Uk politics

Tuesday

Jonathan Jones

Forget 50p — scrap the 60p tax rate

Imagine if a Chancellor stood up and announced that those earning up to £100,000 would pay a 40p tax rate, those earning £100,000 to £112,950 will pay a 60p rate, and those earning above £112,950 will pay the 40p rate, and then the top earners will pay a 50p rate. That'd be crazy, right? But that's exactly what Alistair Darling announced in his 2009 Budget. So how did he get away with it? By delivering his announcement in code. Instead of talking about marginal tax rates, he described the move as withdrawing the personal allowance for those with incomes over £100,000. The language may be different — and may sound much more reasonable — but the effect is exactly the same.

Isabel Hardman

MPs get last chance to push Osborne on Budget

It's the last Treasury questions before the Budget today, and MPs will have a final chance to push the Chancellor on what it is that they want from the Budget. There are those who are instinctively loyal to the Tory leadership and want a Budget that comes and goes without fireworks or failures. 'Just steady as she goes, please,' one loyalist says. Within that group are MPs who are desperate for a cost of living Budget. Then there are those MPs who are not loyal, and who, even if they don't admit it, would quite like a messy Budget that shows George Osborne up. A wider group of backbenchers includes those who are nervous that Osborne isn't quite the strategic genius he's often sold as.

Monday

The Spectator

Breaking: Chris Huhne sentenced to 8 months

Former Lib Dem Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has been sentenced to eight months in jail, a judge has announced at Southwark Crown Court in the last few minutes. His ex-wife Vicky Pryce was also sentenced for eight months. It's worth reading the interview that Chris Huhne gave to the Guardian's Patrick Wintour before his sentencing at Southwark Crown Court this afternoon. He said: 'I changed my plea for two reasons. I did not want to go to court and lie. I did not want to perjure myself further. In the past, people have got themselves into further trouble when they have tried to do that. That is the lesson people should learn. People should stop things, essentially.

Isabel Hardman

Tory pressure for EU referendum bill grows

David Cameron and Lynton Crosby are holding a meeting with Conservative MPs this week to discuss 2015 strategy, I understand. The party held a similar meeting with Andrew Cooper in January. One of the major topics that is likely to come up from the floor is whether the party should be trying to get legislation on an EU referendum into parliament at some point. There is of course already an opportunity for the party to do this, as there is a backbench bill already before parliament proposing just that. It's from John Baron, who was the first Tory to break ranks and criticise David Cameron's EU referendum pledge, writing on Coffee House that without legislation, the party would suffer at the hands of voters not quite ready to trust politicians on Europe.

James Forsyth

Some cheer for Tory election planners: Clegg determined to oppose EU referendum

The last few weeks have, to put it mildly, not been encouraging for those working on the Tories’ 2015 campaign. But today brings news to gladden their hearts. For the FT’s Kiran Stacey reports that Nick Clegg is so opposed to David Cameron’s plan for renegotiation followed by a referendum that he’s considering making it a red line for any future coalition negotiation. This is good news for Tory campaigners as it indicates that the Liberal Democrats will go into the next election opposed to giving the people a say on Europe. Now, to most voters Europe is not the deciding issue when they cast their ballot.

Alex Massie

Liam Fox shows David Cameron how to lead the Tories to a historic defeat

I think it is fair to say that Dr Liam Fox has never been one of David Cameron's chief chums. The former Defence Secretary has, as Paul Goodman notes, been closer to George Osborne. Be that as it may, his speech today is a fine reminder of Dr Fox's political limitations. This is the kind of stuff - and the kind of man, frankly - that helps explain why the Conservative party has not won a general election majority since 1992. Think on that and think on how much Britain has changed these past 21 years and how little the Tory party has. Dr Fox ignored all this, delivering a call to arms like it was 1981 All Over Again. But it is not. According to Fox, however: The great socialist coup of the last decade was making wealth an embarrassment. It is not.

Christian Guy

Modern slavery: it happens here

Slowly but surely, British court cases are revealing a once great nation of abolitionists to be a shadow of its former self.  We often celebrate the nineteenth century anti-slavery movement and its precious victory.  We hail their achievement and honour our Parliament’s noblest hour. But like weeds in a neglected garden, slavery has returned.  Its roots remained intact – inherent in humanity’s darkest weaknesses.  Today, it is aggressive and hidden.  It lives in the shadows of Britain’s cities, towns and villages.  And as this morning’s Centre for Social Justice report reveals, too often it thrives uncontested. In the hands of international bureaucrats the problem has become better known as ‘human trafficking’.

Isabel Hardman

Cable and Fox tug at the Coalition’s centre

The leaders of both coalition parties are seeing ministerial colleagues and backbenchers trying to push them further way from the centre at present. Nick Clegg has Vince Cable continuing to push for what Ed Miliband might call 'good borrowing', telling the Today programme that he'd borrow to improve the economy, rather than to keep an inefficient economic model going.

Sunday

Rupert Myers

The Conservatives should raise the minimum wage

How do the Conservatives continue to tackle the deficit, grow the economy, and persuade voters that they are – as the Home Secretary Theresa May put it in her measured keynote speech to the ConHome 'Victory 2015' conference yesterday – a party for all? There's a chance that the answer to all three problems might be to make targeted increases to the minimum wage. Americans are starting to look at the potential stimulus effects of a similar increase in their minimum wage, and this may be the time for the Treasury to contemplate something radical. Whilst the electorate continue to view Ed Miliband as out of his depth, one of the biggest problems faced by the Conservative party is in becoming a party seen as acting in the interests of everyone.

James Forsyth

Clegg: the Tories are like a broken shopping trolley – they always veer to the right.

If you want to know what the Liberal Democrat’s message at the next election will be, read Nick Clegg’s speech to the party’s Spring Conference today. He kept to the refrain that the Liberal Democrats are for a stronger economy and a fairer society and you can’t trust the Tories with society or Labour with the economy. In a sign of the new, more disciplined Lib Dem machine there were no detours from this core theme. Listening to Clegg, you would have had no idea that the leadership had lost a vote on secret courts this morning. Clegg knows that his internal position hasn’t been this strong since the Liberal Democrats entered coalition.

Fraser Nelson

Five ideas for George Osborne’s 2013 budget

The idea of an ‘empty budget’ later this month is disappointing those who backed George Osborne in the hope of his fixing the problems he so eloquently outlined in opposition. If Brown proposed cutting the deficit by 33 per cent over two years, newspapers who criticised him at the time for lacking ambition — as Osborne did — can hardly be expected to applaud the Chancellor for cutting it by just 25 per cent over three years. Faster progress is needed: on the deficit, and on economic growth. There are many tools that can be used and the Sunday Telegraph describes a few of them today in its leading article. It’s an important contribution to the debate. Here are its main points, and my take: 1. Cut taxes, especially corporation tax.

Isabel Hardman

Coalition negotiations on childcare tax break near conclusion

Jo Swinson's speech to the Lib Dem spring conference highlighted her again as a confident performer who has higher to rise in the party. I was at a fringe session last night where, though scheduled to speak first, she insisted on going last so she could answer the other panellists' concerns on changes to employment law. One of the areas she touched on today was helping women to break glass ceilings in their professions. 'When Nick invited me to join the government as a minister in the department for business, I immediately asked "Do I get shared parental leave?"' she said. There was a slightly awkward pause, before she added: 'Don't worry Duncan!' adding that she meant taking the legislation through parliament.

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem candidate resigns over secret courts

Lib Dem members have just voted overwhelmingly in favour of an emergency motion on secret courts which repeated calls for the party's parliamentarians to delete the second half of the Justice and Security Bill. During the debate, the leading campaigner against secret courts, Jo Shaw, who has spoken to Coffee House a number of times about activists' opposition to the legislation, resigned as a Liberal Democrat on stage. Shaw stood in the 2010 general election, and is a barrister by trade. She had tried repeatedly to meet Nick Clegg to express members' concerns about the Bill, but it was only recently that she was granted that meeting. Yesterday she was deeply unimpressed with Clegg's description of some of the anti-secret courts arguments as 'hyperbolic'.

Saturday

James Forsyth

May blossoms

The question about Theresa May has always been what does she believe? Well, today in the widest-ranging speech of her political career she went a long way to answering that. You can read the speech, delivered at the Conservative Home conference, here. Several things struck me about the speech. First, on economics May is not a classical liberal or a Lawsonian. Instead, she is more in the Michael Heseltine camp. She made the case for a buy British government procurement programme that strikes a ‘better balance between short-term value for the taxpayer and long-term benefits to the economy’. But, in other areas, May is prepared to be more free market than the Tory party has been to date.

Isabel Hardman

Clegg plays tough guy in shouty Q&A with Lib Dem activists

Nick Clegg has just battled his way through a rather more grumpy than usual question-and-answer session at the Lib Dem spring conference. Normally, these sessions are an opportunity for the party to let off steam - they're obviously far more robust than the sort of thing you'll see in the House of Commons as they involve party members complaining about things that worry them, rather than telling Clegg how pleased they are with the Coalition's record. And normally Clegg performs well: Q&A sessions are his strength. But this was a more robust session than usual, with considerably more steam: activists weren't just anxious and keen to grill their leader, they were grumpy.

James Forsyth

Tories and Lib Dems strike deal on mansion tax vote

Further to Isabel’s post this morning, I understand from a senior coalition source that the two parties have now reached an agreement on how to handle Tuesday’s vote on Labour’s mansion tax motion. The Liberal Democrat leadership has assured their coalition partners that they’ll back a government amendment to it. This amendment will concede that the coalition parties have different views on the issue. The only question now is whether the speaker John Bercow will call it. I suspect that this agreement has been helped by a desire to limit coalition tensions post-Eastleigh and pre-Budget. There is also reluctance on the part of the Liberal Democrats to get dragged into playing Labour’s game.

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem activists keep up pressure on sexism

The Lib Dem leadership has been trying its best this weekend to address the Lord Rennard allegations. I understand Tim Farron has been meeting activists to discuss any ongoing concerns. And the party also announced last night that it was creating a new group, Liberal Democrat Women, which, slightly confusingly, merges Women Lib Dems and the Campaign for Gender Balance. Another group with a more imaginative name is Rock the Boat, set up by Lib Dem activist James Shaddock, as a way of pressuring the leadership to examine not just the Rennard allegations, but the wider culture in the party. It boasts around 300 members currently. Female activists told Coffee House last night that they were frustrated by the way some of the rally speakers addressed the allegations.

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dems to hold mansion tax vote strategy meeting

Will the Lib Dems support Labour's mansion tax vote? Vince Cable praised his pet policy idea last night, telling Lib Dem activists that it was an effective way of the government collecting revenue because properties can't move. But on Tuesday, the party will have to decide how it should vote on a very carefully-worded Labour motion (which you can read here). I understand that the Lib Dem leadership is holding a meeting on Monday to decide its strategy for the vote, which is an Opposition Day debate, not government business. A source close to Vince Cable tells me: 'It's unlikely the party will end up voting for the Labour motion.

Isabel Hardman

Vince Cable: Tory ‘ideologues’ waging ‘jihad’ against public spending

Vince Cable managed to hit all the Lib Dem spots last night with his fringe speech at the Lib Dem spring conference. He didn't just mention the words 'land value tax', which set many Lib Dem heads nodding away with approval, but also managed to say 'there's no such thing as a free lunch' in Swahili, and accuse right-wing Conservatives of waging 'jihad' against public spending and public services. Here are three main points from his speech: 1. Cable said certain Tory 'ideologues' were waging 'jihad' against public spending.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Shirley Williams: Nick Clegg is above all the victim of the Rennard scandal coverage

A crime reporter friend enjoys telling the story of his first black eye at the local Magistrates' Court. Like so many, it occurred as he was leaving, and bumped into a convicted defendant. The conversation ran along these lines: Man convicted of awkward crime: You're not putting this in the paper, are you? You can't do this, it'll ruin my business. Reporter, in his first job and in a chippy mood: You should have thought about then when you did it, mate. Man convicted of awkward crime's right fist makes contact with reporter's eye. I remembered this story this evening as the Lib Dems started their party's spring conference in Brighton with a rally for International Women's Day.