Conservative party

Dominic Raab is a brilliant fighter. It’s time he focused on Labour

Dominic Raab is one of the most impressive members of the Tory back benches, able to pick a string of good fights and – even rarer – able to win them. He’s a black belt and seems to regard politics as karate by other means. He’s a 3rd Dan in fighting and a 10th Dan in rebellion. But his latest victory – forcing the government into a humiliating climbdown over deporting foreign prisoners – was one too far. Thanks to Labour votes, his amendment failed so all he really achieved was embarrassing the Home Secretary. Yes, Raab can fight. Yes, he can win. But in my Daily Telegraph column today,

What I learned in a Qatari jail cell

This column nearly didn’t appear. Another 24 hours and I would have trumped the late Jeffrey Bernard with the single sentence ‘Rory Sutherland is in prison.’ Having just spent a day in jail or police cells in Qatar for using an electronic cigarette on a plane, I thought I would just write one piece of technological advice for any Spectator readers who might find themselves in a similar situation. Sit down today, take out your mobile phone, and memorise four or five important phone numbers. Better still, delete those few important numbers from your phone so you are forced to dial them from memory. Because when you’ve been arrested and

The Tory rebels have two choices: shut up or lose the election

[audioplayer src=’http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_30_January_2014_v4.mp3′ title=’Douglas Carswell MP explain why he now agrees with this article’ startat=518] Listen [/audioplayer]Things could scarcely be going better for the Conservatives. Every week seems to bring more news of the recovery. High street tills are ringing, employment is at an all-time high and Britain’s economy is growing faster than that of any major country. No wonder the Labour party’s opinion poll lead has been reduced to one vulnerable point. Two years ago, the Conservatives had almost given up hope of winning the next election. Now, it looks within their grasp — if they keep it together. And therein lies the problem. Two groups of people are working

Isabel Hardman

The whips are getting stronger – but will it be enough to stop Raab?

So now that the Speaker has called Dominic Raab’s amendment on deportation, the government whips have a frenzied few hours ahead of them as they try to peel off rebels. But this amendment has 106 signatures (two have joined since yesterday) and the rebels are expecting more to back it too. Labour told Coffee House yesterday that it will not support something that is illegal – but that still leaves room for the party to abstain rather than vote against. So we now have a situation where the amendment that caused all the fuss over the past few months – the Mills amendment on transitional controls for Bulgarian and Romanian

Lynton Crosby is a guru with a visa

The row over the immigration status of Ed Miliband’s American guru Arnie Graf rumbles on (with a question at PMQs). Sprung with the story on TV yesterday, Labour’s Chris Leslie dismissed it as ‘mischief’ and then mumbled something incomprehensible about Lynton Crosby, the Tories’ Aussie guru. I’m told, however, that Crosby has a Tier 1 visa for highly skilled migrants. The Home Office defines the Tier 1 category thus: ‘The Tier 1 (General) category allows highly skilled people to look for work or self-employment opportunities in the UK. Tier 1 (General) migrants can seek employment in the UK without a sponsor, and can take up self-employment and business opportunities here.’ So

Exclusive: David Cameron holds crisis talks with MPs over Immigration Bill

David Cameron has been summoning Tory backbenchers to Number 10 today to personally persuade them not to back an amendment to the Immigration Bill that would reintroduce controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants. I have learned that a number of possible waverers who could be persuaded to change their mind and drop their support for Nigel Mills’ amendment have been called to Downing Street as part of a serious whipping operation by the government. The whips and party leadership have also been trying out a number of unusual tactics to minimise Thursday’s rebellion: 1. Tabling ‘backbench amendments’ Whips are also trying to persuade backbenchers that it is sufficient to back

Labour and the Conservatives are both wrong about income tax

Never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake. On the other hand, when your opponent has made a mistake try not to match him by making an equal blunder of your own. That’s not how Westminster politics works, of course. For reasons that presumably make sense to the respective parties, Labour and the Conservatives have each managed to cock-up their tax policies. Specifically, they are both wrong on the politics of the 50% rate of income tax. That is, the Tories should never have cut the rate of tax paid by those few Britons earning over £150,000 and Labour should not be promising to restore the 50% rate.

How the Conservatives should respond to Ed Balls’ 50p tax pledge

This weekend Ed Balls made it clear he wants to tax Britain more.It won’t stop at 50%, and it wont be confined to the highest earners over 150,000. In that sense low tax Comservatives have much to thank Ed Balls for as he really has set out clear blue water between Labour and the Conservatives for the next election. Nevertheless, let’s not celebrate too quickly. Labour will know, and as Ed Balls all but acknowledged on the Marr show this weekend, that this tax commitment is little to do with economic policy and more to do with their own electoral strategy. A 50% top rate of income tax will raise

The Tories’ economic tightrope

When things were going pretty badly for the Conservatives, ministers reassured one another that soon they’d be able to start hitting back at Labour with statistics. They’re doing that now – and are hitting as often as possible, even when it’s Labour’s turn to say something. Today the party has released figures to back up David Cameron’s claim at PMQs this week that people are better off, and they show that most people’s earnings are increasing by more than inflation. Now, Labour is quibbling the stats themselves, pointing out that they don’t involve benefit cuts and tax rises. But while Labour is overall losing in the battle of stats, there

What the NHS owes the Tories

[audioplayer src=’http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_January_2014_v4.mp3′ title=’James Forsyth discuss the NHS with Charlotte Leslie MP’ startat=1430] Listen [/audioplayer]Pinned to the wall of Jeremy Hunt’s office in the Department of Health is an A1 piece of paper detailing that week’s ‘Never Events’. It catalogues the mistakes that have been made in NHS hospitals that should never have happened: people having the wrong leg amputated, swabs being left inside patients after surgery and the like. This grim list is a rebuke to the glib, Danny Boyle-style rhetoric which dominates all political debate about the NHS and treats any attempt to examine the failings of British health care as heresy. One can’t imagine Andy Burnham, the last

MPs grope men too

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_January_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Alex Wickham discuss Westminster’s wandering hands with Miranda Green” startat=790] Listen [/audioplayer]As I walked out of the bar, I noticed a Conservative MP following me. It had been an evening for young political activists, mostly teenage boys, and it was drawing to an end. I pretended to be engrossed in my phone, but the MP — well-liked, universally respected — lurched towards me, placing his arm around my waist and leaning in close. I could smell the whisky and cigars on his breath. ‘I’m just going to the toilet,’ he slurred, winking and gesturing at the gents. I had only worked in and around Parliament for a year, but

Immigration Bill ‘to return to Commons’

After those crisis talks in Downing Street that I reported yesterday, I hear that the government plans to bring the Immigration bill back to the Commons with amendments. Number 10 is insisting that nothing has yet been confirmed but suggestions that it could return on Tuesday may be incorrect. Doubtless those government amendments are designed to calm backbenchers down sufficiently for them to withdraw their amendment. But I’ve just spoken to Nigel Mills, who tabled the amendment, and he is going to press it. He says: The government amendments are not unhelpful but don’t tackle the already existing issues of immigration from the EU being too high and leaving us

Downing Street holds crisis talks to revive Immigration Bill

What has happened to the Immigration Bill? I asked this question last week, and as it still doesn’t have a date for the report stage, it’s worth asking the question again. Now I hear that Number 10 has been holding crisis talks to try to get the legislation, which has been derailed by Nigel Mills’ troublemaking amendment calling for transitional controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants to be extended until the end of 2018. Yesterday, Mills and colleagues were summoned to Number 9 Downing Street, to talk to the chief whip and the Prime Minister’s backbench envoy John Hayes. The whips have previously approached Mills trying to strike a deal

Isabel Hardman

What does Jessica Lee’s exit say about the Tory party?

Why has Jessica Lee become the fourth female MP from the 2010 intake to quit? The Erewash MP announced yesterday that she is standing down in 2015, saying ‘I have carefully considered by personal circumstances and responsibilities at this time, before taking this decision’. Friends of the popular Conservative say she is keen to return to her former job as a barrister, which is fair enough: in all walks of life people find that a career change doesn’t suit them as much as they thought. But is there a deeper problem here? Some are arguing that this is illustrative of a woman problem in the party, and indeed the Conservative

Steerpike

Dave’s model candidate

Mr S was in the bath thinking ‘My word, isn’t nature wonderful?’ when he heard the pleasing sound of an email hitting his inbox. It contained the photograph above. The man in the picture is none other than Richard Royal, who is on the Conservatives’ candidates list for the 2015 general election. RR is what we euphemistically call a “political consultant”, and he is also a former male model. Mr S hears that RR is a bit of hit with the ladies. Is this broody, Heathcliffe-esque figure the answer to Young Dave’s seemingly insoluble woman problem?

Tories yet to select candidates to fight Lib Dem top dogs

The Tories have always denied rumours that they might give their coalition colleagues an easier ride at constituency level in the 2015 general election. But even though all three parties are very much on an election war footing now, the Conservatives have, strangely, yet to select candidates to fight two of their favourite ministers. The constituencies for Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander currently have no candidates, along with 28 others (including MPs the Tories aren’t quite so keen on working with in Coalition, such as Lynne Featherstone), while the other 27 have candidates in place. Alexander is easy to work with in the Treasury (I reported before Christmas that he’d

Ed West

Does it matter if Tories don’t know what it’s like to be poor?

I have this theory that the reason why the British public is so hugely in favour of cutting welfare to the bone, and the British media so hostile, is that many (maybe most) journalists still depend on financial support from their parents well into their 30s. Since most media folk come from the sort of backgrounds where home ownership is expected, and yet work in an industry where the typical salary makes living anywhere near London extremely difficult, they feel too ashamed to opine on ‘scroungers’ because, well, they are scroungers. Anyway, maybe that’s what’s called projection. Most people in politics, like those in the media, tend to come from

Tony Blair’s cultural revolution has won, at least in the Conservative Party

As Rod pointed out the other day, Arthur Scargill’s purchase of his council flat illustrated the triumph of Thatcherism over its opponents; like any winning ideology it created the conditions for its followers to flourish and increase in number, and so securing the revolution. That’s one of many things that Tony Blair had in common with the Conservative leader; New Labour created the conditions, through an expanded and often highly-politicised public sector, for Blairites to flourish and therefore for Blairism to triumph, not just at the ballot box but culturally too. Look at London, where a generation ago one could expect wealthy areas to vote overwhelmingly Conservative; today the cultural

A minimum wage rise will show the Conservatives are a party for all working people

The Chancellor’s announcement that he’s recommending an above average increase in the minimum wage is very welcome news. It’s something Renewal has been campaigning for since our launch in July. Wages have fallen behind prices for almost a decade now. The prosperity of Blair’s boom didn’t reach the low paid and it was the working poor who were hardest hit by the recession, meaning that the minimum wage is worth £1,000 less now than it was in 2008. Now that the economy is firmly on the road to recovery it’s the right time to raise the minimum wage. We have to ensure that prosperity and the benefits of the free

Osborne rains on Miliband’s parade with wage announcement

What an odd coincidence that on the eve of what’s being billed as a major economic speech by Ed Miliband, George Osborne sticks up his periscope and makes a big fat announcement on the minimum wage. The Chancellor and his colleagues have been mulling this increase for months, and have been making confusing but supportive noises over the past few weeks, and this evening would have seemed an odd time for the Chancellor to give an interview to the BBC on the subject if Osborne weren’t famed for being such an enthusiastic strategist. He told Nick Robinson that Britain could afford an above-inflation increase in the minimum wage: ‘The exact