Conservative party

And so this morning’s Office for Budget Responsibility story rumbles on, with various Labour figures questions whether the organisation is as independent as it should be.  The most significant intervention, though, is from the government.  As the FT reports, George Osborne’s Treasury team is hanging onto its ability to select the next head of the OBR. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the next OBR chief will be a placeman, sympathetic and mouldable to the Tories’ wishes.  In fact, my guess is that Osborne will go out of his way to find an uncontroversial, neutral replacement for Sir Alan Budd.  But with a PoliticsHome poll showing that only 16

Iain Dale has news of fresh ruptures in the Tories’ controversial European grouping. Here are the details: This is an intriguing development. Perhaps the combination of being in government, the balance of the coalition and Cameron’s markedly improved relations with Merkel and Sarkozy (whose parties are aligned with the EPP) brings the need for fresh European alliances? Most of the controversy surrounding the CRG is unfounded but it certainly damaged Cameron at home and abroad. I’m told that the Tories have no intention of shifting allegiance, and that the original plan was for Kirkhope and Kaminski to share the chairmanship if possible. But even so, watch this space…

There’s an snappy little anecdote in Steve Richard’s column today, which bears repeating in these parts: “Clegg is in a similar position in relation to his party as Tony Blair was over Iraq. Blair used to go around telling his colleagues: ‘It’s worse than you think. I believe in the policy.’ Clegg is known to have told friends after George Osborne’s Budget: ‘The good news is I’m not a patsy. The bad news is I believe in the Budget.'” Nothing I’ve seen or heard over recent weeks has dented my opinion from before the election: that Clegg is, in relative terms, a fiscal hawk with a strong reformist bent.  Indeed,

Michael Gove’s welcome freeze on Building Schools for the Future will invite tomorrow’s press to claim only that this means 715 various building projects are not being carried out. In fact, what it means is that the fund will be open for the Swedish-style new schools. The budget will be transferred from bureaucratic priorities to those of communities, as expressed by those who wish there to be a new school. One of the great tragedies of the politicians’ stranglehold over education is that they just love huge, shiny buildings to point at, complete with new whiteboards and all the latest gadgets. The Swedish experiment has shown the parents care not

When the coalition was first formed, I expected it to collapse in months. But, then, I was expecting the type of coalition that I’d seen in the Scottish Parliament when Labour and the Lib Dems kept their distance (and their mistrust). But what has emerged is a far tighter coalition – and one that may even end up in a merger. Cameron has been very generous to the Lib Dems, in both Cabinet places and policies. But since then, he has just grown more generous. In the News of the World today, I wonder if he’s playing for keeps.   It was great to welcome Nick Clegg to The Spectator’s

When General Petraeus called for a “united effort” on Afghanistan earlier, he might as well have been addressing our government.  Between David Cameron’s and Liam Fox’s recent statements, there’s a clear sense that the coalition is pulling in two separate directions.  And it’s left William Hague explaining our Afghan strategy thus, to the Times today: “‘The position on combat troops is as the Prime Minister set out last weekend. By the time of the next election, he hopes we won’t still be fighting on the ground. We are working towards the Afghan national security forces being able to stand on their own two feet by 2014,’ but there is ‘no

I doubt No.10 will be all that charmed by David Davis’s comments on Straight Talk with Andrew Neil this weekend, but they should certainly take note of them.  They contain some substantive points about the government’s relationship with Tory backbenchers, and points which Davis is not alone in making.  The key passage comes when he discusses the watered-down capital gains tax hike: “I don’t think a victory over [the Lib Dems], I mean, it’s quite interesting, we tried to design this, whatever you want to call it, I don’t know whether it’s a rebellion or a difference of view, to really be a precursor to what’s going to happen over