All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The stock response of many Coffee Housers will be ‘Who Cares?’ but surely Ed Balls will be nominated for the Labour leadership? Labour may recognise that a Balls leadership would likely end in Footian catastrophe but he will, in all certainty, proceed to the next round. Surely? Like Pete and Ben Brogan, I reckon Balls
A referendum on AV was the concession that Nick Clegg felt he needed to get a coalition deal with the Tories past his party. But the referendum poses obvious dangers to the coalition, just imagine the sight of Nick Clegg and the leader of the Labour party sharing a platform to denounce the Tories’ ‘reactionary’
Gita Sahgal has launched a very powerful attack on Amnesty International on the Open Democracy website on the occasion of the publication of AI’s Annual Report. Here is the nub if her argument, which is devastating to Amnesty’s reputation: “In his reports to the International Executive Committee circulated for ‘transparency’, the Interim Secretary General Claudio
Angela Merkel’s fall from favour is something David Cameron ought to bear in mind as he looks for lessons to guide his term in office. The German chancellor could do no wrong when she was first elected. A new “Iron Lady”, she was seen as a giant among pygmees. Tony Blair was leaving the scene,
The arduous process of reforming our country’s education system begins today. After two school reform bills were announced in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech, Michael Gove is writing to all English primary and secondary schools inviting them to cut loose from local authority control and become academies. This is but stage one of the reform process: changing
The choreography of the new coalition is designed to make this look like a partnership of equals. But I’m increasingly convinced that Nick Clegg pulled a masterstroke here. This really is a joint premiership. Someone suggested I take a look at the full coalition document on the Cabinet Office website to see just how much the
Over at ConservativeHome Paul Goodman suggests that Nick Clegg be invited to address the Conservative Party Conference this year and, in general, that the Tories need to do more to get to know their colleagues in government. He’s right. And here, via John Rentoul, is John Curtice to help explain why. Professor Curtice suggests that
One of the mildly diverting features of the Labour leadership contest so far is this nominations counter on the party website. Ed Miliband was the first to pass the crucial 33 nominations barrier yesterday, while David Miliband managed it earlier today. Ed Balls is still lagging behind on 14, Andy Burnham has 8, and poor
The opening of the Queen’s speech debate is, traditionally, a light-hearted affair. Peter Lilley opened up with a rather witty speech. He compared the Liberal Democrats to the bastards of the Major Cabinet, it is better to have them inside the Cabinet pissing out than outside the Cabinet pissing in. He went on to warn
The initial exchanges of the Queen’s Speech Debate have just come to a close – and, I must say, it was all rather jolly. Harriet Harman came prepared with gag after gag about the Tories’ “marriage” to the Liberal Democrats, while David Cameron had a few about Harman’s actual marriage to Jack Dromey. There was
The usually estimable David Maddox has a very strange post up at the Scotsman’s politics blog complaining that Alex Salmond wants to exploit the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn. Apparently: While Bannockburn is a battle which Scots should take historic pride in, seeing off an invading English army which had numerical superiority, it nevertheless is symbolic
Today’s the day, I suspect, when it will really hit home with Labour that they are now in Opposition. Attacking a government’s legislative agenda isn’t something they’ve had to do for 13 years. And while you could say that the Brown machine acted as an opposition in government – geared to destroy its rivals –
Via PoliticsHome: HER MAJESTY’S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH TO BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT TUESDAY 25 MAY 2010 MY LORDS AND MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS My Government’s legislative programme will be based upon the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility. The first priority is to reduce the deficit and restore economic growth. Action will be
The sun is filtering through the garden at 22 Old Queen Street, and a brass band is marching around St James’s Park: we’re getting the light and the pomp in equal measures for today’s Queen’s Speech. As for the actual policy, well, we largely know what it’s all about. There will be proposals for scrapping
The new firm of Osbourne Osborne* & Laws got off to a good start yesterday. True, trimming £6bn from this year’s budget is a trivial task compared to the decisions that lie ahead but as a statement of good sense and prooof of good intentions it was, as I say, a good start**. The plain
This feels like a watershed moment: a national newspaper devoting its cover to an image of the country’s “debt mountain,” with a small shaded-off area showing how little of it is covered by yesterday’s cuts. The paper in question is today’s Independent. And while the cover may not perfectly depict what’s going on with our
Rupert Murdoch is scarcely infallible and there’s a sense abroad that he doesn’t really understand the internet. But even if that’s true it doesn’t mean that his decision to take the Times behind a paywall is necessarily a mistake even if, naturally, it’s inconvenient for bloggers and other news-grazers. So journalist me sort of
Great to hear that David Cameron has decided to keep the 1922 committee reinstated. This is a significant, unexpected development – and sign of strength, not weakness. Interestingly, I hear that George Osborne had not been properly consulted about last week’s events: ie the way in which MPs were asked to vote into effectively abolishing
So it turns out that John Redwood’s uncertainty was well-placed. According to Jonathan Isaby over at ConservativeHome, the Tory chief whip has decreed that ministers won’t be able to vote in 1922 Committee elections after all. They will only be able to attend meetings, which, as Jonathan says, “no-one ever really had a complaint about.”
So, the number-crunchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies have worked their magic and delivered their verdict on today’s spending cuts. You can find their summary here, although the standout line is that the £5 billion in reduced borrowing implied by today’s cuts is “less than a tenth of the fiscal repair job that Alistair
In the table below, we consider how the budgets of various departments grew over the last Labour government. It spells out the very large rises in Health and Education (together, the rises in these two departments accounted for 61 percent of the total rise in departmental expenditure over the period). And we can see that
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
Sunshine might have won the day but today was also the start of the age of austerity, as George Osborne and David Laws laid out £6.243bn of cuts. Despite the fact that they were cutting ‘wasteful’ and ‘low priority spending’, both men were keen to insulate themselves against the Labour attack that the coalition is
Here, via the Guardian Data Blog, is what each department will be contributing to Osborne’s £6.2 billion package of cuts this year: Department Contribution to cuts in 2010/11, £million % of department’s overall 2008/09 spending Business, Innovation and Skills 836 54.60 Communities and Local Government 780 2.12 Devolved Administrations 704 1.09 Transport 683 4.44 Education
…here are some of the posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Fraser Nelson says that David Cameron should seek the common ground. James Forsyth advises Cameron to pay attention to recent friendly warnings, and watches Andy Burnham fail to explain the point of his candidacy. Peter Hoskin sees plenty of encouraging signs from David
Gordon Brown may have been defeated, but you can hear his voice in the broadcast reports this morning about the £6 billion cuts which George Osborne will mention today. The BBC was still expressing this in terms of frontline service cuts – the equivalent of 150 schools, apparently. This was the root intellectual error which
Mark the date, dear CoffeeHouser – for this the day when the spending cuts began. George Osborne is set to give details on his £6.2 billion cuts package later today, but we already know the broad outlines of it all: £900 million from the business department budget, £500 million from chopping down some quangos, £150
After the historic events of the past two weeks, it seems odd to say that the next few days are the most important of the coalition government so far. But, until the emergency Budget on 22 June, there’s little that will hold quite so much significance as tomorrow’s announcement on spending cuts and the Queen’s
First, a little bit of history: as recently as last Christmas, I was a member of the Liberal Democrats. I can’t remember why I joined them, and I can’t remember why I left – which strongly implies that I put very little thought into either – but that’s a story for another time. As a
Last weekend, David Cameron had few rebels at all in his party. This week, he has 118. The vote on the 1922 Committee membership was a free vote, of course, so this can by no means be compared to a proper, whip-defying Commons rebellion. But we have seen there are scores who are not prepared
Another Sunday, another Labour leadership contender on Marr. But Andy Burnham’s performance this morning did him few favours. His argument for his candidacy seems to be that because he’s northern and from a working class background he’d be a better leader than either of the Milibands or Ed Balls. The limitations around Burnham’s candidacy were
Thanks to Richard Millett who has alerted me to the latest outburst from Labour’s failed mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone on Irainian state-funded Press TV. In an interview with Andrew Gilligan, Livingstone comes close to condoning suicide bombing in his defence of Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the controversial cleric. “There would not be any Palestine suicide bombers if
Am cricketing today, so talk amongst yourselves. Or stay silent if you prefer. Meanwhile, here’s a reminder that the Murdoch press reaches parts their competitors can’t…