Politics

Ken Clarke is speaking at a Daily Telegraph fringe event and he was quick to play a few of his favourite European games in response to Theresa May’s assault on the Human Rights Act and the European Court of Human Rights. Nick Watt reports that Clarke claims May did not brief of her examples of the HRA being abused. And he cast doubt on their veracity: according to Lucy Manning, Clarke jovially challenged May to substantiate her claim that a criminal was not deported on human rights grounds because they happened to own a cat. This may seem like fun and games, but it reveals the tension over the HRA and the ECHR that exists

Boris Johnson must be one of the very few politicians in the world to make the audience laugh before they even start their speech. Just by walking on stage, he has the effect of a good comedian: the punters start to smile, in anticipation of some good one-liners. In today’s case, Boris got a standing ovation before he opened his mouth. Here is the man judged by Ladbrokes as the most likely next Conservative leader, but he had not come to stir. The Prime Minister – who lavished praise on the Mayor last night – was in the hall. It was all Big Society (BoJo division): affordable housing and a reprise of

Today’s papers resound with the news that Theresa May is resisting Liberal Democrat opposition to close the loophole over the “right to family life”, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This change, it is argued, will ensure that foreign criminals are deported so that the courts protect, as David Cameron put it, “the United Kingdom”.  The announcement is a carefully choreographed step to differentiate the Tories from the Liberal Democrats. Dr Evan Harris, the self-anointed king of the Lib Dems in exile, told the BBC this morning: ‘It’s actually a useful tool because it enables Nick Clegg to say the Human Rights Act (HRA) is here to say

George Osborne told a Conservative Party increasingly wary of expensive climate policies that Britain needs to “cut [its] carbon emissions no slower but also no faster than our fellow countries in Europe. That’s what I’ve insisted on in the recent carbon budget.”  What he actually insisted on was what Chris Huhne described as “a review of progress in early 2014 to ensure our own carbon targets are in line with the EU’s”.  Even if that review is serious, and energy intensive industries have every reason to be sceptical, it is only going to hold our policy to the same standard as today.  The current targets require us to cut our

About 15 years ago, Bill Clinton wanted to promote home ownership among the low-paid, but was annoyed that banks wouldn’t lend freely or cheaply to that group. So, the federal government intervened with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae selling government-backed mortgages at knockdown rates. Nothing showed up on the national debt, because the loan would — in theory — be repaid. The seeds for the sub-prime crisis were sewn.   Today, George Osborne wants to promote recovery and is annoyed than banks won’t lend freely or cheaply enough to small businesses. So, the Treasury will intervene by lending money indirectly by backing a new bond market that lends cash to

As George Osborne was addressing Tory conference, Standard and Poor reaffirmed Britain’s triple A rating. For the Osborne team, it sent out the perfect message — their deficit strategy is keeping the nation creditworthy. It was their piece of conference theatre for this year. The Chancellor’s address was a sombre affair. But, in some ways, it was his most impressive conference performance. It was a classic Osborne blend of politics and economics, but distinguished by a clear and precise analysis of why the economy was not recovering. Osborne’s big policy announcement was that the Treasury was now exploring credit easing. I’ll have more on this soon, but essentially the idea