Words fail me…
…when it comes to the Lib Dem’s offical election song, performed by the Liberal Democrat Community Choir: You can, er, buy it on iTunes if you like. Hat-tip: Guido
Politics
Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
Wednesday
The Chancellor’s debate is an opportunity for Osborne
So, we have a date for the Chancellor’s debate. Channel 4 News will host Darling, Cable and Osborne on Monday the 29th of March at 8pm. I have a suspicion that George Osborne will come out of this debate rather well. He doesn’t have an expectations problem, unlike Cable, and is quick on his feet. Most importantly, the facts are on his side. It is also worth remembering, as one Tory MP reminded me earlier this week, that since becoming shadow Chancellor Osborne has never failed on a set-piece occasion. One thing that Osborne must do in the debates is make sure he takes on Cable as well
Will Nick Griffin become a victim of his own expense claims?
If two things fuelled the rise of the BNP last year, then they were probably the mainstream parties’ reluctance to talk about immigration and a general disillusionment with Westminster politicians in the wake of the expenses scandal. There are tentative signs that the parties are getting their act together on the first. And, now, Nick Griffin may have undermined his own party when it comes to the second. After coming under fire for not being transparent about expenses since becoming an MEP, Griffin has now published a very loose account of them on his website. The bottom line is that they add up to over £200,000, but here’s some detail
Morgan in Parliament? Surely not!
Is Piers Morgan going to be an MP? I suspect that this is one of those questions to which, as John Rentoul would tell you, the answer is no. (UPDATE: Indeed it is!) So Fraser has to be joking, right? I mean Piers Morgan is ubiquitous enough as it is without raising the chill prospect that he might make it into parliament? That said, Morgan is right to suggest that vastly increasing the provision of sport in schools is something most people should be able to agree upon. Doing so, mind you, would a) be hugely expensive, b) exceedingly difficult and c) be bound to further annoy the teaching unions.
Piers for Parliament?
Could you vote for Piers Morgan? In an interview with Freddy Gray in The Spectator tomorrow, he says he’s tempted to stand for Parliament – and it’s not such a surprise. He has weirdly inserted himself in the political process in recent weeks, defining Nick “no more than 30” Clegg and giving Gordon Brown probably the best piece of television coverage he will receive – ever. Now he is even considering standing for election. ‘I am tempted to run on a ticket of openness and frankness about the problems of this country and not being afraid to deal with them,’ he says. He doesn’t have much time for Cameron, describing
Miracle at SW1
He did it. We saw him. It actually happened. History was made at PMQs today as Gordon Brown finally gave a direct answer to a direct question. Not only that, he admitted he’d been wrong about something. Tony Baldry (Con, Banbury) informed the PM that his assertion before the Chilcot Inquiry that defence spending has risen, in real terms, every year has been contradicted by figures released to the Commons library. Up got Brown, looking like a wounded old teddy-bear, and offered this epoch-making concession. ‘I accept that in one or two years real terms spending did not rise.’ What a union of opposites. Brown and the truth. It
Two blasts from the past
Michael Savage observes that Cameron’s denunciation of Brown’s ‘weak’ premiership recalled Tony Blair’s famous savaging of the ‘weak, weak, weak’ Major government . Here it is: After watching that, I chanced upon an exchange between Blair and Cameron, dated November 2006. Their subject? NHS budget cuts. The first two minutes of the clip reinforce just how complicit the Conservatives were in Brown and Blair’s free for all. Cameron was aghast that “budgets were being raided to solve financial deficits”.
PMQs live blog | 17 March 2010
Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200. 1201: And here we go. Brown starts with condolences for fallen troops, and also for the late Labour MP Ashok Kumar and his family. For the first question, Tony Baldry takes on Brown over his claim that defence expendintue has risen in real terms under Labour. A note from the House of Commons library has since shown this to be “incorrect”. Brown says that he is already writing to Chilcot to correct this. Brown: “I do accept that, in one or two years, defence expenditure did not rise in real terms” – but it did rise in cash terms. Not a good start
The Tories’ Unite strategy is paying unimagined dividends
The Tories Unite strategy has been so effective, even Peter Mandelson is peddling it. Led by Mandelson, Labour’s isolated right has questioned Unite’s influence over candidate selection. James Purnell’s preferred successor, Jonny Reynolds, was omitted from the Stalybridge and Hyde shortlist, compiled by the NEC, which has two Unite members on its board. Mandelson and Purnell have urged Downing Street to reopen the race. For its part, Unite responded. One of its preferred candidates for the seat, Glyn Ford, who failed to make the cut, demanded a right to appeal also. The Tories’ must be ecstatic. Their strategy, initially conceived to nullify the Ashcroft scandal, is paying unimagined dividends. Brigades
For the workers?
One of the defences that Labour types are mustering over Unite is, bascially, that it’s better to be funded by a body which represents some two million workers than by Ashcroft type figures who may have their own personal agendas. In which case, the question is: do Charlie Whelan and his coterie really represent the views and interests of Unite’s members? And, in answer, it’s worth pulling out two snippets from today’s papers. EXHIBIT A, courtesy of Danny Finkelstein: “A Populus poll of Unite members last year showed the majority preferring David Cameron to Gordon Brown and opposing Unite donations to Labour.” And EXHIBIT B, from Ben Brogan’s interview with
Tuesday
The Tory campaign is getting back on track
Whisper it quietly, but there is a sense that the Tory campaign is getting back on track. The Tories have had three good days in a row, have Labour on the back foot over Unite and the polls appear to be moving in their favour. Certainly, Tory morale is better than at any point since the start of the year. One thing raising Tory spirits is Cameron’s own performance. As Iain Martin points out, on Sunday Brown met the voters and was incapable of finding the right tone. Cameron, by contrast, is at his best among ‘real’ people as Monday’s event demonstrated. Another thing bolstering Tory morale is their campaign
Clarke and Osborne are working well
The Daily Politics featured a telling exchange between Stephen Timms and Ken Clarke. Their arguments were unclear and their hypotheticals relentless – they were debating deficit reduction. A football phone-in DJ had been invited onto the programme to adjudicate. After 7 minutes he broke his befuddled silence and declared, understandably, that Clarke and Timms were a turn-off to ordinary voters. Immediately, Clarke responded clearly and directly, making a case for reducing the deficit with reference to the chillingly close reality of Greece’s collapse. He avoided patronising, homespun economics; and simply delivered bald analysis and a statement of intent with his characteristic gusto. By contrast, Timms remained silent. Clarke is the
The EU has moved on from 1983
A lot of things, you will agree, have changed since 1983 – even in the world of diplomacy. For one, the EU has moved from a loose federation of states towards a new kind of polity – never a United States of Europe, heaven forbid, but more than just a loose arrangement of member-states. But reading George Walden’s comment about Europe’s putative diplomatic service in the Times I can’t help but feel that he is still living in the age when he left the Foreign Office – when David Cameron was 17. The EU diplomatic service is not the novelty that pro-Lisbon politicians claim. To a large extent, it already
Nick Clegg pulls those fences down
Continuing the current vogue for sensible economic debate, here’s what Nick Clegg said on Radio 4 just now: ‘We’re not entering into this dutch auction about ringfencing. Good outcomes aren’t determined by drawing a redline around government departmental budgets.’ Given the current speculation about a hung parliament, you’ve got to wonder what this might mean for any potential Lib-Con partnership. The common wisdom, almost certainly correct, is that the resulting political paralysis would sink the public finances. But it would be intrigiuing to see if Clegg could get the Tories to tighten their fiscal plans, and perhaps even smash a few of their ringfences.
The Tories open fire on Unite
So, the Tories have declared war on Charlie Whelan and Unite – what Eric Pickles calls the “great untold story of British politics”. He was joined by no less than two more shadow frontbenchers – Michael Gove and Theresa Villiers – at a briefing attacking the union’s political influence this morning. And that’s not all: the Tories have produced a document detailing how Unite is funding Labour and opposing reform, and there’s even a new digital poster campaign to go along with it. The gloves are well and truly off. As for what the shadow ministers actually said, Villiers highlighted Unite’s role in the BA troubles, while Gove gave a
ECR’s record so far
The decision by David Cameron to pull the Tories out of the EPP and form the ECR was a victory of principle and party politics over pragmatism. While many Tory grassroots howled with joy, it is worth examining the practical consequences on Tory influence in the European Parliament – not to reverse the decision, but validate or disprove the oft-made charge that the decision has made the Tories impotent. Let us eschew any discussion about the views of key members of the ECR on Jews; let us also not dwell on whether the Tories have cut themselves off from other centre-right leaders. The first point is a matter of
Brown faces the horror of the petrol pumps
Yes, I know, cause and correlation aren’t the same thing – but Mike Smithson’s latest graph over at Political Betting is still incredibly striking. It shows that the Tories’ strongest poll position over the last few years coincided with a high in the petrol price. It also shows that the smallest gap between Labour and the Tories coincided with when petrol prices were at their lowest. Which all makes today’s Telegraph story about petrol potentially hitting a new high of 120p a litre, as the election approaches, very resonant indeed. The problem for the government is twofold. First, rising petrol prices are something which millions of people will understand and
Monday
Tories to outline spending cuts after the Budget
Now here’s a turn up: according to Nick Robinson, the Tories are going to announce details of what spending they would cut in the forthcoming fiscal year after next week’s Budget. So it looks like Cameron might come good on his promise, after all. We’ll have to wait and see before judging whether those cuts are credible. But, along with George Osborne’s FT article today, it does seem that the Tories have rediscovered the will to take on Labour over when and what to cut.
Dave, California and Greece
So I had an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times yesterday in which, inter alia, I compared Britain’s fiscal position with Greece’s (but at least we have the Elgin Marbles…) and the lack of faith in the political process to California’s own dysfunctional system. Matt Yglesias thinks this exaggerated and, well, “pretty flawed” For one thing, while it may be true that the British public has a California-esque level of faith in the political process, the fact is that the British political process is very different from California’s. Realistically, the next UK government’s fate will hinge on its ability to deliver economic growth. And while the next UK government may
Osborne tries to kickstart a mature economic debate
David has already blogged about George Osborne and Jeffrey Sach’s article in the FT this morning. But it’s worth returning to what is as clear and as unalloyed a statement of Tory policy on the public finances as you’ll have seen over the past few months. What I find most impressive about the article isn’t so much its loose, perhaps nebulous, prescriptions for the economy – although they’re sensible enough – but rather the way it acknowledges how some prominent academic and public figures hold a different view of things, and explains, in straightforward terms, why the Tories don’t agree with them. For instance: “The financial models underpinning the