaign is well underway when there’s a new Saatchi poster about. Today, Conservative HQ has released a new campaign to remind the public that Labour pose a threat to Britain’s economic recovery. The message in the poster (above) warns voters ‘don’t let Labour wreck it’. I understand this poster was created by M&C Saatchi, the advertising agency behind classic numerous Tory posters — including ‘Labour isn’t working’ and ‘New Labour, New Danger.’ The first poster of the 2015 campaign from the Saatchis ties in the Tories’ message about the economy into the classic bold Saatchi style. Chairman Grant Shapps said about the poster today: ‘Conservatives came into office with

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Immigration threatens to overshadow Tory housing week

It’s supposed to be the Tory housing week, with David Cameron setting out plans to double the number of discounted starter homes to 200,000. It’s an important, salient issue to make election promises on. But more salient is immigration, and somehow the Tories are having to talk about that again today. Today’s Times contains a plea by Ken Clarke that Cameron drop the Tory target to drive net migration into the ‘tens of thousands’, given its failure in this parliament. Ministers have oscillated between blaming the Lib Dems and blaming Europe for missing the target (they could also blame the growing economy, as Fraser explains here) and David Cameron did closely

Saturday

James Forsyth

National parties no more

All the election forecast models agree, the next election result is going to be remarkably tight. On these models, neither Labour nor the Tories are going to come close to winning a majority. They would both be about 40 seats short. Now, events could intervene to change things. But, as I argue in the magazine this week, one of the reasons Labour and the Tories are finding it so hard to win a majority is that they are not national parties anymore. Compounding this is that no party is aiming for full spectrum dominance in this campaign. Rather, they are trying to talk up the issues that are best for

Steerpike Steerpike

Sol Campbell: It’s time to increase MPs’ salaries

This week Sol Campbell was named as a bookies’ favourite to be the next Tory candidate for Kensington after Sir Malcolm Rifkind stepped down following a cash for access scandal. While Rifkind’s resignation has sparked a debate over whether MPs should be allowed to have second jobs, the former Arsenal footballer thinks there is a simple solution. When Mr S caught up with Campbell at the 6th anniversary Amos Bursary dinner at the House of Lords to raise funds to help African and Caribbean British young men realise their ambitions, Campbell said MP salaries should be increased to over £67,000. ‘They should raise the salary, then you would have more diverse candidates,’ he told Mr S. However, Campbell shouldn’t have to worry too much

Thursday

Steerpike

George Osborne’s ex-dominatrix friend plans a sequel

Oh dear. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is not going to be pleased. Natalie Rowe, the former dominatrix who enjoyed a friendship with George Osborne in the early nineties, is planning a book to follow her autobiography. Further still, judging by the fact she is toying with the idea of calling it ‘Budge it’ – a phrase that bares a close resemblance to ‘budget’ – it could well feature Osborne again. Mr S has blanked out one of the words to spare blushes. For those who missed her initial book Chief Whip: Memoirs of a Dominatrix, which was released in 2013, Rowe gave a colourful account of her friendship with Osborne,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Tory trouble to come on defence spending

There are still some unhappy mutterings about the possibility that the Tories won’t commit to spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence in the next Strategic Defence and Security Review. Treasury sources have been pouring cold water on the suggestion that George Osborne has told David Cameron that spending will fall below that target, but that’s because no-one’s making any decisions until they have to, and they only have to make a decision after the election. In any case, we’ve probably seen the full extent of the unhappy mutterings in the past few days anyway – at least, until the election is over. Monday’s Defence Questions saw an unprecedented

James Forsyth James Forsyth

No one wants to fight a national campaign. This will be the least general election in years

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/the-snp-threat-to-westminster/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the not-very-general election” startat=780] Listen [/audioplayer]There’s normally an easy way to tell which party is losing a general election campaign. Whenever one side starts telling you to ignore the national polls and look at what is happening in certain key seats, it is a sure sign that they are in deep trouble. In this election, however, all the parties are arguing that what’s going on in their target seats matters more than the national polls. No one is keener to dispute the relevance of the national polls than the Liberal Democrats. To demonstrate that they’ll still matter after the next election — particularly

Zac Goldsmith

Zac Goldsmith: How my dad saved Britain

In recent weeks Ed Balls has been offering a new reason to vote Labour: it was his party, he says, that saved Britain from joining the euro. Now, the shadow chancellor is free to say what he wants — and in a way, I’m pleased that he feels the need to convey such an impression. But the true story of how Britain was saved from the euro is somewhat different. It all happened nearly a generation ago, between 1995 and 1997, when I was in my very early twenties. It was my father, James Goldsmith, who set out to ensure that Britain would never join the euro without the consent