Conservative party

MPs back EU referendum bill 304 votes to 0

James Wharton’s Private Member’s Bill has passed its second reading in the House of Commons by 304 votes to 0. The Labour Party’s decision to abstain on the vote, and Conservative backbenchers’ insistence that a vote be held does make the chamber look rather North Korean this afternoon. But what have we learned from just under five hours of debate? Tory HQ’s answer would be five neat points, all entitled ‘Only the Tories will Let Britain Decide’. In reality, the result of the debate wasn’t very interesting (aside from which Labour MPs backed the bill, on which more shortly), but there are still some useful lessons from the debate itself

Isabel Hardman

#letbritaindecide fever grips excited nation

It’s eurosceptic party-time in Westminster today. Finally, the time has come for the Conservatives to show that they are the only ones who will #letbritaindecide. When I arrived in Parliament this morning, I was half-expecting a brass band and bunting to celebrate the momentous occasion of the second reading of James Wharton’s Private Member’s Bill, so excited are Tory MPs. But instead, CCHQ has placed digital posters at a number of sites across London, including the Vauxhall roundabout. You could be forgiven for thinking that the general election is this year, not 2015. The Bill is highly likely to pass its second reading, and the chances are that the Tories

I’ll tell you what really devalues marriage: patronising, preachy little tax breaks

The Conservative party is trying to redefine marriage. I can’t believe they think they’re going to get away with this. Throughout human history it has been one thing, which is a loving commitment between two people who want to share a life. Now they’re trying to turn it into something completely different. A tax break. It wouldn’t benefit me, even though I am married. Although I swear that isn’t the root of my objection. Honest. My wife and I are in the same tax bracket, you see, so sharing our allowance wouldn’t make much difference. What it amounts to, really, is an incentive for one of us to stop working

Henry Addington thought Robert Peel was bad. What would he have made of David Cameron?

Henry Addington, first Viscount Sidmouth, was briefly and, on the whole, ingloriously Prime Minister at the beginning of the nineteenth century and then spent nearly ten years as Home Secretary at a time when Britain seemed as close as it had ever been to violent revolution. In both capacities he displayed an unwavering conservatism which seemed inexcusable to his political opponents and sometimes even caused disquiet among his supporters. He was a relic of the eighteenth century who signally failed to adjust to the realities of the nineteenth: when the Great Reform Bill was passed in 1832 it seemed to him bound to lead within a few years to the

Theresa May’s modernising moment on stop and search

Theresa May’s statement in the Commons today on stop and search strikes me as an important moment. Here, we had a Tory Home Secretary standing up and saying that she understood why some communities felt that stop and search was used unfairly and announcing a review of it. This is, as I said on Sunday, is quite a change in Tory attitudes. William Hague, who was Tory leader at the time, criticised the Macpherson report for making police reluctant to use stop and search. Just five years ago, David Cameron was emphasising the need to ‘free the police to do far more stopping and far more searching’. Now, May doesn’t

Kenneth Minogue RIP

The weekend brought the sad news of the death of Kenneth Minogue. Intellectually and physically active to the last, he died on Friday at the age of 82, while returning from a conference on the Galapagos Islands. Spectator readers will remember his essays and reviews for the magazine stretching over many decades. Some may have been fortunate enough to have been taught by him at the London School of Economics. Ken was, needless to say, one of the most brilliant conservative political thinkers of his generation. He was also the most wonderful man. He had that rare mixture of great intelligence and twinkly, irrepressible good-humour. Spotting him across a room

‘What’s more important obeying a Brussels directive or keeping the lights on?’

Andrew Neil’s interview of Michael Fallon on The Sunday Politics was a reminder of just how much of UK energy policy is determined by EU rules. When pressed on why there’s such a capacity crunch that there’s a risk of blackouts in the winter of 2015-16, Fallon explained that this was because a whole series of ‘dirtier’ plants are coming off-stream because of EU rules. If this wasn’t happening, there wouldn’t be a problem. Intriguingly, when asked ‘what’s more important obeying a Brussels directive or keeping the lights on?’ Fallon responded that ‘Keeping the lights on is the job of the government’. But he stressed that the government was ‘not

Miliband’s EU referendum dilemma

Friday’s vote on James Wharton’s EU referendum bill is going to push the whole Europe question right back up the political agenda. The Tories will try and use it to highlight their support for a vote and the opposition of the other major parliamentary parties. It will be very hard for Ed Miliband to go into the next election opposed to a referendum. It would look like he was opposed to giving the public a say. I also suspect that it will become almost politically impossible to oppose a referendum after the European Elections in 2014. Patrick Wintour reports today that Labour is toying with the idea of either amending

The ‘conservative wing of the coalition’ toast Maggie and roast Dave

Margaret Thatcher’s death has reinvigorated her devout following in the Conservative Party. The current Prime Minister was wise to give the House of Lord’s terrace a wide berth last night. It was packed out for the summer party of Conservative Way Forward. This is the pressure group that was established to preserve ‘the lady’s legacy’. Young Dave was not the most popular person in the room. This became clear after the minute’s silence for the group’s deceased honorary president, when former defence minister Gerald Howarth took to the podium to greet ‘the conservative wing of the coalition’. He went on to slam the PM for ‘slashing defence spending while protecting

My six-point plan to save Britain

As Britain gets fit for what David Cameron calls the ‘global economic race’, figures out this morning confirm Britain remains hamstrung by poor productivity. UK productivity per hour has remained stagnant over the last year (having fallen by 1.76 per cent since 2008). When he eyed the competition at last week’s G8 summit, the Prime Minister will have clocked that only sclerotic Russia and stagnant Japan have worse productivity than the UK. According to a recent Office of National Statistics (ONS) review, Britain lags 16 percentage points behind the G7 average, 27 behind the US. Ageing infrastructure and under-investment has blighted the oil and gas sector.  Manufacturing productivity last year fell

Spending review – a response from a Tory marginal

If there was one thing the spending review has proved, it is that the Conservative-led coalition is a compassionate government. In fact, I would go further and argue that it is a government that has given true meaning to ‘cradle to grave’ conservatism. From the beginning of the life-cycle to the end, the coalition is investing in ways that are profoundly Conservative, while also passing known socialist yardsticks, such as the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor, by ensuring that the wealthiest bear the greatest burden of taxation and that resources are targeted at to those most in need. Take nursery education, the spending round confirmed that

Boris Johnson: an eminently likeable politician who poses little threat to David Cameron

Even Boris can’t help the toxic Tories. That’s the upshot of Lord Ashcroft’s latest polling, which asked 8,000 people (including several focus groups outside of London) about what they think of the mayor. Although Boris Johnson is the country’s most loved politician, he is not the voters’, or even Conservatives’, top choice as prime minister. David Cameron remains the favourite at 33 per cent to Boris’ 29: Half of those polled said that if Johnson was leader of the Conservative party, it would ‘make no difference’ as to whether they were more or less likely to vote Conservative. This is a blow to the Cameron dissenters, who have always believed that Boris

Spending Review: Has George Osborne’s caution condemned Britain to a lost decade?

The Labour party used to joke that the Tories would act as their cleaners: win, take the political pain, abolish the deficit by 2015 and then hand over a balanced budget when they lost the election. George Osborne has, at the very least, put paid to that. His Spending Review this week made it clear how painfully little progress is being made. Whoever wins the next election could close every school, open every prison, cede Northern Ireland, close every embassy and sack every soldier, sailor and airman — and it would still not be enough to put the government back in the black. Britain is a terrifyingly long way from fiscal sanity.

Rod Liddle

Do you agree with the Tories’ Alternative Queen’s Speech?

A bunch of back bench Conservative MPs have won the right to present to parliament, via the almost pointless conduit of private members bills, a sort of alternative manifesto. A fairly uncameroonie alternative Queen’s Speech. The MPs in question include Peter Bone and Philip Hollobone, both of whom sound a little as though they had stepped out of a Mervyn Peake novel and both of whom represent constituencies comprised largely of orcs and goblins in Northamptonshire. That being said, they are both rather good fun and have been principled thorns in the side of the current party leadership. If you can have a principled thorn. I suppose you can’t. Anyway,

Conservative members send ministers EU reform shopping list

David Cameron will come under increasing pressure in the next few months to publish his ‘shopping list’ of reforms he wants from a renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with Europe. Even those who want to know what the Prime Minister is really thinking accept that this is not a good idea, as he would neither satisfy the spectrum of views across his party, nor impress them when he returned with only 14 out of 20 demands granted (even if those 14 reforms were very impressive ones). But the Tory party has been consulting its members on the powers that they would like to see returned to national governments. I’ve got hold

Tories use Let Britain Decide campaign to hunt voters’ data

The Tories have earned rare praise for their LetBritainDecide campaign for James Wharton’s Private Member’s Bill. Everyone accepts that the slick website and social media campaign are (surprisingly) impressive. But there’s another — largely unnoticed — aspect to this campaign which has a lot less to do with change in Europe and more to do with change in CCHQ’s campaigning methods. The clever ‘co-sponsorship’ option allowing anyone to add their names to the bill doesn’t just create hype, it also allows CCHQ to build a large database of the names, email addresses and postcodes of voters with a particular interest in European affairs. Why is this important? The data allows CCHQ

Isabel Hardman

Focusing on borrowing means mutually-assured humiliation for Labour and the Tories

Strangely, both sides at Treasury questions today wanted to talk about something that does their own party no favours at all to mention. The Labour whips had sent their loyal backbenchers out in force to ask about Friday’s borrowing figures, while George Osborne and Conservative colleagues were very happy indeed to talk about how much the Opposition would have to borrow, too. Labour wanted to tell off the government for borrowing more. The government wanted to remind Labour that it would borrow even more. When it comes to performing elaborate and quite painful-looking contortions, Ed Balls is a master, but even he must realise that telling off another party for borrowing

Leaked letter shows ministers trying to calm tensions on marriage tax breaks

Ministers are clearly mindful of the potential damage that Tim Loughton’s amendment to the Finance Bill calling for tax breaks for married couples could cause. This is one of those issues that could become a rebellion if it is poorly-managed by the leadership, or equally could be a bit of a damp squib if enough backbenchers are reassured and feel they should show loyalty to George Osborne. David Gauke has sent out a letter to Tory MPs trying to do just that. This ‘dear colleague’ message, which I’ve been passed, tells backbenchers that the Chancellor will announce the details of a transferable tax allowance ‘in due course’, which is what the

Spending review: All departments settle

All departments have now reached agreement with the Treasury in the spending review. Vince Cable’s Business Department, which was not expected to settle until the last possible moment, settled earlier this evening bringing the round to a conclusion. Finishing things off with two and a half days to spare is an achievement for George Osborne. It also demonstrates the durability of the coalition. Many expected that this spending round would put the coalition under unique stress. Tory spending ministers were irritated by having to make ever deeper cuts because the Liberal Democrats would not accept further welfare reductions. While Vince Cable was making clear that he wouldn’t accept cuts to

James Forsyth

Cable talks going to the wire

The Treasury is keen to downplay any sense of drama surrounding the spending review. On Marr this morning, George Osborne declared that he was ‘confident’ that he and Vince Cable would agree the BIS budget ‘in short order.’ He emphasised that the differences between them were not that large. Indeed, I’m informed that the differences between Treasury and BIS are over capital not current spending, making them easier to resolve. Osborne and Cable have only begun to speak directly in recent days. Up until Thursday, Osborne had been leaving the negotiations to Danny Alexander. Despite Osborne’s protestations, it looks like the BIS budget will go down to the wire. Cable