Uk politics

Thursday

James Forsyth

What the NHS owes the Tories

From our UK edition

[audioplayer src='http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_January_2014_v4.mp3' title='James Forsyth discuss the NHS with Charlotte Leslie MP' startat=1430] Listen [/audioplayer]Pinned to the wall of Jeremy Hunt’s office in the Department of Health is an A1 piece of paper detailing that week’s ‘Never Events’. It catalogues the mistakes that have been made in NHS hospitals that should never have happened: people having the wrong leg amputated, swabs being left inside patients after surgery and the like. This grim list is a rebuke to the glib, Danny Boyle-style rhetoric which dominates all political debate about the NHS and treats any attempt to examine the failings of British health care as heresy.

Isabel Hardman

Iain Duncan Smith was defending welfare reform from his own colleagues as well as the Left

From our UK edition

Compassionate Conservatism has taken a bit of a kicking in the past few months: from leftwing critics who want to claim it is dead (but who always disagreed with its central premise anyway) and from certain Conservatives such as George Osborne who prefer a nice political dividing line. But today, as previewed in the Spectator last week, Iain Duncan Smith restated the need for this key strand of Tory thinking, and he set it firmly within the Conservative reforming tradition, saying: 'As Conservatives, that is part of our Party’s historic mission – just look at Wilberforce and Shaftesbury – to put hope back where it has gone, to give people from chaotic lives security through hard work… helping families to improve the quality of their own lives.

The Spectator

Iain Duncan Smith’s speech on welfare reform – full text

From our UK edition

The Work and Pensions Secretary was speaking to the Centre for Social Justice this morning. Introduction It is a pleasure to be hosted today by the Centre for Social Justice – setting out a vision for Britain’s welfare state alongside the organisation where, in a sense, it all started. Within their critique, the CSJ set out a plan for reform for Government, and today I want to look at that. But in 2010, we inherited an economy which had entered the worst recession in living memory, with the deficit rising, costs spiralling, and GDP shrinking. People were losing their jobs and feared for the future.

Isabel Hardman

Tory rebels table more troublemaking changes to Immigration Bill

From our UK edition

Andrew Lansley will shortly announce the return of the Immigration Bill to the Commons. I hear from impeccable sources that its report stage will be next Thursday. As I wrote yesterday, the whips have failed to persuade Nigel Mills to withdraw his amendment on reintroducing transitional controls for Bulgarian and Romanian migrants. He has already re-tabled it, simply with some tweaks to keep it up to date. But another crop of amendments from Tory backbenchers has just gone down as well. Tabled by Stephen Phillips, one of the signatories to the Mills amendment, the new clauses call for the Home Secretary to take action to limit EU migration if the Migration Advisory Committee finds it is having a damaging effect on the UK economy.

Douglas Murray

Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East’s 30 year war

From our UK edition

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_January_2014_v4.mp3" title="Douglas Murray discuss Islam's 30 year war with former solider Thomas Tugendhat"] Listen [/audioplayer]Syria has fallen apart. Major cities in Iraq have fallen to al-Qa’eda. Egypt may have stabilised slightly after a counter-coup. But Lebanon is starting once again to fragment. Beneath all these facts — beneath all the explosions, exhortations and blood — certain themes are emerging. Some years ago, before the Arab ‘Spring’ ever sprung, I remember asking one top security official about the region. What, I wondered, was their single biggest fear? The answer was striking and precise: ‘That the region will clarify.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Mike Hancock suspended from Lib Dems

From our UK edition

Mike Hancock has been suspended this afternoon as a Liberal Democrat councillor following the leak of the report into his conduct. The report, which was published in a redacted form, does not make comfortable reading at all, with some very unpleasant allegations from the constituent about his behaviour towards her, including that he forcibly kissed her, 'asked for a wank or a quick suck' and that he asked to be 'the first one to road test drive' her after a hysterectomy operation. You can read the report, sections of which have been redacted, here. Its author, Nigel Pascoe QC, has already expressed his concern about the redaction: 'I have now seen for the first time the redacted version of my report, Public and Private Conduct, concerning Mr Michael Hancock MP.

Sebastian Payne

Michael Gove announces a computing curriculum worthy of the 21st century

From our UK edition

Finally, Britain’s children will be equipped for the Internet age. In a speech to the BETT education conference today, Michael Gove announced the details of the new computing curriculum, which will take effect from this September. As well a new Computer Science GCSE and a beefed-up A-Level (hopefully more schools will offer it), the new computing curriculum will begin for five year olds, and will consist of three strands. These are information technology (how to use computers in the real world), ‘digital literacy’ (confidently and safely using computers) and ‘computer science’ strands. The Computer Science strand is by far the most important.

Isabel Hardman

Immigration Bill ‘to return to Commons’

From our UK edition

After those crisis talks in Downing Street that I reported yesterday, I hear that the government plans to bring the Immigration bill back to the Commons with amendments. Number 10 is insisting that nothing has yet been confirmed but suggestions that it could return on Tuesday may be incorrect. Doubtless those government amendments are designed to calm backbenchers down sufficiently for them to withdraw their amendment. But I've just spoken to Nigel Mills, who tabled the amendment, and he is going to press it. He says: The government amendments are not unhelpful but don't tackle the already existing issues of immigration from the EU being too high and leaving us a long way from the tens of thousands promise.

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May’s stop-and-search battle and the feverish Tory party

From our UK edition

As predicted, Labour did make use of the Times's story about Theresa May's row with the Prime Minister over stop-and-search at PMQs today, using a backbench question from Steve Reed, who explicitly linked to Cameron's 'fear of Nigel Farage'. David Cameron gave a rather mollifying answer, telling the Commons that 'stop-and-search does need reform' and that 'what's really important is that stop-and-search is used properly but we don't add to the burdens of the police'. listen to ‘PMQs: Does Cameron's fear of Farage mean he'll block stop-and-search reform?

Isabel Hardman

Jobs figures suggest Cameron and Osborne have survived their 364 economists moment

From our UK edition

What is Ed Miliband going to ask David Cameron about at Prime Minister's Questions today now that the latest employment figures show the biggest quarterly increase since records began, and the biggest quarterly fall in unemployment since 1997? Actually, there is quite a lot that he can talk about that means he can entirely avoid the subject - Nicky Morgan's warning to the Tories about 'hate', Aidan Burley, the row between Number 10 and Home Office about stop-and-search and Syria - but the Prime Minister will make jolly well sure that he shoehorns it into any question that's asked of him, even if it's a backbench one about the welfare of horses in Cumbria. Here are the figures. Unemployment fell by 167,000 between September and November to 2.32m (7.1%).

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Downing Street holds crisis talks to revive Immigration Bill

From our UK edition

What has happened to the Immigration Bill? I asked this question last week, and as it still doesn't have a date for the report stage, it's worth asking the question again. Now I hear that Number 10 has been holding crisis talks to try to get the legislation, which has been derailed by Nigel Mills' troublemaking amendment calling for transitional controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants to be extended until the end of 2018. Yesterday, Mills and colleagues were summoned to Number 9 Downing Street, to talk to the chief whip and the Prime Minister's backbench envoy John Hayes.

Isabel Hardman

Ukip prepares ‘spooking’ campaign for Wythenshawe by-election

From our UK edition

How will Ukip play the Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election? As a Labour seat with a relatively large majority (Sebastian profiles the constituency here), it's a perfect location for Nigel Farage's party to underline its claim that it can steal discontented voters from Labour just as easily as it does from the Tories. Labour is already nervous enough to be testing out special anti-Ukip leaflets arguing Farage is not on the side of the working class. It might have seemed a natural seat for the party's Deputy leader Paul Nuttall to stand in.

Sebastian Payne

All you need to know about the Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election

From our UK edition

It’s by-election time once more. In just over three weeks, the voters of Wythenshawe and Sale East in Greater Manchester will head to the polls on the 13 February to decide who will replace Paul Goggins, the Labour MP who died suddenly earlier this month. By-elections are often thought to be a useful barometer of how the country is feeling, but in reality they are mostly fought on hyperlocal issues. This one will no doubt be watched closely given the rapidly approaching Euro elections in May. The Tories and Lib Dems are unlikely to do well in either battles, while Ukip and Labour will be going head-to-head in both instances. Who’s going to win in W&SE? Most likely Labour.

Isabel Hardman

IMF upgrades UK growth forecast to 2.4% from 1.9%

From our UK edition

The good thing about economic forecasting is that it's only right when it's good news for your party. Today the IMF has upgraded its growth forecast for the UK in 2014 from 1.9% to 2.4%, which means that from a Coalition perspective the organisation - having had a rather rocky relationship with the Treasury over the past year or so - is entirely right and filled with jolly good fellows. This is the biggest upgrade for any developed nation. The IMF also said that growth in 2015 will be 2.2%. George Osborne calculated when he delivered last year's Budget that he just needed to buy some time until the summer, when the recovery could begin.

Isabel Hardman

What does Jessica Lee’s exit say about the Tory party?

From our UK edition

Why has Jessica Lee become the fourth female MP from the 2010 intake to quit? The Erewash MP announced yesterday that she is standing down in 2015, saying 'I have carefully considered by personal circumstances and responsibilities at this time, before taking this decision'. Friends of the popular Conservative say she is keen to return to her former job as a barrister, which is fair enough: in all walks of life people find that a career change doesn't suit them as much as they thought. But is there a deeper problem here? Some are arguing that this is illustrative of a woman problem in the party, and indeed the Conservative benches are not exactly stuffed with female MPs. But is it also that the life of an MP isn't quite what some people expect, or are led to expect?

Isabel Hardman

Rennard row weakens Lib Dem ‘we make govt better’ line

From our UK edition

It's been a while since the Liberal Democrats commanded quite so much media attention or quite so much space on the front pages. If all publicity were good publicity, the volume of coverage that the party is receiving from the Rennard scandal would do wonders for its poll rating. But that's not how it works, and particularly not when your top brass has spent months trying to tell voters that the Lib Dems are so very grown up, mature and thoughtful that they'd make any government better.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Tories yet to select candidates to fight Lib Dem top dogs

From our UK edition

The Tories have always denied rumours that they might give their coalition colleagues an easier ride at constituency level in the 2015 general election. But even though all three parties are very much on an election war footing now, the Conservatives have, strangely, yet to select candidates to fight two of their favourite ministers. The constituencies for Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander currently have no candidates, along with 28 others (including MPs the Tories aren't quite so keen on working with in Coalition, such as Lynne Featherstone), while the other 27 have candidates in place. Alexander is easy to work with in the Treasury (I reported before Christmas that he'd been scolded by Lib Dem high command for using the Tory term 'global race').

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dems: Rennard will not get the whip back and faces new investigation

From our UK edition

As the bell announcing the afternoon sittings in Parliament rang across Westminster, the Lib Dems  announced that Lord Rennard will have his membership of the party suspended pending a new disciplinary procedure for failing to apologise to the women who he allegedly behaved inappropriately towards. A spokesman said: 'Nick Clegg made clear last week, and again this morning, that it would be inappropriate for Lord Rennard to resume the Liberal Democrat whip unless he apologises. Lord Rennard has refused to do so. 'The Regional Parties Committee, which oversees disciplinary procedures under the English Party membership rules, today decided to suspend Lord Rennard’s membership of the party pending a disciplinary procedure.

Isabel Hardman

Why announcing a tough new welfare policy isn’t as tough as it seems for Rachel Reeves

From our UK edition

Rachel Reeves is setting out Labour's tough new benefits policy today. The Tories don't need to be unduly worried, given the poll lead they enjoy on welfare matters, but just in case, Iain Duncan Smith and Theresa May have penned a joint op-ed in the Daily Mail accusing Labour of a 'shameful betrayal' on welfare reform and controlling immigration. They list the party's failures in government, saying: 'With one hand, Labour doled out millions of pounds for people to sit on benefits. With the other, they opened the door to mass migration, with those from abroad filling jobs which our own people didn't want or couldn't get.

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

Ed ‘Teddy’ Miliband: Labour is the party of competition

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband tends to enjoy success when he's either stealing someone else's clothes or offering a possibly unworkable policy that sounds catchy. This morning on the Andrew Marr Show he tried both tactics. Having nicked One Nation from the Tories and repeated the phrase so often that they probably don't want it back, Miliband is now trying to ape a Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt. His close colleague Lord Wood sets out why Labour thinks this is a space it can jump into in a piece for Coffee House. listen to ‘Ed Miliband on the Andrew Marr Show’ on Audioboo The catchy line from this Roosevelt-style crusade is that Labour is now the party of competition, with Miliband planning to appoint consumer groups such as Which?