Politics Archives

Thursday

12 Jul 2012

Failing to build another runway is economic self-harm

The continuing failure to build another runway in the south east, let alone a new airport, is an act of economic self-harm. Trade used to follow the flag, it now follows the flight path. This makes it particularly depressing that the government is pushing back its aviation strategy yet again. As one Tory MP said to me earlier, ‘if we’re not serious enough about growth to build another runway we should just go home’. David Cameron needs to do what it takes to get another runway through. If that means moving Justine Greening, a long-time opponent of a third runway at Heathrow, from transport then he should do it. Indeed,

Isabel Hardman

The EU amuse-bouche

Tory MPs clamouring for a new relationship between Britain and Europe were given an amuse-bouche today when William Hague announced a review into the impact of the EU on everyday life. The Foreign Secretary told the House of Commons earlier that the review, which will report towards the end of 2014, ‘will present the evidence and analysis’, adding that it would be ‘for political parties to decide on their own policy recommendations’. The Foreign Office is briefing that the audit was not about identifying powers to grasp back from the EU, but many in the Conservative party certainly hope it’s the start of that process if nothing else. A study

Isabel Hardman

Lords rebels meet to kill the bill

The Lords reform rebels held a debrief today following David Cameron’s offer to the 1922 committee, I understand. The meeting, which took place mid-afternoon, was about what the rebels ‘need to do going forward to ensure that the Bill is dead’, one senior source told me. The rebels were not at all impressed by the suggestions that the Prime Minister put to backbenchers last night, and the meeting decided that offering the Liberal Democrats a smaller elected element in the upper house was a ‘Trojan horse’ by which more elected members could be added over time. The source explained that the MPs involved ‘did not want to be awkward’, but

Steerpike

No one shall abolish Lady T

Mr Steerpike does like to hear news of the great Lady. And it seems that she has still got it. Word reaches me that when told of the Deputy Prime Minister’s plan to abolish the House of Lords she simply replied: ‘Why?’ ‘Because he’s a Liberal, Baroness Thatcher.’ ‘Ah, Liberals. We should abolish of few of them. No one shall abolish me.’ Her loyal troops were plainly listening. *** After looking like someone has just drowned his puppy, in the wake of Lords reform mess, Nick Clegg could not have chosen a worse week to hold his summer drinks. Mr Steerpike hears that it was a rather subdued affair. Only

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 – Cameron on the run

Have the Tories’ manoeuvres over Lords reform signalled the end of the coalition? In this week’s magazine, our leader argues that Tuesday’s rebellion shows that Tories are back in full force, while James Forsyth writes that a coalition break-up date before 2015 is now not a case of if, but when. But Nick Clegg is not the only party leader to suffer from Tuesday’s Lords revolt. In this week’s View from 22 podcast, recently-resigned PPS Conor Burns MP accuses David Cameron of not appealing sufficiently to his own party: You see this so often when you watch interviews on television – someone speaking for the coalition, you see someone speaking

Wednesday

11 Jul 2012

Steerpike

Defence spending on ice

Where better for rebellious Tory MPs to hide from the domineering whips than behind a giant ice sculpture of a fighter jet? Defence spending is on ice in Whitehall, and Saab Technologies took this literally at their 75th birthday bash at County Hall last night. With Saab looking to open new factories in Britain, plenty of MPs dropped by in search of some constituency investment. Lobbyists Bell Pottinger, who have had what might be described as a choppy year, are back with a bang having organised the event. But were uplighters and ice bars (straight out of a Bond film) the best way to make a room full of

Shiraz Maher

Has the Arab Spring given way to an Islamist Winter?

The obituary of the Arab Spring has already been written by many commentators who see political Islamists as the only winners of unrest in the Middle East. The Arab Spring, it is said, has given way to an Islamist winter. With the Brotherhood installed in Egypt and Islamists from the Ennahda party driving through their agenda in Tunisia, this is a tempting conclusion to reach. Yet, provisional results from the Libyan elections warrant a reassessment of what is really taking place in the region. Mahmoud Jibril, who served as Prime Minister in the aftermath of Gaddafi’s demise, will almost certainly secure a majority once the results are finalised later this

Isabel Hardman

The real rebel problem

The post-match analysis of last night’s vote on the House of Lords Reform Bill shows the Prime Minister has a bigger rebel problem on his hands than he might have initially thought. It is true that there is a significant hardcore within the Conservative party of rebels who happily defied the whip on the other big rebellion of this Parliament – October’s vote on holding a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. But that group only accounts for 57 per cent of last night’s rebels. The 81 in October did not simply increase by 10 to 91 last night. The table below shows that there were 39 MPs

Lloyd Evans

Fun for the hooligans at PMQs

Ed Miliband is at his best when at his quietest. He began Prime Minister’s Questions today by repeating a question put to David Cameron shortly before the last election. ‘Why do you want to be Prime Minister?’ Cameron had replied: ‘Because I think I’d be good at it.’ Great surges of Labour mirth greeted that quotation. When the noise died away, Miliband turned to the Prime Minister politely. ‘Where did it all go wrong?’ Cameron was like a man facing the downdraft of a helicopter. But he weathered the onslaught and responded forcefully with a list of government achievements. Two million taken out of tax. A cap on benefits, immigration

Fraser Nelson

Cameron should be proud of jobs rise

David Cameron said in Prime Minister’s Questions today that there have been 800,000 more private sector jobs under his government. This is almost true, and — I thought — worthy of elaboration. Government cannot, of course, ‘create’ jobs — all it can do is move jobs from the private to the public sector. Every penny of public sector salary is taken from the real economy, and is a penny that someone isn’t being paid (or isn’t being spent). Now, if you’re the BBC it doesn’t seem that way. It seems like the sky is falling in, because your own state-mandated budgets are being cut. That’s why the BBC had almost

James Forsyth

Cameron tries to calm troubled waters at the 1922 committee

By tradition, David Cameron stands outside meetings of the 1922 waiting to be summoned in. This meant that several late-arriving rebels had to walk past him on their way in. By and large, things were fairly cordial. But there was some tension at various points. Cameron started with a tribute to the Chief Whip, which got the MPs banging the desks. Some are taking this as a signal that Patrick McLoughlin is to be retired in the reshuffle. But those present thought it was more of a public admission that the whipping problems of the last few weeks have not been caused by the Chief but by Number 10 and

James Forsyth

Miliband gets under Cameron’s skin at PMQs

Ed Miliband enjoyed Prime Minister’s Questions today. For the first time, he tried to bully Cameron. His questions were all designed to get under the Prime Minister’s skin. Once he had got the requisite rise, he joked about Cameron: ‘The redder he gets, the less he convinces.’ In a sign of what the general election could be like, Cameron’s response was based on Labour’s record in office. He declared ‘we will never forget what we were left by the party opposite’ and ‘never forgive them for what they did’. Miliband, for his part, concentrated on the recession and the Tories’ decision to cut the top rate of tax. Perhaps, the

Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s attack on Jesse Norman will backfire

Jesse Norman became the hero of the hour yesterday afternoon when the government admitted defeat against the Tory rebels and dropped the programme motion on Lords reform. Norman was keen to claim the victory for his rebel operation, making an early intervention to say: ‘Let me make it clear from the Conservative benches that the very substantial opposition from within the Conservative party, not just that from Labour, was responsible for the withdrawal of the motion. That should be perfectly clear and reflected in the record.’ As leader of the rebel camp, and a member of the 91 who voted against the second reading of the Bill late last night,

Tuesday

10 Jul 2012

Matt Cavanagh

A U-turn on international students would be welcome

If you have been confused over the last couple of days by the mixed messages emerging from Downing Street about the government’s policy on international students, you are not alone: the same applies to many figures inside Whitehall. The Sunday Times reported a Number 10 source saying David Cameron is ‘definitely considering a change in policy’, ‘fearing the UK could lose billions if students are caught up in the pledge to reduce net migration to below 100,000 by 2015’. The Mail followed up the story in its leader on Monday, endorsing it but suggesting it would be a mistake – and blaming it on the Lib Dems. But since then

Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s leadership is bruised by Lords rebellion

‘Shouldn’t we just go home?’ the SNP’s Pete Wishart asked Sir George Young this evening after the Leader of the House revealed the government was dropping its programme motion on the House of Lords. ‘You know it’s all over. They know it’s all over,’ he added. But they didn’t go home, and the Commons has just voted in favour of the second reading 462 votes to 162. Early reports suggest that there were 86 Conservative MPs who defied the whip, which would make this the biggest rebellion in this parliament. Nick Clegg paused from trying very hard not to grimace on the front bench to cheer as Mark Harper told

Jonathan Jones

Get set for rebellion number 248

The coalition’s backbenchers have already proven the most rebellious of any government. There have already been — by my count, adding the 239 rebellions up to the end of April listed in Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart’s Bumper Book of Coalition Rebellions to the eight listed on the Public Whip since then — 247 votes on which at least one Tory or Lib Dem backbencher has cast their vote against the government whip. That’s not quite the most of any parliament — there were 309 against Wilson and Callaghan in the 1974-79 parliament, 259 against Blair from 2001 to 2005, and 365 against Blair and Brown in the last parliament

Isabel Hardman

J’accuse backfires

Andrea Leadsom seems to have backed down a little from last night’s suggestion that George Osborne ‘should apologise’ for saying that Ed Balls had ‘questions to answer’ about Libor. This morning, perhaps after a cheery morning phone call from someone at CCHQ, she took to the airwaves to clarify what she had said: ‘Look, I was talking about a very specific point last night, which is the extent to which the Labour party may have leaned on the Bank of England, which Paul Tucker completely refuted. I want to be very clear here: this is an inquiry about the banks’ behaviour, and Ed Balls still has a huge amount to

James Forsyth

Cameron will pick party over coalition on Lords reform

The government’s apparent decision to pull the programme motion on the Lords Reform Bill is an admission that it would have lost the vote tonight, and heavily. The rebel numbers have more than held up today and by mid-afternoon even previously loyal MPs were contemplating jumping in to the rebel camp. The question now is what the coalition does next, does it plough on with the bill and try to guillotine it at a later date or quietly drop it. Certainly, the Tory opponents of the bill are in no mood to back down. They are making clear that even if the government comes back offering twenty days of debate

James Forsyth

Lords reform is in the long grass

The look on Nick Clegg’s face as he entered the chamber to hear Sir George Young announce the withdrawal of the programme motion said it all. The Deputy Prime Minister knows that Lords reform is now in the long grass and it will only come out of there if either the Tory rebels back down or Labour agree to a programme motion, both of which are unlikely scenarios. Source close to Nick Clegg say that the Prime Minister informed the Deputy Prime Minister today that he needed more time to build consensus on his own side. The public plan is now to try for a programme motion again in the

Isabel Hardman

The Osborne/Balls stalemate

George Osborne and Ed Balls are now locked into something of a staring match over the Libor scandal, with one waiting for the other to flinch. After Paul Tucker’s evidence to the Treasury Select Committee yesterday cleared the Shadow Chancellor and his ministerial colleagues in the Labour government of leaning on the Bank of England, Balls demanded an apology from Osborne for his comments to the Spectator. Andrea Leadsom, one of the members of the committee, saw enough in Tucker’s testimony to publicly call for an apology. This is significant because Leadsom is not the sort of MP who openly briefs against her bosses. She may have a slightly rebellious