Uk politics

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Nick rises to Harriet’s limp challenge

Basketball in America. Netball at PMQs. Harriet Harman, Labour’s venerable form-prefect, took her leader’s place today and lobbed a few rubbery missiles at the PM’s under-study, Nick Clegg.  It came down to arithmetic. Even if Hattie had stormed it at PMQs she had no hope of reviving her extinct career. But Clegg has it all to play for. He was ready for it too. Assured, combative and well-briefed, he filled his replies with fresh, punchy rhetoric. (Mind you, his match-fit performance should be credited to his party activists. Clegg must have spent the last 22 months fielding nasty questions from chippy wonks at Lib Dem constituency meetings.)  Hattie tried to

Jonathan Jones

Unemployment’s high, but at least it’s stopped rising

So, new jobs figures out today. Which do you want first: the bad news, or the kind-of-alright news? The bad news is that employment’s showing no signs of growth: the total number in work has been stuck at 29.1 million since it fell there in the summer. It’s a touch better than the trough of 28.8 million we hit at the end of 2009, but still half a million below where we were when the recession hit. And we’re showing no signs of getting there any time soon: And the not-so-bad news? Unemployment’s slightly down on last month, which was slightly down on the month before. It’s not a big

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The Bond Bubble’s getting bigger

George Osborne is planning to launch a 100-year bond, says the FT — a sure sign that the Bond Bubble is getting even bigger. These devices are usually used by American universities: the California Institute of Technology issued one at 4.7 per cent, MIT did one at 5.6 per cent, and a few American companies have tried at 6 per cent. The Mexcians sold a billion bucks’ worth of century bonds a while ago at 6.1 per cent, so it would only be a matter of time before HM Treasury — a world leader in, ahem, novel debt vehicles — was going to do the same. The US Treasury Borrowing

Peter Hoskin

Cameron and Obama, sans yellow mustard

Above is what they call the ‘raw video’ of David Cameron’s and Barack Obama’s trip to a basketball game last night. It’s the unrefined version of what Downing St hopes will be refined, packaged and sent to your television screen at hyperspeed: images of the PM and the President dressed casually and chatting away as the game goes on. Like I said yesterday, it’s political theatre — designed to benefit both men. They were then both interviewed at halftime, which you can watch here. This was more about sports than about the political intricacies of the special relationship (Cameron: ‘It’s hard to follow,  sometimes, who’s done exactly what wrong’) —

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Cameron lands in America

David Cameron’s plane has just landed in Washington. The next few days should provide him with a set of images that will portray him as a significant figure on the global stage. The Obama administration is giving Cameron the full works: a huge event on the White House lawn and the kind of banquet that is normally reserved for heads of state. This is an arrangement that benefits both sides. The Obama re-election campaign wants to foster the sense that the President is friends with a Conservative British Prime Minister given that their Republican opponent in the fall will accuse him of being a left-wing radical. I suspect, though, that

Peter Hoskin

IDS’s important call for ‘social value’

It’s the same for celebrities and policymakers: talking about marriage gets you headlines. Hence why the newspapers have concentrated on Iain DuncanSmith’s remarks today that ‘marriage should be supported and encouraged’ by the state. But there were two other parts of IDS’s speech — and the ‘social justice strategy’ document behind it — that I found more arresting. The first was his incisive attack on the Gordon Brown approach to fighting poverty (define it statistically and then massage the statistics so that they work in your favour), which deserves repeating: ‘First, we have seen a social policy overwhelmingly focussed on moving people above the income poverty line. A laudable ambition

Peter Hoskin

Will Obama and Cameron discuss a faster pullout from Afghanistan?

The political theatre of David Cameron’s trip to America will have Downing Street drooling. The PM is, today, not only going to become the first world leader to fly aboard Air Force One with Barack Obama, but then they’re also going to take in a game of basketball together. It’s a carefully calibrated blend of statesmanship and down-to-earth-ship that will suit both men. Obama, because it might appeal, in some way, to conservative voters ahead of this year’s presidential election. Cameron, because, well… does Ed Miliband do this sort of thing? The theatre carries over into print too, with a joint article by Cameron and Obama in today’s Washington Post.

Jonathan Jones

A Lib Dem alternative to Beecroft

When the Beecroft report’s recommendation of ‘Compensated No Fault Dismissal’ was first leaked back in October, Norman Lamb was one of the strongest Lib Dem voices to speak out against it, describing it as ‘madness’. Back then, he was Nick Clegg’s chief of staff. Now, thanks to Chris Huhne’s resignation and Ed Davey’s promotion, he’s in an even better position to prevent this ‘madness’: Employment Minister in the Department for Business. As James has said, the Lib Dem MPs are unanimous in their opposition to Beecroft’s proposals, and until recently it didn’t look like they would be translated into policy at all. But last week, George Osborne threw his weight

Monday

Sebastian Payne

Ken just can’t escape his tax knot

After several months on the back foot, Boris looks ready to sink Ken’s campaign for good. The cries of hypocrisy have been growing louder and louder since the revelation that Ken has been filtering his six-figure income through a limited company to avoid thousands in tax. Ken has waited two weeks for the story to build up before making an official response on the Andrew Marr show yesterday: ‘I am in exactly the same position as everybody else who has a small business. I mean, I get loads of money, all from different sources, and I give it to an accountant and they manage it.’ He’s not wrong but it

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron’s Human Rights quandry

The combination of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights is, I predict, going to give David Cameron an increasing number of headaches in the coming months. As Fraser wrote yesterday, Michael Pinto-Duschinsky’s principled resignation from the coalition’s Commission on the British Bill of Rights has revealed that this body was never really serious about dealing with the problem. The exposure of this Commission as merely a holding device will add to the pressure on the Prime Minister to clarify what he actually intends to do about the problem. The fact that the Cameroon’s favoured think tank, Policy Exchange, have today hired Pinto-Duschinsky shows

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cameron’s sub-prime thinking

You’d think the American sub-prime crisis would have taught politicians the world over not to try to rig the housing market. But no, David Cameron is back on it today — about how to ‘unblock’ the system so the debt geyser starts to gush again. ‘The problem today is that you have lenders who aren’t lending, so builders can’t build and buyers can’t buy,’ says the Prime Minister. ‘It needs the government to step in, and help unblock the market.’ The idea that lenders may not lend because they feel the housing market may fall, and people may be unable to repay, is instantly dismissed. He speaks as if debt

Peter Hoskin

How Mervyn King’s role has changed

A week devoted to Mervyn King and his eight-year reign at the Bank of England sounds like pretty turgid stuff. But, already, the series that has started in the Times (£) this morning — building up to an interview with the man himself — is anything but. Here, for instance, is a snippet from one of its articles, by David Wighton, on how Mr King reacted to the crumbling of Northern Rock: ‘As the plight of Northern Rock and other banks worsened, Sir John Gieve and Paul Tucker were urging Sir Mervyn to act, but he would not budge. “He mocked them as ‘crisis junkies’ and more or less accused

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

How Clegg outmanoeuvred Cameron over the ECHR

News that Nick Clegg has brilliantly outmanoeuvred Cameron over the British Bill of Rights will come as no surprise to CoffeeHousers — we told you so last March. The panel was stuffed full of ECHR enthusiasts, balanced by Tories most of whose competence lay in other legal areas. Perhaps Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, the most clued-up of the Tory appointees, didn’t realise this when he joined the panel. He has twigged now, and has quit (or was eased out, depending on whose version of events you believe); observing that the ‘Lib Dem tail is wagging the Conservative dog’. As was evident from the start. Duschinsky made his j’accuse on BBC1’s Sunday Politics

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clegg previews the Lib Dems’ election pitch

Nick Clegg’s speech today was a preview of what the Liberal Democrat argument will be in 2015: coalitions work and we’re the ‘one nation’ party who will ensure that the government is fiscally credible but fair. This strategy is the leadership’s best hope for the next election. But it is reliant on coalition government being seen to work, something which isn’t going to be the case if the coalition partners continue to wash their dirty linen in public. In terms of the coalition, there were a few interesting lines in the speech. Clegg said that the Budget ‘must offer concrete help to hard-pressed, hard-working families: a big increase in the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Lib Dems vote ambiguously on the Health Bill

The motion passed by Liberal Democrat conference this morning means that the party is neither supporting nor opposing the Health Bill. The rebels having lost the vote on whether or not to debate their ‘Drop the Bill’ motion, but managed to amend the so-called Shirley Williams’ motion to remove the line calling on their peers to vote for it. This is a blow to the leadership who were confident last night of winning the vote this morning. But it is nowhere near as bad as the conference — which, remember, still has the power to make party policy — deciding that the bill should be dropped. It is, though, another

Saturday

James Forsyth

Vince puts his aggressive hat on

Ever since Chris Huhne’s departure from government, Vince Cable has become a more and more aggressive coalition figure. His deliberately provocative interview with The Guardian in which this Keynesian, corporatist lambasts the idea that deregulation is key to growth as “ridiculous and bizarre” has drawn a heated Tory reaction. One source told me earlier that “BIS [Cable’s department] imposes ten stupid expensive things on business for every one they’re forced to drop. BIS is mired in useless committees that churn out red tape because Vince loves the EU and hasn’t a clue about small business.’ Just how irritated some Tory Cabinet Ministers are with Cable spilled out into the open

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clegg reassures his party about the Health Bill

Lib Dem Spring conference is turning out as the leadership would have wished. The support of Shirley Williams for the Health Bill seems to have been enough to reassure delegates that they should back the bill in its amended form; they’ve already voted to debate the leadership friendly motion tomorrow morning not the ‘Drop the Bill’ one. In a question and answer session with activists just now, Clegg — to huge applause — urged the party to side with Shirley Williams not Andy Burnham. This appeal to Lib Dem tribalism seems to be winning the day on the health issue. Clegg, as he always does at conference, used the Q&A

Peter Hoskin

JET — three letters that spell trouble for the coalition

JEET. That, according to Andrew Grice in the Independent, is the new ‘buzzword’ circling around Libdemville (population: 57 MPs, and a few others). And it stands for the issues that they want to keep mentioning whenever they can: jobs, education, environment and tax. Fair enough. Although it is striking that only one of these issues is unlikely to put them in close combat with the Tories. Both parties of the coalition support free schools and academies, and the Lib Dems are getting their pupil premium too, so education is relatively uncontroversial territory. But as for the others… Jobs. The conflict here focuses on the role of the state. As George