Uk politics

Thursday

The Spectator

In this election, won’t someone please weaponise defence?

From our UK edition

Britain is forfeiting its position on the world stage. With no national debate, we are surrendering our claim to be a major player in international affairs and undermining the Atlantic alliance that has kept Britain and Europe secure for 65 years. In these circumstances, it is easy to understand why Barack Obama has felt obliged to warn David Cameron of the damage he would be doing to the special relationship and to Nato if he failed to commit Britain to spending the bare minimum on defence. The Prime Minister has given several spending pledges — on education, health and overseas aid — so his silence on defence speaks volumes.

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Tories confront Lynton Crosby over ‘barnacles’ distracting from election message

From our UK edition

Last night’s meeting of the 1922 Committee was, I hear, not a particularly well-attended affair. This is odd because the speaker was Lynton Crosby, whose confident briefings tend to cheer Tory MPs up no end. But sources who were there say there no more than about 30 MPs in attendance. Crosby gave a short presentation in which he urged backbenchers to return every discussion they had in broadcasts and on the doorstep to the economy, but was then confronted by John Redwood over what the senior backbencher felt was a failure of message discipline from the government. Redwood complained that ministers were repeatedly distracting from the economy at the same time as backbenchers were being lectured about sticking to talking about that topic.

James Forsyth

Is this back to basics for financial affairs?

From our UK edition

This morning, there was much Westminster chatter about whether Ed Miliband would repeat his accusation made at PMQs yesterday about the ‘tax avoidance activities of Lord Fink’. But shortly before Miliband spoke, Fink himself gave an interview to The Standard in which he said, ‘I didn’t object to his use of the word "tax avoidance". Because you are right: tax avoidance, everyone does it.' Instead, Fink claimed that his objection was to the implication that he was one of the ‘dodgy donors’ that Miliband was talking about. Now, Fink’s letter of complaint to Miliband yesterday didn’t mention the word ‘dodgy’. After his speech today, Miliband tellingly refused to call Fink ‘dodgy’.

Isabel Hardman

Miliband: I stand by what I said about Lord Fink

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband has now repeated what he said about Lord Fink in the Commons. At the end of his speech, he said: ‘Yesterday Conservative donor Lord Fink challenged me to stand by what I said in the House of Commons, that he was engaged in tax avoidance activities. I do. And believe it or not, now today he confirms it as well as he has just said, and I quote, I didn’t object to his use of the word tax avoidance, because you’re right, tax avoidance, everyone does it. ‘Now David Cameron must explain why he appointed a treasurer of the Conservative party who boasts about engaging in tax avoidance and thinks that it’s something everyone does. Friends, this is the big choice facing our country.

Isabel Hardman

Miliband appears to win tax battle as Lord Fink backs off legal threat

From our UK edition

So it looks as though that Ed Miliband has won his battle with Lord Fink. The Tory peer has given an interview to the Evening Standard in which he says he did use ‘vanilla’ tax avoidance measures. He told the newspaper: ‘The expression tax avoidance is so wide that everyone does tax avoidance at some level.’ Fink then says he doesn’t want to sue Miliband for saying that he ‘did ordinary tax avoidance’, but that he ‘took exception to’ the suggestion that he was dodgy and that he had questions to answer. This means that Miliband can quite easily repeat the specific comment he made about Fink in the Commons yesterday, which was this: ‘Let us talk about the difference between the Prime Minister and me.

James Forsyth

A bold idea that might just help the Tories win a majority

From our UK edition

Iain Duncan Smith has come up with a bold idea that might just enable the Tories to break out of the inch by inch, trench warfare of current British politics. The Work and Pensions Secretary wants to see the right to buy extended to those living in Housing Association properties. At present, housing association tenants are offered very limited discounts and can only buy properties that their association has acquired since 1997. An even more radical version of this scheme would see all housing association tenants who have been in work for a year given their homes. When these properties were sold, the state would take a significant chunk in tax which would then be invested in building more social housing.

Isabel Hardman

Labour denies Miliband sees Fink fight as a ‘Milly Dowler moment’

From our UK edition

Nick Robinson had an extraordinary claim (see update, below, for his clarification) in his blog last night that ‘the Labour leader's aides say that he sees [his allegations about Lord Fink] as another Milly Dowler moment’. If Ed Miliband’s aides have really said this, they are exhibiting a crass, disgusting way of looking at politics. I asked his spokesman whether this is true. He said: ‘Ed is not comparing this to a Milly Dowler moment. This is about standing up for what is right, not making comparisons.’ I went back to the spokesman as this was not what Robinson had said. His blog had said that Miliband’s aides see this as a ‘Milly Dowler moment’. The spokesman responded: ‘I am his spokesperson. I am not and neither is Ed.

The Spectator

Peter Oborne: Ed Miliband is the most accomplished opposition leader since the war

From our UK edition

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_12_Feb_2015_v4.mp3" title="Peter Oborne and Dan Hodges discuss Ed Miliband" startat=1343] In this week’s Spectator podcast, we put a Labour and a Tory supporter next to each other to debate the virtues of Ed Miliband. The difference being that Peter Oborne is a passionate defender of the leader, and Dan Hodges his most vocal critic. Peter explains to Sebastian Payne that while he is a conservative journalist, his job is to tell the truth, and put political prejudices to one side, which leads him to conclude that Ed Miliband is a man of incredible accomplishment and bravery, whose efficacy is demonstrated by the ferocity of the press backlash against him.

Sinclair McKay

EastEnders wanted to show Thatcher’s Britain. These days it would make Maggie proud

From our UK edition

Albert Square full of Thatcherites? You ’avin a larf? No, it’s true. EastEnders, conceived 30 years ago partly as a means of enraging the Conservative party, has blossomed into a Tory commercial. Iain Duncan-Smith could watch all the wealth-creating activity in Albert Square with a syrupy smile; George Osborne could visit Phil Mitchell’s garage in a hi-vis jacket and look perfectly at home (Boris Johnson has already had a cameo pint at the Queen Vic). EastEnders portrays small businesses built up through hard work; it implies that turning to the state won’t get you anywhere; they even sent swotty teenager Libby Fox to Oxford. Never mind the affairs and addictions, the murders and rape, Walford is rammed full of aspirational, hard-working families.

Martin Vander Weyer

Lord Green must answer for HSBC’s sins – but maybe it was always too big to manage

From our UK edition

Stephen Green — the former trade minister Lord Green of Hurstpier-point, who became this week’s political punchbag— was always a rather Olympian, out-of-the-ordinary figure at HSBC. This was a bank that traditionally drew its top men from a corps of tough, non-intellectual, front-line overseas bankers typified by the chairmen before Green, Sir John Bond and Sir Willie Purves. As the dominant bank in Hong Kong and a market leader throughout Asia and the Middle East, it was habituated to dealing with customers who took big risks, hoarded cash when they had it, and did not necessarily regard paying tax as a civic duty.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

One area where Labour and the Tories have started agreeing

From our UK edition

With less than three months to go to the election, politics is pretty partisan at Westminster at the moment as PMQs today demonstrated. But there is one area where there is, despite the proximity of polling day, a bi-partisan consensus emerging: civil service reform. This morning, both Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, and his opposite number Lucy Powell, who is also in day to day charge of the Labour campaign, appeared at the conference of Govern Up, a new think tank on civil service reform headed up by the former Tory Minister Nick Herbert and the ex-Labour frontbencher John Healey.

Alex Massie

David Cameron is lucky he faces Ed Miliband, not Nicola Sturgeon

From our UK edition

In some respects David Cameron has been a lucky politician. Lucky that his predecessors had failed so completely that his initial brand of so-called modernisation seemed a punt worth taking. Lucky that he faced Gordon Brown, not Tony Blair. Lucky that he could pivot from 'sharing the proceeds of growth' to 'we're all in it together' without too many people noticing (or caring too much). Lucky, above all, that he now faces Ed Miliband. Because however you dress it up, this has not been a happy government. In economic terms - the defining issue of the age - his party has missed many of its most important targets. Functionally-speaking, George Osborne's record in office has followed Alistair Darling's 2010 plans more than it resembles Osborne's own projections from five years ago.

Isabel Hardman

Miliband to repeat allegations against Lord Fink in public

From our UK edition

So Ed Miliband really is going to pick one of the bigger battles of his leadership. After Lord Fink demanded that the Labour leader withdraw what he said about the peer at PMQs or to repeat it outside the House of Commons, I've spoken to a Labour source who says: 'These are very serious allegations in the Guardian about Lord Fink, including his complex arrangement to minimise tax. He still has not justified the reason why he's made these arrangements. He should do so. 'David Cameron must explain whether he is happy to have appointed Lord Fink as a treasurer. Then it will be up to the public to judge.' Miliband is going to repeat his allegations outside the Chamber, as soon as he is given the opportunity to do so.

Isabel Hardman

Lord Fink confronts Miliband over ‘defamatory’ comments at PMQs

From our UK edition

Lord Fink has confronted Ed Miliband over his allegation at Prime Minister's Questions that the peer was engaged in 'tax avoidance'. In a letter, Fink says Miliband should repeat the allegation outside the House of Commons, or withdraw it. You can read the full text of the letter below. Miliband's question did seem to go further than the Guardian article published before PMQs that named Fink. The article said: 'One of the Conservative party’s recent treasurers, Lord Fink, formerly Stanley Fink, is revealed as having made the most of a four-year posting to Switzerland while working at hedge fund the Man Group.

James Forsyth

Miliband’s attacks fell flat at PMQs

From our UK edition

The stage was set for Ed Miliband at PMQs today. Just before the session, The Guardian revealed the names of various Tony donors who allegedly had accounts with HSBC’s Swiss bank. Miliband duly went for Cameron over the matter with some of his most personal attacks yet, accusing Cameron of being a ‘dodgy Prime Minister’ and ‘something rotten’ at the heart of the Tory party. But the attack failed to hit home in the Chamber.

Isabel Hardman

Labour keeps up pressure on HSBC row

From our UK edition

Labour wants to keep up the pressure on the the Tories over the HSBC scandal today. Ed Miliband will inevitably have a go on the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions (though the odds on him mentioning the word ‘chaterama’ are 28/1), followed by an Opposition Day debate on tax avoidance in which the party will call for a full statement from Lord Green and the Prime Minister about the former’s role at HSBC and his appointment as a minister. The party will also set out its own plans for tackling tax avoidance.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Labour to reach women with a barbie bus

From our UK edition

Labour is launching its women’s campaign tomorrow, and Guido has discovered that part of this special campaign is a special battle bus. A pink bus. A pink bus with ‘Woman to Woman’ on it. This is odd, from a party whose MPs are quite keen on campaigning for gender neutral toys and which lent its support to the Pink Stinks campaign. Where will the pink van go? To shopping centres and nail bars? Perhaps it will offer manifesto manicures, where the party’s pledge card is stuck onto acrylic nails so that women can’t forget about what Labour is offering - because as the No campaign in the Scottish independence referendum reminded us, it’s pretty difficult thinking about Big Things when you’ve got the housework to do.

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Lib Dems run out of MPs to promote

From our UK edition

Following my earlier story about the Tories deciding they can only rely on Lib Dems who are ministers to form a coalition majority after the election, I have learned that the rebellious backbench problem is worse than it first appears. The party has run out of MPs suitable to work as Parliamentary Private Secretaries. For those who don’t know, PPSs are the ‘bag carriers’ of government, junior ministerial posts that largely involve an MP being forced to be loyal to their party whip at all times while briefing their minister on important matters, working as their minister’s eyes and ears in the rest of the party, and encouraging the rest of the party to be supportive of the minister when he or she is in trouble.

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Tories could only rely on Lib Dem ministers in second coalition

From our UK edition

Tories in Downing Street have concluded that they cannot rely on the support of any Liberal Democrats who are not ministers after the General Election, Coffee House has learned. Even though most talk of how a Tory-Lib Dem coalition would work focuses on the number of seats each party would win, I understand that the Conservatives are now working on the basis that a coalition majority could only include those Lib Dems who are on the government payroll. Most forecasts currently put the Lib Dems on around 25 seats, and the Conservatives expect that this would lead to 10 of those MPs being appointed ministers.

Monday

James Forsyth

Why this election campaign makes me fear for the future of the United Kingdom

From our UK edition

After the Scottish referendum campaign, the Union could probably have done with a period of calm. But it is not going to get it. Who gets to form a government at Westminster after the next election could turn on what happens in Scotland and how many seats the SNP wins. This fact is making both Labour and the Tories behave in ways that are damaging to the Union. Jim Murphy, the new leader of Scottish Labour, has decided to try and show that he is prepared to pick fights with London too, in the hope that will take some of the wind out of the Nationalists’ sales. Hence his deliberately provocative boast that via the mansion tax Labour would ‘tax houses in London and the South East to pay for 1,000 new nurses in the Scottish NHS. It’s a real win-win for Scotland.