Politics

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

Monday

David Blackburn

Government will appeal controversial immigration decision

Further to the row that has erupted between Theresa May and some judges over the deportation of foreign criminals, the government is understood to be applying to appeal the case of MF. The Home Secretary is plainly confident that her arguments will be well received in the Court of Appeal, having been found wanting in the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber). The issue of deporting foreign criminals has been cast by some as a disagreement between senior judges and their more activist juniors, and not merely a clash between different arms of government. Theresa May’s team have been at pains to point out that the majority of senior judges support her case. Indeed, May

Shiraz Maher

The threats to Sadiq Khan remind us of the dangers that many MPs face

Such is the audacity of extreme Islamists that we now have the remarkable situation where a Muslim member of parliament, Sadiq Khan, is being told by the police to review his security arrangements after having his life threatened. Khan provoked the rage of radicals earlier this month after voting in favour of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. On his website, Khan explained: I firmly believe in marriage. Marriage is an important statement of love and long term commitment, and has long been the main way that the state recognises and shows support for loving relationships.  I believe that couples who love each other and want to make that long-term

Andrew Hankinson

Newcastle Labour leader founds a big society

Labour’s Nick Forbes is a great pioneer of austerity. As leader of Newcastle City Council he bravely decided to shut half the city’s libraries, close two respite centres for disabled people and cut 100 per cent of funding to arts institutes. He said he had to do it, because the Government had reduced the council’s funding (though the city still gets more per household than most areas) and he needed to protect services for vulnerable people. Forbes wrote a letter to The Observer predicting ‘the break up of civil society’. Some of us wondered though – did he really need to cut 100 per cent of the arts funding and close

Sebastian Payne

Will Nick Clegg take advantage of Britain’s growing EU and immigration anxiety?

Today’s Financial Times paints a poor picture for pro-Europeans: half of those polled want to leave the EU and just a third want to remain in. Plus, 41 per cent of those in favour of a Brexit will ‘definitely’ vote no even after a renegotiation, which suggests a tough challenge for the In campaign to swing some opinions. However, it’s also worth noting that the EU only ranks 15th on the FT’s list of important issues; healthcare and education are at the top of the list, with immigration coming in at eighth. YouGov has recently carried out some polling on immigration, with some interesting findings in the European context. When questioned on the rights of

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Mr Micawber Goes to the Treasury

John Rentoul draws attention to a new ComRes poll that goes some way towards explaining George Osborne’s predicament when it comes to managing government finances. Put simply, the public is not interested in public spending cuts. On the contrary, British voters want to see public spending increase. Sure, they might agree that, all things being equal and in the broader scheme of matters, it might be a good idea if the government balanced the books but all things are rarely equal and as soon as you get into the narrow, particular view of these matters it becomes clear that, actually, the only departmental budget voters want to decimate is that

David Blackburn

Stop blaming judges, Ms May, and repeal the Human Rights Act

The latest session in May versus Judges over foreign criminals’ right to family life (Article 8 of the European Convention) is running as prescribed. Theresa May used the Sunday papers to demand that judges follow the wishes of parliament and deport more foreign criminals. A gaggle of retired judges and eminent lawyers told (£) her where to get off. In terms of the PR and the politics, it is game, set and match to Ms May. As Trevor Kavanagh notes in The Sun, the Eastleigh by-election, where immigration may play as an issue, is an important backdrop for the Home Secretary, particularly given the imminent arrival of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants. But, as for the validity of the arguments, the judges

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The taxing question Labour can’t answer

The details of Labour’s mansion tax proposal remain, to put it politely, sketchy. Here’s the exchange between Andrew Neil and Sadiq Khan on the Sunday Politics on how Labour would work out which homes are worth more than two million pounds: AN: Do you rule out a re-evaluation of all properties? SK: There are a number of options to look into. AN: Do you rule out a re-evaluation? SK: If it meant those hardworking people having to pay more council tax then obviously it would be something we wouldn’t want to do, but there a number of ways of doing this, Andrew, for example, you could have a one pence

Saturday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Selling RBS

The state owning banks is not a good thing. It is, as the annual row over bonuses at RBS demonstrates, very difficult to keep politics out of the running of the business. So, it’s encouraging news that the Treasury is moving to sell the government’s 82 percent stake as soon as possible. Today, the Mail and The Independent report that George Osborne is considering simply handing over the shares to taxpayers, who would then be able to sell them when they at a time of their choosing. As I wrote earlier this month, Osborne is very keen to avoid a row over RBS bonuses in February 2015, just three months

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour’s mansion tax debate won’t be a crunch vote (or very interesting)

So Labour is going to force a vote in the House of Commons on the mansion tax. It’s the key announcement trailed as part of Ed Miliband’s visit to Eastleigh today, and yet it’s the sort of thing that only really excites people who look forward to hearings of the Public Accounts Committee rather than the average voter who has a more normal perspective on life. The idea behind these Opposition Day debates is that Labour flushes out any rebels or unhappy Lib Dems, or that its MPs can later tweet ‘Lib Dems voted against their own policy in the Commons tonight #evil #nevertrustalibdemagain’. Miliband says that very thing today:

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Mensch to date night Dave: you’ve lost the battle

Mr Steerpike spotted an interview in today’s Evening Standard with ex-Westminster luminary Louise Mensch. Across a double page spread, she offers her tips on keeping a marriage alive. In particular, she suggests relationships based around romantic ‘date nights’ are a sham: ‘By the time you’ve got to that, you’ve already lost the battle … You’ve got to grab him when he comes out of the shower every day. You can’t save it for a special evening’ Unfortunately for Mrs. Mensch, her ex-boss feels otherwise. Young Dave has been frequently spotted hitting the town with his better-half Sam on just such a night. He’s even spoken of his appreciation for frequent date nights: ‘We have one night a week

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: MPs could debate controls for Bulgarian and Romanian migrants

So far, MPs have only been able to raise concerns about the effects of the end of transitional controls for Bulgarian and Romanian migrants in departmental questions in the Commons. But one Tory is calling for a full backbench debate on the issue after recess. I understand that Mark Pritchard wants the government to extend transitional controls beyond 2013. He has applied for a debate, and tells me: ‘I am pleased that the government is looking at the pull factors that will draw thousands of Bulgarian and Romanian migrants to the UK. However, time is running out and action rather than words are required. There also needs to be a

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Make your mind up, Tory MPs tell Cameron

At the moment, the Tories intend to head into the next election with the worst of all airport policies. They won’t have announced where the much-needed extra runway capacity in the south east will be. But neither will they be ruling out extra runways at various existing airports or an entirely new airport. The risk for the Tories is that voters under the Heathrow flight path assume that they are going to build a third runway there. Meanwhile those close to Stansted fear that it is going to be turned into a four-runway airport. Seventeen Tory MPs in the south east have now written to David Cameron protesting about the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nadine Dorries says Ipsa is ‘asleep on the bloody job’, but MPs’ pay and expenses will cause even more grief this year

Nadine Dorries has vowed to ‘go after’ Ipsa today after the watchdog announced her expenses were under investigation. There will clearly be more to come on this, but the claims the Mid-Bedfordshire MP is making about Ipsa being ‘asleep on the bloody job’ by not noticing that a travel ticket receipt had accidentally been submitted twice won’t come as a surprise to other MPs. Remember that Adam Afriyie’s confidence about his coup (which I understand from friends that he remains very confident about) stems partly from the help he has given fellow Tories in fighting the current Ipsa system. Louise Mensch raises some of the problems that she identified with

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Are the Tories united on Europe? Pull the other one.

Party unity is one of those things you can measure by the frequency with which the idea is mentioned. The more often it is talked about, the less it exists. When a political party is actually united there’s no need to mention party unity. As Isabel notes, Sir John Major has long, wearying, experience of this. The speech he gave yesterday is full of sound advice. Like many other leading politicians, Sir John seems more impressive – and commands more respect – as the years roll on and the memory of his own time in office fades. At Conservative Home Harry Phibbs responds to Major’s speech with a piece that

Douglas Murray

National Socialism: the clue’s in the name

How can conservatives ensure they always lose? A good place to start is to concede every lie of the left. The Conservative Party appears to be doing what it can in this regard. Take their decision to strike Rachel Frosh from their candidates list for the great crime of… linking Nazism to socialism. Frosh committed her thought crime on Twitter. Thanks to a left-wing stink being kicked up on the same medium, her career – including twenty years in the NHS – is now apparently nullified overnight. She has had to step down from her role as a Police and Crime Commissioner and now she cannot stand for the Conservatives

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Tory MPs push government for French-style ‘civil union’ weddings

Two Conservative MPs are pushing for the government to consider separating the civil functions of marriage from the religious as part of the same sex marriage bill, I understand. David Burrowes and Tim Loughton, who both voted against the legislation at second reading, have tabled an amendment to its first clause designed to spark a debate about whether Britain should have a system similar to France or South Africa, where the state controls the legal registration of marriages, but any wedding ceremony is down to religious institutions and venues (Hugo Rifkind extolled the benefits of this system earlier this year in The Spectator, and Matthew Parris similarly outlined the way

Thursday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Sir John Major on how to win an EU renegotiation

John Major knows a thing or two about naughty Tory MPs and Europe. So David Cameron would do well to listen to his Chatham House speech today in which he advised the PM to give up on the ‘irreconcilables who are prepared to bring own any government or any Prime Minister in support of their opposition to the European Union’. He made two particularly strong points: 1. The Prime Minister should start preparing for the negotiation now. Major doesn’t want the UK to leave the European Union, and neither does Cameron. So the former Tory Prime Minister gave a detailed briefing on how Cameron can avoid this. A referendum would

Steerpike Steerpike

Redistribution, Toynbee style

On Monday, Polly Toynbee told her shrinking Guardian audience that ‘Britain is a country profoundly ignorant about the distribution of its wealth.’ Well, allow Mr Steerpike to do his part in solving this plight and shine a little light on where that wealth goes. I’ve been passed an invitation to host an ‘audience’ with the very same Ms. Toynbee, who is apparently ‘renown for her left-leaning, social democratic stance’. The enticing offer will let profoundly ignorant Britons learn from the lady ‘seen as the epitome of leftwing, politically correct reactionism’ for a small sum. Though at £2,750 for a couple of hours work, we might have to do a whip-round.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

No 10 attacks Miliband’s ‘admission of economic incompetence’

Here’s an interesting thing: Number 10 has released a statement on Ed Miliband’s 10p tax rate pledge. The Downing Street press machine hasn’t been in the habit of doing this sort of official reactive spinning, although this may be in part because Miliband’s speeches thus far have been pretty light on anything you can actually react to. This is what a No 10 spokesman said: ‘This is a stunning admission of economic incompetence from Ed Miliband and Ed Balls – that their decision in Government to scrap the 10p tax rate hurt millions of working families. People will never trust Labour again. The low income working people who lost out

Ryan Bourne

Labour’s Valentine’s policy gimmick

At long last, Ed Miliband delivered us a Valentine’s Day present that everyone in the political world has been waiting for: a new policy! And a tax policy at that! Not just content with maintaining support for a temporary VAT cut, reversing the Coalition’s tax credit restraint and reversing the 50p tax rate cut (all of which would worsen the deficit), the Labour leader has nailed his colours to a new mast. He wants to bring back the 10p rate of income tax, which his former boss Gordon Brown abolished, paid for by a mansion tax on homes worth £2 million. Now, there are many observations which can made about