Politics Archives

Friday

19 Apr 2013

Ed Miliband needs to talk about 2015, not what he would do now

Ed Miliband’s speech to the Scottish Labour conference is another illustration that he intends to depict ‘One Nation Labour’ as the answer to so-called Tory divisiveness. Miliband told the conference: ‘As leader of the Labour Party [I] will never seek to divide our country and say to young person in Inverness or the older worker laid off in Ipswich desperately looking for work, that they are scroungers, skivers or somehow cheating the system.’ But in the context of today’s Independent story about Labour planning to go into the next election committed to higher spending than the Tories, a story which Ed Balls crossly contested on the radio this morning, what

Fraser Nelson

Why Fitch downgraded Britain from AAA, in three graphs

Fitch has today followed Moody’s in downgrading Britain from AAA to AA+. The reason? George Osborne is borrowing far too much. In its verdict, it said that gross debt “will peak at 101% of GDP in 2015-16…and will only gradually decline from 2017-18.” The Chancellor, of course, had once set a rule to “ensure that debt is falling as a percentage of GDP by 2015”. This has been abandoned, and the downgrades are the consequence. Fitch doesn’t break down its forecasts, but it’s likely they follow those made by Michael Saunders at Citi:- For all Labour’s talk of austerity, George

Isabel Hardman

Tories keen to exploit Labour’s Southern Discomfort in local elections

David Cameron’s local election kick-off speech today notably contained no reference to UKIP, but 12 mentions of Labour. The Conservative leader and his colleagues concerned with campaigns are on a damage-limitation exercise about the party’s chances in the local elections, and as well as taking the attack to Labour on the policy front – arguing that the Tories have freed councils from Labour’s restrictions, kept council tax down and reduced local government waste – a plank of their strategy involves attacking Labour’s prowess in southern council seats. The key phrase which you can expect to hear whenever there is evidence that the Labour campaign is faltering in the south is

Fraser Nelson

Is Gove’s school reform genie out of the bottle?

Will Michael Gove’s reforms outlast him? They are perhaps this government’s single greatest accomplishment. Within three years it has gone from legislation to a nascent industry, and much of it on display at yesterday’s Spectator education conference, which the Education Secretary addressed. But towards the end, he raised an important point: how much of this agenda is due to his personal patronage? Is the school reform genie out of the bottle? He thinks so. I disagree, and explain why in my Telegraph column today. Here are my main points, with some highlights from yesterday’s conference. 1. The energy and thoroughness of the Gove reforms are remarkable, and go way beyond

Thursday

18 Apr 2013

Isabel Hardman

A ‘lurch to the left’ or a wise appointment?

One interesting decision that Ed Miliband made this week was to appoint Karen Buck as his PPS, following the long-planned departure of John Denham. Tory MPs have told me they were very quickly given ‘lines to take’ on how this represented a big ‘lurch to the left’ on the Labour leader’s part. CCHQ is right that Karen Buck is on the left of her party: as a shadow welfare minister she pushed for the party to oppose the £26,000 benefit cap when Liam Byrne’s official line was to leave it be (one he later reversed). But the line to take conveniently forgets that one of the principal purposes of a PPS

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband shouldn’t dismiss husky-hugging out of hand

Today’s Ipsos MORI finding that voters can’t see Ed Miliband as Prime Minister underlines how much hard work the Labour leader really has to do. The poll for the Evening Standard found 66 per cent of those asked didn’t believe he was ready to rule the country, against 24 per cent who did. He is also polling behind his party, with 58 per cent disagreeing that Labour is ready to form the next government against 29 per cent who do. As the general election draws closer, voters will find their minds focus more on this question of whether they can imagine the party governing rather than simply on Labour as

Isabel Hardman

Michael Gove: Unions need to do a better job

Cometh the Gove, cometh the angry trade union representative. It was inevitable that the Education Secretary would have at least one exchange with someone from one of the two largest teaching unions when he took questions from the floor at today’s Spectator education conference. Gove spoke powerfully without notes on his vision for education, and then in conversation with Andrew Neil, attacked those he believed had low expectations for certain pupils. He said: ‘There are wonderful people in teaching and I want to empower them. This is, I think, a tremendous opportunity for teachers. But there are some in the teaching profession, I’m afraid, who won’t take yes for an

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 — Margaret Thatcher’s secret Kremlin files, remembering her funeral and the Boston bombings

Were Margaret Thatcher’s relationships with foreign leaders as straightforward as they appeared to the public? In this week’s Spectator cover feature, Pavel Stroilov provides a special insight into one particular relationship — Mikhail Gorbachev. Stroilov reveals the official Kremlin records of what Thatcher said to Gorbachev behind closed doors. On our View from 22 podcast, Thatcher biographer and advisor Robin Harris analyses her foreign policy legacy with Fraser Nelson, examining her relationship with world leaders, the personal and political differences that existed and the lessons the world today can take from her. BBC Presenter and Spectator chairman Andrew Neil also joins to discuss Baroness Thatcher’s funeral; the significance of the

Steerpike

Steerpike | 18 April 2013

Labour activists are quietly amused that Mrs Thatcher’s death may lead to a library being built in her honour. ‘Tricky one for the Tories,’ says a top Labour figure. ‘Presumably David Cameron will open it. And Eric Pickles will close it.’ In Tory circles, meanwhile, the jokes are all about a future Cameron library. Built in a Tory-Lib Dem marginal, fuelled by solar panels, and administered by ethnically diverse and gender-balanced staff, the Cameron Centre for Reading Together will provide nothing but state-run newspapers and learned biographies of Tony Blair and Morrissey, with perhaps a folk music section near the front desk. Gay nuptials will be held in the annex, and there’ll

Wednesday

17 Apr 2013

Isabel Hardman

The date George Osborne’s vultures are circling over

It was only last week that a Tory MP was warning Coffee House of the dangerous impact that high levels of public debt can have on growth. Today that theory is fighting for its life, with the authors of the Harvard paper that developed it in the first place in the firing line for an error in a spreadsheet. If you haven’t been following the Reinhart and Rogoff row, here’s a quick catch-up: a paper from two professors and a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts published this week argues that Carman Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard were wrong to reach the conclusion they did about a 90%

James Forsyth

Margaret Thatcher’s funeral was the right funeral

Today was a moment in our island story. The longest serving Prime Minister of the 2oth century was laid to rest with due ceremony. Watching the coffin move down to St Paul’s and the service itself, I was struck by how right it was that it was a ceremonial funeral. A private affair would not have done justice to the legacy of our first, and only, female Prime Minister. It was noticeable that the much talked-about protests along the route failed to materialise. But it should be stressed that today’s service was not a political affair. The eulogy was not about her policies but her faith and her understanding of

Steerpike

Margaret Thatcher’s funeral unites the political class

Where there has been discord, Mrs Thatcher’s funeral brought harmony. From my seat in the gods at St. Paul’s, I watched as Westminster’s lesser mortals gathered in front of the altar to shoot the breeze in the hour before Lady Thatcher’s coffin arrived. Gordon and Sarah Brown were first to arrive. They plonked themselves down, but soon jumped up to chat to a passer-by. Quick as a flash, Ed Miliband and his wife Justine pinched the Browns’ vacated chairs. Time rolled by, and Miliband found it impossible to shake the shadow of his old master as he walked around the nave. How’s that for art imitating life? The pews soon

Sebastian Payne

Andrew Neil discusses Margaret Thatcher’s funeral

In tomorrow’s View from 22 podcast, BBC presenter and Spectator chairman Andrew Neil discusses attending Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, the significance of the event in British history as well as his personal encounters with the former Prime Minister. We’re delighted to bring you the interview below. Subscribe to the View from 22 here to receive the whole episode first thing tomorrow morning, featuring Baroness Thatcher’s biographer Robin Harris and Spectator editor Fraser Nelson on the lesser known side of her foreign policy. listen to ‘Andrew Neil on Margaret Thatcher’s funeral’ on Audioboo

Isabel Hardman

Lion-hearted crowds cheer the Iron Lady

When I arrived at St Paul’s at 6 o’clock this morning, a line of people, around 40-strong, had already set up camp with union flags (and one Canadian flag, too) opposite the church courtyard. The police officer drawing to the end of his night shift told me they had been there all night. Later, as the hearse left the Palace of Westminster, the pavements opposite were packed. Yes, there were some people who turned their backs, and others who held placards decrying Thatcher’s legacy. This video from the Guardian shows some of them chanting ‘waste of money!’ as the procession approached. As Thatcher’s friend Conor Burns has been repeatedly saying for

Alex Massie

The Myths of Margaret Thatcher, Sermon on the Mound Edition

Like Iain Martin, I was not sure a full ceremonial funeral was quite appropriate for Margaret Thatcher. That is not to dismiss her achievements or her significance, merely to wonder if such pomp was wholly suitable for a figure who has proved as divisive in death as she was in life. And yet, the majesty of the service at St Paul’s worked its magic. Combining grandeur with simplicity it said simply this: Margaret Hilda Thatcher mattered. It is hard to think of other non-Royal Britons who will be afforded, far less merit, this kind of send-off. I thought the Bishop of London’s address splendid. It deftly punctured some of the

The Spectator

Sir John Hoskyns: the Margaret Thatcher I knew

Sir John Hoskyns was head of Margaret Thatcher’s Policy Unit from 1979 to 1982. In a Q&A with The Spectator, he describes what it was really like to work with her, and how David Cameron could learn from the late Prime Minister. In 1977, you wrote the Stepping Stones Report, which looked at the fundamental problems holding Britain back in the pre-Thatcher era. If you were to write a sequel, what would you focus on? There’s no snap answer – at least from a bystander. Stepping Stones, and our ‘Wiring Diagram’ were written for a particular crisis for the British economy. I had been working on an analysis of the problem since

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron: We’re all Thatcherites now

David Cameron is giving a reading at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral later today, but this morning he gave his eulogy on the Today programme. He made the quite striking observation that ‘we’re all Thatcherites now’. In one sense this is quite an obvious comment: as countless commentators have observed over the past week and a half, Margaret Thatcher didn’t just change the way the Conservative party viewed economics and the state, she also changed the way Labour sold itself as a party. Cameron said: ‘I think in a way we’re all Thatcherites now because – I mean – I think one of the things about her legacy is some of those

Tuesday

16 Apr 2013

Isabel Hardman

Was today’s conservatory revolt really necessary?

Eric Pickles did manage to avert a defeat in the Commons on plans to let homeowners build extensions and conservatories without planning permission, but it’s worth asking how on earth the government managed to get in the position where its backbench was so worked up on a policy like this in the first place? The amendment, tabled by Lord True and approved by peers – would have allowed councils to opt out of the new freedoms. And 18 Tory MPs – John Baron, Andrew Bingham, Bob Blackman, Tracey Crouch, Nick de Bois, Zac Goldsmith, Philip Hollobone, Stewart Jackson, Julian Lewis, Anne Main, Caroline Nokes, Matthew Offord, Mark Pawsey, Sir John Stanley

Isabel Hardman

Maria Miller and Oliver Letwin’s perfect press regulation

There was a curious meeting of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee this morning. The MPs took evidence from Oliver Letwin and Maria Miller, and then from Harriet Harman, on press regulation. An evidence session with Oliver Letwin is curious enough anyway, as the Minister for Government Policy does tend to speak as though he’s reading from a will, complete with codicils. But what was really rum was that everyone in the room seemed to be talking about quite different systems of press regulation. Miller and Letwin were eerily cheery, repeatedly telling committee chair John Whittingdale that they were ‘the optimist in this case’, and that their plans were

Steerpike

Row builds over the US Senate’s silence on Lady Thatcher

Further to my report yesterday, the Heritage Foundation, the giant conservative think-tank that has its own Margaret Thatcher Centre to study and promote the Special Relationship, has weighed in: ‘To refuse to honour a woman of such great historical and political significance, who was deeply loyal to the United States, is petty and shameful. One truly has to wonder, what is it about Lady Thatcher that gives them pause? Her unfaltering commitment to freedom? Or perhaps the way she fought for individual liberty and limited government?’ A fine point by the Heritage Foundation; but time is slipping away if the Senate is to pass a motion before the Lady is interred.