Uk politics

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s red meat EU speech: five key points

From our UK edition

Cameron has finished delivering his 'red meat' speech on the European Union and answering questions from journalists. You can read the full text here, but here are five key points to take away: 1. The Prime Minister is a pro-European sceptical about the current EU settlement It actually took Cameron a long time to reach his vision of a new Europe because he was so busy praising its history. We had a whistle-stop tour through the EU's creation, dotted with praise for its peacekeeping mission first. He was clearly keen to emphasis his pro-European credentials as much as he was to criticise, saying: 'I am not a British isolationist' and 'I speak as a British Prime Minister with a positive vision for the future of the European Union'.

The Spectator

David Cameron’s EU speech: full text

From our UK edition

This morning I want to talk about the future of Europe. But first, let us remember the past. Seventy years ago, Europe was being torn apart by its second catastrophic conflict in a generation. A war which saw the streets of European cities strewn with rubble. The skies of London lit by flames night after night. And millions dead across the world in the battle for peace and liberty. As we remember their sacrifice, so we should also remember how the shift in Europe from war to sustained peace came about. It did not happen like a change in the weather. It happened because of determined work over generations. A commitment to friendship and a resolve never to re-visit that dark past - a commitment epitomised by the Elysee Treaty signed 50 years ago this week.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron’s EU speech: the Coffee House guide

From our UK edition

Downing Street has tonight released the following extracts from David Cameron's speech on the European Union, which he will deliver tomorrow at 8am. Here's your guide to what we know so far: 1. An unwilling EU could sleepwalk Britain out of the union 'I speak as British Prime Minister with a positive vision for the future of the European Union. A future in which Britain wants, and should want, to play a committed and active part. 'If we don’t address these challenges, the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift towards the exit. 'I do not want that to happen. I want the European Union to be a success. And I want a relationship between Britain and the EU that keeps us in it. 'That is why I am here today. To acknowledge the nature of the challenges we face.

Stephen Twigg

Schools can teach good character and the 3 Rs

From our UK edition

Education debates are riddled with false choices, as Michael Barber notes in his recently published essay Oceans of Innovation. It's academic or vocational; it’s best practice or innovation; it’s the three Rs or character development. These are the choices, we are told, that must be made. It plays well for those in pursuit of the politics of dividing lines but it is detrimental in policy terms. I want to see rigorous academic and vocational routes for young people in 14- 19 education. That is why Labour will bring forward a Technical Baccalaureate, with a strong focus on technical education and with Maths and English to 18 for all. If we are to succeed as a nation, we need to equip young people with the skills, knowledge and resilience for the jobs of the future.

Isabel Hardman

Tim Loughton vs the Department for Education, round 2

From our UK edition

The battle between Tim Loughton and the Education department rumbles on, with new foot soldiers joining the fray. The latest shot fired in the war comes from Labour's Stephen Twigg, who has demanded an investigation into the quotes we ran on Coffee House last week from a senior DfE source which described the former minister as a 'lazy incompetent narcissist obsessed only with self-promotion'. Twigg has written to the department's Permanent Secretary Chris Wormald, saying the following: 'You will be aware that both special advisers and civil servants are bound by a code of conduct, which precludes them from making personal attacks.

Isabel Hardman

Cabinet agrees ‘difficult decisions’ due for 2015/16 spending review

From our UK edition

Ministers aren't just getting ready for March's Budget: they're also trying to work out a 'budget setting process' for 2015/16. The content of that slimmed-down departmental spending review formed the discussion at today's Cabinet meeting, with George Osborne and Danny Alexander leading. It's not clear when this spending review will be announced, other than that it will take place in the first half of 2013. But the discussion centred around that old chestnut, the 'difficult decisions'. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'They set out that there was going to be a budget setting process for 15/16 in the first half of this year that the treasury will set out more on that process in due course.

Fraser Nelson

Austerity latest: spending up, deficit up.

From our UK edition

We can all overdo it a little at Christmas, but the government's monthly overdraft statement — which came in this morning — is of a different order. In December, HM Treasury spent £15.4 billion more than it received in tax, a worse result than December last year where the monthly deficit was £14.8 billion. And why? Well, growth has been sluggish (we may learn on Friday that the UK economy is shrinking again) so tax revenues have fallen. But, more worryingly, state spending seems to be running out of control too. The below graph, from Citi, sums it up. The blue is what is expected (from those fiscal Mystic Megs at the Office for Budget Responsibility) for 2012-13 and the pink is what we have seen in the first nine months of that period.

Alex Massie

Talk of a leadership challenge to David Cameron is reckless self-indulgence – Spectator Blogs

From our UK edition

For reasons I do not wholly understand, Labour partisans appear reasonably pleased with Ed Miliband. Liberal Democrats may not be especially gruntled with Nicholas Clegg but they do appear to appreciate that there's little point in changing leader now. Which brings us to the Conservative party. And there we discover madness aplenty. Again. For it seems as though more than 50 Tory MPs are sufficiently dissatisfied with David Cameron's leadership that they think a change of leader something worth considering before the next election. This, for all the reasons Robert Colvile suggests and many more he doesn't, would be folly. Madness. Lunacy. Proof that the party is unfit for office. Whatever his shortcomings there are only two things that really matter here: 1.

Robert Halfon MP

Restoring the 10p tax rate would be fair and simple

From our UK edition

MPs will today debate taxes and the living wage - in particular, my campaign to restore the 10p rate of income tax. For Conservatives, a 'starter' rate of 10p would help us to counter the Labour war-cry that the Coalition is only interested cutting taxes for millionaires. It would prove to the electorate, that this Government is on a moral mission to help the poor, by boosting the cash income of a worker on minimum wage by more than £250 a year. As Tim Montgomerie puts it: 'We must declare very loudly and clearly that tax cuts for the working poor will be our priority as the economy picks up.' As an economic reform, it would be hugely cheaper than raising the personal allowance to £12,500 and it would be symbolic of the Coalition’s mission to repair our economy.

George Trefgarne

The Succession to the Crown Bill is a constitutional can of worms

From our UK edition

Today, the Succession to the Crown Bill will receive its second reading in the House of Commons. If one had to think of one person who would welcome this plan to 'modernise' the Monarchy, it would have to be that arch-Blairite, Baroness Jay of Paddington. But she popped up yesterday in her capacity as chair of the Lords’ Constitution Committee, to warn of the potential 'unintended consequences' of the Bill and to decry the use of the emergency fast track procedure to rush it through. Surely some mistake? Actually, no. Baroness Jay arguably knows more than anybody about tinkering with the constitution, having made it her life’s work.

Isabel Hardman

Labour opposes benefit cuts: for now, anyway

From our UK edition

Last night's debate on the bill capping benefit rises at 1 per cent was far more revelatory than it might first have appeared. It wasn't Labour's conclusion that the Tories were evil and the Lib Dems (those that turned up, at least: there were nine rebels, but a further 11 Lib Dem MPs were mysteriously absent) just as bad. But the most interesting revelation was the way the party handled this exchange: Charlie Elphicke: Is it therefore the right hon. Gentleman’s and the Opposition’s policy that uprating should be not by 1%, but by inflation? Is that a commitment? Stephen Timms: Uprating should indeed be in line with inflation, as it always was in the past. This was significant.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Tory MPs to press Theresa May on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants

From our UK edition

Tory backbenchers will raise concerns about the government's preparations for the lifting of controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants at a meeting with the Home Secretary in the next few weeks, I understand. Conservative MPs are becoming increasingly nervous about the situation, fearing that if handled poorly, it could have a particularly bad impact on the party's performance in the 2014 European elections, as the transitional controls end on 31 December 2013. One of those worried backbenchers is former ministerial aide Stewart Jackson, who tells me he is considering introducing a modified version of the 10-Minute Rule Bill that he brought before the House in October.

James Forsyth

David Cameron redoubles his commitment to interventionism

From our UK edition

David Cameron’s Commons statement on Algeria just now was the most interventionist speech he has made since the one he delivered at the Foreign Policy Centre during his 2005 leadership bid. But this speech is far more important than that one because it is what he actually believes; the 2005 speech was written by Michael Gove and was given more to tick the leadership contest’s foreign policy box than anything else. Listening to Cameron today, it is clear that the events of recent days have led him to redouble his commitment to interventionism. Indeed, in his talk of the ‘generational challenge’ and the need to ‘beat them [the terrorists] militarily’ one could hear echoes of Blair and Bush post 9/11.

Paul Davies

Boosting the private sector in Wales

From our UK edition

Wales, sadly is one of the poorest regions of the United Kingdom. GVA stands at 75 per cent that of the UK average. Just 1 in 16 people earn more than £35,000. There is an over reliance on the public sector, and we must boost growth in our private sector. Too often the approach seems to be to sit back and expect an outside investor to come in and provide our future success, but we need to harness the talent and the enterprise we have here already. Today, the Welsh Conservatives launched a new policy aimed at helping our striving small business owners to access finance – imperative for the growth, maintenance and success of any business – and in a way which is straightforward and local. Wales has an aspiring business community where 99.

Isabel Hardman

The Labour MPs who could make trouble for Ed Miliband on Europe

From our UK edition

So the Prime Minister's speech is, as James hinted yesterday, going to be on Wednesday, and in London to avoid any further strikes of the Curse of Tutancameron's Europe speech. His official spokesman confirmed the date this morning. Thanks to briefed extracts and further briefings over the weekend, we now have a rough outline of what's going to be in it, which will mean it's impressive if anything the David Cameron says causes anyone in the audience to gasp with surprise. What is more exciting is what the response will be from the other benches in the Commons. Labour spokesmen on the broadcast rounds yesterday were squirming rather when asked about whether the party might offer a referendum too.

Isabel Hardman

Former housing minister calls for review of benefit rises bill

From our UK edition

The Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill returns to the Commons this afternoon for committee and remaining stages. As I reported last week, rebel backbench Lib Dems, the Labour front bench team and Green MP Caroline Lucas have tabled a number of amendments to the legislation to change the uprating itself, which may provoke heated exchanges on the floor of the House but little more. But there is one more amendment for discussion which, even if it doesn't get accepted this afternoon, could well reappear in the House of Lords.

Fraser Nelson

Big Brother (and HMRC) is watching you

From our UK edition

It's the anniversary of George Orwell's death today - and HMRC seem to be marking the occasion with adverts in cashpoints celebrating their emerging status as the Big Brother of Britain. The above picture, which I took the other day from a cashpoint, shows a pair of female eyes staring and blinking at you as you take our you money, with the clear message from the taxman: be warned, we have the power to pry. Not yet they don't: the Snooping Bill has been attacked in parliament and looks like it may not survive. The disingenuous rationale for the Bill was that it would help MI5 crack down on terrorists who use new ways of communicating. As the jihadis change their tactics, ran the argument, you need to let our spies do the same. This is bunkum.

Alex Massie

Correction of the Year – Spectator Blogs

From our UK edition

Courtesy of Time magazine: This article has been changed. An earlier version stated that Oxford University accepted “only one black Caribbean student” in 2009, when in fact the university accepted one British black Caribbean undergraduate who declared his or her ethnicity when applying to Oxford. The article has also been amended to reflect the context for comments made by British Prime Minister David Cameron on the number of black students at Oxford. It has also been changed to reflect the fact that in 2009 Oxford “held” rather than “targeted” 21% of its outreach events at private schools, and that it draws the majority of its non-private students from public schools with above average levels of attainment, rather than “elite public schools.

Isabel Hardman

Hague fleshes out Britain’s role in the decades-long response to terrorism

From our UK edition

The Prime Minister's two statements on the Algerian hostage crisis on Friday and Sunday set some tongues wagging about what sort of a role he saw Britain playing in the 'global response' that was 'about years, even decades' to the terror threat in North Africa. William Hague fleshed that out a little bit more in his Today programme interview, arguing that the West couldn't resolve all the world's problems: 'It is a complete illusion to think that we are omnipotent in all of these respects. Of course there are many, many factors at play. I'm describing to you what the United Nations have been doing, what Western countries have been doing. We've also been increasing our counter-terrorism co-operation with western African countries - Nigeria and Mauritania and so on.

Sunday

James Forsyth

Why the Tory leadership thinks it can push gay marriage and boost its support among ethnic minority voters

From our UK edition

If the Tory party doesn’t improve its performance with ethnic minority voters, it’ll be nigh-on-impossible for it to win a general election in a generation’s time. The single biggest driver of not voting Tory is not being white and more than one in four under fives in Britain are non-white. This is the background to the Tories’ big push to increase their support among ethnic minority voters and David Cameron’s decision to devote Wednesday’s political Cabinet to the subject. Now, I’m always wary of parties talking about appealing to specific groups rather than individuals.