Coalition

The latest extracts of the Andrew Adonis’ book on the 2010 coalition negotiations couldn’t have been better designed to stir up Tory backbench bad feeling to Nick Clegg. Adonis claims that in the final phone calls between Clegg and Brown, the Lib Dem leader kept stressing—you’ve guessed it—Europe. Adonis reports that Clegg told Brown:  ‘Following our conversation this afternoon I’m basically finding out how far I can push the Conservatives on Europe. I genuinely take to heart what you said about that. We need some sanity on Europe. We can’t seek to renegotiate. I’m trying my best…’ I think this illustrates two things. First, how ideologically committed Clegg is to the

The dust is settling from the County Council elections and, crucially, the Tory party seems to have stayed steady. Yes, David Davis has had a pop at the number of Old Etonians surrounding the PM and 20 MPs have called for a mandate referendum. But there is no sense of mass panic or revolt. Partly this is because David Cameron had already started doing the things he was going to be told to do after this result. As one Downing Street source remarks, ‘the shift is already well under way.’ He points to the tougher measures on immigration and welfare coming up in the Queen’s Speech and Number 10’s new

To the relief of Conservative Campaign Headquarters, relatively few Tory MPs have taken the opportunity of the County Council election results to sound off. The most prominent exception to this rule is David Davis. Now, a DD intervention doesn’t have quite the same purchase as it used to—he’s made rather too many of them in recent years. But his comments are revealing of the huge amounts of class tension inside the Tory parliamentary party. He complains that the rebellions of Jesse Norman and Nadine Dorries have been treated differently because one went to Eton and one to state school. I suspect, though, that the actual explanation is that Dorries crafted

Nigel Farage was in full anti-politics mode this morning on the Today programme. He railed against ‘three frontbenches that look and sound the same’ and ‘haven’t done a proper day’s work in their lives.’ Farage is determined that Ukip be can both a protest party and a party with policies. He wants to offer himself to anyone who is fed up with the established order and wants to stick two fingers up at the main political parties. But he also wants to advance a radical policy prospectus. Interestingly, he said he wasn’t a Tory but he had been a supporter of eighties radicalism. So far, the Farage approach appears to

In a detailed interview on the Sunday Politics, Nick Clegg claimed that neither the Home Secretary nor Downing Street have ever proposed to him that Britain should temporarily leave the European Court of Human Rights so that it can deport Abu Qatada. Clegg was adamant that ‘no one has put a proposal to me.’ Under questioning from Andrew Neil, Clegg defended his decision to block any communications data legislation in the Queen’s Speech. He maintained that the proposals were ‘neither workable nor proportionate.’ Clegg conceded that the UKIP offer was ‘very seductive’ to voters. But he then attacked them for their flat tax proposal. Highlighting this policy is, according to

The married couple’s tax allowance is back on the agenda. After Conservative Home’s exclusive yesterday, David Cameron has confirmed that he will introduce one before the end of this parliament. This would allow couples to share a proportion of their personal allowance, lowering the tax bill for those household where one person stays home to look after the children. Cynics will suggest that this is a good time to float a policy particularly popular with the party base given that there are county council elections on Thursday. But Cameron is a bigger enthusiast for recognising marriage in the tax system than most of his Cabinet colleagues. In opposition, George Osborne

The political mood has shifted these past few weeks. There’s now, as the Sunday papers demonstrate, far more focus on Labour than there was a couple of months back, something which pleases Number 10 which is confident that Labour is ill-equipped to deal with much scrutiny. Ed Miliband is coming under pressure to be far more specific about what he would do in government. Much of this is being driven by the coalition’s spending review for 2015/16, the results of which will be announced on June 26th. If Labour wins the next election, it’ll be in office when these cuts are being implemented. This leads to the question of whether

Reading Norman Fowler’s recollections of the Thatcher years in the Telegraph, whose coverage this week has been simply superb, is to be reminded of how much debate there was in her Cabinet. Take Fowler’s account of the pre-Budget Cabinet in 1981: “Jim Prior described the proposals as ‘disastrous’, adding that they would do nothing for growth and send unemployment figures above three million. He was supported by the so-called economic ‘wets’, such as Ian Gilmour and Peter Walker, who on this occasion were joined by Francis Pym and Christopher Soames. Even Keith Joseph had his doubts as he argued for more private investment in public industries. Seldom can a Chancellor

This poster will, I am sure, have the Lib Dems hopping about with fury. The Tories have hi-jacked a key Liberal Democrat policy: raising the personal allowance. Perhaps this is what lies in wait for the Lib Dems as 2015 approaches: the Tories steal all of their good ideas. If that happens, perhaps a merger of the two parties (or at least elements of the Lib Dems) will become more likely. Who knows? Anyway, the blurb that accompanies the poster shows that an attempt is being made to fashion the Conservative Party into the party of work. The poster reflects that positive aim; a dramatic improvement on the divisive and

Sky News has revealed tonight that Rohan Silva, one of the Prime Minister’s key advisers, is leaving Downing Street. Silva might not be a household name but he has been a hugely influential figure there these past few years. In opposition, he worked for George Osborne before moving to work for David Cameron in government. He has been the driving force behind spending transparency, Tech City and crime maps. There have been few more pro-enterprise and pro-reform voices in this government. His departure is a big blow to Tory radicalism. One of the things that marked Silva out was a thirst for new ideas that is all too rare in

Today’s Sunday Telegraph front page has sparked off a flutter of speculation about whether George Osborne might be moved as Chancellor. I suspect that the short answer to this question is no. Osborne and Cameron are inextricably linked and to move him would be akin to the Prime Minister declaring that both his political and economic strategies have been wrong. He would not long survive such an admission. I also sense that Osborne’s stock in the parliamentary party is recovering from the battering it took with last year’s Budget. The fact that this year’s Budget was doorstep-ready, has survived the Labour and media onslaught and gone down relatively well with

The mini reshuffle earlier this morning is significant. David Cameron has moved Tory ‘greybeards’ to address problem areas. Cameron’s twitter feed has announced: ‘Delighted John Hayes joining me as a Senior Parliamentary adviser – and Michael Fallon adding a key energy role to his brief.’ Benedict Brogan and Tim Montgomerie have good analyses of what this means. In summary it appears that Hayes, a self-confessed ‘blue collar’ Tory and popular MP, is going briefless to the Cabinet Office to help the PM communicate government policy to the backbenches and the working classes. Hayes speaks in plain language. He has been pushing the energy bill through parliament, and has clashed openly

From tomorrow’s Spectator. Downing Street aides nervously run through the symptoms: a flat economy, poor press, leadership mutterings. Then they say, ‘It’s just mid-term blues, isn’t it?’ A second later, they add nervously, ‘It’s nothing more serious than that, is it?’ The truth is, nobody can be certain. There’s no reliable way of distinguishing mid-term blues from something politically fatal. Part of the problem is that few Tories have anything to compare their current mood with. After 13 years in opposition, only a handful of them have been in government before, let alone in the mid-term doldrums. When I put this argument to one veteran of the Thatcher years, he

You should take note when Benedict Brogan, an influential and widely sourced journalist who has been very close to the Cameron and Osborne operation over the years, writes of the fire-sale of Cameron shares. He says in today’s Telegraph that Cameron’s party view him as a ‘lame duck’ who makes ‘no difference’. This is an extraordinary claim for disaffected Tories to make. True: the economy is mired and the government has tied itself to only one course of action. There have also been disasters at the department of health; and energy policy ought to be giving Number 10 an enormous headache. But Cameron’s coalition is changing the landscape of education and