Conservative party

Monday

Andrew Lilico

Undoing the spending of the last government

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 other departments, such the Foreign Office, experienced cuts. Then, in the later columns, we consider what percentage falls today’s cuts represent and what proportion of the total rises since 2004/5 they undo.  We see that the largest cuts fall on CLG communities, down by 7.3 percent, reversing 74 percent of the rises over the last

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The long haul starts here

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 cutting for ideological reason. Osborne said that ‘controlling spending is not an end it itself.’ While Laws stressed that the Coalition would ‘cut with care.’ Within its first fortnight in office, the government has found savings with commendable celerity. But the fact that the whole package was agreed on at 11.45 pm on Friday for

Peter Hoskin

Those coalition cuts in full

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 670 1.06 Work and Pensions 535 0.39 Chancellor’s Departments 451 0.41 CLG spending by local government 405 1.59 Home Office 367 3.68 Justice 325 3.35 DEFRA 162 5.23 Culture, Media and Sport 88 1.29 Energy and Climate Change 85 4.05 Cabinet Office 79 1.05 Foreign and Commonwealth Office 55 2.85 Law Officers’ Departments 18 TOTAL

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Osborne needs to make the moral case for cuts

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 sent Britain on the path of fiscal ruin – the idea that extra spending magically means extra, better services. If that were true, Britain should have the best schools on the planet and healthiest population in the world, given that our spending over the last decade years increased, quite literally, faster than any other country

Peter Hoskin

The spending battle begins

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 million from cutting Whitehall recruitment, and so on.  One encouraging fact is that only £500 million of these cuts will be “recycled” back into the public sector. The rest will go towards getting the government’s annual overspend down. But let’s not pretend that this is anything other than a start.  With the deficit at £160

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

The big week ahead

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 Speech on Tuesday. This will be a major chance for the coalition to get more of the public onside for a programme which is set to last years. In which case, it’s unsurprising to read that the government will sweeten the medicine of cuts by hastening through some of its most radical, positive policies before

Charlotte Gore

Have the Tories fallen victim to the Lib Dem Hug of Death?

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 member, I was part of a group within the party that wanted to pull it in a more classically liberal direction: a smaller state, lower taxes and greater personal freedom. The idea of a party committed to greater personal freedom, but not greater economic freedom, always struck me as equal parts ridiculous and confused. If

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cameron should seek the common ground

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 to support the leadership automatically. As I say in my News of the World column today it was unnecessary to draw such a dividing line over a party that badly wants the coalition to succeed. True, Tony Blair bossed his party about. But Blair earned the right to when he won a landslide victory. His

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

The Tories have their eyes on Iran

You may not have expected anything less, but it’s still encouraging to see the new government pay so much attention to Afghanistan. After David Cameron’s meeting with Hamid Karzai last week, no less than three ministers have visited the country today: William Hague, Liam Fox and Andrew Mitchell. And Whitehall’s number-crunchers are busy trying to find extra money for the mission. There’s a sense, though, that all the attention actually represents an underlying shift in focus. In his interview with the Telegraph today, Liam Fox is surprisingly forthright on Afghanistan, suggesting that our troops won’t hang around to fully rebuild the country: “What we want is a stable enough Afghanistan,

Peter Hoskin

The axeman speaketh

There’s an entire gaggle of noteworthy interviews in the papers this morning, but let’s start with David Laws in the FT. It’s generally quite hard to draw substantive conclusions about the actual interviewee in political interviews, but I’m sure you wouldn’t come away from this one thinking anything but that Laws is a good man to have in the Treasury right now. Here, anyway, are five observations about what he actually said:  1. Sharing the blame. If people in Tory circles feel that there’s one major consolation to working with the Lib Dems, then it’s that they can share the blame over spending cut.  But, encouragingly, Laws sees this as

Friday

Peter Hoskin

John Redwood “not sure” whether ministers will vote in 1922 Committee

John Redwood is interviewed by Andrew Neil on Straight Talk this weekend, and there’s a rather eyecatching exchange where the Tory MP claims that he’s “not sure” whether ministers will be able to vote in the 1922 Committee, after all: John Redwood: …as I understand the ballot, the ballot was about whether Ministers should come regularly to the 22 or not, and so I have no problem with that, and if that is the agreement, then fine. Andrew Neil: So are you not clear yet whether Ministers can come along as full members of the 22 Committee? JR: Well, I’m not sure whether they vote in 1922 elections, which is

Peter Hoskin

The Tories still need to do more to sell their school reforms

It is quite telling that David Cameron’s first newspaper article since becoming Prime Minister is for the Daily Mail, and even more telling that its central message is, “you still have a Conservative Prime Minister”.  There then follows a series of reassurances about Dave’s political motivations (“I believe the state is your servant, never your master. I believe in the common sense and decency of the British people”) and about the policies contained in the coalition agreement. One line that jumped out at me, though, is this rather inspid description of the Tories’ radical school reform agenda: “We’re also giving parents, charities and other organisations the opportunity to set up

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

The civil service talks cuts

Jonathan Baume is fast becoming one of the political celebrities of the LibCon era.  If you recall, he’s the union chief who revealed that the senior civil servants had written letters to Labour ministers in concern at spending decisions made close to the election.  And now he’s popped up again, with more unflattering comments about the previous administration.  Speaking at his union’s annual conference, he said that “new ministers and MPs must begin to display the personal and moral integrity that was so obviously lacking in the previous Parliament, even within the Cabinet.”  Hm, I wonder who he could mean. The most revealing comment Baume makes, though, is about public

Peter Hoskin

A curious little episode

Iain Martin asks a good question about today’s 1922 Committee vote: “This is a rather curious little episode. In what other club, society or members-run committee would nonmembers (ministers in this case) get to vote for their being granted full membership against the wishes of the existing members?” N.B. Paul Goodman has done the maths to suggest that a majority of Tory backbenchers voted against Cameron.

Peter Hoskin

Calling Osborne’s bluff

I’ve just read through George Osborne’s speech to the CBI annual dinner last night, and there’s much in there about free markets and tax cuts that will encourage Tory supporters.  But one passsage seemed a little strange to me: “And on the subject of coalitions, let me be absolutely frank. As a member of the negotiating team, we did consider whether we could try to bluff our way into a minority government. But it was David Cameron’s bold vision and Nick Clegg’s great foresight which saw, before anyone else, that that option would be the greatest compromise of all. A weak, unstable government, risking defeat night after night in Parliament.

Peter Hoskin

Cameron has won the 1922 Committee vote…

…by 168 to 118 votes, according to Paul Waugh.  Comfortable, but not comfortable enough to suggest that there won’t be a strong core of resentment to this change. UPDATE: This could rumble on. Here’s the latest from PoliticsHome: A number of MPs, headed by the previous 1922 secretary Christopher Chope, are planning to challenge the surprisingly close result, and have not ruled out legal action. They point out that: 1. The difference between the winners and losers is more than bridged by members of the government (who they point out are not entitled to vote according to the current rules of the committee). 2. There were 23 proxy votes (where

Peter Hoskin

How the coalition will work

The full coalition agreement, released this morning, is fascinating enough in itself.  Here we have a step-by-step guide for how two different parties will operate together, what they will do, and, broadly speaking, when they will do it.  And, perhaps to ease the general uncertainty surrounding this type of government, it is considerably clearer than party manifestos tend to be.  One thing you can say, at least, is that this coalition appears keen to make itself more accountable. Skimming through the actual document, there seem to be few surprises, and a good handful of reviews designed to punt difficult policy areas into the long grass.  As the Times’s Francis Elliot

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

Graham Brady on 1922 and all that

In tomorrow’s Spectator we have an interview with Graham Brady, tipped to be chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs – which David Cameron has just proposed to abolish in his 4.30pm meeting with MPs today. Technically, he is proposing to dilute its membership by including the payroll vote, thereby making it synonymous with the parliamentary party. So the backbenchers would not have a voice of their own. And Mr Brady’s position would be much less important. Here is an extract from tomorrow’s interview: In the era of Blair-style landslides, the likes and loves of backbench MPs mattered little: the government’s majority was big enough to force through most

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The 1922-2010 Committee

In a move of breath-taking audacity, David Cameron has just announced that there will be a ballot of the parliamentary party to establish whether or not members of the government payroll vote will be able to be full voting members of the 1922 Committee. This may seem like a small technical change but it is of massive importance: it would hugely limit the power of Conservative backbenchers to hold the government to account. When the Conservative party has been in government, the 1922 Committee has been the voice of the backbenchers. It is how they have held Conservative ministers and prime ministers to account. Cameron’s move, if successful, would effectively

Peter Hoskin

David Lammy: Why Cameron has triumphed

With Ed Balls and John McDonnell announcing their candidatures for the Labour leadership, it’s clear that Labour’s soul-searching period has now begun in earnest.  Speaking in front of the cameras just now, Balls reeled of the lines that he’s been priming over the past week: “listening … immigration … listening … beyond Blair and Brown,” etc.  While McDonnell was keen to separate himself from the other candidates, describing them as the “sons of Blair and the sons of Brown”. Both of them might care to read David Lammy’s appraisal of where it went wrong for Labour – and where it went right for Cameron – in tomorrow’s issue of the