Uk politics

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

Boris Johnson: greed can be good

Boris Johnson prides himself on being one of the few politicians who gets away with saying the unsayable. He stuck to that theme tonight with his Margaret Thatcher lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies, in which he argued that greed isn’t a bad thing. He said: ‘But I also hope that there is no return to that spirit of Loadsamoney heartlessness – figuratively riffling banknotes under the noses of the homeless; and I hope that this time the Gordon Gekkos of London are conspicuous not just for their greed – valid motivator though greed may be for economic progress – as for what they give and do for the

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron: The tide of ideas and opinion is going in my direction on EU reform

David Cameron’s restrictions on welfare for new migrants have pleased Tory backbenchers – but not enough for them to drop their Commons campaign for the transitional immigration controls to be extended. There are now 46 Conservative MPs signed up to support it, and I’ve just spoken to Nigel Mills, who tabled the amendment, who said: ‘The Prime Minister’s announcements are welcome steps in the right direction. However the issues with our current levels of unemployment and pressures on other public services would not be tackled so I still believe we need to keep the restrictions in place, and so I will still proceed with my amendment.’ Labour is briefing that

Isabel Hardman

Miliband attacks PM for ‘intellectual collapse’ at tepid PMQs

Commentators sometimes like to describe a particular session of Prime Minister’s Questions as ‘vintage’. If ‘vintage’ is the correct description for the good weeks, this one was more of a serving of tepid Blue Nun. David Cameron was in a very odd mood indeed. He was clearly pleased with an early quip referencing Miliband’s Desert Island Discs appearance. He joked that Miliband ‘isn’t loving Marx, he’s loving Engels instead’. The joke was so dreadful that the entire Chamber convulsed as though winded by a fast-moving cricket ball. Miliband attacked the Prime Minister on his inconsistency over payday loan caps and climate change policy. This was a good theme, and gave

Isabel Hardman

Cameron, Osborne and Crosby grilled by backbenchers: exclusive details

Last night David Cameron, George Osborne and Lynton Crosby held a meeting with the Conservative parliamentary party. Coffee House has exclusive details of what took place. There was a presentation on how well the party was doing from the Prime Minister (without any new information), and one from Lynton Crosby in which the strategist asked Tory MP James Morris to stand up and take a round of applause for passing on the ‘nightmare’ email from the Ed Miliband’s office to the Mail on Sunday. Sir George Young brought less exciting news that MPs will have to pull their weight a great deal more by serving on more statutory instrument committees.

Isabel Hardman

Immigration announcement aims to take stings out of a number of tails

David Cameron knows that the only criticism from other parties of his plans to restrict welfare access for new migrants will be that he isn’t being tough enough. Such is the fear on all sides of being accused of repeating what the Prime Minister describes in his FT article as the ‘monumental mistake’ of the last Labour government that the only option on the table for Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg will be to support the move. It will be interesting to see how Miliband fares at Prime Minister’s Questions today. Given Labour has put forward its own ‘tough’ proposals and given Yvette Cooper went to such lengths to complain

Tuesday

Harry Cole

Salmond is stuck in the ‘Yes2AV’ trap

‘When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another’, the best way of going about it probably isn’t to write a 670-page document and then snarkily deride journalists who point out the obvious holes in it. As an old romantic, vaguely sympathetic to the dream of Scottish independence, I have long suspected that the SNP leadership are the greatest hindrance to the separatist cause. Alex Salmond’s off-form, dull, dreary performance this morning only served to reconfirm that feeling. While separation is unlikely and potentially dangerous, increased devolution shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. The ‘devo-max’

Isabel Hardman

Andrew Mitchell vows to continue Plebgate fight

So Andrew Mitchell is going to pursue his fight with the police over the ‘plebgate’ row, even though the Crown Prosecution Service said there was insufficient evidence to suggest the officer who claimed Andrew Mitchell called him a pleb was lying. The former Conservative chief whip told a press conference this afternoon that not only is he pursuing his libel action against The Sun newspaper, but that he will use this opportunity in court to force PC Toby Rowland, the officer who wrote the account of the altercation that involved the word ‘pleb’, to give his story under oath. Rowland is not one of the five police officers facing disciplinary

Hamish Macdonell

What’s hidden inside the Scottish Independence White Paper?

Hidden away in the 650-page White Paper on Scottish Independence are a number of very interesting developments, none of which were championed by the SNP beforehand but every one of which has the potential to shape the campaign. Here are just a few of them: 1. A major move on nuclear weapons. The SNP’s position on Trident and nuclear weapons is well known. An independent Scotland would kick Trident out of its current base on the Clyde and become a ‘non-nuclear’ state with only conventional armed forces. Also, Scotland would be so defiantly anti-nuclear that it would not let ships carrying nuclear weapons enter its water or its ports. Oh really? What

Isabel Hardman

Influential 1922 Committee chair backs rebel immigration call

The swell of support continues for Nigel Mills’ amendment to the Immigration Bill which would most likely land the British government in court by trying to extend transitional controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants to 2018. I have learned that Graham Brady, influential chair of the 1922 Committee, has now signed the amendment too, and the rebels organising behind it tell me they now have more than 40 backers. The list now includes a number of 1922 Committee executive members, including Nick de Bois, John Whittingdale, Charles Walker and Jason McCartney. A number of Conservative MPs who have never rebelled before (yes, they exist) are considering signing the amendment because they

Isabel Hardman

Crap and courage of convictions: the political problem with Osborne’s payday loan plan

There is still a great deal of heat and rather a little less light over George Osborne’s decision to ‘step in where government needs to step in’ and cap the cost of payday loans. Does this mean he’s actually a lefty? What is he up to? Writing for the Telegraph, David Skelton, founder of the very thoughtful Renewal campaign to broaden the Conservative party’s appeal, argues that this is ‘the right thing to do and it sends a powerful signal that the party will tackle rip-off companies and help the vulnerable’. But Allister Heath argues in his City AM column that this is not the right way to help those

Alistair Darling

Alistair Darling: the flaws in Alex Salmond’s white paper on independence

Nothing has changed as a result of today’s White Paper. There is nothing that we found out today that we didn’t already know. Yesterday Alex Salmond’s case for breaking up the UK was based on assertions. Today it is still based on assertions. The simple fact is that the nationalists have ducked the opportunity to answer any of the big questions about our country’s future. They promised us facts. What they have given us is a wish list with no prices attached. If this White Paper was going to be credible, it had to address the fundamental issues that people are concerned about. They didn’t. We still don’t know what

Alex Massie

Scottish independence is a little more likely today than it was yesterday

The argument about Scottish independence which, it should be said, is not a new one is best understood in terms of the Overton Window. James Overton, an American political scientist, suggested that the general public is only prepared to contemplate a relatively narrow range of political opinions and policies. Those that fall outwith this window of plausibility are discounted; the task for politicians and other advocates is to shift the window so that ideas once considered heretical now appear orthodox common-sense. Overton suggested there were six phases to this process. A idea would move from being unthinkable to radical to acceptable to sensible to popular before, finally, becoming policy. Scottish

Isabel Hardman

Number 10 defends policies as excess winter deaths soar by 29%

The Health department says there is a perfectly good explanation for a 29% rise in the number of excess winter deaths to 31,100 in 2012/13. It is pointing to research by Public Health England which linked the rise to a longer flu season and continuing cold weather late into the winter and early spring. But as Fraser argued in his Telegraph column earlier this year, there is still not nearly enough that is being done to combat excess winter deaths, whether or not this year’s 29% rise is a one-off. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman didn’t seem particularly keen to suggest that there was anything else, beyond NHS planning and

Isabel Hardman

A funny argument for independence

Is today’s Scottish independence White Paper really an argument for independence? I ask only because the section on currency and monetary policy is essentially arguing for the union. It says: ‘The Commission’s analysis shows that it will not only be in Scotland’s interests to retain Sterling but that – post independence – this will also benefit the rest of the UK. ‘Under such an arrangement, monetary policy will be set according to economic conditions across the Sterling Area with ownership and governance of the Bank of England undertaken on a shareholder basis.’ It argues that a formal monetary union would be in both countries’ interest because the UK is Scotland’s

Sebastian Payne

Can Silicon Valley ever be replicated in London?

Trying to clone Silicon Valley has been a cornerstone of this coalition’s business policy. Rohan Silva, until recently the PM’s policy guru, spent several years in government and opposition creating the ‘Silicon Roundabout’, an attempt to provide a new leg for the UK’s economy in East London. Depending on who you believe, the East London Tech City project has either been a roaring success or a waste of time. Despite all the encouragement from the government, the main challenge is recreating the enticement of Silicon Valley in Shoreditch — something that may be impossible. Brent Hurley, a founder of YouTube, spoke on the Today programme this morning about the ethos

Isabel Hardman

Detail vs emotion in the Scottish independence debate

The Scottish government will unveil its case for independence at 10am today. Already the Treasury is warning that voting ‘yes’ next autumn would cost the average basic rate tax payer an additional £1,000 in tax increases. Danny Alexander is also trying to undermine the SNP’s claim that fiscal problems initially experienced by a newly independent Scotland would be overcome through increased growth. In a letter to Alex Salmond, Alexander writes: ‘I was surprised to hear that the very next day the Scottish government proposed cuts to tax rates in the event of independence. Your Finance Secretary explained that an independent Scotland’s fiscal problems would be fixed through additional growth. Treasury

Monday

Isabel Hardman

List of MPs pushing PM on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants grows

There are now 33 MPs backing Nigel Mills’s amendment to the Immigration Bill which calls for transitional controls on Romanian and Bulgarian migrants to be extended until 2018. You can read the full list of names below – the amendment will be debated at the report stage of the bill, which is expected to take place in the next few weeks. Today at the morning lobby briefing, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman wasn’t particularly willing to discuss reports that appeared over the weekend of his own plans to stem the flow when the controls do lift – which they will have to unless Britain wants a legal challenge from Brussels

Alex Massie

Is Boris Johnson the Man to Save the Union?

This is not as obviously a Question to Which the Answer is No as it may initially seem. The Mayor of London is, in fact, well-placed to play a significant part in the campaign to persuade Scots their interests still lie within the United Kingdom. In the first place, as the titular leader of europe’s greatest city he has no obvious or immediate dog in the fight. Neither Boris’s reputation nor his future will be dented by a Scottish vote for independence. His Prime Ministerial plans – for we all still assume he has such plans – will not suffer if Alex Salmond wins next year’s referendum. They might even benefit

Isabel Hardman

George Osborne adopts Labour’s language on markets

Stella Creasy sees today’s announcement that the government does want to cap the cost of payday loan credit as a recognition that Labour was right to campaign on this issue and that consumers are suffering as a result of the current arrangements. But listen again to George Osborne’s Today interview and you’ll note another recognition: that Ed Miliband and colleagues are enjoying some success when they talk about markets not working for consumers. listen to ‘George Osborne on payday lending: ‘We’re stepping in where government needs to step in’’ on Audioboo

Sunday

Nick Boles

Nick Boles: how to deport jobless EU immigrants

From Fraser Nelson: David Cameron proposing delaying welfare payments to EU immigrants – which some might see as his listening more to Lynton Crosby and less to the likes of modernisers like Nick Boles (whose approach to politics Bruce Anderson critiques below). But Boles has advocated going far further: deporting EU immigrants who don’t work. He believes he has found a clause in EU law that allows it. Given that Boles is generally seen as an uber-moderniser,  I thought Coffee Housers may be interested in seeing another side to his political thought –  a deportation plan which is further than most right-wing Tory MPs would go.  The below is abridged from