Peter Hoskin

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Closer than we thought?

From our UK edition

Another poll lead for Boris this morning, but it's significantly shorter than those 10 and 12 point advantages he's enjoyed recently. This Guardian / ICM poll – which they're hawking as “the only one to be carried out by a national newspaper using established techniques” – has Boris as the first choice of 42 percent of voters, compared to 41 percent for Ken. When second preferences are allocated, Boris's lead increases slightly – 51 percent to 49 percent. He's winning the battle for the hearts (and votes) of Paddickites. Whilst any lead for the Spectator's man is encouraging, this latest shows there's still a lot of work to be done before Ken and his “personal fiefdom” can be ousted.

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Bertie Ahern resigns

From our UK edition

Bertie Ahern is to step down from his twin role as Irish taoiseach and leader of the Fianna Fáil party on May 6th.  He's departing under something of a cloud - his personal finances are being sifted through by a corruption tribunal, although he denies any wrongdoing.  History, though, will most likely remember him for his role in the Irish peace process. I'd recommend Three Line Whip's excellent coverage.

Peter Hoskin

Harman holds her own at PMQs

From our UK edition

A bit of a damp squib, really.  Harman held her own against those PMQs titans that are Hague and Cable. And all my anticipatory drooling was for nought.   Hague opened by congratulating Harman on being the first female Labour MP to lead the House at PMQs.  An invite for Harman’s only cringeworthy moment, as she inquired why Theresa May wasn’t opposing her. She suddenly came over all Oprah-esque – handing out “sisterly advice” and asking whether Tory women are to be “seen but not heard”.   The patented Hague Joke soon followed, and it was a good one.

Peter Hoskin

Two greats

From our UK edition

Cinema is losing its heroes in pairs at the moment. After Bergman and Antonioni passed-away in quick succession last year, the past week has seen the deaths of Richard Widmark and Jules Dassin – my favourite screen actor and one of my favourite directors, respectively. Apart, they were involved in some sublime movies. Together, they created one of the finest noir films – Night and the City.  I’ll be writing a fuller appreciation of these two greats later this week, but for now my Widmark and Dassin top-5 lists will have to suffice.

Peter Hoskin

Ken Livingstone has no shame

From our UK edition

Ok, so Political Betting covered this yesterday - among others - but the words "Magpie Mayor" emblazoned across the front of last night's Evening Standard reminded me to give it a Coffee House mention.  Basically - as this Standard article details - Ken Livingstone is planning to steal Boris's policy ideas, including that of the "Payback London" scheme.  Worse still, Ken unabashedly admits to this.  Here's what he had to say in a debate the other night: "I'm stealing your policies. What sort of idiot, when they hear a good idea, wouldn't take it on board?"Does Ken really think this will ingratiate him with Londoners?

Peter Hoskin

By design, not by accident

From our UK edition

Simon Heffer serves up a bracing cup of invective in the Telegraph this morning. His message is that we shouldn't be too quick to label the Government “incompetent”, as doing so suggests they've reached this point by accident rather than by design: "The element of deliberation and deliberateness in what Labour has done makes an accusation of incompetence, or carelessness, seem wide of the mark. Things were meant to be this way. Labour has pursued policies, be they social or economic, for ideological reasons: and when they fail, as so many have, it has not been because of slipshod administration. It is because that was how things were always going to work out.

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

More misery for Clegg

From our UK edition

Nick Clegg's in line for more misery over Europe.  Today, Lord McNally announced that Lib Dem peers would go against Clegg's orders by not abstaining from the upcoming referendum vote.  Instead, they're set to vote against a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.   Many of the pro-referendum brigade had pinned their dwindling hopes on the Lords.  But McNally's revelation makes it extremely unlikely that the UK will get the say it was promised.  In a way, then, Clegg will get the outcome he wanted.  Although his grip on the Lib Dems has been shattered in the process.

Peter Hoskin

Mugabe to step down?

From our UK edition

Many fear that the delay in Zimbabwe's presidential election results getting released is a sign that Mugabe is working out how he can rig it.  But Centre Right flag up a New York Times article which says differently: "Advisers to President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe are in talks with the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, amid signs that Mr. Mugabe may be preparing to resign, a Western diplomatic source and a prominent Zimbabwe political analyst said Tuesday. The negotiations about a possible transfer of power away from Mr. Mugabe come after he apparently concluded that a runoff election would be demeaning, a diplomat said."Mugabe to step down?  I'll believe it when I see it...

Peter Hoskin

Cameron & friends

From our UK edition

A perennial problem for Opposition leaders - and particularly those that have never been in Government - is how they put forward their party's defence credentials.  They haven't been in the high-level security meetings; they don't have access to all the confidential data; and they haven't made any of the key decisions.  Why in a time of crisis should the public depart from the status quo? On the surface, Cameron's speech today was about how NATO should evolve for the 21st Century.  But he also used it to reassure voters about the Tories' security nous.  His method for doing that?  Name-dropping.

Peter Hoskin

The failure of Brown’s third way

From our UK edition

Steve Richards has a typically excellent piece in today's Independent. In it, he paints Brown's effort to push through longer detention times for terror suspects as another instance of Blairite grandstanding. Unfortunately for Brown, though, it's left no-one happy: “Last summer, when he was successfully portraying himself as the apolitical father of the nation, the debate over detaining suspects without charge must have seemed politically attractive. Probably, Mr Brown calculated that he could succeed where Mr Blair had failed, reinforcing another part of his pre-election strategy of appearing more Blairite than Mr Blair. Right-wing newspapers would support him. The move was popular with voters.

Peter Hoskin

A present from Harriet to Boris

From our UK edition

Will the gaffes ever stop coming?  Just a matter of weeks after Jacqui Smith admitted she has police protection when walking around London, the Daily Mail have caught out Harriet Harman for wearing a "stab-proof" vest whilst touring Peckham, in her own constituency.  The image is gold for Boris, particularly as he majored on violent crime at his campaign launch yesterday. Meanwhile, Harman did further damage with her agitated performance on Today this morning.

Peter Hoskin

Immigration nation

From our UK edition

A Lords' committee today claims that record levels of immigration have had no economic benefit for the UK. But what about that £6 billion figure the Government likes to wheel out? According to the committee report (pdf. here), it's misleading. What should really concern us is how immigration affects the living standards of the existing population. By that measure, there's been hardly any improvement.  Things may even have got worse. In response, the report suggests a cap on immigrant numbers. Just like Tory policy. The Immigration Minister Liam Bryne swatted the accusations and proposals away on the Today programme this morning. But this report is the third in recent weeks to lambast the Government's overall approach to immigration (see also here and here).

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Harman vs. Cable

From our UK edition

As James reported last week, Harriet Harman will be standing in for Brown at Wednesday's PMQs.  Her Tory opponent will most likely be William Hague.  And now Red Box confirm that she'll also be faced by Vince Cable.   Harman against a Hague 'n' Cable tag-team?  One shudders to think...

Peter Hoskin

End of a circus?

From our UK edition

So there we have it. According to Lord Justice Scott Baker, there is not a “shred of evidence” that Diana was assassinated by the Royal Family or by anyone else. A line can finally be drawn through the conspiracy theories of Mohamed Al Fayed. (Although will his supporters be placated? I doubt it. To paraphrase Karl Popper: a Diana conspiracy theorist cannot open a newspaper without finding on every page confirming evidence for their view of history.)   But it’s taken some £6 million of taxpayers’ money to reach this sensible conclusion. And that’s before we consider the distress caused to Princes William and Harry, as their mother’s name has been dragged through the mud.

Peter Hoskin

Another considerable lead

From our UK edition

More encouraging news for Boris, on the day that he formally launched his mayoral campaign. The latest YouGov / Evening Standard poll puts the Spectator’s candidate 10 percentage points clear of Ken Livingstone. He also leads Ken on second preference votes.   Admittedly, it’s a bit down on his 12-point lead of two weeks ago. But at least it proves that wasn’t a freak result. The tide is certainly in Boris’s favour. UPDATE: Over at Red Box, Sam Coates wonders whether Boris might scrap the congestion charge.

Peter Hoskin

Unhappy to pay more tax

From our UK edition

Do check out Janet Daley's comment piece in the Telegraph today. On her account, we've reached a political landmark: “Something has snapped. I feel it in the air just as surely as I did in 1979 when the population of Britain decided, quite suddenly, that it had had enough. There is now - as there was then - an almost palpable anger, a shift of concrete significance in some very fundamental assumptions about how the Government operates, and even what people want from government generally... ...Whatever happened to all those people who used to say that they would be Happy To Pay More Tax? Remember them? They were a notable feature of virtually every opinion poll for a good 10 years.

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

An issue for debate

From our UK edition

A quick post to recommend ConservativeHome's list of which political debates the left and right are winning in the UK.  Among the right's triumphs are crime, welfare and schools reform.  And among the left's are tax & spend, the NHS and climate change.  Do CoffeeHousers agree?

Peter Hoskin

Is the curtain falling on Mugabe?

From our UK edition

The results of yesterday's elections in Zimbabwe aren't due out for few more days.  But the opposition MDC party is already claiming victory.  According to their own counts at polling stations, they've "massacred" Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party.  Says the MDC secretary general: "We've won this election.  The results coming in show that in our traditional strongholds we are massacring them.  In Mugabe's traditional strongholds they are doing very badly.  There is no way Mugabe can claim victory unless it is through fraud.  He has lost this election." It's a risky move.  On the one hand, it takes the fight squarely to Mugabe - almost daring him to fiddle the results.