Ken clarke

But for Europe, eh? It is a mark of how thoroughly the European issue has poisoned Tory waters that many party activists – and MPs – will be celebrating the end of Ken Clarke’s ministerial career tonight. Not before time, many of them will doubtless froth. Well, maybe. But it bears remembering that the Tories who hated Clarke the most tend, more often than not, to be the Tories the public hates most. The kind of Conservatives good at losing elections and rather less good at winning them. That does not mean Clarke was always right or that his judgement was necessarily routinely sound. Nevertheless it is something to be

Despite trying to fend off Ukip in the Newark by-election, the Tories have thought it a good idea to put neighbouring MP, and devout Europhile, Ken Clarke on their candidate’s literature. The Tories seem desperate to feature him in their campaign, even though it’s rumoured that Clarke may soon be shuffled out of the Cabinet. However, they seem to have overlooked the fact that Clarke is wearing a private enclosure badge from some society sporting event. To top it off, Nick Clegg’s favourite Tory is even wearing yellow. Just the image the Tories need when their candidate’s multi-million property empire is in the spotlight as polling day approaches.

Nick Clegg used to joke that he should include Ken Clarke in any list of senior Liberal Democrats. But Mr Steerpike hears things have moved way beyond that. Ken, who revealed to the Spectator that he was hoping for a coalition even before it was on the cards, is now acting with the Lib Dems on the notorious Home Affairs committee of the Cabinet. This little-known body is supposed to approve all moves the government makes — but it is now being used to allow Cleggy to veto anything he likes. He then holds the policy hostage, the demands a price for its release. So, for example, he’d try to veto

Who will go where in the forthcoming reshuffle? Guido suggests that Michael Gove could be in for a move to party chairman, given all his major reforms have either been implemented or blocked by the Lib Dems. Number 10 has certainly told Gove that he will be playing an increasing role in the general election campaign: I understand this was made clear to him in the winter of last year, which would explain why David Cameron was quite so cross about the Education Secretary’s comments to the FT about Etonians. Cameron recognises that Gove is a smooth media performer who doesn’t wilt under the heat of the studio lights, or

Theresa May accepted her Spectator Politician of the Year award with the quip: ‘It used to be a joke that I lock them up and Ken Clarke lets them out, now they say I lock them up and Chris Grayling throws away the key.’ The right wing press, as Ken Clarke is given to calling it, is much enamoured with Grayling and May. ConservativeHome’s Mark Wallace describes them as the ‘dynamic duo’, and writes a long appreciation of their ‘increasingly strong message on crime’. There is, of course, as Wallace concedes, more to governing than messages. The Mail on Sunday carries a small item about reoffending rates under the headline ‘scandal of

Those cracking jokes about bears visiting the woods following Ken Clarke’s latest warning about the dangers of Britain leaving the EU miss the point. The former Chancellor and Minister without Portfolio is firstly echoing the stance of his boss, rather than briefing against him, and is secondly continuing to plug away at the case for ‘In’ which has struggled to gain as much momentum and noise as that for leaving. The Europhile faction of the Conservative party has been very poor at organising itself and going on the attack thus far. Clarke uses yesterday’s official opening of talks on the EU/US bilateral trade deal to warn in today’s Telegraph that

What an afternoon it has been for conspiracy lovers. First the Speaker summoned Ken Clarke to the Commons to answer an urgent question from arch theorist Michael Meacher about the Bilderberg meeting, and then MPs took it in turns to ask William Hague whether the Prism allegations meant they were under surveillance from the state. It was quite difficult to distinguish between the two, given we learnt little from either. First, Bilderberg. MPs arrived hoping that the scales would fall from their eyes as the minister revealed the great secrets of this high-powered conference. ‘The people who attend change slightly each year,’ explained Clarke, presumably referring to their metamorphosis into

This weekend, Iain Duncan Smith sparked a furore when a Sunday Telegraph interview quoted him as saying he would ‘encourage everybody who reads the Telegraph and doesn’t need [their winter fuel allowance], to hand it back’. This morning, however, he appears to have offered a retraction, telling the Today programme that ‘I’m neither encouraging nor discouraging anybody to hand their money back’, adding that if pensioners are eligible, ‘it’s wholly their money to take if they wish.’ And his colleague Ken Clarke claimed there wasn’t even a mechanism for doing this. So, if you normally spend your winter fuel payment on your family’s Christmas presents or on restocking your wine

Another day, another set of newspapers full to bursting with pieces about Britain’s fractious relationship with the European Union – all of which, in their way, will unnerve David Cameron. The most enjoyable read is Boris Johnson’s column the Telegraph. Boris made his name as the Telegraph’s European Community Correspondent in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, writing amusing stories about the EC’s penchant for mad waste and corruption. He gives a reprise today, drawing attention to the fact that the EU distributes your money to Spanish sheep farmers who do not have any sheep. Boris’ conclusion is that David Cameron must go into this week’s debates armed with Maggie’s handbag and

Wise gamblers could do worse than to place a hefty bet every time Ken Clarke expresses an opinion that he’ll have to clarify it shortly afterwards. The minister without portfolio said at a Policy Exchange event this morning that it would be ‘absurd’ for Britain to go to Brussels intending to veto the EU budget. He said: ‘It’s absolutely ludicrous to go there intending to veto. It’s just absurd. ‘Every one of the 27 member states has a veto. What they’ve got to do is reach a negotiated situation. Of course people have a veto. Any government will veto if it goes too far in one direction or the other.’

It was not a huge surprise when Ken Clarke rowed back this afternoon on his comments to the Telegraph about tax breaks for married couples. The minister without portfolio was hardly going to get through the first interview he has given since the reshuffle without saying something he would later have to ‘clarify’. But he made another interesting observation to the newspaper about the Tories’ 2015 strategy. He said: ‘If we are back to strong growth by the next election, we probably won’t need to campaign. If at the next election, the economy is in strong normal growth, George Osborne will be given the Companion of Honour or something and

Say this for David Cameron’s autumn reshuffle: it hasn’t unravelled as quickly or spectacularly as George Osborne’s last budget. Hurray for that. But nor has it been deemed a grand success. See Telegraph writers here, here and here for evidence of that. If you want to make a difference – that is, if you wish the general public to sit up and think, By Jove, he’s finally got it – you need to defenestrate an admiral or two. A reshuffle that leaves the Great Offices of State as they were cannot pass that test. Which means, I’m afraid, that only sacking George Osborne would have made this a memorable reshuffle.

The supporters of that exhibitionist monkey Julian Assange are becoming ever more bizarre. George Galloway MP, for example, has been sounding like a High Court judge in 1973: those women were not ‘raped’, he says of the accusations against Assange; calling that sort of thing rape diminishes the concept of rape — it was just “bad sexual etiquette”. So, there are — as Ken Clarke once pointed out before he was eviscerated by the liberal hate mob – different gradations of rape and some things which are called rape are not rape at all. As it happens, I think Galloway has a point. But as far as George is concerned

David Cameron’s decision to convene an inner Cabinet of seven Tories to advise him is a sensible move. As I say in the Mail on Sunday, calling this group together shows that Cameron knows he needs help handling his party. I understand that it meets regularly with a particular emphasis on the Conservative party side of coalition management. One Cabinet minister told me recently that the Prime Minister spends more time on coalition management than any other subject. To date, this has too often been at the expense of party management. Inevitably, if you spend most of the time thinking about what the Liberal Democrats will accept you begin to

Today’s award for hyperbole goes to Ken Clarke. He has just told the Leveson inquiry that, ‘The power of the press is far greater than the power of parliament.’ Given that parliament can still make the law of the land, this is a rather absurd statement. (Though, I do regret that parliament has given away so many powers to Brussels and the courts. But I doubt that was what Clarke meant.)   Clarke’s statement seems to stem from a belief that MPs buckle under pressure from the press, that they’d all be a lot more liberal if it wasn’t for those pesky tabloids. I just don’t think this is true.