Uk politics

Monday

James Forsyth

Ed Balls asks: what else could Labour spend £50 billion on if it scrapped HS2?

From our UK edition

Ed Balls has just taken the scalpel to HS2 in an interview with Steve Richards. He talked about the project having ‘huge fiscal implications’ and questioned whether the ‘benefits are really there’. He then went on to stress that the question was not just whether HS2 provided value for money, but whether it was the best use of £50 billion. As he emphasised, £50 billion could be used on other transport projects or new housing, hospitals and schools. One could see Balls gleefully contemplating just how much fiscal wriggle room cancelling HS2 would give him. Now, Balls did say that Labour had not reached a final decision on what to do about HS2.

Alex Massie

Thank Heavens for Godfrey Bloom

From our UK edition

I was at a funeral on Friday and so late catching-up with the latest entertainment provided by UKIP. But, gosh, thank heavens for Godfrey Bloom. Not just because he and his ilk have injected some welcome craziness into British politics - the circus always needs new clowns - but because by doing so they have reminded us of the stakes involved. Bloom - last heard decrying aid squandered on feckless Bongo Bongo Land - one-upped himself with his talk of sluts who fail to clean their kitchens properly. Sure, there was something refreshing about hearing Nigel Farage admit all this amounted to a disaster for UKIP but the bigger point is that it should concentrate Tory minds. Far too many Tories seem to think UKIP might be rascals but rascals-with-their-heart-in-the-right-place.

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 podcast special: Labour’s money day

From our UK edition

On the second day of Labour's annual conference in Brighton, The Spectator's Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss Ed Balls' and Chuka Umunna's speeches on the economy and business. We also spoke to shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Rachel Reeves about what she thought of Ed Balls' speech.

Isabel Hardman

Len McCluskey: My party, my way, or the highway

From our UK edition

So far the tensions in the Labour party over Ed Miliband's plan to reform the link with the trade unions have stayed below the surface at this conference. The closest it came was, unsurprisingly, when Len McCluskey took to the stage. The Unite leader made another plea for the unions to 'set our vision of how we will build our country in government', and told the leadership (Ed Miliband had strangely disappeared from the stage at this point) that 'if OUR party is to have a future it must speak for ordinary workers and it must represent the voice of organised labour'. He also made his customary attack on the Blairite 'Them' that he likes to talk about whenever he defends the role of trade unions, saying: 'Zero hours in another age.

Isabel Hardman

Breaking: Ed Balls gives strongest indication yet he’ll drop support for HS2

From our UK edition

Ed Balls is currently addressing the Labour conference, and we'll post full analysis of his speech once he's done. But as he continues, it's worth highlighting that the Shadow Chancellor has just given his strongest indication yet that Labour will drop its support for HS2. He said: 'David Cameron and George Osborne have made clear they will go full steam ahead with this project – no matter how much the costs spiral up and up. They seem willing to put their own pride and vanity above best value for money for the taxpayer. 'Labour will not take this irresponsible approach. So let me be clear, in tough times – when there is less money around and a big deficit to get down – there will be no blank cheque from me as a Labour Chancellor for this project or for any project.

Isabel Hardman

Jim Murphy: Labour does believe in intervention

From our UK edition

When Ed Miliband dropped his support for the government's motion on military intervention in Syria, it was seen as a convenient way of the Labour leader avoiding the thorny question of what his party really thinks about the principle of intervention. He and his team were astonished when David Cameron said 'I get that' and took the option off the table entirely, but privately they admitted that it wasn't the most inconvenient thing that could happen. But today, Miliband's Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy delivered another one of his measured, impressive speeches on the party's defence policy in which he reminded party activists that in spite of the ghosts of Iraq, Labour does still support intervention.

Sebastian Payne

Labour conference: Monday fringe guide

From our UK edition

Every morning throughout party conference season, we’ll be providing our pick of the fringe events on Coffee House.  It's the second day of Labour's annual conference in Brighton. The morning session starts at 09:30am today, but don't think that means you can lie in. Fringe events with prominent party figures, shadow cabinet members and trade unionists kick off bright and early at 07:00: Title Key speaker(s) Time Location Running club and breakfast with Alastair Campbell Alastair Campbell 07:00 Gresham, Old Ship Hotel Business is Good for Britain: How can we encourage private investment and exports?

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

One Nation vaccination

From our UK edition

Congratulations to Jon Cruddas, Labour's policy review chief, for managing to produce a front page headline. Cruddas is famed for holding lengthy fringe events and interviews where he manages either to say nothing of interest or else says something that needs translating several times before it makes sense - one special adviser recently told me that he'd found, on the sixth time of reading, that a speech by this guru on 'statecraft' actually contained some very good ideas - and so the Times front page story that he wants parents to lose their child benefit if they refuse to give their child the MMR vaccine is unusual. Monday's Times front page - "Labour 'will stop benefits if parents refuse MMR'" #tomorrowspaperstoday #lab13 pic.twitter.

Sebastian Payne

Douglas Alexander urged Gordon Brown to sack McBride

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband is not the only person who wanted Gordon Brown to sack Damian McBride. At an IPPR fringe event this evening, Douglas Alexander told The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland he urged the Prime Minister to sack McBride over media briefings that his sister Wendy should be sacked; briefings which McBride claimed came from Douglas: 'I did urge Gordon to dismiss someone, it was Damian McBride. That might explain the way he has briefed against me then and writes about me now. 'Listen, I was always a supporter of my sister. The politics that he represents is destructive, divisive and ultimately, deeply damaging to our politics and our cause. 'That was the view I held then — I expressed it on a number of occasions. It's what he did and what he does.

Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Ed Balls to ask OBR to audit Labour spending plans

From our UK edition

The cost of living may well appear to be a rich seam for the Labour party to mine, but it isn't entirely risk-free. As shadow ministers talk about Expensive Things in their speeches and fringe discussions this week in Brighton, they will be aware that voters might sympathise with their theme without fully trusting that their party can fix the problem. The polls still show that voters believe the Tories are the most competent on the economy, and an easy riposte from government ministers could be 'you stuck by us when we fixed the economy, now let us fix living standards'. The risk is that Labour appears to jump the question of the economy and go straight to living standards without gaining voters' trust on the former. Why should they therefore trust them to fix the latter?

Sebastian Payne

Stephen Twigg pitches himself against Gove on cost of living

From our UK edition

Like his colleagues in the Labour party, Stephen Twigg used his speech this afternoon to focus on the cost of living. He pledged that Labour would force schools to open earlier and close later to provide 'wrap-around' childcare: 'Spiralling childcare costs are adding huge pressures to family budgets. Last year, nursery costs rose six times faster than wages, making work unaffordable for many parents…that is why I am announcing that the next Labour government will legislate to deliver a Primary Childcare Guarantee. Before and after school childcare for all primary pupils. ‘For parents of primary school children the certainty that they can access childcare from 8am-6pm through their school.

Fraser Nelson

Labour conference: ‘It’s Scotland vs Salmond’ says Johann Lamont

From our UK edition

The Scottish speech is normally a neglected part of the Labour Party conference but has more potency now that there's less than a year to go to the referendum. Johann Lamont, leader of Scottish Labour, is an important actor in the battle to save the union. The Tory vote in Scotland has been reduced to staff members and blood relatives so much depends on whether Labour is able to pack a punch. And Ms Lamont certainly is. She rather cleverly mocked the way that Salmond is in full hyperbole mode, declaring every second day an 'historic' day — to create the idea that we're building up to some Braveheart-style Independence Day.

James Forsyth

Damian McBride shatters the Labour peace

From our UK edition

If you want to know just how much anger Damian McBride’s book has created in the Labour party—and particularly its Blairite wing, just watch Alastair Campbell’s interview with Andrew Neil on The Sunday Politics. Campbell doesn’t scream or shout but the anger in his voice as he discusses McBride’s antics is palpable. He did not sound like a man inclined to forgive and forget. This whole row is, obviously, a massive conference distraction. Those close to Ed Miliband had hoped that this year, the Labour leader would get a free run at conference now that his brother has quite politics. But as one of his colleagues said to me late last week, ‘it used to be all about David, now it’ll be all about Damian.

James Forsyth

Ed Miliband’s seaside start

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband’s interview on the Andrew Marr show neatly summed up the Labour leader’s problems in cutting through. Marr started with a series of questions about Miliband’s plans to change Labour’s relationship with the unions. This might be an important issue but it is hardly one of paramount interest to the electorate and every minute Miliband is speaking about this, he can’t be speaking about other things. The next distraction is the whole Damian McBride business. Indeed, Miliband telling Marr that he’d told Brown to sack McBride is the BBC News headline on the interview. Miliband also had to fend off a whole host of questions about why his poll ratings are so bad. Miliband did, though, try to keep bringing the interview back to the cost of living.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Three reasons why you can’t write off Ed Miliband

From our UK edition

This is not the backdrop that Ed Miliband would have wanted for Labour conference. Labour’s poll lead has—according to YouGov—vanished, Damian McBride is dominating the news agenda and there’s talk of splits and division in this inner circle. But, as I say in the cover this week, you can’t write Ed Miliband off yet. He has three huge, structural advantages in his favour. The boundaries favour Labour: Type Thursday’s YouGov poll, the best for the Tories in 18 months, into UK Polling Report’s seat calculator, and it tells you that Labour would be three short of a majority on these numbers. It is a reminder that if the parties are level pegging, Labour is winning.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Godfrey Bloom, Ukip anti-hero

From our UK edition

Debate the relative merits of the two speeches from Nigel Farage and Paul Nuttall all you like, but the headline from today's Ukip conference won't give voters any impression that the party has grown up at all. Godfrey Bloom (who I've had my own run-in with before) decided to turn up to a fringe on women in politics and start talking about 'sluts'. He admitted as much later (audio clip below).