Politics

‘If we don’t like modern Britain, then it is very unlikely that modern Britain will like us’ says Damian Green, in a piece for the Daily Telegraph today. I’m not sure if this is a piece of pre-reshuffle positioning or a cri de coeur, but his analysis is about ten years out of date. Green is not a Notting Hill Tory, he’s part of the group whom Rachel Sylvester once described as the ‘Blueberry Hill’ Tories — a generation born about the same time as the Fats Domino hit, who got into parliament early enough to see their party spanked by Tony Blair in three general elections. This gave rise to

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

The Treasury received some bad news today, so it sent out Chloe Smith to respond instead of her boss George Osborne. The economic secretary made the same point as Fraser about Labour’s alternative strategy when she responded to the latest borrowing figures this afternoon. She said: ‘Their strategy would be to borrow more and to spend more and we cannot take that kind of decision in these circumstances.’ But she then added: ‘What these figures really show is the importance of sticking to the plan that has won Britain international credibility.’ The ‘international credibility’ line is quite interesting as presumably Smith is referring to Britain’s credit rating, which Danny Alexander

On one level, a government minister confirming that their colleagues are discussing the possible break-up of the eurozone is hardly a surprise. It would have been far more controversial had Finland’s foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja pitched up on the World at One this afternoon and told Martha Kearney that eurozone finance ministers were not engaged in contingency planning at some level. But Tuomioja’s comments that a Grexit was ‘something that everybody in every ministry of finance and in central banks, and national central banks, is looking into’ are still significant as they show politicians are less worried by the effect public hints about an exit will have and more by

Julian Assange appeared in public for the first time in two months this afternoon to make a statement about his continuing resistance to attempts to extradite him. The Wikileaks founder made a number of claims and arguments which it’s useful to have a look at in further detail: 1. ‘If the UK did not throw away the Vienna conventions the other night, it was because the world was watching’. Foreign Secretary William Hague has insisted that there are no plans to ‘storm’ the Ecuadorian embassy to arrest Assange. Either officers will attempt to arrest him when he leaves the building for Ecuador (although there is an interesting theory he may