Uk politics

Saturday

Sebastian Payne

An afternoon in Tower Hamlets on the stump with Lutfur Rahman

From our UK edition

It’s been a busy week for Lutfur Rahman. On Monday, the mayor of Tower Hamlets was the subject of a Panorama investigation, which alleged he had misdirected public funds. Yesterday, Eric Pickles announced he was sending in PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct a fraud investigation. Rahman has vehemently denied all of the claims, describing the BBC as ‘Islamophobic’. On Thursday, he announced a ‘community walkabout’ to counter #PanoramaLies, so I decided to go along and find out what Rahman had to say. Arriving outside at the Sir John Cass School in Stepney this afternoon, I found a group of around 75 waiting for the mayor. There was a fraternal vibe (I did not spot a single woman during my time there) amongst the crowd, who hugged and greeted each other.

James Forsyth

Maria Miller, a political zombie

From our UK edition

Talking to Tory ministers in the last 24 hours, one of the things I’ve been struck by is the level of irritation with Maria Miller’s graceless apology. It is easy to see why this is the case. If Miller had been more contrite in the Commons on Thursday, the story would not be running as strongly today. Miller could easily have talked about how the old system under which she had been claiming was not fit for purpose and pointed out that it is no longer in operation. She also could have explained in human terms why she had been so slow to cooperate with the inquiry. If she had done those things, she would have helped herself. But, instead, Miller finds herself a political zombie. It is now nigh-on-impossible to imagine her rising further than Culture Secretary.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

The twists and turns of the Miller tale

From our UK edition

From tonight's Evening Blend - a free round-up and analysis of the day's political events from the Coffee House team. Subscribe here. 'I think that we should leave it there,' said David Cameron when asked by reporters today about Maria Miller. Of course, the press won't leave it there as many suspect that there is something about this that doesn't quite meet the 'smell test' that a leader of a party in opposition once set out. Why has the Prime Minister been quite so warm and supportive towards a minister who failed to co-operate with the investigation into her expenses? Why was she allowed to make such a recalcitrant apology?

Isabel Hardman

Books and the justice establishment

From our UK edition

Every politician who engages in major reform ends up with scars on their back. Tony Blair famously complained about those scars from grappling with the public sector, while Michael Gove mostly relishes his tussles with the education establishment that he likes to call the 'Blob'. But the education world isn't the only one with a big, scary blob wibbling about with rage whenever a minister embarks on reform. In my Telegraph column today I look at the justice 'Blob', which has scored a pretty impressive scar on Chris Grayling with a campaign about a ban on books for prisoners which isn't quite as it seems. Books are a useful weapon for the Blob, but other fights are taking place in the justice world at the moment.

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

Elizabeth Truss: look at Wales to see what Labour would do with education

From our UK edition

Want to see what Labour would do with Michael Gove’s reforms? Just look at Wales, says Elizabeth Truss. At the Spectator’s schools conference this morning, the Childcare Minister used the demolished the Euston arch (pictured above) as a symbol of how Britain went wrong, and its HS2-stimulated rebirth of how this government is making amends. Speaking after a robust lecture from Tristram Hunt, Truss explained how the changes to education in Wales have set a dangerous precedent of what a Labour government might do. She pointed out that after abandoning national testing, Wales has fallen to 40th in international league tables for maths: 'In terms of accountability, this is one of the big issues with Wales and why they’ve fallen down so dramatically.

Isabel Hardman

The other awkward May elections and why they matter

From our UK edition

After all the excitement of Nick vs Nigel and the endless mutterings in the Tory party about uprisings following the European elections, you might be forgiven for thinking that the European elections are the only game in town in May. But there are 4,161 local council seats up for election on the same day - and the main parties are quite keen to make big efforts to secure a good result in those polls. The Conservatives have been holding campaign days in London, where many of the seats up for election are located, and making those local council seats a focus for the parliamentary party, which descends on different areas to canvass and deliver leaflets on set days. The whips hold their campaign days on Tuesdays and take a band of MPs along with them.

Fraser Nelson

Why Tristram Hunt is wrong about free schools

From our UK edition

‘I’ve come to exorcise you lot,’ said Tristram Hunt cheerfully, as he turned up to deliver the keynote speech in The Spectator’s schools conference today. He had come to explain why free schools, a project this magazine proudly supports, are going wrong. His speech was as elegant and clever as it was wrong, which is why it’s worth studying. We’ll post the audio of his speech soon, but here’s my take. Hunt started by claiming the free school system is in meltdown, because a few of them have failed. He mentioned IES Breckland in Suffolk. Then Al-Madinah free school in Derby - so bad, he said, that Ofsted had to invent a new category of dysfunction. The Discovery New School in Crawley has closed.

Alex Massie

The Scottish Tories have a chance to make themselves relevant at last. Will they be bold enough to take it?

From our UK edition

Like everyone else, I've often been mean about the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party. I recall suggesting they were the worst, most useless political party in the world. Fushionless and quite possibly beyond redemption. But hark this shipmates, something is afoot and there are, titter ye not, modest grounds for modest optimism in Tory circles. After what was, I think it fair to say, a steep learning curve in her early days as leader Ruth Davidson is coming into her own. She has a poise and a stature that was not apparent even a year ago. The party's recent conference in Edinburgh was a success and her speech her best since becoming leader. Why, the Tory vote has even been nudging upwards in local council by-elections.

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Adapting to climate change, monogamy in gay marriage and new forms of electioneering

From our UK edition

Is the world finally realising it has to adapt to, rather than halt, climate change? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Matt Ridley discusses this week’s Spectator cover on the IPCC’s latest climate change report with Fraser Nelson. What do the findings mean for climate sceptics and the green lobby? How has the received wisdom on climate change shifted over the past eight years? And how big of a political issue is climate change? Julie Bindel and Douglas Murray also discuss gay marriage and the new responsibilities that come with it. Should gay marriages follow the same monogamous virtues as heterosexual marriages? Has the gay rights movement been taken over by too many conservative ideals? Is marriage a failed institution anyway?

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem manifesto horsetrading begins

From our UK edition

After Tim Farron set out a new position for the Lib Dems on the 'bedroom tax' this morning, Labour wants to try to humiliate the party by staging a vote on the policy in the Commons. It was approved long ago, but this lunchtime Labour sources were saying that they would put pressure on the Lib Dems by finding a mechanism to force a vote on the bedroom tax. This is always exciting for the Labour party as they can dig out some lines about flip flops and broken promises, but the chances are that an Opposition Day debate would either be ignored by Lib Dem MPs, or a mollifying amendment tabled by the government which allows the Coalition parties to walk through the same lobbies.

Alex Massie

Who will rid us of George Galloway?

From our UK edition

Nothing George Galloway says or does should surprise anyone any longer. Even so, his latest musings on the situation in Ukraine - delivered on the Iranian propaganda channel Press TV - are quite something. Even by his lofty standards they may represent a new low. Just watch him go: Galloway excels even himself here. It's the tortuous creativity that really does it. If it weren't so typical and so typically revolting you'd almost be impressed by it. Is it too much to ask that the other parties agree next year to field but a single candidate against Galloway? As for the people of Bradford West, well, the best that can be said is that electing Galloway once might be a misfortune, doing so twice would be very much worse than careless.

Isabel Hardman

Nick vs Nigel: Clegg gets a little help from Farage’s mate Vlad

From our UK edition

Nick Clegg 'lost' last week's LBC debate with Nigel Farage, not for want of trying to sound reasonable or appear at ease and polished, but because there are simply fewer voters who are prepared to give someone from the establishment a hearing, or agree with him on Europe. The Lib Dem leader does plan to use fewer stat attacks and more emotion tonight when the two men meet again. But he also has a bit of help from Farage himself, who is either revealing a strong conviction about Vladimir Putin that he had hitherto kept buried or is stubbornly digging himself a hole over his comments about the EU and Ukraine. How Farage deals with an inevitable attack from Clegg on his comments about Putin will tell us a fair bit about what the Ukip leader is really like.

Tuesday

Sebastian Payne

Lutfur Rahman and Tower Hamlets — an example of why elected mayors don’t work?

From our UK edition

Is Eric Pickles about to send government troops into Tower Hamlets? Last night’s Panorama examined Lutfur Rahman, the borough’s independent directly elected mayor, who is accused (amongst other things) of mismanaging public funds to purchase influence within certain communities. The programme outlined how Rahman has allegedly ignored the advice of his own officials on distributing money and more than doubling funds to projects in Tower Hamlets’ Bengali community— of which more than two thirds were responsible for electing him in 2010. Rahman has denied all of the allegations against him, calling the BBC Islamophobic, a charge the BBC has in turn refuted in vigorous terms.

Isabel Hardman

People’s front against HS2 to unite

From our UK edition

Watch out for an increase in hostilities from anti-HS2 campaigners in the next few weeks. One of the more concerted backbench campaigners against the new route is planning to strengthen the cause by bringing together all the groups that are against HS2 under one umbrella. Andrew Bridgen, the Conservative MP who has a track record of causing serious problems for the government on issues such as Syria, tells me that he and Cheryl Gillan are setting up the group in May 'so we can speak as one voice'. Bridgen hopes the campaign will include organisations who have set their faces against high speed rail such as the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England and the Woodland Trust, describing the current campaign as a 'bit like the People's Front of Judea'.

Fraser Nelson

Michael Gove is right — the Conservatives are the party of social justice

From our UK edition

Yesterday, George Osborne dedicated himself the mission of 'full employment'. Today, Michael Gove has given a speech declaring that the Conservatives are the 'party of social justice'. This is not positioning - it's simply stating the obvious. Thanks to Gove, the best hope a council estate kid has of dodging the local sink school is for a new school to open nearby. The Gove reforms don't help the rich - the education system works fine for them. The best state schools are filled with the state pupils from the richest backgrounds. Ed Balls was sent private, as his dad (who used to teach at Eton) had wisely saved money and rightly sought to invest this in his child. The same is true for Tristram Hunt's parents.

Isabel Hardman

New NHS boss warns that health service is facing its biggest challenge

From our UK edition

Simon Stevens is giving us the first glimpse of what he wants to do as the new chief executive of the NHS today. In a speech in Newcastle, he will warn that the service is facing its biggest challenge, and that a radical transformation of care is needed. Stevens will say: 'I know that for the NHS the stakes have never been higher. Service pressures are intensifying and longstanding problems are not going to disappear overnight.' So what are the radical changes that Stevens wants to set about working on? In this week's Spectator, former Labour adviser John McTernan profiles the new NHS boss, and explains what this radical reformer wants to do with the health service. He writes:- Stevens set out his vision for the NHS in an essay for a pamphlet published by the think-tank Reform.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

The Tories are repeatedly reminding voters of their achievements – finally

From our UK edition

It's no surprise that the Conservatives want to take the credit for the tax cuts in the Budget, or that the Lib Dems are rather peeved about this. The Chancellor will make a speech today in which he describes Britain as 'starting to walk tall in the world' and drive home what he sees as a series of key government achievements on 'reshoring' and the rise in the personal allowance of income tax, which comes into effect this week. Nick Clegg, meanwhile, is giving his monthly press conference where he will argue that the Conservatives are trying to 'steal' his own party's prize ideas. Those two men can tussle about in the Westminster bubble for credit (though to be fair to the Lib Dems, they do seem to be winning the battle).

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

Douglas Alexander: Labour hasn’t fired Arnie Graf as election guru

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband tried to reassure his MPs this week that the party just needed to weather a temporary blip. But one question the Labour leader will be (or should be) contemplating which is quite separate from the squally polls is whether his top team can repair increasingly public tensions which are as much about personality as they are about strategy. The Mail on Sunday reports another fissure between Douglas Alexander and Michael Dugher, while Andrew Rawnsley has a useful guide to the major fault lines in the party. This morning on Marr, Douglas Alexander was asked to comment on reports that his party had fired Arnie Graf as community organising election supremo.

Alex Massie

From time to time it is necessary to execute a government minister to encourage the others. This is one such moment.

From our UK edition

Hanging. Shooting. Beheading. Defenestration. Take your pick. It doesn't matter which method you choose but the government minister who told The Guardian's Nick Watt that "of course" there would be a deal to be done creating a sterling zone shared by an independent Scotland and the remaining parts of the United Kingdom needs to be found, summarily tried, and executed. Game-changing moments, of course, are rarely anything of the sort. Political campaigns do not pivot on individual moments or blunders. Fundamentals matter more. And yet the fundamentals are in turn shaped by the accretion of a thousand impressions. At least in part. The campaigning matters too. Especially in a close race.

Saturday

Melanie McDonagh

Gay marriage is a triumph for our arrogant political class

From our UK edition

Well, Peter and David, John and Bernado, Sean and Sinclair are now married and the happy husbands have the further benefit of the unanimous blessing of our political class. David Cameron said the move sent a message that people were now equal 'whether gay or straight. It says we are a country that will continue to honour its proud traditions of respect, tolerance and equal worth.' For good measure, he added that the law change would encourage young people unsure of their sexuality. Really? You mean a few more teenagers hovering between being gay or straight might go for the gay option on the back of the prospect of a wedding? And that’s a good thing?