David cameron

Sunday

James Forsyth

Ukip set for crushing Clacton win

David Cameron and the Tories’ electoral hopes are about to take a long walk on Clacton’s short pier. A poll in the Mail on Sunday today has Ukip on 64% and the Tories on 20%, a lead that suggests this contest is over before the writ has even been moved. So, Ukip are going to get their first MP. This means that the fracture on the right of British politics is a lot closer to becoming permanent, handing Labour the kind of inherent electoral advantage that the Tories enjoyed in the 1980s. This morning, the next election is Ed Miliband’s to lose. One of the striking things about the poll

Saturday

James Forsyth

Tusk as European Council President is a mixed blessing for Cameron

Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, has been appointed the new European Council President. Tonight, Tusk has had warm words about how imperative it is that Britain’s concerns about the EU are addressed. As Open Europe reports, he called the possibility of an EU without Britain a “black scenario.”   Tusk’s appointment is a mixed blessing for David Cameron. On the one hand, Tusk comes from a non-Eurozone country meaning that he’ll be sympathetic to Britain’s desire for single market protections for the Eurozone outs. The Ukraine crisis has also reminded the Poles of how important Britain is in terms of stiffening the EU approach towards Russia; meaning that Tusk

Friday

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron may be about to call time on the coalition’s civil libertarian stance

It was not so much the announcements that David Cameron made in his press conference about the terror threat to the UK that were significant, but what he looks like he’s going to have to announce on Monday. The Prime Minister confirmed that the threat level to the UK has been raised from ‘substantial’ to ‘severe’. But he also said that on Monday he will be unveiling new measures to address ‘gaps’ in the UK’s ‘armoury’: ‘I said very clearly last week that there would be no knee-jerk reactions. We will respond calmly and with purpose. And we’ll do so driven by the evidence and the importance of maintaining the

Steerpike Steerpike

A very Scottish dinner for the Prime Minister

Mr S could not help think that last night’s Scottish CBI dinner looked a little dreary and frankly a bit ‘budget’. The PM was coming to town; could they not have strung up some bunting at the very least? There was good reason the whole thing looked rubbish though: bureaucracy. The guest list was cut from 700 to 230 and the budget for the event slashed to just £10,000 after the Electoral Commission declared that this was a pro-union campaign event. The penpushers decreed: ‘We are of the view that the CBI’s dinner does constitute campaigning and as a result we have sought detailed assurances from them and their suppliers

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 28 August 2014

Home Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said that Britons who went to Syria or Iraq to fight could be stripped of their citizenship, if they had dual nationality or were naturalised. Her words came during a search for the identity of the British man in a video of the beheading of the American journalist James Foley. David Cameron had returned to London from his holiday in Cornwall to confer with security officials, but decided against recalling Parliament. In revenge the Daily Mail carried photographs of him in a wetsuit, which gave him a phocine look. Lord Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff, suggested Britain should deal with President

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Douglas Carswell has decided Cameron will squander his EU reform opportunity

As well as saying his decision is regrettable and counterproductive, the other Tory response to this morning’s shock defection by Douglas Carswell is to point people to instances where Carswell has said that only David Cameron as Prime Minister in 2017 will guarantee a referendum. In April, he wrote on his Telegraph blog: ‘In order to exit the EU, we need David Cameron to be Prime Minister in 2017 – the year when we will get the In/Out referendum, our chance to vote to leave the EU.’   Suggesting he is inconsistent is at least a little more nuanced than smearing him as a ‘headbanger’. But what Carswell’s defection today

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Douglas Carswell’s defection is a disaster for David Cameron and great news for Ed Miliband

I like Douglas Carswell. He thinks for himself and has always, I think, added some welcome colour to parliament. But I don’t understand his defection to UKIP at all. If nothing else it makes it more likely that Ed Miliband will be Prime Minister next May. Which in turn dramatically reduces the likelihood there will be an EU referendum in the next parliament. Which is the the matter with which Carswell is most concerned. He is leaving the Conservatives because he thinks – correctly – that David Cameron will eventually recommend that Britain remain a member of the European Union. Fine. But it is quixotic to leave a party that

Jane Kelly

The nun who took down an Isis flag – and stands up for east London’s Muslims

Not so long ago disaffected youngsters would take to a life of crime and hard drugs, a trajectory which would often kill them. These days, some young men from our Muslim community sign up instead to the so-called Islamic State, and the dream of a distant Caliphate. Why? Well, forget theology or even the prestige which comes from being a warrior — if Sister Christine Frost is right, it all comes down to housing. Sister Christine has worked on the Will Crooks Estate in Poplar, east London, for over 40 years. She accidentally got into the news in early August when she removed the black flag of radical Islam which

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 21 August 2014

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, writing of the Islamic State in northern Iraq, said: ‘If we do not act to stem the onslaught of this exceptionally dangerous terrorist movement, it will only grow stronger until it can target us on the streets of Britain.’ Anyone waving an Islamic State flag in Britain would be arrested, he said. He invoked Britain’s ‘military prowess’ but later said: ‘We are not going to be putting boots on the ground.’ British C-130 transport planes were used to drop aid; Tornados were used for surveillance in addition to a Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft; and Chinook helicopters remained on standby. A raider who attacked a jeweller’s in Oxford

Dot Wordsworth

What’s humanitarian about a humanitarian crisis?

‘Our first priority,’ David Cameron said this week, ‘has of course been to deal with the acute humanitarian crisis in Iraq.’ One knows what he means, but isn’t humanitarian an odd way of putting it? If it had been a vegetarian crisis or a disestablishmentarian crisis, it would be one either caused or suffered by people who professed either of those schools of thought. Humanitarians used to be people who followed the teachings of Pierre Leroux (1797–1871), who believed in the spontaneous perfectibility of the human race. He’d soaked up the ideas of Saint-Simon and squeezed them out over Auguste Comte and George Sand. The dogma-free religion of humanity was

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Breaking: David Cameron returns to Downing Street after journalist beheaded

Downing Street has announced that David Cameron is returning to Westminster from his holiday. A Number 10 spokesperson said: ‘If true, the brutal murder of James Foley is shocking and depraved. ‘The Prime Minister is returning to Downing St this morning. He will meet with the Foreign Secretary and senior officials from the Home Office, Foreign Office and the agencies to discuss the situation in Iraq and Syria and the threat posed by ISIL terrorists.’ That the apparent murderer of James Foley spoke with a British accent was not, according to Philip Hammond this morning, a surprise to those tracking radicalised Britons joining the conflict. But this development still has big implications,

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Britain abandons foreign policy. And abandons debates about foreign policy too.

Cynics have long suspected that Britain’s foreign policy is as independent as its nuclear deterrent. Cynics have a point. Perhaps, as some suggest, it’s time to concede the game’s a bogey and cease even pretending to pretend this remains a country of at least some modest importance and influence. Except, if we choose to, we do retain some influence, even some importance. Nevertheless, we certainly do not have an Iraq policy at present. Nor do we really have an ISIS policy. The Foreign Secretary is long on what we’re not doing and very short on what we are. Of course this reflects past misadventures. Not just those pertaining to Iraq but

Digby Warde-Aldam

I’d like to share my favourite violent pop video with you

This week has seen the Prime Minister playing Mary Whitehouse again. On Monday he announced that, as of October, music videos on sites like YouTube and Vevo are to carry age classifications similar to those already in place for feature films. You can read the subtext on his ‘deeply concerned’ brow: ‘if this is what it takes to get a majority…’ In principle, it’s hard to object too much. CDs (if anyone still buys them) carry parental guidance stickers, and a lot of comic books have a ratings system. Video games and DVDs follow the same British film classification board traffic-light system as cinema releases. Unless you take particular issue

Monday

The Spectator

Video: Does Cameron have an Iraq policy? Or is he just making it up?

The Prime Minister has returned from his holidays, and yesterday wrote an intriguing piece in the Sunday Telegraph about the ongoing struggles in Iraq and Syria. ‘True security will only be achieved if we use all our resources – aid, diplomacy, our military prowess – to help bring about a more stable world’ he wrote, and this morning Defence Secretary Michael Fallon sounded distinctly hawkish about British involvement in Iraq. But what does any of this actually mean? Fraser Nelson tries to get to the bottom of things in our look at the week ahead, while Isabel Hardman wonders whether anyone – including Cameron – knows what our policy is anymore. Meanwhile Douglas Murray argues that an

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Philip Hammond: No plans to engage in airstrikes

So Britain’s long-term fight against Isis isn’t, at the moment, going to involve this country doing any fighting. The Prime Minister this morning insisted that there would be no ‘boots on the ground’ and Philip Hammond has just told journalists that there are ‘no plans at the moment to engage in air strikes’. That latter assertion does of course mean that air strikes aren’t being ruled out, while boots on the ground are ruled out daily. Hammond said: ‘The priority is the humanitarian situation, there are huge numbers of displaced persons, there are persistent stories of atrocities being committed against people who are fleeing from the violence going on, so

Sunday

Damian Thompson

Islamic extremism and the hypocrisy of the Church of England

The Church of England has written to David Cameron accusing him of lacking ‘a coherent or comprehensive approach to Islamic extremism as it is developing across the globe’. The letter, signed by the the Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines, and approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, also reportedly accuses the PM of turning his back on Christians slaughtered or made homeless in northern Iraq – and wonders why Cameron has chosen to concentrate on the plight of the Yazidis instead. These criticisms are spot on. But I’m surprised that the C of E has had the brass neck to make them. For decades, the Anglican and Catholic Churches

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What are David Cameron’s plans for the fight against Isis?

David Cameron warns today that Britain must act against Isis in order to prevent terrorist attacks on this country. But what does he actually intend to do? In his article in the Sunday Telegraph, the Prime Minister argues that a ‘broader political, diplomatic and security response’ is needed, but also says that ‘we should avoid sending armies to fight or occupy’. He writes: ‘Britain – our economy, our security, our future – must come first. After a deep and damaging recession, and our involvement in long and difficult conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is hardly surprising that so many people say to me when seeing the tragedies unfolding on

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 14 August 2014

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, resisted calls for Parliament to be recalled to debate the crisis in Iraq. Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, said that the government was not considering military intervention ‘at the present time’. Mark Simmonds resigned as a Foreign Office minister, but Downing Street hastened to say that his resignation, unlike Lady Warsi’s a week earlier, had nothing to do with government policy on Gaza, since he was complaining he could not afford to rent a flat in London for his family with the £27,000 allowance. A man sought by police investigating the theft of a fish tank from a furniture shop in Leeds hid in a bush and

The Spectator

Violence, fear, confusion: this is what comes into a leadership vacuum

The old cliché that ‘nothing happens in August’ has again been brutally disproved. From the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war to the Russian invasion of Georgia six years ago, August is a month often packed with violence — but rarely more so than this year. In Syria, Christians are being crucified for refusing to convert to Islam. In northern Iraq, there are reports of mothers throwing their children from mountains rather than leaving them to the jihadis who are parading the severed heads of their victims. Russian convoys are rolling towards the Ukrainian border as Vladimir Putin tests the resolve of the West. Barack Obama has

Frank Field

David Cameron could have been an anti-slavery hero

When I helped bring the Modern Slavery Bill to parliament I thought here, surely, was a piece of legislation that the PM would want to own. Three women — Theresa May, the Home Secretary; her then special adviser Fiona Cunningham; and Philippa Stroud, Iain Duncan Smith’s special adviser — had all worked for a Bill that would give the government a chance to seize the moral high ground, restoring Britain to its historic role as leader in the abolitionist movement. David Cameron was within touching distance of greatness. But almost at the last moment, he stumbled. Wary of alienating the business community, he balked at the idea of stipulating that