Politics Archives

Wednesday

24 Apr 2013

Cameron keeps his friends close, but now he’s drawing his MPs closer

David Cameron and the Tory party appear to be emerging from a period of marriage counselling that has gone particularly well. The leader is making more of an effort with his backbenchers generally (James examines this in his column tomorrow), and tomorrow’s papers bring yet more news of reconciliation. The Prime Minister is beefing up his political policy operation by appointing a panel of bright and impressive MPs to help him, and promoting Jo Johnson to be his head of policy and a Cabinet Office minister. Those MPs aren’t just impressive, though: some of them, including Jesse Norman and George Eustice, are also rebels. This is a big gesture to

Alex Massie

Do the Americans want Britain to renew Trident?

What is the point of Britain’s nuclear deterrent? If it is an insurance policy it is a remarkably expensive one that might not, in any case, ever be honoured. I suspect that, more importantly, retaining an independent [sic] nuclear capability is a psychological crutch for politicians who fear that leaving the nuclear club would somehow make it harder for Britain to remain a member of the Top Nation club. And perhaps it would. This is not necessarily a trivial thing. It would change the way we think of ourselves and might, in some sense, be considered an admission of defeat or as some kind of retreat. No Prime Minister wants

James Forsyth

How David Cameron is improving his relations with Tory backbenchers

There has been a rare outbreak of unity in the Tory party in recent weeks. It is the product of several factors – the bonding effect of honouring Margaret Thatcher, the influence of Lynton Crosby and a growing sense on the Tory benches that Labour are beatable. Another important element of it is that David Cameron has found a better way to interact with his own MPs. As one senior Number 10 figure told me, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day. But for the first time, I think, we have a proper systematic way of engaging with the party.’ One element of this is more serious policy discussions with MPs.

Freddy Gray

The suspiciously sudden rehabilitation of George W. Bush

Are we hearing the opening chords of the George W. Bush redemption song? The Atlantic thinks so. This week he’s opening his huge presidential library, and a new Washington-ABC poll shows that his job approval rating now – more than four years after he left office – is 47 per cent, as high as it was just after he won re-election in 2004. Ron Fournier has written a piece for the National Journal entitled ‘Go on admit it, George W Bush was a nice guy.’ He tells some touching anecdotes, including this one: One steamy summer day in 1999, then-Gov. George W. Bush called me with an exclusive interview and interrupted my first question. ‘What’s all

Isabel Hardman

Wisecracking May announces new treaty with Jordan for Qatada deportation

So in spite of great excitement beforehand, Theresa May didn’t confirm that the UK will seek a temporary withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights. Instead, she announced a new treaty – a mutual legal assistance agreement – with Jordan in order to enable Abu Qatada’s deportation. This wasn’t nearly exciting enough for Tory MPs, who started demanding that the UK ignore the Convention and jolly well put Qatada on a plane today. May decided the best way to respond to this would be to crack a joke using Mark Reckless’ surname while explaining to him why the government must abide by the laws to which it is currently

James Forsyth

Today’s PMQs fails to interrupt the mini-Tory revival

There has been a distinct shortage of PMQs recently and after today, there’s only one more until June. This will add to Ed Miliband’s disappointment that he didn’t shift the political mood today, nothing happened to interrupt the mini-Tory revival. Though, tomorrow’s GDP figures will be crucial in whether it continues. Miliband went on the NHS, one of Labour’s strongest subjects, only for David Cameron to counter that if Labour got in again there would be another Mid-Staffs. This was a distinct change of tone from Cameron’s initial response to the Francis Report, when he went out of his way to avoid trying to blame the previous government. The questions

Isabel Hardman

How far will the government go to deport Abu Qatada?

This morning, after the Sun and the Mail reported that ministers might go as far as to leave the European Convention on Human Rights in order to get their way, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman refused to rule out such a move. He said: ‘The government will explore every option in seeking to deport this dangerous individual and that’s what we are going to keep doing. ‘The Prime Minister met with the Home Secretary, the Justice Secretary and the Attorney General yesterday to discuss the case. I’m not going to get into specifics as to what the Government is considering, as I say, we are going to explore every option.’

Jonathan Jones

Nigel Farage shouldn’t get Ukip’s hopes up for a win in Portsmouth South

Talk of a by-election in Portsmouth South has been growing, fuelled by allegations against MP Mike Hancock. And, in a speech to the parliamentary press gallery lunch yesterday, Nigel Farage claimed Ukip could win it. The reasoning is simple: Ukip are on the up, and they came within 2,000 votes and 5 percentage points of a win in Eastleigh, so surely they can go over the top in another Hampshire by-election where the Lib Dem incumbent has had to step down amidst a scandal. Of course Ukip could win — but its chances may not be as high as that reasoning suggests. Indeed, Farage himself seems to think his party

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May tries to calm Snooping Bill nerves

It seems the Home Office is growing a little bit nervous about its flagship Communications Data Bill. I understand that Home Secretary Theresa May took time out of an Abu-Qatada-packed day yesterday to ring internet service providers to try to give reassurances about the legislation. As I explained yesterday, there’s a growing sense in Westminster that this Bill won’t survive. Many backbench Tory MPs tell me of a rumour sweeping their party that it is already dead. Other sources involved in the negotiations suggest that there’s a possibility that the Home Office might jettison the more controversial parts of the legislation in order to get the darned thing through. Given

Isabel Hardman

Ministers mull dramatic measures to succeed in Qatada battle

When Theresa May makes her statement on Abu Qatada to MPs today, she will be expected to give further details on plans reportedly mooted by the Prime Minister to temporarily withdraw Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights. This is a high-risk strategy for two reasons. The first is that by so clearly involving himself in the process, the Prime Minister risks being damaged by the fallout from another failed attempt to get Qatada out. The second is that a temporary withdrawal from the Convention, even to remove a hate preacher than all agree should have left this country long ago, will send Cameron’s Liberal Democrat coalition partners into

Tuesday

23 Apr 2013

Isabel Hardman

How the Snooping Bill could end up dead in the water – sooner or later

When Cabinet met this morning, ministers didn’t discuss the Communications Data Bill, which the government hopes to get into the forthcoming Queen’s Speech. But there is a growing sense in Westminster that it won’t make it out of the Commons alive – if it even manages to make it into the Commons. Here are three different scenarios for what could happen to this controversial piece of legislation: 1. The Bill fails to make it into the Queen’s Speech. Discussions about the legislative programme for the next parliamentary year are taking place at the moment. For some motherhood-and-apple-pie bills, those negotiations are short and sweet: those at the top of government

Isabel Hardman

No-one does anti-politics stand-up like Nigel Farage. But what about that tax policy?

Nigel Farage joined lobby journalists in Parliament for lunch today. Like many of his hustings, it was a box office event, and indeed like many of those campaign trail appearances, he made plenty of the same jokes that those who follow him about have heard many times before such as the one about being married to a foreigner, and about the problem with the Westminster bubble: ‘They look the same, they sound the same, God! They’re dull! I mean, they are not much fun to be with.’ Farage, of course, is fun to be with. He was sporting a red rose for St George’s Day, and decided to regale journalists

Alex Massie

Why oh why oh why can’t Barack Obama be more like Lyndon Johnson?

So, is Barack Obama a wimp or just another lame-duck second-term President? Maureen Dowd, in her typically sophomoric fashion, appears to believe that the failure to pass gun control legislation shows that the President has not been paying enough attention to Aaron Sorkin movies. Tim Stanley, who at least knows something of how Washington works, suggests this failure reveals Obama as a lame-duck. Today’s New York Times piles on with an article asking, essentially, why oh why BHO can’t be more like LBJ. As is so often the case, a presidential setback must be attributed to an absence of Presidential willpower. The Cult of the Presidency is an eternal flame that can

Isabel Hardman

PM and Osborne prefer their ‘own words’ to describe miserable economy

George Osborne might have used Justin Welby’s comments on the problems with the banks this morning as a sign that he has at least one ally out there, but this afternoon, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman distanced the government from the Archbishop’s use of the word ‘depression’ to characterise this country’s current economic circumstances. He said: ‘The Prime Minister agrees with the point the Chancellor of the Exchequer was making when he was asked that question this morning. What the Chancellor said was that he agreed with the Archbishop’s analysis that we have a slow and difficult recovery because of the problems in the banking system and those are the

Alex Massie

Are the SNP’s plans for a currency union a) Expedient, b) Sensible, c) Dangerous or d) All of the Above

Even if George Osborne is right about the problems of a currency union between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK he possesses the uncanny knack of being right in such a disagreeable fashion that one’s loath to give him any credit at all. Still, as an attack dog he has his uses and he has picked an interesting day – St George’s – to come to Scotland to noise up the Jocks. I don’t know if the SNP will mind this too much. The nationalist view, I think, is that people will concentrate more on Osborne’s manner than on the substance of what he is saying. This

Isabel Hardman

George Osborne stays in attack mode

George Osborne is well-known as the ‘submarine Chancellor’. But recently he’s been out and about a little bit more than we’re used to. He went on the attack this month on welfare, and today he made a rare appearance on Radio 4, and then gave a speech on Scotland and the pound. Ahead of today’s borrowing figures – which show he’s just about squeaked home on his claim that the deficit is coming down every year of this Parliament – he told John Humphrys that the economy was recovering, and discounted the views of the IMF’s chief economist Olivier Blanchard, saying: ‘That is one voice, one person. The chief economist has

Fraser Nelson

Osborne warns Salmond: it’s ‘unlikely’ we’d let an independent Scotland use the pound.

Given that the Bank of England was set up by a Scot, Alex Salmond may expect that an independent Scotland would be automatically eligible to use the pound. Not so, George Osborne has replied, in fact it’s unlikely that England would let it. The Chancellor takes a surprisingly keen interest in the campaign to save the union, and has chosen today- St George’s day – to travel to Glasgow and release a paper saying that the pound will remain property of Her Majesty’s Westminster government. And if Scots want to keep using it, post a 2016 secession, they’ll have to allow financial control to remain in London. Given that Barroso

Monday

22 Apr 2013

James Forsyth

How Michael Heseltine won his first showdown with Margaret Thatcher in government

The extracts in the Telegraph of Charles Moore’s biography of Margaret Thatcher have confirmed that this will be one of the most important political books of recent times. One of the intriguing things about Thatcher’s premiership is how, for the early years of it, she had to deal with a Cabinet that was not convinced of her policy prescription. This meant that, contrary to the latter image, she could not simply proceed as she wished. (Though, it should be noted that events vindicated Thatcher’s judgment.) Charles Moore reveals in his book that in 1979 Michael Heseltine flatly refused the job of energy secretary. He reports that when Thatcher offered it

Fraser Nelson

Skills are the problem. But does anyone have a solution?

For years, words ‘skills’ and ‘crisis’ have been joined in British political discourse. It’s a problem that no one seems able to crack and on May 2nd, The Spectator is holding a conference to get to the bottom of it. Labour excelled at explaining the problem. When Gordon Brown went through his phase of ennobling bankers and asking them to decide government policy, he asked Lloyds’ Sandy Leitch to conduct the Skills Review which found that Britain does well at educating its elite, but not well with others. Germany, by contrast, has 60pc of youngsters in upper secondary education in vocational training. Half of all German pupils in vocational training spend more

Isabel Hardman

Tory MPs hunt new Labour education shadow

The other interesting thing about Ed Miliband’s personnel ‘lurch to the left’ last week was that he appointed Tristram Hunt to Labour’s shadow education team to replace Karen Buck. If CCHQ was excited about Buck becoming the Labour leader’s PPS, then Tory MPs were just as energised today by Hunt’s presence on the frontbench at departmental question time. Andrew Rosindell asked a question about the history curriculum. As Michael Gove came to the end of his answer and Rosindell rose to ask his supplementary question, Tory backbencher David Ruffley started to shout ‘come on, Tristram!’ He repeated his heckling, wiggling his hands in a ‘stand-up-for-yourself’ gesture. Hunt, naturally, didn’t respond,