David cameron

Her Majesty has just delivered the first Conservative Queen’s Speech in 19 years — or as David Cameron described it, a ‘One Nation Queen’s Speech from a One Nation Government’. Here are the key pieces of legislation the government will be looking to pass over the next 12 months. Full Employment and Welfare Benefits Bill (and related legislation): To freeze the main rates of the majority of working-age benefits, tax credits and child benefit. Pensioners and extra costs relating to disability will be protected. The benefit cap will be reduced to £23,000 per year. A new Youth Allowance for 18-21 year olds will be introduced, with stronger work conditions. Automatic entitlement

Tomorrow’s Queen’s Speech will be almost cut and pasted from the Tory manifesto. Partly, this is because Number 10 believes that the Salisbury convention dictates that the House of Lords will not block policies that have a manifesto mandate. But it is also because the Tories wish to carry on in office where they left off in the campaign. They believe that continuing with both the message and the discipline they exhibited in the election is crucial to their future success. This desire to bring the campaign into government can be seen in Cameron’s latest staff appointments too. Giles Kenningham, who has been in charge of the highly effective CCHQ

The government’s announcement that EU migrants will not be able to vote in the EU referendum tells us a number of things about the way David Cameron is approaching this vote. Firstly, he’s keen to show everyone that he’s getting on with it – indeed, the Prime Minister seems reinvigorated on all fronts at the moment – and making announcements about the franchise is just one example of that. The second is that Cameron does not want the debate about the referendum to be one of an Establishment stitch-up. Allowing EU citizens to vote would be one way of encouraging such a narrative from certain parts of the ‘Out’ camp.

David Cameron was in an extremely confident mood when he addressed the press at the end of today’s EU summit in Riga. He continually joked about journalists needing to write stories about the trials and tribulations of his EU renegotiations over the next couple of years, but those stories not meaning very much at all. ‘My advice would be – a bit like the election, really – wait for the result!’ he said gleefully when asked whether he would get what he wanted from the renegotiation. But he later admitted that ‘I’m not going to say I was met with a sort of wall of love when I arrived.’ Still,

I love the series Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister for many reasons, among them the timeless, elegant dialogue that can be applied to today’s politics. Hearing the pledge emanating from Number 10 that very soon the UK will enjoy a ‘seven-day a week GP service’, conveniently devoid of any details as to how that service will be funded, staffed or brought to fruition, I am reminded of the following exchange: “Humphrey, I’ve been thinking.” “Good.” “I’m sure you will agree that so far my Premiership has been a great success” “Oh indeed!” “Yes, and I’ve been asking myself what I can do to continue this run of success.” “Have you

The three main Labour leadership candidates have now all said that they want a referendum on Britain’s relationship with the EU. But the party’s ‘official’ position – that is, the policy it went into the last election with that everyone seems quite keen to disown – is that there should not be a referendum. The party will not have chosen its leader by the time of next week’s Queen’s Speech, even if MPs seem to be making their minds up pretty quickly, and so when the EU referendum bill is published in that speech, the party will need to respond. It would perhaps make sense if that response wasn’t a