Uk politics

Thursday

Alex Massie

The Tory Tumbrils Begin to Roll for David Cameron

From our UK edition

As I type this, pundits in London are stiffening themselves for the tough task of over-interpreting local election results and projecting wildly unrealistic forecasts for the next general election on the back of a mid-term election in which the electorate is of an entirely different type to that which will vote in 2015. It's a grim job but someone has to do it and it's better that it be done with enthusiasm than with any sense of proportion. Mercifully, my friend and former boss Iain Martin is not one of those types. Be that as it may, however, he has written a column for Friday's Telegraph that is both typically acute and evidence of how the Tory winds no longer blow in David Cameron's favour.

James Forsyth

Nigel Farage’s tax flip-flop shows us where he’s trying to take his party

From our UK edition

We might this week have seen some scrutiny of UKIP candidates, but so far we’ve seen little scrutiny of their policies. But the better the party does, the more policy scrutiny it will start to come under. This is what makes UKIP's changing tax policy so interesting. It tells us a lot about where Nigel Farage is trying to take his party. At the last election, UKIP was committed to a flat tax. There is an intellectual purity to this idea - see Allister Heath’s book on the subject - but it is hard to sell to voters as it would result in ‘the rich’ paying a lower rate. After Eastleigh, both the Lib Dems and Labour latched on to it as a way of attacking Farage. They both claimed that the flat tax showed UKIP wasn’t really for the little guy but for the wealthy.

Isabel Hardman

Tory MPs think they’re psychic. But Cameron’s exciting them with false omens.

From our UK edition

Even though there has been some reeling back today from the suggestion that David Cameron is on the brink of wowing his party with a bit of legislative red meat on an EU referendum, it won't stop Tory backbenchers trying to force the leadership's position on this matter. The problem is that Conservative MPs are starting to see themselves as psychic agents. They vote for something that their party doesn't want to happen and get called a rebel. A few months later, that rebellion becomes official party policy. One rebel joked to me earlier this week that 'I don't rebel against my government, I just vote two or three weeks ahead of it'.

Isabel Hardman

Frank Field interview: Labour needs to do something dramatic to win back its lost working class voters

From our UK edition

There's one government adviser who still feels Steve Hilton's absence very keenly indeed. 'He was always thinking ahead, how do we set the debate rather than endlessly react to it, that was why he was such a delight to work for. All the time he was racing ahead. It was difficult to keep up with him. I just thought he was brilliant, he was just wonderful.' But it's not a Tory MP or spinner who is missing the Prime Minister's 'blue-sky' guru: this adviser is Labour MP Frank Field, appointed by the government when it formed to work with David Cameron on how to tackle poverty. He suspects that it was Hilton's departure that led to the review that he painstakingly compiled gathering dust on a Number 10 shelf, allegedly unread.

Isabel Hardman

The EU Referendum Bill won’t appear in Parliament any time soon

From our UK edition

Some Tories are all aquiver today after the Prime Minister's radio hint yesterday that he might be prepared to introduce an EU referendum bill in this parliament after all. Here are David Cameron's words on yesterday's World at One that are supposed to set your heart pounding: 'I think we need to demonstrate absolutely that we are serious about this referendum; we’ve said we’re going to hold it, we’ve said it’s going to be an in-out referendum, we’ve set a date by which it must be held.

Charles Moore

When Michael Heseltine turned up at a Thatcher book signing

From our UK edition

At the launch of my biography of Margaret Thatcher, I was flattered to see Michael and Anne Heseltine joining the signing queue. It was very sporting of him. When they reached me, Anne asked for my inscription, but Michael said he wished his copy to be blank so that he could quickly sell it. I think — unusually for him — that he misunderstands the way this strange market works. The most common question I am asked by audiences about Mrs Thatcher is something to do with Carol and Mark. Did she bring them up successfully? Was she a good mother? etc. The fact that this comes up so often is testimony to the point I make again and again: it was completely different — and very difficult — being the first woman prime minister.

Philip Ziegler

Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, by Charles Moore, and Not for Turning, by Robin Harris – review

From our UK edition

It is a measure of Lady Thatcher’s standing that her death has been followed not only by the mealy-mouthed compliments from political opponents which are normally forthcoming on such occasions but also by robust denunciations. Nobody would have sung ‘Ding, dong, the Wizard is dead!’ after the deaths of Jim Callaghan, John Major or Alec Douglas-Home. Even the more controversial Harold Wilson got a bland send-off in his obituaries. Ted Heath was asked by a journalist whether it was true that, when he heard of Margaret Thatcher’s eviction from the party leadership, he had exclaimed ‘Rejoice! Rejoice!’. No, he replied, after some deliberation. ‘What I said was “Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

The Tories have failed to agree a line on UKIP

From our UK edition

David Cameron's refusal to say 'UKIP' on the radio today was rather entertaining, but it does highlight a strange problem that the Conservative party has brought upon itself for these local elections. Here's his exchange with Martha Kearney, which you can listen to below, from 8m 49s in: Cameron: 'My role is to get around the country and I've enjoyed doing it in the last couple of weeks, to get around the country and to talk about the government's policies, local policies, what the Conservatives are doing. I think there is a real appetite for…' Kearney: Is it a strategy, not to say UKIP? Cameron: No, not at all, it's a - but you know, as I say, you only get a limited bandwidth in this life and I'm determined to use my bandwidth to talk about the positive benefits of my party.

Matthew Hancock

On skills, British children have been let down too badly for too long

From our UK edition

Travel around Britain, and the paradox of our labour market quickly becomes apparent. There are far too many young people out of work, yet employers complain that they can’t get the people they want. That is because, for too long, young people have been denied the experience that employers want. This is what’s known as the ‘skills crisis’ and is one of the greatest problems facing Britain today. It is a problem this government wants to solve. Yes, employment has risen to a record high under the coalition but we’re painfully aware that this is not an end in itself. We want British dole queues to shorten. Look around the world, and other countries - like Japan, Germany and Korea – get it right.

Isabel Hardman

No more radical reforms, please, we’ve pushed our MPs too far

From our UK edition

Nick Clegg is frustrated. He told callers on LBC this morning that 'one of the most frustrating dilemmas that we have face in government is that we have thrown a barrage of initiatives at this problem to get the construction sector and house-building sector moving, it just takes longer than, I think, you or I would probably like.' He did suggest that 'we will, over the coming years, see a real step change, but where I share frustration with you is it takes so long to translate these new devices for getting house-building going into shovels and spades being put into the ground'. But what might be even more frustrating is that this 'barrage of initiatives' might not deliver the number of homes that Clegg and Co hope for, even when that 'step change' does take place.

Isabel Hardman

Labour is being forced to talk about ‘good borrowing’ before it is ready

From our UK edition

It's not a case of will they, won't they when it comes to whether Labour would borrow more, but will they admit it and try to sell this plan to voters? In the past few days, we've seen the party trying to work this out in public. Ed Miliband, in his awkward World at One interview, knew that saying 'yes, we'd borrow more to fund the VAT cut' would provoke triumphant howls from his opponents, and so ended up nervously jabbering away as Martha Kearney asked the same question over and over again. But yesterday he told Daybreak that 'I am clear about this: a temporary cut in VAT, as we are proposing, would lead to a temporary rise in borrowing'. He added that 'I suppose I felt it was rather a commonplace' to make that clear the first time around.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Ministers nudge policy unit into private sector

From our UK edition

The government's 'nudge unit' has always been regarded as radical - or a bit wacky, depending on your outlook - and now this Cabinet Office division, officially known as the Behavioural Insights Team, is getting a bit more radical. It's going into the private sector. A source close to Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude says the government is looking for a commercial partner for a joint venture in which the unit would become a profit-making enterprise: 'As a mutual they will combine the benefits of private-sector experience and investment with the innovation and commitment from staff leadership. This accelerates our drive to make public assets pay their way.

Sebastian Payne

Ed Miliband faces calls to remove Ken Livingstone from Labour NEC after ‘disgusting’ remarks

From our UK edition

Ken Livingstone’s remarks about the motives of the Boston bombing suspects have been widely condemned for suggesting that American foreign policy ‘fuels the anger’ that drove such young men into acts of terrorism. Tory chairman Grant Shapps has demanded the former Mayor of London apologise for causing offence: ‘These are irresponsible, insensitive and thoughtless comments which show why Ken Livingstone is not fit to hold public office. He should unreservedly apologise for the distress he has caused’ Brooks Newmark MP has gone one step further and written to Ed Miliband this afternoon, asking the Labour leader to also condemn the remarks and remove Livingstone from Labour’s National Executive Committee.

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: whips ask ministerial aides to snoop on their bosses

From our UK edition

Not wanting to heap worries onto the Prime Minister when he's just about found harmony with his party, but as well as the underused backbenchers I mentioned this morning, he might want to think about his party's PPSs as well. Some of them feel they were offered their jobs with the promise that the role would become 'turbo-charged', but haven't found the reality quite so glamorous. I hear that the last meeting Downing Street held for ministerial aides didn't cheer many of them up.

Alex Massie

This Britain: Maria Miller confuses economics with pleasure and beauty.

From our UK edition

Is it possible for a government minister to give a speech that is not a "keynote address"? That was my first thought upon reading Maria Miller's speech at the British Museum last week. My second thought was remembering the old saw that any time a government minister talks about "culture" it is sensible to reach for your Browning.  Thirdly, I recalled that Maria Miller is the kind of Commissar whose officials think it sensible to threaten journalists. So I suppose that I was predisposed to think poorly of her speech on the economic importance of the arts. Well, it was still a rotten speech that lived-down to these low expectations.

Tristram Hunt

The British workforce needs skills to compete, not a race to the bottom

From our UK edition

When J.B. Priestley visited Stoke-on-Trent on his 1934 ‘English Journey,’ he tried his hand throwing a vase at the Wedgwood factory in Etruria. It is fair to say, he lacked the skills. After a lot of jokes about ‘jollying’ and ‘jiggering’ and watching his vase flop back into clay, Priestley praised the craftsmen ‘doing something that they can do better than anybody else, and they know it ... Here is the supreme triumph of man’s creative thumb.’ Well, times have changed, but the way in which opinion formers think about skills has failed to move on much from Priestley. Of course, craft and artisanal skills remain essential to industries like the potteries, but the broader British workforce deserves a modern skills settlement.

Isabel Hardman

No 10’s outreach programme mustn’t leave underused MPs scratching their heads

From our UK edition

David Cameron is really trying to reach out to his party at the moment. The announcements of a policy board of MPs and a policy chief who is also an MP were intended to show that it's not just the inner circle that calls the shots. Jo Johnson appears to have received a bigger promotion than initially announced: today's Sun reports he's not just leading on policy, he's also taking over from Oliver Letwin in writing the manifesto. But appointing Chris Lockwood to the policy unit has added to the impression that the PM really trusts his friends and those who hail from the same social circle. He did, after all, name this journalist as one of his friends in evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. It is an unfair impression: a proper look at the policy board reveals MPs from a range of backgrounds.

Monday

James Forsyth

Chris Lockwood to join new Number 10 policy unit

From our UK edition

[caption id="attachment_8508921" align="alignright" width="140"] Chris Lockwood[/caption] Downing Street has pulled off a coup with the recruitment of Chris Lockwood, the US editor of The Economist, to the new Downing Street policy unit. Lockwood is one of the brightest and most insightful people in journalism and one imagines that he wouldn’t have left a prime perch at The Economist if he did not think that the new Policy Unit will have real heft. Lockwood is close to Cameron: he was one of the six journalists that the Prime Minister listed as a personal friend in his evidence to Leveson. In 1993, as reported in the Elliott and Hanning biography of Cameron, Lockwood was part of a group that went on a villa holiday to Italy with Cameron and Samantha Sheffield, as she then was.

James Forsyth

Local elections: Tory leadership prepares MPs for the worst

From our UK edition

The Tory leadership is getting increasingly nervous that the party isn’t sufficiently braced for bad local election results this Thursday. They’re worried that too many MPs assume the party won’t lose much more than 300 seats. The problem is that, for understandable reasons, MPs are treating all of CCHQ’s dire predictions — one source there is talking about 750 loses if the UKIP wave doesn’t break — merely as expectations management. In an attempt to persuade people of how bad the results could be, senior figures have taken to showing people this bar graph and map which illustrate the Tories’ current dominance. Their argument is that there is only way they can go from here, and that’s down.

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband’s Coldplay bid to voters

From our UK edition

Whether you like Ed Miliband's latest party political broadcast depends very much on whether you're the sort of person who openly weeps while listening to Coldplay. It's got plenty of the Chris Martin playing Wembley factor: emotional piano music, people saying things like 'please, give people some hope', and the Labour leader leaning comfortingly against luggage racks, nodding knowingly. He talks about 'a country that comes together, a country that joins together, a country that works together', and even employs a 'yes, we can!' theme. But what do we learn about what Labour is going to do to address this hunger for hope?