Uk politics

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

The other Rachel

From our UK edition

The boat the Israelis peacefully intercepted was called Rachel Corrie  - named after a young American protester accidentally killed when  offering herself as a human shield in Gaza. Her name became immortalised, some 30 songs have been written for her, a London play named after her and a film last year. But another Rachel, completely forgotten, is Rachel Thaler - a 16-year-old British citizen murdered by a Palestinian suicide bomber in 2002. Only one British publication has ever mentioned her: The Spectator.

Saturday

David Blackburn

Labour leadership contenders eyeing the past, not the future

From our UK edition

I wonder if the Labour leadership contenders worry that the previous generation’s forthcoming memoirs have created more excitement than them? I would be. The insipid campaign has laid bare the paucity of talent on Labour’s benches, and the party’s ideological exhaustion. No serving Cabinet minister lost their seat at the election; Tony Blair aside, the Milibands and Ed Balls are the best Labour has. That’s a grim prospect if your colour’s red. Ed Balls has the panache of a Vauxhall Zafira; and the two Milibands are trapped in a Beckettian whirl of meaningless jargon, convinced that using abstract nouns is a mark of vital intelligence. It isn’t; it’s irritating, and voters spurn it.

Daniel Korski

Politicize aid? It already is – and good too

From our UK edition

On Thursday, Andrew Mitchell rolled out the government’s first overseas aid initiative – a transparency watchdog – and took to the airwaves to explain the idea. It makes particular sense in a downturn to ensure that taxpayer’s money is well spent but also to give voters the feeling that independent assessments are carried out to guarantee value for their money.   On Newsnight, the International Development Secretary ran into a criticism, often voiced by the aid community – that the Conservatives are too willing to “militarise” aid or to “politicise” it. He dealt with the criticism  robustly – but I want to have a go too. Because while these are snappy sound bites they miss a number of fundamental points.

James Forsyth

New Labour, a question of dates

From our UK edition

Ed Balls makes an interesting definitional point in his interview with The Times. He says that to him “new Labour was 1994 to 1997, us translating from being a party of opposition to a party of government, understanding that our radicalism had to be based on credible foundations, that no one would trust you on public services unless you were trusted on interest rates and inflation.” What many other people mean by New Labour is the public service reform agenda. But that didn’t really kick into gear until after 2001. Balls claims that, that was when New Labour lost its way. Balls is trying to argue that it was the ’94 to ’97 period that was responsible for the three election victories and that the party can, therefore, move left.

Friday

Daniel Korski

Post-2011 Afghanistan: Plan B

From our UK edition

Having returned from Washington DC, where I spoke to a range of senior policy-makers about Afghanistan and Pakistan, I am struck by how much confusion there is about what President Obama meant when he said that he wanted US combat troops return home in 2011. Did he mean that 2011 would allow the first assessment of the progress and his strategy and a tokenistic reconfiguration or forces? Or did he genuinely mean that the date would see the beginning of a real, if drawn-out withdrawal? For what it is worth, I am convinced the US president meant the former. This is crucial to the UK, since so much of what the Britain does – and presumably much time was spent on this at the recent Chequers discussion – is about staying close to the US.

Daniel Korski

Noises off, officers

From our UK edition

David Cameron is caught between a rock and a hard place. His government is rightly committed to its AfPak policy and the need to keep ties with the United States strong and close. But the Prime Minister and his aides probably also know that the assessments offered by a number of senior military officers of the campaign are rose-tinted, and suspect that the US administration may pivot and head for the exit far quicker than is comfortable for its allies. This is a tough choice; a wrong move could damage transatlantic ties and set back the fight against Jihadism. Staying the course will mean greater opposition from both Right and Left.   Unhelpfully, the government is also beginning to see signs of the kind of sniping from the Army that beset the Labour government.

David Blackburn

The transparency revolution is this government’s immediate lifeblood

From our UK edition

Transparency is the government’s immediate obsession. It costs nothing to enact and gives power to the people. In an excellent post for Con Home, Stephan Shakespeare explains why publishing the COINS database is a revolutionary, seminal moment in British politics. The whole piece is worth reading, but here is an excerpt: ‘It is one of those moments that changes things for ever. When people can’t see where their money goes, they can make no comment, they can have no influence. Governments live and die by public approval; and once you can link spending decisions to identifiable civil servants, their careers will also live or die by our approval; so this kind of openness to scrutiny is utterly revolutionary.

Venetia Thompson

Wrong kind of sex in the City

From our UK edition

By far the most surprising twist in the sorry tale of the demise of David Laws, is that it has yet to unleash another round of banker bashing. There is plenty potential for it. Why, it might be asked, would such a confident and accomplished MP refuse to admit to being gay? Why in this day and age, when so many have paved the way before him, couldn’t he have just come out? The answer may well lie in his career background. Laws came from one of the very hardest places for gay man to be open about their sexuality: the City of London. As I know from my own time among them, the world of financiers is one in which turning up at work wearing a pink shirt prompts a relentless barking chorus of ‘bender!

David Blackburn

Red Vince sips clear blue water

From our UK edition

Deprived of the comforts of third party opposition - the ability to say and do as he pleased – Vince Cable has had to put away childish things. Of necessity, the business and enterprise secretary cannot be a socialist. And Cable used yesterday’s speech at the Cass Business School to prove he’s no socialist.   He convinced. Cable will enact the coalition’s plans to reform regional development agencies, cut preferential micromanagement grants that supersede the judgement of markets, demolish stifling small business regulation, curtail short-term speculation on company takeovers to protect shareholders, cutting the deficit early and the part-privatisation of the Royal Mail.

Thursday

Daniel Korski

Flotilla follies

From our UK edition

Two groups in the Conservative party that have worried most about Con-Lib government are the social conservatives and the neo-conservatives. The latter have been particularly worried about UK relations with Israel. There is a real concern in parts of the Conservatives Party that three factors would come together to sour Anglo-Israeli relations: what the neo-conservatives see as the Foreign Office’s knee-jerk Arabism, the presence of many supposed Arabists in Cameron-Hague’s teams, and the anti-Israel bias exhibited by many leading Liberal Democrats. Whatever the truth of these allegations, they are held with considerable fervour.

David Blackburn

Will the coalition fall over Europe?

From our UK edition

Well, well. Simon Hughes has just made firm Eurosceptic comments in the Commons. He said: ‘I'm also clear...that we need to revisit some of the decisions like the working time directive where I think we made a mistake, and there have been mistakes in the European Union. "And my great enthusiasm for the European Union and for better collaboration across Euope doesn't make me blind to things that have not gone well and where we need to do better. And overly prescriptive regulation such as the working time directive is one of those. "I don't take the view that there's only ever a one-way traffic of power from this parliament and this country [to the EU].

David Blackburn

The gun control question

From our UK edition

Inevitably, the horrendous tragedy in Cumbria has led to calls for gun control to be reviewed.  An already sensitive issue is complicated by philosophical differences between those who argue that safety lies in tightened controls and those who believe it's ensured by relaxed controls, or no controls. So, a political minefield, and the government and opposition are as one today: a premature reaction would be irresponsible, let’s have a review. That seems sound to me. Thankfully armed rampages are rare in Britain partly because gun control is tight, as anyone who’s bought a shotgun will attest – hours of paperwork and endless recommendations and character assessments. A review is likely to maintain that status quo for the most part.

David Blackburn

The case for Carswell

From our UK edition

Douglas Carswell has an outside chance of becoming the chairman of the Defence Select Committee. I hope MPs take a punt and elect him because his ideas on defence procurement deserve regular airings. The festering sore of defence procurement went septic under Gordon Brown. The Nimrod Inquiry and the Gray Report concluded that contractors and the defence establishment operate a ‘conspiracy of optimism’ which disregards the requirements of specific theatres, causing casualties and diminishing military capability. Soldiers in Helmand cannot subdue Helmand with Viking trucks that were designed for arctic warfare (why the hell would we be fighting there anyway?).

David Blackburn

Harman’s schtick

From our UK edition

Harriet Harman is irresistibly attracted to the absurd. This morning, she has decreed that the shadow cabinet be split 50:50 between men and women. Naturally, she would pervert Labour party rules to ensure the quota was a statutory requirement. To be honest, I’ve lost track of Harman’s myriad ruses to increase the female presence in high politics; and to be equally honest I’m no longer interested. It’s Harman’s schtick, leave her to it. Speaking to the national Unite conference, Harman made some sensible points about Labour’s electoral failure.

David Blackburn

The Third Man for the third way

From our UK edition

Peter Mandelson’s Machiavellian streak runs deep. Like the wily Florentine, Mandelson wants to retire to the country to farm and be close to the earth; but first, there is the small matter of a book for political princes. In this morning’s Times, Mandelson has written an exhaustive plug for his forthcoming book, The Third Man: Life at the heart of New Labour.   In the course of writing his publisher’s press release, Mandelson makes two important points: one historical and one current.   He admits his greatest mistake was to broker Blair and Brown’s deal in 1994; the soap opera that followed, Mandelson argues, would never had occurred had they fought it out there and then.

Wednesday

Henry Featherstone

Minimum unit pricing: NICE, but wrong

From our UK edition

So, NICE, the body charged with ensuring cost-effectiveness in the NHS, says that alcohol minimum unit pricing is the most effective way to tackle excessive drinking and its impact on the NHS and society.  Interesting, and certainly a challenge to the new Health Secretary and his alcohol taxation review, but ultimately misguided.     Where NICE have got it right, is that there is a clear and consistent relationship between the price of alcohol and its level of consumption.  Indeed, the effects of price changes on alcohol consumption are more effective than other alcohol policy interventions, such as restricting the number of outlets, or bans on advertising or price promotion.

James Forsyth

Cameron impresses on first outing

From our UK edition

The shootings in Cumbria this morning meant that today’s PMQS was always going to be a subdued affair. David Cameron was impressive, though.  You wouldn’t have guessed it was his first time answering questions and he controlled the pace of the session expertly. There were fewer people on the front bench than last week meaning that Nick Clegg was more visible than he had been during the opening of the Queen’s Speech debate. Clegg sat to Cameron’s right while Hague was on his left. Harriet Harman asked some cleverly constructed questions, her ones protesting at plans for those accused of rape to be given anonymity are never going to be easy to dismiss.

Fraser Nelson

The Commons’ bizarre new chemistry

From our UK edition

It still looks like your TV set is on a horizontal flip when you see Cameron at the government dispatch box. Even more disorientating to see Chris Huhne on the front bench and Nick Clegg beside Cameron - making supportive facial gestures on areas he agrees with (pupil premium), and looking quizzical on areas on which he does not (marriage). Cameron’s performance shows that Britain has just had a tremendous upgrade in the eloquence of its Prime Minister: his performance was no better than as Leader of the Opposition, but still at a high standard. Without Brown’s henchmen leading Labour, their backbenchers were disorientated. But still rather numerous: Labour has 258 MPs, more MPs than any party which has not gone on to win the next election.

David Blackburn

Cameron must not radically change his style at PMQs

From our UK edition

Watching David Cameron’s mannequin-like performance during the TV election debates, it became apparent just how good he is at the dispatch box. Quick witted, funny and incisive, Cameron invariably demolished Gordon Brown at PMQs. Daniel Finkelstein’s column is a must read today, bludgeoning the absurd guff about  the ‘new politics’. But Finkelstein argues: ‘David Cameron is very good at being combative in the chamber. He has won many battles. And it will seem unecessarily risky to change his style. But the prize is great. For he can be a national leader, not a party one. And he can make a reality out of the nonsense of the new politics.

James Forsyth

What to look out for at PMQs

From our UK edition

Today is the first PMQs of the new term. Given the Coalition, the whole thing will be a bit different from what we’re used to. The leader of the opposition will, as before, have six questions. But no other MP will have more than one question.   There’ll be a couple of little things I’ll be keeping a particularly close eye on. During the opening of the Queen Speech debate last week, the front bench was so crowded that Nick Clegg was not really visible on the TV. Instead, Cameron appeared to be flanked by two Tories. It’ll be interesting to see if this leads to a slightly different seating arrangement today. I’ll also be watching to see if Clegg whispers advice to Cameron during it.