Uk politics

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

‘Swamped’ much? David Blunkett 2014, meet David Blunkett 2002

From our UK edition

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_Oct_2014_v4.mp3" title="Mats Persson and Matthew Elliott join James Forsyth to discuss Europe and migration."] Listen [/audioplayer] Last week saw an example of the cynicism, not to mention circularity, of our immigration debate that is too important to miss. The former home secretary, David Blunkett, took to the pages of the Daily Mail to support the current defence secretary, Michael Fallon. Mr Fallon, readers will recall, had just been caught in an interview using the ‘swamped’ word to refer to the historically unprecedented levels of immigration that have affected much of Britain in recent years.

Isabel Hardman

What Norman Baker’s departure tells us about the Coalition – and about Theresa May

From our UK edition

What does Norman Baker's exit from the Home Office tell us about the coalition? In many ways, the situation in that department was quite unlike any other, but if another Lib Dem does fancy going in a blaze of fury, then Justice Minister Simon Hughes was assigned to his department for similar trouble-making reasons, and apparently ranks second in the great league table of problematic coalition relationships. But Norman Baker was sent in to antagonise a Home Secretary notorious for micromanaging ministers from her own party, let alone those from another. As Damian Green pointed out on the Today programme, Baker had told his local paper he was the 'Lib Dem Home Secretary' and had acted accordingly once installed in the department.

Steerpike

Carry on waffling about Europe, Dave – but do the EastEnders approve?

From our UK edition

Having perused the replies for my call to caption Ed Miliband and Mary Creagh, Mr S is sorry to say that there is no 'winner', nor even a 'favourite.' There is merely a non-honourable mention for the response that caused your correspondent to chortle so lustily that I spilled my tea and soaked my smoking jacket. So, for reader 'Samson', no prizes or accolades, but rather a stern gaze for his amusing submission, reposted below. Samson 'These earthlings are ever-displeased with me. Xinipemnan ijsdiih dhhjejndb ghty am I doing wrongly?

Monday

James Forsyth

Norman Baker quits as a Home Office minister

From our UK edition

Norman Baker has resigned as a Home Office minister tonight. Baker has quit, blaming the difficulties of working with Theresa May and the squeeze that ministerial office has put on his time for his decision to go. Baker describes working with May as like ‘walking through mud’.   Baker’s departure is not to be lamented. At the Home Office he has been pushing for the decriminalisation of drugs, a thoroughly dangerous policy that would be disastrous for society. Baker claims that this is evidence-based policy making, and cites the Tories failure to follow this evidence as one of his reasons for quitting. Indeed, his resignation is, in a way, the logical extension of the Lib Dems’ differentiation policy.

Steerpike

What to expect from Owen Paterson’s think-tank launch?

From our UK edition

Whatever could Owen Paterson be up to? The sacked Environment Secretary gave a punchy speech a few weeks back on climate change and is now set to intervene in the another important conversation. Tomorrow will see the launch of Opatz's new vanity think tank called UK2020 that, according to the invitation, will be 'dedicated to advancing a genuinely Conservative agenda'. Mr S understands the launch will include a speech by Paterson on the economy - an obvious subject matter for any aspiring leader looking to strengthen their post-2015 credentials. Will Paterson go the whole hog and come dressed as a peacock?

Mary Glindon

Sex-specific abortion is gruesome – but not explicitly illegal in Britain

From our UK edition

Imagine that you became pregnant. Imagine that you were entirely dependent upon your husband. Imagine that you became the victim of domestic violence during that pregnancy, and your husband began demanding that you did not give birth to a baby girl. Facing strong social pressure, coercion, or violence to end a pregnancy because you are carrying a girl, is a reality for a disturbing number of women in Britain, according to women’s advocacy organisation Jeena International, which helps women escape domestic violence. To begin tackling this issue, a large group of MPs led by Fiona Bruce have proposed the Abortion (Sex Selection) Bill.

Carola Binney

Four (more) reasons to loathe Oxford

From our UK edition

Nick Cohen observed in a recent Spectator: 'The graduates of Oxford’s Politics, Philosophy and Economics course form the largest single component of the most despised generation of politicians since the Great Reform Act.' Who could argue? However, Oxford does not only lead the UK in punting, prime minister production and sales of academic gowns. Here are four more nightmarish records held by the city of dreaming spires: 1. Oxford is the most expensive locale in the UK outside of London. The average price-tag on a house in Oxford is £340,864 - eleven times average local annual earnings; also, roughly two-and-a-half times the typical house price in the UK's cheapest city, Stirling, per the figures from Lloyds Bank.

Sunday

James Forsyth

What Tory MPs remember from their away day

From our UK edition

Two things have stuck in Tory MPs’ minds from their away. The first, that painting of George Osborne. The second, Jim Messina’s presentation and his confidence that the Tories would win.   Messina managed Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election effort and last year, the Tories announced that they had signed him up to advise them. At the time, most people—including several senior Cabinet ministers—regarded it as a press release hire, a good way of tweaking Labour but not much more. But Messina has, perhaps prompted by his great rival from the Obama campaign David Axelrod joining up with Ed Miliband, got more involved in recent months. He was over for Tory conference and flew in to the UK specially to address this away day, as I report in the Mail on Sunday.

Rod Liddle

Sinister types wanted to play Nigel Farage in Channel 4 docu-drama

From our UK edition

Channel 4 has commissioned a docu-drama that will imagine what life will be like for poor and oppressed ordinary British people under the first few months of a Ukip government. As you can imagine with Channel 4, this will undoubtedly be an exercise in the very quintessence of impartiality and fair-mindedness. They plan to run it just before the 2015 general election. Bookies are already taking bets on who will play Nigel Farage – Michael Sheen is one of the favourites. However my guess is that Bruno Ganz, so mesmerising as Adolf Hitler in 'Downfall', will get the nod. Especially if he keeps the moustache. A spokesbore for the channel said: 'This is a very exciting commission from a team known for brave and thought-provoking television.' Yep, you betcha.

Isabel Hardman

Today’s politicians have got the T-shirt, without the requisite ‘been there, done that’

From our UK edition

Anyone surprised by the revelation that workers manufacturing those expensive Fawcett Society/Whistles T-shirts are paid just 62p per hour will probably get a nasty shock if they research the origins of the clothes in their own wardrobes. That's why it's a little hard to pass judgement on Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Harriet Harman for not knowing where those £45 T-shirts came from. Alex wrote a splendidly provocative blog a while ago about sweatshops which reminded us of the alternatives that are realistically available to most of the workers who crouch over sewing machines to produce tops that only survive a few washes anyway.

Saturday

Steerpike

Caption Ed Miliband and see Alex Salmond’s face in the Halloween pumpkins

From our UK edition

Even the po-faced Associated Press (video above) couldn't but describe as 'toe-curling' Ed Miliband's encounter with a homeless hijabi. Pundits agree that Ed appeared 'terrified' of the beggar in Manchester. Mr S was there, however - on unrelated business, of course - and can confirm that the opposition leader really did only have 2p in his pocket at the time. (Why on earth would he carry more?) Your correspondent was otherwise engaged, however (in discussion with my equine consultant) in the moment this photo was snapped: [caption id="attachment_8909992" align="alignnone" width="506"] Manchester, 31 October 2014 (Photo: Nigel Roddis/Getty)[/caption] What could have been on his mind?

James Forsyth

Alex Salmond shows how the SNP will fight Labour in 2015

From our UK edition

Talk to senior Labour figures about the polls that show them losing 30 or more seats in Scotland, and they say two things. The first is that these polls have been taken at the worst possible moment for them, just after the bitter resignation of the Scottish Labour leader. The second is that when it comes to a UK general election, Scottish voters will—however reluctantly—accept that it is a choice between Labour and the Tories.   But the aftermath of the referendum means that this second point will not apply as strongly as usual. Having campaigned together against independence, Labour and the Tories do not look as dramatically different as they used to in Scotland.

Friday

Molly Guinness

Liberate women…from the rotten dictatorial group-think of ‘feminism’

From our UK edition

Good on David Cameron for refusing to wear that hideous T-shirt. Feminists these days spend an awful lot of time telling people what to think and what to wear. It’s easy to forget the heady days of feminism’s innocence, when it lobbied for freedom, the freedom for women to operate telegraphs, for example. The deft fingers of women were to set in action the wires of the telegraph with as much swift dexterity as they do those of the piano. They were to write messages about iron and steel and stocks and shares with the same easy celerity that they corresponded about the last new ribbon or baby's first tooth.

Isabel Hardman

Labour wins South Yorkshire PCC by-election

From our UK edition

Labour has won the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner by-election with 50 per cent of the vote, which is a tremendous relief for the party given the circumstances in which this contest was held. It avoided the contest moving to second preferences by 0.02 per cent, but it has won in every local authority area, including Rotherham, where it beat Ukip by 800 votes. That the party whose PCC stood down over the Rotherham grooming scandal has managed to win a by-election to replace him now raises questions for Ukip. Neither side had called this election, but Ukip did have a very good chance indeed, given the circumstances. They do not have the consolation prize of winning in certain local authority areas such as Rotherham and Doncaster, which they had hoped for.

Nick Cohen

What passing-bells for politicians who die as cattle?

From our UK edition

Over the top: British soldiers in the trenches (Image: Getty)The allies did not sweep into Germany in 1918, winning the First World War with the glory and élan of a victorious army. The victors triumphed because they held their disintegrating forces together better than Germany and Austria-Hungary could manage. In the end, and in the case of Italy and France only just, and in the case of Russia not at all, they could just about bear the horrendous casualties and costs; the threat of mutiny at the front and of disease, starvation and revolution at home.

Isabel Hardman

Tories on away day put away hopes of winning Rochester

From our UK edition

Tory MPs are in Oxfordshire today for an 'away day'. It's supposed to focus on the autumn statement, but Tory MPs also want to make a few points about the Prime Minister's immigration policies (read Fraser's Telegraph column on the problems with aping Ukip) and others want to complain about the Coalition continuing when the Lib Dems have blocked the EU referendum bill and are complaining about the Tory stance on drugs (this will be in vain, but a good number of backbenchers have told me they want to bring it up anyway). But the funny thing about this away day is that many Tory backbenchers were rather surprised to find themselves travelling to Oxfordshire at all.

Thursday

Steerpike

Jim Murphy – is Scottish Labour dyeing?

From our UK edition

While watching Scottish Labour leader frontrunner Jim Murphy launch his campaign today, you might be forgiven for thinking the teetotaller has been hitting the bottle. The bottle of hair dye, that is. There is a noticeable change in tone from when Murphy was a minister in the last Labour government. Mr S doubts that will be the only thing the former right-wing Blairite will be lightening in the coming weeks too.

James Forsyth

Scottish Labour is in crisis; is Jim Murphy the solution?

From our UK edition

I suspect that the Scottish Labour gala dinner in Glasgow tonight won’t feel like much of a gala. The Scottish Labour party is in crisis: its leader has quit attacking the UK Labour party for treating it like a ‘branch office’ and now an Ipsos-Mori Westminster voting intention poll has the SNP on 52 per cent to Labour’s 23 per cent. This poll is a reminder of the scale of the challenge facing whoever is the new leader of the Scottish Labour party. I argue in the magazine this week  that Jim Murphy is, by a distance, the best candidate for the job. He has what Scottish Labour so desperately needs right now: energy, no fear of the SNP and its agenda and the ability to win elections. But Murphy’s victory is, by no means, a done deal.

Alex Massie

Boom! Bombshell poll annihilates Labour in Scotland

From our UK edition

Grotesque. Unbelievable. Bizarre. Unprecedented. Today's Ipsos-Mori opinion poll is the most astonishing survey of Scottish political opinion in living memory. Perhaps, even, the most remarkable survey of all time. It is, of course, a snapshot not a prediction. The actual election will not produce anything like these numbers. I don't believe the SNP will win 52% of the Scottish vote in May. I don't believe the Labour party will take 23% of votes. And I don't actually believe the Conservatives will only be supported by 10% of voters. Still, there is something happening in Scotland right now. The electorate is volatile. Just a month ago Survation reported Labour's support (amongst decided voters) at 39% and the SNP on 35%.