Uk politics

Tuesday

Harry Cole

Salmond is stuck in the ‘Yes2AV’ trap

From our UK edition

'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.

Isabel Hardman

Andrew Mitchell vows to continue Plebgate fight

From our UK edition

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 action.

Hamish Macdonell

What’s hidden inside the Scottish Independence White Paper?

From our UK edition

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 about this then?

Isabel Hardman

Influential 1922 Committee chair backs rebel immigration call

From our UK edition

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.

Isabel Hardman

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

From our UK edition

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'.

Alistair Darling

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

From our UK edition

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 currency we use if we vote to go it alone. We don’t know who would set our mortgage rates.

Alex Massie

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

From our UK edition

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 independence is currently somewhere between acceptable and sensible.

Isabel Hardman

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

From our UK edition

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 public health spending, that should be done, when he responded to the figures today.

Isabel Hardman

A funny argument for independence

From our UK edition

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.

Sebastian Payne

Can Silicon Valley ever be replicated in London?

From our UK edition

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.

Isabel Hardman

Detail vs emotion in the Scottish independence debate

From our UK edition

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.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

List of MPs pushing PM on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants grows

From our UK edition

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.

Alex Massie

Is Boris Johnson the Man to Save the Union?

From our UK edition

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 from such a result, not least because David Cameron's reputation - and legacy - will be crippled by a Yes vote.

Isabel Hardman

George Osborne adopts Labour’s language on markets

From our UK edition

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.

Sunday

Nick Boles

Nick Boles: how to deport jobless EU immigrants

From our UK edition

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 his book 'Which Way’s Up'? I have changed my mind about immigration.

James Forsyth

What Lynton Crosby told David Cameron’s political Cabinet

From our UK edition

The next time you see a Tory minister on television, count how long it is until they say that David Cameron is a leader with a long term plan for this country. This is the Tories’ new message. In a presentation to Cameron’s political Cabinet on Tuesday morning, Lynton Crosby told the ministers present that the Tories would probably lose the election if it was held today or tomorrow. But, as I report in the Mail on Sunday, he stressed that the election was still 16 months away so the Tories had time to turn things round. He emphasised that they should play up that Cameron is a man with a plan and attack Ed Miliband and Labour foir being opportunistic, something that is already showing up in Crosby’s polling.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Cameron and the Romanians and the Bulgarians

From our UK edition

For months now, Number 10 has been fretting about what to do about Romanian and Bulgarian immigration. From the end of this year, any Romanian and Bulgarian will be able to move here in search of work. Downing Street knows that if they come in large numbers it’ll negate everything that the government has done to try and get immigration under control. Fairly or not, it’ll be fatal to the Tories’ reputation for competence on this issue. David Cameron is, as today’s Times and Mail reveal, now planning a major intervention on this issue. He wants to achieve three things. First, show that his government is handling the issue better than Labour did.

Thursday

James Forsyth

Welsh would block an independent Scotland from using the pound

From our UK edition

The UK government knows that it plays into the SNP’s hands if it does anything which could be seen as trying to bully the Scots into voting no to independence. So, it has not said that the Scots would not be able to use sterling after independence but merely stated that this would be an issue for the rest of the UK too. The Welsh First Minister, though, has now come out and said that he would veto the creation of a sterling zone. This intervention by Carwyn Jones is one that the UK government had been waiting for, and expecting. It gets the message across without risking the accusation of bully-boy tactics or allowing the SNP to attack Westminster.

Will Straw

Why the Right is wrong about ‘the green crap’

From our UK edition

The Conservative flirtation with environmentalism was never much more than a branding exercise. Now it is over. Today David Cameron wants to ‘cut the green crap’. Perhaps the Prime Minister has been influenced by David Rose’s cover piece in last week’s Spectator — which encouraged the government to repeal the Climate Change Act, abolish its targets, and stop the Energy Bill coming into force. Strong stuff. But let’s suppose the government really were to follow Rose’s strategy, what would happen? A shale gas revolution? Don't bet on it. As the energy company Cuadrilla has admitted, domestic fracking would have an 'insignificant' impact on prices. The US, which has seen prices fall, is currently a closed market.

Alex Massie

The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage

From our UK edition

Perhaps there is something mildly tawdry about discussing an issue such as gay marriage in terms of its impact on perceptions of the Tory party or the extent to which it helps the Tory evolutionary project. It is, after all, a rather larger, better issue than that. A Conservative who only supported equal marriage for these tactical reasons would be a poor and shilpit thing indeed. Yesterday the Scottish parliament, catching up with Westminster, debated gay marriage. The best speech was that given by Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Tories. It shows her - and her party - at their best and is well worth six minutes of your time.