Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem conference: Vince Cable says Coalition could end before 2015

Cabinet colleagues’ concerns over the housing bubble and immigration was only one facet of Vince Cable’s fringe interview this evening. What he told Steve Richards about the Coalition was also highly significant, and the biggest example of his freelancing to date. Where Cabinet colleagues have previously insisted that this Coalition is built to last, Cable said it was ‘certainly possible’ that it could end before the general election, although he wouldn’t be drawn on the circumstances in which that would happen, or which issues could cause him to leave the Cabinet. ‘I think President Obama has illustrated very clearly in recent weeks the dangers of parading your red lines,’ he

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem conference: Vince Cable says Tory Cabinet colleagues are worried about housing bubble

‘People think that I’m quite blunt,’ joked Vince Cable to Steve Richards at a fringe event this evening. The Business Secretary was being interviewed on his job, his relationship with Nick Clegg, and coalition politics, and he certainly made no effort to tone down that bluntness. There were ‘senior Conservatives’, he said who were also concerned about the prospect of another housing bubble. In the Cabinet? ‘Yes – and outside,’ he replied. He said: ‘We are already discussing this in government, it’s an issue I’m not the only person who is concerned. There are senior Conservatives…’ These sorts of discussions were part of Cable’s emphasis on ‘sustainable’ growth, which he

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem conference: Nick Clegg narrowly wins 45p/50p tax vote

It was so close that they had to count the votes in the conference hall, and even then, the Liberal Democrats only backed Nick Clegg on retaining the 45p tax above a return to the 50p rate by four little votes – 224 in favour of the 45p, and 220 in favour of the 50p. It’s difficult to bill this narrow result as a real victory for the Lib Dem leadership, but at least it means that Clegg has won all four of his confrontations so far with his party – and this tax vote was expected to be a loss. It was interesting how many of the speakers in

Steerpike Steerpike

A bridge too far for Ian Katz

More adventures in television from new Newsnight boss Ian Katz. Fresh from his truthful-if-embarrassing slating of Labour’s Rachel Reeves, I hear that Katz has upset another Labour big-wig, Alistair Darling. Apparently, Katz wants to shoot a Scottish referendum debate on a real bridge (presumably the 130-metre Union Bridge in Berwick) between Scotland and England. After the debate, he proposed that members of the audience would ‘vote with their feet’ by walking to either end of the bridge. Darling, who is leading the pro-Union campaign, was not sold on the idea of unionists walking to the English side of river to show their support. PS: Another BBC source says that Katz ‘wanted to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Lib Dem conference: The Lib Dems hope to keep their identity crisis hidden

This Liberal Democrat conference is demonstrating that the last election result was actually a relatively simple one for the Liberal Democrats. The parliamentary arithmetic meant that the party only had to decide whether it wanted to be in government or not. No one in the party could accuse those who backed the idea of being ‘closet Tories’ because there was no Labour option. Most Liberal Democrats, and particularly older ones, instinctively — and rather unthinkingly — rebel at the suggestion that they might actually want to govern with the Tories. Paddy Ashdown’s rage at The Observer on Sunday morning was over the fact that he felt the headline ‘Paddy Ashdown says

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem conference: Clegg’s confident Q&A

Nick Clegg was in a jolly good mood this afternoon when he strode into the conference hall for his question-and-answer session. His success (which may be halted shortly when conference votes on tax) in three votes over the last two days n nuclear power, tuition fees and the economy meant that he could be confident when taking questions from activists that they were largely for, not against, his vision. He took the opportunity to remind activists that the Lib Dems hardly campaigned on an anti-austerity platform in 2010, saying: ‘It’s not a thing that’s been imposed on us by the Conservatives, we went in with our eyes wide open to

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A Cheap Parcel of Rogues

What price a Scotsman’s vote? About £500 apparently. Beneath a headline claiming ‘New poll gives Yes campaign hope’ The Scotsman reports that support for independence, as measured by ICM, rises to the giddy heights of 47 per cent if voters are told that they will be £500 a year better off in an independent Scotland. If this seems a disappointingly mercenary reason for voting Yes the same poll finds that many supporters of independence have their price. Only 18 per cent favour independence if, hypothetically, it were to leave you £500 a year worse off. The Incorruptible 18 per cent! Almost everyone else, it seems, has a price. Upon such things does the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem conference: Vince Cable undermines Clegg’s ‘reasonable party’ strategy

Another year, another speech by Vince Cable attacking those nasty Tories. After his rather undignified to-ing and fro-ing over the economy vote that left him looking confused and selfish while Clegg emerged looking rather bold and statesmanlike, the Business Secretary had just half an hour before he returned to the conference hall to speak again. The consensus seems to be that he made a fool of himself by not deciding what it was he should do. And given that even Tim Farron rallied behind the leadership, delivering an impressive speech in favour of Clegg’s position when he’s often more than happy to brief against his colleague, Cable hardly looked collegiate.

The Spectator

Lib Dem conference: Vince Cable’s speech – full text

listen to ‘Vince Cable’s speech to the Lib Dem conference 2013’ on Audioboo Friends. It is a special pleasure to speak to Conference in the city where I had my political baptism of fire. Glasgow is a great city and Glaswegians are warm, hospitable and humorous. But Glasgow has experienced one party, Labour, rule for decades. And I was part of the Labour political machine here in the 1970s. On one level it worked. Insanitary slums were razed to the ground. We built 30,000 new social homes for rent in a decade – 5,000 in one year, a scale unimaginable today. There was also an unhealthy tribalism and a Tammany

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem conference: Clegg vindicated in confrontation strategy as he wins economy vote

So after all the fuss, Nick Clegg did manage to win his vote on the economy: both on the amendment proposed by the left-leaning Social Liberal Forum, and on the motion itself. The Lib Dem leader put in a forceful performance when he summed up the motion at the end of the debate. Some of the contributions were rather heated, notably from Gareth Epps and Naomi Smith of the SLF, but on the whole the debate was more about the economy itself rather than the leadership’s behaviour, which will also have come as a relief to Clegg and co. And if that debate was a bitter row, as it had

Steerpike Steerpike

Look happy! Lib Dems accidentally leak ‘conference top lines’

Looks like a spinner has got himself in trouble this morning. Nick Sutton from the BBC has just tweeted this briefing that probably wasn’t mean to go to the press this morning: Whoops… “five things to remember for every interview” – I don’t think this was meant to be sent to us… #ldconf pic.twitter.com/QBQcG9SmuQ — Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) September 16, 2013   Here are the Lib Dems’ 5 things to remember for every interview: This conference sees the party in a confident mood We have a strong record of achievement in Government Our priorities are jobs and easing the squeeze on household budgets Labour cannot be trusted to be a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem conference: Vince Cable graces economy debate with presence and support

So after all that fuss overnight, suddenly Vince Cable has decided that he can spare time to pop along to his party’s crunch debate on the economy, to vote and lend his moral support. Nick Clegg must be thrilled. What is the Business Secretary up to, initially planning to avoid the conference hall for ‘speech prep’? Well, those in an uncharitable mood might suspect that this has all been a rather convenient fuss for the Business Secretary, who could firstly show he’s not comfortable with all the cheery rhetoric on the economy, and then show how grand and important he is by whisking in at the last minute. But it’s

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem conference: Clegg isn’t fighting his activists, he’s just fighting a faction of activists

Nick Clegg’s strategy of getting his party to approve his position on a number of contentious issues reaches its most awkward stage today, with the votes on the economy and taxes that are causing the greatest grief with activists. It’s complicated by Vince Cable’s plan to be a no-show at the economy debate in an attempt to hold onto his Jeremiah credentials. The votes are being billed as a clash between the leadership and its activists, but it’s a little more complicated than that. Last night I attended a fringe held by Liberal Reform, a group in the party that campaigns for a market-based approach to policy-making. It’s reasonably young,

Sebastian Payne

Lib Dem conference: Monday fringe guide

Every morning throughout party conference season, we’ll be providing our pick of the fringe events on Coffee House.  The Liberal Democrats’ conference in Glasgow has entered its third day and like yesterday, there are interesting sessions with key Lib Dem figures, MPs, MSPs and pollsters as well as plenty of interviews throughout the day: Title Key speaker(s) Time Location Auto Enrolment: its talked the talk, but can it walk the walk? Steve Webb 07:45-09:00 Crowne Plaza, Castle 3 Killing the zombies and raising the innovators Danny Alexander 07:30-08:45 Crowne Plaza, Jura Banking on growth: Are local banks the answer? Matthew Oakeshott 08:00-09:00 Campanile, Monet 1&2 A Portrait of Political Britain:

Sunday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem leadership enjoys victory on two key motions… but Cable’s planned no-show causes economy debate jitters

One of the Lib Dem leadership’s key aims for this conference in Glasgow is to move the party into a pragmatic mindset that involves accepting and moving on from certain contentious policies such as tuition fees, the Coalition’s economic policy, and nuclear power. So far that strategy seems to be working, with a number of votes already going in Nick Clegg’s favour. This morning, activists backed a motion on green growth and green jobs that included ‘permitting limited shale gas extraction’, and supported an option within that motion that accepted ‘that in future, nuclear power stations could play a limited role in electricity supply’, rather than ‘rejecting the construction of

Allie Renison

Lib Dem conference 2013: Tories are still the only party committed to a straight EU referendum

Is it really worth getting excited about David Laws’ suggestion that the Lib Dems could put an In/Out referendum pledge in their 2015 manifesto? It’s not the first time, after all, and anyone who follows these things closely will know that below the excited headlines, there is always a more complex reality. When you burrow into what Laws is really proposing, you realise that it could prove a thorny issue in coalition negotiations in 2015 as it contrasts sharply with David Cameron’s own pledge. Speaking at the start of the Lib Dems’ Glasgow conference, Laws effectively recommitted the party to its 2010 promise, saying they would back an In/Out referendum

Sebastian Payne

The Tories are facing a serious Ukip problem

Is Ukip damaging the Tories in crucial marginal constituencies? As I wrote earlier this week, the next election is looking to be close, but there has been much speculation as to what extent Ukip will split the Tory vote. Could this unwittingly lead to a Labour victory? Lord Ashcroft has polled 40 of the most marginal Conservative seats (32 Labour targets and 8 Lib Dem) for the third time since the last election to try and answer that question. From today’s snapshot, the answer is that Ukip pose a great electoral threat to the Tories. In the Conservative/Labour marginals, their vote share has jumped from 3 to 11 per cent

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem conference: Danny Alexander hints at key role for Trident in coalition negotiations

Danny Alexander is respected by his colleagues across the coalition (except Vince Cable – James reveals today that the pair are barely speaking) for a number of things, from his bean counting ability to his aptitude for giving a lengthy interview or fringe speech without moving a story on an inch. He tried to do the latter today on the Trident alternatives review at a Demos event, but was foiled by his panel partner, Baroness Falkner of Margravine, chair of the party’s backbench international affairs committee. She compared the party’s policy to flood insurance that ‘only applies in a drought’, saying: ‘How does a posture of sending out boats unarmed

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem conference: Ed Davey’s full-throttle attack on Owen Paterson (and some terrible jokes)

Ed Davey has a good story to tell his party about fighting the Tories to get a Lib Dem vision for energy policy into government. His speech today was supposed to underline that, and to a certain extent it achieved this, using the word ‘fight’ 15 times, and ‘battle’ four times. It was just rather undermined by the Energy Secretary’s decision to whack a load of jokes into his speech without much heed to whether they were funny, or whether he could deliver them in a manner that highlighted to graduates that they were funny. The worst joke was about shale gas. ‘I’ve been cautious on shale,’ said Davey. ‘Avoiding

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Ashdown: We’re ‘a left wing party’ but we’ll do a deal with whoever the voters tell us to

A rather irritable Paddy Ashdown has just told Andrew Neil that the Lib Democrats are ‘a left-wing party’ but that their next coalition would be determined by the voters. Ashdown, whose chairing the Lib Dem election campaign, claimed that it simply wasn’t accurate to say that Lib Dems had a preference for who they’d like as their coalition partner. This is, to put it mildly, a dubious statement and Ashdown did feel the need to concede that senior Lib Dems did have ‘private likes and dislikes’. But he claimed that this wouldn’t influence their decision about who to go into government with. Ashdown’s aggressive approach to this question is designed