All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Markets sank into negative territory this morning, following Standand&Poor’s downgrade of Italy’s credit rating. (Although they have since recovered.) The agency cut Italy’s rating from A+/A-1+ to A/A-1; it also kept its outlook as negative. The agency’s reasoning is hardly surprising: growth is negligible, debt is unsustainable and Silvio Berlusconi’s inert government appears incapable of
Some politician shouldn’t try stand-up comedy. Sarah Teather is one of those politicians.
One of the most striking things about Lib Dem conference has been how up for a scrap over Europe the party’s ministers are. Every single Lib Dem Cabinet minister has, over the past few days, ruled out any attempt to repatriate powers from Brussels. Given that the Conservative party wouldn’t forgive David Cameron not attempting
Writers of my generation are comparing the BBC’s version of Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy – the highpoint of the golden age of British television drama in my view – against the new film. You can see the 1979 series now because rather magnificently, if not perhaps legally, someone has put it on YouTube. The film,
The Telegraph’s splash on Europe indicates that the issue, which proved so toxic to the last Conservative government, has risen again. Writing a stern op-ed for the paper, serial rebel and anti-Cameroon Mark Pritchard calls for a referendum. This will have irritated Downing Street no end, which is understood to have hoped that the whip-sanctioned
This is the second of our occasional ‘another voice’ series. Siobhan Courtney reports again from Dale Farm. The outcome was not what anyone expected: the bailiffs are not getting into Dale Farm. The atmosphere here now is very different to that of the weekend, when I was able to see what life was like inside
The residents of Dale Farm have been granted a last gasp reprieve by the High Court. The BBC reports: ‘Mr Justice Edwards-Stuart granted the injunction at London’s High Court on the basis that there was a realistic apprehension that the measures to be taken – while genuinely believed in by the council – “may go
“We’ve got to stop beating ourselves up,” Clegg just told Lib Dem members in a Q&A session. As is traditional at these events, Clegg spent a lot of time trying to explain to his party why the coalition is doing what it is doing. The tone of the event was, perhaps, best summed up by
Memories are short in journalism, but reading about the attempts by the Met to force the Guardian to hand over source material in the Hackgate case, reminded me of a case the same newspaper group fought over a decade ago. Bizarrely, the story isn’t in the Guardian’s online archive, which doesn’t go back far enough.
Given that Vince Cable was once a lecturer in economics, it’s odd to see him feign ignorance over its basic concepts. Listen to his speech today.”There are politicians on both left and right who don’t [get it]. Some believe government is Father Christmas. They draw up lists of tax cuts and giveaways and assume that Santa
Hat-tip: The Daily Politics
Even by his own standards Vince Cable’s speech today was noticeably pessimistic. The Business Secretary warned that the post-war cycle of ever-rising living standards has been broken by the crash. There was little in what he said to suggest that he has any optimism about the prospects for growth over the next few years. If
The FT makes for grim reading this morning (£). The paper claims to have replicated the Office for Budget Responsibility’s methodology and it has found that the structural deficit is £12 billion larger than was thought. If this is true, and coalition ministers are scrambling to deny it, then George Osborne is unlikely to have
Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which — providing your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency — you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no
Vince Cable will address the Liberal Democrat conference later on today. Tim Farron’s indulgent speech yesterday is a tough act to follow, but Cable has chosen a subject to titillate delegates: curbing high executive pay, bolstered by the popular mantra of no more reward for failure. He signalled his intention yesterday in an interview with
…here are some of the posts made at the Spectator.co.uk over the weekend. Fraser Nelson considers Nick Clegg’s leadership problem, and denigrates Sarah Teather’s Lib Dem conference speech. James Forsyth says the Lib Dem leadership fear Tim Farron, and explains the real split over the 50p rate. David Blackburn watches then Lib Dems’ celebrate their achievements,
The intrigue of the Liberal Democrats’ conference has centred on the party’s split personality. A Sunday Times/YouGov poll disclosed that as many as 50 per cent of Lib Dems believe that it was wrong to go into coalition in the first place, leading one to assume that only the small clique of ‘conservatives’ around Nick
Though scarcely the main thrust of James’s most recent post, this is still notable: Lib Dem conference delegates have just provided the press with a nice easy story, they’ve voted to set up a panel to look at the legalisation of cannabis and the decriminalisation of all drugs. I know James is tweaking the press
A new rule seems to have been adopted at Lib Dem conference: don’t mention Academies. The coalition’s greatest single success story – something David Laws and Michael Gove agreed on before the election – is being airbrushed out. A favourable reference to Academies taking on kids from deprived backgrounds was proposed for a conference motion,
Lib Dem conference delegates have just provided the press with a nice easy story, they’ve voted to set up a panel to look at the legalisation of cannabis and the decriminalisation of all drugs. But away from the main hall, Danny Alexander has just given an interview to Andrew Neil in which he has distanced
For Lib Dem modernisers there are few more depressing sights than how conference reacts to a Tim Farron speech: he serves up social democratic red meat and they absolutely lap it up. Farron, the party president, delivered one anti-Tory jibe after another. He declared that the government would be an ‘absolute nightmare without’ the Liberal
Alistair Darling’s Back from the Brink is not just a compulsive read: it is an essential primer for anyone with aspirations to be Prime Minister or Chancellor. It’s not unlike the manual in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with ‘Don’t Panic’ emblazoned on the front. The glory of this book is that, unlike Mandelson’s
Siobhan Courtney, who blogged for us last week, is part of our ‘another voice’ series – occasional posts from writing from lines of argument different to the ones we normally take on Coffee House. She has sent this report from Dale Farm, where hundreds of travellers are due to be evicted tomorrow. Siobhan was granted
There was much to commend in Chris Skidmore’s article in the Telegraph earlier this week, calling for a radical approach to public services. But there’s one bit that’s worth dissecting: his idea that people in social housing might sell their homes to invest in shared equity, if they behave well. Here’s what he says: ‘Any
Nick Clegg’s interview on Andrew Marr this morning subtly shifted the Lib Dem position on the 50p tax rate. When Marr asked him what he would do if the George Osborne commissioned HMRC study showed that it raised no money, Clegg replied ‘then I of course think we should look at other ways in which
Oh dear: looks like poor ol’ Boris has got to do one of his famous apologies again. The not terribly good American singer Kelis claimed she was racially abused at Heathrow Airport, when, in the manner of primped up little divas, she jumped a queue. Someone in the queue called her a “slave”, allegedly, and
Assorted acolytes from the teaching unions are padding around the Lib Dem conference, fomenting discontent around activists who are opposed to the coalition’s adoption of academies and free schools. Officials from NASUWT and the NUT have pricked the airwaves with tales of concern and frustration. Education minister Sarah Teather addressed the conference earlier this morning
Nick Clegg was in combative mood on the Andrew Marr show earlier this morning; he railed against the press and the Daily Mail in particular. It wasn’t exactly an illuminating session, but here are some highlights: Clegg on the Mail: “Can I put this mildly? I really wouldn’t believe a word you read in the
The two conflicting wings of the Liberal Democrats are perhaps embodied by Simon Hughes and David Laws. Their political and strategic differences have surfaced in this morning’s Observer, where Hughes gives an interview to say that the Liberal Democrats have to rein in the “ruthless” Tories, and David Laws argues in an op-ed that the
Sandals are being rattled in Birmingham this morning. The Liberal Democrat conference opens to a chorus celebrating the party’s achievements in government. Nick Clegg tells the Independent that “Liberal Democrat fingerprints” are all over flagship coalition policies on schools, welfare, pensions, banking reform and the NHS reforms. He says of the latter that the Liberal
If you can judge a party’s mood by the number of bad jokes it tells, then the Liberal Democrats are in better form than last year. Their rally to open conference was characterised by a string of appalling gags. George Osborne was a particular target with both Don Foster and Sarah Teather trying to raise
That was a great wee speech by Nick Clegg. “We have only five ministers in the Cabinet,” he said. “Well, six if you include Ken Clarke.” His mission was quite tough: to go meet the membership of a party that had just lost half of its popular support, was spanked in an AV referendum, seen
The 50p rate is dominating the media backdrop to the Lib Dem conference. Simon Hughes has made the latest intervention, telling Sky News that the wealthy could and should be taxed in other ways if the 50p rate was “not very tax efficient”. He emphasised the importance of fairness by adding that you “don’t start
If Nick Clegg has decided that he won’t run for re-election, what are the implications? Today’s Daily Mail serializes a book by Jasper Gerard about the party, where he claims Clegg told his wife Miriam that he’ll only do one term as Deputy Prime Minister. That makes sense. The Lib Dems will want to separate from