Uk politics

Sunday

Sebastian Payne

The mighty Metis machine that could save Cameron’s bacon in 2015

What does David Cameron need to do to win the next general election? Following on from Eastleigh, several of the suggestions in today's papers involve a significant personnel or policy shift, something Cameron is likely to ignore. Buried in the Sunday Times, an alternative is revealed (£) with the Metis project. Headed up by four of Westminster's sharpest minds, Metis is destined to become the largest and most sophisticated voter database ever built in the UK. The power of a 20 million strong list of voters has the potential to revolutionise campaigning: 'It will enable political parties to run highly targeted campaigns, focusing on individual voters whose support is vital to win key seats.

Isabel Hardman

How to be an anti-politics party in government: make the public sector accountable

One of the lessons from last week's Eastleigh by-election - and indeed the Italian elections - is that voters don't like politicians at the moment. It's easy for those like Nigel Farage to mop up this anti-politics sentiment in the same way as Nick Clegg could say before the 2010 election 'the more they attack each other, the more they sound the same'. But how does the Conservative party try to appeal to those voters fed up with the Establishment of which it is so clearly a part? David Cameron can hardly start attacking himself, after all. There is one thing that the Tories could do - and which their backbenchers are pushing for - which would at least undermine a sense that the party is tied up in the cosy Establishment.

James Forsyth

Vince Cable tells Philip Hammond, cut Trident not welfare

On The Sunday Politics today, Vince Cable told Andrew Neil that he disliked ring fencing particular departments. But he accepted that the NHS and DFID budgets would remain protected for the rest of this parliament Cable, who joked that he was being fingered as a shop steward of the National Union of Ministers, made clear that he opposed any further welfare cuts. When asked about Philip Hammond’s comments that welfare should be cut not defence, Cable responded by saying that the Ministry of Defence should scrap Trident. Interestingly, Cable conceded that capital spending was still too low and that he would push for further increases in it in the Budget. He indicated that George Osborne was sympathetic to this point of view.

Camilla Swift

Bookbenchers: Nick de Bois

Conservative MP Nick De Bois is over on the books blog now sharing some of his favourite reads for the new year. He reveals the sinister political masterpiece he would most like to study, the surprising three books he would save from a burning British Library and the Presidential memoir he reads before bed.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Theresa May and Chris Grayling signal bold new Tory direction on the ECHR

Tonight brings two major developments in terms of Tory policy on the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Courts of Human Rights. The Mail on Sunday reports that Theresa May is close to announcing that under a post 2015, majority Tory government Britain would leave the Convention. All the articles of the Convention would be incorporated into a British Bill of Rights. But no one would be able to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. This would end stand-offs such as the one over prisoner voting where the Strasbourg Court is telling parliament it has to enfranchise convicted inmates. Under this system, the Supreme Court in this country really would be supreme.

Rupert Myers

‘We called quite a few dead people’: How the Tories’ lack of data let them down in Eastleigh

At 9.15pm, with 45 minutes until polls closed in the Eastleigh by-election, the ‘get out the vote’ telephone operation at Conservative Central Headquarters stopped. As one fellow volunteer put it, it was so late in the day that we were just 'pissing people off'. Having been there all day, I’d had that feeling for several hours, as voter after voter spoke of the harassment they had received during the Eastleigh campaign from all of the major parties. By the early evening we were calling people who not only had received several calls already that day to remind them to vote, as well as one or two visits to their doorstep, but these poor voters had sent in their ballots by post, and had told everyone that.

James Forsyth

The Tory branch of the National Union of Ministers says cut welfare, not our budgets

Philip Hammond is a cautious and loyal politician. He is not a boat rocker. This is what makes his interviews in the Telegraph and The Sun today so noteworthy. He would not have started conducting spending negotiations in public unless he felt he had to and that he had a chance of success. Hammond tells The Sun his case is this, ‘You take half a percent out of the welfare budget, you’ve solved the problem in defence — HALF a percent. There is a body of opinion within Cabinet that believes we have to look at the welfare budget again.’ In truth, the argument about the 2015-16 spending round is not a conventional spending row: it isn’t the Ministry of Defence versus the Treasury.

James Forsyth

Is David Cameron about to drop minimum alcohol pricing?

James Chapman reports today that plans for a minimum unit price for alcohol are set to be dropped. This is welcome news. The policy always promised to simply drive up the price of drink, penalising all drinkers, while doing little about public drunkenness or binge drinking. The Mail says that the plan has fallen out of favour because of the government’s new emphasis on the cost of living. It is dawning on everyone that that hugely increasing the price of people’s pleasures at a time of falling real incomes is not a sensible political move. Although, the question remains of whether David Cameron will be prepared to fully abandon a policy that has been a personal priority of his. Tory MPs will be cheered by this move.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Eastleigh result: the Tories aren’t panicking, but that doesn’t mean they won’t

Don't panic, don't panic! But are the Tories actually panicking about the Eastleigh result? Coffee House readers will have seen Stewart Jackson's call on the government to get more robust on Romanian and Bulgarian migrants, and Gavin Barwell's plea to his colleagues to stay calm. But backbenchers aren't really flapping their arms in terror today, other than taking positions we've already heard them take. Even backbenchers who really don't like David Cameron are clear that even though coming third is 'deeply disappointing', it's not a catalyst for disaster right now. But that doesn't mean Cameron's opponents don't have some sort of vision of how the next few months could pan out.

Jonathan Jones

Eastleigh by-election: Four points from Ashcroft’s exit poll

The result might be in, but that doesn't mean there's nothing useful polls can tell us about the Eastleigh by-election. What swayed the voters? Why did they vote as they did? And — perhaps of most interest — how might they vote next time? Yesterday, Lord Ashcroft's polling operation phoned 760 Eastleigh residents, 654 of whom had voted in the by-election. All sorts of warning labels need slapping across the figures: they aren't weighted, so are subject to a much higher risk of selection bias than other polls, and even if the sample were representative and random, the margin of error would be 3.5 points (and higher for subsets of those 760 respondents). But here are a few interesting nuggets from the data: 1. The Lib Dems won the ground game.

Gavin Barwell

Don’t panic: the Tories can do better than Eastleigh

There’s no disguising the fact that last night’s result was a very disappointing one for Conservatives. There were three small crumbs of comfort. First, the poor performance of Labour, our only realistic rivals in terms of winning the next Election. The opinion polls say Labour are doing 12 or 13 percentage points better than they did at the last Election, but on the ground in Eastleigh they increased their share of the vote by just 0.22 per cent. In the 1994 Eastleigh by-election, held before Tony Blair was elected Leader, Labour came second with 27.6% of the vote.  Yesterday, they managed fourth place with just 9.

Sebastian Payne

Eastleigh by-election: a bad day for Labour too

While the Tories are taking a public beating for their performance in Eastleigh, Labour also have little to be proud of. Despite the party currently floating around 11 points ahead of the Tories in the national polls, they only managed to add 0.2 points to their 2010 general election result and came in fourth place. Their candidate John O'Farrell blames voters being anti-politics, not anti-Labour. Either way, the result is disappointing for Ed Miliband. Although it was unlikely Labour would ever take the seat, the party still threw its weight behind a full campaign. Lord Ashcroft’s latest polling suggests Labour were putting in similar effort to the main contenders.

Charlotte Leslie

Why David Nicholson must go

As the Mid-Staffs tragedy unfurls, it becomes more and more apparent that contrary to the insistence of former Labour Ministers and Prime Ministers, this was not an isolated case, but an appalling example of problems evident throughout the NHS. Indeed, back in 2008, the then Labour Government received reports from respected international health consultants warning of a culture of fear and compliance within the NHS; a place where the emphasis was on 'hitting the targets, but missing the point' and patient safety came second to presenting a set of statistics suitable for dispatch-box delivery.

Alex Massie

If David Cameron is serious about losing the next election he’ll cuddle-up to UKIP

OK. Remember this: by-elections are always liable to be interpreted too keenly. Elections often fought on local issues then have their results scrutinised as though the election was a miniature general election. It isn't. People who should know better this morning are forgetting that. You know what else matters? The candidate. They matter much more at a by-election than they do in a general election. The Tory candidate Maria Hutchings might have won Eastleigh in a general election. But a by-election brings greater scrutiny. A good number of voters are minded to pick the best candidate. I suspect few of those voters endorsed Ms Hutchings.

Jonathan Jones

Fag break Britain: four answers to Britain’s productivity puzzle

Jobs are being created in Britain, but the economy isn't growing. In the last year, the number of people in work rose by 2 per cent, but economic output rose by just 0.3 per cent. As the below graph shows, employment is now 0.7 per cent above its pre-recession peak, whereas GDP is still 3 per cent below it. This adds up to a big drop in productivity. Output per worker is now 3.8 per cent below its 2008 Q1 level, and 13.3 per cent lower than it would be if the pre-recession trend had continued. In a piece for this week's issue, The Spectator's business editor Martin Vander Weyer points out that this slump is 'the equivalent of an extra five-minute fag break outside the fire exit for every employee, every hour'. (On the latest figures, it's more like an eight-minute break.

Stewart Jackson

Eastleigh by-election: The Tories are suffering for gay marriage, and need to focus on migrants and a cost of living budget

It would be churlish to suggest that the Eastleigh by-election is 'disastrous', but coming third in a seat we polled almost 40 per cent in the general election is not good by anyone's measure. This is the price that has to be paid for gay marriage because of the drastic unpopularity of it with activists and supporters, who have been less inclined to get out and campaign on the streets because of it. The issue has been a direct recruiting seargeant for UKIP, and there's anecdotal evidence across the country for UKIP. There are two main lessons for me from this result. The first is that the government has to deal with the specific issue of Romanian and Bulgarian immigration as this was a key part of UKIP's campaign.

Isabel Hardman

Move to the right? The Tories need to worry about anti-politics voters too

So in the end Eastleigh went for the 'crisis for Cameron' option by putting the Tories in third behind UKIP. For those opponents of the Prime Minister, last night's result represents a line through another one of their 'five key tests' for his leadership. I understand that those close to Adam Afriyie already expect the backbencher to make a number of interventions over the next few months which they hope will cement him as a serious voice speaking out against the Tory leadership, and even those who aren't are mulling over how the party should change its strategy. The inevitable reaction, and one every commentator and opposition MP is just waiting to happen, is that a rump of backbenchers press the Prime Minister to move the party further to the Right.

James Forsyth

Lib Dems hold Eastleigh as UKIP force Tories into third

It was a successful night for the Liberal Democrats in Eastleigh and a disastrous one for the Tories. The Liberal Democrats held on with a majority a touch over 1,700. While the Tories came third, polling more than a thousand votes behind UKIP who surged in to second place. Labour had nothing to cheer either, coming a poor fourth—a result that makes it hard for Ed Miliband to claim they are a ‘one nation’ party. There’ll be three immediate political consequences of this result. First, Nick Clegg’s position is strengthened. Holding the seat with a majority of more than a thousand, demonstrates that the Liberal Democrats are not in the dire position that the national polls suggest.

James Forsyth

Eastleigh by-election live blog

12am: The word from the count is the Liberal Democrats have held Eastleigh. Intriguingly, the Liberal Democrats think UKIP have taken second. Labour appear set for a poor fourth. If the Tories have come third with the Lib Dems holding the seat, David Cameron's Tory critics will have a field-day tomorrow. 12.20am A source at the count tells Coffee House that UKIP appear to have won more votes today than any other party. But the Liberal Democrats will win thanks to their huge lead on postal votes 12.50am Tim Farron is trying to play down expectations. But revealingly he says that a Lib Dem win would be a game changer and boost their Budget bargaining power. 1am Sense from Eastleigh is that the Lib Dem majority tonight will be in the thousands not hundreds 1.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Eastleigh: the different results and what they’d mean

So now that the polls have closed in Eastleigh, here are the likely scenarios for tonight's Eastleigh by-election result, and what each combination will mean: A) 1. Tories 2. Liberal Democrats 3. UKIP It's stating the obvious that this is the best outcome for David Cameron, showing that the Tories can win in those target Lib Dem seats, and that they can beat a confident UKIP, no matter what grumpy backbenchers say. But it's a disaster for Nick Clegg: in fact, any scenario other than victory is a disaster for Nick Clegg. For Nigel Farage, coming third when his party has been so confident, particularly in the last 24 hours, about a surge in support, will be a dampener, but it will also confirm that he was right to not have stood himself and face a second defeat in the same constituency.