Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg: Lord Rennard allegations were in the background when he stepped down

Nick Clegg’s head is spinning, apparently, now that quite so many media outlets are involved in pursuing the allegations about Lord Rennard. That’s what he told ‘self-appointed detective’ Cathy Newman when she managed to get through to his LBC phone-in this morning. Perhaps it was this dizzy sensation of his party being embroiled in a scandal that led the Lib Dem leader to change his tune rather on the issue of why Rennard left. He said: ‘Of course these things were in the background but his health was the immediate reason why he stepped down.’ Later, he added: ‘Of course the issues of his inappropriate behaviour were in the background,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Lord Rennard’s behaviour concerned Lib Dem staff in 2011

The Lib Dems say Danny Alexander spoke to Lord Rennard when ‘indirect and non-specific concerns’ about inappropriate behaviour reached Nick Clegg’s office in 2008. But the alleged behaviour continued after that, too, I have learned. A well-placed source tells me that long after that 2008 conversation with Alexander in which the then chief executive was told that such behaviour was unacceptable, there was another incident. In late 2011, the peer (who was no longer chief executive by this point) attended a party with Lib Dem staff. At the end of the party, he took a number of women back to his home in taxis, where the drinking continued and Lord Rennard was

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Scotland’s position in europe is weaker than the SNP would have you believe

Nicola Sturgeon, arguably the SNP’s most effective asset at present, went to Brussels today to deliver a speech about Scotland’s future relationship with the EU. Most of it was as bland and unobjectionable as you might expect. Move along, not very much to see here. And with some reason. I think it is all but inconceivable that the EU would make it difficult for an independent Scotland to join the club. I also think Spanish (and perhaps Belgian) fears that letting Scotland join would set a dangerous precedent are, for the most part, exaggerated. At the very least I doubt that the threat of a Spanish veto is a good

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

In praise of self-appointed detectives

So Nick Clegg is annoyed with those ‘self-appointed detectives’ who are ‘trying to piece together events that happened many years ago’ on the Lord Rennard allegations. It’s not a surprise, really, that the Lib Dem leader is annoyed with journalists at the moment: after all, if it hadn’t been for Cathy Newman’s report last week, the Lib Dems wouldn’t be in this awkward position of having to piece the allegations together themselves through an inquiry. Which says something interesting about the party’s attitude towards the allegations themselves, does it not, given the women involved, irritated by the party’s response to the complaints they say they tried to make, decided that

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Small By-Election in Hampshire; Not Many Dead

By-elections are catnip for the media. But they are also, almost invariably, subject to greater scrutiny than they can reasonably bear. Only occasionally do they herald a new era or political realignment. Eastleigh is unlikely to prove an exception to that general rule. True, as Brother Payne suggests, Labour’s likely dismal showing may demonstrate that Ed Miliband’s still struggling to “connect” with southern voters but – though as a Miliband Sceptic it pains me to say so –  I’m not sure we should make too much of this. Similarly, UKIP’s good showing is likely to be over-interpreted too. So, for that matter, will the Conservatives’ (predicted) failure to win the

Jonathan Jones

Italian elections: ‘The worst possible outcome’

Forget Moody’s. If you want to see market panic, just look at Italy. As Isabel reported this morning, the unexpectedly strong performance of Beppe Grillo’s anti-establishment party, the Five Star Movement, has produced an extremely close election result, and no clear winner. While the electoral system guarantees a majority in the Chamber of Deputies for the group with the largest vote share (Pier Luigi Bersani’s centre-left group), it does not do so for the Senate. With no group securing a majority in the upper house, Italy now faces coalition negotiations and likely another election. Citi calls this ‘probably the worst possible outcome for Italy’ — thanks to the political uncertainty,

Tom Maddocks

Crisis handling the Lib Dem way

For the Liberal Democrats, the Rennard affair was bad enough, particularly blowing up in the middle of the Eastleigh by-election; the way it has so far been handled from a crisis management point of view has made it a lot worse. The problem for the party is that prevarication, twisting in the wind and changes of mind seem to have been far more in evidence than specific, decisive action. First, the line seemed to be that Mr Clegg did not know about the allegations, so presumably he couldn’t have been expected to have taken action, then it seemed he did know but only about ‘general concerns’, now it is alleged

Steerpike Steerpike

Oona King’s return to the spotlight

The Lords’ terrace was transformed into a theatre yesterday evening to stage an adaptation of Blair Babe Oona King’s House Music diaries, which recount her career as MP for Bethnal Green and Bow between 1997 and 2005. Many of New Labour’s faded hopes, like Ruth Kelly, turned up to roll back the years and remember the good times; although those wanting to catch a glimpse of Gordon had to make to do with an actor, because, of the Great Man himself, there was no sign (again). Ed Stoppard and comedian David Schneider were treading the makeshift boards in this dramatisation. They nailed compelling impersonations of Brown, Blair and George Galloway (King’s

Sebastian Payne

Labour are the real losers in Eastleigh

The Lib Dems are still on course to hold Eastleigh. Despite the loss of Britain’s AAA credit rating and the unfurling Rennard scandal, Lord Ashcroft’s latest poll today puts their candidate Mike Thornton on 33 per cent. Tory candidate Maria Hutchings is lagging five points behind on 28 per cent while Ukip are a little further behind with 21 per cent. Disappointingly for Ed Miliband, the Labour party’s celebrity candidate John O’Farrell is coming in with just 12 per cent. This confirms two things. Firstly, the by-election is only about local politics. As we discussed on last week’s View from 22 podcast, Chris Huhne has barely been mentioned on the doorstep. From the start,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Weary Italian voters can teach UK politicians lessons

Italian voters are clearly cheesed off: with the Establishment, and with the country’s austerity programme. The explosion onto the scene of Beppe Grillo – which Freddy examined in his post from Rome on Sunday – shows quite how cheesed off they are, and it also has wider lessons for the eurozone and for UK politics, too. The first is that voters clearly do not share eurozone leaders’ unswerving commitment to the euro project: Grillo made much of his party’s eurosceptic credentials and won 54 seats in the upper house, with Berlusconi’s centre-right on 116, while Mario Monti, the conduit for the EU’s austerity measures, won only 18. No alliance gained

Monday

Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

Lord Rennard allegations: A timeline

As the allegations against Lord Rennard continue to emerge – and confusion continues over who knew what, and when, here is a timeline of the allegations, according to The Telegraph’s correspondence from 2010, and Cathy Newman’s Channel 4 News report from the 21st February 2013. 2003 Bridget Harris, who left her position as Clegg’s Spad just a few months ago, alleges that Rennard behaved in an ‘inappropriate’ manner, touching her legs three times whilst having coffee at a conference in Swansea in 2003. He then invited her up to his room, an incident which she then reported to her line managers. 2004 At an ‘away day’ in Peterborough, in 2004,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

AAA credit rating: George Osborne gives Labour a (revisionist) history lesson

George Osborne was playing historian today as he responded to Ed Balls’ urgent question on the credit rating downgrade, charting Labour’s role in the UK’s loss of the AAA rating; particularly the deficit it bequeathed the Coalition. But he was in revisionist mood when it came to his own stance. As Ed Balls repeatedly leant across the despatch box and tried to hand the Chancellor a copy of the Tory 2010 manifesto in which the party lists ‘we will safeguard Britain’s credit rating’ as the first of its eight benchmarks, George Osborne told MPs that what he had always said was important was the confidence of the markets. MPs were

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Could Eastleigh go the way of Cleggmania?

The Liberal Democrats have a different relationship to the popular press than the other two main parties, both more afraid and more contemptuous. This I suspect contributed to the slightly unwise tone of Nick Clegg’s statement last night. His declaration that ‘I will not stand by and allow my party to be subject to a show trial of innuendo, half-truths and slurs’ was hardly what you would expect from a party leader trying to show humility. One of the reasons that the Liberal Democrats are particularly sensitive to press coverage is the party’s memory of the unraveling of the Cleggmania. Until then, the Liberal Democrats had simply not been covered

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Sexual abuse: Don’t toe the party line

A scandal broke in the Socialist Workers Party a few weeks ago after a woman member claimed a Trotskyist tribune of the working class had taken time off from promoting world revolution to rape her. The SWP did not behave as any decent person would and advise the woman to contact the police. In its paranoid mind, the criminal justice system conspires to discredit true revolutionaries, if given half a chance. Instead of involving detectives and judges, the party’s disciplinary committee set itself up as a kangaroo court, and “tried” the man it would identify only as “Comrade Delta”. The minutes show the paranoia with great clarity. One of the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How will the Rennard allegations affect the Eastleigh by-election?

What effect will the Rennard allegations have on the Eastleigh by-election? Channel 4 has been working on the story for months, but it is obviously taking off at an inconvenient time for the Liberal Democrats. There is also – for both Coalition parties, although particularly for the Tories because this was a key pledge for George Osborne – the problem of the AAA credit rating loss. But don’t forget that the by-election was triggered by Chris Huhne’s ‘guilty’ plea for perverting the course of justice, and in spite of repeated references in Conservative campaign material to ‘trust’, Huhne appears to have had little effect on the by-election. One Conservative MP

Jonathan Jones

Markets shrug off Britain’s downgrade

It seems that Moody’s downgrade of UK government bonds on Friday night has — so far — had more effect on the headlines than the markets. After the news on Friday night, the pound fell by about a cent against the dollar, from $1.525 to $1.515. And against the euro it fell from €1.157 to €1.147 (it’s fallen a little further this morning, to €1.144). But that’s no bigger than the drop on Wednesday on the news that Mervyn King and two other members of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee had voted in favour of more quantitative easing. And it doesn’t seem to have raised the cost of

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lord Rennard: The key questions

As James observed last night, Nick Clegg’s statement on the Rennard allegations raised more questions than it answered. Lord Rennard continues to strenuously deny the claims of sexual harassment made on Channel 4 News last week and in other reports since. But the problem is that when allegations were being made and rumours were circulating, nothing was done, regardless of whether those claims would have been proven or not. And as Nick Clegg hasn’t closed down the row, here are five questions that the party and those examining it will want to answer: 1. There are discrepancies between the different accounts of when the Lib Dem leadership received the specific

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Danny Alexander statement on Lord Rennard allegations

Below is a statement from Danny Alexander on his role in attempting to deal with allegations made against Lord Rennard: ‘As I said yesterday, I did not know about these specific allegations until the Channel 4 broadcast. When indirect and anonymous concerns about Chris Rennard’s conduct came to the attention of Nick Clegg’s office, in late 2008, we acted immediately. As Nick’s Chief of Staff, I put these concerns to Chris Rennard in strong terms and warned him that any such behaviour was wholly unacceptable. Chris Rennard categorically denied that he had behaved inappropriately as he continues to do. Chris Rennard subsequently resigned as Chief Executive on health grounds. As

Steerpike Steerpike

Lembit twists the Clegg knife

The Lord Rennard scandal is spreading, not least because of Nick Clegg’s willingness to bring in other characters. He even directly named Danny Alexander as central to the disastrous investigation five years ago. Clegg’s statement says they didn’t know the specifics involved or the names of the women. A line that does not hold much weight when one of the victims was his own Special Advisor. As many Liberal Democrats lie low, it would not be a ‘show trial’ without everyone’s favourite yellow clown. Enter stage left Lembit Opik who popped on Sky News. The last person that the party leadership would want to see, and he did not upset the punters:

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Nick Clegg’s statement on Lord Rennard raises as many questions as it answers

Nick Clegg’s statement this evening concedes that he was aware of general concerns about Lord Rennard’s alleged behaviour. He says that he asked his then chief of staff Danny Alexander to confront Rennard about these concerns in 2008. Rennard told Alexander, Clegg says, that there was no truth to the allegations. Again, it is worth stressing that Rennard denies all the complaints made against him. Clegg, though, angrily refutes suggestions that he was aware of any specific allegations. He complains about a ‘show trial of innuendo, half-truths and slurs’ against the Liberal Democrats. Following Clegg’s statement, most attention now will focus on the Alexander Rennard meeting in 2008. Was it