Uk politics

Sunday

James Forsyth

Nick Clegg needs a QC to address the Rennard crisis

‘What did he know and when did he know it’ is one of the staples of modern journalism and it is the question Nick Clegg is struggling to answer over the Lord Rennard allegations. Before continuing, it should be stressed that Rennard denies the allegations made against him. But the situation is fast turning into a political crisis for the Liberal Democrats, it is splashed across a whole host of newspaper front pages this morning. (Michael Fabricant, who is coordinating the parliamentary part of the Tory by-election effort, has already tweeted a picture of Tory activists brandishing these front pages in Eastleigh.) At the moment, the Liberal Democrats are relying

Saturday

Rajini Vaidyanathan

Welcome to India, Mr Camerooon: how the PM fared with the local media

How did David Cameron fare with the local media on this week’s trip to India? The third day of his trip attracted the most headlines, when he visited Amritsar. If Mr Cameron, described as ‘Mr Camerooon’ by one enthusiastic TV journalist, and reportedly introduced as James Cameron by another, didn’t have a high profile amongst Indians at the start of his trip, this one act ensured otherwise. After he’d talked trade with business leaders, met a Bollywood star and performed the obligatory cricket photo opp,  he headed to Amritsar, to Jallianwala Bagh, the scene of a massacre which is etched in India’s history. It was here, in 1919, that hundreds of

James Forsyth

UKIP surge in Eastleigh

By-elections are notoriously hard to call. But everyone who comes back from Eastleigh says the same thing, UKIP are the party with forward momentum. This morning’s Populus poll bears that out. They are in third place with 21 per cent, with the Tories second on 28 and the Lib Dems ahead with 33. But, as the indispensable UK Polling Report points out, if you don’t reallocate some of the undecides to the party they voted for last time, UKIP are doing even better. The numbers then are UKIP 25%, Tories 26% and Lib Dems 31%. As I said in the magazine this week, UKIP are picking up support from all

Friday

James Forsyth

AAA loss is politically difficult for Osborne

The United Kingdom’s triple A rating is now lost with one credit rating agency, Moody’s. This is a politically difficult moment for George Osborne. Back in February 2010, he set keeping the triple A rating as one of the key tests of a Conservative government’s economic policy. His opponents will delight in pointing out that he has failed the test he has set himself, while nervousness on the Tory benches about the coalition’s economic strategy will be heightened by this news. Economically, though, I doubt that this will have much impact. In recent weeks, Britain’s debt has been trading more like that of France, which has lost its triple A

Fraser Nelson

Why Britain lost its AAA rating

Even the pessimistic analysts had given Britain until September to lose its AAA rating. That it has happened now, before the Budget, shows just how fast things are moving. Moody’s has tonight downgraded Britan from AAA to AA1 and has also told us why. Don’t expect economic hell to break loose as a result: these ratings tend to follow, rather than lead, the markets. But this is politically devastating for George Osborne, given that he has asked us to judge him by the preservation of this rating (and made it a manifesto pledge). So what went wrong? 1. The markets now doubt that Osborne has a credible debt strategy. The

Isabel Hardman

Five key points from the Pollard Review evidence on Newsnight and Jimmy Savile

There are over 3,000 pages of evidence in the cache of transcripts, emails, statements and texts for the Pollard Review released by the BBC today. Some of the interviews covered familiar old ground, such as Jeremy Paxman telling the inquiry that it was ‘common gossip that Jimmy Savile liked, you know, young – it was always assumed to be girls’. But there are other points which are worth noting from today’s release. There may well be others: some of the evidence, as the pictures below show, was heavily redacted. 1. Newsnight was poorly resourced This was a problem referred to by many of those who gave evidence to the inquiry.

Alex Massie

Vicky Pryce and the Usefulness of the Not Proven Verdict

Like John Rentoul, I think much of the scoffing and chortling at the expense of the poor jury asked to consider Vicky Pryce’s guilt (or innocence!) is misplaced. This was an unusual case. The questions* they asked – which have been much mocked – seem entirely reasonable to me. More than that, they’re quite intelligent. “Reasonable doubt” for instance is not necessarily an obvious thing to measure or define. As for their conduct demonstrating that the Great British public is incapable of jury service, well, phooey to that. In any case, in both the legal systems that apply on these islands, the vast majority of trials do not involve juries

Isabel Hardman

Eric Pickles in Eastleigh: Lib Dems are holding Tories back

All the evidence is pointing to a Lib Dem win in Eastleigh, but those Tories visiting are continuing to fight to the bitter end. Eric Pickles was down there today, and wasted no time at all in sinking his teeth into his Coalition partners. The Communities Secretary said: ‘The Lib Dems are taking the people of Eastleigh for a ride. Their homes tax would hit hardworking families hardest – with ordinary people running the risk of seeing a £320 hike in their council tax. The Lib Dem candidate doesn’t understand that his new tax could not be introduced without a costly general revaluation of council tax bands. When Labour did

Sarah Mulley

What the government must do to prepare for Romanian and Bulgarian migrants

Ministers and MPs are nervous about a mass influx of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants putting the benefit system under strain next year. But ministers should beware, and learn from the political mistakes of the past. The failure to predict the scale of post-2004 migration to the UK from the EU caused major political problems for the Labour government. The public were left with the impression that the government was not in control of immigration and that Labour were contemptuous of public views and that they were even deliberately misleading them. The Conservatives have less to worry about on the second point – polling suggests the public broadly support them on immigration – but they have

Jonathan Jones

Tinkering with tax isn’t enough

Should the 10p tax rate be brought back? Should the top rate be higher, or lower? Can the personal allowance be raised further? Is a mansion tax a good idea? Should the fuel duty rise be scrapped? These are the questions that are rearing their heads again — as they do every six months or so, in the run up to a budget or autumn statement. The problem is that they are all considered — in so far as they’re considered at all — in isolation. We focus on one aspect of the tax system, fiddle with it a little, then move on to another. And, as Institute for Fiscal Studies

Isabel Hardman

Big Brother cash machine campaign costs nearly £100k

Remember those menacing HMRC eyes that Fraser found staring out at him from a cashpoint last month? Well, it turns out they’re a pretty expensive pair of eyes. A Freedom of Information request by the TPA’s Matt Sinclair returned this week, revealing that this cashpoint campaign on tax evasion cost just under £100,000. The response says: ‘The total media spend for the Evasion ATM advertising campaign specified in your request was £95,930.40, excluding VAT. This amount was approved by the Cabinet Office. ‘To set this figure in the correct context, the Government has made around £1 billion available to HMRC to tackle avoidance, evasion and fraud to bring in an

Liz Truss

Our brightest children are falling behind their peers in other countries

Today’s jobs market is highly competitive and globalised. It is no longer enough simply to see if we are doing better than we did last year, or the year before, or 10 years ago. Far better to judge how we are doing against other countries – for our young people will be fighting for jobs against their peers from Singapore and China, from Canada and the US, from Sweden and Slovenia.That is why I such set stock by international league tables, and of analysis of them. We see how we compare against others – and we discover who we must learn from. So it is enormously worrying when respected researchers

Isabel Hardman

Chancellor caught in the headlights on fuel prices

George Osborne is getting used to the twice-yearly battle that precedes an autumn statement or a budget when motorists, newspapers and some of his own MPs start haranguing him on fuel. It’s the Times’ splash today, with petrol prices expected to rise to their highest-ever levels, and campaigners calling once again for the Chancellor to cancel September’s fuel duty increase when he makes his Budget statement next month. As I reported back in January, Tory MPs want this Budget to be another cost-of-living statement, which, like the autumn, allows the Coalition to demonstrate that it is doing all it can to hack away at the major pressures on voters’ wallets.

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

Labour’s southern mission

How can Labour win back voters in the South East? At the 2010 general election, Labour took ten southern seats outside of London, compared to four times that in 1997. Like the Tories in the North, Ed Miliband needs to offer policies that will ease the concerns of these lost southeastern voters; to convince them Labour is once again on their side. Miliband has tried to address the problem. The catalyst came from John Denham, who urged Miliband, as Giles Radice did with Neil Kinnock in 1992, to remember the ‘6:14 from Basingstoke’ voter and avoid using ‘north-south’ language. Instead, Denham suggested Labour should present policies that appeal across the whole country. The Labour leader

Rory Meakin

George Osborne needs to deliver serious tax reform

‘Isn’t there a case for looking at the whole system at some point?’ whispered Isabel on Tuesday when MPs criticised the taxman again. Well, yes, there is. Last May, the 2020 Tax Commission published its final report, setting out the moral, economic and practical case for lower, simpler taxes. The Commission deliberated for 18 months before coming to a fundamental rethink of the UK tax system. It proposed to sweep away a multitude of fiddly taxes that hit the same income on multiple occasions and replace them all with a reformed, simple Single Income Tax. Simpler taxes would mean fewer loopholes for clever accountants to exploit while freeing up HMRC

Shiraz Maher

The decline of George Galloway

The decay and decline of George Galloway was on full display in Oxford last night when he stormed out of a debate with a third-year PPE student from Brasenose College. The student’s crime was to be an Israeli, a discovery which led Galloway to declare: ‘I don’t debate with Israelis. I have been misled.’ He then got up to leave. ‘I don’t recognise Israel and I don’t debate with Israelis,’ Galloway said as he exited the room. This is, of course, the old curmudgeon’s stock-in-trade. Galloway has made a career trading in the worst forms of sectarian and dog whistle politics. The Independent’s Owen Jones was busy calling on the

The Spectator

Britain can’t afford an International Health Service

Health tourism is raised every now again by politicians, but never has it been raised so forcefully by such a senior doctor. In this week’s Spectator, Professor J.Meirion Thomas, a consultant surgeon with the NHS and one of Britain’s leading cancer experts, speaks out about health tourism. He writes: I am frustrated at seeing the NHS targeted by patients who are ineligible for free care, but who usually get through the net. Specialist units may be especially vulnerable. Reluctantly, I have decided to share my concerns. The final trigger to write this article was a potentially ineligible patient who accused me of unethical behaviour because I would not promote his

Jonathan Jones

Deficit latest: Still £5 billion higher than last year

Today’s borrowing figures show that the government had a surplus of £11.4 billion in January. But before we get too excited, a bit of context is in order. There’s (almost) always a surplus in January, thanks mainly to self assessment and capital gains tax receipts. And today’s figure includes £3.8 billion transferred from the Bank of England’s Asset Purchase Facility to the Treasury. Stripping that out gives a £7.6 billion surplus — an improvement on the £6.4 billion surplus in January 2012, but not enough to make up for higher borrowing in the rest of the year. Total borrowing in the ten months of the year so far is £97.6

James Forsyth

Eastleigh shows how difficult the 2015 Tory/Lib Dem fight will be

The good news for Nick Clegg—and the bad news for David Cameron—is that the Liberal Democrats are racing certainties to hold Eastleigh in the by-election next Thursday. As I say in the magazine this week, the Liberal Democrats’ base in the constituency – they hold every ward in the seat – has given them an insuperable advantage. This victory means that Clegg will be spared the Spring conference crisis that would have followed a defeat there; for if the Lib Dems could lose Eastleigh where they are so well dug in, they could lose anywhere. Cameron, by contrast, will have to deal with an intensely restless party. The Tories’ failure

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Mitch’s pitch on Europe

Andrew Mitchell’s piece in the FT today marks his return to normal politics post-Plebgate. Up to now, Mitchell has confined his post-resignation comments either to his old stomping ground of development or to the sequence of events that led to his premature departure from government. By contrast, today’s piece sees Mitchell getting involved in a frontline political issue, Britain’s relationship with Europe. The article is full of suggestions, joint-sittings of the UK-Polish parliament and meetings of the UK-Dutch Cabinets. But Mitchell is clearly determined to work within the framework set out by Cameron’s Europe speech. No one could say that the articles rocks the boat. But what makes it significant