Uk politics

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

The coming war between the coalition and the councils

Cameron vs the councils may well be the most vicious political battle of 2011 – and one I preview in my News of the World column (£) today. It comes in four stages. First was last week, when the increasingly impressive Eric Pickles said he wanted a 27 percent cut in funding over four years. Grant Shapps weighed in behind him – saying that even 8.9 percent in a year (the maximum cut facing councils) was do-able without any cuts in frontline services. The councils, predictably, said it is not possible. And the threats have started. The strategy amounts to nothing less than a human shield strategy. “If you make

Peter Hoskin

Miliband the Monk has more bleak poll numbers to contemplate

And the award for quotation of the day goes to the unnamed Labour MP who says, in the Sunday Times (£), of Ed Miliband: “We’ve got a new nickname for him: the monk, because he wants two years of quiet contemplation to work out what he’s going to do.”  And second prize goes to another Labour MP, quoted in the same article, for this: “I give him 18 months. Tops.” Words alone may not hurt Miliband, however acidic they are – but throw in another set of poor poll ratings for the Labour leader, and he is rather limping towards next month’s 100 day milestone. Today’s YouGov poll has a

Daniel Korski

The gates of hell

Some blogs get you the news from wizards of Wall Street, or the war-torn back alleys of Baghdad. But here at Coffee House we aim to capture a more, well, English experience: news and views from the gates of Gatwick Airport. I’m stuck here, watching the diligent but lonely tractors fight against a mass of snow. Several inches of snow blighted London yesterday, while icy winds made matters worse. Many flights have been cancelled and disappointed holiday-makers have had their Christmas plans put on ice – literally. Everywhere in the airport’s soulless halls, amidst tacky tax-free offerings, you hear the same thing: why are the airport operators perennially unprepared for

Peter Hoskin

Cable hopes to generate light from heat

First Clegg, now Cable – the Lib Dems really are putting their all into this year-end attack on the bankers. In an interview with the Sunday Times (£) today, the Business Secretary speaks unequivocally and with some zeal. “We’ve got to…start shining a light onto what’s actually going on at the top of the leading banking institutions,” he says, “If you keep people in the dark, you grow poisonous fungus.” And just in case you were wondering which half of the coalition is wielding the anti-fungal torchlight, Cable makes sure to add that, “standing up to militant bankers is probably more difficult for [the Tories].” The subtext: we took on

Saturday

David Blackburn

What Kemp’s intervention says about local government

An original Liberal Democrat councillor from Liverpool called Richard Kemp has labelled Eric Pickles and Grant Shapps Laurel and Hardy. Kemp is adamant that savings cannot be made by efficiencies alone; cuts will affect councils’ control of services. It’s a sharp observation. Indeed, he has located the precise point of the Localism Bill. Communities are being empowered; councillors are not. Pickles has introduced a radical agenda on which the dust will take time to settle. The Bill’s political genius is to devolve responsibility and enforce cuts without relinquishing financial control. At best councillors can fondle the purse; the strings remain largely out of reach. Bin taxes have been abolished; infrastructure levies on developers

David Blackburn

Dissecting operation Coulson

Tom Baldwin’s inaugeration as Labour spin guru occasions Tim Montgomerie to appraise Andy Coulson. For many, Coulson has committed the spin doctor’s cardinal sin and become the story, and not just his more voluble opponents on the left. Tim rejects that analysis, but concedes that Coulson may drift to pastures new in 2011. Coulson’s record is quite impressive. He snared the tabloid press, and, together with George Osborne, ended Gordon Brown’s short honeymoon, exposing the Labour leader’s indecision with well-timed tax cut promises. The Election That Never Was spawned a far more enduring theme: Labour’s internal fissures and the timidity of its senior figures. If Coulson goes, that will be his

Friday

James Forsyth

High Court rejects temporary immigration cap

The High Court has just declared the government’s temporary cap on non-EU immigration is unlawful. Its ground was that the cap was not introduced with proper parliamentary scrutiny. However, the annual cap, which will not be in place until April next year, is not affected by this decision. But without a temporary cap there’ll be a spike in applications as people try and beat the cap. It’ll be fascinating to see how the PM and the Home Secretary respond to this ruling. At the moment, the government is playing it softly, softly. But there are Tories who think that the government cannot just allow a key part of its flagship

Peter Hoskin

Cameron’s good will to all Lib Dems

Cameron wishes the Lib Dems well in the Oldham by-election. We know this because he said so, in Brussels this afternoon, no less than three times in thirty seconds. The Telegraph’s James Kirkup has the full transcript, here. The PM does caveat his well-wishing – adding that “we’ll be fighting for the same votes” – but his general effusiveness isn’t going to reassure those Tories who suspect he’d quite like a Lib Dem victory, really. Already the murmuring has started, with ConHome’s Jonathan Isaby casting an understandably sceptical eye across proceedings, this morning. What’s clear is that this Oldham by-election will be used as a political barometer by all sides.

Daniel Korski

Europe keeps vexing the coalition

That the Conservatives and the Lib Dems disagree fundamentally on Europe is a well-known fact. But how much they disagree is rarely put on display as clearly as in today’s European Voice. Andrew Duff, Liberal Democrat MEP and president of the Union of European Federalists, argues that the coalition’s European Union bill – David Lidington’s masterpiece – amounts to “legal pedantry” and will make the UK an “untrustworthy negotiating partner, particularly in matters of treaty amendment, which is such an important driver of European integration.” ‘At home, referenda will unleash the forces of populist nationalism. Facile coalitions of nay-sayers will form to block Britain’s progress in Europe. Regular referenda on

Daniel Korski

What is the MoD for?

Yesterday, Liam Fox vowed to install a tougher procurement system in the Ministry of Defence and appointed the bureaucracy-busting Bernard Grey as Chief of Defence Materiel. The Defence Secretary said that it is important to start from first principles if reform is to take place. The ministry, he said, “exists to provide the Armed Forces with what they need”. But is that right? The MoD exists, first, to maintain civilian and democratic control of the armed forces; and, second, to support effective operations. Supporting the military is a corollary of the second task, but not the same thing. In desiring to reform the MoD and cut costs, there is a

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clegg: Sheffield Forgemasters decision could be revisited

In an interview with Prospect Magazine, Nick Clegg has suggested that the decision not to loan government money to Sheffield Forgemasters ‘could be revisited.’ When pressed on whether the decision to cancel the loan was an odd decision given the coalition’s stated aim of rebalancing the economy and encouraging manufacturing. Clegg replied, “I agree. The trouble is the money that Labour had provided came from a budget in the business department that was running on empty. The treasury and Vince Cable felt it wrong to take money from somewhere else. But the whole issue could be revisited.” This strikes me as a dangerous thing to suggest. If the issue is

Peter Hoskin

Clegg turns his attention from the students to the banks

‘Tis the season to bash a banker – or it is if you’re a Lib Dem, at least. After the stresses of last week, Nick Clegg lets off steam with an aggressive interview in the FT. “They don’t operate in a social vacuum,” he says of the City’s moneymen, before seething that, “it is wholly untenable to have millions of people making sacrifices in their living standards, only to see the banks getting away scot-free.” He even suggests that the government should consider a one-off bonus tax, like that introduced by Labour last year.   Will anything come of it? On the evidence so far, probably not. The coalition –

Thursday

James Forsyth

MPs’ February fear

When you talk to MPs about the new expenses’ regime there are a whole variety of grumbles you’ll hear, many of them reasonable. For example, it does seem silly that all MPs buy their own printer ink cartridges rather than the Commons buying a job lot and using bulk ordering to obtain a discount. But one of the things that really bothers them is that IPSA will publish all the refused expenses’ requests in February. Now, I expect that most of you think this is reasonable. But MPs do have a point that the way IPSA logs these things means that any enquiry about what you are or are not

David Blackburn

Gray heralds the latest shake-up

The coalition is taking it to the MoD, Whitehall’s most intransigent department.  The FT’s Alex Barker reports that Bernard Gray has been appointed Chief of Defence Materiel.  Gray is a revered and original defence specialist with a history of criticising the MoD in plain terms. Resentment persists over his savage report into procurement, which exposed the full extent of the wasteful ‘conspiracy of optimism’ that pervades the department’s operations and its relations with contractors. He argued: ‘Industry and the Armed Forces have a joint vested interest in sponsoring the largest programme at the lowest apparent cost in a ‘conspiracy of optimism’. This ‘conspiracy’ gives rise to an over-large programme, and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Johnson’s economic education

When he took on being shadow Chancellor, Alan Johnson said that he would need to get hold of an economics primer. Judging by his comments in yesterday’s debate about the bi-lateral loan to Ireland, he hasn’t got that far into it. Johnson told the House, ‘The euro had nothing to do with the [Irish] property boom and bust’. This is a bizarre statement. If Ireland had been able to set its own interest rates, they would have been far higher and thus dampened down the property boom. As Johnson’s close friend and the former Chancellor Alistair Darling said later in the debate when asked if he agreed with the Shadow

David Blackburn

Miliband’s Oldham dilemma

Joy. It will be a campaigning Christmas, now that the Oldham by-election is likely to be held on 13th January. The Labour party is much exercised. The permanently outraged Chris Bryant says it is a ‘disgrace’ that politics will sully the ‘major Christian festival of the year’ – the lapsed cleric seems to have forgotten the election’s proximity to Easter. More importantly, fewer students will be in Oldham on 13th January to serve ‘judgement’ on the government, as Hilary Benn put it in the Commons this morning before adding that the government is ‘running scared’. By-elections are determined by local issues, as one would expect. But Benn’s statement perhaps reveals how

Simon Less

Keep the central planners away from energy policy

Today, the government publishes its consultation proposals for reform of the electricity generation market. The key debate over the next few months will be whether Britain continues to have a competitive market, or reverts to central planning of the power generation sector. New Labour paid lip-service to a competitive electricity market, while chipping away at its ability to operate effectively – through a constant accretion of new policies, typically promoting renewables. The effect has been to salami-slice the market into technology-specific segments, to increase political and regulatory uncertainty, to encourage lobbying and rent-seeking, and to increase financing costs. Instead of competing by taking investment decisions and innovating, market players wait for

Peter Hoskin

Ainsworth has a point

Much ado about Bob Ainsworth this morning, and his views on drug policy. The former defence secretary, and a junior Home Office minister under Tony Blair, has become the most high profile political figure to call for the legalisation of drugs. Or, as he put it: “It is time to replace our failed war on drugs with a strict system of legal regulation, to make the world a safer, healthier place, especially for our children. We must take the trade away from organised criminals and hand it to the control of doctors and pharmacists.” To my mind, this is a welcome intervention. It’s not that the case for legalising drugs

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Miliband out of the danger zone

Up, up, up! It was the only way he could go. For the last couple of months Ed Miliband has arrived at PMQs like a hapless fag with his bottom ready-stripped for a ritual flogging from Flashman. Today he made a proper fight of it. This was his best PMQs performance since his debut. He’s been studying the old masters. Long-term followers of PMQs will have recognised William Hague’s favourite battle-plan today. In football it would be called ‘pass-and-go’. You ask a question. Then dismiss the answer as inadequate. Ask a second question. Dismiss the second answer as inadequate. Move to a third question while pointing out, in parenthesis, that

Daniel Korski

A “two stone” solution to the Euro crisis will unbalance the coalition

Whatever the British government wants, moves are now afoot on the Continent to address some of the structural problem with the Euro. They may in the end lead to some form of fiscal federalism. So far they are not supported by Angela Merkel, the key decision-maker, who worries constantly about the court in Karlsruhe, which has set clear limits on further European integration. But they are said to be supported, at least in part, by Finance Minister Wolfgang Shauble. Writing in the Financial Times, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Peer Steinbrück argue that the EU needs “a more radical, targeted effort to end the current uncertainty, and provide stronger support for the