Uk politics

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

The timing could not be worse

So Brown has now visited Gillian Duffy's home to apologise to her in person.  Somehow, I think that's not going to defuse this row.  Labour have, in the lingo of the The Thick of It, a major omnishambles on their hands.  And he's called Gordon. The worst aspect of this for Labour, though, is the timing.  Sure, they wouldn't have chosen this at any point the campaign.  But, with only a week left, it threatens to both obliterate eveything that's gone before and overshadow whatever Brown does from now until polling day.   And then there's the final TV debate.

Fraser Nelson

Brown v The Voters

We have just witnessed the biggest moment of the 2010 election campaign. It wasn't that Brown let off steam: it was that he instinctively described as "bigoted" a woman who represents what should be Labour's core vote. Sure, she mentioned immigration - but just said "where are they coming from"? Her main concern was the national debt, and what her grandchildren will have to pay. Neither Cameron or Clegg would have thought these points bigoted - and neither would Tony Blair. The thought would not have crossed his mind. Nor that of Kinnock, Foot or Callaghan. Labour's campaign is led by a man who dislikes campaigning, having to get down and dirty with ordinary voters. He doesn't like standing for election. "Whose idea was that?" He asked when inside the car. Whose idea was what?

James Forsyth

Deeper into the mire

It is just getting worse and worse for Brown. The woman he insulted is a widow whose husband died of cancer and who worked with handicapped children.

James Forsyth

Clegg will be hurt by this too

Brown calling Gillian Duffy that ‘bigoted woman’ from the safety of his car having ended his conversation with her cordially is, obviously, hugely damaging for Labour’s campaign. But I suspect Nick Clegg will also suffer some collateral damage as it will push immigration to the top of the political agenda, an area where the Lib Dems with their plan for an amnesty for illegal immigrants are on the wrong side of public opinion.

David Blackburn

“That was a disaster…”

… Well that ain’t the half of it. Brown has just made the most garbled apology imaginable on the Jeremy Vine show: “I apologise if I said anything like that.”  Well, unfortunately, Brown had, and Vine duly played the tape. Brown had to apologise again:  “I apologise if I’ve said anything remotely hurtful…there were comments about immigration...which I didn’t get the chance to reply to...that were annoying…you've got to remember, it's a case of me being helpful to the broadcasters who have recorded and played my private conversation.” He might be cowering, but verbally Brown simply comes across as arrogant and unrepentant. Small wonder that politicians are loathed.

Peter Hoskin

Brown calls woman a ‘bigot’

Wow. Just when you thought Labour's campaign couldn't get any worse, they go and wheel out Brown in front of ordinary voters.  And this is the result: he has been caught on mic describing a member of the public as a "bigoted woman".  Speaking to one of his advisers, he added "you shouldn't have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that?"  Classic. This may be trivial beside the big questions about the economy, etc. - but you can expect is to become one of the defining TV moments of the campaign.  It's one thing to insult and attack the politicians who serve alongside you, but quite another to do similar to someone whose vote you're courting.  Toxic, toxic stuff.

David Blackburn

A deeply emotive issue

Jonathan Bartley, the man who ambushed Cameron yesterday, has written a piece for the Guardian. In it, the education establishment’s counter-productive monopoly is exposed. Bartley writes: ‘Either we are for inclusion or we aren't. To include children with special needs in mainstream schools takes commitment and a lot of work. Indeed, it requires "bias" – which has actually been lacking in the education system, despite all the talk of inclusion from Labour. There are few parents of children with special educational needs who would not want their children to attend their local school with brothers and sisters and friends, provided that the school is properly resourced, equipped and able to successfully include their children.

David Blackburn

The high tide of Liberalism?

Cleggmania may be in remission. A Populus poll for the Times puts the Tories up 4 at 36 percent, the Lib Dems down 3 at 28 percent and Labour down one at 27 percent. Com Res has Labour and the Lib Dems tied on 29 percent with the Tories up 1 to 33 percent, whilst You Gov has the Tories on 33 percent, Labour on 29 percent and Clegg’s party on 28 percent. A hung parliament remains the probable outcome next Thursday. Anything other than a decisive Tory victory will sustain the Liberal surge, as Clegg would hold the balance of power or a Lib-Lab coalition would seek to inaugurate electoral reform.

Tuesday

Eamonn Butler

The British constitution is in dire need of reform

The UK Conservative leader David Cameron says that any Prime Minister not 'directly elected' by the public should be forced to hold a general election within six months. He has in mind his Labour opponent Gordon Brown, who in June 2007 was catapulted into the position by a secret ballot in his own party, rather than by an open election of the people. And if, after the forthcoming general election on May 6, Labour chose to ditch Brown and catapult that gap-year kid...ah, yes, David Miliband...into the top job in order to stitch up a coalition deal with Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats, well, Cameron would give him only six months to get a public mandate too. On the surface, this looks like a good idea.

David Blackburn

The battle for the middle ground

The New Statesman has interviewed Douglas Alexander, who appeals, as Andrew Adonis has, to Liberal Democrat voters to back Labour to inaugurate what he terms a ‘New Dawn for Labour and progressive politics.’ Progressive is a vague term, but the best definition for it is reform to encourage social mobility. In this morning’s Times, former Fabian Stephen Pollard argued that only the Tories can guarantee this. For the time, Pollard says, he will vote Conservative and all because of Michael Gove’s schools reform.   ‘Mr Gove has promised that within four years of a Tory government, all parents will have the option of sending their child to an independent school offering to educate the child free.

Peter Hoskin

Where is the axe going to fall?

If you want a sense of where our politicians are when it comes to sorting out the nation's finances then I'd recommend you read this briefing paper which the IFS released earlier today.  What it shows, in stark graphs and charts, is what Adam Boulton, Andrew Neil et al were getting at in Labour's press conference earlier: yes, we know that there are significant cuts to come, but none of the parties are really letting on just where they will come from.   To my eyes, this chart tells the story particularly well.  It depicts how much each party will cut "unprotected" departmental spending by - and how much of those cuts has still got to be identified.

Fraser Nelson

Cameron’s secret weapon is amiability

David Cameron has just taken his first real “kicking” of the campaign from a parent of a disabled child. Handled it brilliantly, I think. The parent is angry, understandably, about the problems he has finding a normal school for his wheelchair-bound son. The Tories are suspicious of the “inclusion” agenda – often a code for denying special-needs children the extra tuition that they deserve. But, as the father of a severely disabled son, Cameron knows more about this subject than almost anyone else in Westminster.   “It should be your choice, sir” he said: and he’s right. The voucher system would make a disabled child worth north of £22,000 a year to teach – four times more than an able-bodied pupil.

Fraser Nelson

Labour’s disintegrating campaign

Fireworks at Labour's press conference this morning, thanks to some brilliant questioning of Mandelson and Balls about the cuts which Labour is concealing from the public. A while ago, the FT did its own version of a table that Coffee House ran in February: the implied cuts that departments will make under HM Treasury forecasts. I reprint it below. The IFS has sought to quantify these cuts. So Sky's Adam Boulton read out this list and confronted Mandelson: which of these would Labour not do? Freezing benefits? Cutting public sector pay? Halving the spend on teaching assistants? Cutting funding to Wales and Scotland? Nick Robinson from the BBC piled in too: Labour has asked broadcasters to focus on the issues, so why can't it discuss this issue?

David Blackburn

The government, not Chris Grayling, is misleading the public over violent crime

The New Statesman’s George Eaton admonishes Chris Grayling repeating his ‘false claim that violent crime has risen dramatically under Labour.’ Eaton cites the British Crime Survey’s findings that violent crime has fallen by 41 percent since 1997. True, the BCS asserts that violent crime has fallen since 1997. Changes in recording practice in 2002-03 mean that comparing current statistics with those compiled a decade ago is inherently inaccurate – a point conceded by UK Statistics Agency head Sir Michael Scholar with regard to Grayling's police statistics, but not the BCS'. The independent House of Commons Library gave a more accurate assessment, finding that violent crime rose from 618,417 to 887,942 last year, or 44 percent.

James Forsyth

Nothing to offer except personality politics

Labour’s press conference this morning highlighted the party’s problem. Labour is demanding that the media cover policy more than process and personality. But when the discussion turns to the biggest policy issue of the day—how to cut the deficit—Labour doesn’t want to engage. This morning, Nick Robinson, Adam Boulton, Andrew Neil all pushed Mandelson, Balls and Cooper on this issue. All of them were clearly frustrated by Labour’s lack of answers. Ironically, all the memorable lines from Labour’s press conference came when process and personality were discussed.

David Blackburn

Has Nick Clegg ruled out a pact with the Tories?

No, in short, he hasn’t. Clegg was deemed to have compromised his party’s intricate anti-politics strategy by ruling out a ‘progressive’ coalition with Labour led by Gordon Brown, a stance that suggested Clegg sought the affections of David Cameron. Clegg has since clarified his position: "I think, if Labour do come third in terms of the number of votes cast, then people would find it inexplicable that Gordon Brown himself could carry on as prime minister. As for who I'd work with, I've been very clear – much clearer than David Cameron and Gordon Brown – that I will work with anyone. I will work with a man from the moon, I don't care, with anyone who can deliver the greater fairness that I think people want.

Monday

David Blackburn

The Tories in a PR pickle

Clegg won’t join without proportional representation; Cameron says he won’t countenance such a ‘con’. Indeed, it runs deeper than that. Iain Martin has canvassed Tories from across the party and found that Cameron will get short shrift if he tries to reform the voting system at all. There is another consideration. This election has the potential to blow traditional party structure out of the water. Labour’s right will be marginalised by the unions’ grip over the party and Liberal Democrats like David Laws and Clegg (up to a point) have more in common with the One Nation Tories than they do with out and out left wingers like Kennedy and Cable.

Daniel Korski

A Human Rights Minister?

Britain’s role in protecting the downtrodden and protecting the weak has significant historical pedigree. The British role in abolishing the international slave trade was one of the first liberal interventions. And as Abigail Green's biography shows, Britain’s Sir Moses Montefiore was not just a pre-eminent Jewish figure of the nineteenth century, but his pioneering approach to the problem of Jewish persecution helped transform the international response to abuses of human rights. No party, though, is going to the election with the kind of commitment to promote human rights abroad as Robin Cook did when he unveiled his ideas for an “ethical” foreign policy. This is hardly a surprise.

David Blackburn

The Tories’ latest campaign image

Arresting, to the point and right. But tactically it leaves the Tories open to claims about 'scare tactics', of which the Tories accuse Labour. UPDATE: This one is more effective because it avoids the other one's tactical shortcomings.