Uk politics

Tuesday

James Forsyth

The press’ obsession with the Tories, Rachel Whetstone and Google is immature 

From our UK edition

Nearly all the papers have run articles on Rachel Whetstone today. These pieces concentrate on the fact that she’s the partner of Steve Hilton, Cameron’s chief strategist, and that the Tories mention Google quite often. Frankly, this strikes me as a nothing story. The Tories are mentioning Google so much because it is the kind of modern, successful brand that they want to be associated with, not because Whetsone, who was Michael Howard’s political secretary and who used to be close for Cameron, works there. Also, considering how Google has become shorthand for so much of the technological change going on around us, it would be rather hard for a politician to talk about how the internet can change the way public services are delivered without ever mentioning the company.

David Blackburn

Another Conservative MP won’t be standing at the next election.

From our UK edition

Michael Ancram is standing down at the next election on grounds of ill-health, you can read his resignation statement here. Former leadership candidate Ancram was embroiled in the expenses scandal, claiming £98.58 on swimming pool repairs and more than £4,250 in one year on cleaning and maintaining his second home. According to the Telegraph, he is understood to have been unhappy with David Cameron’s handling of the expenses scandal. William Hague paid tribute to Ancram's work as Conservative Party chairman through what were the Tories' "darkest times in opposition.

David Blackburn

The trials of being in a power couple

From our UK edition

It seems Hillary Clinton is smarting from her husband’s Korean coup. Exhibit A: her Q&A session with Congolese students yesterday, where her translator relayed this question: “Mrs Clinton, we've all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country. The interference is from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton and what does Mr. Mutombo think on this situation?”    The Secretary of State offered a stark clarification: “My husband is not secretary of state, I am. I am not going to be channelling my husband." Here's footage: The official line is that it was all down to a mistranslation and the student actually said “Mr. Obama”.

Peter Hoskin

Gove stirs up trouble for Balls

From our UK edition

I gave it a passing mention in my last post, but it's worth highlighting Michael Gove's mischievous comment piece in the the Guardian today.  Why "mischievous"?  Well, because its purpose seems to be to rile Ed Balls and mobilise his internal opponents: 'In a series of not so subtle signals to the grassroots, Ed has been emphasising, whenever the opportunity arises, that he is the socialist candidate for anyone in the party who wants to move away from the sullied compromises of Blair era. In a recent interview he explained that the battle for the leadership would be a struggle between David Miliband and himself - setting up the contest as a choice between the clearest heir to Blair and the key opponent of Blairism.

Peter Hoskin

Osborne makes progress

From our UK edition

It's a big day for George Osborne.  The Shadow Chancellor is using his new platform at Demos — the think-tank which is credited with much of the brainwork behind the initial New Labour project, but which is now turning to the Tories as well as to the Purnellite wing of the Labour party — to deliver a speech on progressive politics.  I haven't read the whole thing yet, but the snippets which have been published in the papers make it seem like a significant moment in Project Cameron: when the Tories extrapolate their attacks on Brown's fiscal legacy further, and perhaps more resonantly, than they have done before.  Here's a key passage, to give you the idea:   “...

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Putting the “public” into “public spending cuts”

From our UK edition

My old colleagues at Reform have put together a very useful analysis of the Canadian spending cuts programme - which got that country's debt-to-GDP ratio down by 20 percent during the late 1990s - over at Centre Right.  I'd suggest you read the whole thing, but this point deserves repeating: "The key lesson from the Canadian reforms is that, as Andrew Haldenby recently argued, getting the public to support tough measures requires them to feel part of the process.

James Forsyth

If the Tories are serious about being ready to govern from day one, they should be examining whether or not Vat needs to be raised

From our UK edition

The Tory response to the story that they plan to raise Vat to 20 percent after the next election, worried me. The Tory line is that there are no plans to do this and that there have been no high-level discussions about it. But, frankly, there should have been. Not because increasing Vat is necessarily the right thing to do, but because the Tories should be exploring what can be done to get this country out of the huge fiscal hole that Brown has dug it into. I find it less than encouraging that less than a year out from an election, the opposition hasn’t even — or so it claims — discussed whether pushing Vat up to 20 percent might be necessary: if you haven’t examined something, you can’t know whether or not it is a sensible thing to do.

James Forsyth

Mandelson’s lines to take for the press

From our UK edition

Peter Mandelson’s spat with Starbucks is clearly over. In February he went on a tirade after seeing the chairman of Starbucks talking the UK economy down on US TV: “Why should I have this guy running down the country? Who the fuck is he? How the hell are they [Starbucks] doing?" But today he is pictured on the front of G2 drinking out of a Starbucks cup. The most interesting thing, though, about the G2 interview is how Mandelson seems determined to almost write it himself, producing quotable line after quotable line. When Mandelson describes himself as a “kindly pussycat” or details how Carole Caplin converted him to green tea back in 1994 and that his “diet chiefly involves me being hungry” he knows that this stuff is too good not to use.

Fraser Nelson

Mandy’s class war avoids the real problems

From our UK edition

I don’t for a minute believe that Mandelson believes this class war nonsense, brilliantly rubbished by Melanie Phillips today. His decision to reprise the “posh unis don’t let in poor kids” theme is a more a sign that even someone as horribly powerful as Mandy feels the need to kowtow to a certain element of the Labour Party. The Sutton Trust is absolutely correct to point to social segregation as being one of the biggest problems in Britain today – but the problem lies with the schools, not the universities. The suggestion that snobbish admissions tutors are somehow to blame does the working class no favours by deflecting attention from the real problem.

Peter Hoskin

Is Brown starting to accept defeat?

From our UK edition

The FT report on how Labour MPs aren't putting themselves forward to be parliamentary private secretaries - or "ministerial bag-carriers", as they're known around Westminster - says a lot about the party's confidence in Gordon Brown.  After all, as one source tells the newspaper: "Why would you bother if you know that there is no chance of becoming a minister in the next government?" But it's this snippet from the FT's analysis which could be more noteworthy: "One Downing Street insider said the prime minister was more relaxed because he now realised that he was certain to lose the next election and was powerless to defy political gravity." Sure, another insider goes on to deny the same in the following sentence.

David Blackburn

To restore confidence, there must be an inquiry into alleged British involvement in torture. 

From our UK edition

Following Alan Johnson’s and David Miliband’s denial of British collusion in torture, Sir John Scarlett, the head of MI6, has inadvertently added a further denial. In a Radio 4 interview, recorded prior to the publication of Johnson’s and Miliband’s joint article, and which will be broadcast this morning, Sir John asserted that there has been "no torture and there is no complicity with torture.” Asked if Britain was ever compromised by its allies’, and particularly the Americans’, “different moral standards”, Scarlett replied: "Our American allies know that we are our own service, that we are here to work for the British interests and the United Kingdom.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Can Cameron afford Lansley?

From our UK edition

Is Andrew Lansley using his untouchable status* to bounce David Cameron into a three-year budget settlement? On the Marr sofa (or the Sophie Raworth sofa as it was today), he announced that the Tories are planning "real term increases to the NHS year on year." Well, David Cameron has only said he would protect health from cuts - but he has not specified how long for. It could be as little as one year. In my political column for this week's magazine I recommend Cameron keeps uses this to wriggle out of what is now an unaffordable promise. He should freeze NHS spending for a year, then take a scalpel to it. When Lansley first gaffed about how protecting health cuts would mean 10 percent cuts, there was a key part to this overlooked at the time.

The Spectator

Why Mandelson isn’t deputy PM

From our UK edition

As the country prepares for Peter Mandelson’s week in charge, The Mail on Sunday reports that the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, put the kybosh on him acquiring the title of Deputy Prime Minister. O’Donnell may well have said that it was inappropriate for a peer to be deputy PM but I would have thought that Harriet Harman would also have objected. As the elected deputy leader of the Labour party, I can’t imagine she would have taken kindly to somebody else grabbing the title of deputy PM which Brown had conspicuously failed to offer her. Given all of Brown’s women trouble at the time of the mid-plot reshuffle, I doubt that he could have risked angering Harman.

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

Preparing for a lengthy presence in Afghanistan

From our UK edition

So what do we learn from the Times's interview with David Richards, the man who is set to replace Richard Dannatt as the head of the British Army?  Both a little and a lot.  Most of the piece is made up of nice anecdotes and flatering quotes about the general, and he deflects a lot of the weightier questions with utterly uncontroversial answers - i.e. declining to say whether the army is properly resourced, and adding that "our own tactics must reflect the equipment and troop numbers we have."   But some of his responses are much more eyecatching; as when he claims the "whole process [in Afghanistan] might take as long as 30 to 40 years."  Sure, that's hardly a new contention; but it's important - encouraging, even - that the incoming head of the army is making it.

Daniel Korski

How Cameron should structure his national security team

From our UK edition

Reports that the Tories are thinking about appointing a Minister for Afghanistan raise the broader question of how they should structure their national security team. Though the Tories bang on about their idea of setting up a National Security Council, there has been precious little detail given  of how it would work, how it would be different than the Foreign and Defence Policy Secretariat in the Cabinet Office and who would staff it. The National Security Council should be led by a minister, sitting in either the Commons or the Lords, who would also act as the National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister, supported by a National Security Director, from the ranks of the Civil Service.

Friday

James Forsyth

The West must prepare contingency plans to bomb Iran

From our UK edition

Chuck Wald, a retired US Air Force General who was the air commander for the US response to the 9/11 attacks, has an important op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today about Iran. Wald argues that while no one wants to see the military options explored before all others have been exhausted, it would be a mistake to think that there are none. He argues that even the mere act of a military build up might persuade the Iranian regime that the cost of continuing with their nuclear programme would be being bombed and thus persuade them to give up. Alternatively, a naval blockade could deny Tehran the petrol imports it needs, bringing its already teetering economy to a halt.

Fraser Nelson

Why Georgia matters

From our UK edition

When David Cameron flew to Georgia last year, it was perhaps the clearest and most welcome statement of foreign policy made by the party since he became leader. Liam Fox’s piece on conservativehome today pays tribute to this, and gives us a welcome reminder of the stakes. The Russian threat is growing: there are 10,000 troops there and settlements will soon start. The best the West can do is show solidarity, and there is no clearer sign than going there. As Cameron did. Like Israel in the Middle East, Georgia is a light of democratic freedom in an area with plenty of unlit candles. There is something totemic about its independence, something the Conservatives can express clear and unequivocal support for.

James Forsyth

The human cost of deprivation 

From our UK edition

The news that in one Northern city, 15 percent of Neets, those young people not in education, employment or training, are dead within ten years in immensely depressing. It is a reminder of the horrendous toll that drugs and social breakdown take on our society. The director general of schools, who revealed this, stresses that these numbers shouldn’t be taken to be typical of the country as a whole. But seeing as we don’t have numbers for the rest of the country, this was a local study, it is impossible to know how serious the situation is nationally.   One can talk in policy terms about possible solutions to this problem.

David Blackburn

Confusion reigns

From our UK edition

On Wednesday, the Downing Street press office confirmed with us that there was a timetable for ministers to stand-in for Gordon Brown. They said that Harriet Harman was in the job this week and last and that Lord Mandelson would begin “next week”. Today it’s emerged that Harman’s stint has ended prematurely, and that she’s been replaced by Mandelson – though he’s yet to return from Corfu. The Dark Lord is influential, but can even he run the government from the Med? We thought we’d check what was going and put in another call to Downing Street. This time they had a different story: we were told that there was no timetable; that there never had been a timetable.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

What Dougie didn’t say

From our UK edition

The New Statesman’s interview with Douglas Alexander is making waves for Alexander’s admission that he was briefed against by Brown’s inner circle following the election that never was. The treatment of Alexander, a man who had been a Brown loyalist for his entire political career and was only following instructions, was particularly brutal. But what strikes me about the interview is how Alexander, who is still Labour’s general election coordinator, did not produce a single positive domestic policy argument for re-electing Labour that the New Statesman thought was worth printing. Indeed, when the interview turns to British politics, all we hear from Alexander is negative slogans about the Tories: they are “untested” and “outside the mainstream.