Uk politics

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Ed’s ahead with banking inquiry

Low party interest parading as high political principle. That was the theme of today’s PMQs as the party leaders clashed over the scope and nature of the inquiry into the Libor scandal. David Cameron’s pungent language was intended to reflect public anger at the banks. He spoke of ‘spivvy and illegal activity’ in the City, and he promised that crime in financial centres would be pursued as rigorously as crime on the streets. One of the grandest of Tory grandees, Nicholas Soames, warned him that new regulatory mechanisms mustn’t be allowed to damage the City, ‘which remains a vital asset for our country.’   And he was followed by the

Isabel Hardman

Bob and Bollinger banking

This is the memo from Bob Diamond, released yesterday, on which many of this afternoon’s questions at the Treasury Select Committee will hinge. It records a conversation with Bank of England Deputy Governor Paul Tucker, and is worth reproducing in full here: Further to our last call, Mr Tucker reiterated that he had received calls from a number of senior figures within Whitehall to question why Barclays was always towards the top end of the Libor pricing. His response was ‘you have to pay what you pay’. I asked if he could relay the reality, that not all banks were providing quotes at the levels that represented real transactions, his

Isabel Hardman

Bob’s long afternoon at the crease

This afternoon’s rather lengthy Treasury Select Committee hearing with Bob Diamond suggests that Ed Miliband might be on to something with his calls for a judge-led inquiry. We were two hours into the session when John Thurso remarked: ‘If you were an English cricketer, I suspect your name would be Geoffrey Boycott… You’ve been occupying the crease for two-and-a-half hours and I’m not sure we’re a great deal further forward.’ If Boycott were watching, he’d remark that his mother could have batted away the majority of the questions thrown to Diamond with a stick of rhubarb. This committee meeting provided the former Barclays chief executive with a pretty flat pitch.

James Forsyth

Exclusive: Osborne, ‘They were clearly involved’

After a subdued PMQs, the politics of the Libor scandal has just been ratcheted up another notch. In an interview with The Spectator for this week’s issue, George Osborne has said that those around Gordon Brown ‘were clearly involved’ in the discussion about how to keep Libor down during the 2008 financial crisis. In the interview, George Osborne gives short shrift to Barclays’s accusation that the Bank of England urged it to get its Libor down. Osborne stresses that this change has been ‘specifically addressed, not just by our own investigators at the Financial Services Authority but also in the US Department of Justice and they are not people who

Tuesday

Dominique Lazanski

An internet filter would be counterproductive

Following Claire Perry’s campaign for porn prohibition, the Department of Education has now launched a consultation on parental internet controls. For those of you unaware of the policy proposals, it is something we should be concerned about as it poses a very real threat to our internet freedoms. This year, Perry held an independent inquiry on online child protection. The report, released in April, recommended that internet users who wish to view pornography should have to opt-in to it. In other words, there should be default blocking of legal content by internet service providers unless users request this block be turned off.  From a technical point of view, the introduction

Isabel Hardman

Cameron hints at Coalition split on EU review

Yesterday the Prime Minister made a point of showing his backbench how very willing he was to listen to their concerns about the European Union. Today, as he gave evidence to the Liaison Committee, David Cameron made a point of suggesting his Liberal Democrat coalition partners are a little less willing when it comes to reviewing the EU’s powers.  Asked when he would launch the balance of competencies review, which will examine the impact of EU law on Britain, the Prime Minister said: ‘I hope that we will be able to start the process before the summer, but we need to seek full agreement before we launch it.’  He added:

Isabel Hardman

Diamond does not last forever

Bob Diamond’s resignation with immediate effect as chief executive of Barclays gives plenty of people in Westminster the scalp they were looking for. Labour had called for Diamond to go after the Libor scandal surfaced. The Lib Dems had called for Diamond to resign, with Vince Cable threatening to use as a last resort his powers to disqualify directors. In fact the Lib Dems have been so focused on getting Diamond out that I understand they have been intentionally avoiding the brewing row between Labour and Tories about the parliamentary inquiry, headed by Treasury Select Committee chair Andrew Tyrie. Diamond’s resignation statement to the stock exchange was not exactly dripping

Isabel Hardman

Clegg: I feel lobotomised in government

Nick Clegg gave a rather sombre speech to the CentreForum summer reception last night. Addressing the guests from a pulpit in the vaulted cloisters of Westminster Abbey, as the rain poured down outside, the Deputy Prime Minister admitted he felt ‘lobotomised’ in government. It was actually a clumsy attempt to praise the work of the Lib Dem-aligned think tank in helping the party retain its brain by dreaming up new policies when the constraints of Coalition might otherwise prevent it, but it did not go down well with those listening. Andrew Neil tweeted that Lord Steel, who he was standing next to at the event, had rolled his eyes at Clegg’s turn of

Monday

Isabel Hardman

A fresh deal and a fresh settlement

Pressure has been building all weekend for the Prime Minister to give some form of concession to his eurosceptic backbenchers in his statement on the outcome of the Brussels summit. James blogged shortly before David Cameron stood up in the Commons that Tory MPs were being reassured that they were going to like what they would hear him, which a pro-European MP suspected would be ‘feeding a beast with an insatiable appetite’. This is the meat the Prime Minister threw to the eurosceptics: ‘Far from ruling out a referendum for the future, as a fresh deal in Europe becomes clear, we should consider how best to get the fresh consent

James Forsyth

Cameron’s position on Europe grows clearer

David Cameron’s position on Europe is becoming clearer. ‘Fresh settlement, fresh consent’, the soundbite he kept using, is simply a euphemism for renegotiation followed by a referendum. It seems that this renegotiation will span the next election. Indeed, it will start as soon as a new EU treaty is proposed. In response to a question from Peter Lilley, Cameron said he will try to use any forthcoming treaty to attempt to bring powers back to this country. Those close to Cameron say that the plan is to get as much back before the next election and then accelerate the process as soon as there is a treaty negotiation under a

Clarissa Tan

Sir Mervyn and money-fixing

Is manipulating interest rates really as shocking to the Chancellor and the Governor of the Bank of England as they make it out to be? The Libor and Euribor fixing scandal has shown several bankers at it, yet this weekend there were suggestions that at least some of these bankers thought that the regulators, the Bank of England and even the Treasury were aware of the scam – and had a shared interest in keeping the official borrowing rate down so as not to spread panic. This reminds us what an extraordinary situation the Old Lady of Threadneedle St finds herself in. On Friday, Governor Mervyn King lambasted banks and

James Forsyth

Cameron feeds the eurosceptic beast

Nick Clegg won’t be sitting next to the Prime Minister in the chamber for today’s statement on the EU Council. He has, I’m told, got other meetings to attend. This absence might be for the best given what Tory MPs are planning to ask Cameron. As Isabel revealed earlier, a string of Eurosceptic backbenchers are planning to push the Prime Minister to go further than he did in his Sunday Telegraph piece. Number 10 is also expecting a question from Liam Fox. Tory MPs are being reassured that they’ll like what they’ll hear from Cameron on a referendum. It does seem that the statement will be firmer than what William

Isabel Hardman

More remorse and apology from Diamond?

It’s hard to believe that executives at Barclays had much confidence that the resignation of Marcus Agius as the bank’s chair would place a stopper on the Libor scandal. Ed Miliband drove those doubts home this morning when, appearing on Daybreak, the Labour leader reiterated calls for Bob Diamond to resign. He said: ‘I don’t think that he can carry Barclays forward, Bob Diamond, because he was there, he was actually in charge of the part of Barclays where some of these scandals took place years back and we will obviously hear what he has to say at the Select Committee on Wednesday but I really don’t believe that the

Isabel Hardman

Ministerial aides push Cameron on EU

David Cameron’s attempt to placate backbenchers clamouring for an EU referendum by writing a piece in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph has not gone down particularly well. Backbenchers are more than mildly irked that the Prime Minister focused mainly on the problems with an in/out referendum, when the letter co-ordinated by John Baron (which you can read here) did not call for that. They are also disappointed that the Prime Minister suggested that the time for a referendum was not now, as their demand had been for legislation in this Parliament which would provide for a referendum in the next. One MP told me the response was a ‘smokescreen’. Baron has not

James Forsyth

Osborne savages Balls on Libor

The Osborne/Balls clash today was one of the most brutal I have seen in parliament. Osborne, leaning across the despatch box, mockingly enquired, ‘who was the City Minister when the Libor scandal happened? Put your hand up if you were the City Minister?’ Balls looked increasingly cross as Osborne continued down this path, demanding that the shadow Chancellor take ‘personal responsibility’ for the failures of the regulatory regime. Labour argues that the public are turned off by this kind of stuff; that they want to see answers rather than point-scoring. Even Darling — hardly an admirer of a man who coveted his job for so long — offered a partial

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

Be careful what you wish for, Bercow plotters

Tory MPs are plotting to oust Speaker Bercow, the Sun on Sunday reports today. They are apparently furious that Bercow allowed Chris Bryant to brand Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt a ‘liar’ in his party’s opposition day debate calling for a full investigation into Hunt’s conduct. The Speaker refused to censure Bryant because he argued the unparliamentary language mirrored the wording of Labour’s motion for the debate. This attempted coup is another sign of the fierce loyalty that backbenchers feel for the Culture Secretary. You insult Hunt, and you insult the party: the Lib Dems learned that after they allowed their MPs to abstain on that motion and lost any goodwill

Friday

James Forsyth

Libor is an opportunity for Miliband

The Libor scandal is both a threat and an opportunity for Labour. The threat is that the abuses took place under a regulatory system that was devised by the last Labour government and by a Chancellor who both Eds worked for. As I said yesterday, the Tories are determined to hammer Balls — a former City minister — on this. But the opportunity is that it offers Ed Miliband a chance to act as if he is the tribune of the people, the leader brave enough to take on the powerful. So as with News International and phone hacking, we’ve seen Miliband getting out in front in terms of calling

Lloyd Evans

Is it time to let Scotland go?

Lloyd Evans rounds up the highlights of this week’s Spectator debate on the future of the union. The motion was ‘It’s time to let Scotland go’. Margo Macdonald, MSP, opened on a friendly note and declared that she had no plans to fall out with anyone. She wants to preserve Scotland’s ‘social union’ with England. But her country can no longer ‘shackle itself to the shell of a declining empire’. Nor should Scotland send ‘broad-kilted laddies’ to fight wars in foreign lands, ‘using armoured vehicles that are more dangerous to our servicemen than to the enemy.’ England, she claimed, uses Scotland to maintain its ‘magic seat’ on the Security Council.

Richard Marsh

The PFI bailout machine has run out of juice

Although it is nearly 20 years ago, I can still recall being lobbied by the representatives of a private consortium who had nascent plans to redevelop a hospital in south London using the then fabulous new idea we called the private finance initiative.  Before you jump to too many delirious conclusions, the meeting took place in my office, not in an expensive restaurant, and it was the only one I ever had with the group. I may have splashed out on a plate of civil service issue custard creams. At the time I was the special adviser to the then Secretary of State for Health, Virginia Bottomley, and the main

Thursday

Penny Mordaunt

Lords reform is an ill-considered pet project

At the first meeting of the 1922 Committee following the 2010 election, I was the only new MP to speak. I used my time to set out why I would support a coalition: the country was in an economic crisis and at war; we knew what needed to be done – deal with the debt and radically reform education, welfare, local government, healthcare and defence; and we knew no one else was going to do it. In the following two years my rebelliousness has stretched as far as two abstentions on votes against opposition amendments. The first was on a Labour amendment to extend national insurance contribution holidays for start-ups