Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
Word from chipmunk central is that she's heading for Salford and won't say more today. To do so, pre-election, may be seen by Labour as treason. But after polling closes, I suspect, it's open season.
From our UK edition
An electric atmosphere in the Commons today. Labour MPs with faces like murder, Tony McNulty skulking in the back where the cameras won't get him, and Sean Woodward to Brown's left. To his right, Harman then Straw. A chastened Michael Martin started proceedings with a question from the SNP's Mike Weir - isn't the Cabinet reshuffling itself, and Brown's authority in shreds? Brown murmured that he'd saved the banks, was getting on with the job, and was roundly jeered. It set the tone for the rest of PMQs. Cameron didn't go in for the kill - he just asked a similar version of the same question. Brown replied by praising Jacqui Smith and Hazel Blears - i.e. "Please, girls, amnesty! Don't make any nasty speeches about me. You know that would finish me off.
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Hazel Blears capacity for detonation is not yet exhausted. Shot one was "YouTube if you want to", shot two - some argue - was her leaking of Jacqui Smith's resignation plan. Shot three her resignation right before PMQs, which one senior government source has described to me as a "rank betrayal" coming ahead of the election. And might shot four be a personal statement to the House, a Geoffrey Howe style salvo? If so, that may be enough. Remember the women are the ones with the balls in the Labour party. Let's see what they can do in the next few days. UPDATE: Word from Chipmunk Central is that she's heading for Salford and won't say more today. To do so, pre-election, may be seen by Labour as treason. But after polling closes, I suspect, it's open season.
From our UK edition
"It's like the Masque of the Red Death" Stephen Pound said on Newsnight recently. "The band’s playing, the wine’s being served but half the dancers are dead and are just going through the motions.” And indeed, just yesterday, five more Labour MPs fell. According to the polls, about half of them will lose their seat at the next election. With coming retirements, the number of MPs going at the next election will be 335 according to Sunday Times/Thrasher estimates, just over half of the total number of MPs. Even the Great Reform Act of 1832 only got rid of a third of the chamber. This is the undead parliament, most of whose members are waiting for the payout that accompanies the general election - whenever it comes.
From our UK edition
I suspect Jacqui Smith has done a Ruth Kelly - she knew she was going, so why wait to be knifed? Why not go at a time of her choosing, and take control? She doesn't need to make an announcement. She just needed to let it be known that she will resign, and sooner or later it would reach someone like Joey Jones from Sky News, who broke the story. This gives her a bit of dignity, and will frustrate Gordon Brown who would have liked to announce this himself. The reshuffle is one of the few weapons left in his arsenal - with Labour's poll rating now below room temperature, he is about to lead the party into what will doubtless be its worst-ever defeat. And he'll look more helpless now; given he can't control his own reshuffles in a timely way.
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The Christmas issue of the Spectator is in the shops now, but if you don't yet have a copy, here are the contents in full: Features [caption id="attachment_9331272" align="alignnone" width="519"] Ian Forsyth/Getty[/caption] In defence of Blairism - Tony Blair Michael Gove interviews the Archbishop of Canterbury James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson interview David Cameron Mark Clarke, Bercow, Sewel: 2016 was a vintage year for the cad - Quentin Letts Yes, Eddie Redmayne played a transsexual. Does that make him qualified to speak for them? - Tom Hollander Our uniting kingdom: how opinions in Scotland and England are fast converging - Leading article If it’s Trump vs Clinton then Hillary’s path to the White House is clear.
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After Patricia Hewitt, Beverley Hughes and David Chaytor we are now up to 16 undead MPs: ones who have decided to stand down at the next election, but hang on a year until they can get their payoff - which is up to £120,000 depending on age and length of service. Go now, and they get nothing. Some of the excuses are just pathetic. If the job is such a toll on family life and health, etc, why not stand down now? Who else gives a year's notice? You can bet their constituents will be getting a less-than-stellar service ("What you going to do? Sack me?"). As anyone who has worked out a notice period can attest, their hearts will not be in the job.
From our UK edition
So when will Iran get enough nuclear material for a bomb? In evidence to the Knesset this morning, Israeli military intelligence has suggested this could happen as early as this year. Of course, the Iranians don't (yet) have the right missiles. There was some concern about Russians selling a S300 anti-aircraft missile to China who could sell it to Iran - but when I was in Jerusalem a few weeks ago the officials I spoke to said they think the Kremlin has changed its mind. (Ditto with the sale of MiG31s to Syria). But with the material ready to go, it can only be a matter of time before Iran finds a missile from somewhere. Israel isn't under attack, but it feels like it right now. It's in the midst of a five-day emergency drill called "Turning Point Three", where schools, hospitals etc.
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Gordon Brown v Evan Davis this morning – and while most Brown interviews before 9am have a soporific effect, this one was (by Brown’s standards) a belter. The Dear Leader had come with an announcement: he is proposing a National Council for Democratic Renewal and was inviting questions on it. Davis had other questions, and you could hear Brown’s irritation grow. “I want the BBC to join a debate about the future,” he said at one point - Davis just didn’t care. He wanted the PM to join a debate about a whole range of topics: McBride, expenses, the whole shebang.
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The Dear Leader did Andrew Marr this morning – I’ve just returned from a beautiful day out to watch it online and give it a quick Fisk. Here are my top half dozen points. 1. “To be honest, what I've seen offends my Presbyterian conscience.” Is this the first recorded use of the phrase? And what do the Presbyterians think about it? 2. “Do you want 10 percent cuts in your education services at a time when young children, teenagers need more education? Do you want 10 percent cuts in your policing at a time when we actually need to give people visible police presence in their communities? Now these are the issues on which we will fight at General Election.” Oh God, what have I done?
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Why should Labour keep Gordon Brown as their leader? If Labour come third behind the LibDems at the Euro elections, this question is certain to be raised in public by someone. I hear that the Dear Leader has prepared an answer: green shoots. Seriously. Look, he will say, the economy is on the turn. And when those green shoots come, people will thank him for leading us through the storm. No Brown, no gratitude. So why chuck him out, just when things are on the turn? This is why today's house price data from Nationwide has political significance: it will buttress Brown's claim that he should stay to take credit for the recovery.
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I have the dubious honour of being cited by Ed Balls in a press conference as proof that the Tories are hiding a cuts agenda. I say in the Daily Telegraph that the Tories' plan is for a 10% cut across defence, education, transport and the Home Office. In typical word-twisting fashion, Balls said it “could see 45,000 teachers laid off,” and spoke as if I had uncovered a secret plan in Philip Hammond’s desk. In fact, it is a basic conclusion that can be made by anyone with a calculator and a copy of the Budget. These are not Tory cuts, but Labour cuts. Revealed not by me in the Daily Telegraph, but by Darling in Budget 2009. They equate to 7.6% real terms cuts in departmental spending over three years starting Apr11.
From our UK edition
British politics is currently suspended in one of those strange Road Runner moments, when we’ve run over the cliff but haven’t looked down. From April 2011, spending on public services will start to fall by a cumulative 7 percent over three years, according to Budget 2009. And given its fairytale economic assumptions (trampoline recovery, etc) the real cuts could be far greater. If the Tories protect health (as they say they will), then the cuts will be a cumulative 10 percent over transport, defence, education, police etc. This will dominate the next parliament. Huge schools cuts, huge military cuts – and all the time at the risk of the credit rating agencies pulling the plug. We don’t have to wait for the Tory manifesto, we know the parameters.
From our UK edition
Angela Wallace is one of a new breed of wavering voter. ‘I’m disgusted with all of the parties,’ she says, peering suspiciously at the men with clipboards on her doorstep. ‘MPs are not like they used to be. Now they’re all as bad as each other.’ The political activists I am accompanying have a ready response. ‘Well, why not make a protest vote?’ asks the candidate. ‘We’re the BNP.’ They have a leaflet ready: ‘Punish the Pigs’, it says. The BNP, it continues, is ‘the only party that makes them squeal. We’re NOT in it for the money.’ She promises to think about it. In these deliberations, she will be very far from alone.
From our UK edition
The central deceit behind Budget 2009 – Alistair Darling’s trampoline recovery theory – is steadily crumbling. CoffeeHousers will remember the scam. He pretends that Britain will, from April 2011, enjoy three years of turbo-charged growth averaging 3.5 per cent a year, hence justifying his pre-election splurge. It was, in my view, an extraordinary moment – where the Treasury didn’t even pretend to be operating within the parameters of the possible. I quizzed the Treasury official about it in the post-Budget briefing (full transcript here), saying there is not a single analyst, anywhere, who shares these forecasts. “No one agrees with you” I said. “Well I don’t actually know of any of what you are talking about” he replied.
From our UK edition
The Telegraph tonight makes two substantial revelations. The first is that nine Cabinet members - including Alistair Darling - have charged the taxpayer for accountants to do their personal tax returns. And while the figure - £11,000 - is bad enough it's the principle that's damaging. This government has had millions of British taxpayers submerged in paperwork, with self-assessment turning us into accountants. But they can't face the burden themselves, so get in an accountant in and send us the bill. I'm especially shocked at Darling - if he can't handle a tax return on his own, how on earth does he cope with the nation's finances?
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So how scared should Gordon Brown be of Caroline Flint? In my News of the World column, I warn against underestimating the wrath of Labour women. They suspect that Brown, in his anger, is now beating up on the female members of the Cabinet and are making a pre-emptive strike. Remember last summer's rebellion: it was the revenge of the Blair babes. Siobhan McDonagh, Joan Ryan, Fiona Mactaggart, Janet Anderson - with Ruth Kelly being the Cabinet casualty. They all knew they would be briefed against by McBride, that their personal lives would be exposed to the gossip columns. But it was a price they were willing to pay. McBride did an effective job in the end, identifying and 'outing' them so they could not detonate in a co-ordinated way. But now the Labour sorority is back.
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Only this morning, Andrew MacKay said that he would stand for election again - but after a conversation with David Cameron he has now decided to stand down at the next election. The open meeting he held had several calls for him to go, and there was talk of a petition. The grassroots momentum was significant. This, make no mistake, is a personal loss to David Cameron who relied on MacKay to be his eyes and ears in the backbenches. That Cameron has been prepared to say goodbye to Mackay shows that he's prepared to lose people who matter to him - as well as those, like Douglas Hogg, who don't. Mackay, let's not forget, was rumbled not by the Daily Telegraph but by the Tories' own internal proceedings.
From our UK edition
It is typical of Michael Martin that his laughably short resignation statement contained a fundamental misunderstanding of parliament. ‘This House is at its very best when it is united,’ he said. The precise opposite is true. Gordon Brown and David Cameron’s places are precisely two sword lengths apart because it is intended to be an adversarial system. When the Commons chamber was bombed in 1941, Churchill rejected plans to rebuild it in a more collegiate semi-circular format. ‘We shape our buildings,’ he said, ‘But then our buildings shape us.’ Churchill understood that the slightest change in parliament, from the architecture to the rule book, alters the balance of power.
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Should celebrities stand to become MPs? I have just done a phone-in on Richard Bacon's Five Live programme where I was in favour of it. My point was that voting in someone like Esther Rantzen sends an important democratic message: that the voters think the Westminster menu is uninspiring. This is an entirely legitimate means of democratic protest. But, Bacon asked, don't you think they have that message? Well yes, but they only really take action if there is an electoral price to pay. Independent candidates are thorns in a traditional politician's side. And often they prompt action - think about the effect of the Referendum Party. It's not impossible that the celebs come good. Who would have thought an actor like Reagan would have been such a transformative politician?
