Politics

Today’s joint FT article by George Osborne and Wolfgang Schäuble is yet another exhibit for David Cameron to wave at critics of his EU policy. While Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg fight over In or Out with no chance of leading the government that presents that choice to the British people (read Fraser’s Telegraph column on this), David Cameron can say that he is inching closer to winning debates, point by point, with European leaders. Today’s article contains the important acceptance that non-eurozone countries should be protected rather than disadvantaged by treaty change: ‘A stable euro is good for the global economy, and especially for Europe. The crisis has shown that

Has last night’s debate affected Nigel Farage’s chances of being involved in the general election TV debates? Although the broadcasters and political parties have yet to agree any dates or formats, the precedent has been set and the public will be expecting them. With weasel words from No.10 and a bullish attitude from some broadcasters, there’s a long way to go before an agreement is made. The public already have a clear idea of what they expect. According to the last YouGov polling on the subject, nearly half believe there should be a four-way debate between Cameron, Miliband, Clegg and Farage: [datawrapper chart=”http://charts.spectator.co.uk/chart/noqHV/”] It’ll be interesting to see whether the

Up until now, the fact that we know the date of the next general election has worked in Ed Miliband’s favour. He has known the timetable to which he has to work and has been able to resist demands to produce policy early by pointing out that we know the next election will not be until May 2015. But in the present circumstances, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act is not helping Miliband. Normally, in the fourth year of the parliament with the government receiving a bounce in the polls, the opposition would be wary of a snap election. This would create some internal discipline. But everyone on the Labour side now