Politics

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

Thursday

Christopher Howarth

Nick Clegg’s opposition to renegotiation could risk the UK’s EU membership

Nick Clegg this morning fell into the usual ‘all or nothing’ fallacy on Europe. He said: ‘As soon as we start talking about repatriation, we descend into the in-versus-out debate.’ But the Deputy Prime Minister is wrong: the in/out debate is already underway, and rather than seek to defend the unpopular status quo, Nick Clegg should back renegotiation as the best option for those who wish to put the UK’s membership on a stable democratic footing. But instead of attempting to address the causes for the EU’s unpopularity, the inflated budget, democracy deficit and bureaucracy etc. Nick Clegg sought to channel the debate into his own in/out debate where the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Clegg enrages eurosceptics with ‘false promise’ attack on plan to return powers from Brussels

One of the key challenges for David Cameron this autumn is to address his policy on Europe. A big speech is expected before European leaders meet in December, with some in the Conservative party hoping it will come as soon as next week in order to boost Tory chances in the Corby by-election. But because the Prime Minister is offering definition for his own party on the EU, the other party leaders must do the same. Nick Clegg’s speech today set out where he stands, and he didn’t mince his words. As well as the lines I reported earlier about opting out of law-and-order powers, the Deputy Prime Minister also

Steerpike Steerpike

Dame Helen Ghosh and the elite cupcakes

Dame Helen Ghosh’s words about women and David Cameron’s government have put Downing Street backs up this afternoon. Dame Helen, whose Civil Service career spanned thirty-three years culminated in a troublesome spell as Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, told Cambridge students it was ‘difficult for women to get in’ when the Prime Minister favoured his male school chums. Lines such as ‘women don’t network. It is actually quite difficult for a woman to get in as part of an Old Etonian clique. They are far too busy doing other things’ have gone down particularly badly. However, I hear that Dame Helen was not totally adverse to a bit of

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ministers ward off Tory revolt on crime compensation

The government has just managed to ward off another possible revolt in the House of Commons from Tory MPs. It failed earlier this autumn to get a revision of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme through a delegated legislation committee when four Conservative MPs present refused to support it. The revised scheme will see half of all those seriously injured following a violent crime receiving no compensation at all and nearly 90 per cent of victims receiving less money. So John Redwood, Angie Bray, Jonathan Evans and Bob Blackman threatened to rebel, leading to Justice Minister Helen Grant withdrawing the legislation from the committee. Grant brought the legislation before committee again

James Forsyth James Forsyth

David Cameron needs to detail EU referendum plans soon to avoid future rebellions

‘I thought it would hurt more than it did’ one loyalist minister remarked after last night’s government defeat on the EU budget. The fact that the vote isn’t going to bring the government down or bind its hands is what is consoling Cameron loyalists. They are also pointing out that the Eurosceptic vote split with Jacob Rees-Mogg, Priti Patel and Andrea Leadsom staying on the government side this time. But what should worry Number 10 about this rebellion is its flash mob nature. As Isabel pointed out last night, there wasn’t — unlike with the Lords revolt or the EU referendum vote — months of planning put into this one.

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Nostalgia fest

Yowser! It’s the mid-1990s all over again. I half expect to hear Ace of Base blaring out of a thousand Ford Cosworths. The Tories are split down the middle on the EU and Heseltine is stamping around, flogging his dirigiste interventionist stuff (which these days commends itself only to Labour, doesn’t it?). What next? Antonia De Sancha (come on, you remember her. “From Toe Job to No Job” was the memorable headline. She was very foxy. Certainly out of Mellor’s league, one would have thought.) There is a supreme arrogance in Nick Clegg telling Tory rebels that they do not stand a chance in hell of getting the EU budget

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg: There is not a cigarette paper between me and the PM on EU budget

The morning after the government’s defeat on the EU budget, Nick Clegg has offered his own advice on the British negotiating position. The Deputy Prime Minister gave a speech to Chatham House in which he said that pushing for a real-terms cut in the budget – which is what 307 MPs including 53 Conservative rebels voted for last night – is ‘unrealistic’. Clegg framed his attack on this negotiating position by focusing on Labour rather than Tory MPs. He said: ‘Yet it was Labour who agreed to the last long-term EU budget settlement, which saw a major jump in EU spending and lost part of the UK’s rebate in exchange

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The end of the recession, but just the beginning of the PM’s problems

Since the end of the recession was confirmed a few days ago, confidence has returned to at least one part of -Britain. Ministers are beginning to strut again as they wander round Whitehall and their conversations include the occasional reference to a second term. Political recovery will, they think, follow economic recovery. As evidence for this, they point to polling which shows that the coalition’s reputation for economic management has already returned to pre-Budget levels. David Cameron, though, is more cautious. Over the past difficult few months, he did his best to keep his own and others’ spirits up. Colleagues were regularly told, ‘Well, it was never going to be

Barry Humphries

London Notebook | 1 November 2012

What is a real woman? My difficult client, the Australian gigastar Dame Edna Everage, is seriously miffed at BBC’s cancellation of her forthcoming appearance on Have I Got News For You. She flew from Australia especially to record this show, installing herself, as usual, in the Oliver Messel suite at the Dorchester Hotel at her own expense, but the producer changed his mind yesterday and politely gave her the shove, claiming that the show only featured ‘real people’. The insult is all the more hurtful since she has, in the past, done Desert Island Discs and published a volume of autobiography which was always listed in the ‘non-fiction’ category. ‘Not

Matt Ridley

Losing the ashes

I’m pessimistic about the ash trees. It seems unlikely that a fungus that killed 90 per cent of Denmark’s trees and spreads by air will not be devastating here, too. There is a glimmer of hope in the fact that ash, unlike elms, reproduce sexually so they are not clones — uniformly vulnerable to the pathogen. But it’s only a glimmer: tree parasites, from chestnut blight to pine beauty moth, have a habit of sweeping through species pretty rampantly, because trees are so long-lived they cannot evolve resistance in time. The Forestry Commission’s apologists are pleading ‘cuts’ as an excuse for its failure to do anything more timely to get

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Why a visit to a school persuaded me that young people aged 16 to 18 should have the vote

Let me guess most readers’ reaction to news that Alex Salmond has arm-twisted Westminster into allowing 16- to 18-year-olds in Scotland to vote in the 2014 Scottish referendum on independence. I bet the reaction resembled mine. Annoyance. The very thought! As to the assurance that this concession will be temporary, and pressure will not build to make the change permanent, I’d reply (with many of you): ‘Nonsense!’ So, being on my way to speak at a well-regarded state secondary school in Wells, the Blue School, and hearing the news about Scotland, I decided to test the water. I was there to speak to 16- to 18-year-olds: some 200 of them.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Don’t blame the whips for the EU budget revolt: the problem is higher up

What is striking about this evening’s revolt on the EU budget is that it was organised at lightning speed by the rebel camp. Mark Reckless and Mark Pritchard only tabled their amendment on Monday morning, whereas the rebellion of the 81 over the backbench motion for an EU referendum took weeks of careful planning. This time round, in just three days, the shadow whipping operation managed to stir up 53 MPs prepared to troop through the ‘yes’ lobby in favour of the call for a real-terms cut. The whips themselves are already saying that they know the blame will land on Sir George Young’s head when they believe it wasn’t

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

EU budget: full list of Tory rebels

The Press Association has published its analysis of the division lists, which finds 51 Conservative rebels, along with two tellers. Here is the list of those who voted for a real-terms cut in the EU budget: Steve Baker John Baron Andrew Bingham Brian Binley Andrew Bridgen Aidan Burley Conor Burns Douglas Carswell Bill Cash Christopher Chope James Clappison Tracey Crouch Philip Davies David Davis Nick de Bois Nadine Dorries Richard Drax Zac Goldsmith James Gray Chris Heaton-Harris Gordon Henderson Adam Holloway Stewart Jackson Bernard Jenkin Chris Kelly Edward Leigh Julian Lewis Jack Lopresti Karl McCartney Stephen McPartland Anne Main Nigel Mills David Nuttall Andrew Percy Mark Pritchard Mark Reckless John

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Government suffers humiliating defeat on EU budget

The government has just suffered an embarrassing defeat on the EU budget. The rebel amendment, which called for a cut rather than the real terms freeze David Cameron is proposing, passed by 307 votes to 294. There are, I think, three significant consequences of tonight’s vote. First, it has been yet another reminder that David Cameron can barely control his party when it comes to Europe. We’re waiting for the precise number of Tory rebels tonight but it seems like about 50 MPs defied the whips. This means that if Labour is prepared to join with the Tory rebels, it can overturn the coalition’s majority. This is the second lasting

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

EU budget: Focus on Labour’s chutzpah

The opening exchanges of the Commons debate on the EU budget were, on the whole, rather good for the Prime Minister. They involved Greg Clark making a concerted attack on Labour’s ‘opportunist’ decision to call for a real-terms cut and to support Mark Reckless’ amendment calling for just that. Without irony, Chris Leslie then told the Chamber that Clark was being ‘partisan’ in his speech. This put Clark and the backbenchers sitting behind him on the defensive. The debate became about Labour rather than the government’s own stance on the issue. Loyal MPs including Nadhim Zahawi pressed Leslie on whether he himself would back a veto at the budget summit

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Government expects to lose EU budget vote

While the rebel whips are still rounding up Tory MPs to vote against the government on the EU budget motion, which starts in the Commons shortly, a senior government source tells me that they now expect to lose the vote. David Cameron’s line at Prime Minister’s Questions that ‘at best we would like it cut, at worst frozen, and I’m quite prepared to use the veto if we don’t get a deal that’s good for Britain’ may not have taken the sting out of the rebellion itself, but it might be easier for the government to now argue that losing a vote on an amendment which calls for a cut is

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Ed Miliband poses as the king of the jungle

Ed Miliband had fun with his dressing-up box today. At PMQs he tried on all kinds of disguises in the hope of scaring the government. First Europe and the EU budget negotiations. Miliband’s approach here is full of cunning and dishonesty. He called for ‘real terms reduction’ even though he knows full well that a freeze is the best the government can hope for. But by suggesting an impossible tactic he can claim that David Cameron has missed a trick. ‘Rank opportunism,’ declared the PM, ‘and the country will see through it.’ He reminded us of Labour’s record at the negotiating table seven years ago. Back then Ed Milband and

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tensions grow over government green policy

While the major tensions at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions were around the Tory party and Europe, another split within the government – this time between the two coalition parties – was visible too. Ed Miliband used his second set of questions to attack the Prime Minister on the Heseltine review, which he linked to John Hayes’ comments about wind farms to the Mail and the Telegraph. Hayes had told journalists that ‘enough is enough’ on wind farms, adding that ‘I can’t single-handedly build a new Jerusalem but I can protect our green and pleasant land’. Miliband said: ‘He says there’s no strategy for jobs and growth, business has no confidence

James Forsyth James Forsyth

David Cameron reassures MPs that he’d prefer a cut in EU budget

The Prime Minister needed to reassure his own side at PMQs today on the EU budget and give his whips something to work with. He largely did that, saying almost immediately that his position was that at best, he’d like it cut and at worst, frozen. That Cameron has said he’d like it cut will give those of his backbenchers who stick with him tonight some cover. They’ll be able to say that they’re supporting the government which already wants a cut. Ed Miliband’s decision to lead on the issue and try and use it to paint Cameron as ‘weak’ has also made the issue more partisan. I suspect that

Steerpike Steerpike

Dial W for Wonga

I gather that self-important Labour MP Tom Watson has earned £10,812 in royalties for the book he recently co-authored on phone-hacking, Dial M For Murdoch. New parliamentary records show that Watson claims to have devoted 175 hours to the project. Despite shunning an advance from publisher Allen Lane, this means the MP has still made an average of £61 per hour for his work so far – a figure that will increase if the book continues to sell. There is no mention in the latest Register of MPs’ financial interests, where Watson has made the disclosure, of this cash being donated to charity or good causes. Surely Watson is not