Uk politics

What has happened to the Immigration Bill? It was supposed to come before the House of Commons for report stage before the close of play in December, but was cleverly bumped to avoid a hoo-ha over Nigel Mills' amendment calling for transitional controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants. The problem is, this clever bit of manoeuvring by those in charge of Commons business didn't make a great deal of difference to the amendment's popularity: the latest publication from the Vote Office, released after the Bill was bumped into this year but before the end of the winter term, shows 74 signatures. Now the gossip in the party is that the legislation is going to have a little lie down in some longer grass for a while.

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 is well enough run to have stopped this terrible chain of events.

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 heights, they are also likely to see the extremist British National Party thrown out of British politics altogether.

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 words of the sulphurous Antichrist Powell! Brilliant.

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 do rely on free meals. Labour voted against the proposal. Cue much celebration in Natland. Another dividing line has been established.