Uk politics

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

The Curse of Tutancameron’s Europe speech

From our UK edition

David Cameron's Europe speech already had a Tutankhamun-style curse on it before events forced him to postpone it, with the much longer delay from its original date of mid-autumn causing a feeding frenzy in the media, in his own party, his coalition partners, and in the opposition. By the end of last week, it was difficult to find an opposition MP or columnist who hadn't written a whimsical piece imagining they were Cameron giving the speech (or indeed twisting readers into an even greater willing suspension of disbelief by imagining they were John Major talking to Cameron about the as-yet undelivered speech as David Miliband managed to do).

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron: Terrorism in North Africa requires global response

From our UK edition

In his latest statement on the Algerian hostage crisis this morning, the Prime Minister built on the interventionist language that James spotted in his Commons address on Friday. Cameron said: 'This is a global threat and it will require a global response; it will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months, and it requires a response that is patient, that is painstaking, that is tough but also intelligent, but above all has an absolutely iron resolve and that is what we deliver over these coming years.

Saturday

Charlotte Henry

Revealed: the most expensive government services

From our UK edition

Anyone mulling how the government can save a tidy sum of money could do a lot worse than to sift through the slew of data released this week by the Cabinet Office on how much government services cost. It sounds a bit techy, but the breakdown of costs underlines how important the  ‘Digital by Default’ approach to public services pioneered by Martha Lane Fox really is. Currently non-digital government transactions cost £4 billion a year. The Government Digital Service believes between £1.7 billion and £1.8 billion worth of annual savings could be made by making transactional services digital.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

War in Whitehall or plumbing problems?

From our UK edition

Is there really war in Whitehall? Tensions between ministers and civil servants have certainly spilled over at some departments, but there has, as you might expect, been a backlash over the past few days to the Times investigation into the civil service. Former civil service head Lord O'Donnell and Telegraph columnist Sue Cameron have both, unsurprisingly, defended the service. Yesterday Cameron attacked the idea of a 'war'. She reported that Number 10 had rejected this, with a source saying 'we don't have a massive crisis. We don't have government paralysis'. Reforms in key policy areas such as welfare, health and education were, she said, a sign that the civil service was working well, with its major failing apparently being too much obedience.

James Forsyth

David Cameron seems more and more committed to interventionism

From our UK edition

A visibly tired David Cameron has just completed his statement to the House of Commons on the hostage situation in Algeria. What was striking about it was the starkness of the language that the Prime Minister used. He talked about Al Qaeda in the Maghreb and other North African terrorists groups posing a ‘large and existential threat’, warned that they ‘thrive in ungoverned spaces’ and that ‘parts of Mali have become a safe haven for Al Qaeda’ and declared that if it is not confronted ‘the threat there will grow and we’ll face it as well’.

The Spectator

David Cameron’s delayed EU speech: extracts

From our UK edition

By the time the Prime Minister cancelled his Europe speech yesterday evening, extracts had already been briefed to journalists. A new date has yet to be announced, but here are the extracts that have been released: Britain should play an active part in Europe: 'I want to speak to you today with urgency and frankness about the European Union and how it must change – both to deliver prosperity and to retain the support of its peoples. 'I come here 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.' Now is the time for change: 'Why raise fundamental questions about the future of Europe when Europe is already in the midst of a deep crisis?

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron to give Commons statement on Algeria

From our UK edition

David Cameron had no choice but to postpone today's speech: while it would have been a relief to get the darned thing over and done with, a navel-gazing address on Conservative Europe policy would have done him no favours in the long-term when the Algerian hostage crisis is still going on. The Prime Minister will be briefed at 9am with another COBRA meeting and will then give a Commons statement at 11am. He was horrified yesterday to discover that Algeria had launched its rescue mission without consulting the UK, when he had already asked to be informed. The Mail quotes one official saying 'We asked them not to go in with all guns blazing and they just did it anyway. They insisted this was their sovereign territory and it was their operation.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Breaking: Cameron postpones Europe speech

From our UK edition

David Cameron has postponed his speech on the European Union because of the hostage situation in Algeria where a standoff has been taking place in a gas plant in the Sahara Desert. There are conflicting reports, but it seems about 300 Algerian and 40 international hostages were taken and several have been killed in a rescue attempt. The PM has suggested that worse news will follow saying:- 'We should be prepared for the possibility of further bad news in this very dangerous fluid situation.' No10 said earlier that Cameron had not been informed about the Algerian rescue attempt before it began and has told his Algerian counterpart that he wishes he had been "contacted in advance". The Japanese government has asked the Algerians to desist.

The Spectator

Grill the Housing Minister: Mark Prisk answers Coffee House readers’ questions

From our UK edition

Housing Minister Mark Prisk's brave request for a grilling from Coffee House readers generated a very enthusiastic response. Here are the minister's answers to your questions. House Prices Q: What will the Government be doing to rebalance things back towards private buyers and away from the BTL speculators that have driven the market up to such an extent that private buyers are priced out? (Specifically, get the Treasury to end the tax breaks introduced under Labour that drive this, and level the playing field for ordinary buyers). A: It’s important not to overstate this problem.  In 2011, buy to let accounted for just 12 % of all mortgages.  And of course it’s important to have a ready supply of rented accommodation for people who want or need that flexibility.

Isabel Hardman

101 questions about tax

From our UK edition

As well as confusing Hansard with talk of 'big fairies', Labour's Jim Sheridan has no fewer than 101 written questions for answer today on how many contracts a number of government departments have awarded to a series of companies known to be taking part in tax avoidance schemes. He also asks for details of how many meetings the departments have held with those companies. The questions are for the Business department, Cabinet Office, the Treasury, the Culture, Media and Sport department, Ministry of Defence, Energy department, Education department, Home Office, Scotland Office and the Work and Pensions department. They ask about ministers' and officials' dealings with Amazon, Google, Symantec, Dell CSC, Xerox, and Oracle.

James Forsyth

Tim Loughton vs the Department for Education

From our UK edition

In a week where the inner workings of Whitehall have rarely been out of the news, Tim Loughton’s evidence to the Education Select Committee has made a particular splash. As Isabel reported yesterday, Loughton criticised the way the department was run and claimed that the children and families agenda ‘was a declining priority' in his time there and had been ‘greatly downgraded since the reshuffle.’ Inside the Department of Education, there’s real irritation at Loughton’s comments. One senior Department for Education source launched the following broadside: 'Tim Loughton opposed transparency on child protection and sided with those all over the country who want to maintain a culture of secrecy.

Pippa Kelly

Big Fairies and M&S suits: a Hansard reporter reveals all

From our UK edition

It’s all very well everyone having fun at the expense of the hapless Hansard reporter who sent a note to a Scottish MP querying whether he’d called the SNP 'big fairies'. He might well have done. Stranger things have been uttered in the Chamber of the House of Commons. 'Big fearties' for a start. I should know. I was a Hansard reporter for 12 years and pretty terrifying it could be. Believe me, turning 10 minutes of a John Prescott speech into intelligible English in under an hour takes some nerve even with a minimum shorthand speed of 180wpm (compulsory for all Official Reporters). My former colleague, Hansard editor Lorraine Sutherland, said on Radio 4 this morning that her reporters need a lot of skill, stamina and judgement. Not that all MPs value the service.

Isabel Hardman

More helpful advice for David Cameron on Europe

From our UK edition

By this stage in the run-up to his Europe speech, the Prime Minister must be tempted to sit in a darkened room with his fingers in his ears shouting loudly if anyone else tries to give him more advice on Britain's relationship with the EU. Today brings another wave of advice: some from friendly faces, most from foes. When Ed Miliband got to the point in his Today programme interview, after debating when it was that the Prime Minister might call a referendum, he outlined his central problem with the whole debate: 'Imagine an investor, thinking now, should I be investing in Britain, or Germany, or Denmark, or a whole range of other countries? I think if we put up a sign around Britain, saying 'we might be out of Europe within five years'.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Rod Liddle on Moore, Burchill and Featherstone’s lovely bitch fight

From our UK edition

In tomorrow's Spectator, Rod Liddle gives his verdict on the social media storm caused by Suzanne Moore and then Julie Burchill. Liddle suggests that until the 'entire bourgeois bien-pensant left' self-immolates, leaving a slight scent of goji berries, bystanders can 'enjoy ourselves watching them tear each other to pieces, mired in their competing victimhoods seething with acquired sensitivity, with inchoate rage and fury, inventing more and more hate crimes with which they might punish people who are not themselves'. He describes Burchill's Observer  as 'easily the best piece the paper has carried in a decade', and then examines the response of the government and the Observer's editor: 'At which point the government got involved. No, it really did.

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: David Cameron meets eurosceptic backbenchers ahead of speech

From our UK edition

The Prime Minister met a group of Tory backbenchers in Downing Street this afternoon to discuss Friday's Europe speech. I have spoken to the group's ringleader, John Baron, who has stressed the confidential manner of the discussion, but has given Coffee House readers some exclusive details of what went on. John Baron, Peter Bone, Edward Leigh, Mark Reckless, Philip Davies and Steve Baker attended the meeting. They were representing the 100 Conservative backbenchers who had signed the original letter in June calling for legislation in this Parliament for a referendum in the next. The meeting, which had a good atmosphere, lasted 20-25 minutes, and Baron and colleagues reiterated to the Prime Minister the letter's two demands.

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Cameron and Miliband’s merry slanders

From our UK edition

It was written in the faces at PMQs today. Ed Miliband seemed relaxed and happy as he exploited Tory splits ahead of Cameron’s Euro-address on Friday. The PM looked irritable and resigned, like a long-distance hiker whose brand new Timberlands have started chafing just a few yards from his starting point. His conundrum is simple. Until he recommends carpet-bombing Brussels he’ll never placate the Euro-bashers. And his hope for renegotiation, even at its most conciliatory, will only inflame their escapological instincts. Miliband asked if Britain would still be an EU member in five years’ time. Cameron kept his crystal ball hidden. ‘The UK is better off in Europe,’ he said.

Sebastian Payne

Will Hunt’s paperless NHS reform dream ever come true?

From our UK edition

Jeremy Hunt has announced new plans to shift the NHS into the twenty first century by removing all vestiges of paper by 2018. While computerising health records sounds mundane and complicated, the Health Secretary has done his best to make the plans appear logical and advantageous. In his announcement, Hunt says: ‘The NHS cannot be the last man standing as the rest of the economy embraces the technology revolution. It is crazy that ambulance drivers cannot access a full medical history of someone they are picking up in an emergency - and that GPs and hospitals still struggle to share digital records.’ The interim stages to Hunt's ultimate goal sound realistic.

Isabel Hardman

‘Impossible’ Leveson Bill published

From our UK edition

Even though the Leveson talks are, by all accounts, progressing rather smoothly at present, there are still a few spanners stuck in the works here and there. Hacked Off has just published a consultation on all the bits of draft legislation on press regulation that are knocking about, and it includes the bill drafted by the government. Though it had been shared with those involved in the talks about Leveson, this is the first time the legislation has made its way into the public domain, and you can read it in full here. It was drafted by the government to prove that statutory underpinning of press regulation would, in practice, be impossible.

James Forsyth

PMQs: Miliband mocks ‘divided’ Tories

From our UK edition

After PMQs today, David Cameron must be wishing he could just get on and deliver his much-trailed Europe speech. Ed Miliband took advantage of all the speculation to mockingly question Cameron on the subject, asking him to comment on every bit of process. Cameron wouldn’t rule out this morning’s James Chapman scoop that Tory ministers will be allowed to campaign on different sides of the referendum question. This made it all too easy for Miliband to get away the line: ‘ it's the same old Tories, a divided party and a weak Prime Minister’. For Miliband, that was mission accomplished. Those close to Cameron are arguing that Miliband has now shut the door to Labour offering a referendum, putting Labour on the wrong side of public opinion.

Isabel Hardman

Children and families ‘not a priority’ for Michael Gove, former children’s minister argues

From our UK edition

Of all the sackings in September's reshuffle, two of the most surprising came from the Education department. So it was fascinating to hear those two victims of the purge, Tim Loughton and Nick Gibb, give their verdict on the department and their boss at the Education Select Committee this morning. Lib Dem Sarah Teather, who departed to fight to retain her constituency, also had her say, but the most striking comments came from Loughton. It's worth bearing in mind that Loughton was not happy to have lost his job. He apparently stayed silent for almost the entire duration of his reshuffle meeting with the Prime Minister, and has become a vocal backbencher since returning from his departmental office.