General Election 2015

Forget David Cameron’s Successor – Who Will Replace Ed Miliband?

Samuel Hooper8 Comments

David Cameron Breakfast Cereal Terms Are Like Shredded Wheat 2

 

And so, with a confusing breakfast cereal metaphor, David Cameron announced in an interview with the BBC’s James Landale that he would not seek to run for a third term as Prime Minister should he cling on to the post at the 2015 general election.

From James Landale’s own analysis:

David Cameron’s admission that he will not serve a third term in Downing Street will provoke a flurry of speculation. What was he hoping to achieve? What message was he trying to send?

First things first. I asked him a question and he answered it. It was not something that a helpful Downing Street official had suggested I might ask with a heavy hint that I might get an interesting answer. It was just one of many speculative questions that political journalists like me ask in the hope that just occasionally they might get an answer. And this time it did.

Second, Mr Cameron’s overt aim was to get across the message that he would serve a full second term. He wants to quash speculation that he might stand down early in 2017 after a referendum on the UK’s EU membership.

But by emphasising that he would do another five years, he inevitably has to address what he would do after that. And his answer was clear. Terms in Downing Street, he said, are like Shredded Wheat: “two are wonderful, three might just be too many.”

This is all very interesting, and certainly we should keep an eye on what might happen in the year 2020 and beyond. There is already plenty of good analysis off the back of David Cameron’s off-the-cuff revelation, from the Spectator here, the Times of London here and here, the Guardian here, and Conservative Home here.

But of far more interest than who will be jockeying for position to replace David Cameron (a largely uninspiring field of Theresa May, George Osborne and the unthinkable Boris Johnson) is the more pressing question: who will replace Ed Miliband if Labour lose the election on 7 May?

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Where Was Nigel Farage’s Safe Space When Left Wing Bullies Attacked?

Samuel Hooper11 Comments

Nigel Farage UKIP Pub Protesters Attack Protest Free Speech

 

It is increasingly fashionable among self-identified progressives and left-wingers, particularly within academic environments, to promote the idea of “safe spaces” – places where the normal right to free speech is heavily curtailed in order to protect designated minorities and victim groups from encountering words and ideas that might cause them mental discomfort.

This blog finds the idea of such “safe spaces” utterly repellent, and a prime symptom of the infantilisation of many students in Britain and America – a generation of cosseted idealists who interpret any political disagreement as a sinister attempt to “invalidate their experiences”, who are unable to tolerate even polite dissent and who are lightning-quick to call for authority figures to come crashing down upon the heads of those who question their “dearly and closely held beliefs”.

But put aside the childishness of the “safe space” and the potentially chilling implication of such policies on the fundamental right to freedom of expression. Put aside the fact that protecting certain ideas from scrutiny, however noble they may be, leads to intellectual atrophy and erodes our democracy in just the same way it undermines the core purpose of a university.

What is really shocking is the double-standard at play. Those designated victim groups and their advocates on the left are free to say and do anything they please, empowered and protected by the perceived righteousness of their cause, while those outside this bien pensant collective have no right to hold their own opinions, let alone to express them or to campaign for them politically.

It is this double-standard which allows a mob of young anti-UKIP protesters to invade a London pub far from the campaign trail where UKIP leader Nigel Farage was quietly enjoying lunch with his family, to harass and intimidate Farage’s family to the extent that his young children fled and were separated from their parents, and to jump on the bonnet of his car as he attempted to drive away – and still come away feeling as though it were they, the mob, who had taken a stand for freedom, tolerance and decency.

From the Telegraph’s report:

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Labour’s NHS Attack Ad Exemplifies Our Rotten, Uninspiring Politics

Samuel Hooper12 Comments

General Election 2015 Labour Party Campaign Attack Ad NHS Public Spending

 

Today we saw the publication of the Labour Party’s first election poster of the 2015 campaign, and it is a nasty, negative little piece of work.

Designed to appear like an X-ray image, the poster shows a broken arm, and the warning “Next Time, They’ll Cut To The Bone. The NHS Can’t Afford The Tory Cuts Plan”.

There’s no point wasting space pointing out that this is not a very promising start from a party that promised to wage a relentlessly upbeat, positive election campaign – that point has already been well made. And it’s a fair point, but perhaps not the most important one.

What is really depressing about this Labour attack ad – and all of the negative campaigning we will soon see from the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and UKIP too – is the lack of vision, of imagination, of anything resembling a positive outlook for Britain’s future.

Ed Miliband is fervently hoping that he can squeak across the finish line and into Number 10 Downing Street on the back of the British public’s fear that our precious public services will be cut back or degraded under five more years of Tory rule. Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats hope to stave off electoral annihilation by likewise preying on the fear of a Tory majority, and by promising that returning a sufficient number of LibDem MPs to Westminster will help to soften the edges of a future coalition as they did in 2010.

Meanwhile, UKIP, for all their anti-establishment fervour and sometime happy warrior image, will be busy preying on fears and resentments about immigration and injustices inflicted upon helpless Britain from Brussels. And David Cameron and the Conservative Party will desperately hope that their own negative campaign ads, designed to make the British public fear the uncertainty and economic chaos that a profligate Labour administration would bring about, will convince us to allow them another term in government.

The common thread? All of the campaigning between now and May 7 will be negative.

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Constitutional Reform Is The Elephant In The Room This Election Season

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

Constitutional Reform British General Election 2015

 

Conservative Home is currently running an important series on the three urgent political issues which are being pointedly and shamefully ignored by the main political parties in the run-up to the 2015 general election. These are identified as the constitution, national defence and the truth about spending reductions.

On constitutional reform in particular, ConHome is quite right to call attention to the lurking threat:

Yes, there’s plenty of speculation about what might happen in a hung Parliament, and who might form coalitions or pacts with whom.  But there has been no big debate to date about how we should be governed – what an English-votes-for-English-laws Commons would look like; what the knock-on effects on Scotland might be; what would happen to the Lords in consequence; how much devolution there should be in England (and elsewhere); what would replace the ECHR (if anything) were Britain to leave it; where an EU referendum fits into this picture; whether the UK will survive at all.

Will the UK survive at all? A sobering question to ponder, and yet when faced with these unresolved questions of national character, purpose and even survival, too often our politicians focus on the minutiae of daily life as they seek to either prey on our fears or appeal to our wallets.

This blog makes no apology for having singled out the Labour Party and Ed Miliband as the worst culprits as they seek to reduce the 2015 general election to a petty contest about public services, when Britain’s greatness is so much more than the sum of local government services and “our NHS”, here on the occasion of the Labour Party leader’s most recent relaunch:

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How Dare David Cameron Question The Patriotism Of Britain’s Military Chiefs?

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

British Prime Minister David Cameron (C)

 

Anything goes in the build-up to a British general election. And the British people have certainly come to take for granted the endless stream of personal attacks, exaggerated claims, obfuscations and outright lies emanating from the main parties as they vie for position.

But jaded as we are, one still has to admire the gall displayed by David Cameron – a privileged, cosseted man who has never served a day in uniform – when he takes it upon himself to publicly question the patriotism and motivation of Britain’s senior military officers.

The Prime Minister, in full electioneering and damage control mode, did exactly this when responding to the growing chorus of concerns from current and ex-service chiefs alarmed at the degradation of Britain’s military capability and the prioritisation of almost every other area of government spending at the expense of the Defence budget.

The Telegraph reports:

David Cameron appears to have questioned the motives of senior military figures criticising his failure to commit to spending 2 per cent of GDP of defence.

The Prime Minister slapped down retired generals who have attacked the Government over its cuts to the military budget.

Speaking to LBC Radio, Mr Cameron put the generals’ interventions down to them “having their own book to talk, sometimes quite literally a book to talk”.

This is a hit below the belt, even by the no-holds-barred standard of British political debate. But more than this, it is an intolerable insult to the honour and dedication of the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces. And all this coming from someone who has never served personally, but who has been the happy beneficiary of the peace dividend made possible in part by Britain’s military capabilities.

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