Uk politics

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

The Portuguese fallout

How much are we in for? That is the question that springs most readily to mind after Portugal’s request for fiscal aid from the EU. And, sadly, the answer is difficult to work out. The figures being spread around range from £3 billion to £6 billion, with valuations in between. But, really, it depends on how much of the €80 billion package is agreed to by European finance ministers, and which lending mechanisms are used. The European Stability Fund, the EU’s emergency fund and the IMF’s pot of gold all have differing levels of UK involvement. If our country does end up making a significant contribution to any bailout package,

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Reinforcing the schools revolution

There is extraordinary news today, suggesting that the Academies revolution is continuing apace. What was a trickle under the Labour years is turning into a flood. This time last year just 1 in 16 state secondaries had ‘Academy’ status: that is, operationally independent within the state sector. Now, it is 1 in 6. By Christmas, it should be 1 in 3. And by the next election, the majority of state secondary schools in Britain — about 1,600 — should have turned into Academies. Had Gove suggested such an expansion before the election, he would have been laughed at. The last time the Conservatives sought to give state schools independence was

Wednesday

James Forsyth

The consequences of political abuse

Nick Clegg’s interview with Jemima Khan (née Goldsmith), in which he admits to crying regularly to music, is already coming in for predictable mockery. But the point that Clegg makes about how his job is affecting his kids is worth dwelling on.   Clegg is not the only coalition minister to fret about this. Sarah Vine, Michael Gove’s wife, wrote earlier this year about how she worried about the psychological effect on her children of people verbally assaulting her husband in front of them. During the Labour leadership contest, Ed Balls, for all his faults, spoke movingly about his concern over how he would protect his kids from what was

Jonathan Jones

Grammar schools aren’t an answer to the social mobility problem

With all the talk about social mobility, it was inevitable that those who believe grammar schools were the doorway to opportunity would wade into the debate. The most prominent of these interventions came yesterday from David Davis, who said: “The hard data shows that the post-war improvement in social mobility, and its subsequent decline, coincided exactly with the arrival, and then the destruction, of the grammar school system. This is the clearest example of the unintended consequence of a purportedly egalitarian policy we have seen in modern times.” The “hard data” Davis refers to is this 2005 study by Jo Blanden, Paul Gregg and Stephen Machin for the LSE and the Sutton Trust.

Peter Hoskin

Whither the NHS Bill?

Reassurance — that’s what the happy trio of David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Andrew Lansley sought to emit during their NHS event earlier. And reassurance not just about where the coalition is taking the health service (although there was plenty of that), but also about the “listening exercise” they are engaging in now. Although all three men suggested that the broad scope of the NHS reforms would remain — decentralisation, greater responsibilities for GPs, and all that — they also hinted that “substantive” changes will be made to the Bill as it stands. As for what those changes will look like, there were few specifics. Yet it did sound as

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Planning for a reshuffle?

David Cameron is determined to get away from the idea of an annual Cabinet cull. He has repeatedly told friends that he doesn’t want to reshuffle the Cabinet until March 2012. But The Times, the most pro-coalition paper, today uses its leader column (£) to call on Cameron to reshuffle straight after the May elections. I suspect that Cameron will only reshuffle the Cabinet, as opposed to the junior ranks, if AV passes. But there are a few Tory junior ministers who would impress as Cabinet ministers. Greg Clark and Nick Herbert, two members of the pre-election shadow Cabinet who missed out on the Cabinet because of coalition, have both

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Nick Clegg was claiming that the NHS reforms were the Lib Dems’ idea just three months ago

Ahead of this morning’s Cameron, Clegg, Lansley event on the NHS, it is worth reminding ourselves of what Nick Clegg was saying about these reforms back at the start of the year. On January 23rd, he went on the Andrew Marr show and had this exchange: ‘ANDREW MARR: Huge change to the NHS just coming down the line. Was that in the Liberal Democrat manifesto? NICK CLEGG: Actually funnily enough it was. Indeed it was. We were one of the primary critics in opposition of what we felt was a top … ANDREW MARR: (over) I don’t remember you saying you were going to get rid of Primary Care Trusts

David Blackburn

Burying the dead

Lockerbie is back in vogue. The Telegraph reports that Mi5 has ‘conclusive evidence’ that Moussa Koussa was ‘directing operational and intelligence gathering activities against Libyan dissidents’ and organising support for terror groups. Koussa is expected to meet with Scottish prosecutors later this week to discuss the Lockerbie bombing. Also, the Libyan rebels have pledged to assist British security services investigate Gaddafi’s sponsorship of terrorism, particularly the IRA. Anything that brings Gaddafi and his most murderous henchmen to justice will give solace to victims. But no amount of water can wash away the grubby circumstances of al-Megrahi’s release. The subtle influence of the government on the Scottish authorities has been covered

Peter Hoskin

Winners and losers | 6 April 2011

The birds chirruping in the sunlight clearly didn’t get Ed Balls’s memo. Otherwise they’d know that today is “Black Wednesday,” the day when the coalition’s tax and benefit policies swoop in to leave the average household some £200 a year worse off. This is the message that the shadow chancellor is broadcasting this morning, be it on Radio 4 or in a post for Labour Uncut. His claim is that the coalition is — by going “too far, too fast” on the deficit — merely squeezing the “squeezed middle” even more. Only that’s not quite the full picture. The Treasury, for one, is pointing out that today’s measures will actually

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Get ready for the Cameron, Clegg and Lansley NHS show

Get your guide to body language out for tomorrow morning Cameron, Clegg and Lansley will be doing a joint event on NHS reforms. The three men all have subtly different messages to get across and there are concerns in Tory circle that Clegg will use the occasion to present himself as the defender of the NHS against these Tory reforms. Cameron will be walking a tightrope at tomorrow’s event. He will have to show that he is listening, that this whole exercise is not a sham, but without abandoning the principles on which the reforms are based. Expect Cameron, who will only have arrived back in the country hours before

Selena Gray

The pros and cons of internships

For the last fortnight, I’ve been doing an internship at The Spectator. And having seen the furore over Nick Clegg’s announcement today, I thought I’d give CoffeeHousers my take. Until I was 22, I’d never heard of internships: no one at my school (Aylwin Girls’ School in Bermondsey) went on them. Most of us left school at sixteen, and the jobs we were aiming for were admin, hairdressing, childcare — or, in some cases, motherhood (and welfare). The idea of pupils spending summers doing internships to beef up their CVs was alien to me. If you wanted to work at the head office of a high street bank — which

Peter Hoskin

Does Davis have a point about grammar schools?

David Davis has been relatively quiet for the past couple of months, perhaps nursing a hangover after this. But he’s back making a seismic racket today, with an article on the coalition’s social mobility report for PoliticsHome. He dwells on the education side of things, and his argument amounts to this: that the government’s school reforms — from free schools to the pupil premium — will not do much to improve social mobility, and may actually make the situation worse. Michael Gove may be praised as “intelligent, dedicated and wholly admirable,” but there is enough gelignite elsewhere in the piece to ruffle some coalition feathers. I thought CoffeeHousers may have

David Blackburn

Monbiot’s mission

George Monbiot is undergoing an astounding and very public transformation. Last week he overcame the habit of a lifetime and fully endorsed nuclear power as a safe energy source. He went further this week, attacking the anti-nuclear movement for perpetuating lies and ignoring the consensus around scientific facts. He levels special criticism at the allegedly lax scholarship of Dr Helen Caldicott, a decorated primate of the anti-nuclear communion.  He also debunks the myths surrounding the disaster at Chernobyl and laments that campaigners have abused that tragedy by exaggerating its consequences. Monbiot’s tone is neither arch nor righteous. Rather, he’s disappointed and the piece has a dignified poignancy. He concludes:     

Peter Hoskin

Your five-point guide to the coalition’s social mobility report

The government’s new report into social mobility is, it tells us, all about “opening doors” and “breaking barriers” — but it’s probably taxing attention spans too. 89 pages of text and graphs, offset by the same pea soup shade of green that’s used for all these coalition documents. To save you from wading through it all, here’s our quick five-point summary: 1) The same story… Much of the report, as James suggested earlier, is familiar territory. After all, the coalition’s two most developed policy areas — welfare and education — are precisely designed to improve opportunities for the least well-off; so here they are again, restated and slightly reframed. The

Peter Hoskin

Miliband may be punished for his contempt for Clegg

Ed Miliband’s hand of friendship has to be one of the shakiest body parts in British politics. Sometimes it’s extended to the Lib Dems, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s extended to Nick Clegg, sometimes it’s not. Sure, the Labour leader does appear to have finally settled on a position: that he will only shake the hands of a Cleggless Liberal party. But that has come after constant wavering on his part, and could well be subject to change. I mention this now because of a claim in Rachel Sylvester’s column (£) today. I’m not sure whether it has been made before — but it neatly encapsulates how Miliband has lurched

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Short term solutions to Britain’s long-term education problem

The most important planks of the coalition’s social mobility strategy are its education and welfare reforms. Raising the standards of state education in this country will give far more children a chance to get on in life. While reducing the number of children brought up in workless households will, hopefully, halt the development of a hereditary non-working, benefit-dependent class.   But these measures will take time to work. Which raises the question of what should be done in the meantime?   One thing would be allowing academics to use discretion in admissions. We don’t expect the England cricket selectors to pick the side based solely on county averages and we

Daniel Korski

Lords: government not championing European single market “strongly”

Tucked away in an old building, where few people knows of its existence, lives one of the most important parliamentary creatures – the House of Lords European Union Committee. Often ignored because it applies analysis to a debate where loudness is the main currency, it has produced a new report on the Single Market. The government would do well to read it. For pushing the Single Market should be what animates the Europe Directorate in the Foreign Office. The Single Market is the main reason for British membership of the EU and the committee implies that successive governments, including the Cameron administration, have dropped the ball in this area. As

Peter Hoskin

The health select committee delivers its verdict

Grenades are seldom expected – yet Andrew Lansley knew that one was going to fall into his lap this morning. The Health Select Committee has today released its much trumpeted report on the government’s plans for NHS commissioning. In normal circumstances its dry take on an even drier subject would evade public notice. As it is, with the coalition rocking and reeling as they are, this is fissile stuff. It is yet another voice in the chorus of opposition to Lansley’s reforms. The report’s recommendations are plural, but one stands out: that the government should drop its plans for GP consortia, and instead create “local commissioning boards” that involve not

Monday

James Forsyth

Lansley faces the music alone

A weary-looking Andrew Lansley has just finished answering MPs’ questions following his statement announcing a delay to the coalition’s NHS reforms. The statement left us none the wiser as to what is up for review in the listening exercise the coalition is about to undertake. What it did demonstrate was both Lansley’s encyclopedic knowledge of the NHS: he seemed to know the GP who was leading the consortium in the area of every MP who questioned him: and his inability to clearly explain the purpose of his reforms. Indeed, if it had not been for a question from John Redwood the point that these reforms are meant to free up

David Blackburn

17,000 servicemen to go

The MoD has released its plan for redundancies. The numbers and plan were leaked at the weekend, but here are some details: 1) There will be 17,000 redundancies – 7,000 from the army and 5,000 each from navy and RAF. The first tranche will be notified by commanding officers in September 2011. 2) Some of the reductions are expected to be achieved through not filling vacancies and slowing recruitment, but it is estimated that 11,000 jobs will be lost by April 2015. 3) This is a compulsory programme, but the MoD hopes that the majority of losses can be met through volunteers. Volunteers will serve a 6-month notice period, non-volunteers