Uk politics

Many plaudits this morning for ministers such as Michael Fallon who have catalysed the government’s push ahead with fracking. The only question, though, is whether enthusiasm in Whitehall will translate into enthusiasm in local communities. Ministers are pointing to a change in the incentives for communities which means they can now keep 100 per cent of business rates from extraction sites. But it certainly hasn’t impressed Ben Wallace, the Tory MP for Wyre and Preston North, who is a vocal spokesman for the group of MPs whose constituencies sit on the Bowland Shale. Wallace tells me: ‘What they are offering us today – an extra £850,000 of business rates is pathetic,

Before Chang Song-Thaek was executed in North Korea last month for being a ‘wicked political careerist, trickster and traitor for all ages’, he allegedly confessed to his crimes. ‘I didn’t fix a definite time for the coup,’ he said, ‘But it was my intention to concentrate … all economic organs on the cabinet and become premier when the economy goes totally bankrupt and the state is on the verge of collapse …I thought that if I solve the problem of people’s living …by spending an enormous amount of funds …after becoming premier, the people will shout “hurrah” for me and I will succeed in a smooth way.’ Luckily, North Korea

One hundred and twenty eight days from now, British voters will head to the polls to have their say in elections to the European Parliament and local elections. Between now and then, much of the political debate will continue to focus on the UK Independence Party, which has mobilised the single most successful insurgency in English politics since 1945 (and one that we put under the microscope in a forthcoming book). Among pundits and politicians there is a consensus that 2014 will be another record year for the Ukippers. But as one insurgent has prospered, another has fallen. While the elections in 2014 may see Ukip’s revolt on the right reach new

One of the genuine seasonal pleasures to be enjoyed as 2013 slipped around the U-bend was Enoch Powell making his familiar comeback as the Evil Ghost of Christmases Past. Enoch was disinterred by the producers of the hitherto un-noticed Murnaghan Show — presumably in order to frighten the viewers and put a spanner in the wheel of the programme’s principal guest interviewee, the Ukip leader Nigel Farage. Dermot Murnaghan tripped up Mr Farage by the devilishly clever tactic of reading him some anodyne quotes from Powell’s exciting and controversial ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech and asking Farage if he agreed with them. But only later did he reveal that they were the

Alex Salmond might not wish to be compared to Gordon Brown but there is one sense in which the two dominant Scottish political personalities of the age are more alike than either would care to acknowledge: they each love a good dividing line. In Edinburgh yesterday Salmond announced that all pupils in their first three years of primary school would henceforth be entitled to a free school lunch. This, he claimed, would save parents £330 a year per child. A useful benefit for those parents whose offspring do not currently qualify for free meals; a means of ending, the First Minister suggested, the stigma presently endured by those children who

George Osborne’s speech on the need for £25 billion more cuts has opened up some strange dividing lines in Westminster. Labour has done exactly what the Chancellor wanted and questioned the need for the cuts. Nick Clegg has also fallen into place as Osborne hoped and moaned about them being unfair. But Clegg has found an unlikely ally in Iain Duncan Smith, who has let it be known that he does not much like the idea that Osborne could cut a further £1 billion from the welfare bill. So who did Boris Johnson cosy up to this morning when he had his say? Well, the Mayor was certainly keen to

We already knew that the Chancellor would focus on welfare as a field ripe for further cuts in his speech in Birmingham today. When he delivered that speech, George Osborne announced that the Treasury’s current forecasts suggest that £12 billion of further welfare cuts are needed in the first two years of the next Parliament, and framed this as a challenge to all parties not to let voters down by refusing to cut benefits. He said: ‘So when you see people on the telly who say that welfare can’t be cut anymore – or, even worse, promising they will reverse the changes we’ve already made and increase housing benefit –