General election

Like most political journalists, I regard Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party as an unalloyed disaster. But it is, perhaps, time to admit that this view is not so widely shared amongst the public. “Almost a third of Labour supporters do not think that Jeremy Corbyn will lead Labour into the next election,” says today’s Observer. The more striking finding is that most Labour supporters (56pc) do think that Corbyn will stay until 2020. He may be hated by Labour MPs, but his approval rating is high amongst Labour members – even amongst those who voted for Andy Burnham. It’s a thing. Even if Labour MPs were to break the habit of a lifetime

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thereturnofassisteddying/media.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman and James Cleverly MP discuss the 2015 Tory intake” startat=1121] Listen [/audioplayer]Time was when the Conservatives believed that a small majority — which puts a government at the mercy of backbench rebels — would be worse than no majority at all. They dreaded the prospect. But now, well into their third month celebrating a majority of just 12 seats, it’s clear they’ve forgotten their fears about how precarious things could be. They talk as if they can now do anything — including implementing their manifesto in its entirety. It won’t take long for David Cameron to discover the truth. In any controversial vote, people will rebel

I can claim a milligram of credit for David Cameron’s first star billing. In early 1991, standing in for the late John Junor on the Mail on Sunday and seeking a weekly instance of some Labour frontbencher making an eejit of himself, I inquired who was the best sniper in the Conservative Research Department. The answer was David Cameron. I phoned him and, for the next three weeks, one sheet of paper arrived with brief quotes, all of them firecrackers. Week four: the boy David is on leave, so his boss, Andrew Lansley, the then director of CRD, stands in. I receive 20 sheets of very damp squibs. Around that

The establishment drive to marginalise Ukip has been under way for three months now, and it has having its effect. You will not read anything about Ukip in your newspapers unless it is a negative story — some half-witted candidate’s office fraudulently claiming expenses, or a disappointed member explaining that they’re all vile people and so on. The papers have, by and large, cottoned on to the fact that Nigel Farage saying something a little gamey about race is not, actually, a negative story. Whenever the Ukip leader mused in moderate terms that he found it uncomfortable to sit on a train where he was the only person speaking English,

A recent email from Samantha Cameron started an intriguing debate in the Prime Minister’s social circle. It was an invitation to a Christmas party at Chequers and word quickly spread on the Notting Hill grapevine that the PM was convening an unusually large gathering of friends at his country retreat. So, the guests wondered: were they being asked around because the Camerons were having a last hurrah at Chequers, sensing that they would be evicted by the electorate? Or was the bash being thrown because they were in celebratory mood, convinced that the political tide has turned their way? This confusion is understandable. We might only be three months away

Autumn Statements lack the drama and traditions of the Budget. Gladstone never delivered one, there is no Autumn Statement box and no possibility of a dram of whisky as the chancellor delivers it. But this year’s Autumn Statement was more important, and more substantial, than next year’s Budget will be: the Liberal Democrats are adamant that March is too close to the general election for the Budget to do anything other than update the fiscal forecasts and set out the duty rates. The test this week isn’t economic but political. As with last year, the Tories have spent the autumn racing down a rabbit hole after a populist policy initiative:

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_16_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Lord Pearson and Damian Green discuss Ukip and the Tories” startat=81] Listen [/audioplayer]How odd that David Cameron is still threatening us with ‘Vote Ukip, get Labour’, even after the Heywood and Middleton by-election, which Ukip nearly won with thousands of Labour defections. But if the Conservatives do lose the next election by a Ukip-sized margin then Cameron has only himself to blame — for the second time in a row. I know because I tried to stop it happening in 2010 when I was leading Ukip. Soon after Ukip came second in the 2009 EU elections, David Willoughby de Broke and I went to see Tom Strathclyde, then Tory

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_5_June_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Delingpole and Michael Heaver debate whether Ukip stands for anything” startat=1222] Listen [/audioplayer]There are many words that you might associate with Nigel Farage, but moderniser probably isn’t one. Yet the Ukip leader is embarking on the process of modernising his party. He has concluded that it cannot achieve its aims with its current level of support. So he is repositioning it in the hope of winning new converts even at the risk of alienating traditional supporters. If this sounds similar to what David Cameron did after winning the Tory leadership in 2005, that’s because it is. Interviewing Farage during his triumphant European election campaign, I was struck

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_27_February_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman on why the two party political system is dying” startat=1207] Listen [/audioplayer]Two things will make the next general election campaign quite unlike any previous election in this country. The first is that we now have four-party politics right across Britain. In Scotland and Wales, the nationalist parties have been a political force for a generation. But the big change is in England, where Ukip is emerging as a fourth force. Second, the campaign will be haunted by the spectre of another hung parliament. The question of what happens if no party wins an overall majority will be asked time and time again by

In one sense David Cameron is lucky that the Conservatives do not enter 2014 with a lead in the polls. If they did, the Prime Minister would be under pressure for stitching up the Fixed Term Parliaments Act with Nick Clegg, thereby denying himself the chance of doing what all strong governments have done over the past 35 years, with unfailing success: going to the country after four years. Barring a vote of no confidence, we already know the date of the next election: 7 May 2015. With the exception of John Major in 1992, no Prime Minister who waited five years has won re-election since Clement Attlee in 1950