Uk politics

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Boris is right, but will anyone listen?

From our UK edition

The tensions that have been bubbling away in the London mayoral contest spilt out into the open today with Boris Johnson accusing Ken Livingstone of lying about both of their tax affairs. On the facts of the matter, it looks pretty clear that Boris is right: he doesn’t use a company to reduce his tax liability. There are, though, those claiming that accusing Livingstone of being an ‘f***ing liar’ will hurt Boris. But I doubt this; it is hard to imagine Boris as an angry or mean-spirited person. What this exchange does do, though, is raise the stakes for their televised hustings tomorrow night. I expect that Livingstone will try and rile Boris.

Douglas Murray

Sarkozy shows extremists the door

From our UK edition

Who on earth does Nicolas Sarkozy think he is? The answer, of course, is President of the French Republic. And from that position — and propelled by the Toulouse shootings and doubtless by the imminent election — he has chosen to expel a number of people from the Republic whose views, actions and teachings are deemed inimical to the State. Sarkozy gave the order yesterday and a couple of hours later the men were on planes back to their countries of origin. As the Times reports, the Algerian Islamist Ali Belhadad was flown back to Algiers and Almany Baradji, an imam, was sent back to Mali. The French Interior Ministry explains that Baradji ‘preached anti-Semitism and the rejection of the West’. Neither man was given any time to appeal.

Jonathan Jones

More poll woes for the coalition

From our UK edition

You certainly don’t need polls to tell you that it’s been a bad couple of weeks for the coalition – but we’ve got them anyway. Pete noted on Sunday that the government’s approval rating was at its lowest since the start of this Parliament, and it’s actually dropped another three points since. Today’s YouGov poll finds just 21 per cent giving the coalition the thumbs up, against 64 per cent who disapprove. That’s almost identical to the 20-64 split YouGov found for Gordon Brown’s Labour government back in January 2010. The below graph shows how public opinion has turned against the coalition over the past two years: Today’s poll also updates another important indicator: whom the public blames for the cuts we face.

Peter Hoskin

Gove calls on universities to improve A-levels

From our UK edition

It may be a sleepy day in Westminster, but Michael Gove and his school reforms have lost none of their brilliant urgency. The schools secretary has today written to Ofqual — the body in charge of regulating the exams system — to ask that universities be allowed to involve themselves, much more closely than ever before, in designing and implementing A-levels. In the letter he sums up his plans thus: ‘I want to see new arrangements that allow Awarding Organisations to work with universities to develop qualifications in a way that is unconstrained — as far as possible — by centrally determined criterion.’ And he adds that this process should eventually allow ‘universities, not Awarding Organisations, to drive the system.

Sebastian Payne

Boris to Ken: you’re a f***ing liar

From our UK edition

From the Guardian, reporting on this morning's Mayoral debate on LBC: ‘We've learned that things did not go well in the lift after the hustings was over. Boris went nose to nose with Ken in a small lift and told Ken three times: "You're a f***ing liar, you're a f***ing liar, you're a f***ing liar." Paddick and Jenny were also squeezed in, alongside James Rea, the LBC managing editor. Johnson's anger was due to claims made during the hustings by Livingstone about Johnson's tax arrangements, which the mayor flatly denies. He told me later that Ken's claims were "nonsense". Of course at that point we hadn't heard about the ding-dong in the lift.’ ITV’s Simon Harris reports that Boris's face was ‘red with rage’ during the confrontation.

Jonathan Jones

Web surveillance plan divides the coalition

From our UK edition

The government’s under fire from members of both coalition parties over its plans to extend the state’s investigatory powers to cover new means of communication. Currently, under section 22 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), public bodies can obtain communications data without the need of a warrant or any external authorisation. This gives them access to a wide array of information including the location, time, date and duration of a phone call or the IP address from which an email was sent.

Monday

John Simpson

A new Argy-bargy | 2 April 2012

From our UK edition

Another article to mark the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War — this one from the current issue of the magazine. It’s by John Simpson and analyses the current tensions between Britain and Argentina. Buenos Aires Buenos Aires is as exhilarating, as unpredictable, as stylish as ever. But the economic boom is over. Times are hard once again, more shops in Calle Florida are boarded up, the sales are pretty frantic. And so, as Jorge Luis Borges, the blind sage of Calle Maipu, just off the superb Plaza San Martin, once remarked: ‘When Argentina’s economy goes bad, you can be sure that nationalism will soon be beating its wings.

Peter Hoskin

Miliband talks tough

From our UK edition

Remember when Ed Miliband couldn't be found anywhere? Now you can barely get away from him. The Labour leader has been conspicuous by his presence over the past week, whether on the airwaves or in graffiti form (see left, a photo taken on London's South Bank yesterday). And he's continued that hi-vis trend today, by launching Labour's local election campaign in Birmingham. Two things stand out from the speech he gave at that event. The first was his heavy emphasis on the pledges he announced last week: capping railway fares, unfreezing the personal allowance for pensioners, etc.

James Forsyth

Cameron loyalists say his Tory critics are a small minority

From our UK edition

The drumbeat of criticism of David Cameron and George Osborne by various Tory MPs, summed up on the front page of today’s Telegraph, has drawn a reaction from those MPs loyal to the leadership. Kris Hopkins, the founder of the 301 group of Tory MPs, complains that the trouble is being whipped up by a ‘small group of disaffected people’ and that ‘the nature of their criticisms shows that this is about their egos not making the country a better place.’ At issue here is who speaks for Tory MPs.

James Forsyth

Tory ire focuses on Dave’s uni friend

From our UK edition

The grumbling in the Conservative party at the moment is reminiscent of Tudor court politics. No one is prepared to criticise the king directly so instead various personal favourites of the monarch are targeted. At the moment, the chief proxy for discontent is Andrew Feldman. To the Cameroons’ critics, he sums up everything that is wrong with the way the PM and his team do politics. Feldman is co-chairman of the party not because of his standing in the party or the country but because he is a friend of Cameron. To further irritate their critics, their friendship dates back to them serving together on the ball committee of their Oxford college many years ago. As a friend of Cameron, Feldman has got away with errors that would have finished off others.

Jonathan Jones

Now Cameron and Osborne take flak from their own side

From our UK edition

The bad headlines continue for Downing Street this morning, with the Telegraph front page declaring ‘Tory MPs round on Cameron and Osborne’. Of course, Tory backbenchers griping about their leadership is nothing new and, usually, ‘concern that Government policies are being poorly explained to voters’ or a suggestion that ‘a senior MP should be appointed as full-time Conservative Party chairman’ wouldn’t make the front page. But after the two week onslaught Downing Street has just suffered — from granny tax to cash for access to petrol panic to pasties — the disgruntled chattering reverberates that bit louder.

Sunday

James Forsyth

Cameron must take on Whitehall

From our UK edition

I doubt that, come the election in 2015, many voters will remember the row about putting VAT on pasties or Francis Maude’s advice to fill up a jerry can with petrol. But what will be on their minds is whether the government is competent and, to use that dread phrase, ‘in touch’ with their day to day struggles. It is for this reason that the key question about the last ten days is whether they make David Cameron realise that the civil service machine just doesn’t work anymore and that he needs to change the way he governs. The early indications on this front are encouraging. Those who have been involved in COBRA discussions these past few days have been shocked by how the failings identified during the fuel crisis of 2000 still exist.

Peter Hoskin

Everyone’s a loser

From our UK edition

Have the opinion polls ever looked more discouraging, overall, for the Tories during this government? Not that I can remember, although I'm happy to be corrected. Not only does YouGov's poll for the Sunday Times (£) have Labour ahead by nine points, but there are also some pretty dismal supplementary findings. For YouGov, both David Cameron and the coalition score their lowest approval ratings since the start of this Parliament. For ComRes in the Independent on Sunday, 72 per cent of respondents reckon the government is ‘out of touch with ordinary voters’; 81 per cent say the government created ‘unnecessary panic’ over fuel; and so on. It's probably no surprise that Tory MPs are now telling the Indy that ‘It is a friggin' shambles’.

Peter Hoskin

Cameron needs a proper solution on party funding — and soon

From our UK edition

Today's ‘cash for access’ revelations (£) are, taken individually, less perturbing than last week's. What we learn is that David Cameron (and other ministers) met with donors on occasions (and at locations) other than those already disclosed, and that Peter Cruddas was more involved with this process than Downing St would have us believe. There is very little added to the most serious allegation from a week ago: that big money donors could gain special insights in the policy process, or even involve themselves in it. But, taken as a whole, today's revelations are extremely tricky for Cameron. Not only do they keep the story going, but they also highlight how absences of transparency will often be probed and exposed.

Saturday

Melanie McDonagh

Galloway and religion

From our UK edition

A few years ago, The Spectator, in an inspired notion for the Easter issue, asked a number of prominent individuals whether they believed in the Resurrection. And among the surprises was George Galloway, who replied emphatically in the affirmative: ‘Yes, I believe in the Resurrection. I believe God restored the life of Jesus of Nazareth and took him to his bosom. The example of suffering and sacrifice followed by vindication is central to my religious belief.

James Forsyth

Galloway’s ugly politics

From our UK edition

Helen Pidd’s report of George Galloway’s victory in Bradford West recounts what happened just after he had arrived back from the count: 'Galloway climbed on top of a grey car and was handed a megaphone to preach to the assembled faithful. All praise to Allah!" he yelled, to jubilant cries of "Allah Allah!" And on it went. "Long live Iraq! Long live Palestine!" ' First of all this suggests that enthusiasm for Galloway wasn’t, as some are suggesting, driven by his opposition to austerity but by his sectional appeal. Second, it is a depressing reminder of what is happening to British politics. There’ll be a lot of ink spilled in the next few days on the limitations of Britain’s political parties.

Peter Hoskin

A question of motivation

From our UK edition

Flitting through the opinion pages this morning, there's one headline that stands out far more than any other. It's on Charles Moore's column for the Telegraph, and it reads, ‘Even I’m starting to wonder: what do this lot know about anything?’ What follows underneath is effectively a catalogue of the ‘small things’ that may accumulate and cause voters to question both the coalition's motives and its ability. I'd recommend that you read the article in full, but here is one passage from it that deserves highlighting. It concerns Francis Maude's jerry can line: ‘But now that I have heard the Conservatives’ private explanation, which is being handed down to constituency associations by MPs, I begin to feel angry.

Friday

Douglas Murray

Behind Galloway’s grin

From our UK edition

George Galloway has tragically demonstrated that sectarian politics are now alive and well in Britain.  The other week Ken Livingstone appeared at a London mosque and promised to make London a ‘beacon of Islam’ and last week went on to dismiss Jews as unlikely to vote Labour because they are ‘rich’. Now we see Galloway flying in to one of the country’s most divided areas to sweep the Labour party aside in what he has termed ‘a Bradford spring.’ Much can — and should — be said about this depressing, and predictable, turn of events.  But for now I’d just like to make two quick observations. The first regards the ‘Bradford spring’ phrase.  This cannot be allowed to go uncommented upon.

Catherine Lillycrop

Lansley’s biscuit bill

From our UK edition

If Andrew Lansley thought he could rest easy after passage of the Health Bill, then he's in for a rude awakening. Yesterday, the shadow Cabinet Minister Jon Trickett busted Lansley's department for spending £109,017 since January this year to supply its employees and visitors with free refreshments — aka, tea and biscuits. Naturally, Labour aren't telling the whole story here. The amount being spent has declined under the coalition, from £194,000 for the equivalent period in 2010, to £137,000 in 2011, to that £109,017 figure now. But, still, it's another classic example of waste during a time of austerity.

Fraser Nelson

This is what politics has become

From our UK edition

George Galloway’s victory last night is a reminder of a wider problem in British politics: the low regard in which all main political parties are held. By-elections can throw up quirky victories, usually ironed out in the general election. There won’t be an army of Galloway’s marching on parliament at the next election. It’s like Glasgow East: a classic Labour safe seat-cum-‘rotten borough’ taken for granted (and ignored) for so long that the ruling party’s apparatus had atrophied. Like John Mason in Glasgow East, Galloway won’t last long.    But the same phenomenon which took Galloway to victory last night, and humbled the main parties, is also at work in Scotland.