Conservative party

Monday

James Forsyth

Wheeling and dealing over the AV bill

If the AV referendum is to take place on the 5th of May, the legislation paving the way for it needs to have passed by the 16th of February. But this bill is currently being held up in the Lords where Labour peers are objecting to the ‘Tory part’ of the bill which reduces the number of MPs and equalises constituency sizes. The coalition does not have a majority in the Lords, so all the talk of simply ramming the bill through was always slightly unrealistic. But the coalition’s concession that there can be public inquiries into the boundary review has created an expectation that Labour might now drop its opposition. The cross benches, the swing group in the Lords, have been impressed by this concession.

Peter Hoskin

What are Osborne’s options?

One of the most eyecatching political reports of the weekend was squirrelled away on page 16 (£) of the Sunday Times. It's worth clipping out for the scrapbook, even now. In it, Marie Woolf reveals some of the fiscal sweeteners that Osborne might sprinkle into the Budget. There are two particularly noteworthy passages: i) Raising the personal allowance. "The income tax threshold is already set to increase by £1,000 to £7,457 from April 1. However, Osborne is expected to raise it by about a further £500. Details of the additional concession are still being worked on, but it marks a victory for the Liberal Democrats, who have been arguing within government for tax cuts for the poor." ii) Holding off on 50p.

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

Has Maude shut the door in Boris’s face?

Nigel Lawson and Francis Maude are both interviewed in the Telegraph today, and the results are very different in each case. For his part, Lawson is in bombastic form – waxing sceptical on everything from the coalition to the Big Society. Whereas Maude is predictably more reserved and accepting. It's the Maude interview, though, that contains the most politically significant revelation. Namely, this: "Boris Johnson, privately backed by several Cabinet ministers, is leading the charge for tougher union laws. But Maude, a key player in the Coalition’s dealings with the public sector, is reluctant. Tightening Thatcher’s labour laws is a 'last resort' he says.

Friday

James Forsyth

Gove entrenches his reforms

In another sign of how the pace of Gove’s reforms is quickening, the education secretary has told local authorities that all new schools should be free schools or academies. This is a big step towards changing the default nature of the system from state-funded and state-run to state-funded but independent.   Local authorities will not be able to open a bureaucrat-controlled school unless they can satisfy the Secretary of State that there is no free school or academy provider willing to step in.   Gove has always argued that once free schools and academies become a significant part of the system it’ll be no more politically possible to abolish them than it would be to take sold-off council houses back into public ownership.

Peter Hoskin

Boris: George knows I’m right

David Cameron and George Osborne must have hoped that their message from Davos today would be broadcast unimpeded. It is, after all, a blunt message, designed to smash through all the radio chatter: we must continue with deficit reduction, there is no alternative, etc. But, inconveniently for them, there are other voices saying what we must do – among them Boris Johnson. The Mayor of London's interview with the Telegraph is at once typical and quite intriguing. Typical, because he holds aloft the same standards as always. "I understand 50p tax politically," he says, "but there has got to be a sense of where we are going and where we want to be as a country.

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

The Big Society in 1997

Titter ye might. The Big Society? In 1997? If the idea was of, erm, limited electoral worth in our last general election, then it was certainly of little use when Tony Blair hurtled into power all those years ago. Yet there is was, mostly speaking, in the "Civic Conservatism" espoused chiefly by David Willetts. Danny Finkelstein, writing for the pre-paywall incarnation of Comment Central, has already alluded to the intellectual debt that Steve Hilton et al owe to Willetts' thinking back in the 1990s. Fraser did likewise in an interview with Willetts from four-and-a-half years ago. I mention this now for two conjoined reasons.

Lloyd Evans

This Ed’s no Goliath

Ed Milliband took up his position at PMQs today flanked by Caroline Flint and Ed Balls. Between a rock and a hard face. His proximity to so many colleagues who wish him ill can hardly have helped his performance. He was like a stale doughnut. Layers of stodge surrounding a hole in the air.   His battle-plan wasn’t entirely useless. He wanted to tempt the prime minister into foolish speculation about the causes of last quarter’s poor growth figures. Cameron stood up and admitted that the numbers were pretty lousy whether the weather were blamed or not. And that whether-the-weather left Miliband completely stuffed.

James Forsyth

Winning in 2015

Danny Finkelstein’s column in The Times today (£) is well worth reading. Finkelstein sets out two worries, first that the Tories do not have enough of a strategy for winning re-election and second that the NHS reforms might compromise Cameron’s standing as a different kind of Tory. On the latter point, Finkelstein is echoing the views of an increasing number of Tory MPs and ministers. They worry that these poorly understood reforms have put the NHS back on the political table and that, as is so often the case when this happens, the Tories will suffer. Finkelstein’s first worry is that if the government sets out deficit reduction as its raison d’etre then, when that is achieved, as it should be by the next election, it loses its purpose.

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 26 January 2011

VERDICT: Ed Miliband had it all, going into today's PMQs: weak growth figures, the uncertain demise of control orders, rising youth unemployment, and more. And yet, somehow, he let most of it go to waste. Barely any of his attacks stuck – or, for that matter, stick in the mind – and Cameron rebuffed them with surprising ease. It helped that the Prime Minister seemed more comprehensively briefed than usual, with a decent compliment of statistics, and one or two sharp lines, at his disposal. (Although, measuring by the Labour cheers, I doubt he will thank Jacob Rees-Mogg for invoking Thatcher immediately after his exchange with the Labour leader.) In the end, a victory for Cameron – although that won't defuse the issues that Miliband should have detonated.

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Everyone got the invitation, but the Tories had omitted the dress code

ConHome has published its latest members’ survey. Its (admittedly unscientific) findings into respondents’ recollections of floating voters at the last election have reopened the debate about why the Conservatives didn’t win. In a combative piece, Janet Daley insists that the results ‘stand the modernising argument on its head’. These findings look more inconclusive to me. 85 percent of respondents were told that the party and its leadership were ignorant of ordinary concerns, supporting David Davis’ insinuations that the party is out of touch with the common man.

Monday

James Forsyth

Does it matter what the government is called?

Danny Finkelstein has written an interesting post objecting to Channel 4 referring to the ‘Conservative-led coalition’ last night. Finkelstein’s objection, and a valid one to my mind, is that ‘Conservative-led’ makes a judgment about the nature of the coalition. Of course, this whole spat has been set off by a clever letter from Ed Miliband’s communications director Tom Baldwin to broadcasters objecting to their use of the word ‘coalition’ to describe the government on the grounds that it implies that the government is a collaborative enterprise. I suspect that this whole row will rumble on for a while yet. It is tempting to dismiss the whole thing as absurd, as only of interest to a few journalists and spin doctors.

David Blackburn

Outgoing head of the CBI slams the government on growth

Richard Lambert has launched an uncompromising but constructive assault on the government’s growth strategy, or lack of it. He said: “The government is…talking about growth in an enthusiastic and thoughtful way… But it’s failed so far to articulate in big picture terms its vision of what the UK economy might become under its stewardship. “What I feel is that a number of their initiatives – I’m thinking of the immigration cap, I’m thinking about their move on the default retirement age, about the carbon reduction commitment - have actually made it harder for companies, or less likely for companies to employ people. And what we want, actually, is a sense of direction, a sense of ambition.

Daniel Korski

The government must continue to liberalise Europe’s market

For a long time, the terms of Britain's Europe debate has been about the merits - or otherwise - of membership. This has occluded discussion about the need to promote a deregulated and economically liberal single market, for which the Conservatives have fought so successfully since Britain joined the then EEC in 1973.   Now Lord Brittan has shown the way. In a speech to Business for New Europe, he takes aim at the many illiberal practices that hamper economic development across Europe and hurt British business: “Portugal still has rules governing the minimum distance requirements between driving schools; and in Greece, directors of dancing schools need to live within a set distance of the school!

David Blackburn

The coalition needs to address bonuses

Much ado about bankers’ bonuses this afternoon. Tim Montgomerie reports that the proposed banking deal has run aground in Whitehall. The timing is inconvenient: Cameron and Clegg are due to fly to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum. The government hopes to allay public resentment by coercing banks into increasing their lending; which is also a crucial part of its nascent growth strategy. It adds to the impression that the government is failing to make progress in any other realm than cuts. For the time being, Tory spinners are content to distract attention by telling anyone that will listen about Ed Balls’ record on bank regulation and boundless enthusiasm for spending other people’s money.

Sunday

James Forsyth

DD’s classy intervention

David Davis’ interview on Jon Pienaar’s show this evening has revived the debate about whether or not it matters how posh the Cameron top table is. Andy Coulson was the most senior person there who understood what it is actually like to work your way up the ladder and with him gone that experience is missing. But what matters far more than the personalities involved is the policy outcomes. As I said in the Mail on Sunday, the most important thing for Cameron to do is to deliver for these voters. To cut their taxes and give them public services that offer them value for money.

Matthew Hancock-Mp

Re-introducing Ed

We already knew Ed Balls was behind Gordon Brown’s economic policy. He devised the policy on spending that left Britain with the worst deficit heading into the crisis, and wrote the bank regulations that his colleague Douglas Alexander attacked earlier today.   What we have discovered today, from Balls’ first foray into economic policy as Shadow Chancellor, is that he was also behind the old Brown ploy of twisted facts and absurd assertions.   First, he claimed the public finances are better than the Treasury forecast. Yet the independent Office for Budget Responsibility found that the structural deficit – the hole we have to fix - was worse than Labour admitted.

James Forsyth

Sizing up the runners and riders to replace Coulson

I suspect the identity of the Prime Minister's next director of communications is of far more interest to those who work in Westminster than those in the country at large. But the identity of Coulson's successor will reveal something about the balance of power in the coalition and at the Cameron court. I'm told that the Tories are in no rush to make the appointment, they'd rather take their time and try and find the right person. Despite what Nick Clegg said on Marr this morning, I'm informed that this will be very much a Tory-run selection process. Those in the know say that as with the Coulson appointment, George Osborne will play the crucial role.

Fraser Nelson

Exposing the con man

  To the chagrin of CoffeeHousers, I have long rated Ed Balls and his abilities. He has a degree of brilliance, albeit tragically deployed in the services of a destructive economic agenda. But as we welcome him back, it’s worth reminding ourselves that his abilities are of a specific type. He understands economics (even though he did PPE) but his speciality is in creative accounting. His only tactic is to spend, borrow and cover both up by cooking the books. He is a trickster, not an economist. More Arthur Daley than Arthur Laffer. In my News of the World column today (£) I say he is dangerous to Labour as well as the Tories, perhaps more so. But it’s worth recapping what we’re dealing with.

Saturday

Daniel Korski

Hague hasn’t lost his mojo

There has been no shortage of depressing news for the Tories lately. But, the other day, Benedict Brogan wrote a lengthy post about William Hague that must have made particularly unpleasant in-flight reading for the Foreign Secretary as he jetted around the South Pacific. It argued that: "In his absence – and even when he is back in Britain – Mr Hague is the subject of a whispering campaign among his colleagues, who say that the spark of ambition has died in his heart, and with it his effectiveness as the front man for the nation’s diplomatic effort. The Foreign Office has got its mojo back, just when Mr Hague has lost his.

Peter Hoskin

Why Coulson’s departure matters

Courtesy of the ConHome tag team of Paul Goodman and Tim Montgomerie, two articles that are worth adding to your Saturday reading list. Both capture why Andy Coulson's resignation matters, if not to the general swell of British politics, at least to internal operations in Coalitionville. The wider argument of Paul's article for the Guardian is captured by its headline: "Andy Couslon had a nose for the view of the aspirational voter." But it also homes in on the point that Coulson's departure tilts No.10 in favour of Steve Hilton – something that, rightly or wrongly, will bother the Tory right far more than it does Lib Dems of any persuasion. The obvious question is whether David Cameron will choose to correct than tilt, or maintain it.