David cameron

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 – is HS2 the rail to nowhere?

Is High Speed 2 headed for the sidings? In our cover feature this week, Ross Clark examines why the ambitious infrastructure project — designed to boost Northern cities — has all but disappeared from the government’s agenda. Despite the chancellor’s ‘boyish enthusiasm for fast trains’, the project has lacked the essential support from private business. Now, more pressing issues have taken charge.   In our View from 22 podcast this week, Ross explains why the Tories were once so enthusiastic about the High Speed link to the North: ‘It was a way for the Tories to say — as part of their decontamination  of the Tory brand — look, we’re

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron’s difficult morning

David Cameron’s morning at the Leveson Inquiry has not been a pleasant experience for him. In the opening hour or so, Cameron was calm and statesmanlike. But as the inquiry moved onto his connections to News International and how Andy Coulson was hired, the prime minister was pushed onto the back foot. One could see why some in Number 10 refer to the inquiry as ‘the monster we have created’. The headline for tomorrow’s papers is, at the moment, coming from a text sent to him by Rebekah Brooks. The clinging text read, ‘But seriously I do understand the issue with the Times. Let’s discuss over country supper soon. On

Wednesday

David Blackburn

Clegg abandons Hunt

A firestorm has torn across Westminster overnight, since Nick Clegg instructed his MPs to abstain from today’s opposition motion demanding that Jeremy Hunt be referred to Sir Alex Allan, the ministerial standards supremo. Numerous Tory backbenchers have taken to the airwaves to condemn their perfidious coalition colleagues. The Mail has the most complete record of the rage. One MP vowed revenge on the liberals. Another described the abstention as ‘an act of war’ before Cameron and Clegg appear before the Leveson inquiry. And Peter Bone said that the Lib Dems ‘are not fit to be in government because they can’t accept collective responsibility.’ Downing Street tells a different tale. ‘There

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The message for Leveson

George Osborne and Michael Gove are two of the Cabinet ministers closest to the Prime Minister. In their appearances before the Leveson Inquiry, they have both made clear that they are not interested in some giant new regulatory system for the press. Indeed, the vigour with which Gove made this argument rather got under the judge’s skin, while Osborne openly mocked the kite-mark system that Leveson is so interested in. The implicit message to Leveson was: propose something too big and you might as well post your final report to the Long Grass at the back of Downing Street.   Now, both Osborne and Gove are to the right of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Hunting season at PMQs

A slightly absurd PMQs today, dominated by Leveson and Jeremy Hunt. I suspect that history will not look kindly on the fact that there were no questions on what is happening in the Eurozone until 28 minutes into this half hour session. The Cameron Miliband exchanges were rather laboured, neither man was on particularly good form. Cameron brandished a letter from the independent adviser on the ministerial code Sir Alex Allan. But it later transpired that the letters had been exchanged with undignified rapidity this morning. The perception created by this rather undercuts Allan’s reputation for independence.   Towards the end of the session, the Labour MP Steve Rotheram asked

The Spectator

Tory minister: HS2 is ‘effectively dead’

Why was David Cameron so lukewarm in his endorsement of HS2 at PMQs today? (In response to a question about the project’s future, he offered, ‘I believe we should go ahead with HS2’, which is rather than different to asserting that it will go ahead.) The project is – as one Tory minister has told The Spectator – ‘effectively dead’. Ross Clark has investigated why in the cover story of tomorrow’s issue. Here’s what he found: 1). George Osborne has turned against it. The chancellor and Tories’ strategic brain was once HS2’s biggest cheerleader, but experience of office has made him realise that Britain’s limited airport capacity is a bigger threat

Tuesday

Freddy Gray

On the road to disestablishment

There’s an inevitability about the Times’s big splash (£) this morning: Gay Marriage Plan Could Divorce Church From State. The Church of England’s historic role as ‘religious registrar’ for the State would have to be severed, we are told, if government plans to legalise gay marriage go ahead. That would not, apparently, mean ‘total dis-establishment … but it would be a significant step in that direction.’ The CofE, for all its liberalism, says it will not support a legal attempt to redefine ‘the objective distinctiveness of men and women.’   So that — if this report is to be believed — is that. Unless the government relents or the Anglican

David Blackburn

The language of left and right

Stephan Shakespeare has a fascinating article on Con Home today, comparing which words voters associate with the terms ‘right-wing’ or ‘left-wing’. The results aren’t too surprising: the language of the left is, generally, softer than the language of the right. Shakespeare’s article is entitled ‘Fairness versus selfish’, which gives you an idea of how voters perceive the dichotomy. The upshot is that many voters still believe that the right is intrinsically ‘nasty’; ergo, the modernisation project has not gone far enough. This research, and the conclusions drawn from it, reminds me of Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind (indeed, Shakespeare references an article by Haidt). The Spectator interviewed Haidt two

Monday

Fraser Nelson

The parable of Cameron’s kids

Will The Sun’s story about David Cameron leaving his daughter in a pub be politically damaging? Not in the least, I suspect. These stories only hurt if they seem to fit a trend of behaviour, or confirm what everyone suspects. But no one, even the prime minister’s harshest critic, could accuse him of neglecting his family or failing to prioritise his children. Those who have seen him around his kids usually come away feeling amazed, and envious, by the way he can just flick a switch, no matter how tough things are politically, and go into ‘family mode’: baking cakes, playing Star Wars games, being the model father. This is

Friday

David Blackburn

Leveson summons the big dogs

Gordon Brown, Sir John Major, Ed Miliband, Harriet Harman, Alex Salmond, Nick Clegg, George Osborne and David Cameron will appear before the Leveson Inquiry next week, for what will be the inquiry’s last week of evidence. All eyes, of course, will be on Cameron, who is due to appear on Thursday. He will be embarrassed once again by his past proximity to disgraced News International executives, and his handling of the News Corp BskyB takeover. He previewed his likely answers on BSkyB in an interview with Andrew Marr last week. He said that his intention was for Vince Cable to marshal the bid, but that was scuppered by Cable’s preposterous

Tim Morgan

The centre-right ideology vacuum

At times of economic crisis, successful governments need vision as well as competence. Recent events have called the coalition’s competence into question. What about its vision? As I argue in a new report, ministers have yet to present anything in the way of a novel philosophy. Coalition policies are sold in Labour language, and tested against Labour benchmarks. It seems that Cameron and Clegg aspire simply to be more competent, slightly less spendthrift versions of Blair and Brown. Vision is vital, because a government that is going to rescue Britain from crisis has to stand for something, and voters need to know what that something is. That we are in

David Blackburn

Cameron defies increasingly isolated Merkel

‘No’ used to be the French prerogative in matters of European integration. Charles de Gaulle made a late career out of it. But perhaps the title is passing to Britain. David Cameron indicated yesterday that he would veto any EU banking treaty that did not safeguard the City, as James said he would. Meanwhile, George Osborne joined Cameron in recognising that a European banking union, under design by ECB president Mario Draghi, is necessary if the euro is to survive. Angela Merkel agreed, saying that the answer to the present crisis was more Europe everywhere, only at a pace that suits weary German taxpayers. This sedate approach is becoming unsustainable.

Thursday

David Blackburn

Miliband resists temptation

There has been much speculation that Labour might insist on a referendum on Europe. This has been fuelled by numerous factors: the parlous state of the Eurozone, the increasingly likelihood of a 2-speed Europe and, above all, the fact that David Cameron doesn’t want the Tories to ‘bang on about Europe’, especially when in coalition with the Lib Dems. There have been a series of high-profile Labour interventions on the subject in recent weeks. Both Peter Mandelson and Ed Balls, arch-schemers both, have mulled the question in public, and the appointment of Jon Cruddas, a pronounced Eurosceptic, as the party’s policy reviewer, tickled fancies still further. But, today Ed Miliband

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Osborne’s City safeguards

Before David Cameron’s trip to Berlin later today, George Osborne appeared on the Today Programme to emphasise that in the event of a Eurozone banking union, Britain would require safeguards.   Given the importance of finance to this country, Cameron and Osborne can’t accept anything that creates a two-tier single market for financial services. The Tory leadership is also acutely aware that it was this issue that led to Cameron vetoing a proposed treaty last year. It would be politically dangerous for Cameron to do anything that could be characterised as undermining his own veto.   One option being floated by some Tory Eurosceptics is a British veto on financial

Douglas Murray

Syrian massacres expose Britain’s pretence

More than a week on from the massacre at Houla, another hundred or so men, women and children have been slaughtered in Hama, Syria. They were apparently stabbed to death and some of their bodies then burned. David Cameron has responded to this by describing the killings as ‘brutal and sickening’. William Hague had previously described the Houla massacre as ‘deeply disturbing.’ So what is Britain going to do about it? The Prime Minister has a suggestion: ‘I think that lots of different countries in the world — countries that sit around the UN Security Council table — have got to sit down today and discuss this issue.’ He goes

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Exclusive: Cameron’s offer to Scotland

Ed Miliband laid out his vision for Scotland today, which didn’t quite set the heather alight. But word reaches me about what David Cameron is planning. He has already said that if Scotland votes ‘No’ they’d get a special something as a thank-you. But he did not specify what that something was. A bluff, says Alex Salmond, the same lies that Jim Callaghan sold Scotland in the 1970s and the special something was 18 years of Tory government! But Cameron is working on an offer. Soon, the &”Scottish government” (as Salmond calls his half-government) will control 30 per cent of all money raised in Scotland. Cameron is thinking that, after

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Cameron’s reshuffle dilemmas

When David Cameron reshuffles his top team, one of the questions he’ll have to answer is what relationship he wants between the Conservative party and the coalition government. The Liberal Democrats have a deputy leader in Simon Hughes and a party president in Tim Farron who are quite often used by their leadership to try and put distance between them and the coalition. But there is no one who performs that role for the Conservatives.   Interestingly, Sayeeda Warsi has made clear that she would like to be freer to attack the Lib Dems. I also suspect that if she is moved in the reshuffle, whoever takes on the role

David Blackburn

Cameron’s Warsi-related problems

David Cameron finds himself in the same boat as Dr Frankenstein. Baroness Warsi, a political creation designed to bring Toryism to sceptical ethnic minorities in which Cameron has invested heavily, may have to be neutralised as she is engulfed by two inquiries. Paul Goodman writes of Cameron and Warsi’s awkward relationship in today’s Telegraph, and he makes three observations borne of his experience working with Warsi during the last parliament. They are: 1) That responsibility had been ‘placed on the shoulders of a politician of no independent standing and with zero parliamentary experience.’ 2) That Lady Warsi’s views on extremism aren’t Cameron’s.      3) That Warsi’s position is impossible: ‘condemned to

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Post-Jubilee, it’s back to a new European reality

As the Jubilee celebrations draw to a close, attention once more returns to events in Europe. There’s a distinct sense among politicians, and especially coalition ministers, that what is happening there will change British politics in a huge way. As one senior MP said to me over the weekend, if a country leaves the Euro then the economic crisis that follows will reset the rules of the politics.   Measures that would have been deemed impossible six months ago will suddenly be on the cards. We’ve already seen a flash of this with Theresa May’s suggestion that the freedom of movement across the European Union could be suspended in the

Monday

James Forsyth

The reshuffle is approaching

One of the issues that David Cameron is contemplating at the moment is the timing of the reshuffle. I hear that he devoted a considerable chunk of last week to thinking about the structure he wants for the government.   The pressing matter that has been delaying the move is doubts over whether certain ministers could survive or not; no Prime Minister wants to freshen up his government only to have to make more changes a few weeks later. So, it was deemed to be impossible to do one before Jeremy Hunt appeared before the Leveson Inquiry. Now, some in Number 10 think that the Prime Minister will have to