Conservative party

There’s much chatter in Westminster today about the fact that George Osborne is chairing the Cabinet committee on Scotland. Osborne is, of course, the Conservatives’ chief electoral strategist as well as the Chancellor of Exchequer. This has led to some suggestions that he wouldn’t be too upset by a referendum defeat that would make it an awful lot easier for the Tories to win a majority at Westminster. This is unfair: Osborne is a Unionist. What those around Osborne have long been interested in is the option that the coalition seems to be ruling out: fiscal autonomy. The circle around Osborne have long believed that it is only when Scottish

James has already blogged the Sunday Telegraph’s interview with David Cameron, but some other things stand out from it — and not just the PM’s unthinking attack on Ed Balls either, for which he has since apologised. Take these paragraphs on tax, for instance: ‘The Prime Minister effectively rules out any move towards a “mansion tax” — a levy on high-priced properties proposed by the Liberal Democrats — or indeed any new tax on wealth. “I don’t believe, generally speaking, we should be looking at endless additional taxes.” However, he signals that the 50p top rate of income tax, on earnings above £150,000, will remain for the time being, despite

The decision on whether or not to proceed with the HS2 rail link is expected on Tuesday. Given all the legal issues involved, the government is not making any public comment on the matter. But all the signs are that it will get the go-ahead. There will be quite considerable opposition to the projects from parts of the Tory party. It is highly likely that Cheryl Gillan, the Welsh Secretary who represents one of the seats that will have the line running through it, will resign over the matter. If she does, expect Maria Miller to replace her. Number 10 are keen not to see the number of women in

Tucked away on page 15 of today’s Times, there’s an insightful story about Lords reform (£) by Roland Watson. And it’s insightful not just for the new information it contains, but also for the familiar truth it confirms: reforming the House of Lords is going to be one helluva difficult task. You see, while both halves of the coalition committed to a fully- or ‘mainly-elected’ upper chamber in their respective manifestos, only one half of the coalition is particularly eager to force it through now. As the Times story says, Nick Clegg’s proposed Bill has already endured a ‘serious re-writing’ to make it more palatable all round, but even so:

Who can be toughest on the ‘undeserving rich’ is shaping up to be one of the main political battlegrounds of 2012. David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s comments today on tax avoidance are an attempt to get ahead of this debate.    Clegg, though, is keen to make this issue his own. As I say in the politics column this week, he is planning a big speech later this month on ‘responsible capitalism’. He will use it to argue that there need to be more checks and balances within companies and call for more shareholder power over executive pay. One Cleggite tells me, in reference to the Labour leader’s conference speech

Immigration will remain at the heart of political debate in 2012. Economic downturns tend to heighten concerns about migrants competing for jobs and depressing wages, and spending cuts tend to sharpen resentment over migrants claiming benefits or adding to pressure on public services. The latest e-petition to garner a hundred thousand signatures will get its reward of a day in parliament, debating the effects of immigration on Britain’s growing population. And while Labour and the Liberal Democrats might be reluctant to talk about immigration, the Tory leadership clearly see it as useful in handling those on the right who are unhappy with life in coalition — commentators as well as

Whenever politicians talk about social care, they tend to promise ‘cross-party talks’. It’s their little euphemism for ‘we don’t want to commit to a policy by ourselves.’ Don’t get them wrong, it’s not that they don’t have ideas for fixing a system that is straining under the weight of an ageing population; the Dilnot report, released earlier this year, gave them plenty of recommendations to work with. It’s just that they don’t want to be the ones to implement the tax hikes or spending cuts that will be necessary to fund it. If they can talk it through with the other parties — the thinking goes — then this crucial

Under cover of discussing the Open Society and its enemies, Nick Clegg today set out his personal agenda for the next year of this government. Indeed, Clegg’s speech to Demos earlier was perhaps the purest distillation of his politics since the big set-piece number he delivered at the Lib Dem conference in 2008. It contained many of the same themes as that earlier speech: ‘social mobility’, ‘civil liberties’, and ‘democracy’. And it added a couple more for good measure: ‘political pluralism’ and ‘internationalism’. The Deputy Prime Minister described these five political impulses as ‘the source of my liberalism’. As for the specifics, there was Tory-baiting to be found in Clegg’s

A few months after the coalition was formed, I went for lunch with a close ally of Nick Clegg. After an hour or so of discussing what the coalition’s agenda would be, this Liberal Democrat said to me: ‘now, David Cameron can’t really be serious about this marriage stuff, can he?’ When I replied that I thought he was, he looked at me with total incomprehension. He then launched into a speech about how no ‘liberal’ could possibly want to see the state promote marriage. This is the thinking that lies behind Clegg’s latest attack on the idea of tax breaks for married couple; it has become an identity issue

The Prime Minister does God. At least, that’s the gist of his first major speech on religion. Actually, the interesting thing is that a Tory Prime Minister feels that he has to make the point that he is a Christian. Other than Michael Howard, who was Jewish, most other Tory leaders could have assumed we’d take it as read that he or she was more or less CofE, including Mrs Thatcher, who was, of course, a Methodist.  Following Richard Dawkins’ remark that the Prime Minister may ‘not really’ be a Christian, Mr Cameron responded: ‘I am a committed – but I have to say vaguely practising – Church of England

What are the Lib Dems up to? On Tuesday, Clegg, Cable, Alexander, Huhne and Laws met with ‘Business for New Europe’, a group of pro-European business leaders, in what the FT describes as as ‘a very public display of engagement with business over Europe’ and the front page of today’s Mail calls ‘plotting to rally business chiefs against Cameron over Europe’. It is, of course, not surprising to see senior Liberal Democrats talking to pro-EU business people and advocating more engagement with Europe. But it does highlight what will be a key goal of the Lib Dem leadership over the next few months: building bridges with Europe, particularly to reconnect