Conservative party

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

The Lib Dems keep ’em guessing

Last week, Nick Clegg was singing the blues.  But, this week, it’s clear that he’s doing as much as possible to distinguish his party from the others.  Indeed, his performance in PMQs yesterday was a case in point: he went out of his way to attack both Brown and Cameron, and positioned his side as the non-Unite, non-Ashcroft choice.  Given the Lib Dem’s recent history with dodgy donors, that’s a move which – at the very least – is going to ruffle a few red and blue feathers. So it’s striking, today, that the Lib Dems are probably going even heavier on the Ashcroft story than Labour.  While Peter Mandelson

Peter Hoskin

The Tories and Lord Ashcroft – stupidity rather than wrongdoing?<br />

So the Lord Ashcroft story is back on the airwaves, courtesy of a document leaked to the BBC.  That document shows William Hague was “satisfied” with the discussions about Ashcroft’s undertakings in 2000 – so the Tories wheeled the shadow foreign secretary onto the Today programme to explain himself to Evan Davis.  Three things struck me: i) Stupidity rather than wrongdoing.  When the Ashcroft story first broke a couple of weeks ago, Labour seemed eager to turn it into one of Tory wrongdoing – they called for inquiries left, right and centre (indeed, there’s one taking place today), in the apparent hope that they’d find something improper had gone on.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

The Tories’ growing mood of quiet confidence

It is worth pointing out, because it is so different from what was happening a few weeks back, that the Tories are having another good day today. Gordon Brown has been forced to admit at PMQs that he had got his defence statistics wrong when addressing both the Commons and the Chilcot inquiry, the Unite story is rumbling on and there are various rows breaking out over Labour’s process for selecting candidates. All of this has led to a distinct improvement in Tory morale. A few weeks ago, Tory MPs were irritated and despondent. Some had even started ruminating on the leadership challenge that would occur if the Tories were

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Piers for Parliament?

Could you vote for Piers Morgan? In an interview with Freddy Gray in The Spectator tomorrow, he says he’s tempted to stand for Parliament – and it’s not such a surprise. He has weirdly inserted himself in the political process in recent weeks, defining Nick “no more than 30” Clegg and giving Gordon Brown probably the best piece of television coverage he will receive – ever. Now he is even considering standing for election. ‘I am tempted to run on a ticket of openness and frankness about the problems of this country and not being afraid to deal with them,’ he says. He doesn’t have much time for Cameron, describing

David Blackburn

Two blasts from the past

Michael Savage observes that Cameron’s denunciation of Brown’s ‘weak’ premiership recalled Tony Blair’s famous savaging of the ‘weak, weak, weak’ Major government . Here it is: After watching that, I chanced upon an exchange between Blair and Cameron, dated November 2006. Their subject? NHS budget cuts. The first two minutes of the clip reinforce just how complicit the Conservatives were in Brown and Blair’s free for all. Cameron was aghast that “budgets were being raided to solve financial deficits”.

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 17 March 2010

Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200. 1201: And here we go. Brown starts with condolences for fallen troops, and also for the late Labour MP Ashok Kumar and his family.  For the first question, Tony Baldry takes on Brown over his claim that defence expendintue has risen in real terms under Labour.  A note from the House of Commons library has since shown this to be “incorrect”.  Brown says that he is already writing to Chilcot to correct this.  Brown: “I do accept that, in one or two years, defence expenditure did not rise in real terms” – but it did rise in cash terms.  Not a good start

David Blackburn

The Tories’ Unite strategy is paying unimagined dividends

The Tories Unite strategy has been so effective, even Peter Mandelson is peddling it. Led by Mandelson, Labour’s isolated right has questioned Unite’s influence over candidate selection. James Purnell’s preferred successor, Jonny Reynolds, was omitted from the Stalybridge and Hyde shortlist, compiled by the NEC, which has two Unite members on its board. Mandelson and Purnell have urged Downing Street to reopen the race. For its part, Unite responded. One of its preferred candidates for the seat, Glyn Ford, who failed to make the cut, demanded a right to appeal also. The Tories’ must be ecstatic. Their strategy, initially conceived to nullify the Ashcroft scandal, is paying unimagined dividends. Brigades

Peter Hoskin

For the workers?

One of the defences that Labour types are mustering over Unite is, bascially, that it’s better to be funded by a body which represents some two million workers than by Ashcroft type figures who may have their own personal agendas. In which case, the question is: do Charlie Whelan and his coterie really represent the views and interests of Unite’s members?  And, in answer, it’s worth pulling out two snippets from today’s papers. EXHIBIT A, courtesy of Danny Finkelstein: “A Populus poll of Unite members last year showed the majority preferring David Cameron to Gordon Brown and opposing Unite donations to Labour.” And EXHIBIT B, from Ben Brogan’s interview with

Tuesday

James Forsyth

The Tory campaign is getting back on track

Whisper it quietly, but there is a sense that the Tory campaign is getting back on track. The Tories have had three good days in a row, have Labour on the back foot over Unite and the polls appear to be moving in their favour. Certainly, Tory morale is better than at any point since the start of the year. One thing raising Tory spirits is Cameron’s own performance. As Iain Martin points out, on Sunday Brown met the voters and was incapable of finding the right tone. Cameron, by contrast, is at his best among ‘real’ people as Monday’s event demonstrated. Another thing bolstering Tory morale is their campaign

David Blackburn

Clarke and Osborne are working well

The Daily Politics featured a telling exchange between Stephen Timms and Ken Clarke. Their arguments were unclear and their hypotheticals relentless – they were debating deficit reduction. A football phone-in DJ had been invited onto the programme to adjudicate. After 7 minutes he broke his befuddled silence and declared, understandably, that Clarke and Timms were a turn-off to ordinary voters. Immediately, Clarke responded clearly and directly, making a case for reducing the deficit with reference to the chillingly close reality of Greece’s collapse. He avoided patronising, homespun economics; and simply delivered bald analysis and a statement of intent with his characteristic gusto. By contrast, Timms remained silent. Clarke is the

Peter Hoskin

Nick Clegg pulls those fences down

Continuing the current vogue for sensible economic debate, here’s what Nick Clegg said on Radio 4 just now: ‘We’re not entering into this dutch auction about ringfencing. Good outcomes aren’t determined by drawing a redline around government departmental budgets.’ Given the current speculation about a hung parliament, you’ve got to wonder what this might mean for any potential Lib-Con partnership.  The common wisdom, almost certainly correct, is that the resulting political paralysis would sink the public finances.  But it would be intrigiuing to see if Clegg could get the Tories to tighten their fiscal plans, and perhaps even smash a few of their ringfences.

Peter Hoskin

The Tories open fire on Unite

So, the Tories have declared war on Charlie Whelan and Unite – what Eric Pickles calls the “great untold story of British politics”. He was joined by no less than two more shadow frontbenchers – Michael Gove and Theresa Villiers – at a briefing attacking the union’s political influence this morning. And that’s not all: the Tories have produced a document detailing how Unite is funding Labour and opposing reform, and there’s even a new digital poster campaign to go along with it.  The gloves are well and truly off. As for what the shadow ministers actually said, Villiers highlighted Unite’s role in the BA troubles, while Gove gave a

Daniel Korski

ECR’s record so far

The decision by David Cameron to pull the Tories out of the EPP and form the ECR was a victory of principle and party politics over pragmatism. While many Tory grassroots howled with joy, it is worth examining the practical consequences on Tory influence in the European Parliament – not to reverse the decision, but validate or disprove the oft-made charge that the decision has made the Tories impotent.   Let us eschew any discussion about the views of key members of the ECR on Jews; let us also not dwell on whether the Tories have cut themselves off from other centre-right leaders. The first point is a matter of

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Tories to outline spending cuts after the Budget

Now here’s a turn up: according to Nick Robinson, the Tories are going to announce details of what spending they would cut in the forthcoming fiscal year after next week’s Budget.  So it looks like Cameron might come good on his promise, after all. We’ll have to wait and see before judging whether those cuts are credible.  But, along with George Osborne’s FT article today, it does seem that the Tories have rediscovered the will to take on Labour over when and what to cut.

Peter Hoskin

Osborne tries to kickstart a mature economic debate

David has already blogged about George Osborne and Jeffrey Sach’s article in the FT this morning.  But it’s worth returning to what is as clear and as unalloyed a statement of Tory policy on the public finances as you’ll have seen over the past few months.   What I find most impressive about the article isn’t so much its loose, perhaps nebulous, prescriptions for the economy – although they’re sensible enough – but rather the way it acknowledges how some prominent academic and public figures hold a different view of things, and explains, in straightforward terms, why the Tories don’t agree with them.  For instance: “The financial models underpinning the

Peter Hoskin

Brown sets the stage for a scorched earth Budget

Gordon Brown must be feeling generous today, for he did the Tories two favours on Woman’s Hour earlier.  David has already mentioned the first one: Brown saying that he would “keep going” as party leader even if Labour loses the next election, which ups the potential for more summertime Sturm und Drang on his own side.  But the second, as Ben Brogan points out, is his claim that the state of the economy makes it difficult for the government to detail any spending cuts.  The Tories will happily seize on that to justify their own “wait until we see the books” approach. More broadly, Brown’s claim also sets the stage

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cameron must win outright

Heaven forbid that the Tories and LibDems end up in coalition – but the Guardian asked me to write a piece war-gaming what would happen if they did. The result is here. I really do believe it would be a short-lived calamity because no one would be playing for the long-term. The Westminster system does not handle coalitions, and hung parliaments lead to second elections. From day one of any Lib-Con coalition, everyone would have an eye on that second election. The Tories would want to accuse the LibDems of recklessly pulling the plug, the LibDems would be briefing against the Tories making out that they were the only competent

David Blackburn

Osborne colours the water blue

George Osborne has long been in the City’s crosshairs, and criticism peaked last week when less than a quarter of a City panel believe he has the mettle to be Chancellor. Today, Osborne fights back in the FT, with a piece co-penned by Jeffrey Sachs. The pair set out an argument for immediate ‘frugality’, rather than ‘cuts’, and damn Brown’s economic policy as short-term politicking: ‘We are sceptical that a sustainable economic recovery can be based on either reinflating the sectors that have declined or believing future job creation can come simply from the public sector payroll.’ Two thirds of jobs created between 1997 and 2007 were in the public

Sunday

David Blackburn

Cameron is synonymous with change

It was mostly standard fare for a political interview, but the Cameron/Trevor McDonald show reminds you of what I think is one of Cameron’s foremost positives, and one that is welcome amid the Tories’ current self-doubt. Cameron and his team turned the unelectable Tories into a modern and truly representative force. Jonathan Freedland may argue that the change is cosmetic, but candidates, such as Shaun Bailey, selected by the Hammersmith association, say otherwise. If Cameron saw-off grass-roots interests who were still fighting Margaret Thatcher’s early battles, if not those of Churchill too, he has the resolve to tackle the legacy that Gordon Brown is likely to bequeath him.   I’d expected to be left

Daniel Korski

A welcome return of defence diplomacy

Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox has given an interview to the Sunday Express, where he talks about overcoming a sense of “colonial guilt” bestowed by revisionist historians and the need for a new government to forge defence links with commonwealth nations, such as Australia and New Zealand, but he also cited India and Saudi Arabia. They have a “strong appetite” for closer defence links with the UK, he argues.   Looking at variable defence relationships with countries like India, and non-NATO partners like Australia makes good sense. Nicolas Sarkozy has done the same – and even invited Indian troops to march down the Champs-Élysées last year on Bastille Day. A