Uk politics

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Not Tonight, Darling

Well that was a gubbing. No doubt about it. Alex Salmond won last night's debate against Alistair Darling just as thoroughly as he'd lost their first encounter. Sure, some Unionists tried to put a cheerful spin on it - "We'll take that" one senior Labour figure told me - but don't you believe any of it. Salmond, as predicted, was much better than he had been in the first debate. Darling, as predicted, was much worse. File this encounter in the drawer marked reversion to the mean. Darling had many problems last night but among the greatest was the fact he's not a Tory. Time and time again Salmond stuck him with the "in bed with the Tories" jibe and took great pleasure in seeing Darling squeal and wriggle. It's not fair! Well, tough.

Isabel Hardman

Revealed: the cross-party motion to stop Bercow in his tracks over clerk appointment

With just a few days before the House of Commons returns for the autumn term, the revolt against John Bercow's plan to appoint Carol Mills as Clerk of the House is growing. Coffee House has seen a motion that a cross-party group of MPs plan to table to stop the Speaker in his tracks. The motion, which I understand has the support of more than 50 MPs from all three main parties, including PPSs, does not attempt to block the appointment, but simply calls for a pre-appointment hearing and report (which could lead to a recommendation that Mills not be appointed). It says: 'That this House believes that the recommendation of Ms Carol Mills to be Clerk of this House should be subject to, and contingent upon, a pre-appointment hearing and report by a select committee.

Isabel Hardman

Salmond and Darling’s Jeremy Kyle debate reinvigorates campaign

Both camps in the Scottish independence debate have now has their shock: Alex Salmond was shaken to be beaten by Alistair Darling in the first debate, while a confident Darling seemed shaken last night that the First Minister wasn't giving identical answers to the questions he repeated from his initial victorious round. As we discussed on our View from 22 special podcast last night, it is very difficult to predict the impact of a resounding victory last night for Salmond on the final result.

Monday

Alex Massie

Alex Salmond vs Alistair Darling, the Rematch

Like Paradise Lost, no-one - not even humble freelance hacks - ever wished the Scottish independence referendum campaign longer. We are, most of us, exhausted. Almost all passion has been spent. Which is just as well since, frankly, people are beginning to lose the run of themselves. Take the ice bucket challenge. (Readers unfamiliar with social media may be unfamiliar with this. It is a fundraising challenge - originally for Motor Neurone Disease research - in which the hapless gallant stooge is soaked by a bucket of iced water. All to prove what a good egg they are. They then nominate other folk to be soaked to prove what grand eggs they are. And so on.) Clearly this is the sort of thing that must be ruined by politicians.

Alex Massie

Boris Johnson is not fit to be leader of the Tory party, never mind Prime Minister

Awkward, especially here, I know, but there you have it. But, look, if any other high-profile politician were suggesting the burden of proof in criminal trials should be switched from the accuser to the accused we'd be properly - in both senses - appalled. So we should be appalled that Boris suggests in his Telegraph column today that anyone travelling to Iraq or Syria should be presumed a jihadist unless and until they can prove otherwise. The state will not have to make a case you convict you but you must make a case to avoid conviction. And, lo, centuries of criminal law are undone. Worse still, I think, Boris considers this 'a minor change' to the law. What, one wonders, would constitute a major change? 'It is hard' Boris laments, 'to press charges without evidence'.

Sunday

Martin Vander Weyer

The lefties are right: we really do pay our bosses too much

The FTSE100 index stands precisely where it did in the first week of December 1999. Whichever way you look at it, shareholders — including pension funds — have had a rotten run on the economic rollercoaster of the past 15 years. So it’s reasonable to keep asking whether the rise in executive pay over that same period is justified: a report from the High Pay Centre says remuneration of the average FTSE100 chief executive is now at a multiple of 143 times that of the average worker in the same companies. In 1998 that multiple was 47, indicating a tripling of top pay relative to workforce earnings while shareholder returns have stayed flat. Of course this argument is not that simple.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

No partnership with Assad (and no scrutiny till summer’s up)

Philip Hammond this afternoon ruled out Britain working with President Assad in the fight against Isis, arguing that simply being aligned against a common enemy 'doesn't make us friends with someone'. It is nearly a year since the Commons rejected intervention in Syria against the Assad regime, and now figures such as Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Lord Dannatt are arguing that there may need to be some kind of alliance against the Syrian leader in order to defeat Isis. But the Foreign Secretary said: 'We may very well find that we are aligned against a common enemy, but that doesn't make us friends with someone It doesn't make us able to trust them, it doesn't enable us to work with them.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Housebuilding is up: is that good news?

Good news on housing: this government is building more homes. New figures from the Communities and Local Government department show housing starts in the second quarter of 2014 increased by 18 per cent on the same quarter a year earlier and now stand at 36,230. Housing starts are the best picture we can get of how healthy housebuilding is right now. Completions, which naturally reflect an earlier situation but can also be affected by sudden changes in the economy that leave homes half-built (as in Ireland's ghost estates) are also up by 7 per cent on the same quarter last year and up by 6 per cent from the previous quarter. Annual housing starts in the year to June 2014 were 137,780, which is a 22 per cent rise on the previous year. Completions for the year were 114,440, up 7 per cent.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

English voters send a message to Scotland: we can’t go on living like this

Way back in the olden days, Scottish Labour won the 1999 elections to the Scottish parliament, at least in part, on the back of the slogan Divorce is an Expensive Business. (The SNP's promise to raise income tax - the naffly named 'Penny for Scotland' - helped too. The Nationalists have never since risked making an overt case for higher taxes.) Anyway, these costs run both ways. That's made clear by new polling from England in which the extent of the oft-threatened, never-yet-delivered, English backlash to devolution is revealed. It makes depressing reading for Unionists. True, only 19% of those surveyed think the UK would be better off without the troublesome, whining, Jocks.

Isabel Hardman

Breaking: David Cameron returns to Downing Street after journalist beheaded

Downing Street has announced that David Cameron is returning to Westminster from his holiday. A Number 10 spokesperson said: 'If true, the brutal murder of James Foley is shocking and depraved. 'The Prime Minister is returning to Downing St this morning. He will meet with the Foreign Secretary and senior officials from the Home Office, Foreign Office and the agencies to discuss the situation in Iraq and Syria and the threat posed by ISIL terrorists.' That the apparent murderer of James Foley spoke with a British accent was not, according to Philip Hammond this morning, a surprise to those tracking radicalised Britons joining the conflict. But this development still has big implications, surprise or not. More to follow...

Isabel Hardman

My enemy’s enemy: Philip Hammond on Isis and Assad

Philip Hammond made quite clear on the Today programme that this government is 'utterly opposed' to everything that Isis stands for: it's difficult to say anything else when militants who clearly luxuriate in evil have beheaded a journalist who was covering their monstrous deeds. The Foreign Secretary was asked whether this country was prepared to 'wage war' on Isis. He dodged saying that the West was waging war, but explained that as Isis was doing this, we have to deal with them on that basis. Here's his full quote: 'Oh look, it's far too late for that debate: we are very clear that we are utterly opposed to the evil ideology of this organisation and the barbaric, cruelty that they have displayed.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dems reinstate Lord Rennard and drop disciplinary process

The Lib Dems are not taking any disciplinary action against Lord Rennard and have reinstated his membership, the party said this evening. Lord Rennard had been suspended from the party as part of the aftermath of allegations about his inappropriate conduct towards a number of women. A party spokesperson said: 'The Regional Parties Committee met this week to consider whether the party had been brought into disrepute by statements made by Lord Rennard, or on his behalf, following the publication of Alistair Webster’s conclusions. 'It decided not to proceed with the disciplinary process against him. This brings the matter to a close and means the suspension of his membership is lifted.

Alex Massie

Britain abandons foreign policy. And abandons debates about foreign policy too.

Cynics have long suspected that Britain's foreign policy is as independent as its nuclear deterrent. Cynics have a point. Perhaps, as some suggest, it's time to concede the game's a bogey and cease even pretending to pretend this remains a country of at least some modest importance and influence. Except, if we choose to, we do retain some influence, even some importance. Nevertheless, we certainly do not have an Iraq policy at present. Nor do we really have an ISIS policy. The Foreign Secretary is long on what we're not doing and very short on what we are. Of course this reflects past misadventures. Not just those pertaining to Iraq but others too, including last year's parliamentary determination to avoid having a Syria policy too. So, yes, Prudence runs foreign policy these days.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron: Britain is not going to get involved in another war in Iraq

That there are just two weeks now until MPs return from summer recess to discuss Britain's response to the events in Iraq, Palestine and Syria will give Downing Street some hope that a recall of Parliament is now unnecessary. That as may be, but the new British stance outlined by David Cameron and Michael Fallon yesterday would be the subject of an urgent statement and lengthy debate were the Commons sitting. Events and British involvement are changing fast and the legislature is getting no more opportunity to probe what the executive is up to than the rest of us.

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

What are David Cameron’s plans for the fight against Isis?

David Cameron warns today that Britain must act against Isis in order to prevent terrorist attacks on this country. But what does he actually intend to do? In his article in the Sunday Telegraph, the Prime Minister argues that a 'broader political, diplomatic and security response' is needed, but also says that 'we should avoid sending armies to fight or occupy'. He writes: 'Britain – our economy, our security, our future – must come first. After a deep and damaging recession, and our involvement in long and difficult conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is hardly surprising that so many people say to me when seeing the tragedies unfolding on their television screens: “Yes, let’s help with aid, but let’s not get any more involved.

Friday

The Spectator

Are ministers better off today?

From the Barometer in this week's Spectator. Home Office minister Mark Simmonds resigned this week, complaining he couldn’t afford to live in London on his junior minister’s salary of £89,435. His resignation echoes that of Lord Gowrie, who resigned as minister for the arts in September 1985 complaining he couldn’t live in London on £33,000 a year. Are ministers better off now than they were then? — If you uprate Lord Gowrie’s 1985 salary with the Retail Prices Index (which the government now regards as overstating inflation), it would be worth £85,000, less than the sum earned by Simmonds.However, Lord Gowrie’s was a cabinet post and would now carry a salary of £134,565.

Isabel Hardman

The Tories should give their members more power

Politics is an expensive game. You might get paid three times the average salary once you're in Parliament, but you can spend so much on your way there that only those with a fair bit of their own dosh have a good chance of making it. In this week's Spectator, I examine how the exorbitant cost of being a candidate is preventing many fine potential politicians from making Westminster more representative of the country it is supposed to represent. But it's not just expensive for those who want a taste of power: if you're a party member, you can shell out around £700 to attend autumn conference - and once you're there, discover that you're not really all that welcome.

Thursday

Toby Young

Mark Simmonds was just saying what a lot of MPs think

I feel some sympathy for Mark Simmonds, the Conservative MP who’s resigned as a minister and is stepping down at the end of this Parliament because he can’t support his family. His announcement has been greeted with scorn and derision by the chattering classes — how dare he complain that an MP’s salary isn’t enough to live on? — even though most of them are earning far more than him. Any politician who utters a murmur of dissent about the terms and conditions of his or her employment is an instant pariah. In fact, if you can be bothered to read beyond the headlines, Simmonds’s complaint seems pretty reasonable.

Alex Massie

After Scotland, whither Britain? Divorce is a costly business.

If, like me, you missed Andrew Neil's BBC programme exploring What the Hell Happens to the United Kingdom if Scotland Votes for Independence Next Month you might be interested to know that it remains available on the BBC iPlayer here. Prudently, dear reader, I liked it. It's a film best viewed as a companion piece to James Forsyth's Spectator cover story published last month. A call to arms to England - and Westminster in particular - to ponder the consequences and implications of Scottish independence. There is little sign that much thought has been devoted to these issues.

Isabel Hardman

It costs £34,000 to become an MP. No wonder they expect higher pay

Mark Simmonds has been in politics long enough to know not to expect much sympathy from his constituents. He resigned as a Foreign Office minister this week because his £89,435 ministerial salary was not enough — at least, not enough for him to keep a family home in London. Many of those who live and work in the capital may sympathise with this struggle, but hearts will not be bleeding in his constituency, Boston and Skegness, where the average wage is £17,400. So he is not seeking re-election, and will leave politics next year. Simmonds was one of the lucky ones. He managed to find enough money to make it into parliament in the first place, which many would-be MPs cannot.