Uk politics

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Labour’s weak welfare attack leaves Tories to chant tribal slogans in Commons

Today’s Work and Pensions Questions was taken almost exclusively by Esther McVey – to the extent that when Steve Webb finally got the chance to answer a question, he joked that he had started to ‘feel unemployed’ while waiting for his big moment. Even Iain Duncan Smith only got one good stint at the despatch box, when Rachel Reeves asked him about the progress of Universal Credit. But the rest of the session was McVey Question Time. Tory MPs are naturally in a tribal mood at the moment, and so all most of them want to talk about was the jobs fairs they’re all holding in their constituencies. ‘I organised

Isabel Hardman

Danny Alexander: David Cameron is an ‘enemy of aspiration’

As coalition rows go, today’s ‘spat’ over who is most supportive of aspirational voters really is the more boring for a while. David Cameron has been talking about Britain’s ‘tax moment’ (hopefully with an accompanying PPB with Burt Bacharach as the soundtrack), but Danny Alexander wants to pick a fight with his Coalition colleague. Last night the Chief Secretary to the Treasury released analysis saying the Coalition’s decision to increase the personal tax allowance has benefitted more than 8 million households to the tune of £1,330, and claiming credit for the Lib Dems. This was a deliberate act of sabotage ahead of the Prime Minister’s own ‘tax moment’. And today,

Isabel Hardman

UK politicians squabble over whose point the Greek elections prove

What are the lessons for British politicians from Syriza’s victory in the European elections? They’re certainly very keen to tell voters what lessons we should be drawing. Last night Nigel Farage focused on the failure of Europe, while David Cameron pointed to the importance of a strong – you guessed it – long term economic plan. This morning George Osborne underlined that point on the Today programme, saying: ‘I certainly understand that if you have unemployment at 25%, if your economy has shrunk by 20%, as the Greek economy has over recent years, you are looking for other answers, alternatives – because ultimately this is just the latest chapter in

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

How will the Greek elections change the political debate in the UK?

If you were looking for clues as to how the result of the Greek elections will affect our politics in the United Kingdom, here’s a handy hint. This is the statement Nigel Farage has released, before the official result has even been declared: ‘This is a desperate cry for help from the Greek people, millions of whom have been impoverished by the Euro experiment. An extraordinary game of poker will now begin with Chancellor Merkel, with the ECB powerless to do much than be an observer.’ Ukip will want to make the result and fallout from this election about the failure of European elites and the slow death of the

Sebastian Payne

Watch: Natalie Bennett demonstrates how Green policies don’t add up

Do the Green Party’s policies stack up? Although its membership and prominence have rocketed in recent weeks, little focus has been put on what the party campaigns for. Green leader Natalie Bennett was subjected to a dissection of her party’s principles on the Sunday Politics today (watch above) and demonstrated why most of its proposals are pipe dreams. Bennett said her party wants to ensure ‘nobody is living in fear’ but exactly how they would pay for that remains unanswered. One of its policies would be a ‘Citizens’ Income’, ensuring everyone has a minimum weekly income of £72. This would cost up to £280 billion and Bennett said it would be funded in part by abolishing Jobseeker’s

James Forsyth

Greece votes, Europe waits

Greek voters are currently going to the polls in an election that will have profound consequences for the Eurozone. If the anti-austerity Syriza party wins, as the polls suggest it will—and its lead has actually been increasing in the past few days, the Eurozone crisis will enter a new and more acute phase. Syriza will demand a softening of the terms of the Greek bailout. But the Merkel government, the European Central Bank and the European Commission are adamant that they’ll be no leeway given. With Merkel already deeply unhappy about the ECB’s quantitative easing programme, she isn’t going to sign off on any concessions to Athens. Another reason why

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Labour signs up to debates as broadcasters threaten an empty chair

So the broadcasters have done what many thought they’d be too afraid to do and have threatened to empty chair David Cameron – or anyone else who refuses to take part – in the TV debates. In a statement released this afternoon, BBC, ITV, Sky and Channel 4 said ‘in the event that any of the invited party leaders decline to participate, debates will take place with the party leaders who accept the invitation’. They have also said the debates will all take place within the short campaign, which Cameron didn’t want either. Labour has said it will sign up to the debates, while others continue to grumble. But naturally

Alex Massie

Conservative Central Office appears to be working for the SNP

Even by the standards of the Conservative and Unionist (sic) party this is an impressively stupid poster. Do they really want to encourage Scots to vote for the SNP? Evidently they do. Of course we know why. Every seat Labour lose in Scotland makes it less and less likely Labour will emerge from the election as the largest party. Consequently, every SNP gain makes it a little more likely David Cameron will have a chance of cobbling together a second ministry. But, my god, think of the price at which that comes. In their desperation to stop Miliband the Tories are prepared to risk the future of the United Kingdom.

Isabel Hardman

Confusing politics encourages leadership intrigues

This election is going to be terribly confusing, something the latest TV debate proposals from the broadcasters highlight very nicely indeed. The debates are starting to resemble an episode of Take Me Out with the number of parties who’ll be standing behind lecterns growing – and calls for even more to join. One of the things that’s adding to the confusion is that no party appears to have the momentum, and what momentum there is has become difficult to discern in the usual ways as Parliament is emptying on a Wednesday night as MPs head off to take part in 650 by-elections. Because no one party has momentum, both main

James Forsyth

Can George Osborne pass his own 13 tests?

Before George Osborne took to wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, he used to revel in his status as a political insider. In 2004, he wrote a piece for The Spectator setting out his model for forecasting the result of UK General Elections. Adapted from an academic model for predicting US Presidential Elections, it set out the ’13 keys to Number 10’ and argued that if a government held six of these it would win re-election. Here are Osborne’s 13 tests and how the government is doing on them: 1. Real per capita economic growth during the parliament equals or exceeds the mean growth during the previous two parliaments. Yes:

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Labour rising star: Party cannot afford to sound like ‘the moaning man in the pub’

Liz Kendall is a real rising star in the Labour party. Few colleagues have a bad word to say about her, and indeed many have a great deal of good words. Tonight the House magazine publishes an interview with the Shadow Health Minister that contains a number of rather strong comments that she’s made about the party that she has a good chance of one day leading. The line that’ll get most attention is this: ‘You can’t be the moaning man in the pub. Actually the moaning man in the pub often has a real point underneath it all. But mostly you end up not listening.’ And then there’s the

Isabel Hardman

TV debates: Cameron sits comfortably as smaller parties complain

If his condition of including the Greens in the TV debates was to be met, David Cameron’s next hope of scuppering them was that the other parties got upset with the new proposals. Well, the proposals have only been out a few hours and already a lot of people are satisfyingly upset. The DUP is complaining that it deserves a place if the SNP and Plaid Cymru are to be involved. And the Lib Dems are cross too because they are now relegated to two debate with six other parties where they will have very little opportunity to say anything of note. This evening a Lib Dem spokesman issued this

James Forsyth

If you’re going to have seven parties in the TV debates, you’ve got to include the DUP

Having seven parties in two of the TV debates, as the broadcasters are reportedly proposing, is an admission that what matters is not whether the party will provide the Prime Minister but whether it might have influence in a hung parliament. On this basis, there is no justification for excluding the DUP. The DUP currently have eight seats in the Commons, more than Plaid Cymru, Ukip and the Greens put together. Even after the next election, the DUP are likely to have more MPs than any of these parties. It is baffling that the broadcasters have ended up concluding that Plaid Cymru, who have fewer MPs than the DUP and

Isabel Hardman

Broadcasters to propose new set of TV election debates

The broadcasters have reportedly come up with a new set of proposals for the TV debates in order to force David Cameron to sign up. The Radio Times reports that they now want to hold one debate where the Prime Minister will face Ed Miliband, and two debates that feature almost everyone – Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens, Ukip, SNP and Plaid Cymru. This doesn’t just answer Cameron’s stipulation that the Greens must be involved, but answers the next question that would then be posed, which is what about the nationalist parties. Unless he suddenly starts talking about the importance of George Galloway, the Prime Minister will find it

Isabel Hardman

Tories run two rickety databases in target seats

The Conservatives are running two voter databases, neither of which are fully functioning, in their key constituencies, Coffee House has learned. The party had been trying to get rid of its frail database Merlin, which keeps breaking during by-elections and at other crucial moments, in time for the General Election. But it hasn’t quite managed it yet, and is instead running Merlin alongside a new, but not fully-tested, database called VoteSource. Candidates in target seats say VoteSource is currently working for them, but that it is lacking some of the functions it was supposed to have by this point and they do not know how it will cope with big

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Comedy meets politics and Osborne’s 13 tests for No.10

Why has politics turned into stand-up comedy? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Andrew Watts and Jesse Norman MP discuss this week’s Spectator cover feature on how these two worlds are colliding. What does the increased influence of comedy mean for our faith in politics? Aside from notably humorous politicians like Boris Johnson, how funny are MPs generally? And which member of the Labour shadow cabinet is deemed so funny he could be a professional stand-up? James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman also look at 13 tests to make it into Downing Street set by George Osborne — in 2004. Based on a Spectator piece he wrote earlier in his

Andrew Watts

Send in the clowns – how comedy ate British politics

Something funny is happening in this country. Our comedians are becoming politicians and our politicians are becoming comedians — and public life is turning into an endless stream of jokes. Last week, the comedian Al Murray announced that he would be standing at the next general election in the constituency of South Thanet, the same seat that Nigel Farage is contesting. Al Murray performs in the persona of ‘The Pub Landlord’. A sexist reactionary, never pictured without a beer in his hand, forever declaiming ‘common-sense’ solutions to Britain’s problems, Nigel Farage has welcomed the additional competition. Murray has refused to say what, if any, serious intentions lie behind his announcement

Ross Clark

Blame Tony Blair for Labour’s new stupidity about wealth

Peter Mandelson’s famous quote about New Labour being intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich has a suffix that is often mischievously omitted: he added ‘so long as they pay their taxes’. But there are a few more things which many Labour members would have put on the end: so long as you don’t earn it by advising Central Asian dictatorships, so long as you don’t hang around with Russian oligarchs, so long as you don’t make it from the Saudis. Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson got filthy rich all right. But the whiff they gave off while doing so has only served to regenerate a very Old Labour disgust

James Forsyth

George Osborne’s 13 tests for an election victory (and how many he’s passed)

These days George Osborne is rarely seen in public without a hard hat and a hi-vis jacket. But he used to take pride in being recognised as a political insider through and through — a member of the guild of politicians, in his own phrase. He revelled in writing detailed articles about the lessons Westminster could learn from American politics. Several of these were written for The Spectator when Boris Johnson was the editor, which shows how far back the relationship between the Chancellor and the Mayor of London goes. (Osborne was at Oxford as the same time as Johnson’s younger brother Jo, now an MP and the head of

Matthew Parris

The Stonewall dinner left me with one question: why are volunteers so horrible to one another?

I watched the video with some trepidation. Stonewall (the campaigning gay and lesbian equality organisation) had just sent me the YouTube link. This was to a short film of the dinner that Stonewall’s founders attended last year to celebrate the quarter-century anniversary of our existence; and most of us had been there. Now we were but wrinkled reminders of the young revolutionaries we had once been. So this could have been a rather mellow occasion. We had started the organisation as a defiant response to what came to be known as ‘Section 28’: a small measure that was part of a sprawling local government bill and intended to stop the