Uk politics

Friday

Peter Hoskin

Clegg binds himself closer to the coalition (for now)

The quotes emerging, in advance, from Nick Clegg’s Westminster Hour interview are a mix of the unsurprising and the intriguing. To the first category belongs his claim that “parties in government tend to get a dip in their popularity” – I mean, he’s hardly going to say that the Lib Dems’ decline in the polls is a disaster, is he? But this, for instance, belongs firmly in the second category: “If we weren’t in a coalition now I don’t think people would take any notice of the Liberal Democrats ….  If we were in a coalition with Labour, arguably our identity crisis would be even worse.” In other words, the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brittan and the state of politics

The reaction to Leon Brittan’s appointment tells us three important things about the current political situation. First, the Tory backbenches are becoming increasingly grumpy at jobs going to people other than them. A large number of Tory MPs who had expected ministerial posts missed out because of coalition. Cameron’s failure to write to many of these people thanking them for their service in opposition has made some of them rather bitter. But this resentment has grown in recent weeks as jobs have gone to various other people. The former Tory MP Paul Goodman says what many of his former colleagues are thinking when he writes, ‘There are more than 300

Peter Hoskin

Remembering the few

Today is the 70th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s ‘Few’ speech. Here’s how the Spectator reviewed it at the time: Mr Churchill looks ahead, The Spectator, 23 August 1940 Mr Churchill surpassed even his own masterpieces of lucid and spirited exposition in his speech on Tuesday, in which he surveyed the first year of the war and the last exciting days of victory in the air and looked fearlessly into the future. During the previous fortnight, and especially during the previous week, the nation had become aware of the fact that the intensified air attack was part of that onslaught on Britain whose approach was trumpeted in Germany. It might be

Thursday

James Forsyth

Did business interests

Today’s most intriguing political story is that David Rowland will not become Tory Treasurer after all. The press release from the Tories says that this is because of the ‘expansion of his global business interests.’  Others, though, are begging to differ. ConservativeHome’s piece on the matter is headlined ‘The Daily Mail sinks the Tory Treasurer’, the paper has run a succession of interesting pieces on various aspects of Mr Rowlan’s life.     For all we know, Mr Rowland’s expanding global business interests may well be why he is stepping down. But the feeling among political journalists this afternoon is that the Mail has claimed another scalp and that the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Lord Ashcroft’s warnings about David Rowland

Here in Westminster, the David Rowland story is the talk of the hour. It seems that Lord Ashcroft and Michael Spencer had both warned Cameron that Rowland would come in for unfavourable coverage from the media if appointed and that they worried that other donors would not want to deal with him. I’m informed that they feared that his appointment could undo much of the work they had done to strengthen the party’s finances. The media’s attention tonight is turning to the question of why David Cameron ignored the warnings about the controversy that this appointment would cause. Some senior Tories are questioning his judgement over the matter pointing out

James Groves

The return of traditional subjects

Today’s A-level results once again see the pass rate continuing to rise, in this instance for the 28th year in a row, with 97.6% of entries gaining an E or above, up from 97.5% in 2009. While not wishing to detract from the efforts of students and teachers, unfortunately such a rise has become all too expected, to the point where there would almost have to be a public inquiry if it were not to happen. Nor should the introduction of the A* at A-Level warrant particular attention, except perhaps to say that it serves as a symbol of how far we have allowed grade inflation to go.    

Peter Hoskin

Party time | 19 August 2010

Utterly incredible. Over at ConHome, Alex Deane has highlighted something that is just utterly incredible – Team David Miliband’s guide to hosting a “house meeting” in his honour. You really have to read the 6-page pdf to take in the full, fastidious horror of it all. But this tip for, erm, “building accountability” into the guest-list deserves pulling out: “Remind your guests the day before – try and build accountability into the relationship. If someone confirms then they should be there and you need to let people know you are disappointed if they don’t turn up… even if it’s just your mates!” What fun. UPDATE: By way of a hat-tip,

Peter Hoskin

Ed Miliband’s backhanded offer to the Lib Dems

As Channel 4 reminds us, there have been two major trends in recent opinion polls. First, the precipitous decline in the Lib Dem vote share. And, second, a solidification of the Labour position, such that some polls even have them as the biggest party in a hung parliament. Predictably, this has stirred the omnipresent Simon Hughes, and some other folk around Westminster, into talking about a LibLab coalition. Which is why Ed Miliband’s comments in the New Statesman today are so eyecatching. He tells Jason Cowley and Mehdi Hasan that he couldn’t go into the coalition with the Lib Dems if they were led by Nick Clegg. He’s got problems

Peter Hoskin

The Tories tone down their rhetoric on A-levels

The latest A-level results have been released and – surprise, surprise – success rates have risen. The proportion of papers marked at grade E or above increased to 97.6 percent from 97.5 percent last year. And 27 percent achieved an A or the new A* grade, with 8 percent at A* overall. So, naturally, and rightly, the usual arguments about “dumbing down” are out in force. The Tories used to love getting stuck into this debate, accusing the New Labour government of eroding exam standards. But it’s noteworthy that, now they’re in power, their rhetoric on the matter has become considerably less provocative. Speaking this morning about standards, David Willetts

Peter Hoskin

This Parliament’s key dividing line?

They may have faded from the front pages, but middle class benefits are still one of the most important stories in town. What we are witnessing here could be the birth of this Parliament’s defining dividing line – a cuts vs investment for the new decade. In truth, the birthing process began before the election, with this Ed Miliband interview in the Guardian. In it, he made a distinction between a “residual welfare state that is just for the poor, which is the Tory position,” and a “more inclusive welfare state” that encompasses the middle classes. His point was that the former goes against “all the evidence of maintaining public

Wednesday

Mark Littlewood

A solid enough start

The Liberal-Conservative administration deserves to pass its 100 day probation. It hasn’t done much yet, but it has said some of the right things and sounds like it might even get round to doing a few of these things at some point in the not-too-distant future. I’d pretty much accept that from a new staff member, so I guess I should be half-pleased that I seem to be getting this level of performance from my government. The coalition partners were right to shelve their timid pre-election rhetoric about the size of the hole in the public finances. The Liberal Democrats’ implausible insistence that cuts shouldn’t start until next year was

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clegg’s dilemma | 18 August 2010

Nick Clegg’s few days in charge have summed up his current political problem. If he says he agrees with what the government is doing, the media ask what’s the point of the Lib Dems? That’s what happened to him on the Today Programme this morning. But if he talks about where he disagrees with the coalition programme as he did on Monday when discussing Trident, he’s lambasted for exacerbating coalition tensions.   It is all far cry from the early days of the coalition when there was some concern in Conservative circles that Clegg was a thinner, better version of David Cameron. But if Clegg went back and like a

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Exclusive: Gordon Brown launches his public speaking career

While Tony Blair has been pledging a slice of his massive post-PM earnings to The Royal Legion, a tale reaches me – from an impeccable source – about what Gordon Brown is up to. He once indicated he’d devote his post-PM life to modest good works, but it appears he is also trying to build up a large nest egg of his own: in the world of public speaking, with six-figure fees. He’s asked a London speaking agency to tout for speaking engagements for him in the Middle East and Asia. And the price? He’s been offered at $100,000 a pop and is promising to speak on areas covered by

Peter Hoskin

Cowboy clampers are just the tip of the iceberg

It looks like the wheel-clampers are in retreat after Haroon Zafaryab’s heroics the other day and Lynne Featherstone’s subsequent “ban on clamping and towing on private land“. And as they leave the field, it’s worth returning to a piece that Ross Clark wrote for The Spectator last year in which he tied the cowboy clampers in with a wider malaise: the last government’s “blind spot” for business, such that “it simply cannot distinguish between where business ends and racketeering begins”. Here’s the full article for the benefit of CoffeeHousers: We have become a nation of shysters, Ross Clark, The Spectator, 17 October 2009 Power cuts and uncollected rubbish form most

Robert Mcilveen

Fuel Poverty and the Winter Fuel Allowance

The Winter Fuel Allowance was an emotive part of the election campaign, with Labour accusing the Tories of planning to scrap it and David Cameron promising not to. At no point during that debate was it asked whether the WFA was a good way to spend money. Our report earlier this year, Cold Comfort, examined in some detail the demographics of fuel poverty, as well as questioning the logic behind the government’s target. If you take the fuel poverty measure (those spending more than 10% of income on energy) as read, the last government failed utterly to achieve anything on it – as the graph below shows. They introduced the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Trouble on the horizon | 18 August 2010

100 days in, a danger emerging for the coalition: the idea that it is balancing the budget on the backs of the middle class. The Daily Mail front page today warns in apocalyptic font of a ‘Bonfire of the middle class benefits’ while the Times says ‘Families to lose out in bonfire of the benefits.’   The problem for the coalition is that because it is committed to protecting the poorest and the most vulnerable, the cuts will have to be concentrated further up the income scale. This means that a lot of will what go in the cuts are the middle class bits of the welfare state. To compound

Patrick Nolan

Taking stock of the coalition’s first 100 days

While the milestone of 100 days is not new – US presidents are still measured against the progress made in 100 days by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933 –  it is important. A poor start can create the impression of a government of novices. A good one can provide a new government with critical momentum. So how has the coalition done so far? And, in particular, how well have they done in beginning to rescue the UK’s public finances? Today Reform has released a report discussing the coalition government’s performance over its first 100 days. This report draws on four cross-party conferences held over June and July on welfare, education,

David Blackburn

The 100 Days

It’s been 100 days since love was in the air in the Rose Garden. So, how’s it been for you? For most, the Honeymoon continues. An ICM poll for the Telegraph reveals that 46 percent think the government is governing well and that 44 percent believe the government is doing a ‘good job’ in securing economic recovery, against 37 percent who think we’re irreversibly on the road to ruin. True, spending cuts have not yet hit the easily swayed and the government’s popularity will recede, but it won’t collapse – the 37 percent who think the economy is doomed do so for ideological reasons, the economy has not tanked yet.

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

The coalition’s choice over Winter Fuel Allowance

The Winter Fuel Allowance has tapdanced back onto the political landscape today, and it’s all thanks to some insightful work by the FT’s Alex Barker. He had an article in this morning’s pink ‘un which suggested that IDS is lobbying to have it, and and some other “middle-class benefits”, trimmed to help pay for his benefit reforms. And he’s followed that up with a blog-post explaining how even an apparent “cut” in the allowance may not result in savings for the Treasury or the DWP. Strange but true, as they say. This could be a delicate situation for the coalition. In the background to it all is David Cameron’s pre-election

Peter Hoskin

Is Cameron slowly winning the argument on public service reform?

Guido has already highlighted one of the most important graphs from this Ipsos MORI treasure trove, showing that the public have overwhelmingly accepted the need for spending cuts. But this other graph forms a striking companion piece: Sure, the public may be split on whether the coalition will be good for public services. But the main thing to note is that overall optimism is at its highest level since 2001 – and rising. Maybe, contra Brown and Balls, people are realising that you can get more for less.