Uk politics

Sunday

James Forsyth

Unite not united about its support for Labour

From our UK edition

To my mind the most interesting political story of the weekend is tucked away inside The Sunday Times. Jonathan Oliver reports that Unite, a trade union which donates huge sums of money to Labour, might be taken over by those who believe that the union should stop funding Labour.  (The new leadership would not be in place this side of the election, though. Labour will still be able to rely on Unite’s help during the campaign). Unite provides 15 percent of Labour’s funding and the loss of this money after an election defeat would be painful for Labour financially.

David Blackburn

Gadaffi was the magnet that sent the government’s moral compass awry

From our UK edition

The al-Megrahi story has rolled on for two weeks, and CoffeeHousers have probably had more than their fill; but every morning brings new revelations that undermine the government’s position further. Today, the Sunday Times reports that Gordon Brown, having been in favour of such a deal initially, vetoed the proposal that Libya pay compensation to IRA victims who were killed with arms supplied by Gadaffi. In a letter to the victims’ lawyer, dated 7 October 2008 (around the time Alex Salmond urged Jack Straw to take advantage of the fact that the PTA had stalled by renegotiating the agreement to exclude the Lockerbie bomber), Brown wrote: “The UK government does not consider it appropriate to enter into bilateral discussion with Libya on this matter.

Peter Hoskin

Another smear plot story to damage Gordon Brown

From our UK edition

After the abortive plot to smear Richard Dannatt, you'd have thought Labour would have learnt their lesson: that it's often politically foolish, not to mention indecent, to pick petty fights with the military top brass.  But - what's this? - today's Mail on Sunday reports that certain Labour figures may have been priming another smear campaign against Dannatt's successor, General Sir David Richards: "The threat to target the General, who took up his new job just nine days ago, was one of the real reasons that Labour MP Eric Joyce resigned as an aide to Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth last week.

Peter Hoskin

Question time for the BNP

From our UK edition

The Beeb's admission that they have invited Nick Griffin onto a future episode of Question Time is causing quite a stir.  Two main questions are emerging from it all.  First, should the BBC give a platform to the BNP?  And, second, should other politicians appear on a show with BNP figures?  The Tories have already said they're "very happy" to put forward a shadow cabinet member to debate Griffin, while Labour are wrestling with their "custom" not to share a platform with the BNP. My take on each question is that, first, the Beeb aren't wrong to give the BNP a platform.  Personally, I find the party's views and its politics repellent, but the fact remains that British voters have given them two seats in the European Parliament.

Peter Hoskin

Another Darling vs Brown battle

From our UK edition

Well done, Alistair.  After taking on Brown over the crude "Labour investment vs Tory cuts" dividing line - and winning - it sounds as though the Chancellor is challenging another of the PM's lies: that the government's "stimulus" measures have "saved 500,000 jobs" during the recession.  According to the Mail on Sunday, Darling has told the PM to stop repeating this claim because it can't be substantiated, and he's resisting having it put in the Budget, too. As soon as the government started mentioning "500,000 jobs", Westminster's lie detectors started sounding; especially as it gradually morphed from "up to 500,000" to "at least 500,000".

Saturday

James Campbell

Blair the chameleon?

From our UK edition

A new book on John Howard's government, by the veteran Australian politcal journalist Paul Kelly, has a nice account of the Australian PM's first encounter with Tony Blair: "At one point John Howard, trying to be clever, asked Tony Blair: 'What are you going to do with the Thatcher legacy?' Blair paused, he sat up straight, extended his arms and broke into a huge grin. 'I'm going to take the lot,[ he chortled. Blair laughed but Howard seemed stunned. It wasn't the answer he expected. On his return to the hotel Howard was fuming. 'That man's a bloody chameleon. He doesn't stand for anything,' Howard declared.

David Blackburn

Straw: Megrahi included in PTA because of trade concerns 

From our UK edition

One question that arises from the publication the Lockerbie documents is why Jack Straw suddenly decided against excluding al-Megrahi from the PTA? Straw justified his change of heart on the grounds of "overwhelming national interests", though trade and commercial interests were not a contributing factor in that calculation, a point he reiterated last weekend. But, in an interview with the Telegraph today, Straw contradicts himself: '"Yes, it (trade deals with Libya) was a very big part of that (including al-Megrahi in the PTA). I'm unapologetic about that. Libya was a rogue state. We wanted to bring it back into the fold and trade is an essential part of it - and subsequently there was the BP deal.

James Forsyth

Number 10’s flawed plan

From our UK edition

Andrew Grice has an interesting column in the Independent today laying out Number 10's plans for an autumn fightback. The six-step strategy is as follows: "1. Labour will focus on the policy choice between the two main parties because the Tories are more vulnerable on policy than their current opinion poll lead suggests. The Tories are perceived by the public not to have any policies. 2. The focus on Labour's record and future plans will allow it to close the poll gap. 3. As an economic recovery begins, the Government's approach will be seen to have stopped recession turning into depression. 4.

James Forsyth

A devastating assessment

From our UK edition

This quote from a retired aide to General Petraeus about the British performance in Basra is, as Alex Massie says, devastating: "The British failure in Basra was not due to the conduct of British troops, which was exemplary. It was, rather, a failure by senior British civilian and military leaders to understand the political dynamics ... in Iraq, compounded by arrogance that led to an unwillingness to learn and adapt, along with increasing reluctance to risk blood and treasure to conduct effective counter-insurgency warfare... ...British commanders attempted to cut deals with local Shia leaders to maintain the peace in southern Iraq, an accommodation that was doomed to failure since the British negotiated from a position of weakness.

Peter Hoskin

Darling lays down the spending gauntlet – but will it be flung back in his face?

From our UK edition

So here it is.  After rumblings that Brown is prepared to set out spending cuts - rather than hiding them away in he small print of the Budget - Alastair Darling confirms the new strategy in an interview with the Times.  He doesn't actually use the word "cuts", but it amounts to that: "'As there is less uncertainty you can decide what your priorities are,' he said. 'This doesn’t mean you are going into some sort of Dark Age but we will have to decide, given what’s happened to the economy, how much we think we can afford to spend on services, how much we should be devoting to making sure we recover our fiscal position. That’s a judgment that I’m going to have to make at the Pre-Budget Report in the autumn.' ...

Friday

David Blackburn

Brown’s Afghanistan speech was encouraging, but the strategy’s still flawed

From our UK edition

Brown’s delivery may have been beyond sepulchral, but the content was encouraging. He laid out how Afghan stability is being bolstered by the increased activity and competence of Afghan security forces, the replacement of the heroin crop with wheat, an intensification of government in rural hinterlands and by arresting urban corruption. At least there now seems to be a degree of co-ordination between coalition and Afghan security operations, civic reconstruction and the administration of government. These are welcome changes but there is still no overarching sense of what the ‘Afghan mission’ hopes to achieve, beyond the dubious contention that it will make the West safer. As a result, a number of the initiatives Brown articulated are ill-focussed or counter-productive.

James Forsyth

Lib Dems moving towards advocating withdrawal from Afghanistan

From our UK edition

Nick Clegg’s statement today on Afghanistan strongly suggests to me that by the time of the next election the Lib Dems will be for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Clegg told the BBC that: “I think there’s a tipping point where we have to ask ourselves whether we can do this job properly, and if we can’t do it properly we shouldn’t do it at all. I don’t think we are there yet,” he said. Clegg’s use of the word yet seems to be a definite hint that he is moving towards advocating withdrawal. In crude political terms, this would make a lot of sense for the Lib Dems. It would give them a distinctive policy and allow them to tap into public unease about the war.

David Blackburn

Buckingham Conservative Association Executive Committee stands behind Bercow

From our UK edition

Tim Montgomerie reports that a senior source at CCHQ has said that John Bercow will not stand as an official Conservative candidate at the general election, and therefore party members will not be required to vote for him.   So, will they be for or against Bercow? Councillor Netta Glover, the Buckingham Association’s deputy chairman and political officer, told me that the executive committee were “standing firm behind Mr Bercow”, and that Tory party rules stated that “anyone seeking an official nomination against the speaker would be barred by the returning officer” – so de-selection can be discounted.

Peter Hoskin

Obama and Cameron: who thought what about whom?<br />

From our UK edition

Remember that New Statesman article about Obama calling Cameron a "lightweight"?  Well, the Journalist Closest to Obama, Richard Wolffe, has a different take.  Here's what he told the Today programme this morning, courtesy of the ever-alert Andrew Sparrow: "He had a strong impression, a strong reaction, to both Cameron and Brown. It was right at the end of his foreign trip. And he was really taken with Cameron. He and his aides thought that he had energy and verve, a dynamism that suggested he was a good candidate – remember this was a candidate at the time, not a president. And there was bonding that took place which you might not expect of two people at the opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Daniel Korski

Why Britain needs to stay in Afghanistan

From our UK edition

With the resignation of Eric Joyce as PPS to the Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth, the question of why Britain is part of the NATO-led Afghan mission has taken on new force. No doubt the Prime Minister will explain what he sees as the reasons when he speaks at IISS later today. But just because Gordon Brown supports a policy does not make it wrong. Here are the reasons why we should remain engaged: 1. To deny Al Qaeda a safe-haven from which to train and organise attacks on the West. Though terrorism can be organized in Oldham, Hamburg and Marseilles, Al Qaeda still believes it needs safe-havens in places like Afghanistan. 2. To prevent a new generation of terrorists and insurgencies of getting the mother of all propaganda coups by having routed NATO.

Tim Luckhurst

Who really freed Megrahi?

From our UK edition

Who really freed the Lockerbie bomber? The question cannot be answered by deliberately looking in the wrong place. And for the fortnight since Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s Justice Secretary, announced Mr Megrahi’s release that is what journalists have been doing, obsessively. Reporting with the pack mentality that often misdirects them, British newspapers have tried to prove that Gordon Brown authorised the release. Instead they have demonstrated only that the Prime Minister wanted Megrahi to be transferred to Libya under the prisoner transfer scheme, and that he had no power to make it happen. Granted, Mr Brown and the British Cabinet desired a result that would have appalled Americans nearly as much as the actual outcome has. But their view did not prevail.

Peter Hoskin

Discontent is in the air

From our UK edition

This morning's political firecracker comes courtesy of Martin Kettle in the Guardian, who claims that a group of Labour figures are moving to oust Brown in October: "An active network of MPs and peers now exists, involving some names you might expect, but also others – including big ones – whose participation would surprise you. This group, like probably the majority of Labour MPs, accepts that Brown is a liability to his party's election prospects. Unlike the majority, though, they claim to think something can be done about it. They believe the window of opportunity, if it comes, will be in the two or three weeks after October 12. If Brown can be pushed, then this is the time. They say they are ready to try.

Thursday

James Forsyth

If Britain hasn’t returned to growth by the end of the year, will it still be ‘no time for a novice’?

From our UK edition

Looking at the OECD’s latest economic forecast it seems that the UK—unlike the US and the Euro-Zone--will not return to growth by the end of this year. (Although, one can’t help but wonder if Brown will start heralding zero percent growth in the fourth growth). Indeed, the OECD projects that the UK economy will shrink by 4.7 percent over this year as a whole—although the worst appears to be behind us with the rate of shrinkage slowing since the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of this year.   As Kevin Maguire suggests today, Labour’s election strategy is likely to be that Britain is not out of the woods yet and so it is still no time for a novice.

Peter Hoskin

Getting to grips with spending

From our UK edition

This news in today's FT makes you wonder whether we might see some kind of spending review in the next few months, after all: "A massive data collection exercise across many hundreds of public bodies has been ordered by the Treasury to determine expenditure on IT, human resources, finance and procurement, in a bid to wring better value for taxpayers out of the billions of pounds spent. ... All government departments, agencies and hundreds of other public bodies that employ more than 250 people are being asked to provide the data by the end of next month for publication ahead of the autumn pre-Budget report. In time, the data are to be collected each year and will cover the entire public sector.

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s misplaced hope

From our UK edition

In his insightful article on Brown and the forthcoming G20 summit, Francis Elliot writes a sentence which should terrify Labour supporters: "[Gordon Brown] has already decided that his only hope of a comeback in the polls lies with the economy." Sure, we all know that Team Brown has been putting a lot of hope in a green shoots strategy.  But, as we've pointed out on Coffee House before, there's little reason to believe that an economic recovery will deliver a significant boost for the Government.  If that's all that the PM has, then his situation is looking more hopeless than ever.