Uk politics

Tuesday

Sebastian Payne

How can Labour respond to the rapid rise and popularity of free schools?

As the new school year begins, the Department for Education has announced 93 new free schools are opening — more than double opened last September — creating 46,000 new places. With a total of 174 free schools now open, the evidence suggests Michael Gove’s free school programme is taking off. This is how many have opened since the election: But though free schools are flourishing, there’s still a squeeze underway.  The Local Government Association today warns that half of the school districts in England will run out of places within two years due to ‘unnecessary restrictions’ on councils: ‘Its analysis of local authority data suggests about 1,000 of the 2,277

Ryan Bourne

Increasing the minimum wage will only harm the lowest paid

‘If you earn £6 an hour flipping burgers then Allegra might have good news for you,’ said Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight yesterday. Paxman was of course introducing the mooted Conservative Party policy idea to increase the minimum wage, a story reported by Allegra Stratton. Stratton responded: ‘We’ve learnt that the Prime Minister’s advisors are thinking of turning Tory policy on its head and raising the minimum wage – not yet, but some time before the next election.’ For me, this brief exchange and the rest of the Newsnight piece reflected the state of the debate on this issue in the UK. First, Jeremy Paxman assumed that those flipping burgers would

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Andrew Lansley: we can’t afford to delay the Lobbying Bill

For a bill purportedly about transparency, the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill has quite a lot of muddied water swirling around it at the moment. Leader of the House Andrew Lansley is currently giving evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee on the legislation, which many fear has all sorts of unintended consequences (it’s worth reading Mark Wallace on ConHome for more detail on the potential problems). But the chair of the Committee, Graham Allen, is an outspoken critic of the Bill. He thinks it’s a dog’s breakfast (Douglas Carswell recently went one better, saying ‘far more thought has gone into pet nutrition’, and Paul

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A Game of Numbers: Pollsters Go To War in Scotland

On Sunday an opinion poll was just a poll. Nothing to be too excited by. Unreliable too. The real poll – the one that counts – is still a year away. So put not your faith in numbers. Disappointment that way lies. On Monday the mood in the Scottish nationalist camp changed. Opinion polls now offered a persuasive and necessary reminder that Scotland’s on the march. A march that ends in freedom and liberty and whisky next September as an ancient country reasserts her prerogatives  and takes here rightful place in the family of nations once again. Polls are pure dead brilliant, don’t you know? From which you will gather

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

CCHQ is already carrying out Andy Coulson’s GQ advice on Ukip

The Conservative party may have lost its summer momentum, but at least it isn’t worrying about Ukip at the moment. Former spin chief Andy Coulson is doing some worrying in this month’s GQ on the Tory party’s behalf, warning that the party needs an even stronger message on Europe to counter the threat of Nigel Farage’s party. But some of his advice will hearten CCHQ, as spinners and researchers are already ahead of Coulson. The article says: ‘UKIP must be taken seriously so as to expose just how empty-headed it really is. Every utterance must be recorded and analysed, every speech given proper attention by some of the bigger, more

Monday

Sebastian Payne

Could making Whitehall smaller, better, faster, stronger save £70 billion?

The government could save £70 billion from the Whitehall spending bill by moving into a new digitised age. That’s the gist of a new report from Policy Exchange, detailing the amount of archaic waste that exists in the civil service. Some of the examples in the Smaller, Better, Faster, Stronger report are astounding — the Crown Prosecution Service prints one million sheets of paper every day. Two articulated lorries loaded with letters and paperwork drive into the DVLA every day. Policy Exchange suggests many of these wasteful paper-based services could be taken to a central online location, aka the GOV.UK website. Bringing the government’s online presence into once place has been divisive. I think it’s a great example of

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Philip Hammond: No 2nd Syria vote ‘unless the circumstances change very significantly’

Defence Questions this afternoon was, as you might expect, a rather chippy affair. It seemed that whenever Philip Hammond rose to answer a question, he answered it by reminding the Labour MP asking it of their party’s decision to oppose the government’s motion on Syria. Nowhere was this more the case than in the Defence Secretary’s exchange with Jim Murphy, where both men set out some interesting wriggle room in their party positions on a second vote. listen to ‘Hammond: ‘Circumstances would have to change very significantly’ before MPs get another vote on military action in Syria’ on Audioboo

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

No 10: Absolutely no plans for a second vote on Syria. Labour: We could consider it

Will there be a second vote on Syria? As you might expect, that question dominated today’s lobby briefing with the Prime Minister’s official spokesman. He told journalists that ‘there has been no change’ in the Prime Minister’s view since Thursday’s vote and that ‘parliament has spoken: that’s why the government has absolutely no plans to go back to Parliament’. As I said this morning, the only way in which you’d be at all safe putting money on another vote on this matter would be if Ed Miliband came back to Cameron and pledged his support. And on this, Labour is being rather less equivocal than the government. Chuka Umunna has

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg: We won’t ask Parliament the same question on Syria

Nick Clegg has this morning added his own voice to those at the top of the Coalition saying they won’t go back to Parliament for another vote on Syria. The Deputy Prime Minister was careful to be clear that he and his colleagues respected parliament’s verdict, and didn’t want to push MPs when they had already made their views clear: ‘We’re not going to keep asking the same question of Parliament again and again. We live in a democracy, the executive cannot act in a way which clearly is not welcome to Parliament or the British people, so we’re not proposing to do so… I can’t foresee any circumstances where we

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The second vote that MPs really should hold on Syria

Even though George Osborne did everything he could yesterday to kill talk of a second vote in the House of Commons on action in Syria, speculation about that vote still makes the front pages this morning. There are probably safer bets to place. But one of the failings of Parliament last week – amidst all the cheering for a boost for democracy that is apparently characterised by ministers getting stuck in soundproofed rooms and missing key votes – was that in failing to pass either the government motion or the Labour amendment, Parliament failed to even condemn the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. That was underlined by

Sunday

James Forsyth

George Osborne: There’ll be no second Commons vote on Syria

There’ll be no second parliamentary vote on Syria, George Osborne stressed this morning. There had been speculation that following President Obama’s decision to go to Congress before using military force, meaning that strikes won’t happen before the week of the 9th of September, there could be a second parliamentary vote on UK military involvement. But Osborne scotched that idea on the Andrew Marr show this morning. listen to ‘Osborne – No second Syria vote’ on Audioboo Obama’s decision, though, has eased the political pressure on David Cameron. Judging by some of the coverage this morning, he’s not a bungling leader who couldn’t get his way with his own parliament, but

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

Could there be a second UK vote on Syria?

After the special relationship was found still breathing this afternoon, is there a chance UK involvement in Syria action might have life in it yet? If Congress does not debate and vote on action until 9 September, there is time for the UN weapons inspectors to report and the UN Security Council to vote. This assumes Congress does approve action (and Obama said he was confident he would get the support, hopefully based on better intelligence than that which led Cameron to be equally confident at the start of this week). But if all of those conditions are met, would the Labour party support action? If they would – and

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Obama follows Cameron by seeking Congressional approval for Syria strike

As he licks his wounds after this week’s Commons defeat on Syria, David Cameron will have been given a huge boost this evening to hear that President Obama has decided to seek approval from Congress before starting any strikes. Obama said: ‘Over the last several days, we’ve heard from several members of Congress who want their voices to be heard. I absolutely agree.’ This suggests that those who tried to certify the special relationship dead probably need a refresher course in vital signs as it clearly isn’t headed for the mortuary, rather an acute unit (and Fraser explained why that assessment was wrong this morning). Perhaps it shows that Obama

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Cameron and Obama: our relationship is still special

David Cameron and Barack Obama spoke this evening about their special relationship. Normally when people start talking a lot about their relationships in public, it’s because something is wrong (or they’ve just started out and like to hold loud and impressive conversations about whether to cook the salmon or the homemade ravioli in front of as many people as possible). So the fact that the importance of the special relationship was not just raised in the call, but included in the Number 10 readout suggests the pair were calling in the marriage counsellors. A No 10 spokesperson said: ‘The President stressed his appreciation of his strong friendship with the Prime

Sebastian Payne

Syria debate: the sensible and profound punditry on Twitter

At 10.00pm last night, Parliament votes against giving British approval to an American missile strike that was going to happen with or without us. But to the New York Daily News, it’s a sign that the British have gone AWOL. And to many in Britain, it’s a sign that the world has ended. Here’s a selection of the more emotional responses to last night’s vote: @paddyashdown In 50 years trying to serve my country I have never felt so depressed/ashamed. Britain’s answer to the Syrian horrors? none of our business! The Respect MP George Galloway who rediscovered his liking Labour… @georgegalloway It was also a victory for Ed Miliband who

Alex Massie Alex Massie

On Syria, parliament has voted to have no policy at all.

A muddle and a cock-up. For all the talk of parliament reasserting itself, last night’s vote on Syria showed a parliament that voted, twice, to oppose actions it actually supports. David Cameron has been humiliated but this was hardly a banner day for Ed Miliband either. The House of Commons has, for now, cut off its nose to spite its face. Perhaps surgery can repair the damage. Perhaps it can’t. Because the longer and more deeply one contemplates yesterday’s events the more evident it seems that there were no winners. The government motion was defeated. So was Labour’s amendment. Since these motions were, in essence and in most practical respects,

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Don’t be daft – last night’s vote was nothing to be ashamed of

Are you ashamed of your country and depressed following last night’s vote against intervening in Syria?  David Aaronovitch  the journalist is. I do not give a fuck what this means for Miliband and Cameron. It’s the message it sends to Assad that counts. I am ashamed. — David Aaronovitch (@DAaronovitch) August 29, 2013 Tim Shipman of the Daily Mail is. Glad I’m in France today, a country that understands the responsibilities of being a military power — Tim Shipman (Mail) (@ShippersUnbound) August 30, 2013 So is Sarah Vine, the columnist, as well as, apparently, her husband Michael Gove. Paddy Ashdown says that Great Britain is plunging towards ‘isolationism’. Even our own Toby Young

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

George Osborne: We’re not trying to make a fetish of division

When will today’s politicians be able to stop wrestling with Tony Blair’s ghost? Not for a while it seems – partly because they don’t want to. George Osborne decided to use the Kind of Spin as a means of spinning last night’s terrible defeat for the Coalition government on Syria when he appeared on the Today programme. As well as referring to the shadow Blair and Iraq cast over the debate, yesterday, the Chancellor made clear that the Prime Minister had tried to shake off that shadow by conducting things ‘in a different approach’. he said: ‘The shadow of Iraq pervaded the whole debate yesterday both on the media and

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

George Osborne’s tendentious logic on Syria

A sombre George Osborne has just popped up on the Today programme saying that parliament last night triggered ‘soul searching’ in the country. ‘I think there will be a national soul-searching about our role in the world and whether Britain wants to play a big part in upholding the international system, be that big open and trading nation that I’d like us to be or whether we turn our back on that.’ listen to ‘George Osborne on Today’ on Audioboo