Politics

Hugh Robertson was trying to stick up for the Prime Minister this afternoon when he said David Cameron was ‘absolutely a man’. He was defending the government’s decision to stay right where it is on airport expansion, against Tim Yeo’s warning that to stick to manifesto pledges and commitments in the coalition agreement on Heathrow would make Cameron a ‘mouse’. So where does this leave the various options to solve our aviation capacity conundrum? Here is a rundown of the various solutions, and who supports them: Heathrow expansion Nine years ago, Labour presented a white paper proposing a third runway at the country’s busiest airport, to be built by 2015-2020. In 2009,

Autumn is nearly here, so it must be time for another good row about planning, mustn’t it? Given the number of recent reports that ministers are considering relaxing green belt protection, it was only a matter of time before the Campaign to Protect Rural England lifted its head above the parapet. Today it warned the government it is at risk of ‘destroying the countryside’ if plans to develop 81,000 new homes over the next five years. Last autumn’s row over the National Planning Policy Framework was ugly, not least because it engaged Conservative ministers in battle with the CPRE and the National Trust: two organisations with a traditionally Conservative membership.

David Cameron is already going to struggle to hit his target of taking net migration from 250,000 to the tens of thousands. But I understand that the Home Office is nervous that other Whitehall departments could undermine that target further, seeing immigration as one sinew that could be strained as they begin to panic about growth. Look closely, and you can see an inter-governmental battle being fought. Theresa May and Damian Green have been on manoeuvres today, highlighting the government’s progress in cutting net migration. The Home Secretary has an op-ed in The Sun on Sunday, where she also lists some of the areas which have been tightened to ‘make

Labour and the teachers’ unions have had their way: there is going to be an official inquiry into the GCSE results. The exams regulator Ofqual is only investigating the English results, though, saying there are ‘questions about how grade boundaries were set in a very small number of units across the year’. In a letter to the National Association of Head Teachers, Ofqual chief regulator Glenys Stacey wrote: ‘We recognise the continuing concerns among students, parents and teachers about this year’s GCSE English results. We will look closely at how the results were arrived at. We will do this quickly, but thoroughly, so that we ensure confidence is maintained in our examinations

One of the solutions Tory MPs are mulling over now the boundary reforms are dead in the water is some sort of partnership with UKIP to boost the party’s chances in 2015. As many as 60 per cent of Conservative activists are reported to favour such a pact. But David Cameron has yet to show any sign that he’s warming towards the party he once described as consisting of ‘loonies, fruitcakes and racists’. If he is not careful, Cameron’s hand may be played for him. The Eurozone crisis may finally come to a head, which could lead to a soar in UKIP’s popularity. The Prime Minister might then have to broker a

For an Englishman, Nile Gardner is an unusually reliable mouthpiece for the more reactionary elements of reactionary American conservative foreign policy preferences. His latest epistle to the Daily Telegraph demonstrates this quite nicely. There is, you see, a meeting of the so-called Non-Aligned Movement next week and this meeting will be held in Tehran. Worse still, Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations will attend this conference. I am not at all convinced that this is a useful use of the Secretary-General’s time. I suspect this meeting is bound to be little more than a festival of anti-American and anti-Israeli prejudice. I would want no part of it myself.

The Prime Minister once promised a ‘bonfire of the quangos’. Although his government has sometimes failed to fulfil expectations, his firestarter in the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, has managed to make a dent in the 1,000+ organisations that flourished under Labour. The latest figures released by the Cabinet Office today claim that £1.4bn has saved through the government’s quango reform programme. So far, 106 public bodies have closed, with a further 150 merged down into 70. Among the more quirky ex-quangos  are the Government Hospitality Advisory Committee on the Purchase of Wines, Advisory Committee on National Historic Ships and Advisory Committee on Packaging. In an article for ConservativeHome, Maude outlines his clear