Uk politics

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Restoring the coalition’s credibility

The coalition’s infrastructure shopping spree to cheer itself up after a miserable few weeks continues today. George Osborne and Danny Alexander are offering guarantees on up to £40 billion of ‘ready or nearly ready’ projects such as transport, communications and energy. They are also announcing a £6 billion temporary lending programme and a £5 billion export guarantee facility, which will give long-term support for British exporters. Today’s announcements are clever because they don’t commit any extra money, using the government’s balance sheet purely to guarantee the projects and get them off the ground. Osborne and Alexander have written a joint comment piece for PoliticsHome, in which they point out that their efforts

Tuesday

A Thomson

Libor and what the Bank did and didn’t know

Listening to Mervyn King and his Bank of England deputy Paul Tucker over the past few days, you’d have thought they only found out about Libor manipulation with the rest of us, three weeks ago. Appearing before the Treasury Select Committee this morning, King stated that ‘the first I knew of any alleged wrongdoing was when the report came out two weeks ago’. But documents from the New York Federal Reserve, made public as part of the US Congress’s investigation, suggest that US authorities did know, and tried to warn the Bank of England that manipulation was going on. First, the transcript of a phone call on 11 April 2008 between a Barclays

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron must carry out a thorough reshuffle

With Parliament heading off for recess, politics will — barring some unforeseen event or the Eurozone crisis moving into one of its acute phases — be dominated by the Olympics for the next few weeks. David Cameron will be hoping that the global CEOs arriving in town will bring some good investment news with them. Boris Johnson, meanwhile, will revel in the global media attention. Indeed, Boris is already demonstrating an ability to brush off the organisational hiccups that other politicians can only envy. But most ambitious Tories will spend the summer thinking about the reshuffle, currently pencilled in for the third of September ahead of a Tory parliamentary dinner

Philip Booth

G4S’ failure does not destroy the argument for outsourcing

The left are having a field day in traducing the concept of contracting-out as if, somehow, the failure of G4S to deliver its Olympic contract was some kind of slam dunk. It is curious that one does not hear the same voices raised against the use of public sector in-house teams in relation to the queues at Heathrow airport’s immigration desks. In many senses, the obvious failure of contractors in situations such as the G4S Olympic contract, and in the welfare-to-work schemes, is a sign of the success of the whole idea. When government services provided by in-house teams fail, non-delivery is brushed under the carpet. Poorly performing schools linger

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Buckling under the strain

During the Home Affairs Select Committee’s evidence session with Nick Buckles it was difficult not to fall into the trap of feeling rather sorry for the G4S chief. He was softly spoken and anxious-looking. His haircut made him look rather boyish. Next to the garishly pinstriped Ian Horseman-Sewell, he appeared more muted. Buckles even seemed a little confused by the hearing. Was the committee speaking in fluent English, Keith Vaz asked him, slightly jovially, at one point. Buckles confounded him rather by saying he didn’t know. When asked by David Winnick whether this was a ‘humiliating shambles for your company’, Buckles gave a sheepish reply. ‘I cannot disagree with you,’

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The Olympic censorship row

Nick Cohen’s Spectator cover story on Olympic censorship has been a smash hit, and is still being tweeted all over the world. It was followed up this morning by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on its 8.10am slot, and CoffeeHousers who missed it can listen again here. Freddy Gray, assistant editor of The Spectator, is quoted at the beginning on the appalling heavy-handedness of it all. Even the Cubans didn’t copyright the now-famous Che Guevara image (which was drawn by an Irishman in any case). A liberal society like Britain should let people do what they want with words and images of major people and events. Including words like ‘Olympics’ and those rings. The Radio Four

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Five questions for Nick Buckles

G4S chief Nick Buckles will face MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee today. Here are some key questions they will want to ask him about the security firm’s handling of staffing for the Olympics: 1. When did you start processing applications from potential staff? G4S launched its recruitment drive at the end of January, and just days later told the press it had been swamped by 20,000 applications. Ministers say they were repeatedly assured that the firm would overshoot its targets. So why did it take so long to realise that those 20,000 applications were not going to translate into 10,000 staff? 2. When did you realise that you

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Railing against government policy | 16 July 2012

The cabinet is out and about today, trying to smooth feathers ruffled by last week’s Lords reform row by splashing out on £9 billion worth of investment for railways. Today’s announcement by David Cameron and Nick Clegg is, as much as anything else, an attempt to put into practice the Prime Minister’s claim yesterday that the coalition is still capable of making real progress on big issues, despite differences on constitutional reform. Handily for Nick Clegg, today’s announcement may also encourage some friendly feelings from his own constituents, as it includes electrifying the line between Bedford to Sheffield. But the work isn’t starting tomorrow, which means this announcement could be

Interconnect

The Libor mud-slinging makes things murkier

As the inquiry into Libor-fixing by the Treasury Select Committee rolls on, two things become apparent – one, as the muck spreads across the financial community it actually becomes harder to tell exactly where the buck stops, and two, the toothlessness of such inquiries themselves. As more bankers and officials are hauled before the TSC, the criss-crossing blame game that’s going on looks like it may serve only to obfuscate, rather than illuminate, matters. Today, Barclays ex-chief operating officer Jerry del Missier said it was his former boss Bob Diamond who told him to submit lower Libor rates, as a counter to Diamond’s testimony last week that del Missier misinterpreted

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The benefit cap is a key test of compassionate Conservatism

David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s railways announcement wasn’t the only attempt today by the coalition to bounce back from the strife of the past few weeks. Iain Duncan Smith also chose to point to another area where the Government is delivering on voters’ demands: welfare. In an op-ed in the Daily Mail, the Work and Pensions Secretary said the £26,000 benefit cap for workless families, which is one of the government’s most popular policies, is already effecting the behavioural change ministers hoped it would, with a third of claimants saying they are going to look for a job in order to avoid the cap, which comes into effect in 2013. In

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The danger for Labour in the G4S shambles

The row over G4S’ failure to provide sufficient security cover for the Olympics is starting to feel a little awkward for Labour. This afternoon in the Commons, Yvette Cooper managed to rouse a sardonic chuckle from not just the benches opposite but also the hacks perched in the press gallery when she said that everyone wanted the Olympics to be a success. Why the laughs? Well, the danger for Labour is that in slamming the government’s handling of G4S, the party gets too carried away and appears to be branding the Olympics a shambles too. That would be fine if we had six months before the games, but the opening

Jonathan Jones

Osborne’s ‘hideous choice’ if growth downgrades continue

So the IMF has revised its forecasts for the UK’s GDP growth downwards — to 0.2 in 2012 and 1.4 in 2013 from the 0.8 per cent and 2.0 respectively it predicted in April. It’s bad news, certainly — not least because we’ve been downgraded more than most other countries, and we’re now forecast to grow more slowly than Germany and (this year) France. But it’s worth bearing in mind that the IMF — for all its ability to drive headlines — is just one of many organisations playing the forecasting game, and these downgrades actually just bring them into line with the average. What’s worrying for George Osborne — and his fiscal

Interconnect

A crowded island – but mainly in the South East

By Matt Cavanagh The 2011 Census, published today, shows that the population of England and Wales reached 56.1 million, up by 3.7 million since 2001, and slightly higher than previous estimates. The three facts which are likely to make the headlines are: that this is the largest ten-year increase since the Census began in 1801; that over half (55 per cent) of the increase was due to net migration; and that the population density of England, at just over 400 people per square kilometre, is higher than G8 countries and all major EU countries except the Netherlands. But there is more to the Census than these headlines suggest. If 55 per

Interconnect

MPs should move their money from big banks

by Stephen Williams MP The Libor scandal has shown the UK’s banking sector in its worst light. The public has lost trust in the big banks and are concerned that their politicians are more interested in political point scoring than the urgent task of fixing our broken banking system. That is why, last year, I joined the Move Your Money campaign, which urges the public to use their consumer power to change the behaviour of the big banks by moving their money, or at least some of it, to ethical, local or mutual financial institutions. The stats show that we are more likely to go through a couple of divorces

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Downing Street: G4S is a ‘good story’

I’ve just returned from the morning lobby briefing, where the Prime Minister’s official spokesman was grilled on the unfolding G4S debacle. He rather surprised journalists by claiming ‘the story is a good one’ on the Olympics because all the venues have been delivered on time and the Government had thought to put contingency plans in place on this matter, which it can now use given G4S’ failure to recruit sufficient numbers of security staff. ‘There are going to be millions of additional visitors to London over the next few weeks and people will notice the difference, but we have plans to deal with those challenges and we have contingency plans

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron and Clegg push the pro-coalition line

This morning’s press conference by David Cameron and Nick Clegg marked an attempt to scotch all the talk of the coalition moving to confidence and supply sometime before the next election. Cameron declared that he was more committed to the coalition than he was back in 2010. He also stressed that he believed Britain needed stable government ‘throughout this term’, an implicit rebuke to all those Tories talking about a move to minority government in 2014. Nick Clegg, for his part, spoke about how this was going to be a ‘proper coalition government for a full five years’. There was also an announcement that the coalition’s mid-term review will set

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Railing against government policy

The cabinet is out and about today, trying to smooth feathers ruffled by last week’s Lords reform row by splashing out on £9 billion worth of investment for railways. Today’s announcement by David Cameron and Nick Clegg is, as much as anything else, an attempt to put into practice the Prime Minister’s claim yesterday that the coalition is still capable of making real progress on big issues, despite differences on constitutional reform. Handily for Nick Clegg, today’s announcement may also encourage some friendly feelings from his own constituents, as it includes electrifying the line between Bedford to Sheffield. But the work isn’t starting tomorrow, which means this announcement could be

Sunday

David Blackburn

Memories of a ‘monster’

You’ve probably heard about Enoch at 100 already. This collection of essays in honour of Enoch Powell’s centenary has captivated that section of the public which argues that Powell should be remembered for more than his aberration, the egregious ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. He campaigned for gay rights and the abolition of capital punishment, among many other ‘progressive’ totems. Over at the Books Blog, Jerry Hayes, the former Conservative MP, has reviewed the book, drawing heavily on Powell’s visionary writings on monetarism, Lords reform and the European project. Powell’s analyses remain pertinent, and I urge you to read the review if only to digest them. Jerry has also taken the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s coalition healthcheck

The coalition is doing pretty well, thank you very much. In case last week’s rebellion of the 91 on Lords reform and continuing tensions over Europe had you fooled, up pops the Prime Minister this morning with a soothing comment piece in the Sunday Times.  David Cameron tries to shrug off Lords reform within three paragraphs of his op-ed. ‘What’s far more significant is that we are working together on so much else – and after last week, it’s vital that everyone reminds themselves of that fact,’ he argues. As part of his health-check piece, the Prime Minister details signs that the coalition is functioning well. When he mentions the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The post-‘Cuban missile crisis’ coalition compromise

At the top of the coalition there’s a concerted effort to calm tensions, to de-escalate after its ‘Cuban missile crisis’. As part of that, I understand that David Cameron has indicated privately that if the Lib Dems do not get their elected peers, he won’t push the matter of the boundary reforms. I’m told he has no desire to end up in a situation where he’s sacking Lib Dem ministers en masse for voting against the government. Although, officially Number 10 is still stressing that it expects government ministers to vote for them when they come back to the House of Commons. The Prime Minister is, I’m told, currently considering