Uk politics

Ed Balls’ softer language about Nick Clegg might be an inevitable repositioning of the Labour party in the run-up to another hung parliament in 2015, or it might be the shadow chancellor trying to get ahead of the game after the end to his 2013 was rather bruising. But it is worth mulling the sorts of things that, aside from personalities, the two parties could struggle with. One is the language that those at the top have used about Labour wrecking the recovery. At the 2013 Lib Dem autumn conference, Nick Clegg said: ‘Labour would wreck the recovery. The Conservatives would give us the wrong kind of recovery.’ Some Labour

Alex Salmond might not wish to be compared to Gordon Brown but there is one sense in which the two dominant Scottish political personalities of the age are more alike than either would care to acknowledge: they each love a good dividing line. In Edinburgh yesterday Salmond announced that all pupils in their first three years of primary school would henceforth be entitled to a free school lunch. This, he claimed, would save parents £330 a year per child. A useful benefit for those parents whose offspring do not currently qualify for free meals; a means of ending, the First Minister suggested, the stigma presently endured by those children who

George Osborne’s speech on the need for £25 billion more cuts has opened up some strange dividing lines in Westminster. Labour has done exactly what the Chancellor wanted and questioned the need for the cuts. Nick Clegg has also fallen into place as Osborne hoped and moaned about them being unfair. But Clegg has found an unlikely ally in Iain Duncan Smith, who has let it be known that he does not much like the idea that Osborne could cut a further £1 billion from the welfare bill. So who did Boris Johnson cosy up to this morning when he had his say? Well, the Mayor was certainly keen to

We already knew that the Chancellor would focus on welfare as a field ripe for further cuts in his speech in Birmingham today. When he delivered that speech, George Osborne announced that the Treasury’s current forecasts suggest that £12 billion of further welfare cuts are needed in the first two years of the next Parliament, and framed this as a challenge to all parties not to let voters down by refusing to cut benefits. He said: ‘So when you see people on the telly who say that welfare can’t be cut anymore – or, even worse, promising they will reverse the changes we’ve already made and increase housing benefit –

One of the most significant things about David Cameron’s Sunday Times interview today was something he didn’t say. The Prime Minister made maintaining the triple lock for pensions for the next Parliament ‘the first plank of the next general election manifesto’, but he didn’t make any ‘read-my-lips’ promises about anything else related to those of pensionable age. Why not? Did this mean the Conservatives are going to drop their support for universal pensioner benefits such as the winter fuel payment and free bus passes? His interview on Marr suggested that this could well happen. Here is the transcript of the relevant exchange: Andrew Marr: While we’re talking about life on

Beyond the slew of amusing ‘No man’s hand’ photos of the beleaguered François Hollande trying and failing to find support from other European leaders, there are a number of implications for the British political scene of the beleaguered French leader’s latest crisis, in which he has been forced to admit that taxes have been too heavy while watching his country’s manufacturing sector fall behind that of Greece and borrowing costs rise. The first is that David Cameron has a perfect case study of what happens when you stick your fingers in your ears and repeatedly say there is an alternative. He’s already deployed that case study this year in his

Could the north of England do with its own Boris Johnson? In a new report out today, the IPPR think tank argues that a ‘northern voice’ is needed to lobby the government on the region’s priorities. The Mayor of London has shown himself proficient at making the case for London’s transport and budgeting needs. Although the IPPR may be right, that there’s plenty of work needed to rebalance the economy, better national representation for the North isn’t a new problem. In fact, the North has previously said no to several possible solutions. A decade ago, John Prescott’s plan for regional assemblies was overwhelmingly rejected by a northern referendum. Instead of

I’m sure the families clearing up after the Christmas and New Year floods have neither the time nor inclination to wonder if the floods were caused by climate change or not. Nevertheless the question has come up, as it inevitably seems to every time there is an extreme weather event nowadays. So, let’s look at the facts. Met Office data shows that four out of the five wettest years on record have been since year 2000. Official reports have repeatedly warned that the risk of flooding is becoming worse because of global warming. The Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Climate Change Risk Assessment warns ‘floods and coastal