Uk politics

Over the past few months, ministers have been using increasingly upbeat language about the British economy. 'Britain is coming back', 'the economy is booming', and 'Britain, we did this together' are examples of just some of the things George Osborne and colleagues have been saying. So why is David Cameron writingin the Guardian about 'red warning lights' on the dashboard of the global economy? The first reason is that all that upbeat language has always been couched in warnings about the global economy. George Osborne's Conservative party conference speech this year contained a long passage about the problems in the world economy, so this is not a change in tune.

Mainstream politicians still aren't sure how to talk about Ukip. There's the question of whether the party's European election and by-election successes will power them to a good result at the 2015 election, or whether this protest movement will fade a little by the time voters start thinking about the sort of government they like. There's the question of whether Ukip is borrowing members of each mainstream party's 'core vote', or whether neither the Tories nor Labour should consider voters 'theirs' any more anyway. And then there's the question of how to talk about Ukip. Most senior politicians are agreed that you can't call people who vote for Ukip fruitcakes or closet racists. But the question still lingers of how to approach the Ukip leadership.

Philip Hammond’s interview in The Telegraph this morning is striking for several reasons. First, Hammond admits that Britain isn’t going to regain full control of its borders in the renegotiation. As he puts it, ‘“If your ambition is that we have total unfettered control of our own borders to do what we like, that isn’t compatible with membership of the European Union, it’s as simple as that. And people who advocate that know jolly well it is not compatible with membership of the European Union. So if that’s what you want, you’re essentially talking about leaving the European Union.”   But he does seem to think that agreement on something that delivers similar results to a quota system is possible.

The Conservatives have released a rather silly leaflet for the Rochester by-election contrasting Mark Reckless with their candidate Kelly Tolhurst. As if to highlight that it might be a silly leaflet, it features the phrase 'the straight choice', which some thought had gone out of fashion in 1983. Then it goes through Tolhurst's local credentials, followed by Reckless's Establishment background. You can see what they're trying to do here, which is to undermine Ukip's anti-Establishment pitch. That's why the Conservatives held a postal primary to select their new candidate once Reckless had defected.

This is the text of a speech delivered by Sir John Major in Berlin. Thank you for your kind invitation.  I feel privileged to be here to talk about the future relationship of the UK and her European partners. Often, on these occasions, speakers deliver their messages delphically;  almost in code.  But this evening I wish my message to be clear.  I do not wish to be misunderstood or misinterpreted.  The issue at stake is too important. And the timing is ironic. Twenty-five years ago this week, the Berlin Wall came down.  German was reunited with German – and an arbitrary and brutal division of Europe was, at last, at an end. It was a great moment in European history – a triumph of freedom over repression.

Ed Miliband has a speech billed as his make-or-break fightback proof-I'd-make-a-great-PM tomorrow morning. In truth, it's rarely right to bill one political speech as The fightback, at least in voters' minds, but the Labour leader does need to show that he hasn't been crushed by the past few weeks - and reassure his party sufficiently for them to fight with him. His speech will be followed by 'interventions' from Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt in the next few days.

I spent an hour today following David Cameron around a school in Rochester as part of his latest campaign visit in the by-election. The school, Strood Academy, was candidate Kelly Tolhurst's alma mater, and has the benefit of being in a snazzy building, which looks nice for photos. The children in the school were obviously thrilled that the Prime Minister was there: they didn't know until he appeared on the premises and as he walked into a citizenship class, all the students' eyes widened with surprise. He was mobbed as he walked through the building, with children turning to each other shouting 'I shook his hand! I've got to tell my mum this!' This was all very nice, but there is one slightly odd detail about this by-election visit.