Westminster

Friday

Alex Massie

The Poetry of Opposition

Hosannas are due to Danny Finkelstein and Iain Martin for finding and publicising this poem written by Chris Bryant, Labour MP for the Rhondda and a shadow justice minister. It’s about The Cuts and why They Are A Bad Thing. Make of it what you will. Supine by Chris Bryant One arm stretched out behind my head, dipped back, I push the other through the water’s swirl And past my thigh before the next attack, Propelling me, with languorous aqueous grace I could not possibly repeat at pace. The rhythm of the stroke, as lengths unfurl, Calms down my daily work obsessions, Inspires free-style inquisitive reflections, About what happens when

Tuesday

Daniel Korski

Stop dreaming of Leo McGarry

The West Wing has an amazing hold over Fleet Street. The TV series has not only taught a generation of British reporters about US politics but even influenced the way that they see the workings of Westminster. Every time centre-right writers think David Cameron is seen as having made a mistake – mistreated his back-benchers, hired a personal photographer or made a foreign policy gaffe – they trot out the same refrain: No 10 needs a powerful Leo McGarry-type chief of staff who can bring the various parts of the operation together from Steve Hilton’s work to Andy Coulson’ operation. An enforcer, a puller-togetherer. I have three arguments against a

Peter Hoskin

Gordon Brown speaks out about not speaking out

Courtesy of Andrew Sparrow’s ever-superb live blog of the political day, from Brown’s appearance before the Commons development committee: “Let’s not get into this in any detail because it’s a diversion from what we’re doing, and I think it’s unfortunate that this is the sort of question that is the first question to this committee from a member. Let’s put it this way, most former prime ministers have rarely spoken in the house at all. I have decided obviously to concentrate on my constituency work and on some of the work that I’ve been doing internationally. But, at the same time, I have taken a very big interest in some

Monday

Alex Massie

Tory Policy Refresh Strategy Unveiled

Courtesy of Ian Martin and Steve Hilton Stewart Pearson from The Thick of It. All too plausible: Monday Lock-in with the Weather Guys, our team of digital analysts plotting cultural climate change. Useful prep for the forthcoming Media Policy Refresh. Aiming to roll this out after Christmas, when everyone’s more receptive to notions of shrinkage, frugality, Less Is More etc. Rethinking points already emerging. The Quango is dead. Long live The Hub. Out: “public consultation”. In: “forward niche matrixing”. Goodbye, tropegeist. Hello, Pixelated Society. Quick fruit lunch, then we’re back on the synapse highway. More rethinking points: triangulations, forecasts, aftercasts, podcasts. Now we’re mantra-sifting: Sympathise, Empathise, Synthesise, Synergise. Synergy? Is that

Thursday

David Blackburn

MacShane suspended

Denis MacShane, the lachrymose MP for Rotherham, has been suspended following the Privilege and Standards Committee’s decision to report him to the Metropolitan Police. MacShane also got into scalding water recently when he castigated a member of IPSA’s staff with what might be termed ‘most unparliamentary language’. MacShane is one of the old guard who had a flagrant disregard for the public purse. But, even so, he has a point when it comes to IPSA. A bad system is no better than one easily exploited. Ben Brogan explains in his Telegraph column: ‘No wonder then that they, along with the MPs who survived the May cull, are frustrated by the

Saturday

Paul Routledge

Straining for effect

A saint of self-deprecation, Chris Mullin closed the first volume of his diaries A View from the Foothills ‘contemplating oblivion’ after his dismissal from ministerial office. A saint of self-deprecation, Chris Mullin closed the first volume of his diaries A View from the Foothills ‘contemplating oblivion’ after his dismissal from ministerial office. This was plainly not the case, as the 443 pages of his second volume, Decline & Fall, demonstrate. Whatever the fate of those he writes about with such sardonic charm, obscurity is unlikely to overtake the former Member for Sunderland South, though he will be better remembered for what he wrote than for what he did. Politicians who

Thursday

David Blackburn

Boles’ immigration revolution

Nick Boles’ Which Way’s Up? is gaining a quiet cult following in Westminster, and John Redwood has unearthed Boles’ radical approach to immigration. Boles dissents from the view that happiness in Sweden’s utopia rests on pay equality; he observes that it is a homogenous society that has controlled mass immigration. He writes: ‘We will not be able to sustain a social contract in which schooling and healthcare are provided to all citizens free of charge and are funded by taxation if we continue to allow, every year, hundreds of thousands of people from around the world to join the queues at A and E and send their children to British

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Nick Clegg’s 15% Opportunity

Who would have thought, even a year ago, that the future of the Liberal Democrats would arouse such interest? Perhaps I was too harsh on Nick Clegg’s speech to the party’s conference; certainly Fraser was more impressed by it and the gang at Liberal Vision also seem pleased. Perhaps I was wrong to hope that Clegg would disavow the social democrats in his party in this speech. One should always be wary of criticising politicians simply because they decline to do what you would have them do. Equally, one should not assume that doing what one would want them to do is the path to either political or policy success.

Friday

James Forsyth

Boris for a second term

Boris’s decision to announce today that he is to run again for Mayor of London is intriguing. Many in government circles expected Boris to wait until London’s settlement in the CSR had been finalised before announcing, his candidacy was the best card he had in the negotiation. So his declaration has sparked speculation that Boris and George Osborne have come to a deal. If Boris wins, and he starts as favourite, then what he does in his second term will be fascinating and the best guide to his future plans. If we see Boris becoming an increasingly national figure and championing causes dear to the right—free enterprise, low taxes and

Thursday

Alex Massie

Has Rumour Ended William Hague’s Career?

Is William Hague finished? That’s the sub-text to this interesting, even intriguing, Ben Brogan post in which The Telegraph’s man in Cameronland goes so far as to suggst the Prime Minister “should fear for his colleague’s state of mind.” That’s not all: In a series of Commons conversations this morning I was struck by the number of Conservatives who believe Mr Hague’s political career is now over. Where he was previously talked of as an emergency replacement for George Osborne or even David Cameron in a bus scenario, he is now out of the running. No one expects him to serve beyond the Parliament, and many expect him to last

Monday

James Forsyth

Blair pulls out of book launch

It is profoundly depressing that Tony Blair has had to pull out of his London book signing. Whatever you think of Blair, he is a man who led his party to three general elections victories and is the second longest serving Prime Minister of the post-war era. There is something very wrong if he feels he has to cancel an appearance at a book shop because of the threat of disruption from protesters whose intentions do not appear to be entirely peaceful. One other thing that should be noted is that the polling suggests that Blair is nowhere near as unpopular in this country as much of the coverage of

Thursday

Alex Massie

The Hague Affair

This so-called story is fast becoming an ideal case study for any student of politcs and the British press. Neither party comes out of it looking especially good. I’m sure James is correct: the press wins (or loses, if that’s how you view it) either way. If Hague ignores the innuendo then it’s fodder for bloggers and diarists (and eventually columnists) and if he addresses the matter then that means that it’s “officially” a story fit for public discussion. Heads gossip wins, tails Hague loses. If the rumours about Hague’s relationship with his young and now-former SpAd were true then, yes indeed, you’d have a scandal that would cost the

Thursday

David Blackburn

MPs in four-letter tirades against IPSA staff

The new parliament has drawn its teeth but the MPs’ expenses scandal continues. Throughout June and July, Westminster rumbled with aggravation about IPSA. There were whispers of MPs flying off the handle at IPSA staff; yesterday brought concrete reports of outright threats and intimidation. The accounts in this morning’s press are shaming, even by the standards of this saga of pornos and sugar-daddies. IPSA’s staff have been reduced to tears by raging MPs, they have been sworn at and told that the system they operate is a ‘fucking abortion’. Owing to legislation introduced during the previous parliament, I’d be prosecuted if I informed the guard on a delayed train that

Saturday

Alex Massie

Good News! The Government Will Not Ban Cheddar Cheese Sandwiches

I can’t say for sure if this is the strangest parliamentary question asked in recent years but, via John Rentoul, it’s certainly rum. John Spellar, Labour MP for Waring submitted this as a written question: Hospitals: Food Mr Spellar: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he plans to ban the sale of (a) tea and coffee with sugar and (b) cheddar cheese sandwiches in hospitals. [5340] Anne Milton: No. I suppose that we can only be glad that the answer was in fact “no”, not “we have no plans to ban cheddar cheese sandwiches in hospitals” or, more succinctly, “yes”. UPDATE: In the coments, Guto Daffyd has a good

Thursday

Alex Massie

First Past the Post Needs Better Defenders

I’m far from being an enthusiast for electoral reform not least because, as I’ve said, I don’t think electoral systems matter much. But, my word, the defenders of First Past The Post are doing their utmost to convince me that the Alternative Vote can’t possibly put more fools in parliament than FPTP. Here, for instance is Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski, co-chairman of the “All Parliamentary Group for the promotion of first-past-the-post”: First-past-the-post is tried and tested, simple, it brings about quick results, is relatively cheap, which given the economic mess left by Labour is an important consideration, and it allows voters to clearly demonstrate which party they feel should form

Tuesday

David Blackburn

In the name of God go

If you think your life’s an unremitting tragedy, pity the proof reader at Gordon Brown’s publisher. The late and unlamented Prime Minister has been out of office for 58 days, typing 10,000 words a day. That’s 580,000 words already. Tolstoy took 4 years and 460,000 words to write War and Peace, Cervantes needed 10 years and nearly 500,000 words to write Don Quixote, and the Bible is 783,000 words. 580,000 words typed by a partially sighted man with maybe 30 years to live. Suddenly, life is beautiful. Gordon Brown’s absenteeism is a clear cut case: it’s simply not on. If Brown is ill or can’t be bothered he should resign

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Sleeping beauties

We can’t really let today go by without mentioning Nicholas Cecil’s extraordinary scoop in the Standard.  Here’s a snippet: “MPs are sleeping secretly in the Commons after being stripped of their second home allowance. A handful of parliamentarians are bedding down at Westminster during the week because they are now banned from claiming on the taxpayer for a hotel, a rented flat, or a mortgage on a second home. But they want to stay anonymous for fear they will be evicted on health and safety grounds. “I’m not complaining. I’m just getting on with it,” said a Tory who asked not to be named. “I’m desperately trying to do the

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

Scotland deserves better

I knew it was time for me to leave the Scottish Parliament press corps when I was in Deacon Brodie’s Tavern one night and pulled into a game of “name the top ten sexiest MSPs”. On my first day there, September 2000, the journalist next to me was in trouble for headbutting a politician in the pub the night before. It’s an unusual place with antics that make Westminster look like a nunnery: I remember one set of political awards where a Labour MSP drunkenly set fire to the curtains and was imprisoned. I feel sorry for the poor members of the general public who come into contact with these

Friday

Daniel Korski

RAB

ABC was the acronym used for meetings of Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger and William Cohen when they all worked for the President Bill Clinton. RAB will hopefully in future be an American-style acronym for the cooperation of the three people voted to chair the parliamentary committees for foreign affairs, defence and international development: Richard Ottaway, James Arbuthnot and Malcolm Bruce. If the government succeeds in welding together the different perspectives of the FCO, DFID and the MoD – a prerequisite of modern crisis management – then the three MPs will have to find new ways of working together too as parliament will have to scrutinise this new dynamic. They must

Thursday

David Blackburn

Select committee chairmen in full

Courtesy of PoliticsHome, here is the full list of the new chairmen of select committees: ‘The following candidates have been elected unopposed as select committee chairs: – Culture, Media and Sport: Mr John Whittingdale – International Development: Malcolm Bruce – Justice: Sir Alan Beith – Northern Ireland: Mr Laurence Robertson – Procedure: Mr Greg Knight – Scottish Affairs: Mr Ian Davidson – Transport: Mrs Louise Ellman – Welsh Affairs: David T. C. Davies The following candidates have been elected as select committee chairs by secret ballot, under the Alternative Vote system: – Business, Innovation and Skills: Mr Adrian Bailey – Children, Schools and Families (Education): Mr Graham Stuart – Communities