Liberal democrats

Another lobbying scandal has hit the coalition. The Times is reporting that Carina Trimingham, Chris Huhne’s partner, boasted of having ‘excellent contacts… from Cabinet members to more junior ministers’ to a lobbying firm she was seeking work with. She also allegedly urged this firm to ‘make use of my skills and contacts.’ Trimingham has told the paper that she will not take on any role that involves energy and climate change so there will be no conflict of interest. She also points out that having worked in politics for more than a decade Huhne is not her only contact. A spokesman for the Energy and Climate Change Secretary says that

The recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s review into party funding are not going to happen. Both the Labour and Tory members of the review have issued notes of dissent to it. Nick Clegg has, on behalf of the government, issued a statement gently rolling the report into the long grass. Interestingly, the Tory party – which was for a while attracted to additional state funding – has now ruled it out completely. Unlike Clegg’s statement saying it shouldn’t be done while economic times are so tough, the Tory rejection of it is not time limited. One other thing worth noting is that Labour, via Margaret Beckett’s

This might seem a very odd question. A pro-EU position is part of the party’s internationalist DNA. Listen to any EU-related speech by the likes of Nick Clegg or Paddy Ashdown and heartfelt support for the European project is apparent. The Liberal Democrats have also made a virtue of reining in Tory euroscepticism, for example rejecting a call for repatriation of powers in the Coalition Agreement. The Deputy Prime Minister remains, in private and public, pro-EU. And to many activists and MPs, the party’s European stance is what makes it different to the Tories – and is the reason why they are Lib Dems. They see in Tory euroscepticism a

David Cameron summoned all Tory special advisers to Downing Street for a meeting this afternoon. He wanted, I understand, to warn them that too much of the coalition’s internal workings were being briefed out to journalists. He made it clear that he wants an end to process stories appearing in the papers.   Downing Street has been infuriated by recent reports of tensions between Steve Hilton, Cameron’s senior adviser, and George Osborne and is keen to stamp on anything that keeps this — rather misleading — story going. There are also worries about the party being seen as divided again, a return to the old Tory wars stories of the

“The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, will today announce proceeds from the government growth fund which will protect or safeguard 200,000 jobs.” This sentence contains everything that’s wrong about this government’s schizophrenic approach to economic recovery. Rather than cut taxes and let the economy grow, they increase tax — and then give people back a portion of the cash, expecting to be thanked as they do so. And, for good measure, dropping in a spurious jobs number. Nick Clegg was on the Today programme this morning, showcasing the phenomenon that retards so many economies: politicians seeking credit for giving one man’s money to another. He started off by announcing that

Sources in Number 10 tell me that the party leaderships feels it cannot support the Eustice amendment. They stress that it is not Conservative party policy. But I also detect a sense that there is no point even considering backing it as the Lib Dems would never accept renegotiation followed by a referendum being government policy. If Number 10 continues to be inflexible, it will have a sizable rebellion on its hands. Tory MPs — especially those who think they might have a reselection fight on their hands, and that’s a lot of them thanks to the boundary review — want something to take back to their constituencies. A hardening