Uk politics

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Why the local elections matter more to the Tories

From our UK edition

Forget the European elections, which everyone (particularly those who fancy causing a bit of grief for David Cameron) expects to produce humiliating results for the Conservatives. The elections that have a longer-lasting impact that take place on the same day are the local elections. I look at the emphasis the Tories are putting on campaigning in the locals that goes over and above anything they're doing for seats in Brussels, in my Telegraph column today. But even those areas that don't have concurrent local and European polls on 22 May aren't exhausting themselves on campaigning for the European elections. Last year, the Conservatives tried to manage expectations by suggesting at one point that they would lose up to 750 seats - in the end they lost 335.

Isabel Hardman

Labour’s unimpressive ‘zero hours’ announcement

From our UK edition

Labour's announcement on zero hours contracts today as the Shadow Cabinet visits Scotland is supposed to be a demonstration of how much better the UK can be by staying together. Ed Miliband's reasoning is that a border between Scotland and rUK would mean a 'race to the bottom' between the two countries, who would come under pressure from 'powerful interests' to 'worsen wages and conditions for everyone else'. It's part of Labour's 'positive case' for the union which the party wants to make today, and the reasoning does, if you're a Labour type, make sense. The only spanner in the works is the policy that he's announcing, which will hardly set the soul on fire if you're a Labour type who has been expounding on the evils of these contracts.

Thursday

Charles Moore

Was I abused by Jimmy Savile?

From our UK edition

‘Twenty-six million people in Europe are looking for work. And whose jobs are they after?’ asks the Ukip poster for the euro-elections, beside a Lord Kitchener-style pointing finger. Obviously, Ukip thinks the answer is ‘Ours’. But this isn’t true. Twenty-six million people are not looking for British jobs, but for jobs in general. And even those who do want jobs in Britain are not trying to take jobs from people who have them (though this might sometimes be the effect): they just want jobs. If Ukip is opposed to unrestricted EU immigration, it should direct its anger at the politicians who support this policy, not at the blameless people who, like most of us, want work.

Toby Young

Yes, Britain is a Christian country

From our UK edition

I can’t say it was a great surprise to read a letter from a group of well-known authors, academics, comedians and politicians in the Telegraph earlier this week complaining about David Cameron’s description of Britain as a ‘Christian country’. As a general rule, any acknowledgment of Britain’s Christian heritage has members of the liberal intelligentsia reaching for their keyboards and angrily typing out words like ‘sectarian’, ‘alienation’ and ‘division’. As Harry Cole argued in a blog post for The Spectator, the evidence that Britain is a Christian country is overwhelming. We have an established church, our head of state is also the defender of the faith and 59 per cent of us define ourselves as ‘Christian’.

Steerpike

Ukip suspend candidate featured in party political broadcast for tweets

From our UK edition

Ukip have suspended a member and Merton council candidate who appeared in their party political broadest, Andre Lampitt, for a series of 'repellent' tweets. Here are those offensive tweets, which have now been deleted, in full: Nigel Farage has said he is 'deeply shocked' by the tweets and has pledged to root out 'real extremism and nastiness' from his party.

Isabel Hardman

Doing God works well for Cameron

From our UK edition

David Cameron's decision to hug-a-Christian seems to have worked pretty well, judging by the political response he's provoked. For starters, his comments about Britain being 'evangelical' about its status as a Christian country managed to enrage the sort of people who also might annoy the churchgoing conservatives he needs to win back after the row over gay marriage. Today, he - and the secularists - got a response from the Archbishop of Canterbury who wrote on his blog: 'It's all quite baffling and at the same time quite encouraging. Christian faith is much more vulnerable to comfortable indifference than to hatred and opposition. It's also a variation on the normal "Sword and Grail discovered" stuff that seems to be a feature of Easter week news.

Isabel Hardman

What does new Number 10 hire mean for stop-and-search reform?

From our UK edition

As James revealed on Coffee House earlier, Max Chambers will take over from Patrick Rock on the home affairs brief in the Number 10 policy unit. One thing that will be particularly interesting to watch is whether Chambers' appointment leads to a shift in Number 10's stance on stop-and-search. Rock had been one of the key figures blocking Theresa May's reforms to the power for the police, for fear that it would make the Tories appear soft on crime. So will the new adviser be more amenable to change? I am told that Chambers is open to ideas on reform of stop-and-search and is keen to see more evidence of the need for changes.

Isabel Hardman

Who tells Ed Miliband when he’s made a mistake?

From our UK edition

Dan Hodges' piece in this week's Spectator on the team around Ed Miliband is a must-read (and we've posted an even longer version online here). As he runs through those working with the Labour leader, a clear pattern emerges. There doesn't seem to be a Lynton Crosby equivalent working with Miliband. One of the many things that make Crosby so important to the Conservative party is his ability to swear at them and tell them they're doing something wrong. Miliband doesn't have a Crosby-esque character in that respect. Instead, all those around him seem keen to either demonstrate that they are the most loyal, in a Uriah Heep-esque display of servility, or to bolster Miliband confidence.

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Ed Miliband’s radical Old Labour agenda and Clinton vs Bush round two

From our UK edition

Where has Ed Miliband found the policies to form the basis of his potential government? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, The Telegraph’s Dan Hodges and Marcus Roberts from the Fabian Society debate the current state of Milibandism and whether the Labour leader is successfully crafting an intellectually coherent set of policies for government. Will Miliband limp over the finish line into No.10 with a strategy to win 35 per cent of the vote, or go for a broader One Nation approach? And does he still have any chance of becoming Prime Minister? Harpers’ Magazine John Rick MacArthur also joins to discuss Clinton vs Bush, again, with Freddy Gray. Why is the American political establishment looking increasingly like an oligarchy?

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Michael Gove’s campaigning job

From our UK edition

Who will go where in the forthcoming reshuffle? Guido suggests that Michael Gove could be in for a move to party chairman, given all his major reforms have either been implemented or blocked by the Lib Dems. Number 10 has certainly told Gove that he will be playing an increasing role in the general election campaign: I understand this was made clear to him in the winter of last year, which would explain why David Cameron was quite so cross about the Education Secretary's comments to the FT about Etonians. Cameron recognises that Gove is a smooth media performer who doesn't wilt under the heat of the studio lights, or under the heat of a grilling from top interviewers.

Isabel Hardman

Can Labour really resist class war?

From our UK edition

There's something quite amusing about a party that majored on the number of Etonians in the Cabinet as the substantive part of its response to the Budget briefing the Independent that it won't stoop to 'class war' in its 2015 election campaign. Labour, apparently, will occupy the moral high ground next year, which suggests the party will have to change its messaging quite significantly from this: 'What do this lot now call themselves? They call themselves the workers’ party. Who is writing the manifesto for this workers’ party? We have a helpful answer from one Conservative MP: “There are six people writing the manifesto…five…went to Eton”.

Alex Massie

As the Yes side rises in the polls, Scotland prepares for a Neverendum

From our UK edition

I suspect I might be one of the Scottish journalists Iain Martin considers keen to make a melodrama from the independence referendum. Ten weeks ago I warned in this magazine that Alex Salmond could well lead Scotland to independence. Stuff and nonsense some folk said then. Well, perhaps. But nothing that has happened since has persuaded me I was wrong.  Sure, the polls still show the No side leading but the general picture is clear: the Yes side are closing the gap. Of course there's no law demanding that current trends continue indefinitely but, nevertheless, these are nervous times for the Unionist cause. And for good reason. Consider the poster at the top of this post. It's by far the best advertisement released by either side. Clear, simple, powerful.

James Forsyth

Don’t do it Boris!

From our UK edition

Is Boris Johnson about to announce his intention to stand at the next general election? The well-connected Jason Groves reports today that Boris will make clear his plans before the Tory conference and that his friends expect him to run for parliament but stay as Mayor of London. I think this would be a mistake for Boris, a move that would make him less likely to end up as Tory leader and Prime Minister one day. First, Boris was clear in the campaign that he wouldn't try to return to the Commons before 2016: 'If I am fortunate enough to win I will need four years to deliver what I have promised. And having put trust at the heart of this election, I would serve out that term in full.

Isabel Hardman

Alex Salmond’s reassuring St George’s Day address

From our UK edition

St George's Day is one of those festivals that politicians are particularly earnest about, for fear someone accuse them of being ashamed of England. But today's most interesting pointed St George's Day celebration comes from a man more accustomed to suggesting that Englishness is something he is quite separate from. Alex Salmond is hopping across the border to give a speech in Carlisle. The SNP leader wants to reassure English people on St George's Day that they can still be chums with the Scots. They're not going to become surly dragons after independence. Instead, Salmond will say Scots and English people will still cross that border to work and to marry, and will continue to watch many of the same television programmes.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

What Cameron and Osborne’s rare joint appearance tells us about their relationship

From our UK edition

David Cameron and George Osborne managed to garner more attention for their infrastructure announcement (or re-announcement) today by organising their first joint appearance alone together in four years - and making sure the media were aware that this was the case. The pair haven't appeared together in public for a while partly because they fear doing so would suggest to voters that the government was run by two chaps from very similar backgrounds; better to dilute it by pitching up with other ministers, hopefully with vaguely different backstories. But it is also quite impressive that the two men haven't felt the need to do these joint appearances after questions about splits between them. That's because those questions rarely arise, and when they do, they're rarely valid.

Ed West

The Ukip posters will offend more Londoners than eastern Europeans

From our UK edition

Globalisation is like a rising tide; we’re all living in our separate ponds with their own little social ecosystems until the floodwater starts to rise and turns them into one big lake. Many fish, especially, the big ones, are going to benefit but many will suffer in this frightening new world. It is that fear which Ukip’s new posters are aimed at addressing (or exploiting, depending on your view). Sure, Europe is about free movement of labour, but that movement is highly imbalanced and has been for a number of years. Far more people are seeking to come from southern and eastern Europe to work in Britain than vice versa, and therefore that puts pressure on some British workers (let alone the question of infrastructure).

Sebastian Payne

Briefing: Britain — a Christian country?

From our UK edition

Is Britain still a Christian country? There is no straightforward answer to that question, as David Cameron discovered to his cost this weekend. The ongoing row began with an article the Prime Minister wrote for the Church Times last week, arguing that Britain should not be ashamed of its Christian ethos: ‘I believe we should be more confident about our status as a Christian country, more ambitious about expanding the role of faith-based organisations, and, frankly, more evangelical about a faith that compels us to get out there and make a difference to people's lives’ In response to this, fifty notable public figures — from Tim Minchin to Terry Pratchett — wrote to the Telegraph warning that the Prime Minister’s remarks will cause ‘alienation’.

Isabel Hardman

Why David Cameron has ditched a free vote on hunting

From our UK edition

David Cameron has, according to this morning's Times, U-turned on his Coalition Agreement promise to hold a free vote in the House of Commons on repealing the Hunting Act. This wasn't a great surprise - what had annoyed rural Tories more was the failure of the two Coalition parties to agree on a very limited relaxation of the act to allow upland farmers to use up to 40 dogs to flush foxes out of their dens for shooting to prevent them savaging lambs. But why has the Prime Minister, usually rather finicky about not breaking promises, U-turned on the promise of a free vote? The reason is that the pro-hunting lobby know they will lose the free vote if it is held before 2015, and fear that this would set back their cause by showing that parliament has a view on keeping the Hunting Act.

Isabel Hardman

Ukip is already winning the immigration debate without controversial posters

From our UK edition

Another day, another bad-tempered debate between two diametrically opposed politicians on immigration. This morning's ding-dong on Radio 4 between Ukip's Paul Nuttall and Labour's Mike Gapes fell into the category of Debates That Won't Change Anyone's Mind But Will Make Them Grumpy Before 9am - a modern-day Sisyphean punishment. listen to ‘Mike Gapes and Paul Nuttall discuss Ukip's new poster campaign’ on Audioboo The pair were discussing Ukip's European elections, which in case you decided to take Easter off from being habitually outraged, are below: Nuttall was arguing that his party was on the side of the British people on this issue and that the posters were simply presenting the facts.

Monday

James Forsyth

How Nigel Farage hopes that immigration can deliver victory for Ukip

From our UK edition

Nigel Farage’s strategy for winning the European Elections is based around winning over blue collar workers who normally vote Labour. Ukip believe that they can use immigration as a battering ram to break through Labour’s defences in the north. One of the party’s campaign billboards unveiled last night simply says, ’26 million people in Europe are looking for work. And whose jobs are they after’. (I suspect that Ukip will welcome the controversy these posters are attracting because it will help amplify their message) https://twitter.com/Adrian_Hilton/statuses/458163441531097088 Ukip’s argument is that it is the only party that can actually do something about immigration.