Uk politics

What do Foreign Office ministers think about the possibility that Andrew Lansley could be the next European Commissioner? David Lidington was clearly intrigued by Isabel's column in the Telegraph this morning which says that Tory backbenchers are not fans at all. The Europe Minister, who would have to work closely with Lansley, retweeted the article with the headline 'the mysterious Mr Lansley will hardly set Brussels alight'. He then realised that this might not look very good, and tweeted: 'Apologies. Was trying to read last article not retweet it. Retweet def not my view.' Presumably he doesn't mean that he does think Lansley will set Brussels on fire?

Sir John Major isn't a fan of Ukip and thinks it will fade away from its current position on the political scene. He's not the only one who thinks that: one of the problems that all three main parties have face is that they have continually assumed that Ukip is about to lose its head of steam, and have therefore made precious few preparations for the party getting bigger and stealing more of their voters. But there was one very interesting remark that Major made in his interview on the Today programme. He said: 'The circumstances between the 1990s and now are very different in many ways, and in a very curious way the recent European elections have emphasised that very clear. I think the results of these elections right across Europe have made a renegotiation much easier.

Here's the thing many people misunderstand about Scotland's referendum on independence: it isn't really very much to do with England. When someone starts chuntering on about Braveheart and Bannockburn you know you're listening to a fruitcake. This is true whether the fruitcake is Scots or English. At least the latter have the excuse of ignorance, I guess. Anyway, the point is that as much as we may occasionally dislike or, more frequently, be irritated by the English they're not the problem. The people we really hate are our fellow Scots. And with good reason. I mean, look at us. The worst part of losing the referendum (whichever side you favour) is having to share a country with the winners. I spy much unhappiness. So I enjoyed Iain Macwhirter's column in today's Herald.

In his Spectator diary this week Lord Mandelson offers Ed Miliband some advice... Nigel Farage has no trouble in heaping praise on Putin because of their shared antipathy towards Europe. Farage’s party had a good week. The challenge for them is to build a genuine movement beyond a charismatic leader, a band of fruitcake candidates and a clutch of reactionary ideas. I doubt they will succeed. In my political career we’ve seen two similar ‘breakthrough’ moments, both in the 1980s: the SDP’s rise and fall, then the Greens coming and going. Those parties’ success was only due to Labour’s weakness. When Labour got its act together, their appeal faded.

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_29_May_2014_v4.mp3" title="James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the Lib Dem's internal warfare" startat=818] Listen [/audioplayer]Nigel Farage is pretty good at giving people hangovers, and on Monday morning all three Westminster party leaders woke up with one. Ukip’s victory in the European elections represents the first time in more than a hundred years that Labour or the Tories had not won a nationwide vote. It showed that the old allegiances on which our politics are predicated have broken down. It also reminded us that none of the parties are national affairs any more; Labour came third in four regions, as the Tories did in six.