Liberal democrats

A sustainable and permanent solution

‘A sustainable and permanent solution’, that was Lord Browne’s refrain this morning. Browne has aimed to fill the £1bn university funding black hole with a system that doesn’t prejudice the disadvantaged or force universities to privatise. Browne recommends that the tuition fee cap goes, but insists the Treasury should collect a levy from universities that charge above £6,000: fees set at £9,000 will cede 50 percent of £1,000 above £6,000, which will rise to 75 percent for fees of £12,000. This tapered levy is designed to discourage institutions from charging US-style of £20,000. Browne says that no English or Welsh student should be confronted with upfront costs – at the moment,

The AV rebels change tack

A little snippet from today’s Times (£) that is worth noting down: “Tory rebels will this week lift their threat to the date of next year’s proposed referendum on voting changes – because they believe May 5 offers the best chance of stopping the alternative vote (AV) system. That date coincides with the council elections in Scotland, Wales and most of England, and was thought likely to boost the ‘yes’ vote for replacing first-past-the-post general elections. Nick Clegg insists that the Lib Dems will not budge on the date. But a tactical rethink will see many AV sceptics wave it through when the Bill comes to the floor of the

Making the case for further tuition fees

Ever the opportunist, Ed Miliband recognised that university funding could be the coalition’s first test of resolve. Opposing a tuition fee hike has given him the chance to serenade disgruntled Liberal Democrats and to discard New Labour’s sheen (which so incensed Alan Johnson, the minister who introduced the fee in such difficult circumstances). Miliband is determined to mould the Labour party in his image. Speaking on the Politics Show yesterday (16:20 in), he said that the party, Johnson included, will strive to deliver a graduate tax. After a summer’s procrastination, the government has run out of time. The substance of Lord Browne’s recommendations is in the public domain and it

Vince Cable’s discomfort is shared by the coalition

The trouble with holding a ministerial debate in public is that, when it comes to the crunch, it’s obvious who the winners and losers are. So it is with Vince Cable and higher education funding. A couple of months ago, the business secretary tap-danced onto the stage with a (problematic) plan for a new graduate tax. Now, it seems clear that the Browne Review will reject his advice (£) in favour of increasing tuition fees. And so Cable has had to send out an excruciating email explaining why a graduate tax was never really a good idea in the first place. After the flip comes the flop, so to speak.

Alex Massie

More Mail Fail: Clegg Edition

Apparently the print edition of the Mail on Sunday screams “Hypocrisy” because Nick Clegg, though not a believer himself, is not averse to sending his eldest child to be educated at the (catholic) London Oratory. Like you, dearest reader, I look forward to the Mail opposing school choice. The online version of this nonsense does its best to be faux-outraged with “Why is atheist Nick Clegg considering sending his son to the same exclusive school as the Blairs?” It is not clear whether the atheism or the Blair connection is the more pernicious. Never mind that Clegg’s wife is catholic and the children are being brought up as catholics. Never

Huhne and the universal benefit conundrum

Chris Huhne has given an interview to the Telegraph. According to the front page report, the Energy Secretary has nothing to say about nuclear power, new wind farms or energy security; but rather a lot to say about economic and social policies that are strictly beyond his purview. Jeremy Hunt’s belief that child benefit should be limited across the board is dismissed because there are ‘limits to how much we can achieve through changes in the tax and benefits system’ – this week’s Spectator argues otherwise. Huhne also registers his profound cynicism for the marriage tax break – no surprises there and he has a point that austerity should not

Ken Clarke in the firing line

There’s an intriguing pre-conference story in the Mail on Sunday today. The paper reports that: “Ken Clarke faces a whispering campaign by allies of David Cameron and George Osborne to move him from Justice Minister because of his ‘disastrous’ views on law and order, it was claimed last night. Conservative MPs say Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are ‘ frustrated’ by Mr Clarke’s refusal to take a tougher line on key issues such as prison sentencing.” Clarke’s liberal views on criminal justice certainly are infuriating his colleagues. Allies of Theresa May have been heard to complain that “Ken is going to send the crime rate soaring and we’re going to

Fraser Nelson

Society 3, The State 0

Cameron and Osborne may just be about to pull off something incredible. This time last year, The Spectator ran a cover story about a new proposal which we could revolutionise welfare: the Universal Credit. It was an IDS idea: he’d sweep away all 50-odd benefits, and replace it with a system that ran on a simple principle – if someone did extra work, they’d get to keep most of the money they earned. It meant a bureaucratic overhaul, of a system that controls the lives of 5.9 million people. The resistance from HM Treasury, the architect of the tax credit system, was as fierce as it was predictable. But Clegg

Lib Dems to the right of their Tory colleagues?

I’ve re-read it several times now and I’m still not sure whether Francis Maude was joking or not when he told The Times that Danny Alexander ‘is obviously a bit to the right of me’. It is the kind of thing that the dry-witted Maude might say as a joke. But equally there’s no signal there that it is. But Mr Alexander occupies an odd place politically at the moment for a Liberal Democrat. He has become an ardent budget-balancer. Indeed, Nick Clegg has been heard to observe recently that his former chief of staff has had his brain captured by Treasury officials.

Many Lib Dems want to be part of the New Generation

Politics tends to ruin an evening in the pub. On Wednesday, I came across a friend who had been a card-carrying Lib Dem prior to the coalition’s formation. He confessed that he’d been impressed by Ed Miliband’s speech and had joined the Labour party. Several other Lib Dem supporters attending agreed that Ed Miliband is a more attractive option than David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Everyone else in this small band (mostly unaffiliated voters with the odd furtive Tory) believed that Labour has probably elected the wrong Miliband, but were antagonistic to Labour in any case. Politics Home has published formal research suggesting that only Lib Dems clearly favour Ed

A small step for Labour, not a giant leap

I had expected Ed Miliband to do pretty well in the polls. He’s unknown, and voters haven’t had a chance to dislike him yet. That’s not an insult – familiarity breeds contempt in politics, and the public are normally quite quick to give a new guy the benefit of the doubt. Witness the Clegg bubble. But tomorrow’s Guardian shows precious little sign of a conference bounce. The two parties were level before the conferences – a remarkable achievment for a leaderless party. The Tories took three years to do the same. It was one of many reasons that inspired our cover story last week, “Labour leaps forward”. The illustration, by

The IMF delivers a boost for George Osborne

The proclamations of economists and economic bodies shouldn’t be taken as the be-all-and-end-all of fiscal policy – for every one claiming that a decision is right, you can find another insisting that it is wrong. But the coalition will still be pleased by the influential International Monetary Fund’s latest report, here. It begins: “The UK economy is on the mend. Economic recovery is underway, unemployment has stabilized, and financial sector health has improved. The government’s strong and credible multi-year fiscal deficit reduction plan is essential to ensure debt sustainability. The plan greatly reduces the risk of a costly loss of confidence in public finances and supports a balanced recovery. Fiscal

Cameron neglects to mention his tax cut for the middle classes

David Cameron’s interview in the Telegraph this morning is striking for three reasons. First, despite the interview appearing on the day of the Labour leadership declaration, there’s no attempt to bring the hammer down on the new Labour leader. All we get is some framing on the deficit. Next, as Paul Goodman notes, it is an attempt to reassure the Tory faithful after the Lib Dem conference Vince Cable is gently put back in his box with the line ‘Vince is Vince’. Cameron also stresses that he ‘will always safeguard our nuclear deterrent’; a line that is very different from the nakedly political discussions of Trident in Liverpool, where what

Three quarters of voters side with Cable

Politics Home has published an important poll, showing the staggering level of support for Vince Cable’s conference speech. The government will be pleased that its political attack on the financial services industry’s continued excess at time of austerity is cutting through; on the other hand, this could be seen as support for Cable’s emotive rhetoric. Worse still, the poll suggests that traditional Tory voters are the only group for whom Nick Clegg is more impressive than Cable. The business secretary has to be kept in government – the coalition can’t afford to have a charismatic wreaking havoc from the backbenches. Support for Vince Cable conference speech Who are the impressive

The trouble with Cable’s posturing

What are we to make of the fact that No.10 gave the thumbs-up to Vince Cable’s bizarre anti-capitalist rhetoric today? “Capitalism takes no prisoners and it kills competition where it can,” he fumed – and you can argue that, technically, he is paraphrasing Adam Smith. But he has been in politics long enough to know what signal his speech sent out (and the reaction it would trigger). Mood music counts for a lot in politics, and in business. And the mood music from this government sounds like a bunch of politicians happy to tax the bejesus out of the high-paid – regarding them as ATM machines to be raided, rather

James Forsyth

Vince’s land tax land grab

There was one notable bit of kite flying in Vince Cable’s speech earlier, an indication that he wants the next Liberal Democrat manifesto to contain a commitment to a land tax. This would give the party a distinctive policy going into the next election. With the proceeds of a land tax, they could abolish stamp duty and still have a lot of fiscal wriggle room allowing it to propose increasing the income tax threshold or spending more on certain public services. There’s already work going on in Lib Dem circles on how to model a land tax and to find how much revenue it would raise.  Here’s the key section

James Forsyth

Bonuses: a question of political economy

There is a reason why the coalition has used the Lib Dem conference to step up its rhetoric about the bankers and their bonuses. The coalition believes, rightly, that balancing the budget is a matter of political economy. It is acutely aware, and has been for some time, that the sight of banks paying out huge bonuses later this year just as the public sector begins to lay people off and cut services would be disastrous. This view is shared by everyone in the coalition from Cable to Osborne. Bumper bonuses would increase calls for new punitive measures against the banks and produce precisely the kind of political atmosphere that

All so predictable from Cable

If Vince Cable has achieved anything, it’s to enliven a Lib Dem conference that had settled into cosy anonymity after Clegg’s speech on Monday. He has now delivered the address that David blogged about earlier – and all of the firebrand passages trailed in this morning’s papers were present and correct. “Capitalism,” Cable warned, “kills competition where it can.” And he followed that lead to kick the bankers where he could. In between passages extolling the virtues of “pro business, pro market” policy, he set about the “spiv and gamblers” who had triggered the financial crisis. To be honest, though, I find it hard to get too worked up about this. Sure,

James Forsyth

Lib Dem activists less than gleeful about the coalition

Last night, Liberal Democrats gathered for their traditional conference glee club. It is a light-hearted occasion with lots of communal singing and jokes. But some of the gags did seem to vocalise a certain unease about the coalition.   There was a very lusty rendition of a song that went like this, to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas: On the first day of coalition The Tories gave to me A referendum on AV On the second day of merger The Tories gave to me Absolutely zilch And a referendum on AV On the third day of coalition The Tories gave to me Sweet FA Absolutely zilch And