David cameron

Courtesy of Ben Brogan, one of the most noteworthy passages from David Cameron’s appearance on Today this morning: ‘Jim Naughtie: Is the Trident upgrade untouchable? David Cameron: We do need an independent nuclear deterrent… JN: Is that a yes? DC: Yes. Basically I was going to give you a longer and fuller answer but the short answer is yes… To me and the Coalition government, yes, Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent is being replaced.’ It is certainly the most assertive that Cameron has been on the subject since the advent of the coalition, but a couple of questions remain that prevent it from being utterly unequivocal. First, what timeframe is the

Has somebody stolen the Tory Party? A stranger walking around here would have no idea that its their conference. The word “Conservative” or “Tory” is nowhere to be seen. Just a slogan, “Together in the national interest” – a form of words that Cameron has repeatedly used to describe the coalition. As I say in my News of the World column today, Cameron will this week perform the impossible – to de-Tory the Tory conference and make them love it. There is plenty Tory red meat being served: welfare reform, school reform. It wouldn’t susprise me if an announcement on keeping Trident is made this week. So the activists are

The Tory conference in Birmingham is the last big political event before the cuts come. After the 20th, every time a senior Tory appears in public for the next few years they will be about why this or that is being cut. As the row over defence shows, these questions will come from right across the spectrum. For this reason, Simon Schama’s interview with Cameron in today’s FT is probably one of the last that will start with the assumption that Cameron is genial, non-ideological fellow. Once the cuts are happening, it will be harder to cast Cameron as a consensual figure. His edges will appear harder, more defined.  But

Amongst BBC political staff, there’s mounting concern about the plans for a strike during Tory conference. One of them said to me at Labour conference that they just didn’t know what to do, they had been put in an impossible position by the decision to call the strike on such politically important days. These journalists fear that striking during Tory conference would undermine the corporation’s reputation for impartiality. So, a whole host of them wrote to their union rep asking him to make representations on their behalf. His reply shows just the level of hostility these people — who are just trying to do their job — are up against:

The day after the leader’s speech is always a slightly flat time at a party conference. But Manchester today feels particularly flat. Everyone knows that the two big political stories are happening down in London: David Miliband’s expected announcement that he is not standing for the shadow Cabinet and the Fox flap. One of the challenges for Ed Miliband is going to be asserting his authority with his parliamentary colleagues, most of whom didn’t vote for him. Added to this is the fact that many of them remember him as a young bag-carrier. Members of the shadow Cabinet were openly mocking his ‘new generation’ line last night. All this is

Well, it turns out that ‘Red Ed’ is really a social conservative. As both Pete and James say, his speech contained notable sallies into Cameroon territory – community and family. He didn’t follow Cameron’s trail to the metre, but fell into many of the same ditches. Two things struck me: 1). Ever the opportunist, Miliband sees that there is the kernel of a good idea at the root of the ‘Big Society’ and tried to exploit Cameron’s inability to present it. Miliband’s gave us the ‘Good Society’, a clear though sanctimonious slogan for community renewal. However, he, like Cameron, can’t define what he means by community. He talked about post