Uk politics

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

Leveson: press regulation is ‘your problem, not mine’

Brian Leveson has no opinions on press regulation, apparently. It just took him three hours to repeat this to MPs, over and over again, peppering his increasingly exasperated answers with ‘with respect’, when he appeared before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee this morning. Leveson did his upmost to get through the whole session without tilting one way or another on his inquiry, report or recommendations. But there were a few hints of what he actually thinks. Firstly, Leveson is keen for some progress, particularly from the newspapers themselves. ‘I would be sorry if my recommendations were lost’, he said, adding: ‘I have said… in discussions I had with editors

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Gove sets early policy test for Tristram Hunt

The congratulations have been flowing in from across the Labour party for Tristram Hunt as the new Shadow Education Secretary. But there is no praise higher for the newly promoted MP than to get a detailed letter from Michael Gove testing his mettle just a few days into the job. Gove saw Stephen Twigg as someone he didn’t need to worry about a great deal, more of a distraction from his daily hobby of provoking the teaching unions than a mighty threat. But Hunt, while still possibly in danger of proving too Blairite for his party’s tastes, appears a mightier candidate. Education Questions in the Commons will certainly be an

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Theresa May’s Immigration Bill is another contemptible piece of legislation

Say this for the government, they are at least consistent. Their contemptible lobbying bill is now followed by their equally contemptible immigration bill. Sometimes you think that if it weren’t for Michael Gove and for the fact that David Cameron isn’t Ed Miliband there’d be few reasons to support this government at all. And this immigration bill really is contemptible. Politics is often a question of signalling and what this bill signals, alas, is that the government prefers the presumption of guilt to the presumption of innocence. It is a bill that turns ordinary Britons into snitches for central government. A bill that will make life more inconvenient for millions

James Forsyth James Forsyth

2010 intake of Tory MPs write to Adam Afriyie telling him to drop his amendment

More than 140 of the 147 Tory MPs elected in 2010 have written to Adam Afriyie telling him to drop his amendment to the EU referendum bill. Given that Afriyie has previously suggested he’ll drop his attempt to bring the referendum forward to 2014 there is no support for it, it now seems doomed. This loyalist flexing of political muscle by the 2010 Tory intake will cheer Downing Street. It shows that the parliamentary party does, for the moment at least, want to stay united on Europe. It also indicates that a certain discipline is returning to Tory ranks as the next election approaches. Even six months ago, an amendment

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 podcast: fat Britain, Westminster reshuffles and Obamacareless

Does Britain have an obesity problem? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Fraser Nelson discuses the bizarre steps taken by the NHS to deal with our growing weight problem. Do we have such a thing as a ‘fat gland’? Why is Britain’s changing size so rapidly? And according to Fraser, Nottingham is the ‘fattest’ part of our country and deep fried Mars bars really are a delicacy. James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman also discuss this week’s Westminster reshuffles, what they mean (if anything) for the man for the street and who’s up and who’s down in the the cabinet and shadow cabinet. What do the changes says about the

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Yes, of course the War on Drugs exists (but it shouldn’t)

There is something contemptible about Nick Clegg’s latest piece of handwringing. the Deputy Prime Minister – a position that, at least notionally, carries some clout – complains that he’d very much like to do something about Britain’s antiquated drug laws but, well, he can’t because it’s hard and, besides, the Tories are such rotters. Clegg could have made this a cause. He could have done something about this before now. He could, at the very least, have talked about the War on Drugs rather more than he has. He could even have noted, frequently, that David Cameron has changed his own tune on these matters, abandoning the sensible attitude he once had. He has, instead,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Greg Barker: BBC gives too much coverage to climate change sceptics

If you asked most people about the BBC, few people would describe it as a hotbed of scepticism about global warming. But the coverage that the BBC gives to those who have doubts about the orthodoxy on the subject is too much for Barker. He, as the Press Association reports, told the Science and Technology Committee, ‘In the case of the BBC they have a very clear statutory responsibility. It’s in the original charter to inform. I think we need the BBC to look very hard, particularly at whether or not they are getting the balance right. I don’t think they are.’ Barker did say, ‘I’m not trying to ban

Chloe Smith

‘Newsnight offered me a goodbye interview with Jeremy Paxman. I didn’t return the call.’

I have been very touched this week by the messages of goodwill I’ve had after revealing my decision to step down from being a minister. I’m neither the first nor the last MP to enjoy my constituency work deeply.  Indeed, my predecessor in my own seat was well-regarded for being often obstinate in Westminster and a great constituency MP at home. I’m proud of what I’ve been able to contribute to my country, in three years as a whip and minister. I whipped the Welfare Reform bill through Parliament;  at the Treasury I negotiated detailed decommissioning contracts with the oil and gas industry, to open up billions of pounds of

The Spectator

Nick Clegg says we’re losing the war on drugs. But is there even a war?

This country is losing the war on drugs, according to Nick Clegg. The Deputy Prime Minister told the BBC’s Free Speech programme that he was frustrated that his Coalition partners were not prepared to be more imaginative on the issue, given clamour from other quarters for a new direction: ‘I don’t think we’re winning the drugs war; I think we keep banging our head against the wall and in fact I find it very frustrating that my Conservative coalition partners are not prepared to look more openly, imaginatively. You’ve got very senior police officers now coming out saying that the war on drugs is failing, that we should treat drug

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Score draw at PMQs as leaders bicker about energy bills

Perhaps David Cameron got up super-early to open his birthday presents today, or perhaps he’s a bit tired after his fortnight of party conference and reshuffle mayhem, but the Prime Minister wasn’t on top form today at PMQs. Neither was Ed Miliband, for that matter. Both men bickered about who had the best energy policy, like two kids comparing birthday presents in a playground. Neither really got in a deadly shot, with both seeming a little halting. listen to ‘PMQs: Cameron v Miliband on energy prices’ on Audioboo

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory cost of living drive begins in earnest

At their autumn conference, the Tories managed to get the last word in on the cost of living debate by explaining that you can’t just talk about living standards while not having a proper plan for the economy. This was all very well and good and the party leadership was confident that this was an easy sell to voters who already trust them more on the economy and continue to blame Labour. But many were worried that without the sort of retail offer that Labour had made at its conference, the Tories still wouldn’t cut through. George Osborne’s fuel duty freeze announcement in his speech was the start of what

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Pizzas banned as politicians get set for crunch press talks

It’s funny that the pizzas that ministers, advisers and lobbyists munched as they thrashed out a deal on press regulation in March have become a symbol of all that was wrong with those late-night negotiations. Today when Maria Miller decided to distance herself from the talks in Ed Miliband’s office, a source close to the Culture Secretary explained that this included ‘the Miliband office, the pizza, it was the presence of Hacked Off’. Obviously the presence of Hacked Off was more menacing than a few boxes of ham and pineapple pizza, but both have been banned from the three days of talks that the parties will now go into, ahead

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory ‘stick with us’ message boosted by IMF

Poor old Ed Balls. He’s been making predictions of doom that now appear to have gone too far and too fast. The latest blow to the Shadow Chancellor is that the IMF, which he went through a period of definitely liking a lot when its lieutenants started suggesting that austerity was ‘playing with fire’, has upgraded its growth forecasts for the UK by more than any other major economy. This map from the organisation’s latest World Economic Outlook illustrates rather neatly how well the IMF expects the UK to do in comparison to other European economies. Obviously this doesn’t mean that everything is fine and dandy and that everyone in the UK can

Elizabeth Truss

Our plan to fix Labour’s toxic legacy on education standards

The OECD released a report this week on education standards. It makes for grim reading: we’re bottom of the class. Those aged 16-24 in England came 22nd of 24 for literacy, and 21st for numeracy. We’re behind almost every other advanced nation in the world. What’s gone wrong? There’s a clue in the different scores by age. Young people who had pretty much their entire education under the last Labour government do worse than most older generations. The clear problem – is a decade of dumbing down led by Labour and supported wholeheartedly by the teaching unions. They made qualifications in cake decorating ‘equivalent’ to physics GCSE. They allowed calculators in

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Sorry, Maria Miller. We still won’t sign

The very fact that a Cabinet member has stood up in the House of Commons to make a statement on the future of newspapers suggests there’s something going rather wrong in our democracy. For three centuries, newspapers have not been toys in the political train set. Britain has operated on an unspoken principle of liberty, so firmly embedded in the national DNA that the separation between government and the press did not need spelt out in a constitution. Today, a medieval group known as the Privy Council (in fact, an octet of politicians) has decided to reject the newspaper industry’s plans for self-regulation in favour of politicians’ plans for press regulation.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Tommy Robinson: Zionist puppet, Neocon Fraud and Wahhabist Stooge.

If you ever want a laugh, read the websites of Britain’s collection of far-right political groupings. It is worth doing so if only to remind yourself that the “threat” from right-wing extremists is often rather exaggerated. These people’s relationship with reality is neither firm enough to threaten public order nor coherent enough to win them more than a (relative) handful of deluded followers. Keep an eye on them, by all means, but let’s not make them out to be more than they are. After all, whenever the far-right does enjoy some success that success quickly evaporates. The public, when it has a chance to see these people for what they

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Diane Abbott sacked as Miliband forges loyal frontbench team

Diane Abbott’s exit from the Labour frontbench has come later than the former Shadow Public Health Minister imagined. She had planned to resign over the Syria vote, only to find, rather to her dismay, that her party leadership had taken the position she supported in the end. Behind the scenes, the briefing is that she wasn’t sufficiently loyal: she has always been in her own party rather than pulling for the team. LabourList has a fantastic quote from a party source about Abbott ‘pissing all over the tents’, rather than ‘pissing out of the tent’ as had been hoped. She did get rather cross about Syria, but she also publicly

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Another bad day for HS2 as Labour prepares ground for U-turn

If the strange mood of Tory unity over Europe is giving you the heebie-jeebies, then have a look at high-speed rail. When disunity boils over, which it is likely to do later this autumn, it will cause the party real problems. Unless, of course, Adam Afriyie decides to launch some kind of coup on HS2, in which case Parliament will probably unite to support the new line and that will be the last we hear of it. Labour is now crouching in the undergrowth, waiting for the Tory disunity to bubble over. The party hasn’t quite dropped its love of stirring things up a bit, and the disappearance of Maria

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Afriyie amendments wait hopefully for supporters as whips plot EU referendum bill success

Adam Afriyie’s sleepless nights are over. His amendments to the European Union (Referendum) Bill are now down and waiting hopefully for signatures. The MP claimed at the weekend that he had cross-party support for his call for an early referendum, but currently only two names – Afriyie’s and Keith Vaz – feature on the paper. Given the ambitious MP’s attempt to shake things up in the Conservative party didn’t have quite the desired effect, it will be interesting to see which MPs still think it worth signing these two amendments, which add 23 October 2014 as the referendum date to the legislation. The newly beefed-up whips office may not see