David cameron

Edinburgh If anyone had any doubts why Alex Salmond picked up almost every UK political award going last year, then they should study how he has dealt with the referendum issue this week. At every turn he has out-manoeuvred his UK counterparts — and this was perfectly demonstrated tonight. Earlier today, in the Commons, Michael Moore, the Scottish Secretary, had delivered the UK government’s riposte to the SNP’s referendum plans. Mr Moore was considered, clever and smart. In fact, it was a first cogent and effective strike back by the UK government on this issue for more than a year. But what will lead tomorrow’s papers in Scotland? It won’t

The Cabinet is meeting about 5 miles away from Downing Street today, at the Olympic Park in Stratford. But its collective mind will be on a patch of land another 270 miles further on still. Yep, Scotland and Scottish independence are the matters at hand today. According to the Beeb, David Cameron and his ministers will discuss their ideas for the referendum, its content and its timing. It’s thought that they may allow a referendum that’s binding on the UK government – but only so long as it takes place in the next eighteen months, and offers a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ vote on independence. You can understand Cameron’s thinking

James has already blogged the Sunday Telegraph’s interview with David Cameron, but some other things stand out from it — and not just the PM’s unthinking attack on Ed Balls either, for which he has since apologised. Take these paragraphs on tax, for instance: ‘The Prime Minister effectively rules out any move towards a “mansion tax” — a levy on high-priced properties proposed by the Liberal Democrats — or indeed any new tax on wealth. “I don’t believe, generally speaking, we should be looking at endless additional taxes.” However, he signals that the 50p top rate of income tax, on earnings above £150,000, will remain for the time being, despite

After being mostly absent in an embarrassing week, which culminates in today’s Sun headline of ‘Block Ed’ referring to the Labour leader’s Twitter gaffe yesterday, Ed Miliband has emerged with a self-assured interview in the Guardian. In parts, he is even boastful. Miliband declares himself ‘someone of real steel and grit’ and brags ‘I am the guy who took on Murdoch… I am the guy that said the rules of capitalism as played in the last 30 years have got to change’. He claims – contrary to Maurice Glasman’s criticism this week – to have ‘a very clear plan’ about what needs to change in Britain. And what is it

It was the second of the Today Programme’s New Year’s interviews with the three party leaders today; this one with David Cameron. And there was plenty to digest from it. So much, in fact, that we thought we’d bash out a transcript, so that CoffeeHousers can read it through for themselves. That’s below, but before we get there it’s worth highlighting a couple of things that Cameron says. First, his point that ‘we’ve seen a level of reward at the top that just hasn’t been commensurate with success’, which is another volley in the battle against the ‘undeserving rich’ that James mentioned yesterday. And then his extended admission, in reference

Before Christmas, The Times’s Sam Coates managed to get his hands on Labour’s ‘media grid’ for the week — and much Westminster-y fun it was too. But now he’s gone one better, by publishing a strategy memo that Ed Miliband’s director of communications, Tom Baldwin, has produced for his Labour colleagues. It’s well worth reading in full, here and here, not least because it outlines the party’s argument for the coming year. In summary, though, it’s much like Miliband’s New Year’s address: more of the same, with a side order of fiscal responsibility. Baldwin emphasises the ‘squeezed middle’ and Labour’s ‘five-point plan for jobs and growth’, but he also adds:

Well, folks, the 2012 model of Ed Miliband looks and sounds rather like the unfancied 2011 model. Just compare the New Year message that he released today with the one that he issued a year ago; the similarities are plenty. His main argument this year is that the Tories are the party of gloom — resigned to years of stagnancy, unemployment, pestilence, etc — whereas Labour are the party of a bright new future, there to show that ‘optimism can defeat despair’. Or, as he put it at the end of last year, ‘Even in these tough times, we must keep the flame of optimism burning.’ There are some differences, though.

Officially, of course, the answer to that question is William Hague – who has put in some decent work since assuming office, particularly during the Arab Spring. But, still, I ask it because, following the European Council, Nick Clegg seems to have usurped the Foreign Secretary’s role in a number of key areas. It was the Deputy Prime Minister who engaged the newly-elected Spanish leader, for example. It was also Clegg, not Hague, who was instrumental in bringing German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle to Britain on a ‘we still love you’ visit yesterday. And when it comes to phoning European leaders to press a UK position, it is the Deputy

Under cover of discussing the Open Society and its enemies, Nick Clegg today set out his personal agenda for the next year of this government. Indeed, Clegg’s speech to Demos earlier was perhaps the purest distillation of his politics since the big set-piece number he delivered at the Lib Dem conference in 2008. It contained many of the same themes as that earlier speech: ‘social mobility’, ‘civil liberties’, and ‘democracy’. And it added a couple more for good measure: ‘political pluralism’ and ‘internationalism’. The Deputy Prime Minister described these five political impulses as ‘the source of my liberalism’. As for the specifics, there was Tory-baiting to be found in Clegg’s