Labour party

Politicians tend to get all the blame for immigration policies not working. But politicians are often doomed to fail on migration questions because there are deep-rooted problems with the way we all debate immigration and with what we expect of immigration policy. Following UKIP’s success in the European elections, and given the likely failure of the government to meet its net migration target by 2015, immigration is guaranteed to be a key focal point of public debate in the run-up to the general election next year. There is widespread agreement that Britain needs a ‘better’ immigration debate - but how can that be achieved? Over the past year I have been developing an online course on international labour migration for Oxford University which deals with this question.

In 1975 Margaret Thatcher said in her 'Free Society' speech to the Conservative Party Conference: ‘Some Socialists seem to believe that people should be numbers in a state computer. We believe they should be individuals. We are all unequal. No one, thank heavens, is like anyone else, however much the Socialists may pretend otherwise. We believe that everyone has the right to be unequal but to us every human being is equally important.’ Mr S could not help but recall these fine words after an email arrived from the Labour Party asking him to enter chunks of personal data into its website, such as his postcode and date of birth, in order to find out his ‘number’. Since Labour created the NHS 66 years ago, croons the propaganda, it’s delivered 44m babies.

In our latest View from 22 video, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the two top stories from this weekend — the allegations about a paedophile ring in Westminster and Ed Miliband's localist agenda — and how they will play out over the coming week. We're still playing with the format of this: two-subject discussions, or one? 5 mins, 10 mins or longer? Any thoughts welcome.

Tristram Hunt is getting a fair bit of stick from the Conservatives for refusing to condemn the strike action planned by the National Union of Teachers on this morning's Andrew Marr Show. The Shadow Education Secretary merely said 'it's not up to me to tell trade unionists what to do - what I want is teachers in classrooms in a conversation with the Secretary of State so we get over these kind of hurdles'. He said the current stand-off was 'as a result, partly, of some of the incendiary language from the Secretary of State'. Certainly when you read some of the NUT's literature around its industrial action, it's difficult not to conclude that this isn't as much about a dislike of Michael Gove as it is a particular policy.

Labour’s ‘media grid’ for this week had Miliband’s millionaire spinner Tom Baldwin pencilled in to brief Times journalist Rachel Sylvester and give her an exclusive story for Tuesday's paper. When the paper landed it was actually lots of Labour figures slagging off the leader, and saying how Ed had lots of policies but not the character to be PM. That's some class A spinning for you.

How much common ground do the political parties have on localism? As Isabel pointed out this morning, Labour and the Conservatives are engaged in an arms race to see who can out do the other on plans to devolve powers from central government. All politicians love to talk up localism — particularly in opposition, where there’s no Whitehall machine to deal with — but their dreams and slogans frequently change. This is what the three main parties have said, and currently believe, on empowering the regions: Conservatives In opposition, David Cameron put forward plans to devolve power in a more radical way than ever before.

Is Damian McBride auditioning for a job as the saviour of the Labour Party spin operation? His re-energised blogging would certainly indicate as much. In the last few weeks the Brownite bad boy has left his job with Catholic aid charity Cafod, and returned to writing full time. He's also managed to make a compelling argument for why his misdemeanours cannot now be compared to those of Andy Coulson, despite the best efforts of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor: 'So if the Tories want to keep using the ‘What about Damian McBride?

I’ve always admired Jon Cruddas, and worried a little at his being placed at the centre of Ed Miliband’s policy unit. What happens if he talks sense? Well, my fears were well-founded: a good dollop of common sense has emerged from Cruddas, through the medium of today’s Sunday Times splash. On 21 June, we learn, Cruddas was speaking to Compass, a left-wing policy group, and was kind (too kind) about the IPPR’s ‘Condition of Britain’ report – which I’d recommend to conservatives with a taste for schadenfreude as it’s almost comically vacuous and exposes a Labour movement entirely bereft of new ideas. Cruddas was speaking about the report, saying that it took the IPPR nearly two years to come up with it.

It’s pretty rich hearing the Labour Party criticize Cameron for taking a principled stance on Europe. How vulgar, they say, how amateur. Doesn’t he know that the job is to (as Douglas Alexander put it yesterday) ‘balance’ domestic interests and European ambitions? When I thought that Cameron was following Labour’s ‘sophisticated’ approach – ie, being sellouts – I lambasted him. I had egg on my face pretty quickly: my Telegraph column was published on the day that he said ‘no’ to the Eurozone deal. In my defence, he had set out to sellout – he’d wanted to take a figleaf of protection from the French.

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_26_June_2014_v4.mp3" title="Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman discuss whether Labour should let Miliband be Miliband" startat=934] Listen [/audioplayer]That bacon bap earlier this month was not the cause of Ed Miliband’s unpopularity. Ed Miliband’s unpopularity was the cause of the bacon bap. Scant comfort this will give the Labour leader and his fabled ‘advisers’, but they can stop worrying about food-related photographic gaffes because once the world is out to get you, the world will get you, and if they don’t get you one way they’ll get you another. Sooner or later Mr Miliband will have to eat, and sooner or later a shutter will click as he opens his mouth.

Listen: listen to ‘Spectator debate: independence is the greatest threat to Edinburgh’ on Audioboo.

Michael Gove has this afternoon replied to Labour's questions about Dominic Cumming's access to the Education department since finishing as a special adviser. Coffee House has got hold of the letter first. Labour became oddly fixated on whether or not Cummings was still visiting the department, rather than on his stinging criticisms of David Cameron and the Number 10 operation as 'bumbling' and a stumbling block for reform. So Gove's reply to Kevin Brennan's letter demanding more details is quite easy. He says he doesn't know how often Cummings has visited the department. And that's that, save for a gratuitous and teasing reference to the long-term economic plan... Here's the letter in full: Thank you for your letter of 17 June about my former special adviser, Dominic Cummings.