Uk politics

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Another outbreak of the Tory Modernising Wars! What larks! Nick Boles's speech to Bright Blue, a newish think tank for metropolitan swells folk who think the Tory message needs rethinking, has, as it was designed to, caused a minor rumpus. Rod Liddle thinks Boles is off his head. Iain Martin is kinder but concludes the Cameroons are still obsessed with fighting the wrong battles. Other commentators are gentler still, conceding that Boles is asking the right question but that he's searching for answers in the wrong places. Nick Denys and, to some extent, Paul Goodman fall into this camp. On the other hand, Ian Birrell and Matt d'Ancona essentially agree with Boles while James Kirkup concludes that Boles has inadvertently conceded the failure of the Cameroon modernisation project.

Nick Boles has always been one of the most intellectually interesting Tory modernisers. Back in 2010, he caused controversy with his call for a formal electoral pact between the two coalition parties. But today, he has recanted that idea and instead proposed that the Tories create an internal coalition by reforming the National Liberal Party as their sister party. Boles concedes that his idea for an electoral pact was flawed because the Liberal Democrats aren’t a ‘Liberal’ party but instead a ‘statist party of the soft left’. In a sign of the loss of personal respect for Clegg even among liberal Tory ministers, Boles attacks the deputy Prime Minister as a ‘principle-free zone’ who is happy to cut a coalition deal with anyone however illiberal.

The first thing to be said about the Institute for Fiscal Studies' latest assessment of an independent Scotland's long-term fiscal well-being is that the IFS's assessments of the UK's long-term vitality are also pretty gloomy. Neither is terribly pretty. Much the same, of course, could be said of France and, in fact, most other western countries. An Age of Plenty is being replaced by an Era of Making Do. Reality stings. So the difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK is one of degree not kind. Moreover, it would be wise to remember that these are projections, not predictions, and that they are largely based on present trends and assumptions. These have a habit of changing. So, for that matter, does policy.