Picking up David Laws’ axe at the Treasury was never going to be easy – but all credit to Danny Alexander, who seems to be managing it with some degree of gusto. After those extra savings he announced a few weeks ago, the Chief Sec has now written to ministers asking them to identify cuts
When General Petraeus called for a “united effort” on Afghanistan earlier, he might as well have been addressing our government. Between David Cameron’s and Liam Fox’s recent statements, there’s a clear sense that the coalition is pulling in two separate directions. And it’s left William Hague explaining our Afghan strategy thus, to the Times today:
The coalition’s plan for moving claimants off Incapacity Benefit and into work is, at heart, an admirable one. For too long, IB has been used a political implement for massaging the overall unemployment figures, and it has allowed thousands of people to wrongly stay unemployed at the taxpayers’ expense. There is, quite simply, a moral
Ok, so the general public doesn’t much care for this AV referendum – and understandably so. But at least it has added a good slug of uncertainty into the brew at Westminster. Already, curious alliances are emerging because of it – Exhibit A being Jack Straw and the 1922 Committee. And no-one’s really sure about
I doubt No.10 will be all that charmed by David Davis’s comments on Straight Talk with Andrew Neil this weekend, but they should certainly take note of them. They contain some substantive points about the government’s relationship with Tory backbenchers, and points which Davis is not alone in making. The key passage comes when he
ITV’s Lucy Manning reports that David Cameron will campaign against AV ahead of next year’s referendum In one respect, it’s not surprising news: this is what the Tories have always said they’d do. But given recent rumblings and speculation to the contrary, it’s still worth noting down. If the Tories don’t change their minds before
So now, thanks to Left Foot Forward and reports this morning, we know: the referendum on an alternative vote system will take place on 5 May 2011, the same day as same day as the English local, Scottish Parliamentary and Welsh Assembly elections. There are plenty of ins and outs, whys and wherefores – most
We can’t really let today go by without mentioning Nicholas Cecil’s extraordinary scoop in the Standard. Here’s a snippet: “MPs are sleeping secretly in the Commons after being stripped of their second home allowance. A handful of parliamentarians are bedding down at Westminster during the week because they are now banned from claiming on the
Well, CoffeeHousers, I’ve read David Miliband’s article for the latest New Statesman so that you don’t have to. And let me tell you: it’s classic Miliband the Elder. Sure, the central theme – how Labour can reconnect in the English heartlands – is perceptive enough, and it runs through a few home truths which Miliband’s
It may have overlapped generously with his first speech as Deputy PM, but Nick Clegg’s effort today is still a breezy read. Its subject is how the overreaching state should be pushed back out of people’s lives. Its rhetoric is punchy and persuasive in equal measures. And there’s even a mention for that most underrated
With all the hoo-haa about Ken Clarke’s plan to reduce prison numbers, it’s worth disinterring the Spectator’s leader column on the subject from a couple of weeks ago. Here it is, for the benefit of CoffeeHousers: One of the many ludicrous Liberal Democrat policies which Tories enjoyed rubbishing during the general election was their plan
Much ado about the Guardian’s scoop this evening: a leaked Treasury document which forecasts that up to 1.3 million jobs could be lost as a result of the spending cuts in the Budget. Or, to put it in the words of the document itself: “100-120,000 public sector jobs and 120-140,000 private sector jobs assumed to
A quick post to point CoffeeHousers in the direction of our new-look arts pages. There, naturally, you’ll find the usual archive of reviews and articles from the back half of the magazine – but there’s also a new addition. Our old arts blog Cappuccino Culture has been deposed, and in its place is Touching From
Jean Chrétien, the former Canadian prime minister, has acquired an almost mythic status in certain Tory circles for the way his government cut back public spending in the 1990s. So it’s worth paying attention to his remarks about ringfencing departmental budgets last night. He didn’t quite go so far as to say that withholding the
Whatever happened to Sir Hugh Orde? A few months ago, he was threatening to resign over the Tories’ plans for elected police commissioners. But later, in a speech to the Association of Chief Police Officers, he seems to have come over considerably more cooperative. On spending cuts, he stresses that police numbers will likely be
First, David Miliband was telling Brownies about the public finances. Now, his brother’s at it too. Here’s what he told the Daily Politics earlier: “Over thirteen years, Labour did increase spending on public services … In the coming five years, the Conservative coalition wants to undo all of that increase in spending. So they want
Who’d have thought it? There’s David Miliband getting all self-righteous about the “cons” in George Osborne’s Budget, when – oh dear – he slips in a small con of his own. Here’s the relevant passage: “[The Budget] was avoidable. Labour set out plans to cut the deficit by half over the next Parliament. The Tories
George Osborne suggested as much in his Today interview last week, but now we know for sure: the government will look to cut the welfare bill even further in October’s spending review, and incapacity benefit will come in for special attention from the axemen. It was, you sense, ever going to be thus. With unprotected
Might the coalition’s emphasis on fairness be making it harder to get people off welfare and into work? Not a question that I can answer with confidence, but certainly one which has been thrown up by the IFS’s Budget briefing. Take the government’s action on child tax credits, for instance. By increasing it at the
An unfamiliar mood before the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Budget briefing today: many of the gathered journalists, economists and policymakers had decided that, for once, this wouldn’t be an exercise in spotting the Chancellor’s deceptions, because, quite simply, there aren’t many. And they could well be right. In his introductory remarks, Robert Chote, the director