Uk politics

Friday

Peter Hoskin

The Merkozy Plan fails to convince

A day or so ago, the markets were rising in anticipation of what might be achieved at this Brussels summit. But this morning they’re mostly either unmoved, or — as in the case of borrowing costs in Italy and Spain — shifting in unpropitious directions. No-one, it seems, has been won over by yet another night of political bargaineering in Brussels. And understandably so. None of the measures mooted this morning are particularly concrete; all have a sogginess about them. More cash will be transferred to the European Financial Stability Facility, but it’s still some distance short of the €1 trillion that was, ahem, ‘announced’ at the end of October.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A defining moment

David Cameron’s use of the veto in the early hours of this morning changes the British political landscape. The first thing to stress is that if the euro collapses it will not be because of the British veto. The deal agreed between the 17 eurozone countries and six of those nations who still want to join it does not address the single currency’s fundamental problems.   What is, perhaps, most intriguing about what happened in the early hours of this morning is that Sarkozy and Merkel chose to put Cameron in this position. In truth, Cameron was not asking for that much. But Sarkozy and Merkel were not prepared to

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cameron says ‘No’

It looks like Britain could be heading for renegotiation with the EU sooner rather than later. The UK, Hungary, Czechs and Swedes last night stayed out of a 27-member EU Treaty. ‘I don’t want to put it in front of my parliament,’ said Cameron. But in an historic move, the deal is going ahead anyway, with 23 members: the Eurozone, plus the six states who want to join. ‘We will achieve the new fiscal union,’ said Angela Merkel. Nicholas Sarkozy is upbeat saying it has been an ‘historic summit’ which will change the EU ‘radically’.  If so, then Owen Paterson is right in his interview with James Forsyth in the

Thursday

Jonathan Isaby

Forget the Brussels Summit — here’s how Cameron could challenge EU power at home

Much has already been written this week about the negotiating hand that David Cameron should be playing in Brussels over the next couple of days.   I am fervently of the view that there is indeed a whole raft of policy areas over which he should be seeking to reclaim powers from Brussels, and they are detailed in a new paper by Dr Lee Rotherham, Terms of Endearment, which was published earlier this week by the TaxPayers’ Alliance.   But forget the European Council for a moment. For it is worth highlighting the things that the British Government could do immediately and unilaterally, here at home, to challenge EU power

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron plans Friday night reception for select Tory MPs

In a sign that David Cameron does not expect the European Council to go late into Friday night, he has asked a group of Tory MPs to supper at Chequers on Friday evening. It is hard to imagine that a full deal between both the 17 and the 27 could be thrashed out in time for Cameron to return to England for supper. Tellingly, the invitations to this event went out just last week.   This supper is part of a continuing attempt by Cameron to reach out to the parliamentary party. Interestingly, the guest list is not comprised solely of loyalists. Andrew Rosindell, who was part of the 81

Samira Ahmed

Lights, camera, education

Earlier this year I went as a reporter to cover Julie Walters’ return to her hometown of Smethwick, where she was talking to schoolchildren as part of the FILMCLUB charity’s Close Encounters programme. The town where Oswald Mosley was MP, and where Malcolm X once came to challenge racist election campaigning, remains a place struggling with deprivation and poverty. However what I saw in that room, organised by teachers and pupils in their spare time, was the power of a simple idea: to use film to improve aspiration and educational achievement. Walters shared experiences of her difficult grammar school days, her career change (from nursing) and most importantly the idea

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Why the state should take charge of examinations

Michael Gove has said that ‘nothing is off the table’ when it comes to dealing with the revelations in today’s Telegraph that a chief examiner of the Welsh examination board, WJEC, steered teachers attending his board’s fee-paying advice session so flagrantly in the direction of what was likely to feature in the next examination, it amounted, as the man said, to ‘cheating’. The irony of the thing is that those teachers who did not pay £230 a session for his assistance are likely to do much better by their pupils: the obliging examiner was telling the teachers about the cycle of examination questions — in other words, which bit of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Extended version: Our interview with Owen Paterson

As promised by Fraser earlier, here is an extended version of James’s interview with Owen Paterson that we posted yesterday: It is becoming increasingly clear what the Conservative party expects of its Prime Minister. If he is going to agree to 17 eurozone countries pushing ahead with the Franco-German plan for fiscal union, he needs to secure a new deal for Britain in exchange. Just what this new deal should look like is a matter of intense debate in Conservative circles. If France and Germany turn the eurozone into a ‘fiscal union’, what does that mean for Britain’s standing in the European Union? At the weekend, Iain Duncan Smith suggested that the nature of

Daniel Korski

Cameron’s Europlan comes together

The Tory party may not like it, but David Cameron is now finally following a sensible EU policy. As today’s summit in Brussels starts, the Prime Minister appears to have decided what really matters to the UK, and realised that he needs to play nice with the Germans and French. At the top of the PM’s priority list — a priority voiced by Michael Howard on the Today Programme earlier — is avoiding the collapse of the euro. The consequences of a collapse on Britain’s economy are incalculable, but everyone knows they would be profound. Second comes the protection of the City. A Euroland tax on financial transactions would damage

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Paterson pasted across the front pages

James Forsyth’s interview with Owen Paterson is on virtually every front page this morning, and deservedly. Boris, bless him, can make calculated explosions at times when it suits him. But Paterson is not one for pyrotechnics or mischief. His thoughtful interview with James shows how believes that the eurozone is about to become ‘another country’ — he used the phrase several times — and one that can dictate regulations on the rest of Europe due to Qualified Majority Voting. James is posting a longer version of this interview later today, and I’d urge CoffeeHousers to read it. His Euroscepticism is rooted in his business background and the urgency he feels

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Ed the arch-bungler lets Cameron off the ropes

Ed Miliband had an open goal today. And he whacked it straight over the bar. Cameron was in trouble from the start. Having placated the rebel wing of his party with vague talk about ‘repatriating powers’ he is now expected to deliver. But he can’t make specific demands without weakening his hand at the negotiations so he has to talk in generalities. The Labour leader spotted this weakness and tried to exploit it with one of his lethally brief questions. ‘What powers would the Prime Minister repatriate?’ Cameron gave several answers without addressing the issue. His aim in the negotiations, he said, was to resolve the eurozone crisis, ‘and that

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Owen Paterson: A referendum on the EU is inevitable

It is becoming increasingly clear what the Conservative party expects of its Prime Minister. If he is going to agree to 17 eurozone countries pushing ahead with the Franco-German plan for fiscal union, he needs to secure a new deal for Britain in exchange.   Just what this new deal should look like is a matter of intense debate in Conservative circles. If France and Germany turn the eurozone into a ‘fiscal union’, what does that mean for Britain’s standing in the European Union? At the weekend, Iain Duncan Smith suggested that the nature of the EU would change so much that a referendum would be necessary. No. 10 quickly

David Blackburn

Cameron attacked from all sides on Europe

David Cameron’s usual insouciance gave way to something approaching shouty panic as Europe dominated exchanges at PMQs. 8 Conservative MPs, all of them hostile to varying degrees, asked questions about Cameron’s intentions at the Brussels summit on Friday. This may not have surprised him, but the word around the Commons tearooms is that Cameroons are blaming Speaker Bercow for calling so many antagonistic MPs to their feet. It looked like a co-ordinated attack; and it’s no surprise that an opportunistic Boris has since taken to the airwaves renewing his call for a referendum. Cameron’s article in this morning’s Times may have been intended to quell disaffection by looking decisive, but it

David Blackburn

Cameron’s plan

Much ado about a Cabinet split over Europe this morning. The Financial Times has interviewed Ken Clarke, whose europhile instincts are well known — something he shares with the senior Lib Dems. Clarke tells his eurosceptic colleagues not to expect powers to be repatriated from the EU at Friday’s summit. Meanwhile, David Cameron has written a piece in today’s Times (£), reiterating that he will veto any treaty that damages British interests. He also says that his ‘requests will be practical and focussed’. And therein, apparently, lays the split. The word ‘requests’ might open the possibility of repatriation. Cameron appears to be hedging his bets ahead of Friday’s summit, lowering his more

Tuesday

Blair Gibbs

Labour’s late to the policemens’ ball

Labour has today unveiled a panel of experts to consider the future of British policing.  The review, chaired by the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens, will report by spring 2013. There are far-reaching changes underway to the institutional structure of the police.  The coalition government is pursuing sweeping reforms of police pay and conditions and creating a remodelled national policing architecture, with a new National Crime Agency.  The boldest reform — devolving governance to locally elected Police & Crime Commissioners (PCCs) — will have long-term implications.  In this context, and in light of budget reductions of 14 per cent over four years, any study of the fundamentals of the

David Blackburn

Lobbying for a lobbyists’ register

“I certainly think it’s a serious problem and I described it when we last discussed this as a canker on the body politic and I would stay with that,” said Jesse Norman on the World at One earlier today. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s sting, splashed by this morning’s Independent, of executives from lobbying/PR firm Bell Pottinger boasting of their influence over the prime minister has renewed the debate about regulating the lobbying industry, with calls for a public register to be established. Downing Street has outright denied the allegations, which do sound rather far-fetched. Bravado is, of course, the currency of thin-air merchants. The objection is not to the

David Blackburn

Back to square one | 6 December 2011

Benedict Brogan has some bad news from the engine room of public service reform. ‘I’m told Downing Street is starting all over again on public service reform. Will Cavendish, one of the key people guiding policy in No10, has been put in charge and told to assemble a new team of officials that will put together what effectively is a response to the white paper. The last 18 months, according to those close to the debate, were a waste of time. We’ll have to see whether the principles Mr Cameron set out 10 months ago still apply.’ Those principles are that the ‘state will have to justify why should it

David Blackburn

Mutiny in the air

David Cameron’s European problems seem to be mounting. The usual suspects — Carswell, Redwood, Jenkin et al — have been only too happy to take the airwaves and talk of this ‘great opportunity’ to repatriate powers. Those sentiments are growing across the backbenches. The Guardian quotes an ally of Iain Duncan Smith saying that he and his friends ‘do not accept the prime minister’s argument that the changes will only affect the eurozone. Of course the changes will have an impact on Britain.’ The mounting disquiet appears to have been created, to an extent, by the PM hedging his bets and lowering expectations. Originally, the plan was to repatriate power; but the present

Monday

Fraser Nelson

The New York Times’ austerity myth

Yet again, the New York Times fact-checkers seem to have taken the day off. The newspaper yesterday printed an editorial about British economic policy which contained basic errors – identical to those made in a blog which Paul Krugman bashed out last week. It’s worth fisking a little, because Krugman appears to be using the newspaper to create an austerity myth. ‘A year and a half ago, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain came to office promising to slash deficits and energize economic growth through radical fiscal austerity. It failed dismally.’ This is right, insofar as there was no austerity. The below shows current spending, for every month since the

Matthew Sinclair

Disappointment in Durban

Will Durban break the cycle of climate change meetings that repeatedly disappoint those hoping to replace Kyoto with an upgraded model? With so much else on, most people seem to be ignoring the latest summit entirely. Scanning the major newspaper websites, only the Guardian and the Independent mention “Durban” on their homepages.    First Copenhagen failed to live up to the massive hype. Then Cancun continued the stalemate on the big picture and negotiators contented themselves with addressing some relatively minor points. But Kyoto’s commitment period ends at the end of 2012, so those hoping for new mandatory targets can’t content themselves with stalling forever.   Despite the scale of