Uk politics

Thursday

James Forsyth

Failing to build another runway is economic self-harm

From our UK edition

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, Greening — good on the media and not a ‘posh boy’ — would be a good choice for party chairman.

Isabel Hardman

The EU amuse-bouche

From our UK edition

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.

Isabel Hardman

Lords rebels meet to kill the bill

From our UK edition

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 that 'we need to uphold the principle' of an appointed chamber.

Jonathan Jones

Cutting immigration would explode the debt

From our UK edition

Ever wondered what would happen to the British economy if net immigration were slashed to zero? Well today’s ‘Fiscal Sustainability Report’ from the number crunchers at the Office for Budget Responsibility provides a glimpse of what such a future might look like — and it is a grim picture indeed. They’ve put together projections for the economy — and the public finances — all the way to 2062. Of course such long-term predictions should be taken with a pinch of salt. As Pete says over at ConservativeHome, ‘today’s OBR figures will probably bear as much comparison to the 2060s as the Jetsons will’.

Fraser Nelson

The battle with the Olympic censors

From our UK edition

At 7am this morning, The Spectator’s managing director emailed me to say the new magazine is on sale at WH Smiths at Victoria station – a good sign, he said. But why shouldn’t it be? Because this week, we’re running a cover story by Nick Cohen lambasting the thuggish Olympic censors, the people who are stopping chip shops selling chips because the Olympics is sponsored by McDonald’s. And it’s still not quite clear, this morning, if that means we’ll be taken off the shelves. A few weeks ago, I was emailed advice – not from our lawyers, but from someone else in the magazine world - that The Spectator should not refer to the Olympics for the duration of the Games otherwise we 'could be taken off newsstands (and also liable to prosecution)'.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Half a plan for social care

From our UK edition

The delayed white paper on social care will be published today, but don't expect it to clarify much about how pensioners can cover their care costs. The document itself will announce loans administered by councils offering nominal interest rates to prevent elderly people having to sell their homes to cover the cost of their care. That loan would be paid back once that person dies and the house is sold. But Labour's Andy Burnham was out and about this morning pointing out that the white paper 'is half a plan'. He's right: the most important part of the reforms is missing. The paper will reiterate ministers' support for a cap on the amount someone must contribute towards their care costs themselves, but will not specify the size of that cap, or any other details.

Isabel Hardman

The real rebel problem

From our UK edition

The post-match analysis of last night's vote on the House of Lords Reform Bill shows the Prime Minister has a bigger rebel problem on his hands than he might have initially thought. It is true that there is a significant hardcore within the Conservative party of rebels who happily defied the whip on the other big rebellion of this Parliament - October's vote on holding a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union. But that group only accounts for 57 per cent of last night's rebels. The 81 in October did not simply increase by 10 to 91 last night. The table below shows that there were 39 MPs who walked through the 'no' lobbies who had obeyed the whip on Europe, and 29 EU rebels who voted with the Government last night.

Lloyd Evans

Fun for the hooligans at PMQs

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband is at his best when at his quietest. He began Prime Minister's Questions today by repeating a question put to David Cameron shortly before the last election. ‘Why do you want to be Prime Minister?’ Cameron had replied: ‘Because I think I’d be good at it.’ Great surges of Labour mirth greeted that quotation. When the noise died away, Miliband turned to the Prime Minister politely. ‘Where did it all go wrong?’ Cameron was like a man facing the downdraft of a helicopter. But he weathered the onslaught and responded forcefully with a list of government achievements. Two million taken out of tax. A cap on benefits, immigration and fuel duty. And the deficit cut by 25 per cent.

James Forsyth

Cameron tries to calm troubled waters at the 1922 committee

From our UK edition

By tradition, David Cameron stands outside meetings of the 1922 waiting to be summoned in. This meant that several late-arriving rebels had to walk past him on their way in. By and large, things were fairly cordial. But there was some tension at various points. Cameron started with a tribute to the Chief Whip, which got the MPs banging the desks. Some are taking this as a signal that Patrick McLoughlin is to be retired in the reshuffle. But those present thought it was more of a public admission that the whipping problems of the last few weeks have not been caused by the Chief but by Number 10 and coalition. There was, as usual, much talk of taking the fight to Labour.

James Forsyth

Miliband gets under Cameron’s skin at PMQs

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband enjoyed Prime Minister's Questions today. For the first time, he tried to bully Cameron. His questions were all designed to get under the Prime Minister’s skin. Once he had got the requisite rise, he joked about Cameron: ‘The redder he gets, the less he convinces.’ In a sign of what the general election could be like, Cameron’s response was based on Labour’s record in office. He declared ‘we will never forget what we were left by the party opposite’ and ‘never forgive them for what they did'. Miliband, for his part, concentrated on the recession and the Tories' decision to cut the top rate of tax. Perhaps, the most interesting thing about PMQs, though, was the reaction of Tory benches.

Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s attack on Jesse Norman will backfire

From our UK edition

Jesse Norman became the hero of the hour yesterday afternoon when the government admitted defeat against the Tory rebels and dropped the programme motion on Lords reform. Norman was keen to claim the victory for his rebel operation, making an early intervention to say: 'Let me make it clear from the Conservative benches that the very substantial opposition from within the Conservative party, not just that from Labour, was responsible for the withdrawal of the motion. That should be perfectly clear and reflected in the record.' As leader of the rebel camp, and a member of the 91 who voted against the second reading of the Bill late last night, Norman was the toast of his colleagues after the programme motion failed.

Fraser Nelson

The free-school ‘scandal’ ignores parents and pupils

From our UK edition

The Guardian has published a piece on school reform which perfectly expresses the attitude which has condemned children of lower-income parents to dismal education for years. The introduction of the story goes as follows:   There are around 10,600 empty school places in Suffolk. Or, to put it another way, if 10 average-sized secondary schools were closed down, there would still be a place for every child living in the county who needs one. Which made it somewhat surprising, therefore, when the Department for Education approved four free schools in the county, with a further two in the offing. 'The Suffolk free school scandal', as local campaigners are calling it…   Behold the bureaucratic mindset: why open a new school if there are places to fill in bad ones?

Tuesday

Gordon Hector

Making work pay

From our UK edition

‘Making work pay’ – it’s the phrase du jour of welfare reform. It's not always clear, though, how it is actually achieved. One part of the equation is looking at how earnings, taxes and benefits interact at the lower end of the income scale. As people earn more, they’re entitled to fewer benefits, and have to start paying higher taxes. This creates what’s known as a ‘withdrawal rate’ – the percentage of any extra income lost to this combination. When people talk about the ‘poverty trap’ or work not paying, this is often what they’re referring to: because if people don’t get to keep much of the money, their incentive to earn more is weak.

Matt Cavanagh

A U-turn on international students would be welcome

From our UK edition

If you have been confused over the last couple of days by the mixed messages emerging from Downing Street about the government’s policy on international students, you are not alone: the same applies to many figures inside Whitehall.  The Sunday Times reported a Number 10 source saying David Cameron is 'definitely considering a change in policy', 'fearing the UK could lose billions if students are caught up in the pledge to reduce net migration to below 100,000 by 2015'. The Mail followed up the story in its leader on Monday, endorsing it but suggesting it would be a mistake – and blaming it on the Lib Dems.

Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s leadership is bruised by Lords rebellion

From our UK edition

'Shouldn't we just go home?' the SNP's Pete Wishart asked Sir George Young this evening after the Leader of the House revealed the government was dropping its programme motion on the House of Lords. 'You know it's all over. They know it's all over,' he added. But they didn't go home, and the Commons has just voted in favour of the second reading 462 votes to 162. Early reports suggest that there were 86 Conservative MPs who defied the whip, which would make this the biggest rebellion in this parliament. Nick Clegg paused from trying very hard not to grimace on the front bench to cheer as Mark Harper told the chamber shortly before the division that this legislation belonged to the coalition. But the speeches from MPs throughout the evening gave a very different message.

Isabel Hardman

Diamond’s ‘complete lack of candour’

From our UK edition

Bob Diamond could be rather too busy in the next few weeks to enjoy the £2 million salary and pension entitlement that he will still collect from Barclays despite waiving £20 million in bonuses. The Treasury Select Committee may well recall the former Barclays chief executive to explain what chair Andrew Tyrie called a 'complete lack of candour to Parliament'. The bank's chair Marcus Agius revealed to the committee this morning that the fatal blow to Diamond's career was dealt by Sir Mervyn King, who told the Barclays board that Diamond no longer commanded the confidence of the regulators. But there remain questions about the veracity of some of Diamond's evidence, which centre around a letter from Financial Services Authority chairman Lord Turner to Agius.

Isabel Hardman

GOD draws near to Bank of England job

From our UK edition

Paul Tucker rather drove a steamroller over his hopes to be the next Bank of England Governor during his testimony to the Treasury Select Committee yesterday. We said on Coffee House last night that the suggestion that Tucker and co discussed a possible manipulation of Libor as far back as 2007 had seriously wounded his bid - although Tucker argued that he 'thought it was a malfunctioning market, not a dishonest one'. Paddy Power agreed that Tucker was in trouble - and has duly lengthened the odds against Tucker getting the job. Before his appearance, he was 6/4, but those odds are now 5/2.  The new favourite for the job, according to Paddy Power, is not Lord Turner, but Gus O'Donnell, who currently has odds of 15/8, while Turner is on 7/2.

Isabel Hardman

J’accuse backfires

From our UK edition

Andrea Leadsom seems to have backed down a little from last night's suggestion that George Osborne 'should apologise' for saying that Ed Balls had 'questions to answer' about Libor. This morning, perhaps after a cheery morning phone call from someone at CCHQ, she took to the airwaves to clarify what she had said:  'Look, I was talking about a very specific point last night, which is the extent to which the Labour party may have leaned on the Bank of England, which Paul Tucker completely refuted. I want to be very clear here: this is an inquiry about the banks’ behaviour, and Ed Balls still has a huge amount to answer for about his time in office during the last parliament, when the tripartite regime absolutely failed us and allowed the banks to get into this mess.

James Forsyth

Cameron will pick party over coalition on Lords reform

From our UK edition

The government’s apparent decision to pull the programme motion on the Lords Reform Bill is an admission that it would have lost the vote tonight, and heavily. The rebel numbers have more than held up today and by mid-afternoon even previously loyal MPs were contemplating jumping in to the rebel camp. The question now is what the coalition does next, does it plough on with the bill and try to guillotine it at a later date or quietly drop it. Certainly, the Tory opponents of the bill are in no mood to back down. They are making clear that even if the government comes back offering twenty days of debate they’ll still oppose it.

James Forsyth

Lords reform is in the long grass

From our UK edition

The look on Nick Clegg’s face as he entered the chamber to hear Sir George Young announce the withdrawal of the programme motion said it all. The Deputy Prime Minister knows that Lords reform is now in the long grass and it will only come out of there if either the Tory rebels back down or Labour agree to a programme motion, both of which are unlikely scenarios. Source close to Nick Clegg say that the Prime Minister informed the Deputy Prime Minister today that he needed more time to build consensus on his own side. The public plan is now to try for a programme motion again in the autumn. But I understand that this is dependent on the Tory rebellion crumbling, or at least reducing in size — something that seems unlikely at present.