David cameron

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

The implosion of Scottish Labour means the battle for Britain has only just begun

Gordon Brown is holding an adjournment debate on the union this evening, which comes after an Ashcroft poll which shows precisely what danger the union is in. If today’s polls were tomorrow’s election result, the SNP would have 55 out of 59 seats in Scotland. It’s even set to lose Coatbridge, where it picked up 67pc of the vote at the last election. Yes, all this will help the Tories in the short term: Cameron needs the SNP to destroy Labour in the north and the SNP need Cameron in No10 – remember, their political model is based on grudge and gripe. Without a villain, Alex Salmond won’t have a pantomime. But back

Tuesday

Steerpike

How does he do it? Nick Clegg finds time to party with Prince in Camden

With party press officers keen to prevent scenes similar to the cringe-worthy moment of elections past when Gordon Brown dubiously declared his love for the Arctic Monkeys, Mr S notes that today’s politicians are sticking to musicians closer to their own age. First David Cameron declared his love for 70s crooner Bryan Ferry in a radio interview, and now Nick Clegg has been spotted moshing at a Prince gig at KOKO in Camden. Clegg somehow found time out of his election campaign to party alongside the likes of Naomi Campbell, Noel Gallagher and Jimmy Carr. It’s not the first time the Deputy Prime Minister has championed the 80s singer. However, in an interview in 2010 Clegg said

Monday

Fraser Nelson

Freezing the education budget won’t hurt pupils. Here’s why

David Cameron has today been refreshingly honest about his plans for school funding in England: budgets will be flat, which (when you factor in inflation) will mean a drop of 7 per cent over the next parliament. Cue much mockery from Labour. But what will this mean for the future of education quality? Not very much, if the experience of the Labour years is anything to go by. Under Blair and Brown, school spending more than doubled while England hurtled down the world education performance tables. So if doubling the budget didn’t help, then why should freezing it hurt? The strange thing about education is that it’s not so responsive to cash. A brilliant teacher

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Young voters show up why Cameron wants to avoid TV debates

David Cameron and Nick Clegg naturally had the toughest tasks today when they faced young voters for the Sky question-and-answer sessions because they are having to defend policies their government has pursued. Clegg, who is normally very good at Q&As, grew rather wound up when having to defend the tuition fees U-turn and seemed more on the defensive than he needed to. Cameron has just finished his session, where his demeanour that normally makes him appear commanding and Prime Ministerial gave him a slightly wooden quality as he answered questions. It underlined why Cameron wants to avoid the debates: he will have to defend what he has done while opposition

Dennis Sewell

If Cameron wants an ‘all-out war’ on mediocre schools, why did he get rid of Gove?

It is odd to hear David Cameron promise an ‘all-out war on mediocrity’ in education. An admirable sentiment, but it’s hard to reconcile with the fact that he demoted the very person who was working so successfully for that precise aim. Here’s what he intends to say in a speech later today: ‘So this party is clear. Just enough is not good enough. That means no more sink schools – and no more ‘bog standard’ schools either. We’re waging an all-out war on mediocrity, and our aim is this: the best start in life for every child, wherever they’re from – no excuses.’ When a politician says ‘this is clear’

Thursday

Taki

Those ancient Greeks were bores — but things are looking up

Thick snow is falling hard and heavy, muffling sounds and turning the picturesque village postcard beautiful. I am lying in bed listening to a Mozart version of ‘Ave Maria’, a heavenly soprano almost bringing tears to my eyes with the loveliness of it. This is the civilisation of our ancestors — one that gave us Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven and built cathedrals all over the most wondrous continent in the world. It is now being replaced by a higher one in which distinctions of ethnicity and religion will no longer be tolerated. The human race has a limitless capacity for self-improvement, and it shows where architecture, the arts and music

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 29 January 2015

Home Party leaders mercilessly launched 100 days of campaigning before the general election on 7 May. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said he would reduce the annual maximum household receipt of welfare to £23,000 from the current limit of £26,000. Ed Miliband announced a ten-year plan for the National Health Service, but Alan Milburn, a former Labour health secretary, said: ‘You’ve got a pale imitation actually of the 1992 general election campaign and maybe it will have the same outcome.’ Amjad Bashir, a Ukip MEP, switched to the Conservative party, upon which Ukip said he was being investigated over ‘unanswered financial and employment questions’, allegations he denied. Peers dropped an

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Merkel’s difficulty is Cameron’s opportunity

In the run-up to the Greek election, European figures were adamant that there wasn’t as much to worry about as people thought. They argued that Syriza wouldn’t come close to winning a majority and that it would have to do a coalition deal with Potami who would end up moderating its demands. This complacency was misplaced. Syriza came within a whisker of a majority and then formed a coalition with right wing nationalists, the Greek Independents, who agree with Syriza on very little other than the need to end EU-imposed austerity. Politically, it is very hard to see how the Greek situation can be resolved. Syriza’s entire rationale as a

Steerpike Steerpike

Coming soon: David Cameron’s obituary

Isabel Oakeshott has gone to such lengths to get close to David Cameron for the biography she is helping Lord Ashcroft write that she has even been pictured following him on his jogs. Now David Cameron’s nemesis Ashcroft has given an insight into what readers can expect from the tome. Speaking at the Political Book Awards, Ashcroft, who was a sponsor of the event, had a choice use of words to describe the biography of the Prime Minister. ‘I hope that next year with Isabel Oakeshott that we may have one of the books up there for ‘Political Book of the Year’. As most of you know we are writing

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Europe’s crisis is Cameron’s opportunity

Napoleon notoriously preferred his generals to be lucky — and on that score at least, he would have approved of David Cameron. The triumph of the Syriza party in Greece presents him with a glorious opportunity to solve the European question that has bedevilled the Tories for so long. Europe’s difficulty is Cameron’s opportunity. The European elite has been shaken by the scale of Syriza’s victory. Just a few weeks ago, Cameron was arguing in private that Greek voters, who remain overwhelmingly pro-EU, would ultimately not back a party that was intent on a confrontation with the eurozone authorities. European diplomats stressed that even if Syriza won it wouldn’t get

Tuesday

Steerpike

Cameron reckons Gove prefers a ‘chillax playlist’ to ‘hip-hoppy’ Beyoncé tunes

After Sarah Vine revealed that her husband Michael Gove’s ringtone that infamously disrupted a cabinet meeting was the latest Beyoncé hit, David Cameron has thrown doubt on this version of events. Speaking to LBC this morning, the PM was tackling the big issues. When host Nick Ferrari played a series of Beyoncé tunes, Call Me Dave seemed confused: ‘I don’t think it was any, my memory is it sounded like something from the sort of chillax playlist on Spotify. It wasn’t… that’s all a bit more you know sort of hip-hoppy and I don’t think it was that. But I mean it didn’t last very long. So we weren’t playing beat the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron wriggles further away from the TV debates

David Cameron had clearly planned his answers to his Today programme so that a casual listener might think that he really is very keen for the TV debates to take place. He sounded ever so earnest, and repeatedly said that he does want the debates to take place. But when Justin Webb asked the crucial question – which was tell us you’re going to do the TV debates, rather than that you just want them to happen – the Prime Minister’s pretence was exposed. listen to ‘Cameron: Debates ‘take all the life out of the campaign’’ on audioBoom He doesn’t want the TV debates to happen, and now that his

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

David Cameron should support work through tax cuts, not more apprenticeships

In a Telegraph interview, David Cameron today pledges to cut the welfare cap – to £23,000 from £26,000 – to fund another three million apprentice places. He says that this:- ‘Tells you everything you need to know about our values’ He is refreshingly honest, in that this welfare/apprenticeships policy is designed to articulate Conservative Party values rather than actually help the country. He wants to send a message: the Tories stand for work, not welfare. So here is policy intended to take away from those on welfare, and give to those in work. It’s encouraging that the Tories seem to be edging away from George Osborne’s spurious claims about the deficit

Monday

Steerpike

Should the Guardian apologise to David Cameron over orgasm blunder?

Readers of the Guardian had cause to splutter into their tea this morning after one bright spark seemingly put the wrong photo on an article advising a reader who has difficulty reaching climax during sexual intercourse. Some mistake surely by the @guardian website’s picture editor pic.twitter.com/HLufxoiuoW — Paul Callaghan (@PMCallaghan) January 26, 2015 Although the reader’s name was not listed, it is thought that it was not David Cameron writing in with his problem. Mr S imagines he would go straight to The Spectator‘s own Dear Mary should any issues arise. The photo on the article has now been changed to a more generic snap. It would certainly make an interesting read in their corrections column.

Steerpike Steerpike

Dave’s chillaxed approach to keeping fit

First it was George Osborne on the 5:2 diet, then the Prime Minister revealed he had ‘given up bread’ in an attempt to shed some pre-election pounds. Today, Cameron has revealed further details of this vigorous health kick. Speaking in Hampshire, he claimed he rambles through the Oxfordshire countryside with his daughter Florence upon his shoulders ‘to add to the exercise regime I am undertaking’. You be careful there, Prime Minister. Don’t exert yourself too much.

Sunday

Damian Thompson

Oftsed’s campaign against Christian schools: now Gove is gone, the Blob is back

When Ofsted inspectors allegedy asked primary-age girls at Grindon Hall Christian School, Sunderland, whether they knew what lesbians did in bed, they (apparently) received insufficiently detailed answers. Also, pupils displayed scant knowledge of Hindu festivals. Now the free school has been placed in special measures. It may be that Grindon Hall is a nest of Christian fundamentalist bigotry. I rather doubt it, though. Likewise, I’m unconvinced – to put it mildly – that St Benedict’s Catholic comprehensive, Bury St Edmonds, ‘failed to promote British values’ by neglecting citizenship classes. A better explanation comes to mind. Having claimed the scalp of Michael Gove, ‘the Blob’ is bouncing jubilantly around the Department for Education. Nicky

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Labour signs up to debates as broadcasters threaten an empty chair

So the broadcasters have done what many thought they’d be too afraid to do and have threatened to empty chair David Cameron – or anyone else who refuses to take part – in the TV debates. In a statement released this afternoon, BBC, ITV, Sky and Channel 4 said ‘in the event that any of the invited party leaders decline to participate, debates will take place with the party leaders who accept the invitation’. They have also said the debates will all take place within the short campaign, which Cameron didn’t want either. Labour has said it will sign up to the debates, while others continue to grumble. But naturally

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Conservative Central Office appears to be working for the SNP

Even by the standards of the Conservative and Unionist (sic) party this is an impressively stupid poster. Do they really want to encourage Scots to vote for the SNP? Evidently they do. Of course we know why. Every seat Labour lose in Scotland makes it less and less likely Labour will emerge from the election as the largest party. Consequently, every SNP gain makes it a little more likely David Cameron will have a chance of cobbling together a second ministry. But, my god, think of the price at which that comes. In their desperation to stop Miliband the Tories are prepared to risk the future of the United Kingdom.

Steerpike Steerpike

Louise Mensch blasts David Cameron for King Abdullah tribute

Although Louise Mensch was once heralded as a ‘Cameron Cutie,’ the former Conservative MP’s relationship with the Prime Minister has soured after he paid tribute to the late King Abdullah. The Saudi Arabia monarch’s death was announced yesterday, with the cause of death thought to be a lung infection. Speaking following the news, Cameron gushed that he would be remembered for his ‘commitment to peace and for strengthening understanding between faiths’. However, the fact that his reign in Saudi Arabia has seen a higher number of beheadings than those carried out by Isis appears to have not escaped Mensch’s attention. She took to Twitter to say that if Cameron or any other Conservative politician dared praise Abdullah in spite of his treatment of women, she would

Thursday

The Spectator

Don’t believe the gloom-mongers: deflation will be good for Britain

Campaigning in Putney in 1978, Mrs Thatcher famously took out a pair of scissors and cut a pound note down the middle, telling her audience that the remaining stump represented what was left of the pound in your pocket after four years of Labour and high inflation. David Cameron may soon be able to repeat the stunt — except rather than cutting a note in half he will be able to stick a bit on the end to represent the extra buying power being granted to consumers courtesy of deflation. Inflation on the government’s preferred measure, the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), has fallen to 0.5 per cent. With the price