Uk politics

Monday

James Forsyth

Cameron feeds the eurosceptic beast

From our UK edition

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 Hague said on the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday morning. The dwindling band of pro-European Tory MPs is in despair.

Isabel Hardman

More remorse and apology from Diamond?

From our UK edition

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 leadership and restoring trust in Britain's banking can be done by Bob Diamond.

Isabel Hardman

Ministerial aides push Cameron on EU

From our UK edition

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'.

James Forsyth

Osborne savages Balls on Libor

From our UK edition

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 defence of Balls, telling Osborne that the public don’t want partisanship on this issue.

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

Be careful what you wish for, Bercow plotters

From our UK edition

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 from the Tory backbench on Lords reform.

Friday

James Forsyth

Libor is an opportunity for Miliband

From our UK edition

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 for the top people at Barclays to go and Labour is also backing an independent inquiry into the banks, something the government is currently opposed to.

Lloyd Evans

Is it time to let Scotland go?

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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 item on her desk - and mine - was a plan daringly called 'Making London Better' which, when you got down to it, involved shutting down quite a lot of London hospitals.

Thursday

Penny Mordaunt

Lords reform is an ill-considered pet project

From our UK edition

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 to the South East, and the second was an amendment on capping interest on payday loans.

Isabel Hardman

The EU campaign that won’t go away

From our UK edition

Just when the whips were sighing with relief that Europe has been pushed down the agenda by Lords reform, a rather awkward letter from over 100 Tory MPs flops on to the Prime Minister's doormat. ConHome has the scoop this morning that John Baron has brought together a large group of MPs  who are calling for legislation to be written that ensures there will be a referendum in the next Parliament on the issue. When I spoke to Baron earlier, he told me that four more have joined, although he has agreed with colleagues that the full list of names will be known only to him and the Prime Minister.

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

Working together is crucial to beat cyber threats

From our UK edition

A speech earlier this week by unmasked-spy Jonathan Evans has put the threat of cybercrime back into the national consciousness. The MI5 director general spoke at Mansion House earlier in the week to warn of ‘real damage’ caused online — highlighting one London business which suffered a £800 million loss following an attack. He stressed the need to introduce snooping powers: ‘It would be extraordinary and self-defeating if terrorists and criminals were able to adopt new technologies in order to facilitate their activities while the law enforcement and security agencies were not permitted to keep pace with those same technological changes,’ he said.

Isabel Hardman

Davey takes aim at the winter fuel payment

From our UK edition

On Monday, David Cameron reiterated his opposition to scrapping the winter fuel payment as a universal benefit. During his speech on welfare, the Prime Minister said: 'There is also a debate about some of the extra benefits that pensioners can receive - and whether they should be means-tested. On this I want to be very clear: two years ago I made a promise to the elderly of this country and I am keeping it.' Even though means-testing winter fuel payments might be off the table, I understand that work is still going on within Whitehall to alter the benefit. This time it's not in the Work and Pensions department, which has overall responsibility for administering the benefit, but in the Energy and Climate Change department.

Isabel Hardman

Dealing with Nadine Dorries

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband is going to have to start paying Nadine Dorries a salary if the Conservative MP provides him with any more quotes to fling across the chamber at Prime Minister's Questions. Today the Labour leader was able to draw from the deep well of Dorries' twitter feed when he faced David Cameron. Earlier in the day, she had sent these three tweets: 'I was at a dinner last night so didn't see Newsnight, however, if Osborne sent Chloe on re scrapping 3p he is a coward as well as arrogant.' 'Newsnight last night would have been a tough gig for a Minister with years of experience - Chloe is a good egg and didn't deserve that.' 'The submarine Chancellor sacrifices yet another Minister whilst he slips under the surface… again.

James Forsyth

Miliband grows to relish PMQs

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband had a bit of swagger about him at PMQs today. In a sign of how the two leaders fortunes have reversed, it is now Miliband who appears to be relishing their exchanges.  From the off, Cameron was in a peevish mood. Miliband secured a fairly comfortable points victory. His ‘Cabinet of comedians’ line was a definite hit and Nadine Dorries keeps presenting him with new material. But Cameron will be relieved that Miliband is landing any knock-out blow on him; there was nothing said today that will stick long in the memory. Interestingly, the Tory whips had planted a question which allowed Cameron to open the session by saying how keen he was to get Lords reform through. The intended message to the Lib Dems was: look, we really are trying on this.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Osborne’s handbrake turn on fuel duty

From our UK edition

George Osborne's U-turn today on fuel duty seems both canny and confusing. It comes just 48 hours after a denial from Transport Secretary Justine Greening that the Government would scrap the 3p rise in August, but appears to be warding off the threat of a backbench rebellion in the Commons next week on a motion submitted by Labour to the Finance Bill.  Ms Greening told the Sunday Telegraph:  So more power to the backbenchers, led by Robert Halfon, whose campaign against fuel duty increases now looks to have succeeded in part, although he might want to continue to push retailers to push costs down anyway. But it is still surprising given the rebellion from Conservative MPs was not expected to reach beyond double figures.

Isabel Hardman

Long nights of Lords reform ahead

From our UK edition

The concessions that David Cameron has reportedly offered the Conservative backbench on Lords reform are really not sufficient to keep them out of the no lobbies. Switching from a salary to a daily attendance allowance, which would keep peers' earnings below £60,000 in most cases, is hardly going to set the benches alight. The reason for this is mainly that Tory MPs are opposing Lords reform as much for reasons of principle as they are for personal reasons. This is a deeply personal row with the Lib Dems that was a bit awkward and grumpy a month or so ago, but has turned to full-blooded revenge over the party's refusal to support Jeremy Hunt in the Commons.

Matthew Oakley

A long way to go on welfare

From our UK edition

Yesterday's welfare speech from the Prime Minister confirmed that there is still a long way to go in reforming the benefits system. Universal Credit and the Work programme will start the process, but will not be enough to tackle the extent of worklessness and benefit dependency that we have seen develop in the UK over the last 50 years. It was encouraging, though, to hear the Prime Minister acknowledge the need to modernise the welfare system further.  In part, this is a numbers game. As the Chancellor and Steve Hilton have both recently made clear, future Spending Reviews are going to have to take more money out of welfare.

Isabel Hardman

Osborne borrows his way out of a debt crisis

From our UK edition

This morning's borrowing figures from the Office for National Statistics are a blow for George Osborne, showing public sector borrowing up £2.7bn on the same time last year. The stats show the government borrowed £17.9bn in May, while the 2011-12 deficit is now £127.6bn, up £3.2bn. Labour have seized on the figures, saying it's the 'nail in the coffin of David Cameron and George Osborne’s failed economic plan'. It's worth remembering, though, that Labour would be borrowing even more in this Parliament than the Coalition is, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimating that under Labour, borrowing would be closer to £76bn in 2016-17 than the £26bn forecast in the March Budget.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s welfare pledge to backbenchers

From our UK edition

Why has David Cameron chosen to launch what is effectively a 2015 manifesto pledge on welfare today? The Prime Minister's speech, which he has just finished giving, had quite interesting timing: we still, after all, have just under three years before the next general election. Cameron has already dropped hints about how much further the Conservatives could go on key areas - and specifically referred to welfare - without the Liberal Democrats holding them back, but this is the first instance where he has pinpointed a particular post-2015 policy. It leaves the Liberal Democrats once again on the back foot over benefits, suggesting to a public hungry for a more conditional and less generous welfare state that the Government could go so much further without their Coalition partners.

Isabel Hardman

Low marks for Labour’s Gove debate

From our UK edition

Labour's Opposition day debate tomorrow on Gove-levels might not reveal as much as the party hopes about where Liberal Democrat MPs stand on the Education Secretary's planned reforms. True, you won't see a Lib Dem lift so much as a finger in outright support of what Nick Clegg dubbed 'a two-tier system' created by scrapping GCSEs and replacing them with two sets of exams, but this might not be the forum for them to launch a rebellion. One key figure on the left of the party points out that 'it's not where the decision will be made', while another MP says Labour's motions are often so 'over-the-top' that they are unsupportable.