Uk politics

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Justine Greening is a reluctant contestant on Mitchell’s Millions

The reshuffle allowed David Cameron to place what many ministers (and sacked ministers in particular) are calling 'Osborne's spies' in each government department to help the Chancellor rein in spending. Justine Greening wasn't a typical spy when she arrived at the International Development department in a huff after being forced out of the Transport department, but as an ex-accountant, she was certainly appealing. Shortly after her appointment, Fraser speculated as to whether she would be quite so enthusiastic about playing 'Mitchell's Millions', the game of spending £30 million a day on aid, regardless of how well-targeted that money is. Greening is clearly keen to show that she's not as eager a contestant as her predecessor Andrew Mitchell.

Isabel Hardman

Will Labour accept Gove-levels?

Nick Clegg and Michael Gove will announce their joint plans to reform GCSEs today, a day earlier than they had originally intended. The Deputy Prime Minister appeared alongside the Education Secretary this morning on a school visit, while Gove will make a statement in the Commons this afternoon to announce the changes, which Liberal Democrats are claiming as a victory after the initial row over a possible return to a two-tier system. Clegg told reporters this morning: 'I think you can raise standards, increase rigour and confidence in our exam system, but still do so in a way which is a single-tier, which covers the vast majority of children in this country. And those are the principles upon which this whole reform will be based.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Clegg mulls airport expansion

This country’s willingness to fritter away London’s hub airport status is an act of economic self-harm as the Conservative side of the government finally seems to have realised. But there’ll be no progress this side of the election as long as the Liberal Democrats remain wedded to their opposition to any new runways in the south east. So, the news in today’s Times that the Liberal Democrats are considering backing a new hub airport in exchange for the closure of other runways is to be welcomed. I understand that things may be even further on than the conference motion suggests. I’m informed that Nick Clegg has seen a Cabinet Office paper making the case for a four-runway airport at Stansted and has not dismissed the idea out of hand.

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband defines socialism and capitalism

Ed Miliband has long made responsible capitalism a primary concern of his leadership, and in today's Telegraph, the Labour leader has a stab at explaining a little more of what he wants it to look like. He has lately taken to pointing out that his speech to his party's conference last autumn which so confused people with its talk of predators has come good following scandals such as Libor. MPs in his party hope that he will point this out once again when he gives his conference speech in just a few weeks' time. But enlarging on this theme now, he tells Charles Moore this: 'But I believe capitalism is the least worst system we’ve got. I believe in the creativity of Blackberry [picking up his], or whatever. But I want it to be more decent, more humane, more fraternal.

Hamish Macdonell

Alex Salmond booed by crowd in Glasgow

Roman emperors famously used to have a slave to ride behind them in their chariots during victory parades to remind them, by whispering in their ear, that they were only mortal. Alex Salmond must have experienced something of the same down-to-earth experience yesterday evening when he was booed by a crowd in Glasgow that had come to celebrate Britain’s Olympic success. The First Minister can’t have liked it very much. It can’t be a pleasant experience for anybody to get booed by a crowd but for Mr Salmond, it must have been galling. This was a Scottish crowd in Scotland’s biggest city, a country Mr Salmond regards as his fiefdom, where he commands a handsome majority and where he believes – until yesterday that is – that is really very popular.

Friday

Sebastian Payne

What the BAE merger says about UK relations with the US and Europe

The merger of British BAE Systems with French giant EADS finds the government at a tricky crossroads for the future of the UK's defence industry. Although merging with EADS threatens to rip the heart out of Britain's largest defence firm, BAE has little choice. The firm has suffered from spending cuts on both sides of the Atlantic — 98 per cent of BAE's business originates from the defence market and orders are in decline. Therefore a merger appears to be the obvious solution, allowing BAE to diversify and secure its future. But as the world's third largest defence contractor, any kind of dilution of BAE has security and strategic implications.

Isabel Hardman

Wanted: superhuman central banker

The race to replace Sir Mervyn King started today when an advert searching for the next Bank of England governor appeared in the Economist. It wasn't a particularly exciting start to the race: William Hill has named Paul Tucker the favourite to succeed Sir Mervyn. He is currently 7/4 to get the job. Tucker is the deputy governor of the Bank currently, and based on his job title alone, the odds would hardly be surprising. But remember that this is the man who made a meal of his appearance before the Treasury Select Committee in July, uttering the strange phrase that 'we thought it was a malfunctioning market, not a dishonest one' when it came to suspicions about manipulations of Libor. It says a great deal about the other candidates that Tucker came out top.

Tim Wigmore

The quiet country lane hosting a schooling revolution

The location hardly suggests revolution. A few miles down a Somerset country lane, a new school opened this week. It will do so on the site of a tiny old primary school, buttressed by a couple of swiftly-erected buildings, before moving to its permanent site, currently occupied by the NHS, within two years. But the opening of the Steiner Academy Frome could one day be regarded as a seismic moment in British educational history. Steiner Academy Frome is the first state school for generations that could be said to have brought about the closure of a private school. The Meadow School shut just after the end of the 2011/12 academic year; a number of teachers, as well as over 20 pupils, have since moved to the Steiner Academy Frome.

Fraser Nelson

Andrew Lansley: the Tories chose not to win

I’m at a YouGov conference in Cambridge where we’re just had a speech from Andrew Lansley, the new Leader of the House. He was speaking about the coalition, and gave a brief history of its inception. 'None of us had, in truth, understood the nature of what a coalition government might be...I’m not even sure the Lib Dems had thought about what a coalition would look like. In normal circumstances, with that election result, there would not have been a coalition. We’d have formed a minority government, put forward a programme, challenged the House to support it or not and after a decent interview - probably a few months - we would have had a general election and would have almost certainly won a majority...

James Forsyth

MP calls for state funeral for Richard III

Chris Skidmore, the Tory MP and Tudor historian, has tabled an early day motion calling for a full state funeral for Richard III, if the skeleton found in Leicester does turn out to be him. The motion reads: 'That this House notes the discovery of a skeleton beneath a car park in Leicester believed to be that of Richard III; praises the work of the archaeologists and historians responsible for the find; hopes that DNA evidence will prove the remains to be those of the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty; and calls upon the government to arrange a full state funeral for the deceased monarch, and for his remains to be interred appropriately.

Fraser Nelson

The Age of Ed Miliband

What more does Ed Miliband need to do to be taken seriously as the next Prime Minister of Britain? He has been ahead in the polls since the start of last year, and the bookies favourite for longer. A geek? Maybe, but one who has a personal approval rating higher than David Cameron. A leftie? Certainly, and that’s why the orphaned Lib Dem voters feel so at home with him. But his real secret is that no one has the faintest idea what Labour, if elected, would do. We may well be entering the Age of Ed and the terrifying thing is that no one, not even the party leader himself, seems to know what it will mean. I look at this in my Telegraph column today. Here are my main points. 1. Plenty of Tory MPs are preparing for the age of Ed.

Isabel Hardman

Vince Cable strives to show he is not obstacle to growth

Vince Cable is today announcing that the government will not be taking up Sir Adrian Beecroft's 'fire-at-will' proposals to allow bosses to sack underperforming staff without risking unfair dismissal claims. There was no great appetite for the plan, the Business Secretary will say, arguing that 34 per cent of small businesses consulted by his department were in favour, with 32 per cent against and 30 per cent unsure. Though many Tory MPs embraced the idea of 'fire-at-will' as a means of encouraging firms to take on more employees without the fear of costly consequences if the arrangement did not work out, others within the party were uneasy that they might damage the mortgage market by making lenders extremely reluctant to offer loans to people, even if they had months of payslips.

Thursday

Matthew Sinclair

The problem with George Osborne’s debt target

Q: Why will George Osborne miss his debt target? A: The Government is spending a lot more money than it is taking in taxes. Q: Why is the Government spending a lot more than it is taking in taxes? A: Jonathan Jones answered this one yesterday. In short: disappointing growth means that debt needs to be lower to meet a Debt/GDP target, increases spending on benefits and reduces both direct and indirect tax receipts. Beyond that, things get a lot more complicated and controversial. I won’t get into the debate over supply-side reform versus Keynesian economic stimulus now. That debate has been covered at length elsewhere, particularly in the final report of the 2020 Tax Commission. Maybe the problem isn’t just the attempts to meet the targets.

James Forsyth

What will happen to the NHS budget?

George Osborne has long regarded support for the NHS as the most important aspect of Tory modernisation. For this reason, I think it is highly unlikely that the ring-fence will be removed from around the NHS budget. But I suspect that the practical, as opposed to symbolic, importance of the ring-fence will be diluted by more and more things being classified as health spending. At a Quad meeting on the Dilnot proposals on social care, George Osborne told Andrew Lansley that the £1.7bn cost of them, which rises to £5bn within 3 years, should be met out of the NHS budget. Lansley resisted this idea. But I understand from senior coalition sources that they expect Jeremy Hunt to be more amenable to it.

Matt Cavanagh

Willetts attempts to limit the damage of Coalition immigration policy

There was a flutter of excitement among the Higher Education community this morning, when the education editor of the Times tweeted that David Willetts, the Universities Minister, was about to announce that overseas students would be excluded from net migration figures, and therefore from the Prime Minister’s pledge to reduce net migration to under 100,000 by the election. Straightaway I responded that I thought this unlikely. There is a strong policy case for taking students out of the political 'numbers game' on immigration. Net migration figures are supposed to measure 'long term migration', whereas most overseas students return home fairly quickly.

Isabel Hardman

MPs pile in to EU referendum group

As previewed on Coffee House last week, John Baron today launched his all-party group calling for an EU referendum. He has so far managed to bring more than 50 MPs on board, along with a good number of Labour MPs. DUP MPs will also attend. The first meeting will be on 16 October. Yesterday José Manuel Barroso gave momentum to the group's calls for a vote on Britain's membership of the EU by pushing for greater political union. He said: A deep and genuine economic and monetary union, a political union, with a coherent foreign and defence policy, means ultimately that the present European Union must evolve. Let’s not be afraid of the words: we will need to move towards a federation of nation states. This is what we need. This is our political horizon.

Isabel Hardman

Boris seeks rebel representative in the Commons

Boris Johnson is on the look-out for a ring-leader in parliament for his push against the expansion of Heathrow, I understand. His people have been calling around sympathetic backbench MPs trying to persuade one of them to head up the campaign in the Commons. On first glance, Zac Goldsmith might have been an obvious choice, given his talks with the Mayor of London about a by-election in his seat if the government does U-turn on a third runway. But Boris wants someone who is less of an individual within the party who can co-ordinate backbenchers in a revolt. Presumably he also needs an MP who can spearhead not just the aviation campaign in the Commons, but also aid Boris' return to parliament from within if Goldsmith does leave in a blaze of fury.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Grant Shapps addresses the 1922 committee

Grant Shapps, the new Tory chairman, has been addressing the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers this evening. Shapps appears to have gone down fairly well. MPs are glad to have a Chairman who is in the Commons after two and a bit years with a peer doing the job, though Andrew Feldman remains a co-chair. Shapps told MPs that he was keen for CCHQ to offer them every assistance it can. He announced that he would be placing a CCHQ staffer in the whip’s office several days a week so they could handle MPs’ requests. I also expect that there will not be the usual by-election edict for the Corby contest.

Alex Massie

Salman Rushdie, A Hero for Our Time – Spectator Blogs

It's twenty years since I read The Satanic Verses. I didn't much care for it back then, chiefly, as I recall, because Rushdie's satirical and comic scenes left me untickled. But today - especially today - is a good moment to read the New Yorker's excerpt from Rushdie's forthcoming Fatwa Chronicle, Joseph Anton. If you can't read it today, read it tomorrow. But do read it. Among other things, it made me want to go back and re-read The Satanic Verses. There are many dates you could choose from which to start a chronicle of our times but, at least in terms of one big question, Valentine's Day 1989 is as good as any and better than most places from which to begin.

Jonathan Jones

Why George Osborne will miss his debt target

Much is being made today of reports that George Osborne will drop his fiscal target in his autumn statement on 5 December. Isabel reported earlier that, faced with breaking his own rule, Osborne will abandon it rather than implement more cuts to meet it. All the fuss seems to stem from a note by Citi Reasearch last Friday. You can read the whole thing here, but here’s a summary. Like Gordon Brown, Osborne has two fiscal rules. Neither says anything about eliminating the deficit, or even halving it. The first — called the 'fiscal mandate' — is 'to balance the cyclically-adjusted current budget by the end of a rolling, five-year period'. It’s a moving target, simply requiring that at any time the government plans to eliminate the structural deficit within five years.