Politics

24 January 2009

Fraser Nelson discusses the week in politics

It is also the toughest task, one that Tony Blair retreated from and Baroness Thatcher did not attempt. It may just be that, as the recession has deepened, David Cameron has already quietly given it up. He embraced this challenge when Britain had so many jobs that 1,500 immigrants a day were arriving to fill them. To force people off benefits now would involve the kind of battle that Mr Grayling had been bracing himself for by getting to know every player — and every scam — in the labyrinthine world of welfare-to-work provision.

Perhaps Ms May will confound us all by matching his energy and drive, displaying a reforming zeal as yet undetected in her record. Perhaps Mr Cameron genuinely regards her as one of his most energetic, effective operators, able to re-engineer an entire bureaucratic empire. Or perhaps Mr Cameron decided it is better, politically, to change direction entirely and have Ms May attacking James Purnell for his welfare reform proposals over the next few months.

Another area where confrontation has been avoided is Europe. Much Tory policy- making is carried out in almost touching ignorance of the extent to which Brussels now ties the hands of British prime ministers. Mr Cameron’s plans for a VAT holiday for small firms, for example, are illegal under EU law. His proposals to abolish school expulsion tribunals violate the right to a fair trial as defined by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It may sound absurd, but such is the mostly unspoken reality of British governance.

The frontbencher best equipped to understand these nuances, Dominic Grieve QC, is — alas — perhaps the most ardent Tory supporter of the ECHR. Now sent to be shadow justice minister, he is likely to ensure that the British Bill of Rights — billed as the flagship Tory legal reform — will have inferior status to the decisions of Strasbourg and therefore be, by definition, useless. He is also sceptical about the Tory plans for elected police chiefs (as is Oliver Letwin, who remains policy chief) leaving Mr Grayling with an immediate internal battle to fight.

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Denis Cooper

January 22nd, 2009 2:24pm Report this comment

Basically Clarke is now one promotion, and one general election, away from becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer.

When he could discover that the economy was still in such a terrible state that the only way to stabilise it would be to join the euro.

And to do that as a matter of utmost urgency, persuading the leaders of other EU countries that the ERM II rules could be bent.

And without any nonsense about holding a referendum, whatever may have been promised in the Tory manifesto.

With the economy in a critical state there simply wouldn't be the time to waste on a referendum; and in any case referendums undermine Parliament, don't they?

As we know, manifestos aren't legally binding; and as we have seen, even a major manifesto promise can simply be disregarded by the government, provided they can get a majority of MPs to walk through the right lobby.

Some Tory MPs would object strenuously, and try to force a referendum; but Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs could probably ensure that they were outvoted.

There might be a major revolt by ordinary Tory members, but that would achieve nothing as there would be no way to remove the pro-euro, anti-referendum MPs until the next general election, when it would be too late.

The Tory party might even disintegrate, and be wiped out at that election, but so what? That would be seen as relatively minor - maybe even desirable - collateral damage.

It's a narrow, tricky, path for Clarke and his allies to tread, but by no means impassable, and he's now a lot further along it than he was a week ago.

Some anti-euro Tories may believe that they can use Clarke as "a tool", but no doubt he sees it as being the other way round, and he may well be proved right on that.

John Girling

January 22nd, 2009 5:06pm Report this comment

So, the affable Mr Clarke is showing himself as a traitor both to his party and to his country, and would have us become an appendage of the evil European Union.

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