James Kirkup

Westminster is full of clever people who spend a lot of time stupidly making simple things complicated. The story of Nathalie Elphicke’s defection to Labour is a case in point. This is a simple story, or should be. Someone who used to tell voters to vote Conservative is now telling voters to vote Labour. It’s more proof that the Tories are finished and Labour is the party that represents the biggest share of the electorate. End of story.

Popping out to buy milk the other night, I saw how women die. My nearest local shop in south-west London, the place I go for last-minute and forgotten groceries, is an M&S at a petrol station. It sells fuel, overpriced food and coffee. It’s open late. As I queued to pay for my semi-skimmed just before 7 p.m., I noticed a couple of police constables – one male, one female – waiting for coffee. Their marked car was parked outside, though not at a pump; they’d evidently stopped just for the coffee. Did the time it takes to get a coffee, pick a snack, and pay for it cost a woman a beating? As we waited, there was an electrical squawk from one of the officers’ radios. A dispatcher read over details of an emergency call with an address in London SW11.

Another day, another smart report arguing for higher payments into our pensions. Standard Life and WPI Economics have published a paper saying that minimum contribution rates into workplace pensions must rise. Today, workers contribute a minimum of 5 per cent of their salary to their pensions while their employer pays in 3 per cent. Not enough, the report says. Both rates should rise immediately to 6 per cent. Otherwise, it is said, millions of today’s workers will face poverty in retirement. Pension contributions should rise. They should already have risen, in fact This is entirely sensible and right and in line with the consensus among pensions experts and pensions industry people.

Britain is running out of workers. The UK population may be growing, but the share of that population that is economically active is falling. More than 9.2 million working-age adults are out of the labour market today, and the number is growing.  This might be the biggest story in today’s Budget, and certainly one that deserves more attention from politicians and businesses alike.  The Office for Budget Responsibilty’s fiscal analysis accompanying the Budget contains some pretty bleak data and projections on economic inactivity and participation the workforce.  In headline terms, the OBR has abandoned its previous optimism that the spike in economic inactivity that followed the pandemic would be temporary.

Alison McGovern, Labour’s shadow employment minister is one of those politicians  who are always worth watching. She combines the ability to look and speak like a normal human being – a rare thing at Westminster – with a genuine policy wonk’s fascination for data and trends and ideas.   She also has fans at the top of the Labour party. While other shadow ministers are rendered almost mute by the message discipline of Team Starmer, McGovern has the confidence and license to think out loud.  This week she was at the Social Market Foundation to talk about social mobility, which covers a lot of ground.  There were several significant takeaways from that event, some of which I’ll try to capture briefly here. • The Labour war on ‘social mobility’ is over.

This week, a Conservative Prime Minister announced he was banning something – disposable vapes. The reaction to that ban – or rather, the lack of reaction – is a signpost to future UK health policy, which will lean towards interventionism in the years ahead. Companies making and selling food and drink should pay close attention. Over the last quarter-century around Westminster, I've watched many political debates about intervening to make it harder or more expensive for people to buy and consume things that are, in general, bad for them. There was Labour's ban on smoking indoors, then Gordon Brown's attempt to deter buy-one get-one free food deals.

Liz Truss has sent Matthew Elliott to the House of Lords in her resignation honours list. There are some obvious and predictable reactions to this.   First, the sheer effrontery of our least successful PM in exercising her traditional right to an honours list. She lasted less time than that lettuce. She was awful. How dare she? Etc etc.  To which I can only say this: Yes, it’s appalling, but don’t be surprised. Truss is incapable of self-doubt or reflection. She can’t imagine that she did anything wrong so why shouldn’t she have a list, just like any other former PM? Don’t waste pixels on indignation.   Second, sending the sinister dark money Brexit boss to the Lords is surely the latest sign of corruption on high.

The death of Alistair Darling is a grievous loss. British politics has lost a man of decency, character, integrity and humour. He was a good man, in a world where good men are scarce. Darling’s most prominent role in politics was as chancellor to prime minister Gordon Brown from 2007 until 2010, a turbulent period defined by a global financial crisis and the related economic slump.

David Cameron is back. This will make some people unhappy, because they dislike the man. Common reasons for disliking Dave include Brexit and austerity. But there’s also the Greensill lobbying and just the general, all-pervading shiny-faced smugness of a man who, one suspects, never really gave a toss about any of it and was just playing at politics to show how clever he is. You might infer from the words above that I am one of those who dislike Cameron. I certainly have reasons to do so, and reasons that are a little more personal than the ones I’ve listed above. My feelings about David Cameron have informed a great many columns that I’ve written about the man in the years since he left No.

With all due respect to the diligent journalists who revealed it, I don’t think it’s a big deal that some bits of Rachel Reeves’ book about women in economics were copied from Wikipedia.  The book, The Women Who Made Modern Economics, was launched at an Institute for Government event in Westminster on Wednesday evening. An examination by the FT of the book found more than 20 examples of passages from other sources that appeared to be either lifted wholesale, or reworked with minor changes, without acknowledgment. Some biographical text about women economists spotlighted by Reeves, who hopes to become Britain’s first female chancellor if Labour wins the next election, was lifted wholesale from Wikipedia. Cue 'controversy'.

It is almost exactly 30 years since a young Labour politician told his party’s annual conference in Brighton that as home secretary, he would be ‘tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime’. That line helped make Tony Blair a star, since it allowed a left-wing party to grab an issue where its right-wing opponents traditionally held sway. That was the era of Michael Howard as home secretary, when the public and the people who helped set the political agenda were largely in favour of a tough, punitive approach to crime. Howard’s famously harsh Criminal Justice Act 1994 was a sign of those times.   Yet things change. The recent Conservative conference was heavy on speeches and events that allowed some commentators to allege a Tory slide towards the hard right.

Keir Starmer reckons that under today’s economic conditions and policy framework, he would not have gone to Leeds University when he left school in the early 1980s: 'It was a financial stretch then; if I were a student today, I wouldn’t be able to go.' I’m not completely convinced this is true, but I have a lot of empathy for what he says about university access. I also think it’s a politically interesting and astute comment.  Let's start with the politics. Compared to the population as a whole, Starmer is a very rich man who lives in a big house in London. He’s a KC and a knight.

The other day, I found myself at a large event in a posh garden where David Cameron was present. Being a polite sort of person, he smiled and mouthed some sort of greeting as we passed. And being an impolite sort of person, I ignored him and walked on. When someone asked me why I’d been so rude, I explained that I was just being consistent. I’ve been very rude about Cameron in print over several years, so wouldn’t it be a bit hypocritical – craven, even – to be all smiley and polite in person? My rudeness has taken many forms and has several causes.

Over almost 30 years in and around Westminster, I’ve noted some persistent and essential differences in the culture and mindset of our two big political parties. Tories generally want to win elections, and are prepared to subordinate pretty much all else to that objective. How else to explain their regular mutation into a new form of political life every few years? Today’s hybrid with a right-populist body and a technocrat-centrist head is just the latest example. Labour, by contrast, always has an ambivalent attitude to winning. Buried in the party’s soul is the fear that winning means compromising on principles, and is therefore to be avoided. How else to explain those Labour people who still celebrate Jeremy Corbyn’s disastrous leadership as a golden age for the party?