Uk politics

The brilliant Matthew Parris writes in his Times column today about Margaret Thatcher using the word ‘swamped’ in relation to immigration in 1978. We had been averaging 500-700 letters a week when, discussing immigration in a TV interview, Mrs Thatcher used the word “swamped”. In the following week she received about 5,000 letters, almost all in support, almost all reacting to that interview. I had to read them. We were swamped indeed: swamped by racist bilge. It’s the things people confide in you when they think you’re one of them that can be so revealing. But there is another part of this story that Matthew leaves out. On election night

Liam Fox has launched a series of ‘One Minute Fox’ videos in which he sets out his position on various hot issues from the threat of fundamentalism to welfare reform. He unveiled the series – which he says will become more controversial as the election approaches – to a group of Conservative MPs this evening. Intriguingly, none of the videos mentions Conservatism or have any party branding, but they are branded in his own name, which may of course come in handy in the future. Cynics might say that the videos are about a future leadership campaign, but the explicit aim is to communicate Conservative ideas to undecided voters without putting them

MPs have a free vote tonight on Zac Goldsmith’s amendment to the Recall Bill. But I have learned that instead of voting with their Tory colleague, the Prime Minister and chief whip are to abstain in the vote. Michael Gove and David Cameron have agreed to do so, not because they oppose Goldsmith’s proposals, which will, he claims, ensure a powerful form of recall rather than that endorsed by Nick Clegg. Instead, they will not walk through the lobbies because the Lib Dems have asked them not to. Clegg and co were apparently wary of an ambush by the Tories whereby the party would officially hold a free vote, but

If the European Commission had come to Britain demanding another £90 million because this country’s economy had performed better than expected, it would have been a political headache for David Cameron. The money would have been handed over and Ukip would have slapped it on to its election leaflets. But the Commission’s demand for £1.7 billion extra from Britain is so outrageous that it provides Cameron with a political opportunity. He can refuse to pay and hold up all other European business until the demand is dropped, rallying the country to his side as Margaret Thatcher did over the British rebate. One Cabinet Minister says excitedly of the row with

It was the wee things that did it. Things like vision, inspiration, confidence and all the other details that coalesce into that strange something called leadership. There are many types of leader and leadership is another of those things easier to see than define but all successful leaders share one essential quality: they can choose a hill and persuade their followers that’s the place they must die. Johann Lamont never had a hill. By the end she didn’t have much of an army either. Scottish Labour is a party suffering from some kind of political dementia right now. It kind of remembers being a contender and it still stands before