Conservative party

Monday

Oliver Duggan

Liam Fox’s attack on Foreign Office peeves former ambassador

Liam Fox sparked a row with a former diplomat today after accusing the Foreign Office of an institutional bias towards greater integration with the European Union. The former Defence Secretary is building up a reputation for himself as a rallying figure for the eurosceptic right wing of the Conservative party with a series of speeches on Britain’s relationship with Europe, and today he attacked the civil service for having a weak spot for the continent. He told an Open Europe event at the Royal United Services Institute that the government’s desire to renegotiate its EU position was impaired as a result of the FCO being ‘totally wedded to the concept

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron: It’s our fault voters don’t understand why austerity is necessary

David Cameron paid a rare visit to those hacks that lurk in the Commons press gallery for lunch today. In between cracking jokes about how ‘as you know, I have very little control over what Boris does’, and tantalising us with references to his EU speech, which is coming ‘soon’, the Prime Minister made an interesting admission about the way his government is communicating with voters about the difficulties in the economy: ‘They are not expecting miracles. I think what people hear is a rather hard, technocratic message. They are not hearing – in fact, this is our fault – they are not hearing enough about why this matters and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Attorney General to reject warnings of gay marriage legal challenge

I understand that when the gay marriage bill is published, the Attorney General will make clear that the chance of a legal challenge at the European Court of Human Rights to religious institutions that don’t want to marry gay couples is ‘negligible’.  As Isabel says, what wavering Tory MPs think of this legal opinion will be key to determining how they vote. The debate inside the Tory parliamentary party about this issue is becoming increasingly rancorous. There’s real fury among some MPs about the language being used by some of the opponents of same-sex marriage. David TC Davies decision to opine on whether parents want gay children has infuriated many

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

No 10 insists churches are protected under gay marriage plans

The government may be forced to explain its plans for gay marriage in the House of Commons today if an urgent question is granted. Chief among the questions from backbenchers will be the consequences for religious institutions that continue to oppose the idea and do not want to conduct such ceremonies. There are some Tory MPs who are viscerally opposed to the idea of gay marriage in any form, but others are wavering and need reassurance that they will not vote for something which leads to the situation where a vicar is forced as a result of a European Court judgement to conduct a same sex marriage against their will.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tim Loughton attacks coalition’s failure to support married couples

Tim Loughton was one of the surprise sackings in September’s reshuffle: he was an able minister who knew his portfolio very well indeed. He’s evidently reluctant to let that ability go to waste, and has already made interventions on child protection and benefit cuts. His speech later today for the Centre for Social Justice hits the nail on the head of a big Tory problem: marriage. Loughton isn’t joining some of his colleagues in attacking gay marriage specifically, but rather the Conservative party’s failure to reintroduce tax breaks for married couples. He has written of his dissatisfaction that the Autumn Statement contained no such measures in the Telegraph today: Family

Friday

Jonathan Jones

The public’s verdict on the Autumn Statement

We’ve only had two days to digest it, but the early signs from YouGov are that George Osborne’s Autumn Statement has gone down a lot better than his March Budget. The Chancellor’s personal ratings are still dire – just 24 per cent think he’s doing a good job — but that’s a lot better than 15 per cent five months ago. His approval rating had tanked after the Budget, but Osborne does seem to have turned that around: And the government’s approval rating on the economy similarly seems to have been helped by the Autumn Statement, and is back up to pre-Budget levels: Though a 35 per cent approval rating

Thursday

James Forsyth

Eric Pickles and the looming Tory split over the ECHR

Eric Pickles is one of the few characters in contemporary British politics. In an interview with The Spectator this week, he chides Vince Cable for not deregulating enough, admits that he gets ‘occasionally irked’ by George Osborne’s impatience on policy, and reveals that ‘‘I was asked by a senior member of the government, two weeks after the National Planning Framework had come into being, why it hadn’t worked.’ But Pickles also gives us a glimpse of a coming Tory split. He says that it is ‘ridiculous’ that individuals can appeal their cases all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. He wants to stop this, which

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Leaked Autumn Statement briefing for Tory MPs focuses on ‘global race’ and spending switch

I’ve been passed the Tory ‘lines to take’ for MPs to use in media interviews for the Autumn Statement today. As I blogged a little earlier, the words ‘global race’ will be cropping up a lot over the next couple of years as a key Conservative phrase, and it looks as though today will be no exception, with the Chancellor using the image in his autumn statement. I note that MPs will also be expected to use it. The lines also focus on the decision to switch revenue to capital spending: ‘Today the Chancellor and Chief Secretary have told Cabinet that they will announce at the Autumn Statement over £5

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne’s race to persuade voters and colleagues to back his plan

George Osborne has managed, so far, to manage the run-up to the Autumn Statement far better than he did the Budget. There have been no cat fights across the pages of the newspapers, and the briefing over the past few days has been disciplined. After being told about the £5bn of Whitehall spending cuts to fund ‘shovel-ready’ projects including new schools and investment in skills, science and transport yesterday, one hack jokingly asked whether ‘this means that tomorrow’s statement is going to be horrendous’ given the news so far had been relatively positive. Osborne’s stock is up in Westminster at the moment – something James detailed in the magazine last

Tuesday

Douglas Murray

Why are Conservative MPs so intent on wrecking our countryside?

Last week we had Nick Boles extolling the virtues of concreting over what green space we still have in order to tackle an alleged housing shortage. And now, in today’s FT, we have Conservative ‘Climate Change Minister’ Greg Barker claiming that wind farms are not merely ‘wonderful’ and ‘majestic’ but so much so that those near his Sussex constituency have become a ‘tourist attraction.’ What an extraordinary vision of the Conservative future he summons up. Has Mr Barker ever considered, among other things, the law of diminishing returns?  I suppose it is possible that someone might get in their car once in order to gawk at the despoliation of our

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cut housing benefit for under-25s? Yes, but be careful, say Tory members

George Osborne might have failed to get his housing benefit cut for the under-25s past the Lib Dems in time for the Autumn Statement, but, as James reported in his Mail on Sunday column this week, the Tories will be keen to put it in their 2015 manifesto, partly to show voters what a majority Conservative government could achieve without the shackles of coalition. I understand the party has been consulting members on its welfare policy in the past few weeks, and unsurprisingly, the response has been enormous. In fact, the policy forum hasn’t seen such interest from members since it asked them what they wanted to see in terms

Monday

James Forsyth

Does the South East need its own party?

Kelvin MacKenzie wants a British version of the Italy’s Northern League. His aim is to have a Southern Party that would push for home rule for London and the South East and oppose fiscal transfers from the South East to the rest of the country. The piece is classic MacKenzie polemic. But it does speak to the growing regionalisation of British politics, a subject that Neil O’Brien addressed for us in his final piece before becoming an adviser to George Osborne. Outside of London, Labour only have four MPs in the South East and in the European elections, Labour came fifth in the region — behind even the Greens. For

Steerpike Steerpike

The end is neigh: even Jilly Cooper has dumped Dave

It has been a rough few days for David Cameron. First he was drubbed at the polls in last week’s by-elections. Then little Alan Titchmarsh said that the Tory party had lost its roots in the countryside (and we know what happens to trees which lose their roots). And now I must be the bearer of even more bad news for young Dave, bad news from a once ardent Tory supporter: Jilly Cooper. As the cognac flowed at the 56th Hennessy Gold Cup on Saturday afternoon, Cooper told me that she is very disappointed with this government and declared that the Conservative Party is ‘full of terrible people now.’ The same event

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg is changing the way the government works

Say what you will about Nick Clegg’s decision to take a different stance from the Prime Minister on Leveson, but the Deputy Prime Minister has this week effected another big change to the way Westminster government works. He has sent party members an email today explaining why he felt it was necessary to make a separate statement to David Cameron in the Commons on Thursday. The Lib Dem leader writes: As you may have picked up, the Prime Minister and I disagreed; there is not yet an agreed ‘government line’. That’s in part why we had to make separate statements – a major departure from Parliamentary protocol, apparently. I’m often

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Tory MP attacks Cameron for allowing party to become ’emaciated’

Brian Binley is fond of giving journalists new ideas for illustrations featuring David Cameron’s head superimposed onto a new and unusual get-up: his ‘chambermaid‘ allusion caused quite a stir back in August. Today he’s written another one of his angry blog posts, which takes his criticism of the Prime Minister on a little further. Today the Prime Minister is a caretaker, apparently, and one who isn’t taking great care of his party. Binley describes the Conservative party as being ‘in a very sorry state’, and launches an attack on Cameron for setting his face against his own party. He writes: Having been our leader for the last seven years, David

The Spectator

Inside the mind of George Osborne’s newest adviser

Neil O’Brien’s appointment as a new special adviser for George Osborne has gone down very well in the Westminster bubble, partly because of the Policy Exchange director’s ability to look beyond that bubble. He has written a number of times for the Spectator, and as an insight into the man who will be advising the Chancellor, here are some of his key pieces: In this week’s magazine, O’Brien points to the North’s growing detachment from Westminster, with ‘an almighty 83 per cent of northern voters’ believing that politicians do not understand the real world. He writes: ‘Westminster politicians have repeatedly promised to close the North-South gap, but failed because they

Jonathan Jones

Labour’s safe seats stay safe

In the end, the threat from smaller parties came to nothing, and Labour easily retained all of the three safe seats it was defending yesterday. In fact, they extended their vote share in all three as well. Respect could only manage a distant fourth in Rotherham and sixth in Croydon North, where former Ken Livingstone adviser Lee Jasper lost his deposit. Instead it was Ukip who came second in Rotherham and Middlesbrough, and third in Croydon North. Both coalition parties saw their vote collapse in all three seats. The Conservatives ended up fourth in Middlesbrough and fifth in Rotherham (their worst results of this parliament), though they did manage to

Thursday

Fraser Nelson

Leveson report: Cameron’s defining moment

I do believe that David Cameron has just pledged to  protect press freedom – and, in effect, reject the most illiberal proposals of today’s Leveson Report. He has asked the media to reform itself, and radically. He accepts the principles of the report and asks the media to ‘implement them, and implement them radically’. But he asks. He doesn’t want to tell. And he draws a very important distinction between the two: parliament hasn’t told the press what to do since 1695 and Cameron doesn’t want to start now. listen to ‘ David Cameron on the Leveson Report, 29 Nov 12’ on Audioboo

The Spectator

Nadine Dorries: Why shouldn’t a working class MP take a few days off?

Fresh from the jungle, Nadine Dorries is the Spectator’s diarist for this week. As well as observing that each of her 11 fellow contestants on I’m a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here! was ‘probably more right wing than I am’, she also explains why she thought it was acceptable for a ‘working class woman to take a few parliamentary days off’ to go on the show, writing: Many MPs take jollies from the House of Commons, but in seven years I have never spent a day away from my Westminster duties. This is why I thought I would be allowed to devote a few days of my holiday to

Wednesday

James Forsyth

The Lib Dems can use Leveson to show coalitions work

The Liberal Democrats’ strategic imperative in this parliament is to show that coalitions can work. Their response to the Leveson Inquiry is, I suspect, going to be part of this plan. Their position on the issue is hardening. Yesterday’s Guardian report that they would make clear if David Cameron was only speaking for the Conservative party not the government, has been followed by Nick Robinson’s news that Clegg will make his own statement in the Commons if no coalition position can be agreed. I understand that, ideally, Clegg would make his statement from the despatch box. In some ways this is not a bad issue for the Deputy Prime Minister