Uk politics

An EU referendum pledge in the next Tory manifesto is ‘basically, a certainty’ according to one of those most closely involved in the party’s electoral strategy for 2015. The current plan is for the manifesto to declare that a Conservative government would renegotiate Britain’s membership of the European Union and then put the new terms to the people in a referendum within 18 months of the general election. I understand that the Tory line would be that they would urge staying in the EU if Britain’s concerns could be met through this process. But if the rest of the European Union refused to play ball, they would be prepared to advocate leaving.

Today’s Cameron-Clegg event was meant to be very different from the one in the Downing Street garden two years ago: grittier, more real. Watching it, one was struck by the fact that the two leaders still seem comfortable in each other’s company. The dynamics between them are better than those between Blair and Brown two years in. But, thanks to the compromises of coalition, they lack a compelling growth message for the here and now — as opposed to the long term — at the moment. One of their other problems is that coalition makes everyone focus that much more on the political process.

For the Cameroons, the political weather at the moment is about as appealing as the prospect of a Bank Holiday trip to the beach. The Tory party is having a very public debate about its future strategy. The Alternative Queen’s Speech being promoted by David Davis, John Redwood and Tim Montgomerie is a reminder of how vocal the leadership’s internal critics are prepared to be. The worry for Cameron has to be that there is this much sounding off just two years into the coalition. One wonders what it will like be a year from now.

It's only ten days or so since Ed Balls was last quizzed by Andrew Neil, but there he was rehashing many of the same lines on the Sunday Politics today. Among the things that stood out was this: the shadow chancellor’s argument on the public finances is ever more cleaving into two halves. First, he accuses George Osborne of borrowing £150 billion more over this Parliament than originally planned. (Although there’s a detail that often, conveniently, gets obscured: namely, that borrowing is still going down year-on-year under Osborne's plan). Second, that Balls's plan would decrease borrowing in the medium-term even though it would increase spending and reduce tax revenues in the short-term.