Uk politics

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Sacked minister suggests making government messier – and better

From our UK edition

After every reshuffle, sacked ministers choose to tread a number of different paths. Some go rogue, either to the extent that Tim Loughton has since losing his job last year, or at least in publicly criticising their party's policy, as Jeremy Browne has since being sacked in this year's round. Others go to ground, receive appreciative applause in the Chamber when they ask very anodyne questions about the local incinerator in their constituency, but don't bother their former bosses. And a very small number decide to offer some quiet thoughts on how things might be better. Sacked housing minister Mark Prisk seems to have gone down the third route.

Monday

Steerpike

David Cameron resigns…according to Wales Online

From our UK edition

It has been an eventful afternoon at the Western Mail and South Wales Echo. As seen in the screen grab above, Wales Online, the papers' online variant, reported (and tweeted) that the Prime Minister resigned at 16:33 today. It was a 'shock' resignation and the government was 'rocked' by the news, apparently. As you'd expect for such breaking news, the piece quickly garnered traffic from Facebook and Twitter. But, Cameroons will be relieved to hear, it was only a test: Apologies to anyone who saw that unfortunately published article just now - a training exercise never intended to see the light of day.

Isabel Hardman

Andrew Mitchell: A strange apology

From our UK edition

Over the past thirteen months since the 'plebgate' row broke over Andrew Mitchell and subsequently broke the then chief whip's career, a number of pieces entitled or themed 'Andrew Mitchell: An apology' have appeared here and there as more has come to light about the allegations levelled at Mitchell. In most cases the writers accept that an initial op-ed or blog that they penned about his alleged behaviour wasn't, with the benefit of hindsight and more information, correct. None have been quite so striking as the statement released this afternoon by the three Police Federation officers who met Mitchell after the allegations surfaced.

James Forsyth

Boris’s immigration issue

From our UK edition

When you discuss Boris Johnson’s leadership prospects with Tory MPs, one subject nearly always comes up: immigration. The Mayor is a liberal on the subject while most of the party takes a far more sceptical view. Tory MPs wonder how he’ll explain to the electorate why he once backed an amnesty for illegal immigrants. But Boris’s Telegraph column today shows how he can make a better — and more demotic — case for immigration than any other politician. He is prepared to tackle the subject and, what he calls, ‘this sense of indigenous injustice’ head-on. He’s also surely right that the solution to ever-rising house prices in London is to build more houses.

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem free school confusion undermines Clegg’s ‘sausage machine’ model

From our UK edition

What does everyone think about free schools? That's the question that is being asked of every Liberal Democrat who has the misfortune to pop up in broadcast interviews today, because it seems that you can now take any position you want on the subject, so long as you're wearing a certain hat or you've got your fingers crossed behind your back. Ed Davey this morning tried to explain the difference between what David Laws said last week at the despatch box in defence of free schools and what David Laws apparently thinks when he's not at the despatch box. Davey told the Today programme: 'He is defending the Government's position as a Coalition government as he should do, and I understand that.

Isabel Hardman

Justin Welby and the Downing Street grid

From our UK edition

One man who isn't on message at the start of the government's economy week is Justin Welby, who has been warning against excessive jubilation at the end of this week when the next tranche of GDP figures are released. He told the Telegraph: 'A flourishing economy is necessary but not sufficient. A healthy society flourishes and distributes economic resources effectively, but also has a deep spiritual base which gives it its virtue.' This sounds a little bit like pre-2010 David Cameron, but it doesn't quite chime with the political offensive that the Tories want to go on this week, accusing Labour of making consistently bad predictions about the economy.

Isabel Hardman

Hinkley nuclear deal: what it means for the global race and the big freeze

From our UK edition

Today is, as we all know, the start of economy week in Westminster, with politicians striving to show that all that jubilant talk about dawns breaking over the hill this summer wasn't misplaced. The Hinkley Point deal, the first new nuclear plant in a generation, is supposed to show that Britain is open for business, is building, and is providing jobs and training for a new generation of workers in a new generation of nuclear plants. On the Today programme this morning Energy Secretary Ed Davey tried to outline some of the value that this deal with EDF and Beijing-controlled energy companies China National Nuclear Corporation and China General Nuclear Power Group would have for this country.

Sunday

James Forsyth

Is it still the economy, stupid?

From our UK edition

The coalition wants this week to be all about the GDP figures, out on Friday. As I say in the Mail on Sunday, Downing Street is confident that they’ll show the economy is continuing to grow at a relatively decent clip and is already working out how to make political out of that. They have, as Simon Walters reports, already prepared a video mocking Labour’s claims that the coalition’s polices would lead to a million more people on the dole. Ed Miliband’s circle expects that the GDP numbers will again be positive. But they take the view that as long as prices are increasing faster than wages, squeezing voters’ living standards, economic growth won’t mean much politically.

Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg isn’t the only senior Lib Dem who could damage free schools

From our UK edition

After Nick Clegg decided to have a grump about free schools in a paper whose own polling suggests they are popular with the public (more on this from Fraser), the Education department has hit back, reminding those who are frightened of that over-used word 'ideology' just what the big idea behind free schools really is: 'Free schools are raising standards and giving parents more choice. They are run by teachers – not local bureaucrats or Westminster politicians – and are free to set their own curriculum, decide how they spend their money and employ who they think are the best people for the job. This Government is not going to take these freedoms away.' You can read the rest of the statement, along with a translation, in Fraser's blog here.

Friday

Sebastian Payne

The final chapter of the Kings Priory School debacle

From our UK edition

This morning, I was honoured to attend the official opening service and ceremony of the Kings Priory School in Tynemouth. As I'm sure regular Coffee House readers are aware, I've followed the creation of this academy in my home region with much interest. Despite Labour's initial plans to sabotage the merger of the private King's School and the state Priory Primary School, the new institution finally opened its door six week ago. It's a fantastic addition to one of the country's poorest boroughs. Who better to open this school than Andrew Adonis, the man responsible for rejuvenating Kenneth Baker's academies policy?

Isabel Hardman

Why politicians shouldn’t say ‘should’

From our UK edition

David Cameron is currently trying to work out what his position on jumpers is after Number 10 was forced to issue an amazing clarification this afternoon. A spokesman said: 'To be clear, it is entirely false to suggest the PM would advise people they should wear jumpers to stay warm. Any suggestion to the contrary is mischief-making. The Prime Minister would point people to a range of things being done to help people with their fuel bills, such as legislating to put everyone on the best tariff for them. He believes Labour's "price freeze" policy is a con - and certainly would not advise people on what they should wear.

Charles Moore

Ed Miliband’s calculated energy price freeze

From our UK edition

It has been pointed out (possibly by me, among many) how hypocritical Ed Miliband is in complaining about energy prices since he was responsible, as Energy Secretary, for driving them up through green levies. We critics have been slow to realise that it is exactly because of his history that Mr Miliband is pushing his price freeze so hard. He knows — because he helped preside over it — that rises in the levies are inevitable, since they are written into the law of the land and of the EU — not just for now, but for many years ahead.

Isabel Hardman

Was Jeremy Browne shut out of the tight Home Office ship?

From our UK edition

There's a lot of interest in Jeremy Browne's revelation in the Times this morning that senior Tories have already been trying to persuade the sacked Lib Dem Home Office minister to defect. Browne bats this away by showing that he really is a true Lib Dem with the only evidence that his fellow yellows will accept. 'Not many people have delivered more leaflets than me,' he protests. It's also worth asking why Lib Dems are quite so obsessed with shopping trolleys: Browne uses the same image that Clegg used to criticise Theresa May this spring. But what's just as interesting is what Browne has to say about his struggles in the Home Office. On those controversial 'go home' vans, he says: 'I wasn't told about the vans. I wasn't copied into the paper that was circulated in the Home Office.

Wednesday

Charles Moore

The ‘polite protests’ from Buckingham Palace over Leveson

From our UK edition

As the whole Leveson wrangle approaches its climax (or anti-climax), one collateral, innocent victim of it all is the Queen. The government ruse to make its proposed system of statutory regulation seem less objectionable was to burble on about a Royal Charter and the Privy Council. By doing so, it hoped to put the matter beyond politics. But the implication that the enterprise is sanctioned by monarchical neutrality is a) untrue and b) embarrassing for the monarch. Untrue because in royal charters, as in legislation, the Sovereign acts solely on the advice of her ministers, making no personal contribution; embarrassing because, by seeking royal cover for its actions, the government drops the monarch into a very tricky issue, giving her no means to defend herself.

Isabel Hardman

Food bank use is up again: how can ministers respond?

From our UK edition

Today's figures from the Trussell Trust on food bank use were good fodder for Labour at PMQs. But the message from the charity, which I profiled for the Spectator a few months ago, is that there needs to be a proper parliamentary inquiry into food poverty, which sounds eminently more sensible than people shouting at each other about complacency. Chief executive Chris Mould said this morning: 'We said in April that the increasing numbers of people turning to foodbanks should be a wake-up call to the nation, but there has been no policy response and the situation is getting worse. The level of food poverty in the UK is not acceptable. It’s scandalous and it is causing deep distress to thousands of people.

Isabel Hardman

The energy price freeze is becoming the new 50p tax

From our UK edition

David Cameron clearly didn't think he'd had a good PMQs by the time he'd finished with Ed Miliband. There was something irritable and tired about the Prime Minister as he took questions from backbenchers, and that weariness was compounded by the sight of Dennis Skinner limbering to his feet to deliver a long, angry and moving question about the work capability assessment. Dennis Skinner is the last thing you want floating to the top when your PMQs performance has been below par. And it was below par. I understand that Cameron was given a very detailed briefing indeed today on energy prices because it was highly likely that Ed Miliband was going to come back for round two. As James says, the session is settling into a pattern.

Isabel Hardman

A plot to harm ministers has harmed the plotters more

From our UK edition

Presumably one of the motivations behind the decision of Police Federation members to try to discredit Andrew Mitchell was an attempt to discredit the government's wider reforms of and cuts to the police service, which the union representing the force was at the time engaged in a bitter battle with ministers over. But oddly enough, the plotters' misdemeanours appear to have found them out, with calls now for reform of police disciplinary procedures. On Today, former Home Secretary Jack Straw said the Federation had shown a 'poverty of leadership': '[They] had the idea that if they embroidered the truth - and I put that mildly - then they could get the scalp of a Conservative Cabinet minister of an administration with whom they were in conflict at the time.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

New Number 10 policy board announced

From our UK edition

After last week's reshuffle and the gap left by Jesse Norman's departure from the policy board, Number 10 has announced a number of promotions which increase the board's size -  and its brainpower. Alun Cairns, Andrea Leadsom, Priti Patel, Chris Skidmore and Nadhim Zahawi have all been promoted, which is interesting as all of them bar Skidmore are rebels to a greater or lesser extent. So it's a sign that the Tory leadership wants to forget past troubles and use all the best brains to forge 2015 policy. But it's also useful to have independently-minded MPs joining the group anyway, as the last thing the board tasked with developing flagship policies needs is a group of obedient MPs without any ability to think freely.

Sebastian Payne

Who’s who in tomorrow’s Deputy Speaker elections

From our UK edition

I will fight for the rights of ordinary backbenchers! I make people admire this mother of all Parliaments once again! I am friendly with a sense of humour! I am professional! Each of the speeches given by the candidates for Deputy Speaker at hustings this afternoon consisted of this guff. As one candidate Gary Streeter said, this election is fought by ‘seven candidates, seven friends’. So, who is standing and who will MPs vote for? Eleanor Laing (33 per cent chance of winning) was keen to extol her passion for Parliament, stressing the need to make the Palace of Westminster open to the public, yet ensuring it remains a place of hard work.