Uk politics

Friday

Peter Hoskin

Worse than the Major era?

From our UK edition

Here's one for Coffee Housers: is this government sleazier than John Major's?  Asked that question on the BBC News channel's Straight Talk with Andrew Neil this weekend, Martin Bell has no doubts.  "I think this one is worse," he says. But that's not the end of it.  The former independent MP thinks that the parties need to start looking towards their front benches if they're to properly cleanse the taint left from the expenses scandal: "But I do think it is going to require the assisted departure of all frontbenchers of both parties who have claimed unreasonable and disproportionate expenses.  And if you look back over the dramas of the last four or five months, not a single frontbencher has been removed.

David Blackburn

There is no need to go out this Saturday

From our UK edition

The Thick of It returns tomorrow night and by all accounts its as cynical, savage, sweary and uniformly contemptuous as ever. The subject matter of this series is, apparently, over promoted female Cabinet ministers – very topical in view of the government reshuffle and the Conservatives’ perverse all-female candidate lists. It goes without saying that the show’s producers have a sense of humour, but to make the fact plain they invited Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint to the premier on Tuesday. I’m told they didn’t like it. Anyway, The Thick of It is the sharpest and most well attuned political satire since Yes Minister; it’s essential viewing.

Theo Hobson

Liberalism is good, beautiful and true

From our UK edition

Most of the media responses to Griffin have been a bit complacent. He was exposed as a dodgy idiot, the vast majority say. I thought he came across pretty well, considering the wrongness of his views. I was uncomfortably reminded that the message of an extreme reactionary is always surprisingly seductive, tempting. The essential appeal is the promise that life can be radically simpler. This strikes a chord in the vast majority of us. We are burdened by complexity, anxiety, a sense that the contemporary world is alienating, chaotic. A vision of our culture being purged of its cultural complexity and working more effectively and more simply is, alas, beguiling. There's something in our dodgy DNA that responds to the dark logic.

David Blackburn

Griffin to complain about “lynch mob” Question Time

From our UK edition

Nick Griffin has just made the following statement: “It was not a genuine Question Time, it was a lynch mob… People wanted to see me and hear me taking about things like the postal strike. Let’s do it again and do it properly this time.” He added that he would lodge a “formal complaint to the BBC over the way it twisted Question Time”. As James wrote last night, the debate was an extended navel gaze into whether it was right that Griffin appeared on the programme. Whilst Griffin unquestionably came off worse by babbling about a rather enigmatic, non-colour specific group called British aborigines, the panel missed the opportunity to demolish the BNP’s policies, by concentrating on illustrating that the BNP is ideologically racist.

James Forsyth

If anti-Semitism is the problem, then the Tories shouldn’t sit with the EPP either

From our UK edition

No one has done more to make the Tories’ new European allies an issue than Jonathan Freedland. He has written about the subject with real passion and, so sources in the Jewish community tell me, played a crucial role in persuading the president of the Board of Deputies to write to David Cameron expressing concern about them.    This week, his column on the subject contained this point: ‘Just this month Oszkar Molnar, an MP from Hungary's main opposition party – on course to form the country's next government – told a TV interviewer that "global capital – Jewish capital, if you like – wants to devour the entire world, especially Hungary". His party leader said there was no need to discipline him because he'd broken no rules.

Peter Hoskin

So where does this leave Brown?

From our UK edition

Most people expected this morning's official GDP statistics to show that the economy has come out of recession.  But they didn't.  In fact, they had the economy shrinking by 0.4 percent in the third quarter of this year.  So the downturn continues – and it's the longest on record. We've always maintained on Coffee House that coming out of recession won't do much good for Brown.  But, obviously, staying stuck in one has far more dangerous implications for him (not to mention the country).  Obviously, the government won't be able to deploy the green shoots strategy now.  But with other major economies already out of recession, they'll struggle to deploy it in future.  You imagine the Tories will have a field day with this.

David Blackburn

Euro Foreign Minister Miliband?

From our UK edition

The Lisbon Treaty decrees that Europe must have a Foreign Minister. It is not clear exactly what the Secretary of State will do, but David Miliband is being widely tipped for the role. According to one diplomat quoted in the Times and the Guardian, Miliband has “good European credentials and a brilliant mind.” The minister made famous (rather unfairly) by banana-wielding and a penchant for Indian donkeys is undoubtedly pro-European: he is in favour of further integration and deeply opposed to Cameron’s euroscpetic Tories and their European allies: so he ticks all of Brussels’ boxes. But would he take the job? The Labour party’s Titantic predicament is now so advanced that the protagonists have given up reorganising the chairs on deck.

Lloyd Evans

Tin pot Griffin fluffs his lines

From our UK edition

Mobs of howling protestors outside the BBC. Police cordons being smashed by anti-fascists. News clips of upended students being dragged across the foyer of the TV Centre shouting, ‘Shame on you for defending fascism.’ It was chaotic, it was emotive, it was anarchic. But, ultimately, it was a marvellously British occasion. Thanks to the BNP, we were given proof tonight of the rag-bag unity of our society. No one is quite sure how Nazi bogeyman Nick Griffin was smuggled into the Shepherds Bush studios for the recording of Question Time. The best evidence is that he stowed away in a lorry driven by an unsuspecting dupe who failed to check the back of his rig. When Griffin entered everyone was amazed that his suit was unsmeared by bunged eggs.

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

The laughter will have hurt Griffin

From our UK edition

There's only one question that counts now that Question Time has been shown: did it do Nick Griffin and the BNP any good? It's a tough one to answer. To my eyes, at least, Griffin embarrassed himself in front of the cameras - he was given scant opportunity to gloss over his more unsavoury views; he looked terribly uncomfortable whenever the debate ran away from him; and the other panellists scored most of the major points. But we largely expected that anyway. Griffin was always going to come under heavy questioning, and he was never going to have many friends in the audience. Like Fraser, I fear that much of Griffin's job had been done before he appeared in front of the cameras.

Fraser Nelson

EXCLUSIVE: What was said in Question Time

From our UK edition

First question on the Second World War. Is it fair BNP hijacked Churchill? Straw says in the war Britain defeated a party based on race like the BNP. The BNP defines itself by race - that distinguishes it from every other party. All other parties have a moral compass. Nazism didn't and neither does the BNP. We only won the First and Second World War because we were joined by millions of black and Asian people. Applause. Griffin then counters by saying Churchill would have been in BNP. He described Churchill as Islamaphobic by today's standards. "The government is giving up on British freedom," said Griffin. An audience member says the BNP are an absolute disgrace. For just one minute think of the benefits black people people have brought to the UK. "You are trying to poison politics.

Fraser Nelson

Word from inside Question Time: Griffin “humiliated”

From our UK edition

The first results from Question Time are landing. An audience member has just told me that Griffin  was "humiliated by the whole panel". All of them "did well", I am told. And  Jack straw accused him of being the Dr Strangelove of UK politics: a fantasing conspiracy theorist.

Fraser Nelson

Griffin has achieved exactly what he hoped to

From our UK edition

As far as the BNP is concerned, Nick Griffin has already won this Question Time debate. It’s not about whether he does badly or well – he simply wins from the publicity. He’s been on Channel Four news, got an interview in today’s Times, all will be splashed all across the tabloids tomorrow – and that’s before we consider the Question Time slot itself. Then, he will win because, as we emphasise in the leader of this week’s magazine, millions watch Question Time. For every 50 people who think he disgraced himself, there may be only one person who thinks he might have a point. But, for Griffin, that will be enough. To compound the issue, the panel are pitching themselves at the different audiences.

David Blackburn

Has the tide turned against ‘President’ Blair?

From our UK edition

Increasingly, it looks as though Tony Blair must make do with what he’s got. Last Saturday, the Independent reported that Nicolas Sarkozy is likely to evoke the spirit of de Gaulle with an emphatic ‘Non’, founded on Britain's retention of the Pound.Today, Iain Martin has heard that Jonathan Powell’s proselytising in Brussels merely antagonised his audience. And the kiss of death for Blair probably came in the form of an endorsement from Silvio Berlusconi. But, there must be a European President, and, as Matthew D’Ancona observes, Blair’s experience on the international stage, his Europhilia and his Eurotrash-popstar status make him the ideal candidate.

David Blackburn

Tightening immigration should constitute part of compassionate Conservatism

From our UK edition

The mainstream parties’ collective silence on immigration has, undoubtedly, contributed to the BNP’s growing popularity. Nicholas Soames and Frank Field have penned such an argument in today’s Telegraph. David Cameron’s modernisation of the Conservative Party came at the expense of even mentioning immigration. Yesterday’s mind-boggling population projection should curtail the era of uncontrolled immigration: Britain cannot sustain such human and social pressure in the age of austerity. The Tory leadership might view this reality with trepidation. They should not. Limiting immigration would alleviate poverty; it equates exactly with the Tories’ broad one nation philosophy.

Peter Hoskin

The trailer for Nick Griffin’s Question Time performance

From our UK edition

Is Nick Griffin's interview with the Times a sneak preview of what we can expect from him on Question Time tonight?  I rather suspect so.  His aim in it is not only to project a reasonable front – by glossing over awkward facts (his conviction for inciting racial hatred is described as "Orwellian"), and by making dubious comparisons (he likens the BNP to opposition movements in Zimbabwe) – but also to provoke and rile his political opponents.  The BNP leader sarcastically thanks "the political class and their allies for being so stupid" as to allow his appearance on QT. But the problem for Griffin is whether he can maintain the charade for the show's entire running length.

Peter Hoskin

The case for cutting middle class benefits

From our UK edition

Great work by my former colleagues at the think tank Reform today. In their latest report, they've figured out that the cost of "middle class benefits" to the Exchequer is some £31 billion. In other words, £31 billion worth of maternity pay, child benefits, fuel allowance and other transfers are dished out to middle income earners each year - that's around a quarter of all spending on benefits. Writing in the Times, Andrew Haldenby says that these middle class benefits should be an obvious candidate for cuts. It's hard to disagree. If we're all in this together, then it seems slightly perverse that money is being given out to people who - in many cases - don't strictly need it.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Should MPs be able to employ their relatives?

From our UK edition

The 1922 committee of Tory MPs is meeting now and the word is that there will be a concerted push to defend the right of MPs to employ their relatives; something that MPs on all sides fear the Kelly review will try to ban. In a Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion way, it is easy to say that MPs shouldn’t be able to employ family members. But there is no doubt that there are a lot of relatives, and spouses especially, who are working extremely hard for their salary. Given the hours MPs work and the fact that they have to be in two places, one can see why so many favour this arrangement. A possible compromise being kicked about here at Westminster is that MPs might be allowed to employ one relative each. This strikes me as a sensible move.

Peter Hoskin

Postal strike to go ahead

From our UK edition

The Communication Workers Union has just confirmed that there will be a national postal strike tomorrow and on Friday, effective as of midnight tonight.  From a purely political perspective, this largely vindicates David Cameron's decision to major on the strikes during PMQs earlier.  You imagine that the story will dominate news broadcasts later, and the Tory leader can expect to have some of his attacks on Brown inserted into the coverage.

David Blackburn

They did it their way

From our UK edition

One argument against Sir Thomas Legg's repayment requests is that many are founded on inaccurate information. Norman Baker was charged for gardening expenses despite not having claimed any. Today, Sir Thomas has had to apologise for overcharging Ken Clarke by more than £4,000, and he has had to state that John Mann MP will not have to repay any money. It’s all a bit of a muddle. First, there was the retrospective repayments fiasco. Then the Leader of the House made it quite clear that she had no idea what would happen to MPs who did not repay their expenses. And now there is this godsend for the anti-Leggites. MPs are under enormous pressure to repay, but the increasingly chaotic Legg Commission offers them a possible get of jail free card.