Uk politics

Monday

James Forsyth

Cameron and Clegg push the pro-coalition line

This morning’s press conference by David Cameron and Nick Clegg marked an attempt to scotch all the talk of the coalition moving to confidence and supply sometime before the next election. Cameron declared that he was more committed to the coalition than he was back in 2010. He also stressed that he believed Britain needed stable government ‘throughout this term’, an implicit rebuke to all those Tories talking about a move to minority government in 2014. Nick Clegg, for his part, spoke about how this was going to be a ‘proper coalition government for a full five years’. There was also an announcement that the coalition’s mid-term review will set

Isabel Hardman

Railing against government policy

The cabinet is out and about today, trying to smooth feathers ruffled by last week’s Lords reform row by splashing out on £9 billion worth of investment for railways. Today’s announcement by David Cameron and Nick Clegg is, as much as anything else, an attempt to put into practice the Prime Minister’s claim yesterday that the coalition is still capable of making real progress on big issues, despite differences on constitutional reform. Handily for Nick Clegg, today’s announcement may also encourage some friendly feelings from his own constituents, as it includes electrifying the line between Bedford to Sheffield. But the work isn’t starting tomorrow, which means this announcement could be

Sunday

David Blackburn

Memories of a ‘monster’

You’ve probably heard about Enoch at 100 already. This collection of essays in honour of Enoch Powell’s centenary has captivated that section of the public which argues that Powell should be remembered for more than his aberration, the egregious ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. He campaigned for gay rights and the abolition of capital punishment, among many other ‘progressive’ totems. Over at the Books Blog, Jerry Hayes, the former Conservative MP, has reviewed the book, drawing heavily on Powell’s visionary writings on monetarism, Lords reform and the European project. Powell’s analyses remain pertinent, and I urge you to read the review if only to digest them. Jerry has also taken the

Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s coalition healthcheck

The coalition is doing pretty well, thank you very much. In case last week’s rebellion of the 91 on Lords reform and continuing tensions over Europe had you fooled, up pops the Prime Minister this morning with a soothing comment piece in the Sunday Times.  David Cameron tries to shrug off Lords reform within three paragraphs of his op-ed. ‘What’s far more significant is that we are working together on so much else – and after last week, it’s vital that everyone reminds themselves of that fact,’ he argues. As part of his health-check piece, the Prime Minister details signs that the coalition is functioning well. When he mentions the

James Forsyth

The post-‘Cuban missile crisis’ coalition compromise

At the top of the coalition there’s a concerted effort to calm tensions, to de-escalate after its ‘Cuban missile crisis’. As part of that, I understand that David Cameron has indicated privately that if the Lib Dems do not get their elected peers, he won’t push the matter of the boundary reforms. I’m told he has no desire to end up in a situation where he’s sacking Lib Dem ministers en masse for voting against the government. Although, officially Number 10 is still stressing that it expects government ministers to vote for them when they come back to the House of Commons. The Prime Minister is, I’m told, currently considering

Fraser Nelson

Who’s afraid of the Lib Dems?

James Forsyth’s Mail on Sunday column is my first read every Sunday, and it’s choc full of details as ever. Here is his account of the Liberal Democrat reaction to last week’s House of Lords defeat:   On Thursday morning, Nick Clegg and David Cameron agreed a new phase of the Coalition after what one No 10 insider called ‘the Coalition’s Cuban missile crisis’.  Tensions were so high amid the vote on Lords reform that some feared the Coalition would implode, but things have now begun to ease.  Both sides stress ‘this  isn’t back to the rose garden’, and what is needed is not  ‘an idealised romance but cold, hard

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

King joins Libor drama

Up to now, Sir Mervyn King has played largely a walk-on part in the Libor scandal, prompting Bob Diamond’s resignation after he warned Barclays that the regulators no longer had confidence in Diamond’s leadership of the bank. Now the Governor of the Bank of England has also been dragged into the drama after email exchanges released by the Bank revealed that he was aware of deliberate misreporting of the rate in June 2008. Timothy Geithner, who was then the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, emailed Sir Mervyn with a list of recommendations for improving Libor, one of which tackles how to ‘eliminate incentive to misreport’. The

Clarissa Tan

Everybody duck! It’s macho Merv

Just as Mervyn King, as Isabel flags in her blog, is being dragged into the Libor scandal, comes a truly remarkable article from the FT headlined ‘The bank that roared’. This bank, in case you are wondering, refers to the Bank of England. The FT says the central bank – led by the good ol’ Governor – is ‘back in charge’ and showing that ‘it means business’. The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, which in past years had been taking a more ‘laissez-faire’ approach to bank funding and lending, is firmly in the saddle once again. The BoE has a ‘new attitude’ and is now ‘more muscular’. By way of

Melanie McDonagh

The skewed priorities of the BBC’s abortion investigation story

Did anyone else notice anything weird about the BBC’s coverage of the story last week about the 14 NHS trusts that a government health watchdog found to be breaking the law in providing abortions? Those 14 clinics used pre-signed abortion referral forms to authorise abortions, which flouts the bit in the Abortion Act that requires two doctors to allow them. But for the BBC, as, inevitably, for The Guardian, the real scandal about the investigation was that it took place at all, at a cost of £1 million and with the result that the watchdog, the Care Quality Commission, the CQC, had to delay or cancel pre-planned investigations in order

James Forsyth

Rejecting the idea of coalition

Perhaps what most depressed the Liberal Democrats this week was the sense that the two main parties were rejecting the idea of coalition. One described to me how depressing he found it during the Lords reform debate to watch the Labour front bench revelling in every Tory intervention on Nick Clegg. At the top of the Lib Dems, there’s now a real worry that both Labour and the Tories would try and govern as a minority government after the next election if there’s another hung parliament rather than form a coalition. This would lock the Liberal Democrats out of power.  All of this makes Andrew Adonis’ comments in The Times

Isabel Hardman

Clegg’s ‘sensitive little violets’ get tough

Two rather interesting reconciliations are taking place today. Ed Miliband is making the first speech of a Labour leader at the Durham Miners’ Gala since 1989. And Nick Clegg has been trying to charm the left of his party into believing that all is well in the Liberal Democrat world. The latter largely involved Clegg trying to encourage the left-leaning Social Liberal Forum’s annual conference to develop a sort of persecution complex. So the audience was told not to ‘underestimate how much the right and the left want to destroy us’, and to remember that ‘if we aren’t going to stick up for ourselves, no-one else will’. It was difficult,

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Dirty, ugly things

Sometimes fiction can be more accurate than published facts. Ten years ago a film, Dirty Pretty Things, told about the plight of illegal immigrants into Britain and the least-explored scandals of all: the black market trade in human organs. It was an aspect of Britain’s secret country, the black market occupied by a million-plus souls that produces a tenth of our economic output. Most of these people work illegally, perhaps in criminal endeavour or perhaps honestly, but in fear of immigration police. It is, by definition, an unregulated environment in which all manner of evil can be incubated. It is becoming clear now that one of these evils is the

Max Mckinley

Combing over school inspections

Ofsted reports are a waste of time. Schools are notified three days ahead of any visit from the inspectors. At my school this gives our headmaster plenty of time to bring in an army of cleaners. Every doorknob is polished; every lightbulb dusted; and every skirting board scrubbed.   The teachers themselves get a makeover. Unshaven faces and grubby suits vanish, replaced by nicely pressed trousers and perfect comb overs. They are instructed to dig out their most engaging, intuitive and intriguing lesson plans to impress the men with the clipboards. Pupils take part in the charade, too. At my school, we sit in lessons pretending to study; we know

Isabel Hardman

The race to secure the Olympics

G4S’ security arrangements for the Olympic games are turning into the story that keeps on giving, which is a good thing for journalists only, given the opening ceremony is just weeks away. The headlines this morning aren’t just about the ‘Olympic chaos’ that Theresa May tried to address when she made a statement to the Commons yesterday, but contain more revelations: staff failing to notice dummy explosives during test exercises, 18 and 19-year-old ‘yobs‘ being recruited to fill the spaces, and the firm not being penalised for failing to recruit enough staff. That last revelation is awkward for May, as she implied yesterday that there was a chance G4S could

Gordon Hector

If we don’t cough up for social care, we’ll be broke

The Office for Budget Responsibility put out its annual Fiscal Sustainabilty report yesterday. It’s got three graphs which are a wee bit scary. Here’s the first graph, showing what proportion of taxes paid and state services used comes from which age group: Speaks for itself, really. We rely heavily on the middle-aged for taxes, and spend heavily on early and later years. Look in particular at the pink lines – that’s health and long term care. Now look at graph number two: Spot where the growth is. Note the percentages are the average increases each and every year, for the next 50 years. Put the two graphs together and you

James Forsyth

The odd omissions from the banking inquiry

The difficult birth of the parliamentary inquiry into Libor and banking standards continued today with a controversy over which members of the Treasury select committee have been appointed to it. To general surprise, Andrea Leadsom, one of the better questioners on the committee, has been left off. This is particularly odd given that she is a former banker with real knowledge of the industry. John Mann, the pugnacious Labour MP, has also not made the cut. He has responded by labelling the coming inquiry a ‘whitewash’. What makes Leadsom’s omission particularly odd is that the Tory MP selected to join Tyrie on the inquiry is Mark Garnier, who is also

D.R. Thorpe

Macmillan’s Night of the Long Knives

One of the great goals of the pioneering Victorian explorers of Africa was to find the source of the Nile. The origins of the grievous miscalculation by Harold Macmillan of what became known as The Night of The Long Knives on Friday 13 July 1962, when he summarily sacked seven members of his Cabinet, may appear equally obscure, but can in fact be traced back to the Wallace Murder Case in Liverpool in 1931. At that time Selwyn Lloyd was a young lawyer on the Northern Circuit. Legal news in Liverpool in 1931 was dominated by the trial of William Wallace, who was convicted of the murder of his wife

Thursday

James Forsyth

Failing to build another runway is economic self-harm

The continuing failure to build another runway in the south east, let alone a new airport, is an act of economic self-harm. Trade used to follow the flag, it now follows the flight path. This makes it particularly depressing that the government is pushing back its aviation strategy yet again. As one Tory MP said to me earlier, ‘if we’re not serious enough about growth to build another runway we should just go home’. David Cameron needs to do what it takes to get another runway through. If that means moving Justine Greening, a long-time opponent of a third runway at Heathrow, from transport then he should do it. Indeed,

Isabel Hardman

The EU amuse-bouche

Tory MPs clamouring for a new relationship between Britain and Europe were given an amuse-bouche today when William Hague announced a review into the impact of the EU on everyday life. The Foreign Secretary told the House of Commons earlier that the review, which will report towards the end of 2014, ‘will present the evidence and analysis’, adding that it would be ‘for political parties to decide on their own policy recommendations’. The Foreign Office is briefing that the audit was not about identifying powers to grasp back from the EU, but many in the Conservative party certainly hope it’s the start of that process if nothing else. A study

Isabel Hardman

Lords rebels meet to kill the bill

The Lords reform rebels held a debrief today following David Cameron’s offer to the 1922 committee, I understand. The meeting, which took place mid-afternoon, was about what the rebels ‘need to do going forward to ensure that the Bill is dead’, one senior source told me. The rebels were not at all impressed by the suggestions that the Prime Minister put to backbenchers last night, and the meeting decided that offering the Liberal Democrats a smaller elected element in the upper house was a ‘Trojan horse’ by which more elected members could be added over time. The source explained that the MPs involved ‘did not want to be awkward’, but