David cameron

Harriet Harman’s response to David Cameron’s statement on the G8 and G20 was noticeable for her attacking the Prime Minister for talking about bringing British troops home from Afghanistan within five years. Her criticism was that talking about withdrawal undermined the troops in the field, she sounded more like John McCain than I ever expected Harriet Harman to. She chose to reinforce her point by using quotes from Liam Fox about the effect that timelines have on military morale. Her use of the Fox quotes suggests that Labour see the Cameron Fox relationship as a weak point in the government. Certainly, Ben Brogan’s blog and Conservative Home’s description of the

Although David Cameron said later that he didn’t mean it, there was no mistaking the sincerity when he told Adam Boulton that “We cannot be there for another five years having effectively been there for nine years already”. In my News of the World column  today, I say that it’s pretty clear his Afghan strategy is to secure the earliest dignified exit. But I also say that this does not necessarily bode ill for defence more widely. I gather that George Osborne, fresh from the success of his Budget last week, is working on a plan that will freeze defence budget in cash terms (an 11% real terms cut over

Everything about the Cameron government comes in fives. Five year terms, a five-year coalition and now we learn that it is Cameron’s considered opinion that British troops cannot remain Afghanistan for another five years. All Cameron has offered is the hope that troops will be home before the proposed May 2015 election. Five more years in Helmand on the current trajectory would be extremely costly and unpopular, especially given the political pressure surrounding defence cuts. Cameron realises this but will the nature of Britain’s engagement change? The assumption was that Britain would mirror President Obama’s timetable and begin a gradual withdrawal next year. That political and military strategy depended on

To understand the budget properly, read James Forsyth’s cover story in The Spectator today. Sure, it was about reducing the deficit – but within it lie several political strategies which explain how George Osborne hopes to win a majority Conservative government. James says that those around Cameron will not entertain this notion – they “have been persuading themselves that coalition government is the best possible result”. But Osborne, he says, finds it deeply unsatisfactory and has a twin mission: fix the economy, and win outright next time. “He has been observing recently that Gordon Brown spent 13 years successfully creating Labour voters — mainly through state dependency — and that

Peter Walker, Baron Walker of Worcester, has died aged 78. He served as a Cabinet Minister in both the Heath and Thatcher governments. He was what might be termed derisively as a ‘Wet’, and was a leading figure on the liberal side of the Conservative Party for thirty years. He was a founder member of the Tory Reform Group, which propounds One Nation Toryism and economic efficiency, ideals that have, it might be argued, profoundly influenced David Cameron’s leadership. Walker served with distinction throughout the Thatcher government, carrying the brief for Wales, Energy and Food and Fisheries. As Energy Secretary, he was a key figure during the Miner’s Strike. Walker

Tick, tock, tick, tock: only three-and-a-bit days to go until George Osborne’s long-anticipated austerity Budget, and the coalition is gearing up its efforts to prepare us for the worst.  Exhibit A is David Cameron’s interview in the Times this morning, which contains few pleasantries and a whole heap of stern talk  – particularly for those in the public sector.  As the PM puts it: “There is no way of dealing with an 11 per cent budget deficit just by hitting either the rich of the welfare scrounger … there are three large items of spending that you can’t ignore and those are public sector pay, public sector pensions and benefits.”

I doubt David Cameron will have many better days in government than this. Considering the government cancelled a hospital project yesterday, today has passed as one long photo-op, free of incident. It began with Theresa May banning a radical Islamist cleric, Zakir Naik, displaying a resolve that eluded her immediate predecessors. The papers were full of Cameron’s ‘coup’ in Brussels yesterday; the only major news story that might have unnerved Cameron was the FT’s research into Tory immigration policy, which the FT calculates will hit growth and raise taxes. It was too esoteric to hit the TV screens, so too the cuts in arts funding. It must have been a

Gerard Baker has written the cover piece for this week’s magazine and it’s a must read. In it, he explains why ‘closer fiscal union’, as Rompuy terms it, is not to Germany’s advantage: ‘Any attempted fiscal union might well yield to Germany the biggest single vote in how much to raise in taxes and how to spend it. But it could still be outvoted by an alliance of smaller countries. Such a set-up would become an institutionalised mechanism by which German taxes will be siphoned off permanently to weaker European states. The nightmare for Germans is that an unholy alliance of Spanish, Greeks, Italians and Portuguese will be able to