Westminster

Friday

James Forsyth

The Mrs Bercow show

From our UK edition

What, I suspect, would infuriate Sally Bercow most is if there was a complete media blackout over her appearance on ‘Celebrity’ Big Brother. As she made clear on entering the house, her whole aim is to annoy what she calls the ‘establishment.’ But at the risk of playing Bercow’s game, it’s worth debunking one argument that her defenders make. They say that she’s a person in her own right and so should be allowed to do what she wants, that her appearance should be defended on feminist grounds. But on the show, she’s not presenting herself as that. Instead, she’s there as the Speaker’s wife — that is her claim to fame.

Friday

Alex Massie

How A Mensch Responds to the Press

From our UK edition

Journalist seeks to embarrass politician for crime of enjoying themselves before they became a politician and, apparently, must expect to have their every move vetted by prudes and scolds. Said hack wants to know if it is true that: Whilst working at EMI, in the 1990s, you took drugs with Nigel Kennedy at Ronnie Scott's in Birmingham, including dancing on a dance floor, whilst drunk, with Mr Kennedy, in front of journalists. Photos of this exist. Blimey! Photos exist! Whatever next? So hats-off to Louise Mensch for her reply: Although I do not remember the specific incident, this sounds highly probable. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Nigel Kennedy, whom I remember with affection.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Westminster’s Festina Affair

From our UK edition

Cycling fans will recall the Festina Affair that crippled the 1998 version of the Tour de France. The discovery that the peloton could be considered a travelling pharmacy did not surprise veteran cycling aficionados, even if the extent and sophistication of the doping was enough to shock some. Entire teams withdrew from a race that, with grim inevitability, quickly became known as the Tour de Farce. Well, this phone-hacking scandal is, for the press and parliament, a comparable scandal.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Gotcha! | 19 July 2011

From our UK edition

John McTernan has some good advice for MPs questioning the Murdochs and La Brooks this afternoon. The main thing is basically this: see those famous Congressional hearings in the United States? Yeah, don't behave as Senators and Members of the House of Representatives are prone to do. It's not about you, it's about the answers. So no rambling opening statements just because, unusually, people are watching this hearing.  Joe Biden is not your role model. Anyway, dear readers, what would you ask the trio? Meanwhile, Private Eye have opted to go classic this week. Bravo.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Murdoch Loses His Grip on Reality

From our UK edition

Not the least astonishing aspect of the News of the World affair is the useless manner in which the Murdoch family has responded to the crisis. There appears to have been no plan, no attempt to get a grip on the situation; they have instead lurched from one miscalculation to another. Not that Rupert sees it that way. Apparently the company has made only "minor mistakes" and the crisis has been handled "extremely well in every way possible". Which is one way of looking at it.  The initial decision to simply shutter the News of the World took everyone by surprise. Perhaps the Murdochs assumed this would put an end to the matter. In retrospect, closing the paper simply invited additional questions.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Cameron Cuts Himself Free

From our UK edition

If memory serves, Gore Vidal liked to stress the point that he was always the bugger, never the buggered. Something similar might be said of Rupert Murdoch's approach to his business dealings. The Dirty Digger - and bugger, for that matter - is not accustomed to failure. And yet, inside just seven days, he has lost the News of the World and his bid to purchase the 61% of BSkyB he does not already own. Cue astonishing scenes and muppetry from the likes of George Monbiot who tweeted, I kid you not, "This is our Berlin Wall moment". And yet something has changed on this remarkable day. Credit is due to Ed Miliband and some of his backbenchers (notably Tom Watson) for they've led the way on this matter.

Peter Hoskin

Parliament prepares to take on Murdoch

From our UK edition

Politicians are swarming all over the phone hacking scandal today, in even greater number than during the past week. If it isn't the main topic at PMQs at noon, then it certainly will be immediately afterwards; when David Cameron delivers his statement on an inquiry into the whole mess. And then there's Labour's Opposition Day motion, urging Rupert Murdoch to withdraw his bid for BSkyB. By the end of the day, our parliamentarians will surely have delivered an official reprimand to the News Corp boss and his ambitions. The news that the government will vote in favour of Ed Miliband's motion has sucked some of the vicious factionalism out of today's proceedings. But, never fear, there will still be plenty of political one-upmanship to go around.

Tuesday

James Forsyth

The government urges Murdoch to drop the bid

From our UK edition

The news that the government is to support Labour’s motion tomorrow calling on Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation to withdraw their bid for BSkyB is a victory for Ed Miliband — and a sign of how all political parties are rushing to distance themselves from Murdoch. George Osborne likes to say that the ‘first thing you have to do in politics is learn to count’ and the truth was that the government didn’t have the votes to block this motion even if it wanted to. Tory MPs had no desire to be seen to be voting for Murdoch in the present climate. But it is still remarkable that the Tories will join in urging Murdoch to withdraw his company’s bid to takeover BSkyB.

Monday

James Forsyth

Yet more questions for News International to answer

From our UK edition

The phone hacking controversy first began to come to public attention because of a story in The News of the World about Prince William’s knee in 2005. Now, the Royal angle has revived because of a report from Robert Peston that the newspaper allegedly paid a Royal protection officer for contact details of senior members of the Royal family. Peston reports that:   ‘According to a source, the e-mails include requests by a reporter for sums of around £1000 to pay police officers in the royal protection branch for the information. The phone details could have been used to hack phones of the royal family. "There was clear evidence from the e-mails that the security of the royal family was being put at risk", the source said.

David Blackburn

The wheels come off the BSkyB deal

From our UK edition

The BBC reports that Jeremy Hunt has written to Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading about Rupert Murdoch’s proposed takeover of BskyB. Hunt asks the regulators if they now have any ‘additional concerns in respect of plurality over and above those raised in your initial report to me on this matter received on 31 December 2010.’ Hunt concentrates on Murdoch’s provisions about maintaining the independence of Sky News. His concern with plurality is ironic given that the British media has become much more plural following the demise of the News of the World. This favours Murdoch’s takeover bid, on the face of it at least. Hunt also touches on the ‘fit and proper persons tests’ with regard to the deal.

Tuesday

James Forsyth

The parties take their positions as the phone hacking story deepens

From our UK edition

The political plates on phone hacking are shifting rapidly. The story has now ‘gone mainstream’ following the accusations about how the phones of Milly Dowler and the parents of the Soham victims may have been hacked.  Politicians are racing to catch up. Ed Miliband is rapidly moving into a more robust position. The Labour leadership doesn’t want to appear vindictive, to turn this into Labour v. Murdoch.

James Forsyth

Politics needs to respond to the changed phone hacking terrain

From our UK edition

The politics of the phone hacking saga have changed dramatically in the last 24 hours. Up to now, it has been a scandal that has been of huge interest in political and media circles but hasn’t cut through to the public. But that could all be about to change with the allegation that Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked after she was abducted and voice mails deleted (it should, obviously, be noted that nothing has been proven in a court of law on this point yet). If this allegation is true, it shows just how out of control and unrestrained the culture of phone hacking was.

Saturday

David Blackburn

No paramilitary link to last night’s riots in East Belfast

From our UK edition

The PSNI is clear that last night’s riots on Castlereagh Street, East Belfast, were not linked to sectarian paramilitary activity. Rather, this was a ‘spontaneous demonstration’ against the police. As I wrote last week, gangs on both sides of the Ulster divide have been targeting the police in recent months; and they rely on exploiting current economic hardship and ancient sectarian divisions to further their criminal ends. The continued violence is a test of Stormont’s ability to govern without the close supervision from Westminster.

Friday

Alex Massie

Small Election in Inverclyde; Not Many Bothered

From our UK edition

Sorry Pete, but I don't think there's anything hugely ambiguous about the result from the Inverclyde by-election. This was a pretty solid victory for Labour and another reminder - if these things are needed - that Westminster and Holyrood elections are played by different rules. Labour and the SNP ran neck-and-neck in the gibberish spin stakes last night as some Labour hackettes, preposterously, tried to claim that the seat "was the SNP's to lose"; for their part the nationalists tried to suggest they'd never been very interested in winning Inverclyde at all. More weapons-grade piffle. Then again, without this stuff how would anyone fill the weary hours of television before the result is announced?

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Miliband May Know the Detail But His Policies Are Wrong

From our UK edition

For all the talk of Cameron and his grasp of detail the fact remains that Miliband may, as Swot of the Lower Fourth, have the nuts and bolts but he's wrong - hopelessly, utterly wrong - on policy. To recap, today he asked the Prime Minister: "Around 5,000 people each year are arrested on suspicion of rape and not charged ... in certain cases these individuals have gone on to commit further offences and be convicted as a result of the DNA being held on the national database, but his proposal is that for those arrested and not charged the DNA would be disposed of straight away. "I ask him again, why is it right to discard the DNA of those arrested but not charged with rape?

Friday

Alex Massie

Department of Peevish Pedantry

From our UK edition

A small series: 1. I was annoyed but not surprised when Barack Obama referred to Westminster as "The Mother of Parliaments" on Wednesday. This was not a surprising error for a foreigner even if his speechwriter should have been expected to know and do better. It is England that is the Mother of Parliaments, not Westminster. (Though the Icelanders have a legitimate grievance about this.) If Obama, being a poor foreigner, can be forgiven this what is Amanda Foreman's excuse? I'd have thought an "historian" would know better but there she was on the BBC's This Week making the same ignorant blunder. Not good enough. 2. Canute. A long-standing peeve.

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Sex and Westminster

From our UK edition

Just who is Carrie Fox, the pseudonymous author of this week's Spectator cover piece? And, more to the point, who is the "political big beast" who once pinned her down and slathered his amorous intentions in her ear? (She declined). There's plenty of speculation on both fronts in Westminster today, so we thought we'd let CoffeeHousers in on the intrigue. The entire piece, featuring a complete bestiary of Parliament's sexual predators, has been made freely available here.

Alex Massie

David Cameron and the John McCain School of Statesmanship

From our UK edition

In the midst of an otherwise interesting and thoughtful piece arguing that David Cameron is "retreating" from his "radical" start, Ben Brogan lobs in this astonishing paragraph: Even on issues on which he has not found such obvious consensus, Mr Cameron has shown himself willing to take risks when politics would dictate prudence. Take Libya, where he led the international debate by being among the first to urge some kind of UN-approved action against Muammar Gaddafi. Events since have largely vindicated those who cautioned against the peril of a drawn-out, costly and unsustainable entanglement. But his critics recognised the confident way the Prime Minister defied American doubts and navigated Arab suspicions to produce a consensus for intervention.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Attacking Harry Flashman is a Fool’s Game

From our UK edition

So Ed Miliband brought up the Flashman thing at Prime Minister's Questions today. How rum. Now I think it would be sensible for the Prime Minister to be polite to his opponents. There's no need to belittle Mr Miliband when he does such a good job of doing so himself. If Labour think attacking Cameron's privileged background is a winning tactic then good luck to them. I rather suspect the public have already priced that in to their view of Cameron (and George Osborne) and so this ploy cannot do much more than entertain Labour's backbenchers. I suppose Labour are thinking of the Harry Flashman* of Tom Brown's Schooldays.That Flashman was a bully eventually expelled from Rugby (for drunkeness).

Monday

Alex Massie

One More Trip on the SNP-Labour Fantasy Coalition Merry-go-round

From our UK edition

Crivvens, the idea of an SNP-Labour coalition refuses to die. Here's Iain Macwhirter in the Herald: The rule seems to be that, in Scottish politics it’s easier to work constructively with parties you don’t agree with than with parties you do. Labour and the SNP now agree – independence aside – on most of the big issues, such as NHS privatisation, comprehensive education, free university tuition, more powers for Holyrood. But unfortunately they hate the sight of each other. Could they ever bury their differences? Most polls suggest that this is the coalition partnership Scots would most like to see. A grand coalition, perhaps, against the Tory cuts. Scotland’s two national parties working together for the common good. It’s not going to happen.