Uk politics

Sunday

David Blackburn

Desperate Balls comes out fighting

From our UK edition

Springtime for Ed Miliband, curtains for Balls. Or at least it should be, following the news that Unite will back Miliband for the leadership. It is rumoured that Balls will pull out of the race and support David Miliband in an attempt to secure the shadow chancellor’s post. But only Brown does seemingly blind defiance better than Balls. This morning, Balls has assaulted the airwaves with the full complement of Brownite clichés: ‘I fight on; I fight to win. I’m in it to win it. I am the best person to fight this coalition.’ You get the impression that he means it, and he’ll fight on in hope rather than expectation. It will take a miracle for Balls to win from here.

David Blackburn

Alistair Darling – a loss to the Labour party

From our UK edition

Alistair Darling was one of the ministers to emerge from the Brown years with his reputation enhanced. His honesty about the state of the economy, beginning with that extraordinarily stark interview about the coming collapse, contrasted with what is politely described as Brown’s eternal optimism. Darling also deserves commendation for fighting Brown and Balls’ shameless politicking, and for winning. However, Darling lost the battle over raising VAT hike. Darling told Andrew Marr this morning: ‘There's a choice really, you can put up VAT or you can put up an income-related tax which is what the National Insurance is... "The advantage of VAT is it brings in a lot of money.

David Blackburn

US double talk on Megrahi

From our UK edition

If what the Sunday Times reports is true, then Kenny McAskill deserves an apology. ‘In the letter, sent on August 12 last year to Alex Salmond, the first minister, and justice officials, Richard LeBaron (deputy ambassador in London) wrote that the United States wanted Megrahi to remain imprisoned in view of the nature of the crime. The note added: “Nevertheless, if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose.

Saturday

David Blackburn

Clegg denies it was a mistake to assert the illegality of the Iraq War at PMQs

From our UK edition

Nick Clegg has made this statement on Channel Four News: ‘I have always been open that my personal opinion that the legal base is not justified for our going into war. That wasn't the view of the previous government, this government as a whole, the new coalition government, doesn't take a view on the legality of it. But I don't think it is right for me to enter government and somehow completely airbrush out well-known personal views that I have held and expressed for a very long time. ‘I am the deputy prime minister, I am also a human being who feels with great conviction about things. I don't think that politics is well served by politicians suddenly falling utterly silent on things that they are well known to feel strongly about.

David Blackburn

Unite back Ed Miliband

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband has secured a clean sweep of the major unions. That poses Miliband a problem in the future – centrist opponents can characterise him as ‘the union candidate’ with all its negative connotations. In the meantime, Miliband’s chances of becoming the next Labour leader have been greatly enhanced.   Ed Balls, however, is effectively finished. Balls will recognise this, and will be considering his next move. Now his ambition is to be shadow chancellor, and, as Paul Waugh argued yesterday, David Miliband is the candidate most likely to offer him that, or so the theory goes.  It is, if you'll excuse the expression, all eyes on Balls.

David Blackburn

The Brokeback coalition

From our UK edition

It’s the silly season. The Newspapers have been trawling for anti-coalition quotes from MPs, their wives and their dogs. They’ve found two. Tim Farron, the defeated candidate for the Lib Dem deputy leadership, said yesterday that David Cameron had a ’toxic brand’ and it wasn’t his job to cleanse it. Well, the latter is certainly true, and Lib Dem benches are concerned by plummeting polls and intense flak from Labour. David Cameron will make a very public effort to grant the Lib Dems concessions on civil liberties and fairness in the tax system, a pre-emptive tonic ahead of cuts.    There is disquiet on Tory backbenches - there always is. David Davis has been stitched-up in the Boot and Flogger in Southwark.

Friday

David Blackburn

Balls to back David?

From our UK edition

Paul Waugh sees it as his duty to pass on little drops of intrigue, and this one’s a dollop. If, as is expected, Unite back Ed Miliband tomorrow, the clapped-out Balls juggernaught will finally croak: there is no chance of him winning without Unite’s backing. There is a widespread rumour that Balls will pull out and back David Miliband. Waugh explains why: ‘The scenario painted to me is this: by dropping out and backing David M, his chances of becoming Shadow Chancellor are greatly enhanced. (The assumption here is that Ed Mili can't offer him Shadow Chancellor because the top of the ticket would just look too unbalanced...that's an assumption some will challenge).’ Only time will tell.

James Forsyth

Bluntly speaking

From our UK edition

Crispin Blunt has been unceremoniously slapped down by No 10 for saying that the ban on parties in prisons will be lifted. The Coalition is following a liberal line on criminal justice but it has no desire to pick a fight on the question of whether prisoners should be allowed to party in jail. A look at The Sun and The Mail this morning show why Downing Street dumped on Blunt so fast. The Mail followed up yesterday’s critical coverage of the Coalition with a devastating front-page assault on Blunt and his arguments. The Sun, which has been extremely supportive of the Coalition, also went for Blunt.

David Blackburn

If the Tories go on like this Labour will become the party of law and order

From our UK edition

Before such fripperies were banned, al-Qaeda terrorists were given lessons in stand-up comedy while in high-security prisons. I’d have thought that the exploding underpants fraternity had natural advantages in comedy, but never mind. What I want to know is who gave the lessons? It’d be ironic if it was a voluntary group. The Mail has worked itself into a panicked fury about that the ban on prison parties would be revoked. To be fair to the Mail, Crispin Blunt, the Prisons Minister claimed as much in speech last night, and he vowed to abolish Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection - orders that incarcerate the sort of charmers who butcher you in the bus queue if you give 'em a look.

Fraser Nelson

Will GDP rise be Osborne’s get out clause?

From our UK edition

Alistair Darling has been on Sky News doing a lap of honour for today’s GDP growth figures. “Vindicates everything we did,” he said - his narrative being that the extra debt did indeed boost the economy and produced 1.1 percent growth in this quarter. This chimes with what I wrote in the Daily Telegraph a few weeks ago: that the economy is better, not worse, than the Tories thought. Even if, or should I say when, the ONS say the figure was wrong and needs to be revised downwards it will still mean tax revenue churning in at a far faster rate than thought. This will give Osborne a get-out clause if he wants to go softer on the cuts, or the tax rises (any adjustment would have to be consistent with his 80/20 split between cuts and taxes).

David Blackburn

Self-interested Britain

From our UK edition

Liam Fox is in the most invidious position. It is hard enough to secure significant budget cuts against vested interests that maintain anti-competitive procurement; and being at war deepens the task. Cuts of 10 to 20 percent must be made but at the same time Fox acknowledges, in an interview with the Telegraph, that: ‘We have to keep sufficient land forces to hold territory if required, we have got to maintain enough maritime power and we have got to maintain air power to maintain air superiority.’ Like all defence secretaries, Fox is trying to contain the warring service chiefs, their temperaments exacerbated by the coming cuts. Fox is even handed.

Thursday

Fraser Nelson

An odious spectacle

From our UK edition

Seeing Nick Griffin playing the ostracised martyr on television is sickening, and underlines the futility of banning him. Some 8,000 are invited to the Queen’s garden party, there was zero chance that Her Majesty would allowed within 50 metres of him. So his daft blog, asking readers to suggest questions he’d put to the Queen, was an irrelevance. His whole political schtick is that ‘I represent a million ordinary people, and the establishment won’t listen to them’. The more you ban him from things, the louder he shouts this message. What happened today is grist to his mill.   Sky News interviewed guests outside, who thought it unfair that he was banned, given that all MEPs are automatically invited and have been for years.

David Blackburn

The coalition prepares for trouble

From our UK edition

Labour’s relentless pursuit of the cancelled Sheffield Forgemasters’ loan is finally paying dividends. The government maintain that the loan was cancelled because the directors did not want to reduce their shareholding. It has emerged that, possibly, the directors did in fact offer to reduce their equity – a point that Jack Straw attempted to make at yesterday’s dire PMQs. Today brought more intrigue. A major Tory donor advised the government to cancel the loan, on the grounds that it was not necessary and possibly illegal on EU regulations. Pat McFadden, the sepulchral Shadow Business Secretary, has demanded answers from Vince Cable, trying to break the coalition’s united front at its weakest point.

James Forsyth

Brotherly love | 22 July 2010

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband will give his second preference vote in the Labour leadership contender to his brother, he tells the New Statesman’s Jason Cowley.   The Ed Miliband interview is part of a really rich set of profiles of the Labour leadership candidates. Diane Abbott inadvertently reveals that it is David Miliband who is taking the duties of a future Labour leader most seriously with her complaint that he is the leadership candidate who insisted on a meeting to find out what the duties of the victorious candidate would be at conference.    Both Eds offer quite left-wing prospectuses. Ed Balls argues that Labour didn’t lose because it lost touch with ‘middle England’.

David Selbourne

Too late to save Britain – it’s time to emigrate

From our UK edition

David Selbourne is a political philosopher and theorist. This article appeared in the magazine last week; it is an edited version of his speech for a Spectator debate on the motion, ‘Too late to save Britain. It’s time to leave.’' Part of me feels that those who have helped to bring the country down — venal politicians, false educators, degraders of the media, thieving privatisers of the public domain — need to be fought to a standstill, here on this battlefield, by those with the energy, strength and clarity of mind to do so. For no one wants to believe that the country of his birth, language, upbringing and way of thinking cannot be redeemed.

David Blackburn

Barring Griffin was an error, Your Majesty

From our UK edition

I sympathise with the Palace, who were put in a tight position by Nick Griffin’s attendance at a Garden Party in his capacity as an MEP. But he should not have been barred unless he had broken the law or was gratuitously offensive, which he has not been on this occasion.   Griffin’s attendance at anything always becomes a party political matter, such is the loathing felt for him and his politics, and his ability to use that loathing to his advantage. So, the leader of the BNP appears on GMTV this morning, telling all of his pride at being an MEP and his invitation to Buckingham Palace. The Palace defines that as an attempt to ‘blatantly politicise attendance’. Griffin is far too subtle an operator for anything so obvious.

David Blackburn

Already, the anti-war lawyers leap on Clegg’s slip

From our UK edition

Never one to miss the bus, Phillipe Sands QC has informed the Guardian that an international court would be ‘interested’ in Nick Clegg’s view that the Iraq War was illegal. Sands continues with his favourite homily: ‘Lord Goldsmith never gave a written advice that the war was lawful. Nick Clegg is only repeating what Lord Goldsmith told Tony Blair on 30 January 2003: that without a further UN security resolution the war would be illegal and Jack Straw knows that.’ Well, that would be right but for Goldsmith’s draft advice of the 12 February 2003, and his final clarification on 7 March 2003.

David Blackburn

In the service of others

From our UK edition

David Cameron’s Big Society re-launch continues after his American interlude. Today, he will introduce the national citizens’ service for 16 year olds, which was famously backed by Michael Caine during the election campaign. There is no military element to this national service; the aim is to unite different communities, ages and classes. As a leader in the Times puts it: ‘The bold aim is to turn a summer of potential drift and disaffection into one of purpose for youths from different backgrounds, working together to help people worse off than themselves, under the wing of various charities and social enterprises; and thereby, perhaps, to lay the ground for a less dislocated society in the future.

Matthew Sinclair

Meeting the cost of welfare reform

From our UK edition

As far back as last September, Iain Martin wrote that Iain Duncan Smith’s plans to reform the welfare system were going to run into trouble over cost: 'But there is no way these proposals, as drafted, will be implemented by a Conservative government, for one simple reason: they carry an estimated up-front increased cost of £3.6bn. A Treasury and Tory Chancellor desperate to find massive savings quickly will never nod that through even if advocates of these proposals promise vast “long-term” savings. Officials will simply say: how many times have we heard such talk before?' It would be a real tragedy if the political will built up to take serious action on this issue was wasted out of a failure to make the sums add up.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Abbott’s radio silence

From our UK edition

Anne McElvoy’s report for the Today Programme on the Labour leadership this morning is well worth listening to. It featured all the usual suspect and some classic moments—Tessa Jowell damming Ed Miliband with faint praise and Ed Balls’ henchmen Charlie Whelan going out of his way to praise Andy Burnham—but the really memorable bit came when McElvoy asked Abbott about her decision to send her son to private school. As with her infamous interview with Andrew Neil, Abbott simply refused to answer. There was just a period of dead air.