Blog Profile / Telegraph.co.uk Politics Blog
| URL : | http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/category/politics/ | |
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| Filed Under: | Politics / UK Politics | |
| Posts on Regator: | 8849 | |
| Posts / Week: | 55.1 | |
| Archived Since: | April 19, 2010 | |
Blog Post Archive
Nigel Farage and Scotland's Left-wing media mafia
Nigel Farage has been discovering the hard way that politics in Scotland is often a rough business. He put the phone down on the BBC Good Morning Scotland programme on Friday morning, believing the reporter ‘s line of questioning displayed the xenophobia that had led to him being barricaded in an Edinburgh pub just around [...]
Ignore the squeaks from the timid. It's time to enact the Referendum Bill
It takes a considerable effort to cut through the fog of claim and counterclaim by Europhiles and Eurosceptics to get a clear view of just what is now happening in the House of Commons over the question of whether and when we should have a referendum on the issues (and I use the plural deliberately) [...]
If politicians are opposed to gay marriage, they should be honest and say so
Philip Hammond, one of the most able Cabinet ministers, laments the "distraction" of parliamentary time set aside for reform of the marriage laws. He says that civil partnerships are just fine. The "distraction" note is meant to imply detached regret. As Philip Collins at the Times tweeted, it's what politicians say when they don't agree [...]
Labour's next leader? Andy Burnham shows a bit of leg
A hypothetical. Ed Miliband’s sitting in his office, struggling with an especially complicated Rubik’s Cube puzzle. Perhaps it’s actually a Rubik’s Snake, or even one of those devilish Rubik’s Triangles. Anyway, it all gets a bit much for him and he slips off his chair and bangs his head. Or, he’s walking down the street, [...]
Reports of the coalition's death are exaggerated
From my Morning Briefing email. Sign up here The Times (£) report that Dave's aides are discussing the possibility of the Lib Dems leaving coalition before 2015. The favoured option is an "amicable divorce" whereby the Lib Dems support next year's budget before returning to opposition for the last six to ten months of the [...]
This is the closest we have been to leaving the EU
On 5 July, the House of Commons will divide on on a Bill to give Britain a referendum on leaving the EU. This gargantuan development – one which would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago – risks being missed amid the tumult and the ancestral voices. Ah, say the half-clever commentators, but there is [...]
The far Left can scream what they like at Nigel Farage. It will only strengthen his belief in good-humoured debate
The far Left sank to new depths today by hounding Nigel Farage in Edinburgh today as he attended the launch of Ukip’s by-election campaign for Aberdeen Donside. After all, this is a rare politician who is all too happy to welcome even those hostile towards him into public meetings, so they can make their points [...]
How damaged is David Cameron?
"Hourly, farce is piled upon farce," wrote Iain Martin on his Telegraph blog this week as the Tory tribe panicked over Europe. In this week's Telegram, Iain argues that Cameron may have been fatally wounded – but Labour commentator Dan Hodges disagrees. Also, as IRS and Benghazi scandals engulf Barack Obama, columnist Con Coughlin says [...]
Send for Teddy Roosevelt
In 1904 the American journalist Ida Tarbell published The History of the Standard Oil Company. The material had first been published as part of a series in McLure's Magazine. Her series, and then the book, caused a sensation and triggered an epic political struggle that led to the break-up of the oil giant. Tarbell had [...]
Conservatives – depressing everyone since 500BC
One of the most telling comments David Cameron has ever made came last week when he accused some of his critics of being “pessimists” for believing that he won’t get a deal in Europe. Of course we’re pessimists, we’re conservatives – that’s the whole point. Some see a glass half-full, some see a glass half-empty, [...]
So Starbucks haven't paid the taxes they promised? Blame the Government
So Starbucks still haven't paid the Exchequer the £20 million they promised last year. Quelle surprise! On the day when Google is facing a select committee investigation into its own tax affairs, multinational bashing is back in vogue. And why not? Everyone loves a scapegoat for Britain's problems, and there are few better than faceless [...]
David Cameron's European problems have only just begun
F Scott Fitzgerald claimed that "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function". On that score, David Cameron must be a veritable Einstein – even though his backbenchers seem to be doing their best to disprove [...]
The BBC hires (another) Guardian journalist
The BBC has announced the appointment of a new editor for Newsnight, its troubled flagship current affairs programme. Contrary to expectation, the job has not gone to a BBC veteran but to Ian Katz, the Deputy Editor of the Guardian. Fancy that. Is this appointment designed to provide balance for the programme's political editor Allegra [...]
Ignore the Tory Euro-turmoil. The economy is improving and Ed Miliband still has the political nous of a whelk
And now? Last night 114 Tory MPs supported John Baron’s amendment regretting the absence of a referendum bill in the Queen’s speech. This morning a supporter of that amendment, James Wharton, has just topped the list for private members bills, the parliamentary equivalent of finding the golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Wharton [...]
The Conservative EU referendum vote is really about the collapse in party membership
Why? Why do they do it? Why do the Conservatives continue to bang on about Europe even when they know that most voters aren’t that bothered? That by doing so they forego the opportunity to talk about issues voters do care about? That by doing so they risk reminding voters of the party’s bad old [...]
David Cameron invents laws to punish people he doesn't like. This is populism at its most ugly
There is something very disturbing about the remarks made by the Prime Minister from the United States yesterday. Mr Cameron said that he is looking at "extending criminal offences" to cover market manipulation of oil prices. After that, those responsible will face "the full force of the law". This is hopeless and shows a basic [...]
A small reminder of why we need to leave the EU
What's the most objectionable thing about the EU? The way it artificially redirects our commerce away from growing markets across the oceans? The openly anti-British financial services rules? The ecological catastrophe of the Common Fisheries Policy? The way the Brussels budget swallows up all our domestic austerity savings? Bad as all these things are, I'd [...]
Cameron's coalition has been a historic disaster for the Conservative Party
How's that newly proclaimed Conservative unity on Europe working out for you? Those claiming that the Tory tribe is totally united and that the latest in, out, shake it all about Euro shenanigans are all part of a glorious plan, have gone a bit quiet in the last few hours. Indeed, so united is the [...]
Nadine Dorries has taken a week to prove that David Cameron needs a new Chief Whip
A week ago, Nadine Dorries returned to the Conservative fold, the party whip restored after its withdrawal over something incomprehensibly boring and unpleasant that apparently appears on ITV. Since her return, she's not exactly kept her head down. At the weekend, she was suggesting that David Cameron's plans to allow gay marriage will cost the [...]
Nadine Dorries wants to be the first joint Ukip/Conservative candidate: good idea
"So you want Ed Miliband to win the next election, do you?" This is the argument you often hear being advanced by diehard Tories – Toby Young, among them, it would seem – to explain why however much Ukip may make sense emotionally and ideologically they are psephologically a disaster. But now Nigel Farage has [...]