Uk politics

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Miliband bashes rich and big business to pay for NHS ‘Time to Care’ fund

Ed Miliband, due to address Labour conference shortly, is to announce a £2.5 billion NHS Time to Care Fund for thousands more nurses, doctors, caseworkers and midwives. Time to Care will get its money from a £1.1 billion clampdown on tax avoidance, a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2 million and US-style fees for tobacco firms. As James said earlier, this is crude but effective Labour politics and appeals to areas where they are strongest. It appeals to the party's base by bashing the rich and big business, while appealing to the wider electorate on an issue they care about and that annoys them. For many people who feel frustrated that it takes so long to get a GP appointment, it is a tangible pledge.

Alex Massie

The Yes movement slowly moves through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief

No-one has died. No-one has been stabbed. Someone, I suppose, may have been punched. So let's retain some sense of perspective as we consider and try to make sense of the last few days in Scotland. It is only day five. People deal with grief at different speeds. So, pace Ms Kubler-Ross, it shouldn't be a surprise that many Yes voters are still in Denial. Many others have made it to Anger. Some have got as far as Bargaining. Most are certainly still in Depression. Only a few have reached Acceptance. True acceptance, I mean. There's a lot of Yes we lost but if you look at it differently we kinda won. The settled, sovereign, will of the Scottish people is merely a flesh wound.

Steerpike

Shadow ministerial munchies

Fancy a cheeky chew on Chuka, a bite of Balls or a munch on Miliband? At last night's Sky party at Labour conference, the Shadow Cabinet were out in force - on macaroons, presumably to help with the cost of pudding crisis for hardworking people. Those around Miliband often get sniped at for being weak, but these macaroons were crunchy and had plenty of bite. Bizarrely, Eric Pickles gatecrashed the party at one point, albeit in slightly less robust form than usual: The question is, who is the least tasty shadow minister? Mr Steerpike's bakery source says it was the Shadow Business Secretary who ended up lingering longest on the cake stand.

Isabel Hardman

Labour says it will consider British air strikes as recall of Parliament looms

What will happen now that the US has launched airstrikes against Isis in Syria? Even though there is no requirement for Parliament to be consulted, it is very difficult for the British government to join without some form of debate and vote in the House of Commons. And this means that a recall of Parliament before it is scheduled to sit on 13 October. The end of this week is most likely, but there remains a debate at the top of the Tory party as to whether David Cameron could win a vote supporting British action. This is surprising, given so many of those who opposed action against Assad last year have publicly said they would support it, and Labour has made many more supportive noises about its own stance.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

The simple and shocking secret to the working class vote

How does Labour win back the working class voters who've abandoned it? This question, part of the soul searching the party fell into when it lost the 2010 election, has gained even greater currency since the Scottish referendum. This evening Michael Dugher and John Denham had a stab at answering it at a conference fringe. And the answers were really quite unsettling. Denham told the fringe that 'we're talking to people who've come to the conclusion that governments are a bonus if they don't make their lives worse' and therefore just one policy wasn't going to solve it. He said: 'We have to get back into a relationship with people who have good reason to believe politics isn't working for them.

Isabel Hardman

Why is Labour’s Shadow Cabinet saying so little?

Normally the default response in the Labour party to a rough couple of weeks is to blame the Shadow Cabinet. They're not pulling together, they're thinking about their own future leadership prospects rather than backing Ed Miliband and so on and so forth. But while the Shadow Cabinet is looking weak this week at their party conference, for once it is not their fault. They are standing under a banner that announces 'Labour's Plan for Britain's Future', but then say no more about that plan. They are all being sent naked into the conference hall. All they are being required to talk about is their values, and what they have already announced.

Isabel Hardman

Len McCluskey: Ed Balls’s long speech was good in parts

One thing that made Ed Balls' speech to conference look a little less impressive was the barnstormer of an address from Len McCluskey to the hall shortly before. Delegates loved it, and not just because the Unite leader was saying the sorts of things that they wanted to hear. He was also passionate and interesting. He deservedly received the first proper standing ovation of the week. So what did McCluskey think of the speech that followed from Ed Balls? I caught up with the union boss afterwards, and he managed some faint praise: 'Well, I think it was a long speech, and it was a very embracing speech, and I thought in parts it was a good speech.

Isabel Hardman

After a flat speech from Ed Balls, what is Labour conference holding its breath for?

One of the curious traditions of Labour conference is that directly after the Shadow Chancellor's speech, hard copies of his wise words are sold outside the conference hall. Any fiscally responsible Labour types trying to make difficult decisions about how to spend their money might be best advised to keep their £1 in their pockets for the time being, though. Today was not Ed Balls' finest hour. It can't just be that many people at Labour are exhausted after the Scottish campaign to react to their Shadow Chancellor's speech. The reaction of the conference hall was far too flat for the last conference economy speech before the general election. And the reason for that was that there were no new announcements.

Isabel Hardman

Ed Balls: English votes plan is ‘most un-prime ministerial’ thing Cameron has done

Ed Balls wanted to spend his Today programme interview talking about his plans to cut the deficit by limiting child benefit increases to 1 per cent and cutting ministerial pay by five per cent. But he had two big stories to overcome that people seem more interested in. One is his accidental wounding of a journalist, which has made front page news, and the other is English votes for English laws, which is the even bigger front page news from the Labour conference so far (and with a newsless day in the hall yesterday, who can blame journalists for going after something else?). He tried two tactics, which rather cancelled one another out. The first was to argue that there was no 'easy solution to our constitutional situation', which was a suitably boring, no-quotes answer.

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

Ed Balls to freeze child benefit and dock ministerial pay

Ed Balls, so used to dodging elephant traps laid by George Osborne, is going to lay a few of his own tomorrow when he gives his speech to the Labour conference. The Shadow Chancellor, in an attempt to do something about Labour's poll weakness on the economy, will announce that he would freeze child benefit and cut ministers' pay by five per cent until Labour has balanced the books. He will say: 'We will have to make other decisions which I know will not be popular with everyone… I want to see child benefit rising in line with inflation in the next parliament, but we will not spend money we cannot afford. So for the first two years of the next parliament, we will cap the rid in child benefit at one per cent. It will save £400 million in the next Parliament.

Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: The new politics, according to Hilary Benn

Judging by the reaction in the conference hall, Hilary Benn's speech was the best of this afternoon's session. Several people gave him a standing ovation. His task was rather easier than Ed Miliband's on Marr this morning, because the Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary could talk about hopey-changey Labour ideas, rather than the nopey-changey Labour opposition to English votes for English laws (EVEL). So Benn focused on the devolution to English cities and regions that Labour has been working on and talking about for months, arguing that it was the true way to respond to the referendum result. He said: 'Our deal is for all parts of England. Conference, this will be the biggest economic decentralisation in a century. But it won't be enough.

Steerpike

Coffee Shots: Ed Balls wounds journalist at bloody football match

Ed Balls playing football each year at Labour conference is almost as big as Ed Balls Day. The Shadow Chancellor always participates enthusiastically in the annual hacks vs MPs match. Sometimes, he's a little too enthusiastic. Like today, when he accidentally wounded lobby journalist Rob Merrick. Still, the pair made up by the end of the match. Those who predict the General Election campaign will be a bloody battle were more correct than they could ever have imagined.

Isabel Hardman

Tristram Hunt sweet talks party faithful with newsless Labour conference speech

Tristram Hunt's speech to the Labour conference was short and sweet. It was laden with sweeteners for party delegates, which is as things should be at these events, but perhaps his Blairite predecessors are feeling a little sour after the Shadow Education Secretary spent a fair bit of his time on the stage denouncing the principles they once espoused. Clearly the aim was to keep the party faithful happy - and they'd spent the session beforehand making quite clear that they wanted a screeching reversal over many of the Coalition's education reform - because Hunt also attempted to galvanise them by talking about Michael Gove. And when he got bored of talking about Gove, he talked about Nicky Morgan, who he described as 'a "Continuity Gove", auto-pilot Education Secretary'.

James Forsyth

Miliband confronted by the English Question

Ed Miliband wouldn’t have wanted to spend his big, pre-conference interview talking about English votes for English law but that’s what he had to do on Marr this morning. Miliband was prepared to concede more English scrutiny for English legislation. But it is clear he won’t back English votes for English laws. He even argued that it was hard to describe tuition fees, which don’t apply in Scotland, as an issue just for the rest of the UK. listen to ‘Ed Miliband: 'In favour of greater scrutiny' of English issues by English MPs’ on Audioboo Miliband was much happier when the interview turned to the minimum wage and Labour’s plan to increase it to £8 by 2020.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Have the Scottish Tories been detoxified?

The referendum campaign was a mixed experience for the Scottish Tories. On the one hand, it was a reminder of how much they are still hated in Scotland: End Tory rule forever, was one of the more frequently heard Nationalist battle cries. On the other, they had one of the campaign’s most effective advocates, Ruth Davidson and were accepted in as part of the cross party campaign. Indeed, it was telling that the Better Together campaign together rather than hiding Davidson away used her more and more as the campaign went on. In his Scotsman column today, the former Labour spin doctor John McTernan declares that ‘Ruth Davidson’s campaign has detoxified’ the Scottish Conservatives. This is a particularly striking statement coming from a former Labour partisan.

Friday

The Spectator

Podcast special: Alex Salmond’s resignation

Was Alex Salmond's resignation a surprise? And what should the SNP do now that it has lost the referendum that it fought for over so many years? In a View from 22 Spectator podcast special, James Forsyth and Hamish Macdonell analyse the First Minister's decision, and who might replace him.

Isabel Hardman

Indyref: Will Westminster really change?

Lord Ashcroft's post-referendum Scotland poll gives politicians claiming they've 'heard' voters a number of clues if in reality they're still a bit confused. It suggests that those last few days of panic from the 'No' camp didn't really shift as many voters as some might have thought. The poll says 28 per cent of 'No' voters made up their mind within this year. 72 per cent had already decided before September 2013. Only nine per cent had settled on 'No' in the past week. And the reason more frequently cited for voting 'Yes' than any other was 'disaffection with Westminster politics', with 74% of those in favour of independence naming that, then 54 per cent also picking the NHS, followed by 33 naming tax and public spending.

Alex Massie

With malice toward none and with charity towards all, now the real work begins

Relief, actually. Not joy. A battle won is better than a battle lost but still an exhausting, bloody, business. There is no need to bayonet the wounded. It would, in any case, be grotesque to do so. Scotland voted and made, in my view, the right choice. The prudent choice. The bigger-hearted choice. But 45 per cent of my countrymen disagree. That's something to be respected too. Moreover a good number of No voters did so reluctantly and not because they were necessarily persuaded by the case for Union but because they felt the Yes campaign had not proved its own argument beyond a reasonable doubt. That's an important qualification. A reminder that the Union is a contract and support for it remains provisional.

Thursday

Conor Burns

Our Scottish campaign will encourage English Nationalism unless the voice of England is heard

This is an extract from a speech delivered by Tory MP Conor Burns at a Conservative association dinner in Chris Grayling's constituency tonight: It would be extraordinary if I did not mention what is going on in Scotland this evening. I represent, as self-evidently, does the Lord Chancellor beside me a constituency in England. I have watched events in Scotland through that prism of course. But I have also watched as a staunch Unionist. I have always given equal weight to the full title of our great Party: Conservative AND Unionist. I was born and spent the early years of my life in Northern Ireland into a Catholic family with broadly romantic nationalist sentiment. Yet I knew early in my life that I rejected nationalism and embraced Unionism.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Salmond uses final rally to congratulate campaigners

Anyone listening to Alex Salmond's final pro-independence rally tonight in Perth might have been forgiven for thinking the 'Yes' campaign was in the lead in the polls. He used most of it to congratulate his side for running such a successful campaign and for changing Scotland before the final result had even been declared. There was much less of a pitch for any undecided voters watching, unless the First Minister had concluded that anyone who was still wavering would be swayed by the idea that his guys had already won. listen to ‘Salmond: The referendum is 'our opportunity of a lifetime'’ on Audioboo He told the audience that 'what has emerged in this campaign is something very new; it has changed Scotland forever'.