Uk politics

Monday

The Spectator

David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s joint foreword to the Mid-Term Review

Two and a half years ago, our parties came together in the national interest and formed a coalition at a time of real economic danger. The deficit was spiralling out of control, confidence was plummeting, and the world was looking to Britain with growing anxiety about our ability to service our debts. This Government’s most urgent job was to restore stability in our public finances and confidence in the British economy. In just two years we have cut the deficit by a quarter and have set out a credible path towards our goal to balance the current budget over the economic cycle. Dealing with the deficit may have been our

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

While the Coalition celebrates proalition, the two parties are still making their differences public

The Coalition reaches its proalition peak today with the publication of the mid-term review, but Downing Street strategists are keen to spin out the good feeling for as long as possible. David Cameron and Nick Clegg will launch the review in their first joint appearance in Downing Street since December 2010, but the details of many of the measures on childcare, transport, housing and pensions won’t come today. Instead, we’ll see a trickle of announcements over the next couple of months. The leaders have already published a foreword to the review document, which starts by restating the Coalition’s central mission: deficit reduction. This is the area where the two parties

Sunday

Sebastian Payne

The truth about dead bats and wind farms

Are wind turbines really good for the environment? The economics, as we know, is often deeply dubious. But in this week’s Spectator, Oxford biological lecturer Clive Hambler reveals another drawback: the slaughter inflicted on birds and bats caught in the blades. Hambler argues that despite death tolls from numerous sources in various countries, many environmentalists are not being thorough with their questioning of renewable energy. In Britain, this argument isn’t made much — but overseas, as Hambler says, they’re realising the damage inflicted on nature: ‘Every year in Spain alone — according to research by the conservation group SEO/Birdlife — between 6 and 18 million birds and bats are killed by

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron readies childcare package

David Cameron and Nick Clegg will launch the coalition’s mid-term review tomorrow. There will be some announcements in it. But I understand that some of the most interesting, new coalition policies are being held out from it. The government wants to keep some of its powder back for later. There are also some final details to be worked out in certain areas. I’m informed that there’ll be a Quad on childcare this week. The coalition is close to agreement on a package which, as I say in the Mail on Sunday, would see working mothers receive thousands of pounds of help with childcare costs for the under fives. This will

James Forsyth James Forsyth

In a preview of David Cameron’s 2013, Europe dominates his New Year interview

David Cameron’s New Year interview on Marr was dominated not by the economy but by Europe. In a sign of what the promise of a speech setting out his European strategy has started, Cameron was repeatedly asked about what powers he would like back. He didn’t give much away, repeatedly telling Andrew Marr he would have to wait for the speech later this month. But two interesting things did emerge. First, Cameron indicated that he wanted to toughen up the way that the free movement of people is applied. I presume this means that only those with work or a clear means of support could come here; Nick Boles and

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

Don’t ban Frosties: teach children the life skills they need to make choices

What a very sensible idea from a group of more than 200 MPs in today’s FT: teach children about personal finance. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Financial Education for Young People wants financial education to become a compulsory part of the curriculum, with banks visiting classrooms. The idea that Natwest and Barclays could send their representatives into classrooms is obviously not enormously palatable to everyone, with critics arguing that this is just another route for big business to indoctrinate innocent minds. But consider this: research from the Centre for Economics and Business Research found a lack of financial education costs the taxpayer £3.4 billion a year in debt, mis-sold financial

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Let Them Eat Gruel: The Government-Health-Security Complex Invades Your Kitchen – Spectator Blogs

Addressing the American people for the final time as President, Dwight Eisenhower warned that: This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

Friday

James Forsyth

Parts of the Left are beginning to realise that they got the family wrong

One of the more interesting trends in British politics in the last few years has been sections of the left realising that the cultural changes of the 1960s and 70s too often chucked the baby out with the bathwater. Today, Diane Abbott has given an interview to Patrick Wintour in which she calls for more support for the family; arguing that stable families are the best way of preventing social breakdown. She also concedes that feminists were too ‘ambivalent’ about the family. Interestingly, Abbott also comes out in favour of school uniforms. She points out that they are a check against materialism and the designer label arms race. Now, I

Jonathan Jones

Briefing: Means-testing Child Benefit

George Osborne’s removal of child benefit from high-earners kicks in on Monday, but what exactly does it entail? Who loses what? Initially, Osborne’s plan was ‘to remove child benefit from families with a higher rate taxpayer’, as he announced in the Spending Review of October 2010. (This year, that’d be anyone earning over £42,475.) But after criticism that this would hit too many people, and that it would create a ‘cliff-edge effect’ (whereby someone earning £42,475 would keep all their Child Benefit but someone earning £42,476 would lose it all, so the lower-earner would end up better-off), Osborne changed his mind. In his Budget of March 2012, the Chancellor announced

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The next Labour welfare policy?

As he was selling his party’s plan for a jobs guarantee on the airwaves today, Liam Byrne made a passing reference to something that could form another part of Labour’s welfare policy offer. The Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary was talking about myths and misconceptions about the benefits system, and said: ‘I think a lot of people are surprised when they find out that jobseeker’s allowance is a little bit above £70 a week, and I’ve had constituents who’ve been frankly shocked when they’ve lost their job, they’ve gone down the jobcentre and they’ve discovered what the true rate of JSA is. So I do think there are misconceptions around,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron denies bickering with Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg made clear before Christmas that he wants gory, open and honest government; today the Prime Minister was equally clear that he doesn’t. Asked this morning on Radio 5Live about whether he was happy with the Lib Dem desire for greater differentiation between the parties, the Prime Minister replied: ‘I think that both parties will succeed if the Coalition succeeds, Nick Clegg and I work well together, and actually there are huge challenges facing this country. We have got to pay down the deficit, re-balance the economy and we have got to improve standards in our schools. ‘We don’t spend our time in private bickering with each other, we

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour revisits old welfare ghosts with its jobs guarantee

Dig out the bunting, fly the red flags in celebration, for finally we have a policy from the Labour party. Ed Miliband promised that 2013 would be the year he’d set out some ‘concrete steps‘ on key policy areas, and to that end he’s announced a jobs guarantee for the long-term unemployed. Coffee House readers will already be familiar with this scheme, as Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne discussed it in his interview on this site in December. But Miliband and Ed Balls have given the details today, with Balls writing an op-ed for PoliticsHome that says: A One Nation approach to welfare reform means government has a

Thursday

James Forsyth

The Tory message in 2015: Vote Cameron for PM

One thing is already apparent about the Tories’ 2015 campaign, it will be even more dependent on David Cameron than the 2010 one was. Why, because as Anthony Wells points out again today, Cameron polls ahead of his party. There’ll be those who criticise this decision. They’ll point out that the big billboard posters of him in 2010 backfired badly. Others will wonder what more juice can be squeezed out of Cameron, given that by the next election he’ll have been leading the party for nigh-on ten years. But to the Tory leadership, the Cameron lead on the best Prime Minister question is one of their trump cards. It is

The Spectator

What’s wrong with foreign aid?

Justine Greening is a robust politician and bean counter who reportedly used extremely fruity language when told she was being reshuffled to the International Development Department. Even though the new Secretary of State has made a strong start in her role, announcing the end of Britain’s aid programme to India by 2015 and suspending bilateral aid to Rwanda, she remains in a difficult position. In this week’s Spectator aid special, two writers examine the problems with Britain’s international development policy, from its target to spend 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income to politicians’ underlying assumptions about aid. Jonathan Foreman asks why politicians continue to throw money at aid projects

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The horror of the ‘fake’ independent coffee shop

It’s official: this country is going to the dogs. The proof? Tesco has been insidiously infiltrating the coffee shop market with a chain of shops that look independent. The Guardian reports outrage in Crouch End, where customers were ‘duped’ by ‘independent-looking, stripped back coffee shops’. The greatest crime of Harris + Hoole – which has its majority stake owned by the family that founded it – is that Tesco has a 49 per cent stake in the business, but doesn’t plaster its own logo above the shops, preferring instead to fill them with nice furniture and pretty decor. Here’s one quote from the piece: “I avoid Starbucks because it’s a

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cristina Kirchner forgets the most important people in the Falklands row: the Islanders

The British government has been gently rattling the bars in its stand-off with Argentina over the Falklands of late: giving the Queen a stretch of land in Antarctica which Cristina Kirchner’s government disputes the ownership of is one example. But today, ahead of a referendum in March for Islanders to decide whether they want the Falklands to remain under British sovereignty, Kirchner has upped the tension. In a letter published as an advert in today’s papers, the Argentine President demands that the UK ‘abide by the resolutions of the United Nations’ to end colonialism and negotiate a solution to the sovereignty dispute over the Islands. There’s a question about why

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Teachers are demoralised, but parents are protesting

The school holidays are nearly over, so here’s a cheery tale for those returning to the classroom next week. Teachers are demoralised, says a poll [PDF] for the NUT which found 55 per cent of those in the profession described themselves as having low or very low morale. Out of the 804 surveyed by YouGov, 71 per cent said they didn’t think the government trusted them to get on with their jobs. Michael Gove has made it pretty clear that there is indeed one group of teachers that he doesn’t trust to get on with their jobs: ‘militant’ trade union members who initiate industrial action such as ‘work-to-rule’ measures. But

Shiraz Maher

New terrorism control measures under the spotlight

It has not been a very happy start to the new year for Theresa May, who will have to answer difficult questions in the Commons about the disappearance of a terrorism suspect. Ibrahim Magog has been on the run since Christmas eve when police first realised he had failed to meet the conditions of his overnight residence requirements. Magog has been under investigation for two years and is believed to have trained with al-Shabaab, a Somali terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda. The group has waged a violent campaign in East Africa and has long threatened attacks against the West (although none have actually materialised). What will trouble the Home Secretary

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Now Nick Clegg turns on Labour ahead of mid-term review

Nick Clegg is in a pugnacious mood at the moment. First there was the very conveniently leaked memo in which Lib Dem strategists urged MPs to criticise their Tory Coalition partners publicly. Now he’s gone on the attack against Labour’s spending plans, or lack thereof. The Deputy Prime Minister writes in The Times: ‘The Labour leadership continue to complain about the coalition’s approach, but without providing any credible alternative. They’re learning the tricks of opposition and finding their rhetorical refrains. But where are the numbers? Where are their sums? The country has undergone the biggest economic crisis in living memory, yet they offer no explanation of how they’d get us

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Society is forgetting its elderly

During the 2010 general election, two grand politicians came to visit the teaching hospital where a doctor friend of mine worked. He had finished a 13 hour night shift, and, at a loose end, decided to track those two grand politicians’ journey around the hospital. They visited the impressively equipped cardiology wards, stopped by at a premature baby unit (if you can’t have a photo of you kissing a baby, you can at least get one next to an expensive incubator with an even tinier baby inside it), and moved on to the oncology wards to talk to patients battling cancer. My friend went home feeling rather disconsolate. It wasn’t