Uk politics

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Despite the difficulties, Project Merlin isn’t at all bad

Bankers make estate agents look popular and so any government deal with bankers that doesn’t involve kicking them is politically tricky. The Treasury, acutely aware of the politics of all this, are very keen to stress that the government ‘played hardball’ with Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS in the Project Merlin talks. The actual deal is not a bad one. The promised £10 billion pound increase in lending to small businesses is better than expected. On bonuses, the banks have got off relatively easily. But crucially the bonus pool will be smaller than last year and bank head’s bonuses will be dependent on meeting lending targets for small businesses.  

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

A well fought fight

Plenty of personality at today’s PMQs. Not much policy. Miliband opened with one of his stiletto questions. Short sharp and deadly. ‘How’s his Big Society going?’ he asked the prime minister. Potentially this is tricky ground for Cameron and he rose to a barrage of Labour jeers. At least he’s had time to rehearse his defence. ‘Devolving power to local authorities was in the opposition manifesto and in ours and in the LibDems’ …Every member of the House of Commons backs what we’re talking about,’ he said cheerily. A robust counter-attack. Pose as an optimistic philosopher-king and leave Ed Miliband looking like a whining defeatist. Miliband duly obliged and unfurled

David Blackburn

Osborne’s conjuring trick

Earlier today, the government unveiled Project Merlin, its attempt to link executive pay in banks to institutional lending, whilst driving down bonuses and increasing the Treasury’s revenue take. Here are its key components: Osborne welcomed ‘the most transparent pay regime in the world.  Executive pay will be linked to targets for gross lending; remuneration for the top ten highest paid staff in each financial institution will be subject to the approval their board’s remuneration committee; in 2012, all large banks will have to publish payment details for members of their board and the 8 most high paid staff members. He then promised a new deal for small business lending. There

David Blackburn

PMQS live blog

VERDICT: A rowdy session, but constructive. Miliband went for the Big Society, which is in severe difficulty at present. He was very effective, but his attacks lacked absolute coherence. He failed to establish a link between his examples and his wider political point that the agenda is mere packaging for latent libertarianism. So, Cameron had enough wriggle room to repulse Miliband and was able to launch his own attacks on the Labour leader’s irresponsible opportunism, and he also savaged Liverpool Council’s reactionary politicking. Both leaders had good lines and were deft on their feet, as point was met by counter-point. Their supporters were in full voice too, sufficient to allow

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Today’s battlefield

Today’s PMQs threatens to be overshadowed by the statement on Project Merlin, the government’s deal with the banks, expected at one o’clock. I suspect that Cameron will try and push away any questions on banks with the line that Miliband should wait for the Chancellor’s statement. But PMQs will still be a far livelier affair than last week’s one. Watch to see whether Miliband tries to attack Cameron for hurting the Big Society. Miliband has moved Labour away from ridiculing the idea to embracing it and saying that ‘Tory cuts’ are the threat to it. This is all part of Labour’s strategy to try and ‘recontaminate’ the Tory brand. But

David Blackburn

More bad economic news for the government

Presently, the waves of bad news are as relentless as biblical plagues. The latest trade figures show that Britain’s trade gap opened in December; the seasonally adjusted deficit stood at £9.2bn, a rise from £8.5bn in November. There are plenty of explanations as to why the export-led recovery failed to jump customs, despite the comparatively weak pound. The various acts of God couldn’t have helped and the continuing financial crisis on the continent will have further eroded demand.   However, the government will realise that these figures indict its growth strategy. As the ONS graph below indicates, the trade deficit is a persistent problem and one feared by the British

Daniel Korski

A legion of attacks

Some attacks hurt more than others. And the attack launched by Chris Simpkins, the director-general of the Royal British Legion, on the government’s approach to the military covenant will be particularly painful. For it comes after a Defence Review that left few happy, and when the nation is engaged in a war from which many feel the Prime Minister is a bit too keen to withdraw. Speaking to The Times, the Royal Legion chief said plans set out in the Armed Forces Bill requiring the Ministry of Defence to publish an annual report on the unwritten pact between society and the military were not the same as writing it into

Tuesday

David Blackburn

The Big Society in crisis?

An ungodly alliance has converged on the Big Society. From the left, The Voice of the Mirror, the Unions and Steve Richards have published diverse critiques; from the right, Philip Johnston has joined Peter Oborne in suggesting that the policy is suffering a near-death experience. The Local Government Association and councillors have added their disgruntled voices as the day has progressed. All in all, it’s quite a circus and the government’s gentle response has been totally inadequate. Francis Maude penned an article for today’s Times (£), which, despite being commended by Tim Montgomerie, couldn’t really distract from the mauling Maude received on Newsnight last night. The agenda’s myriad problems were

Daniel Korski

Hague joins Middle East protests…well, as good as

Foreign Secretary William Hague has arrived in Tunisia in order to support to the pro-democracy movement. Unlike his previous visit to Syria, which I think was poorly timed, this one is perfectly-timed. It could even end up looking like George Bush Snr’s visit to Poland in July 1989 when the US president publicly backed the revolutions sweeping across the European continent at the time and gave succour to the pro-democracy movements. Visits like this are so important to help the direction of travel. What people forget now is that in the Eastern Europe of 1989, the history of democracy was as limited as it is today in the Middle East.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Osborne bests the Man With A Past

Balls is a bit like a vampire – he has bite, but he works best in the darkness. In the House of Commons, with those lights shining on him, his powers drain. George Osborne had the better of him in their brief exchanges at Treasury Questions. Balls led on the snow joke. But Osborne had pre-empted that earlier, when he first stood up. Balls teased him about going to Klosters in the winter, but these things only work in newspapers where you can run a picture of Osborne in ski gear. It leaves the House cold.   The key Osborne line was that Balls is “the man with a past”

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

What has Osborne done today?

In October last year, Osborne announced a new levy on banks’ balance sheets. It was 0.05 percent for this calendar year, before rising to 0.075 percent from 2012 onwards. But, today, the Chancellor has announced that the ‘introductory’ rate has been abolished – so banks will be charged the 0.075 percent rate on all liabilities. Here’s my nine-point Q&A, by way of delivering my take: 1) So, a retrospective tax? Not quite. He’s imposing a 0.05 per cent rate on balance sheets in January and February. But he’ll up the charge to 0.1 percent for March and April to compensate. It will go back to 0.075 percent in May. This

Daniel Korski

Irish to block EU integration

In continental lore, it is Britain that is often seen as the greatest impediment to EU integration. The government’s EU Bill initially caused horror in the rest of Europe. Would Britain have to vote for each treaty change, even those needed to enlarge the Union? Before the text of the bill became clear, every self-respecting eurocrat spat the name ‘Britain’ over their lait russe. Even now, they are not best pleased. But in future it may not be Britain, but Ireland that will block any further EU integration. For Ireland is turning a lot more eurosceptic. The role of the euro in Ireland’s decline remains a subject of debate. In

Peter Hoskin

Doubts remain over al-Megrahi

The morning after the day before, it seems that some of the murk around Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s release has lifted. In particular, one thing is explicit that wasn’t before: that the policy of the Brown government was to “do all it could” to facilitate the convicted Lockerbie bomber’s transfer to Libya. We might have surmised the same from David Miliband’s statements at the time. But now, at least, we know for sure. Naturally, this is tricky news for Labour, and especially for the Ghosts of 2008 whose names are splashed across the papers today: Brown himself, Jack Straw, Des Browne, etc. And yet Gus O’Donnell’s report has also absolved them of

David Blackburn

Osborne quells some dissent with his latest ruse

This morning’s newspapers would have made grim reading for the government. The Department for Transport has been forced to reverse its helicopter privatisation plan, there are doubts that the baccalaureate will suit Michael Gove’s education reforms and diverse packs of hounds have converged on the Big Society fox – and this is a cruel bloodsport.  But, the master tactician has struck again. George Osborne’s sudden decision to raise an extra £800m through this year’s banking levy has relieved some pressure from the government. This is a minor operation by the standards of Osborne’s previous political coups, but it diverts attention and illustrates that the government is making some progress in the

Monday

Fraser Nelson

King’s credibility is faltering

We at The Spectator have not had much company in criticising Mervyn King for the failure of his monetary policy. The Bank of England governor has a status like the Speaker used to: someone whose position must command respect, otherwise the system collapses. And yet there are Octopuses with a better track record in inflation forecasting. People have been repeating that the Bank’s independence is a great success for so long that it has become a truism. Why? We’ve just had a huge crash, the result of a credit bubble – fuelled by dangerously low lending rates. And the recipe for restoration? Even cheaper debt, with resurgent inflation. The British

Blair Gibbs

Bringing rights back home

Thursday’s debate on the backbench motion on prisoner voting tabled by Jack Straw and David Davis is set to be a real parliamentary event – a rare occasion where the will of the elected legislature might just make a big difference.  The real news will not be how many endorse the ban, but which MPs – aside from those abstaining Government Ministers and Denis MacShane – choose to bow to Strasbourg.   MPs preparing to speak out against Strasbourg are now armed with a powerful academic case.  A new Policy Exchange report authored by the political scientist Michael Pinto-Duschinsky – Bringing Rights Back Home – outlines how the UK can

Piotr Brzezinski

What’s Labour’s alternative to the Big Society?

After a difficult few weeks for the Big Society, culminating in Liverpool’s nakedly political ‘withdrawal’ from the vanguard projects, Peter Oborne has already drafted an obituary for the Conservative’s policy agenda.   As Oborne says, the Big Society goes to the heart of this government’s reason for existence, and its (real or perceived) failure would damage the Conservatives. But it’s notable Labour has yet to come up with an alternative to the Big Society, or even a substantive critique of the idea. The problem for Miliband is that the Big Society agenda captures the centre ground of social policy – neither pro nor anti-state – and risks sidelining his party.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Wasting away | 7 February 2011

The Independent has a remarkable story today which shows just how public money gets wasted. The paper reports that the Department for Energy and Climate Change has employed a firm of headhunters to find it a new chief economist. Tom Peck writes that the headhunters then approached Vicky Pryce about the job. Ms Pryce had until recently worked at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills but had quit when her then husband Chris Huhne became a Cabinet minister to avoid any appearance of impropriety. What is so revealing about this story is that it suggests that before calling Ms Pryce, the headhunters had seemingly not done the preparatory work

Peter Hoskin

Why the government is right to look beyond ASBOs

We shouldn’t have believed the hype. For all of Tony Blair’s earnest focus on Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, this flagship policy was barely in effect at all. By the latest figures, only 18,670 ASBOs were issued between April 1999 and the start of 2010. According to this Policy Exchange report – the best on the subject that I’ve come across – that accounts for around 0.009 per cent of all incidences of anti-social behaviour. So let’s not pretend that the coalition is upending the criminal justice system by shifting away from ASBOs today. Neither, on the evidence at hand, is it doing away with an effective policy. Here’s a graph that

Sunday

Daniel Korski

A good team with good policies

When the Tories were in opposition, non-aligned friends used to complain to me that the party’s front bench was unimpressive. Labour politicians had walked the political stage for more than a decade; many were household names, while the Tories were unknown. But eight months in and Labour’s top team is a largely unknown entity, with even its few ex-Ministers looking decidedly smaller without their briefcases, officials and government-issued cars. The Tory front bench, meanwhile, is the one looking serious and worthy of power. There is William Hague, a brilliant parliamentarian and that even rarer beast: a well-liked politician. Though currently suffering from a little newspaper criticism, he is seen as