Uk politics

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

How David Cameron fluffed a key cost of living announcement on energy

From our UK edition

The Conservatives are worried that voters are deserting them over the rising cost of living, yet their leader has managed to fluff an announcement designed to remedy that problem. Yesterday at Prime Minister's Questions, David Cameron surprised the whole chamber and the department concerned by announcing a brand new energy policy. In response to a question from Labour's Chris Williamson about what the government was doing to help people reduce their energy bills, Cameron said: 'We have encouraged people to switch, which is one of the best ways to get energy bills down.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

The 1922 swings behind its chief whip

From our UK edition

In normal circumstances, five Tory MPs questioning the chief whip's position at the 1922 Committee would send Tory high command into a panic. But tonight there is relief that only five MPs spoke out against Andrew Mitchell and that more than a dozen spoke in his support. I understand that Bernard Jenkin’s intervention was particularly effective, persuading at least one MP not to speak against Mitchell. Those present say that the mood of the room was largely in favour of the chief whip remaining in post. There’s a sense that while what he did was foolish, the issue has now been hijacked by the Police Federation and the media. Some who initially thought that he should quit now believe there’s simply no good outcome.

Jonathan Jones

The Olympic effect on jobs

From our UK edition

It seems today's good jobs figures — employment at a record high and the unemployment rate back below 8 per cent — are at least partly thanks to the Olympic Games. While the UK added 212,000 net jobs in June-August, London alone added 101,000 — accounting for 47 per cent of the total rise. And — as Citi's Michael Saunders observes  — the six boroughs that hosted the Games (Hackney, Newham, Barking and Dagenham, Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets and Greenwich) have seen their proportion of residents claiming Jobseeker's Allowance fall by an average of 0.48 percentage points, compared to 0.25 points for the other 27 London boroughs and 0.1 points for the country as a whole.

Isabel Hardman

Credit where credit’s due for Unite’s payday lender challenge

From our UK edition

Coffee House isn't always the greatest friend of the trade unions, but one union made a striking announcement today which demonstrated the good that these bodies can do in society. Unite plans to set up a nationwide network of credit unions to try to divert struggling families away from legal loan sharks. Credit unions make small loans to members using deposits, and are a safe alternative to payday lenders such as Wonga, which charges a staggering 4,214 per cent APR on its loans. The Guardian quotes Unite's director of executive policy Steve Turner: 'We are in discussions to try to establish a UK-wide credit union that will give access to cheap finance and cheap credit to millions of people.

James Forsyth

Cameron to make EU referendum pledge before Christmas

From our UK edition

Sometime in the next nine weeks David Cameron will announce that if re-elected, he would seek to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership and then put the results to the public. I understand that the current plan is to have a referendum offering a choice between the new terms and out. Cameron believes that with time, he can secure far more satisfactory terms of membership for Britain. He also reasons that this announcement — the formalisation of the new terms, fresh consent that he talked about again at PMQs — will reassure his own eurosceptics. Conservative strategists also hope that this should stem the tide in support for UKIP before the 2014 European elections.

Shiraz Maher

Why Prince Charles’ letters should not be published

From our UK edition

Much is being made of Dominic Grieve’s decision to ban publication of Prince Charles’ correspondence with ministers. Republic, a group which campaigns for the abolition of the monarchy, has been pressing for their release through freedom of information requests over the last seven years. Having successfully convinced three judges of the public interest in seeing the Prince of Wales’ letters, Grieve has taken the unusual step of vetoing their decision. Almost two years ago the CIA tipped off their counterparts in MI5 and MI6 that al-Qaeda was planning a ‘Mumbai style’ terrorist attack in the UK.

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Andrew Mitchell needed a haircut, a feed-up, and a good cuddle. But Miliband offered no comfort.

From our UK edition

It was a question of when not if. Today’s PMQs was always going to turn into a kangaroo inquiry into Andrew Mitchell. The man who said ‘pleb’ was in full view on the front bench but he looked as if he were sitting in the Number One dock at the Old Bailey. Ed Miliband started by asking the PM about joblessness which – unhappily for Labour – has fallen. He attacked Cameron for failing to tackle long-term youth unemployment and Cameron countered by pointing out that the number of kids on the dole had doubled during Labour’s last two years in power. They tussled for a few moments over the statistics, quite pointlessly. It was like watching a pie-chart trying to smother a Venn diagram. Miliband manouevred onto the real issue of the day.

Ryan Bourne

‘Plan B’ is not the answer

From our UK edition

Is George Osborne’s plan working? You can see why his enemies are circling. If you take his own definition – his ‘fiscal rule’ that the debt/GDP ratio should be falling by the end of the Parliament – then no. But this is mainly because Osborne has been flexible – some would argue too flexible - following the eurozone crisis and high commodity prices, which have hampered growth prospects through weaker-than-expected net trade and higher than expected inflation (see the OBR yesterday). Last autumn, the Chancellor had a choice between more cuts or more debt. He chose more debt, and stuck to his old spending plans knowing that the growth (and tax revenues) would not be as he had hoped.

James Oshaughnessy

Why for-profit companies should take over weak schools

From our UK edition

The basic question in my report for Policy Exchange on school chains, out today, is simple: we’ve got a big education problem in this country and what can we do about it? Here is the problem. We know that England is only a middling country when it comes to the international league tables. The cause of this disappointing performance is the large group of schools where the education on offer is no more than satisfactory. Estimates vary, but according to Ofsted the quality of teaching and learning is no better than satisfactory in 40 per cent of schools, and 6,000 (out of around 20,000) schools only reached 'satisfactory' in their last Ofsted inspection.

Isabel Hardman

Andrew Mitchell revives Gategate at PMQs as whips worry his power is gone

From our UK edition

Andrew Mitchell isn't going anywhere just yet, even if some of his ministerial colleagues are privately willing for him to face the high jump. But the story about him is still going somewhere because the chief whip apparently decided, quite unwisely, to intervene in the PMQs exchanges about him this lunchtime. But it's not just cabinet ministers who are grumpy: the other whips are worried too. Ed Miliband wisely started his questions with the unemployment figures, which meant Cameron's later accusations that the Labour leader wasn't interested in the real issues sounded weaker than they perhaps did as the Prime Minister planned them this morning. And he made a neat connection between the jobs and the Mitchell row by talking about cuts to police jobs.

Jonathan Jones

Jobs figures show a move in the right direction

From our UK edition

Recently, we've been used to the economic figures being either bad news or mixed news. So today's employment stats come as a welcome surprise: it's almost all good news. They show that total employment rose by 212,000 from March-May to June-August, and now stands at 29.59 million — a record high, 18,000 above the pre-recession peak of April 2008. Since the election, a net of 616,000 jobs have been created. And unemployment is down too — by 50,000 on the previous three months, defying expectations. That means the unemployment rate has dropped to 7.9 per cent, the first time it's been below 8 per cent in over a year.

James Forsyth

PMQs: Labour will be out for blood on Andrew Mitchell

From our UK edition

The first Prime Minister's Questions after the conference season is more important than most: the House and the press gallery are looking to see who has come back with a spring in their step. But today’s session has an added element to it: the Andrew Mitchell factor. Labour attempted to have a go at the chief whip at Home Office questions on Monday. But with the Chamber only half full, it fell a bit flat. Today, though, the House will be packed and Ed Miliband's party will be out for blood. I expect Mitchell himself will deal with it quite resolutely.

Isabel Hardman

Cleaning up the City cesspit

From our UK edition

Good news from the City is something to cherish at the moment, and today RBS has confirmed that it will be withdrawing from the Asset Protection Scheme, through which the government gave the bank insurance cover against losses on its £282 billion toxic assets. Those assets have now fallen 63 per cent to £105 billion. This is good news in the 'cesspit', as Vince Cable called the City of London, because it marks the first step towards the bank returning to the private sector. One man determined to turn the focus away from the latest scandal to crawl out of the cesspit and towards a recovering City is new City Minister Greg Clark. He has given an interview to the Financial Times about his new job in the Treasury, which he took in September's reshuffle.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Briefing: What today’s extradition announcement means

From our UK edition

As well as announcing that Gary McKinnon will not be extradited to the US on charges of computer hacking, the Home Secretary today announced a number of changes to the way extradition is handled in this country. These changes will mean: 1. The Home Secretary is introducing a 'forum bar', which allows a British court to prevent prosecution overseas if it believes a trial in Britain would be fairer. 2. Future Home Secretaries will not be able to exercise discretion on human rights grounds as Theresa May did today. May said the matter should be for the High Court, and that the government will introduce primary legislation to enable this change. 3.

Jonathan Portes

Why George Osborne’s ‘Plan A’ has failed – and what to do next

From our UK edition

Does George Osborne need to adopt a Plan B? This will be the topic for a Spectator debate a week on Monday. But the argument is pretty clear to everyone with even a passing interest in the trials of George Osborne. Let’s look at the story so far. His Plan A - accelerated fiscal consolidation - was based on two key premises:  there was no alternative to cutting the deficit much more sharply than previously planned, because otherwise the markets would panic and long-term interest rates would rise sharply.  As one Treasury Minister put it: 'Britain’s AAA credit rating was under threat...George Osborne had no choice but to come up with a comprehensive deficit reduction plan—not to merely halve the deficit over four years, but eliminate it.

Shiraz Maher

Gary McKinnon case: campaigners accuse Theresa May of double standards

From our UK edition

The Home Secretary blocked the extradition of Gary McKinnon to the United States earlier today, arguing that it would infringe his human rights because he has Asperger’s Syndrome. Moreover, Theresa May has said she will introduce a forum bar which means that judges can block extradition in cases where the alleged offence is deemed to have been committed in the UK. The Crown Prosecution Service has already been instructed to draw up guidance relating to this. This is a significant victory for campaigners against Britain’s lopsided extradition treaty with the United States but many are also questioning its timing. Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan were deported to the United States to face terrorism charges two weeks ago. The parallels with the McKinnon case are uncanny.

Isabel Hardman

Clegg rejects ‘cash-for-seats’ deal for boundaries

From our UK edition

Deputy Prime Minister's questions is quite often a slightly grumpy affair, with Nick Clegg huffing and puffing at irritating questions from Peter Bone about what position he would take in the government if David Cameron were run over by a bus. This morning's session wasn't much different: it was even more bad-tempered as backbenchers were keen to pick at scabs on the failure of Lords reform. The Deputy Prime Minister continually defended the Liberal Democrats' decision to block the boundary reforms, criticising Labour for failing to support the programme motion for the House of Lords Reform Bill. It was like watching a couple who had broken up continue to bicker about whose fault it was.

Jonathan Jones

Inflation falls to 2.2%

From our UK edition

Inflation in the year (on the Consumer Prices Index) to September was 2.2 per cent, down from 2.5 per cent in August. On the Retail Prices Index, it was 2.6 per cent in September, down from 2.9 per cent. This puts inflation at its lowest level since the end of 2009, and close to the Bank of England's target of 2 per cent for CPI inflation. It continues the downwards trend since CPI inflation peaked at 5.2 per cent last September, although that included January 2011's VAT rise from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent. Stripping that (and the effects of other indirect taxes) out still reveals a marked decline in the rate of inflation, though, from 3.7 per cent last year to 2.1 per cent now. The main reason for this month's 0.

Isabel Hardman

Angela Merkel’s nerves about Britain’s future in the EU

From our UK edition

The Prime Minister and Angela Merkel spoke last night on the phone to discuss the European Council meeting later this week. Downing Street said the pair 'agreed that further work is needed before agreement can be reached' on banking union, which is a coded acknowledgement that David Cameron is concerned the current proposals are not in Britain's interest and do not currently protect the single market and that he will push for greater compromise when leaders meet. This is all part of the Prime Minister's big Europe week. He has a Cabinet meeting this morning, and as its members are increasingly piling pressure on Cameron for a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, the topic may well come up.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Vince Cable continues public campaign for a mansion tax

From our UK edition

Perhaps Vince Cable wasn't listening to the bit in George Osborne's speech at the Tory conference last week where the Chancellor ruled out a mansion tax. The Business Secretary has just sent an email out promoting the idea and calling for signatures on a petition for 'fairer tax'. The email, which is signed 'Thank you, Vince Cable MP', says: Our system of taxation is both unfair and inefficient. People on modest incomes are paying their fair share of tax while the super rich can too easily avoid paying their share. It is a particular scandal that some of the world’s wealthiest people who own property in the UK worth millions pay virtually the same council tax as owners of a modest family home.