Uk politics

How will Greening deal with the airports issue?

One Cabinet minister fretted to me yesterday about the implications of Justine Greening’s appointment as Secretary of State for Transport. Their worry was not Greening’s position on the Tory ideological spectrum but her views on aviation. This minister worried that Greening, who helped lead the opposition to a third runway at Heathrow, would be against any expansion in airport capacity. In recent months, opinion has been shifting at the top of the Tory party on the airports issue. People were increasingly coming round to the view that there was need for an extra airport or at least an extra runway somewhere close to the capital. They were, in line with the general

What will Osborne’s offer to the IMF amount to?

George Osborne’s allies may be filtering across government, but what of the man himself? He was at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Paris yesterday, and trying to maintain a difficult balance over the imploding eurozone. In part, our Chancellor was firm about Europe’s troubles — the area, he said, “remains the epicentre of the world’s current economic problems,” and he urged its leaders to come up with something “quite impressive” at next weekend’s European Council meeting. But he also tried to sound understanding — the UK, he suggested, would consider shuffling more cash into the IMF’s bailout account. The offer of more funding for the IMF was arresting

Cameron’s party management problems

Parliamentary party management is, perhaps, the subtlest of the political arts. It is, obviously, particularly difficult in coalition. But the Cameroons are still scoring a ‘must do better’ grade on this work. The mini reshuffle was fairly neatly executed. But it has, almost inevitably, left behind some bruised feelings. Part of the problem is that the Whips’ office is, to borrow a phrase, neither Sandhurst nor a proper careers’ department. Ministers and MPs are all too often left to guess at why they have been passed over for promotion. There is also a tendency for people to be rapidly promoted and then fall out of favour almost as suddenly. Theresa

James Forsyth

The future’s bright for the right

There’s much gnashing of teeth about the future of the right today following Liam Fox’s resignation. I think this is misplaced. Fox was a passionate advocate of a certain strand of Conservative thinking. But his appeal and relevance was always going to be limited by his tendency to believe that it was, in political terms, always 1987. The future of the right now, as Matthew Parris says (£), rests on the 2010 intake. They are, generally speaking, an impressive bunch. At Tory party conference, I chaired an event on the future of the party with four of its most able members. Strikingly, the panel, which spanned the ideological range of

Liam Fox, the morning after

It is as you’d think: a sea of news coverage and commentary about Liam Fox’s departure. Some of its currents are merciless, such as the Mirror’s front cover. Some are more circumspect, such as an excellent pair of articles by The Spectator’s own Matthew Parris (£) and Charles Moore. But, on the whole, there is a strange absence of finality about this story. A Defence Secretary has resigned – and rightly so, I think – but we still cannot be completely sure why. Maybe it is just the “appearance of impropreity,” as Philip Stephens puts it, that killed this Fox. Or maybe there is something more poisonous waiting to emerge

The new Tory generation

The final reshuffle moves have now been announced. Chloe Smith, the winner of the Norwich North by-election, moves from the Whips office to become economic secretary to the Treasury. Expect Smith to, in time, do a lot of media. Greg Hands, Obsorne’s PPS moves into her slot as a whip. From this position, he’ll be able to continue running the parliamentary side of George Osborne’s highly effective political operation. Sajid Javid moves from being PPS to John Hayes to being PPS to the Chancellor. I suspect that Smith’s promotion will be seen by those Tories who held frontbench positions in opposition but missed out on jobs in government because of

James Forsyth

Greening’s rapid promotion

David Cameron has sent the Cabinet’s safest pair of hands to the Ministry of Defence. Philip Hammond, a robust Euro-sceptic with a belief in firm fiscal management, will bring calm and stability to the department. He’s also the Cabinet minister most likely to be able to sort out the longstanding problems of defence contracts going hugely over budget. As a close political ally of George Osborne, Hammond will be well placed to win extra funding for the department in the, sadly increasingly unlikely, event of the public finances having been put back on a sound footing by the end of the parliament. Hammond is followed at Transport by Justine Greening.

Fraser Nelson

Hammond fills Fox’s shoes

It’s official: Philip Hammond is the new Defence Secretary and it’s a wise choice. The tough work: making the cuts, axing Nimrod, leaving the east coast undefended etc.: has been done. I doubt Cameron would have been able to get that little lot past his party as easily had it not been done by Liam Fox. Now, the task is implementation. It requires mastery of detail and a sharp eye for financial irregularities, and Philip Hammond is the man for that. As Osborne’s number two in Opposition, he will, like Des Browne, approach defence from the perspective of fiscal management. The future of Trident is less assured: Hammond will not

James Forsyth

Fox unlikely to cause trouble for Cameron

As soon as the news about G3’s funding of Adam Werritty emerged, it became clear that Liam Fox was going to have to go. Downing Street had no desire to be seen to be pushing this Thatcherite out of the Cabinet, but its test has always been that Werritty could not have been receiving money from companies with any interest in defence. Once that line was crossed, Fox was always going to have to go. I suspect that the former Defence Secretary will not be a problem for Cameron on the backbenches. Fox values loyalty highly and his friends appreciate how the Prime Minister didn’t push Fox at the first

Fox resigns, Cameron responds

Liam Fox has just resigned as Defence Secretary. Here is his resignation letter to the Prime Minister in full: Dear David, As you know, I have always placed a great deal of importance on accountability and responsibility. As I said in the House of Commons on Monday, I mistakenly allowed the distinction between my personal interest and my Government activities to become blurred. The consequences of this have become clearer in recent days. I am very sorry for this. I have also repeatedly said that the national interest must always come before personal interest. I now have to hold myself to my own standard. I have therefore decided, with great

James Forsyth

Few think Fox can survive

I understand, from a Cabinet Office source, that Sue Grey, the civil servant who interviewed Adam Werritty on Tuesday, was completely baffled by Werritty’s explanation of how his funding arrangements work. This is yet another sign that events are beginning to move rapidly against Liam Fox. The Times’ front page story this morning has led to a significant fall away in support for Fox among Tory MPs. There is also considerable nervousness in Tory circles about what tomorrow’s papers are expected to bring. All this makes it increasingly hard to find people who expect the Defence Secretary to survive. Indeed, several people who have been defending Fox in the media

Matthew Parris

The pathology of the politician | 14 October 2011

With ministers behaving particularly oddly, we thought CoffeeHousers would enjoy Matthew Parris’ Spectator column from May, in which he explains the weirdness that afflicts politicians. Politicians are not normal people. They are weird. It isn’t politics that has made them weird: it’s their weirdness that has impelled them into politics. Whenever another high-profile minister teeters or falls, the mistake everyone makes is to ask what it is about the nature of their job, the environment they work in and the hours they work, that has made them take such stupid risks. This is the wrong question. We should ask a different one: what is it about these men and women that has attracted

Ministers behaving oddly

It’s a rum deal being a Global Networker. This morning’s Times reports (£) that Adam Werritty has received nearly £200,000 in donations from clients who appear to have employed Werritty to lobby Liam Fox on ideological issues such as Israel, the Special Relationship and Euroscepticism; although why anyone thought it necessary to lobby Fox, who is a resolute neo-Conservative and Atlanticist, on these matters is something of a mystery. Meanwhile, the Telegraph reveals that Fox and Werritty enjoyed a $500-a-head dinner with American military figures in Washington, which the Ministry of Defence has not disclosed (perhaps because no British official attended the dinner). This suggests that Werritty and Fox may

Lansley’s historic debacle

I’ve just come back from a Health Service Journal conference of medics, where all manner of subjects came up. One audience member asked what historical event stood comparison to Lansley’s mishandling of the Health Bill. What else has caused so much controversy, to such little purpose? No one knew. Many of those present — senior doctors, NHS executives, etc — knew Lansley, and everyone seemed to agree that he is a policy wonk fatally miscast as Health Secretary. Politics is about making and winning arguments; whereas Lansley wanted to work on details so complex that, even now, almost no one in government can explain what is being done. The Bill

James Forsyth

How Lansley won over the Lords

As Ben Brogan wrote this week, the House of Lords is threatening to become one of the biggest obstacles to the coalition’s reform agenda. But the way in which the Health and Social Care Bill was steered through its second reading in the upper house does provide a model for how even the trickiest votes can be won. Andrew Lansley’s much derided operation got this one right. It realised months ago that the crucial thing was to stop the crossbenchers voting against the bill en masse. So, the health minister in the Lords, Earl Howe, and Lansley’s long-serving aide Jenny Jackson have been on a cup of tea offensive for

Happy Birthday, Mrs T

It is, you may have heard, Margaret Thatcher’s 86th Birthday today. By way of a congratulatory toast to the Iron Lady, here’s a thought-filled article that T.E. Utley wrote about her politics, for The Spectator, some 25 years ago: Don’t call it Thatcherism, T.E. Utley, The Spectator, 19 August 1986 There is no such thing as Thatcherism. The illusion that there is is in part a deliberate creation of Mrs Thatcher’s enemies. They have proceeded on the age-old maxim that there is nothing (certainly not private scandal) more likely to injure the reputation of a British politician than the suggest that he has an inflexible devotion to principle. This maxim

Ministers need their Werrittys

I’ve never met Adam Werritty and hadn’t even heard of him before a few weeks ago. I’m also of the belief that financial wrongdoing should not be the only test used to judge Liam Fox’s suitability for ministerial office. And I don’t think the fact that a previous government changed ministers too often is a reason to overlook inappropriate ministerial behaviour. Whether the Defence Secretary, in fact, behaved inappropriately remains to be seen. But the signs are not, at this stage, good – even if the airwaves are now dominated by “Foxies”: the Defence Secretary’s friend and allies. That said, I think the self-styled advisor is getting an unfair wrap,

The ongoing NHS scandal

Shock! Horror! Another report reveals the shameful care given to the elderly in British hospitals. People in the twilight of their life reduced to begging for food and rattling the bars of their beds in a desperate attempt to get the attention of medical staff paid to care for them. The findings came in reports of random inspections by the Care Quality Commission watchdog that found concerns in 55 of the 100 hospitals visited, with 20 of them — one in five — breaking the law in its levels of neglect. They found patients starved of food, denied water, spoken to rudely or simply ignored. It is sickening stuff. But