David cameron

We’re delighted to be back with a bang for the first Spectator podcast of 2013. This week, our political editor James Forsyth discusses David Cameron’s long-delayed speech on Europe with Mats Peerson, director of the Open Europe think tank. Will the Prime Minister manage to keep his party together over a renegotiation? Will Angela Merkel come to Cameron’s rescue and what will the City make of his stance? The Spectator’s editor Fraser Nelson looks at why the coalition mid-term review is a waste of time, while our panel agree that David Milliband’s influence in the Labour Party is completely overrated. And what will happen to Rupert Murdoch’s reforming plans for

David Cameron’s big Europe speech is now less than a fortnight away. It will be, I suspect, the most consequential speech of his premiership. When you look at the challenges involved, one can see why the speech has been delayed so many times. Cameron needs to say enough to reassure his party, which has never been more Eurosceptic than it is now. But he also needs to appeal to European leaders, whose consent he will need for any new deal. At the same time, he’s got to try and not create too much nervousness among business about where all this will end up. I understand that he intends to argue

The Cameron/Clegg press conference did not teach us very much — save that the chemistry between the two is as good as ever, that they can still finish each other’s sentences and exchange bad jokes. The Prime Minister’s bad joke related to one of the comments under his interview with Matthew d’Ancona yesterday where he (in effect) said he wanted to stay in No10 until 2020. When asked about this today, the PM replied that a commentator on the Telegraph Online complained: ‘It’s already 20:51 and you’re still here.’ The assembled journalists treated his joke with the same respectful silence that they did to Clegg’s ‘unvarnished truth’ joke. ‘You’re all

David Cameron and Nick Clegg will launch the coalition’s mid-term review tomorrow. There will be some announcements in it. But I understand that some of the most interesting, new coalition policies are being held out from it. The government wants to keep some of its powder back for later. There are also some final details to be worked out in certain areas. I’m informed that there’ll be a Quad on childcare this week. The coalition is close to agreement on a package which, as I say in the Mail on Sunday, would see working mothers receive thousands of pounds of help with childcare costs for the under fives. This will

Nick Clegg made clear before Christmas that he wants gory, open and honest government; today the Prime Minister was equally clear that he doesn’t. Asked this morning on Radio 5Live about whether he was happy with the Lib Dem desire for greater differentiation between the parties, the Prime Minister replied: ‘I think that both parties will succeed if the Coalition succeeds, Nick Clegg and I work well together, and actually there are huge challenges facing this country. We have got to pay down the deficit, re-balance the economy and we have got to improve standards in our schools. ‘We don’t spend our time in private bickering with each other, we

David Cameron’s New Year message is a rather sober one, but it’s not downbeat. The theme is ‘realism and optimism’ and the Tory leader’s aim is to demonstrate to voters that his policies are putting the country on the right track, and to that end he makes some strong points on deficit reduction, unemployment, education, welfare, tax and pensions. Encouraging optimism about Britain’s trajectory is important because 2013 is going to be a difficult year, not just for the Conservative party internally on issues such as Europe and gay marriage, but for the Coalition, as new cuts come in and critics call on the government to change tack. Ed Miliband’s

In this week’s issue of The Spectator, Melissa Kite joins David Cameron’s local hunt, the Heythrop, to find out what its members think of its recent drubbing in the courts from the RSPCA, and the Conservative Party’s troubled relationship with fox hunting. She meets former huntsman Julian Barnfield, who was fined £1,000 in the case, and chats to him about the recent admission from the Tories that a free vote on the hunting ban isn’t on the cards for the new year after all: To understand fully the sense of grievance, you need to cast your mind back to the way the Conservatives campaigned at the last election. Then, the

Nick Clegg has made a not-so-startling intervention in the debate about Britain’s relationship with Europe today, warning that Britain must avoid selling itself short in a renegotiation. His interview with the Guardian is a necessary piece of positioning ahead of David Cameron’s Big Europe Speech in mid-January, and this kind of differentiation is something the Tories are more than happy for the Lib Dem leader to continue doing. So in some ways, Clegg warning Cameron not to overdo it on Europe isn’t at all significant. But the Deputy Prime Minister makes an important observation in his interview about Britain’s bargaining power. Describing the creation of the single market and the

Philip Collins knows a thing or two about speech writing; but I can’t help thinking that his assessment of what David Cameron should say about Britain and the EU is misguided. Perhaps it’s his Labour blood, but he is fascinated with ‘those in Mr Cameron’s party who are obsessed with Europe in general or frightened of UKIP in particular’. Collins’ analysis seems to suggest (or hopes?) that Cameron’s speech will be primarily for Bill Cash et al. But the speech is the first step to a referendum renegotiating Britain’s position in the EU. The primary audience must be the public – Mrs Bone rather than Peter Bone. Therefore, its content

David Cameron’s appearance before the 1922 committee was designed to reassure his party, and he tried to do this by promising them that the Conservative party would be strong on Europe in 2015. It has been a hard term, and today’s PMQs was savage, so the Prime Minister decided to start his speech by telling them to think about the Conservative party’s record in government. He touched on welfare, on schools, on the NHS – in particular mixed sex wards and waiting times – and income tax. He is clearly looking forward to the next election, too, as he mentioned the appointment of Lynton Crosby, to cheers from those listening,