David cameron

Saturday

James Forsyth

How far will Merkel go on Greece?

The Greek crisis has been going on for so long now, it is hard to imagine it actually coming to a conclusion. But next week’s meeting of European Finance Ministers is one of the last chances for a deal to be struck. However, there is no sign of an agreement yet. The Financial Times today picks up on German press reports about the German government preparing for Greece leaving the Euro. The Germans have long been convinced that any contagion from Greece leaving the single currency could be contained privately many in Whitehall think that Berlin is far too complacent about this. Now, it appears that Merkel is turning her

Thursday

The Spectator

A lot to ask

David Cameron is now facing the biggest challenge of his leadership: how to renegotiate Britain’s membership of the EU without destroying his party. His dilemma mirrors the situation of Harold Wilson 40 years ago this month. So far, the old Labour man looks the better strategist. Wilson, who had a majority of three, avoided mass resignations from his cabinet by suspending the convention that members of the government must back its entire programme in public. Of his 23 cabinet ministers, seven joined the campaign for Britain to leave the EU. They didn’t win the argument — but they ensured that the question was properly debated, and settled for many years

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 11 June 2015

Two beautiful volumes in a cloth-bound case reach me. They are Speeches and Articles by HRH The Prince of Wales 1968-2012, published by University of Wales Press. The explanatory list of abbreviations and acronyms alone gives a charming sense of the range of subjects covered — ‘Foot and Mouth Disease, Foreign Press Association, Forest Stewardship Council … Myalgic Encephalopathy, Member of Parliament … Non-Commissioned Officer … Not In My Back Yard! … Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil’. Among the many speeches on the environment, however, I cannot find his speech in Rio de Janeiro in March 2009, entitled ‘Less Than 100 Months To Act’. There Prince Charles warned that if

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Despite winning a majority, Cameron will be remembered for how he handles Europe

At 6.30pm on election-day, the Cameron invited their guests out into the garden for a drink. It was a very English occasion. Everyone was in their coats, huddled on the patio trying to pretend it was 10 degrees hotter than it actually was as they sipped their glass of wine. The mood was, understandably, nervous. The prospect of defeat was on everyone’s mind. David Cameron even read out his resignation speech to the assembled gathering. I’m told that the reaction as he did so showed that many of those present feared he would be doing it for real in less than 24 hours time. Now, obviously, things turned out very

Sebastian Payne

Tony Blair takes a dig at chillaxing Cameron

Tony Blair popped into King’s College London this morning to discuss ‘how to run a government’ with his former adviser Michael Barber. Amongst other things, the former Prime Minister discussed David Cameron’s efforts to remodel No.10 to make it more Blair like, as James reveals in his column this week. But he made no attempt to disguise the fact that he thinks structures are no substitute for the ‘guy’ at the top being on the case 24/7 when looking to deliver change: ‘It works when you have the clearest possible sense of priorities and what you want to achieve … you’ve got to have the Prime Minister’s authority behind this all the time. ‘My

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: The Last Christian and David Cameron’s solemn election night

Will 2067 mark the point when Christianity dies out in Britain? In this week’s View from 22 podcast, Damian Thompson and Freddy Gray discuss this week’s cover story on the crisis facing Britain’s churches. Is the rise of secularism a problem for just Anglicans, or all Christian denominations in Britain? Is the Church of England particularly to blame? What comparisons are there to what is happening with religion in America? And if these projections are correct, will Christian values continue to underpin British society, long after the religion itself disappears? James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson reveal what David Cameron did on election night. Although the Tories are revelling in their victory, it is clear that neither

Niall Ferguson

Pedant’s revolt

It used to be that the most annoying thing in academic life was political correctness. But a new irritant now threatens to supplant it: the scourge of correct politicalness. The essence of correct politicalness is to seek to undermine an irrefutable argument by claiming loudly and repetitively to have found an error in it. As with political correctness, which seeks to undermine arguments by declaring the person making them a bigot, correct politicalness originated in the US. But it now has its exponents here, too. Foremost among them is Jonathan Portes. Portes’s career recalls that of the character Kenneth Widmerpool in Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time. Widmerpool

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron’s dark evening of the soul

At 6.30 p.m. on 7 May, the Camerons invited guests at their home in Oxfordshire into the garden for a drink. Everyone stood on the patio, wrapped up in coats and shawls and drinking wine. They were understandably nervous. The Prime Minister had prepared a resignation statement and read it out to the assembled gathering. The group that huddled together on the patio that day tells us a lot about the qualities which Cameron values in people. Most of them were close to him long before he entered No. 10. Ed Llewellyn, his chief of staff, worked with him at the Conservative Research Department more than 30 years ago. Kate Fall,

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Ed’s campaign was fine. The problem is his party

Patrick Wintour is one of the best political editors around. For the Guardian he’s been for decades a cool and well-sourced voice: even-handed, informed, interesting but in the best sense dry. So when I heard he’d written the most comprehensive behind-the-scenes account yet of Labour’s failed general election campaign I hurried to read it. I was not disappointed. ‘The undoing of Ed Miliband, and how Labour lost the election’ is an insider account of a chapter of accidents, starting with Mr Miliband’s memory lapse about the deficit during Labour’s last party conference. Apparently he shut himself in his hotel room afterwards and wouldn’t come out. The story takes us through to

Wednesday

James Forsyth

PMQs: Harman puts Cameron in his place

Harriet Harman has 16 years on David Cameron and she used that advantage very effectively today. After Cameron replied to her first question on the EU referendum with a string of mocking quips about Labour’s mass conversion on the subject, Harman scolded him for gloating and told him to ‘show a bit more class’. This dressing down took Cameron aback. For the rest of the session he wasn’t sure whether to tone it down or mock Harman for complaining. With Harman refusing to play along with the usual Punch and Judy show, Cameron turned to the SNP. He took advantage of Angus Robertson’s questions to mock the Nationalists for saying

Steerpike Steerpike

David Cameron’s intricate knowledge of Chinese Warlords

The Prime Minister was on boisterous from at PMQs today, welcoming the Labour Party’s new found support for an EU referendum in the division lobbies last night. Cameron described it as ‘the biggest mass conversion since that Chinese general baptised his troops with a hosepipe’. The green benches were left baffled to what on earth he was talking about. Mr S, as ever, can shed some light on the matter. General Feng Yu Xiang was a Chinese warlord, known as the ‘Christian General’, who dominated parts of Northern China in the twenties. Born an illiterate peasant in 1882 he converted to Christianity in 1914. Having conquered Beijing in 1928, Feng

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Cameron on Europe: the anatomy of a U-turn

How did David Cameron get into such a mess on Europe so quickly? For those whose heads are still spinning (and this probably includes the Prime Minister) over what on earth just happened to upset the Tory party so much and force Downing Street into a frenzied climbdown, here’s the anatomy of David Cameron’s European U-turn. 4 January 2015 David Cameron says there will not be a free vote on the referendum during an interview with Andrew Marr. Here is the transcript of the Prime Minister’s answers: ANDREW MARR: Would you give cabinet ministers and other Conservatives who want to campaign for an out, the freedom to do so in such

Steerpike Steerpike

Cameron’s former speechwriter Clare Foges launches attack on Tories

David Cameron’s recently departed speechwriter Clare Foges earned the affectionate nickname ‘the Prime Minister’s Larynx’ for her work assisting Cameron with his public speaking, so her Times column today will make for some interesting reading for her former colleagues in No. 10. Despite the Tories winning a majority in the election, Foges, who used to work as an ice cream driver, has offered the Conservatives a shopping list on how they can ‘reset their image’ and shrug off their ‘nasty party’ tag. The poet, who has been working for Cameron since 2009, calls for the Department of Health to be made a cross party department – presumably by appointing both Burnham and Hunt,

Monday

Isabel Hardman

‘Careless talk costs lives’: Cameron angers MPs as he insists he was ‘misinterpreted’ on EU vote

It’s not clear who David Cameron is trying to annoy more: his party or the press pack following him at the G7 summit in Bavaria. But what is clear, at least in the Prime Minister’s mind, is that he has been misinterpreted on the issue of a free vote in the EU referendum. Not over-interpreted, as Number 10 said this morning. ‘It’s clear to me that what I said yesterday was misinterpreted,’ he said, explaining that he was referring to the renegotiation: ‘I was clearly referring to the process of renegotiation. But the point is this. I have always said what I want is an outcome for Britain that keeps

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Number 10 rows back on EU vote threat

So after a few hours of outrage in the Tory party, David Cameron’s aides have announced that he didn’t say ministers would have to support his stance during the EU referendum or leave government. Number 10 has clarified the Prime Minister’s remarks, saying they only apply to ministers’ stances during the renegotiation, not the period of campaigning leading up to the referendum. The Prime Minister’s official spokeswoman said: ‘The PM was clearly talking yesterday about the position on collective responsibility during the renegotiation, a position that the PM has set out previously, including in the House during the Queen’s Speech debate, a position that, I think, has been over-interpreted by

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Even if he wins his EU referendum campaign, David Cameron will be the loser

I suppose David Cameron had little choice but to offer a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. How else could he have held his party together? Indeed, it is possible that he owes some part of his small majority to that promise. Nevertheless, it will all end badly. I think there is no plausible scenario in which it can end well for Cameron. Indeed, it is entirely possible that having begun this parliament with a majority he – or, rather, his successor – will end it leading a minority administration. The most important thing to remember is that perhaps a quarter of his backbenchers actually want the Prime

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How David Cameron could still avoid a bitter Tory row on Europe without a free vote

David Cameron’s indication that his ministers will have to follow the position of the government on the EU referendum or leave the government has caused some consternation in his party. David Davis has just warned on the Today programme that the Prime Minister risks ‘turning a decent debate into a bitter argument’, while the newspapers write this up as a very risky move indeed. Cameron told reporters covering the G7 summit in Bavaria that ‘I’ve been very clear. If you want to be part of the government, you have to take the view that we are engaged in an exercise of renegotiation, to have a referendum and that will lead to

Sunday

Charles Moore

Why has David Cameron appointed his chum Ed Llewellyn to the Privy Council?

After the general election, Edward Llewellyn, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, was made a Privy Councillor. Any member of the Privy Council is addressed as ‘Right Honourable’ and these words well describe Llewellyn’s character, so there is no problem there. But why should an adviser be given this role? If you study the list (which, be warned, takes a long time), you will see that Privy Councillors are almost all MPs (or ex-MPs), peers or judges. This is because they are supposed to be, in some small way, powers in the land, people in their own right, rather than servants of the powerful. There are a few exceptions —

Friday

Sebastian Payne

Nigel Lawson: Cameron will hold Tory party together over EU

Renegotiating substantial change in Britain’s EU relationship is a problem for David Cameron. On the one hand, the Eurozone is facing an unknown challenge with a Grexit on the horizon. But many in the Tory party believe the Prime Minister’s efforts are smoke and mirrors, and he won’t achieve the change they crave. Michael Gove is one, and Nigel Lawson is another. The Tory grandee spoke to Newsnight about what he expects from the renegotiations. Not much, it seems: ‘I think that the odds are we will see a repetition of what happened in 1975. I think it’s likely that the changes that David Cameron will secure will be inconsequential, of no significance at

Thursday

Peter Oborne

Diary – 4 June 2015

For the first time since the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team six years ago, a Test match side has visited Pakistan. The Zimbabwe tourists, playing at the same Lahore stadium where the attack was mounted, were greeted with wild enthusiasm. Less well reported has been the fact that a team of English cricketers (including myself and Alex Massie of this parish) has been touring the Hindu Kush. We played in Chitral, Drosh, Ayun, Kalash and Booni. In these mountain areas many of our opponents were using pads, gloves and a hard ball for the first time. Still, we were overwhelmed, rarely losing by fewer than 200 runs in