Uk politics

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Lib Dems go cold on candidate after ‘Jesus and Mo’ row

From our UK edition

The Lib Dems are considering scaling back their fight for Maajid Nawaz to win the Hampstead and Kilburn seat after the row about his 'Jesus and Mo' tweet, I have been told. This very marginal seat, which Labour's Glenda Jackson holds with a majority of just 42, had been one of the Lib Dems' key target seats. But a very well-placed senior source tells me that after the 'Jesus and Mo' row (which Nawaz had an extremely bad-tempered debate about with Mehdi Hasan and Mo Ansar on yesterday's Newsnight), those involved in the party's campaigns have privately concluded that the candidate has seriously damaged his chances of winning the seat and that 'chucking the kitchen sink at it might not be worth the effort'. The Lib Dems defended Nawaz when a petition calling for his deselection was set up.

Isabel Hardman

Will welfare cap vote be Miliband’s biggest rebellion?

From our UK edition

So Rachel Reeves confirmed in the Commons today that Labour will back the welfare cap when it comes to a vote. Tory MPs cheered her as she announced this. There is a rebellion brewing on the Labour benches on this, which party sources are saying they remain 'vigilant' about. Some claim that this will be the biggest revolt of Miliband's leadership. If it is, then it will have to surpass the 40 Labour MPs (39 and one teller) who rebelled against their party's official position on welfare sanctions just over a year ago. The then Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne instructed Labour MPs to abstain on a bill which enabled the DWP to avoid repaying benefits to people sanctioned for refusing to take part in the government's work experience programme.

Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg’s new running sore

From our UK edition

Nick Clegg spent the first 20 minutes of Deputy Prime Minister's Questions looking a little miserable. A wan smile did flicker across his lips at about 18 minutes in, but it didn't spread to his eyes or stay very long at all. In fact, he appeared to be doing his best to fit the best ever P.G. Wodehouse description of a man looking like 'a cat which has just been struck by a half-brick and is expecting another shortly'. Fortunately for Clegg, the other half of the brick didn't turn up. In fact, when the time came for Harriet Harman to savage the DPM, he appeared quite happy that she'd chosen tuition fees as her weapon. She asked about the new figures showing that the government's trebling of tuition fees will end up costing the taxpayer more than the current system.

Isabel Hardman

Harriet Harman: Labour is making steady progress

From our UK edition

'I don't think things are going wrong,' Harriet Harman insisted on the Today programme. 'I think we're making steady progress. And if you look at when people actually vote, for example in council elections, then actually around the country we've got nearly 2,000 more councillors since Ed Miliband became leader.' listen to ‘Harman: ‘I don't think things are going wrong’ with Labour’ on Audioboo Miliband last night admitted on ITV's The Agenda that 2015 will 'be a close election'.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Cameron continues silver offensive

From our UK edition

David Cameron is doing his best to do what the Tories haven't always been that impressive at: capitalising on the clever political bits in this year's Budget. He was at a PM direct event in Peacehaven today, driving home the importance of the government's reforms to pensions to his target voters. But he also had the opportunity to woo them with other policy treats, such as what the Tories might promise on inheritance tax in their next manifesto. 'Would I like to go further in future?' he said. 'Yes, I would. I believe in people being able to pass money down through the generations and pass things on to their children.' He added that 'it's something we'll have to address in our manifesto'.

Isabel Hardman

Michael Gove attacks Tristram Hunt for not knowing difference between education and health

From our UK edition

Education questions is always interesting in the sense that the main players are quite energetic and keen for debate and there is a genuine divide now between the two main parties (and indeed within the Coalition). But today's session was interesting in the sense that a grandmother describes a Christmas present they don't quite understand as 'interesting' because Tristram Hunt used his slot to grill the Education Secretary about a health issue. 'More and more research shows the importance of early years development in a child's education. The Labour party Sure Start programme was focused on supporting those vital infant years, a policy of prevention rather than cure.

Isabel Hardman

Labour’s localist lurch

From our UK edition

One of the other things worth noting from this morning's letter from the 'members of the progressive community' who are anxious that Labour isn't attempting to make a big offer in 2015 is that the alliance of groups and figures from the left and right of the party back decentralisation. The letter calls for: 'Devolution of state institutions, by giving away power and resources to our nations, regions, cities, localities and, where possible, directly to the people.' As I explained in my Telegraph column last week, a battle in the shadow cabinet has resulted in a surprise victory for Hilary Benn and Jon Cruddas, who had been pushing for a Labourish sort of localism. We saw some of the outworkings of that in Ed Miliband's Hugo Young lecture.

Isabel Hardman

Labour thinkers see danger in playing safe

From our UK edition

David Cameron's attack on Labour for "flailing and dithering" over whether to support the government's pension reforms would seem unfair had the party not struggled to present a clear message over the weekend. It would be unfair to expect a snap judgement on the changes from a responsible opposition party, but the weekend press and the papers this morning suggest that Labour doesn't even have a neat holding line as it works out how far to extend its support. But what should worry Ed Miliband far more than the attack from Cameron is the increasing anxiety from his own side about Labour's message. The Guardian's letter from 19 leading Labour groups and thinkers including the Fabians, Progress and Compass, is far more concerning.

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

What today’s polls mean for the Tories and Labour

From our UK edition

The Labour party's reaction to today's opinion polls will tell us a great deal about how well Ed Miliband has really invested in his party. If the backbenchers feel they have a stake in the Labour leader, and as though he is worth fighting for - which Conservative MPs have often not felt about Cameron, leading to them airing their dirty laundry in public - then the panic in the party won't break out beyond John Mann's intervention today. The backbencher told Pienaar's Politics that 'of course it's a warning shot and it would be naive to think otherwise. I think the message is that we need to be much clearer and I think simpler in putting across what our alternative is and what we stand for.' Mann said this wasn't just a Miliband problem but also the Shadow Cabinet and the whole party.

Sebastian Payne

Pension reforms are vital to encourage saving. But what about everyone else?

From our UK edition

‘This reform is about treating people as adults’ — according to the Pensions Minister Steve Webb. The announcement of a pensions revolution in this week’s budget took everyone by surprise, leading to the question of whether there has been enough consultation on the changes. Webb said on the Sunday Politics today that evidence elsewhere shows the coalition is doing the right thing: ‘We know from around the world - places like America and Australia - where people already have this kind of freedoms. So we already have some things to judge by. We're going to spend the next year talking to people working it through, including a three-month consultation. There is a lot of detail to be worked out.

Saturday

David Blackburn

#ToryBingo could still benefit the Conservatives

From our UK edition

Isabel and Sebastian are right: #ToryBingo is embarrassing. The advert was crass to the point of being idiotic. The use of the word 'they' rather than 'you' to describe 'hardworking people' was sloppy. The episode has taken some of the gloss off an otherwise shiny Budget. It is, emphatically, bad PR. That said; I don't imagine that the Tories will be too displeased by the furore. #ToryBingo has given a huge amount of exposure to two Budget measures that would otherwise have been buried beneath the pension announcement: the Tories have cut tax on bingo and duty on beer.

Isabel Hardman

Tory Wars: Backbenchers threaten backlash against Shapps backlash

From our UK edition

There is a rather furious backlash underway against the backlash that Grant Shapps finds himself in the middle of after his bingo gaffe. Supporters of the Tory Chairman suspect he has been stitched up in some way. I understand that the graphic was emailed out to a number of tweeting MPs who all tweeted it at roughly the same time - Shapps was the first. And as Chairman, he has to take the flak. Others privately suspect that other ministers who are after his job are responsible for briefings such as this one to the Sun that he could lose his job if the Tories take a drubbing in the European elections.

Friday

Alex Massie

Ed Miliband’s speech in Scotland: Mr Pooter meets Alan Partridge

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband has just given a quite extraordinary speech. I don't know if it was deliberately banal or merely unfortunately dull. It was certainly stupefyingly boring. The Labour leader gave the impression that Scottish Labour's spring conference was the very last place on earth he wished to be. I suppose you can't blame him for that. Even so this perfunctory, cliche-stuffed flannel suggested Miliband's heart wasn't really in Perth today. It was a kind of "God, do I really have to go to Scotland?" kind of speech. I'm not sure Alan Partridge Meets Mr Pooter was quite the note Miliband hoped to strike. But when you start referring to Anas Sarwar as "dynamic" and Margaret Curran as "brilliant" you're not really helping yourself.

Isabel Hardman

How food banks were shunted around government departments

From our UK edition

It is well worth reading Paul Waugh's interview with Iain Duncan Smith in the House Magazine for a number of reasons - not least his hint about docking child benefit in the future. But the Work and Pensions Secretary also makes an interesting comment about food banks: 'We are not responsible for food banks, that policy area generally is Cabinet Office and so it should remain. I'm happy for people to visit food banks, I don't have a particular problem with them.' I've written before about why people visit food banks, and why even if we had a very good benefits system that paid people the right amount of money on time, there would still be a need for these examples of strong communities.

Sebastian Payne

#ToryBingo: why politicians can’t ignore twitterstorms

From our UK edition

The row over Grant Shapps’ bingo poster is an example of what happens when politicians assume that what goes in the Westminster bubble stays there. David Cameron and Paul Dacre may be right that ’too many tweets make a twat’ and Twitter can be a ‘phoney world’. But occasionally, one tweet can move into the real world too. As Isabel reported yesterday, Conservative HQ’s ineffectual response to the misjudged Bingo poster suggests that they hoped the anger could be contained amongst the anti-Conservative brigade, many of whom spend their days tweeting abuse to George Osborne. But the number of spoofs (a selection can be seen above) and the fury within the Conservative party made this irresistible for the print media.

Isabel Hardman

Of course Labour doesn’t trust people with their money: the party made little effort to teach them about it

From our UK edition

Labour's response to the biggest announcement of the Budget, on pensions reform, was never going to be snappy. It would be unfair to expect an Opposition to deliver an immediate response to such a surprising and complex reform. But that's not to say that the way the party has responded has been exemplary. They were not helped by John McTernan's Newsnight interview on Wednesday night in which he framed the debate about the pension reforms as being about whether or not governments should trust people to manage their own money.

Isabel Hardman

Labour’s campaign pickle

From our UK edition

Douglas Alexander has given an interesting interview to the Independent in which he reveals that Labour has set up a team to monitor Ukip. It will go some way to reassuring those at the top of the party who, as I report in my Telegraph column this morning, are growing increasingly nervous about the party's chances in the European elections. There have been awkward confrontations in Shadow Cabinet meetings about the party's election strategy, and demands for something a little more tangible on the doorstep from shadow ministers from all wings of the party, and from candidates. It's interesting that Labour is taking Ukip seriously, as some party chiefs initially read the result of the Wythenshawe by-election as a sign that Nigel Farage's attempt to nick Labour voters wasn't working.

John O'Neill

George Osborne gave us a saver’s budget. Should he have bothered?

From our UK edition

‘If you're a saver, this budget is for you’, George Osborne said on Wednesday as he unveiled measures to let people keep more of what they save – such as combining cash and stocks-and-shares ISAs and whacking the subscription limit up to £15,000 from the 1st of July this year. But will people put their money away in savings accounts? The OBR's latest forecasts show that the savings ratio – the percentage of households’ disposable income that they save – will fall by almost a fifth this year, and households will put away significant less than the OBR thought they would last March. [datawrapper chart="http://cf.datawrapper.de/JjUGo/1/"] Households aren't just not saving - they're spending what they've already saved.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Labour sticks to cost-of-living attack as Budget debate rumbles on

From our UK edition

If Ed Balls thought he could have done a better job than Ed Miliband at responding to the Budget, today he got his chance. The debate on the measures announced by George Osborne rumbles on in the House of Commons, and Ed Balls gave his speech on it this afternoon. He started by telling the Chamber that this was 'the Chancellor's last chance to make decisions and announce measures that will make a real difference before the general election'. Balls claimed that 'for all [Osborne's] boasts and complacency, the Budget did nothing to address the central reality that will define his time in office - the fact that for most people in our country, living standards are not rising but are falling year on year'.

James Forsyth

It’s time for the state to trust adults with their own money

From our UK edition

The changes that George Osborne announced to pensions yesterday were so big that there was always going to be a backlash. Sure enough, the IFS and various others have today voiced concerns about the scheme. The essential complaint is that if you let people take charge of their own pension pots, they might spend their money too quickly. This is an argument that George Osborne should relish taking on. Trusting people with their own money is a fundamentally Tory idea. It is also slightly absurd to suggest that people who have been diligent enough to build up a pension pot over their working life are suddenly going to become spendthrifts in retirement.