Uk politics

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Sir Mervyn defends George Osborne’s QE trick

Sir Mervyn King told MPs, slightly wearily, at the end of today’s Treasury Select Committee hearing, that this was his 100th appearance before a parliamentary committee since he joined the Bank of England. It was as rigorous a session as any of the 99 others that the Governor has sat through in his time, with the committee members choosing in particular to attack the decision to transfer £37 billion from debt interest in the Asset Purchase Facility from the Bank’s QE budget back to the Treasury. As Jonathan blogged on Monday, the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned George Osborne against using that transfer to meet his debt target, and MPs

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The City: a beacon of diversity

Now, what would those in the Equalities industry say to an industry so diverse that it has — in proportion — seven times as many Hindus, five times as many Indians, three times as many atheists and three times as many gays or lesbians as the rest of the country? And that this was achieved not by a positive discrimination employment strategy, but by sheer hard-headed hunt for the best talent? It would likely be hailed as an exemplar of diversity, an example of how Britain is the most tolerant country in the world. But if they happen to be bankers? Well, that’s another issue altogether. The study from Astbury

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How David Cameron could defuse the threat of UKIP defections

Is a group of MPs preparing to leave the Tory party’s benches and defect to UKIP? Christopher Hope has a good scoop in today’s Telegraph that UKIP’s Treasurer Stuart Wheeler has had secret talks with eight MPs about a possible defection. Wheeler told the paper that he had held ‘completely confidential’ meetings with MPs. Apparently unaware of the irony of spilling the beans to a journalist about these ‘completely confidential’ meetings, even if he doesn’t name any of those involved, the Treasurer said: ‘I have had lunch secretly if you like, in a completely confidential way, with eight different Tory MPs.’ He added: ‘Each was promised by me that I

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How will Michael Gove respond to Ofsted’s attack on councils?

Ofsted’s annual report, due out later today, will launch a scathing attack on those responsible for underperforming schools. But rather than taking aim at the teachers or the schools, it’s the local authorities that the watchdog has got set in its sights. The report will say that there is too wide a gap in standards between different councils. Chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw told the Today programme this morning: ‘There are not only differences between local authorities, there are differences between local authorities with similar demographics, and we will be looking very carefully at what is happening in those local authorities with the same sort of population, same levels of

Camilla Swift Camilla Swift

No ifs. No buts. Heathrow must have a third runway. Or must it?

‘No ifs. No buts. Heathrow must have a third runway.’ This was our motion of the evening at last night’s Spectator debate, but when it came to kick-off time, it appeared the audience was there for the taking. The pre-vote count found a majority of nine votes against the motion, but with 21 undecided attendees, everything was still left to play for. Graham Brady – Chairman of the 1922 committee, and MP for Altringham and Sale West (with Manchester Airport on his doorstep, he added) – opened the debate by speaking for the motion. With more than a nod to David Cameron’s conference speech in Birmingham, Brady argued: ‘We are

Alex Massie Alex Massie

UKIP is not a libertarian party – Spectator Blogs

I’m sure, as James says, that the idea of some kind of Tory-UKIP non-aggression pact will not go away. But that’s because many Tory backbenchers are remarkably stupid. Proponents of a Tory-UKIP alliance ignore the stubborn fact that many voters – voters the Tories need if they are to win a majority – aren’t too keen on UKIP. There is no point adding one vote from the right if it costs you two from the middle, mainstream ground of British politics. Besides, the Tories are not every UKIP voter’s second-choice and, anyway, the real battle is for the Liberal Democrat vote. Be that as it may, it is UKIP’s insistence

Monday

Jonathan Jones

Thatcher’s favourite think tank backs Danny Alexander

In the run-up to the Budget in March, Danny Alexander was pushing for the abolition of higher-rate relief on pension contributions, which would save the government £7 billion plus a year. George Osborne didn’t include it in his Budget, but today the Liberal Democrat gets support from a perhaps unlikely quarter: the Centre for Policy Studies. Echoing the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s analysis, Michael Johnson’s CPS report says: ‘Today’s tax-based incentives to save for retirement are hugely expensive and, worse, ineffectively deployed. Skewed towards the wealthy, they do far less than they should to minimise pensioner poverty. Furthermore, they do little to catalyse a savings culture amongst younger workers,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron at pains to show Britain was not isolated in EU Budget talks

David Cameron took great pains in his statement to the Commons on the EU budget summit to emphasise the alliances that Britain had formed in trying to keep the budget down. He started by telling MPs that Britain had worked ‘together with like-minded allies from a number of countries’, and repeatedly used words such as ‘together’ and references to ‘we – and others’. This was important as one of the key lines of attack that Labour has tried to make since last year’s veto is that Britain is standing isolated in Europe. Labour struggled to make an impact, both in Miliband’s response to Cameron’s statement and during the ensuing debate.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Like the Mounties, Osborne gets his man

George Osborne pulled off one of those bits of political theatre that he so enjoys today. Watching his statement in the Commons, one sensed something was up as Osborne delighted in delaying naming the new bank governor. It was an indication that, like the Mounties, the Chancellor had got his man. Moments later, a clearly delighted Osborne announced that Mark Carney, the Canadian Central Bank Governor, would be the new governor of the Bank of England. This is quite a coup for Osborne as Carney is widely regarded as the best central bank governor in the world. It also marks a clear break with all that has gone wrong in

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How do you solve a problem like Nadine Dorries?

Nadine Dorries has returned to the UK today, with a meeting between the first evictee of I’m a Celebrity: Get me Out of Here! and the chief whip due soon. Will she remain suspended from the Tory party? Dorries has already rehearsed some of the arguments she presumably plans to present to Sir George Young on her Twitter feed and in an interview with Fraser at the weekend, arguing that she only missed three days when Parliament was actually sitting, and listing other MPs who have taken more time away. She expects to have the Conservative whip restored to her now she has returned. The whips face a huge challenge

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The UKIP pact idea will keep coming back

I have a feeling that we haven’t heard the last of the idea of Tory / UKIP pact. However much Grant Shapps tries to knock the idea down, it is going to keep coming back. Why? Because Nigel Farage will never totally dismiss the idea — hence his mischief-making about doing a deal with a Michael Gove-led Tory party — and enough Tory MPs want one to give the idea oxygen. When I spoke to Farage back in May, this is what he said on the subject of candidates standing on a joint Tory/UKIP ticket: ‘What I do know is there are Conservative Associations up and down the country who

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Grant Shapps tells Coffee House: there’ll never be a Tory/UKIP pact

I’ve just spoken to Grant Shapps, who was pretty unequivocal about the chances of the Tories and UKIP teaming up in 2015. ‘No,’ he told me. ‘There will be no pact with UKIP.’ Michael Fabricant might have thought he was being helpful when he suggested the Tories engineer a pact with UKIP, but his discussion paper (which you can read in full here), has now been rejected by both parties. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage and his deputy Paul Nuttall have been doing the rounds on the airwaves, and have rather upped their price for any co-operation between the two parties. Nuttall told BBC News: ‘It would be difficult for UKIP to talk to the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Make people with lifestyle-related illnesses pay for their drugs, says Tory MP

Tory MP and GP Phillip Lee made a striking call this morning for patients suffering from lifestyle-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes to pay for their prescriptions as part of a larger shake-up of the NHS. He was speaking as part of a series of presentations from members of the Free Enterprise Group ahead of next week’s Autumn Statement on their proposals for spending cuts which would allow George Osborne to meet his target of having debt as a proportion of GDP falling by 2015/16. Lee said that to ensure that people could continue to access care when they needed it, the NHS needed a fundamental reform. He told

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Michael Fabricant calls for Tory pact with UKIP

Boris Johnson’s surprise rejection of an In/Out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union last night may have been an attempt to help David Cameron as he prepares to set out his own position on the EU, but the Prime Minister will find he’s not in for an easy ride from his own parliamentary party. As helpful as the Mayor might have been, his intervention has been rather overshadowed by a discussion paper from the Tory party vice chairman, Michael Fabricant, in which the former whip calls for a pact with UKIP. Fabricant’s plan follows the offer to the Tories which Nigel Farage set out in the pages of

Christopher Snowdon

Why is the government so confident minimum alcohol pricing will work?

Given the decidedly mixed record of minimum alcohol pricing around the world, why is the government so sure it will work in Britain? The figures it quotes are certainly striking: a 50p unit price will reduce annual alcohol-related mortality by 900, 3,393, “more than 1,000” or “nearly 10,000” a year in England alone. But how solid are they? The Adam Smith Institute did some digging, and found that all of these predictions can be traced back to a computer model designed by a team at Sheffield University. The model has numerous flaws, many of a technical nature, and like all models it is only as good as the data and

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson rejects In/Out referendum call

As on many issues, Boris Johnson has made great efforts to position himself on the side of the Tory grassroots on key issues where the parliamentary leadership takes a different position, particularly when it comes to the European Union. The Mayor signed the People’s Pledge for an In/Out EU referendum in March of this year, but this evening, he appears to have backtracked rather. This is his exchange with John Pienaar on 5Live from a few minutes ago: Pienaar: Would you still want an In/Out referendum? Johnson: Well, I’ve always said… I think we’ve been now, what is it? 75 was the last referendum on the European Union: I certainly think

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Liam Byrne tries to turn David Cameron’s striver language back on him

The Leveson Inquiry will dominate this week. Inside Number 10 they regard it as ‘the most difficult’ of the three big issues dominating their time at the moment – the other two are the autumn statement and the EU Budget. But I suspect that voters will be far less interested in Leveson and the Prime Minister’s response to it than the media and political class are. I’d be surprised if Cameron’s handling of it changed the views of voters—as opposed to those of elites— of him. So, on The Sunday Politics today it was striking to see Liam Byrne, Labour’s welfare spokesman, trying to turn Cameron’s striver rhetoric back on

Saturday

Clarissa Tan

Boris in Bollywood

So Cameron is making his mark on the EU budget, Gove has caused a stir with his Leveson remarks, and Osborne is prepping for his Autumn Statement. No matter. As usual, Boris is marching to the beat of his own cinematic drummer. He’s going to Bollywood, on an India trip many interpret as an effort to project himself as a future world leader. The Mayor of London is visiting Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai, where he will appear on a top TV chat show and visit Bollywood studios. It is couched as a trade mission – ‘London loves India,’ he is quoted in the Hindustan Times as saying – but many

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

118 Tory MPs publicly reject gay marriage plans

David Cameron is planning to fast-track legislation for gay civil marriage through parliament, but today’s Daily Mail underlines that his own MPs are dragging their feet over the legislation. The paper reports that at least 118 Tory MPs have expressed their opposition to the plans in letters to constituents or interviews with journalists, and they’re not just the usual suspects that Nick Clegg might accidentally label ‘bigots’. They include openly gay Conor Burns, who told his local newspaper that ‘I marvel at why we’re bringing this forward. There is no clamour for this at all within the gay community’. Wirral West MP and minister for Disabled People, Esther McVey, holds

Thursday

Jonathan Jones

Labour underestimated Osborne’s deficit

As Fraser reported at the time, Labour put up a deficit clock on its website last month, claiming that the government was borrowing £277 million more during Tory conference than in the same four days last year. It based this on the borrowing figures available at the time, which were for the period April to August. In that period, the government had borrowed £802 a second more than in the same five months of 2011, so Labour assumed it would continue to do so in October. But new figures out yesterday show that this was not the case. In fact, looking just at borrowing in October, Labour was lowballing it