Politics

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

Thursday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dems block further welfare cuts

One popular prediction swirling around Westminster this morning is that part of the Government’s response to the GDP disaster will be to cut more money from the welfare budget. After all, George Osborne told MPs in his Budget statement that there would need to be a further package of £10 billion cuts in welfare spending over the period of the next spending review, and the IMF has made similar noises, too. But I understand that this is not going to happen because the Liberal Democrats will not let it go through. Sources are emphatic that those at the top – Nick Clegg, Danny Alexander et al – have blocked the

Priti Patel

France shows up Labour’s economic plan

Yesterday’s economic news reminds us of the need for the Government to continue to focus relentlessly on getting our economy moving – dealing with the debt crisis, boosting bank lending to the real economy, and ensuring sustainable long-term prosperity through radical economic reform. One of the key planks of the Government’s reforms is to make Britain’s tax system more competitive, ensuring that Britain is open for business, that we are a dynamic and an attractive place to invest in and to work in. Cutting corporation tax to the lowest rate in the G7 is one element of this plan. Cutting the top rate of income tax to level the playing

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The post-GDP sleeve-rolling begins

David Cameron is using the Olympics today to strike a more upbeat tone after yesterday’s GDP gloom. The Prime Minister is speaking at 10am at a global investment conference to pitch for business from 180 chief executives from around the world. Cameron will tell the conference that he is ‘determined that Britain will be on of the great success stories’ in rebuilding its economy, and will say: ‘There will be no more passionate supporter of Team GB than me. But I’ve got a job to do this summer. And a big part of that job is to get behind British business… and do everything I can to help secure the

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The work experience Chancellor

Lord Oakeshott has just sparked some outrage by arguing on the World at One that George Osborne, who he described as a ‘Chancellor on work experience’ should be replaced by Vince Cable. He said: ‘I do think that George Osborne, he’s got no business experience, he’s never worked outside politics, and you know, he’s doing surprisingly well for a Chancellor on work experience, but really in a torrid time like this I think we do need the absolute best people available.’ A now-backbench Lib Dem peer announcing he would like to see a Lib Dem leading the Treasury team isn’t exactly the most surprising revelation. But what was interesting was

Jonathan Jones

GDP down 0.7% in Q2

The ONS’s first estimate of GDP in Q2 of 2012 shows a 0.7 per cent fall on Q1. It’s worth remembering that this is just a preliminary estimate and subject to revision later, but that’s a very big drop — the largest since the beginning of 2009 — driven largely by a big 5.2 per cent contraction in the construction sector. The ONS does point out that the extra Jubilee bank holiday will have hurt the economy, as will the record rainfall in April and June — but don’t expect Osborne to highlight this, for fear of a repeat of the ridicule he experienced for pointing to snow and the royal wedding

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The blue vs yellow fight to make green policy

Ed Davey has managed to win his first major battle as Energy Secretary – against the might of the Treasury, no less. James blogged earlier in the week that the battle between Lib Dem and Tory on cutting subsidies for onshore wind generation would be a test of how well the coalition is actually working, and this morning’s report in the Financial Times that George Osborne and Davey have managed to find a compromise is an illustration of that partnership in action. The newspaper reports that the dispute became so heated that Nick Clegg and David Cameron intervened to hammer down a final agreement. In the blue corner, Osborne was concerned not just by

Steerpike Steerpike

All that Vaz

The Red Fort in Soho went multi-coloured last night as politcos from across the spectrum gathered to celebrate Keith Vaz’s 25th year in Parliament. Top of the a-list was Tony Blair, fresh from lunch at Downing Street with the Queen. No sign of his wife, again, but his son Euan was pressing the flesh. If the rumours that he wants to follow in his father’s footsteps are true, then this was the perfect event for him. Disgraced Phil Woolas was loitering in the shadows. The sacked MP for Oldham turned lobbyist was making a rare public appearance. But it was the presence of Home Secretary Theresa May which got tongues

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Back to tax basics

David Gauke was only elected in 2005, but it’s impossible that he can’t remember the Back to Basics campaign, and how well that moral campaign worked out for the Conservative Party. Its 1993 launch precipitated revelations of all kinds of non-traditional behaviour in the party, from affairs to cash for questions. Had the Exchequer Secretary who bears the outstanding achievement of being named Tax Personality of the Year thought about the damningly long list of revelations that the Major government had to endure, he might have thought twice before declaring that it was ‘morally wrong’ to pay your plumber or cleaner cash-in-hand. The problem with Gauke’s moralising was so obvious

Jonathan Jones

Measuring well-being: a tough but important job

‘If you treasure it, measure it.’ So Gus O’Donnell said when addressing the All Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics in November. Well, the government has decided it treasures our well-being, and so is determined to measure it. It’s an incredibly tricky task — as I’ve noted before — but it’s a significant step forward that the Office for National Statistics has at least begun to try, and has finally started collecting a wealth of well-being data. In April, the ONS began asking people four questions to measure their subjective well-being on a scale of one to ten: Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? Overall, to what extent do you feel

Shiraz Maher

Tony Blair’s legacy on tackling extremism

It may be unpopular to say, but there is reason to be charitable to Tony Blair and his latest warnings about Islamist extremism. The former Prime Minister gave afascinating interview to Charles Moore in yesterday’s Telegraph where, inter alia, he talks about the challenge of militant Islam. ‘The West is asleep on this issue,’ he tells Moore. Blair has been more vocal and unequivocal on the issue than almost any other politician in recent years. He notes that the success of his Africa Governance Initiative faces ‘this threat above all others’. Failed states in the Horn of Africa have accentuated this, while one of the unintended consequences of the Libyan revolution

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Bandaging up the eurozone’s wounds

The approach of eurozone leaders to the crisis in their region has so far been a piecemeal, sticking plaster approach. But this morning, calls are growing for big and effective bandages to bind up the wounds before it is too late. Late last night, ratings agency Moody’s warned that the size of those bandages was so big that containing the shock of a Greek exit from the euro would come ‘at a very high cost’, and that ‘greater collective support’ for Spain and Italy would place a heavy burden on those eurozone members with higher credit ratings. Hence the downgrades from the agency for Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, while

Steerpike Steerpike

Randy Andy

Westminster’s favourite shaggy-haired do-gooder Andrew Mitchell has been spilling his heart out to Total Politics about Maggie: ‘To me, she was a goddess. When she walked down the  corridors, I used to stand stiffly to attention and hope she would pass by.’ Far too much information from the International Development Secretary, who is known to keep a bowl of condoms in on his ministerial desk, as part of a worldwide health campaign, of course.

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why Miliband doesn’t need to agree with Nick

Ed Miliband’s comments in the Independent today were clearly based on the assumption that Nick Clegg will not be around if and when it comes to negotiating a possible Lib-Lab coalition in 2015. Vince Cable has already thrown his fedora into the ring to be the next Liberal Democrat leader, and Miliband backed the calls for a change of chief in his interview today. ‘I would find it difficult to work with him,’ he said, when asked about Clegg. Clegg cannot go from being Deputy Prime Minister in one government to Deputy Prime Minister in the next: it would look ridiculous. A coalition with Labour would also not suit Clegg’s own political

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The coalition trial of strength

The coalition is most fragile when both party leaders feel that they have a point to prove to their own side. We are, post the Lords reform rebellion, in one of those moments. Nick Clegg has to show the Liberal Democrats that he’s no push-over, that he’ll exact something from the Tories for the death of Lords reform. In the last few days the Clegg circle have been suggesting that not only will there be no boundary changes if there is no Lords reform but that the deputy Prime Minister also has fresh resolve to fight the green agenda’s corner in government. For his part, the Prime Minister is trying

Jonathan Jones

Briefing: HSBC, money laundering and Lord Green

What’s HSBC done wrong? Put simply, HSBC was not rigorous enough in preventing money laundering through its banks. Last week, the United States Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a damning report finding that HSBC had ‘exposed the US financial system to a wide array of money laundering, drug trafficking, and terrorist financing risks due to poor anti-money laundering controls’. In particular, the committee criticised the way HSBC treated its Mexican arm. HSBC Mexico, the report says ‘operated in Mexico, a country under siege from drug crime, violence and money laundering; it had high risk clients, such as Mexican casas de cambios [bureaux de change] and US money service businesses; and it offered high

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The caveats to nil Zil lane usage for ministers

How many ministers will be using the Zil – sorry, Games – Lanes during the Olympics? The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said this morning that the lanes would be used on a flexible basis, and that ministers would stick to public transport. ‘The approach is that where possible they will use public transport,’ he said, but he added that ‘operational or security reasons’ might mean ministers are forced to use the lanes. ‘Operational’ and ‘security’ offer a conveniently wide range of situations in which someone might have cause to hop in the ministerial car and zoom down a clear road,  including the tube being too rammed with tourists for a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron to meet Mitt

Downing Street confirmed today that the Prime Minister will meet US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Downing Street this week. It sounds like a sensible plan, given Romney is so close to Obama in the polls at present. But there’s just one tiny little problem. I have, in my shorthand notes from a lobby briefing on 5 March 2012, a quote from the Prime Minister’s official spokesman, which says the following: ‘As a general rule we do not meet candidates in foreign elections.’ Then the spokesman was talking about David Cameron’s failure to meet François Hollande, who was in Britain while campaigning against Nicolas Sarkozy for the French presidency.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The new rebel PPS

Tim Montgomerie has some excellent intelligence on ConHome this morning that Francis Maude is about to gain a new PPS. The Cabinet Office Minister’s former aide was Angie Bray, who was sacked after voting against the government at the second reading of the House of Lords Reform Bill. But Maude’s replacement PPS, Stuart Andrew, is also a rebel. He was one of the 81 who defied the three-line whip in the autumn to vote for a backbench motion calling for a referendum on Britain’s relationship with the European Union. As Tim points out on his blog, this is a sign that rebels might still have a hope of a job in the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The UK Border Agency’s Bermuda Triangle

Bringing the UK Border Agency to heel has been one of the mammoth tasks facing ministers since the coalition formed. Ministers have recently been rather keen to suggest that backlogs in claims and migrants disappearing without a trace were coming under control – Immigration Minister Damian Green said at the start of this month that ‘we have gripped it and dealt with’ the problem of people overstaying their visa, for instance. But lest senior staff at the UK Border Agency were starting to pat themselves on the back for a good job well done, the Home Affairs Select Committee has released a damning report this morning which says performance is

Sunday

The Spectator

Bookbenchers: Jamie Reed MP | 22 July 2012

Over at the Books Blog, the Labour MP and shadow health minister Jamie Reed has answered our questions about his summer reading. He is taking Joe Bageant’s Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir on his travels. It’s one of 4 non-fiction recommendations about US politics, supplemented by some Herman Melville, The Grapes of Wrath and a novel about Abraham Lincoln. It’s an American dominated list, but none the worse for that. You can read it here.