All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Lynton Crosby is holding his election strategy meeting (first revealed on Coffee House) with Tory MPs at 5.30 this afternoon. One of the things he’ll bring up, as reported by Benedict Brogan this morning, is that MPs need to be a little less unruly on Twitter. Obviously that’s not their biggest worry, as there’s also
Watching the shipwreck of the Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce court case has made me feel guiltily relieved that, at the age of 42, I haven’t yet married. The operatic scale of the disaster makes it appear emblematic of all the other couples who make each other unhappy all the time in smaller, less dramatic
The mansion tax – sorry, ‘tax fairness’ – debate is still rumbling on in the Commons, and Labour are trying to score as many political points as possible on the matter, as expected. Actually, the party’s idea to table the Opposition Day vote on this policy was a good piece of political game-playing when they
Imagine if a Chancellor stood up and announced that those earning up to £100,000 would pay a 40p tax rate, those earning £100,000 to £112,950 will pay a 60p rate, and those earning above £112,950 will pay the 40p rate, and then the top earners will pay a 50p rate. That’d be crazy, right? But
At the (rejuvenated) New Republic, Ben Birnbaum has a comprehensive and comprehensively-depressing survey of the last-gasp prospects for a two-state solution to the Middle East ‘peace process’. If the two-state solution (TSS) is not yet on life-support it is hardly a picture of health. The prognosis is not good and time is running out. According
It’s the last Treasury questions before the Budget today, and MPs will have a final chance to push the Chancellor on what it is that they want from the Budget. There are those who are instinctively loyal to the Tory leadership and want a Budget that comes and goes without fireworks or failures. ‘Just steady
It’s been a day of competing economic prescriptions from two doctors: Vince Cable (‘debt’s so cheap it’d be rude not to borrow more!’) and today Liam Fox, who has delivered a speech to the Institute of Economic Affairs. Here are Dr Fox’s main points. His main proposal is a freeze on state spending, so it
In a long piece in the last issue of the Sunday Times (£) Isabel Oakeshott, its political editor, wrote of her relationship with Vicky Pryce. She sobbed and sighed. She was full of sympathy. You can almost hear the tears pitter-patter on her keyboard as she describes how Pryce had become a ‘broken woman’. The reader
Former Lib Dem Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has been sentenced to eight months in jail, a judge has announced at Southwark Crown Court in the last few minutes. His ex-wife Vicky Pryce was also sentenced for eight months. It’s worth reading the interview that Chris Huhne gave to the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour before his sentencing at Southwark
David Cameron and Lynton Crosby are holding a meeting with Conservative MPs this week to discuss 2015 strategy, I understand. The party held a similar meeting with Andrew Cooper in January. One of the major topics that is likely to come up from the floor is whether the party should be trying to get legislation
The last few weeks have, to put it mildly, not been encouraging for those working on the Tories’ 2015 campaign. But today brings news to gladden their hearts. For the FT’s Kiran Stacey reports that Nick Clegg is so opposed to David Cameron’s plan for renegotiation followed by a referendum that he’s considering making it
As sound bites go, it’s not one of his best, but David Cameron is right to suggest that apprenticeships should be the ‘new norm’ for young people who want to go to university. But we should use National Apprenticeship Week to recognise that we have a long way to go before the apprenticeship system as
Syrian state TV broadcast a remarkable statement last night calling for an ‘Islamic jihad’ against what it termed ‘Zionist saboteurs.’ In doing so, the Baath regime has reneged on one of its supposed deliverances; the maintenance of communal harmony in a society otherwise deeply fractured along sectarian and confessional lines. The statement is telling because
I think it is fair to say that Dr Liam Fox has never been one of David Cameron’s chief chums. The former Defence Secretary has, as Paul Goodman notes, been closer to George Osborne. Be that as it may, his speech today is a fine reminder of Dr Fox’s political limitations. This is the kind
Is her Majesty the Queen really at the forefront in the struggle for gay and lesbian equality? Or does she, deep down, harbour misgivings about poofs? I suppose we will never know for sure. In putting her name to the new Commonwealth Charter she will be supporting the following statement: ‘We are implacably opposed to
Last November, during another exchange between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza, the left-wing columnist Owen Jones appeared on BBC Question Time. Invited to comment on recent events, what he read out (or so it appears from the tape) was a catalogue of errors about Israel. Among them were big, sweeping incorrect allegations – such
Slowly but surely, British court cases are revealing a once great nation of abolitionists to be a shadow of its former self. We often celebrate the nineteenth century anti-slavery movement and its precious victory. We hail their achievement and honour our Parliament’s noblest hour. But like weeds in a neglected garden, slavery has returned. Its
The leaders of both coalition parties are seeing ministerial colleagues and backbenchers trying to push them further way from the centre at present. Nick Clegg has Vince Cable continuing to push for what Ed Miliband might call ‘good borrowing’, telling the Today programme that he’d borrow to improve the economy, rather than to keep an
How do the Conservatives continue to tackle the deficit, grow the economy, and persuade voters that they are – as the Home Secretary Theresa May put it in her measured keynote speech to the ConHome ‘Victory 2015’ conference yesterday – a party for all? There’s a chance that the answer to all three problems might
If you want to know what the Liberal Democrat’s message at the next election will be, read Nick Clegg’s speech to the party’s Spring Conference today. He kept to the refrain that the Liberal Democrats are for a stronger economy and a fairer society and you can’t trust the Tories with society or Labour with
The idea of an ‘empty budget’ later this month is disappointing those who backed George Osborne in the hope of his fixing the problems he so eloquently outlined in opposition. If Brown proposed cutting the deficit by 33 per cent over two years, newspapers who criticised him at the time for lacking ambition — as
Jo Swinson’s speech to the Lib Dem spring conference highlighted her again as a confident performer who has higher to rise in the party. I was at a fringe session last night where, though scheduled to speak first, she insisted on going last so she could answer the other panellists’ concerns on changes to employment
Lib Dem members have just voted overwhelmingly in favour of an emergency motion on secret courts which repeated calls for the party’s parliamentarians to delete the second half of the Justice and Security Bill. During the debate, the leading campaigner against secret courts, Jo Shaw, who has spoken to Coffee House a number of times
At the Conservative Home Victory 2015 conference today, a panel was asked: how can the Tories avoid being seen as a party of the posh? ‘Well, a lot of you are pretty posh,’ replied the journalist Anne McElvoy. ‘Open a cupboard in No10 and an Old Etonian falls out.’ The success of Boris, of course,
The question about Theresa May has always been what does she believe? Well, today in the widest-ranging speech of her political career she went a long way to answering that. You can read the speech, delivered at the Conservative Home conference, here. Several things struck me about the speech. First, on economics May is not
Nick Clegg has just battled his way through a rather more grumpy than usual question-and-answer session at the Lib Dem spring conference. Normally, these sessions are an opportunity for the party to let off steam – they’re obviously far more robust than the sort of thing you’ll see in the House of Commons as they
Further to Isabel’s post this morning, I understand from a senior coalition source that the two parties have now reached an agreement on how to handle Tuesday’s vote on Labour’s mansion tax motion. The Liberal Democrat leadership has assured their coalition partners that they’ll back a government amendment to it. This amendment will concede that
The Lib Dem leadership has been trying its best this weekend to address the Lord Rennard allegations. I understand Tim Farron has been meeting activists to discuss any ongoing concerns. And the party also announced last night that it was creating a new group, Liberal Democrat Women, which, slightly confusingly, merges Women Lib Dems and
I’m at the ConservativeHome ‘Victory 2015’ conference today, which after Lord Ashcroft’s presentation should perhaps be renamed Annihilation 2015. He started the day with one of his mega expensive polls of marginal seats, a survey of 19,200 suggesting the Tories would lose 93 seats to the Labour Party alone, giving Miliband a total of 367
Will the Lib Dems support Labour’s mansion tax vote? Vince Cable praised his pet policy idea last night, telling Lib Dem activists that it was an effective way of the government collecting revenue because properties can’t move. But on Tuesday, the party will have to decide how it should vote on a very carefully-worded Labour
Vince Cable managed to hit all the Lib Dem spots last night with his fringe speech at the Lib Dem spring conference. He didn’t just mention the words ‘land value tax’, which set many Lib Dem heads nodding away with approval, but also managed to say ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’ in
A crime reporter friend enjoys telling the story of his first black eye at the local Magistrates’ Court. Like so many, it occurred as he was leaving, and bumped into a convicted defendant. The conversation ran along these lines: Man convicted of awkward crime: You’re not putting this in the paper, are you? You can’t
I am delighted to say that my latest book, Bloody Sunday: truths, lies and the Saville Inquiry, has been jointly awarded the Christopher Ewart-Biggs memorial prize at a ceremony in Dublin. My co-winner is Julieann Campbell, author of Setting the Truth Free: the inside story of the Bloody Sunday justice campaign. The literary prize is
Today’s letter from the Office of Budget Responsibility pointing out to David Cameron that the OBR’s growth forecasts have taken into account the effect of austerity on growth is embarrassing for the Prime Minister. This kind of letter is a gift to the opposition and Ed Balls has set about taking full advantage. Now, it