Politics Archives

Wednesday

20 Oct 2010

The Tory response to Osborne’s Spending Review

George Osborne was well received by the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers when he addressed them on the spending review earlier. There was much thumping of desks, the traditional sign of approval at meetings of the ‘22. Talking to Tory MPs this afternoon, they are pretty happy with the package. They are glad that the money being taken out of the welfare budget means that the departmental cuts are less than expected. Overall, they think the package is politically sellable and has denied Labour that many targets. One concern is about how local councils, including Conservative ones, might react to a 28 percent cut in their funding from

Ed Holmes

Osborne blunts the axe – slightly

As expected, the Chancellor announced reductions in public spending – though not quite as severe as indicated in the Emergency Budget last June. Government expenditure will fall by 3.3 percent over four years rather than 3.6 percent as expected, leading George Osborne to state – correctly – that departmental budgets will be higher than those pencilled in by Labour – an outcome many may not regard as desirable. In fact, Osborne will be spending 2 percent more in 2014/15 than Gordon Brown was in 2008/9. Departmental spending will fall 10 percent rather than 13 percent – largely paid for by more optimistic assumptions about savings on welfare and debt interest

Philip Booth

A long way to go

George Osborne has probably done enough to ensure that the public finances are back on track and that the national debt will not run out of control. He has, however, taken only the first step on the road to reducing the size of the state. The government will spend the same proportion of national income in 2015 as it did in 2007. In other words, the size of the state will be no smaller when David Cameron goes to the country than when Gordon Brown left the Treasury. Much more could have been done and low-hanging fruit has been left on the tree. Child benefit should have been

Fraser Nelson

Ten points about the Spending Review

In the end, George Osborne didn’t flinch. The Chancellor is a clever political operator – too clever, sometimes – but the result is a cuts package that has surprisingly broad popular support. And this has been achieved, in part, by including measures that strike the likes of me as economically unwise. So much of this budget was known in advance that we didn’t find out much new today. The below points are my thoughts not on the overall package – which I strongly support – but the pieces of it that we learned today: 1) Total state spending is falling by 3.3 percent in real terms over the next four

Peter Hoskin

The chart that could cause trouble for the coalition

Just as they did in the Budget, the coalition have produced a chart showing the impact of the Spending Review’s tax, spend and benefit measures on different income groups (see above). In many respects, this is a noble effort: it’s a good deal more transparency than Gordon Brown could ever manage in his Budgets. But it also sets a trap for the coalition. As we’ve pointed out before, these kinds of analyses don’t account for measures that can’t be quantified in terms of the money handed out to, or taken away from, the public. So policies that might improve the life chances of the least well-off, such as better schools

Lloyd Evans

Cameron’s warm-up act for Boy George

Cameron was a mere warm-up man at PMQs today. With Osborne’s statement due at 12.30 the session felt like a friendly knock-up rather than the main fixture. Ed Miliband rose to thunderous cheers from his backbenches and he tried to capitalise on their support by opening up an ancient Tory wound – heartless attitudes to unemployment. Spotting Cameron chinwagging with Osborne instead of listening, Miliband chided the PM for not paying attention. ‘Well, it’s a novel concept,’ said Dave smoothly ‘but in this government the prime minister and the chancellor speak to each other.’ Ed’s problem was that the OBR has predicted rising employment for the next three years.

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 20 October 2010

QUICK VERDICT: More heat than light today, but Cameron easily got the better of Ed Miliband. Now to the Spending Review live blog. 1230: Cameron says that as cuts are made, the government will have to reform the way it does criminal justice. This is a prelude for the deep cuts that the Home Office and Justice department are expected to face in the spending review. 1228: The Lib Dem MP asks whether Cameron believes that better-off graduates should bear more for their university costs. Cameron says that he agrees on principle, and claims that “everyone in the House” wants the “same thing”: a fair and well-funded university system. 1226:

Peter Hoskin

How we got here – and where we’re going

With the Spending Review less than two hours away, I thought CoffeeHousers might like to be armed with a few graphs that set the scene. What follows is by no means the complete picture of the fiscal landscape, but these are certainly some of most prominent landmarks. First up, real terms spending (aka Total Managed Expenditure) from 1966 to 2015: So, yes, all the fuss is about that small dip at the end of the blue line – a dip, as it happens, of about four percent. But don’t think that the fuss is entirely unwarranted. What the government is trying to do here is curb a trend of ever-increasing

Peter Hoskin

The slog starts today

Welcome to Stage Two of the government’s life. The first stage was the Budget, which established the size of the fiscal mountain looming over the coalition. The third stage will be the difficult, four-year slog up to the top. But today – the Spending Review – is all about determining the route for that ascent. In just a few hours we will know when, where and why the pain will come. Don’t forget to pack sandwiches. Of course, with this roadmap being drawn out in Westminster, we already know some of the details. This morning’s papers major on the fact – snapped from Danny Alexander’s hands yesterday – that almost

Tuesday

19 Oct 2010

Matthew Sinclair

What we know already

At the Comprehensive Spending Review tomorrow, we will get a much clearer picture of how the Government plans to manage spending cuts. There are a few things we already know, though: 1) The overall cuts will be modest. As Fraser has pointed out, the overall cut in spending is small. Spending is going down to around the level it was at in 2006-07. It will remain several percentage points of GDP above the level at the start of the last decade. 2) Cut in some areas will be much sharper. The higher bill for Government debt interest, the ringfencing of Health and International Development and the relatively soft deal for

James Forsyth

Cameron reveals the scale of defence cuts

David Cameron delivered his statement on the Strategic Defence and Security Review with few rhetorical flourishes. He had two main messages: i) the mission in Afghanistan would be spared from the 8 percent cuts in this Parliament’s defence budget, and ii) the problems the review is trying to deal with stem from the fact that “the last government got it badly wrong.” The appalling legacy that Labour has left the coalition on defence rather hamstrung Ed Miliband in his response. The most memorable line in it was a gag about how he had advance sight of the statement in ‘today’s papers, Monday’s papers, Sunday’s papers.’ Indeed, trickier for Cameron

Patrick Nolan

What should the Chancellor do in the Spending Review?

With this autumn’s Spending Review set to be one of the most important moments in the life of the Coalition Government, Reform has linked up The Spectator’s Coffee House blog to ask what could – and should – be in the final document. This post and all previous posts have been collected in a report that you can download here . 1). Hold the line on eliminating the deficit in one term The coalition Government must hold the line on the commitment to eliminate the structural deficit in one parliament. Delaying the task will simply make it harder. Unless programmes and entitlements are reformed now, then the growing costs

James Forsyth

Not fit for purpose

John Reid famously declared that ‘the Home Office was not fit for purpose’. But judging by the fudge over the carriers this epithet would have been better applied to one of his previous departments, the Ministry of Defence. Something has gone very wrong when it would cost more not to build something than to build it. How the MoD got into this position over the carriers needs to be the subject of an urgent and thorough investigation. Those responsible for this absurd situation need to be held to account. It is also ridiculous that there will be several years when there’ll be no carrier from which helicopters can be launched

Monday

18 Oct 2010

James Forsyth

Fox in the dock?

Split-stories have their own momentum. As soon as you know that a certain secretary of state is in the dog house with Downing Street, you start seeing things through that prism. So when I saw that the press release on the government’s new national security strategy contained quotes from the PM, the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Development Secretary, but not the Defence Secretary, I immediately regarded it – and perhaps wrongly – as part of the Westminster Fox hunt. Liam Fox’s appearance on the Politics Show on Sunday was ill-advised. By celebrating his defiance of the Treasury’s demands and trumpeting the PM’s support for him, he

Peter Hoskin

The coalition outlines its national security concerns

What a curious creature this National Security Strategy is. For some reason, I expected something more than a 39-page document in the same mushy pea colour scheme as the coalition agreement. But that is what we’ve got – and it doesn’t really tell us much. The centrepiece of the document comes on page 27 (reproduced below), with a neat, three-tier guide to the security risks facing this country. At the highest priority level are atrocities such as “chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack by terrorists,” and “hostile attacks upon UK cyberspace”. Further down, there are mentions for “organised crime” and “disruption to oil or gas supplies,” among others. But, before

James Forsyth

Laws helps Gove

Michael Gove has just been explaining in the Commons where the £7 billion for the fairness premium that Nick Clegg announced on Friday will come from. Revealingly, David Laws was present as Gove answered this urgent question. I understand that Laws was crucial to both the pupil premium being implemented at a decent level and the real-terms increase in the schools Budget. Laws himself told John Pienaar’s show last night that “obviously I’ve talked to him [Nick Clegg] about some of the things that I’ve been associated with in the past, like the schools funding issue… because I was the schools spokesman in the last parliament”. I hear that

James Forsyth

A test of Cameron’s commitment to the new politics

In opposition, nearly every politician talks about the dangers of an over-mighty executive. But office has a habit of changing peoples’ views on this subject. Charles Walker’s amendment (which he discusses over at ConservativeHome, here) to match any reduction in the number of MPs with an equivalent reduction in the number of ministers, so that the proportional size of the payroll vote remains the same, is an early test of whether office has begun to erode Cameron’s commitment to a proper balance between the executive and the legislature. If a reduction in the number of MPs is not matched by a reduction in the number of ministers, then the

Peter Hoskin

Alan Johnson’s economic gamble

The most shameless line of Alan Johnson’s big speech came at the beginning. “Being in opposition does not mean pretending to be in government,” he averred, “we will not be producting a shadow spending review.” Which would be fair enough, were it not for one simple fact: the Brown government didn’t produce a spending review when one was due, last year, either. In which case, Labour’s new economic policy is much like their old one. They are sticking by the Alistair Darling plan to halve the deficit over this Parliament, which is encouraging given some of the alternatives. Yet there is still not much detail about how this might actually

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… | 18 October 2010

…here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson wonders what will become of the Home Office in the Spending Review, and highlights the immigration game. James Forsyth sets out what Liam Fox can learn from IDS, and reports that George Osborne is getting behind infrastructure. Peter Hoskin tracks the latest welfare cuts, and watches the universities strike back. David Blackburn speculates as to why the Tories didn’t win a majority, and observes the government protect more spending. Martin Bright says that Ed Miliband has had a good week, but warns that there are another 200 to go. Rod Liddle wonders why James Delingpole has gone politically

Sunday

17 Oct 2010

Fraser Nelson

What about the Home Office?

The less we hear from Theresa May, the more I worry about the Home Office budget. I’m hearing rumours of her taking a 30 percent cut, which I first dismissed as a piece of expectations management. But now I’m beginning to wonder. We know that defence is settled – about an 8 percent real-terms cut. The NHS, which absorbs a quarter of government spending, will have real-terms increases (something even the left-leaning IPPR doesn’t back). The schools budget has escaped relatively unscathed, we read. So what’s left? Again, there’s so much deliberate misinformation out there that I hesitate to give a rumour round-up. But here goes. One major victim