Uk politics

Thursday

Jonathan Jones

Sorry, Alex, but Scots are going off the idea of independence

With two years to go, Alex Salmond’s campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote in the Scottish independence referendum is facing a big challenge to turn around public opinion. Ipsos MORI have a new poll out today, showing almost two-to-one opposition to independence, and support for Salmond’s cause has been declining all year. This matches the findings of two other pollsters. YouGov found the split going from 33 ‘yes’/53 ‘no’ in January to 27-60 in August. And TNS-BMRB have it going from 35-44 in January to 28-53 this month. So the SNP has its work cut out — it needs to change plenty of Scottish minds if its even going to make

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Andrew Mitchell needs to worry about his own team, not Labour’s £1,000 fine threat

Determined to keep the Andrew Mitchell story alive for as long as possible, Labour confirmed this morning that next week’s Opposition Day debate will follow the party’s call for Andrew Mitchell to receive a £1,000 fine for his outburst by the gates of Downing Street and debate police cuts. The idea is to highlight the ‘double standards’ line that Ed Miliband pushed yesterday at PMQs: while swearing at a police officer would lead to ‘a night in the cell for the yobs, it is a night at the Carlton Club for the Chief Whip’. As James reported last night, the 1922 Committee was largely warm towards the chief whip, with only five

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Lancashire police taser a blind man: he’s lucky to be alive. Others will not be so fortunate. – Spectator Blogs

How hard can it be to tell the difference between a samurai sword and a white cane? Relatedly, how difficult is to be accepted as the kind of person qualified to serve as a member of the Lancashire police? The news that a 61-year old blind man was tasered by police searching for a “suspect” seen carrying a samurai sword through the wild and mean streets of Chorley, Lancashire should surprise no-one. Colin Farmer, the victim of this assault, is fortunate to be alive. Granted, the police officer responsible for tasering him could not know Mr Farmer had twice suffered strokes but how hard can it really be to avoid

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How David Cameron fluffed a key cost of living announcement on energy

The Conservatives are worried that voters are deserting them over the rising cost of living, yet their leader has managed to fluff an announcement designed to remedy that problem. Yesterday at Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron surprised the whole chamber and the department concerned by announcing a brand new energy policy. In response to a question from Labour’s Chris Williamson about what the government was doing to help people reduce their energy bills, Cameron said: ‘We have encouraged people to switch, which is one of the best ways to get energy bills down. I can announce, which I am sure the honourable gentleman will welcome, that we will be legislating

Wednesday

James Forsyth

The 1922 swings behind its chief whip

In normal circumstances, five Tory MPs questioning the chief whip’s position at the 1922 Committee would send Tory high command into a panic. But tonight there is relief that only five MPs spoke out against Andrew Mitchell and that more than a dozen spoke in his support. I understand that Bernard Jenkin’s intervention was particularly effective, persuading at least one MP not to speak against Mitchell. Those present say that the mood of the room was largely in favour of the chief whip remaining in post. There’s a sense that while what he did was foolish, the issue has now been hijacked by the Police Federation and the media. Some

Jonathan Jones

The Olympic effect on jobs

It seems today’s good jobs figures — employment at a record high and the unemployment rate back below 8 per cent — are at least partly thanks to the Olympic Games. While the UK added 212,000 net jobs in June-August, London alone added 101,000 — accounting for 47 per cent of the total rise. And — as Citi’s Michael Saunders observes  — the six boroughs that hosted the Games (Hackney, Newham, Barking and Dagenham, Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets and Greenwich) have seen their proportion of residents claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance fall by an average of 0.48 percentage points, compared to 0.25 points for the other 27 London boroughs and 0.1 points for

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Credit where credit’s due for Unite’s payday lender challenge

Coffee House isn’t always the greatest friend of the trade unions, but one union made a striking announcement today which demonstrated the good that these bodies can do in society. Unite plans to set up a nationwide network of credit unions to try to divert struggling families away from legal loan sharks. Credit unions make small loans to members using deposits, and are a safe alternative to payday lenders such as Wonga, which charges a staggering 4,214 per cent APR on its loans. The Guardian quotes Unite’s director of executive policy Steve Turner: ‘We are in discussions to try to establish a UK-wide credit union that will give access to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron to make EU referendum pledge before Christmas

Sometime in the next nine weeks David Cameron will announce that if re-elected, he would seek to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership and then put the results to the public. I understand that the current plan is to have a referendum offering a choice between the new terms and out. Cameron believes that with time, he can secure far more satisfactory terms of membership for Britain. He also reasons that this announcement — the formalisation of the new terms, fresh consent that he talked about again at PMQs — will reassure his own eurosceptics. Conservative strategists also hope that this should stem the tide in support for UKIP

Shiraz Maher

Why Prince Charles’ letters should not be published

Much is being made of Dominic Grieve’s decision to ban publication of Prince Charles’ correspondence with ministers. Republic, a group which campaigns for the abolition of the monarchy, has been pressing for their release through freedom of information requests over the last seven years. Having successfully convinced three judges of the public interest in seeing the Prince of Wales’ letters, Grieve has taken the unusual step of vetoing their decision. Almost two years ago the CIA tipped off their counterparts in MI5 and MI6 that al-Qaeda was planning a ‘Mumbai style’ terrorist attack in the UK. Crucially, however, they refused to share all the details they might otherwise have offered

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Andrew Mitchell needed a haircut, a feed-up, and a good cuddle. But Miliband offered no comfort.

It was a question of when not if. Today’s PMQs was always going to turn into a kangaroo inquiry into Andrew Mitchell. The man who said ‘pleb’ was in full view on the front bench but he looked as if he were sitting in the Number One dock at the Old Bailey. Ed Miliband started by asking the PM about joblessness which – unhappily for Labour – has fallen. He attacked Cameron for failing to tackle long-term youth unemployment and Cameron countered by pointing out that the number of kids on the dole had doubled during Labour’s last two years in power. They tussled for a few moments over the

Ryan Bourne

‘Plan B’ is not the answer

Is George Osborne’s plan working? You can see why his enemies are circling. If you take his own definition – his ‘fiscal rule’ that the debt/GDP ratio should be falling by the end of the Parliament – then no. But this is mainly because Osborne has been flexible – some would argue too flexible – following the eurozone crisis and high commodity prices, which have hampered growth prospects through weaker-than-expected net trade and higher than expected inflation (see the OBR yesterday). Last autumn, the Chancellor had a choice between more cuts or more debt. He chose more debt, and stuck to his old spending plans knowing that the growth (and tax

James Oshaughnessy

Why for-profit companies should take over weak schools

The basic question in my report for Policy Exchange on school chains, out today, is simple: we’ve got a big education problem in this country and what can we do about it? Here is the problem. We know that England is only a middling country when it comes to the international league tables. The cause of this disappointing performance is the large group of schools where the education on offer is no more than satisfactory. Estimates vary, but according to Ofsted the quality of teaching and learning is no better than satisfactory in 40 per cent of schools, and 6,000 (out of around 20,000) schools only reached ‘satisfactory’ in their

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Andrew Mitchell revives Gategate at PMQs as whips worry his power is gone

Andrew Mitchell isn’t going anywhere just yet, even if some of his ministerial colleagues are privately willing for him to face the high jump. But the story about him is still going somewhere because the chief whip apparently decided, quite unwisely, to intervene in the PMQs exchanges about him this lunchtime. But it’s not just cabinet ministers who are grumpy: the other whips are worried too. Ed Miliband wisely started his questions with the unemployment figures, which meant Cameron’s later accusations that the Labour leader wasn’t interested in the real issues sounded weaker than they perhaps did as the Prime Minister planned them this morning. And he made a neat

Jonathan Jones

Jobs figures show a move in the right direction

Recently, we’ve been used to the economic figures being either bad news or mixed news. So today’s employment stats come as a welcome surprise: it’s almost all good news. They show that total employment rose by 212,000 from March-May to June-August, and now stands at 29.59 million — a record high, 18,000 above the pre-recession peak of April 2008. Since the election, a net of 616,000 jobs have been created. And unemployment is down too — by 50,000 on the previous three months, defying expectations. That means the unemployment rate has dropped to 7.9 per cent, the first time it’s been below 8 per cent in over a year. And youth

James Forsyth James Forsyth

PMQs: Labour will be out for blood on Andrew Mitchell

The first Prime Minister’s Questions after the conference season is more important than most: the House and the press gallery are looking to see who has come back with a spring in their step. But today’s session has an added element to it: the Andrew Mitchell factor. Labour attempted to have a go at the chief whip at Home Office questions on Monday. But with the Chamber only half full, it fell a bit flat. Today, though, the House will be packed and Ed Miliband’s party will be out for blood. I expect Mitchell himself will deal with it quite resolutely. Friends say that the iron has entered his soul

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cleaning up the City cesspit

Good news from the City is something to cherish at the moment, and today RBS has confirmed that it will be withdrawing from the Asset Protection Scheme, through which the government gave the bank insurance cover against losses on its £282 billion toxic assets. Those assets have now fallen 63 per cent to £105 billion. This is good news in the ‘cesspit’, as Vince Cable called the City of London, because it marks the first step towards the bank returning to the private sector. One man determined to turn the focus away from the latest scandal to crawl out of the cesspit and towards a recovering City is new City

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Briefing: What today’s extradition announcement means

As well as announcing that Gary McKinnon will not be extradited to the US on charges of computer hacking, the Home Secretary today announced a number of changes to the way extradition is handled in this country. These changes will mean: 1. The Home Secretary is introducing a ‘forum bar’, which allows a British court to prevent prosecution overseas if it believes a trial in Britain would be fairer. 2. Future Home Secretaries will not be able to exercise discretion on human rights grounds as Theresa May did today. May said the matter should be for the High Court, and that the government will introduce primary legislation to enable this

Jonathan Portes

Why George Osborne’s ‘Plan A’ has failed – and what to do next

Does George Osborne need to adopt a Plan B? This will be the topic for a Spectator debate a week on Monday. But the argument is pretty clear to everyone with even a passing interest in the trials of George Osborne. Let’s look at the story so far. His Plan A – accelerated fiscal consolidation – was based on two key premises:  there was no alternative to cutting the deficit much more sharply than previously planned, because otherwise the markets would panic and long-term interest rates would rise sharply.  As one Treasury Minister put it: ‘Britain’s AAA credit rating was under threat…George Osborne had no choice but to come up with

Shiraz Maher

Gary McKinnon case: campaigners accuse Theresa May of double standards

The Home Secretary blocked the extradition of Gary McKinnon to the United States earlier today, arguing that it would infringe his human rights because he has Asperger’s Syndrome. Moreover, Theresa May has said she will introduce a forum bar which means that judges can block extradition in cases where the alleged offence is deemed to have been committed in the UK. The Crown Prosecution Service has already been instructed to draw up guidance relating to this. This is a significant victory for campaigners against Britain’s lopsided extradition treaty with the United States but many are also questioning its timing. Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan were deported to the United States

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Clegg rejects ‘cash-for-seats’ deal for boundaries

Deputy Prime Minister’s questions is quite often a slightly grumpy affair, with Nick Clegg huffing and puffing at irritating questions from Peter Bone about what position he would take in the government if David Cameron were run over by a bus. This morning’s session wasn’t much different: it was even more bad-tempered as backbenchers were keen to pick at scabs on the failure of Lords reform. The Deputy Prime Minister continually defended the Liberal Democrats’ decision to block the boundary reforms, criticising Labour for failing to support the programme motion for the House of Lords Reform Bill. It was like watching a couple who had broken up continue to bicker