Politics

If the expected happens today, the political debate will rapidly move to whether Cameron should offer some concessions to Clegg to bolster his position. I hear there are two camps in Downing Street on this question with Steve Hilton a particularly ardent advocate of the no more concessions line.   Hilton’s position may surprise some but makes sense when you consider how his public service reform programme has, as Ben Brogan writes today, already been diluted for political reasons.    My current expectation is that there won’t be many concessions to Clegg. One well placed Tory told me last night that “Clegg picked the question and the date. He can

While the focus remains fixed on the dramas of Coalitionville, it’s worth remembering that today’s votes are meaningful for Ed Miliband too. The Labour leader may not be facing the prospect of resignations, nor even outcry, at their various outcomes. But this is, nonetheless, the first major electoral moment of his leadership. He might well be judged on it. In which case, much will depend on the extent to which Labour advances in England have already been priced into the electoral calculus. If the party’s footsoldiers regard sweeping gains — of perhaps around 1,000 seats — as some sort of default, then attention may turn instead to the turnaround in

Today I urge everyone who believes in our democracy to vote ‘no’ to the unfair and expensive Alternative Vote (AV) system.   The recent polls have been encouraging but you must remember that there is no turnout threshold today – any complacency and the UK could sleepwalk into a heavily flawed voting system that we would struggle to get rid of.   Instead of voting being clear, simple and effective like our current system, the Alternative Vote’s complex counting process breaks the principle of ‘One Person, One Vote’ which is the foundation of our democracy. People who vote for the fringe parties, like the BNP, can have their votes counted