Uk politics

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

Cameron approaches Lib Dems’ chief tormenter

From our UK edition

News is breaking at the Telegraph that Matthew Elliott — head of the TaxPayers' Alliance — is being considered for an adviser role in Downing Street. It would be strategic move by Cameron, and a bold one given Elliot's effective work on the Alternative Vote referendum. That campaign, which focused on Nick Clegg's shortcomings, is the greatest sore between the Prime Minister and his deputy, raising the question of how Lib Dems react to the news that their prime taunter has been being brought into the love nest of No.10. Many Conservatives will be heartened by the news, especially at a time when there is a brain drain sweeping across the coalition (with Richard Reeves' departure last night).

James Forsyth

Cameron and the civil service coup

From our UK edition

We thought CoffeeHousers might care to read James’s political column from this week's magazine (on sale today), so here it is: There is a split in the Cameron circle. The divide is between those who think that the problems of the past few weeks have been a blip, one that will end when Boris Johnson wins in London, and those — including some of the Prime Minister’s closest friends — who fear the problems are symptoms of a disease that could cripple the government. At stake in this debate is the future strategic direction, and the potential success, of the Cameron project. The Prime Minister, ever the optimist, is in the first camp. He is inclined to think that he is experiencing a normal bout of mid-term turbulence.

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 — 19 April 2012

From our UK edition

For your listening pleasure, here is the second episode of The View from 22 podcast. Thanks for all the feedback on our first attempt, we've tried to take as much as possible into account this time. In this episode, Fraser and I speak to the Labour MP and historian Tristram Hunt about the teaching of history in schools. Freddy Gray discusses this week's cover on the runners and riders in the French presidential election. And James Forsyth reports on a deficit of politicians inside Downing Street . You can listen below with the embedded player or — best of all — subscribe through iTunes. As before, we'd love to hear what you think, good or bad.  The View from 22 - 19 April 2012.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Reeves resignation is bad news for Clegg

From our UK edition

The departure of his senior aide Richard Reeves is a major blow to Nick Clegg. Reeves, a relative newcomer to the Lib Dems, was far less focused on party structures than many of those in Clegg’s circle and instead concentrated on the party’s long term electoral prospects. Reeves’s view was that there was a space in British politics for a party that was classically liberal on economics and socially liberal on other matters. He wanted to turn the Lib Dems into a party that was as comfortable in government as in opposition. There will be those who want to read something political into Reeves’s departure.

Peter Hoskin

British jobs, British workers and this government

From our UK edition

Chris Grayling gave a speech today that mirrored his response to the recent work experience brouhaha: punchy, practical and broadly persuasive. Except there were some parts that might cause a few jitters, and which are certainly representative of jitters along Downing Street. First, this passage: ‘It's easy to hire someone from Eastern Europe with five years' experience and who has had the get-up-and-go to cross a continent in search for work. But those who look closer to home find gems too. Very often the surly young man in a hoodie who turns up looking unwilling to work can turn into an excited and motivated employee.’ And then this: ‘I personally think that anyone who offshores customer service is mad.

Lloyd Evans

A taxing PMQs for Cameron

From our UK edition

And on it rumbles. Last month’s budget seems to have created more niche-losers than any tax settlement in history. Those who feel deprived are still squealing about it. At PMQs today Ed Miliband took a swipe at the Prime Minister on their behalf. Billionaires get bungs, grannies get mugged. That’s the headline Miliband was aiming for but didn’t quite find. He adopted his best silent-assassin mode and politely asked the PM to confirm whether or not a bonus of £40k was winging its way into the wallets of Britain’s top earners. Cameron couldn’t switch subject fast enough. The Budget, he claimed, was all about cutting taxes for 24 million workers and lowering corporation tax to make us more competitive.

Andrew Adonis

Let’s move the Lords to Manchester

From our UK edition

Andrew Adonis, one of the policy brains of the Blair government and now seated in the House of Lords, has a letter in tomorrow's edition of the Spectator responding to Neil O'Brien's cover article of last week. In it, Adonis suggests one way that the political class could help purge the Londonitis from its collective system: move the House of Lords to Greater Manchester. Here's the full text of the letter, for CoffeeHousers: Sir, As Neil O’Brien rightly says, London is New York, Washington and LA rolled into one, which is unhealthy for our national politics. So I have a serious suggestion.

The Spectator

Transcript: Nick Clegg on the budget and the local elections

From our UK edition

Here's the full transcript of this morning's Today programme interview with Nick Clegg: James Naughtie: Coalition government involves some pretty hard bargaining, some difficult compromises for both parties. You might think therefore that the opportunity of a local election campaign would be quite welcome, party leaders being themselves, talking to their own parties without having to worry too much about the other lot. But for Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, times are tough. He doesn’t even need to look at the opinion polls to know that. He said himself at the weekend that coalition life was a roller coaster and acknowledged that any government sooner or later found itself in a rut where every potentially good story turned into a bad one.

James Forsyth

Unemployment is down but are prospects up?

From our UK edition

The government has fallen on today’s numbers showing employment up by 53,000 and youth unemployment down by 9,000. This is the first quarterly fall in unemployment for over a year. One coalition source describes the news as a ‘good reminder of what really matters, both economically and politically.’ Certainly, these figures will provide David Cameron with some protection in his first post-Budget PMQs. Ed Miliband won’t be able to make his usual jobs attack. But politically one of the key questions will be who is getting these jobs. One of the worries for the coalition is that a huge amount of the new jobs that are being created are going to foreigners, who are often more motivated than their British counterparts and have more experience.

Peter Hoskin

QE comes to the fore

From our UK edition

It's roughly seven months until George Osborne's Autumn Statement, so no better time to consider which political issues will come to the boil ahead of it. Fuel costs, I'm sure, will be one if them; because they never really go away, and the 3p rise in fuel duty will have just been implemented in August. But I'd say the safest bet is the finances of the elderly. If the furore over the frozen income tax allowance for pensioners didn't put that voting bloc at the forefront of Osborne's mind, then the demographics behind UKIP's poll jump will surely do the trick. He will be under severe pressure to act. Actually, I'm not mentioning this at random, but because a group of MPs is today calling on Osborne to do just that — act.

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

After Abu Qatada

From our UK edition

It has been a mixed news day so far as Britain's relationship with the ECHR is concerned. There's been the good stuff: Abu Qatada has been arrested and is set to be deported, with the government now confident that he can be shipped to Jordan without provoking the ire of Europe's legal class. And then there has been the less than good stuff: according to the Times, which has a leaked document in its possession, Britain's official proposals for reforming the ECHR have been diluted ahead of the Council of Europe meeting in Brighton this week. This outcome, as I suggested back in February, is hardly surprising — but it could nonetheless make life a little bit more difficult for David Cameron.

Jonathan Jones

Lib-Lab bonding over legal aid

From our UK edition

The Legal Aid Bill limps back to the Commons this afternoon, having had a rough ride through the upper chamber where the Lords inflicted 11 defeats on the government. And it looks like its next stint in the lower chamber might not be much smoother. As Paul Waugh reports, a group of MPs have tabled a new amendment to the Bill (actually, an amendment to an amendment tabled by the government on Friday) to continue to provide legal aid advice (but not representation) for reviews and appeals of benefit cases. What’s significant is that the amendment is signed by seven Lib Dem MPs, including party president Tim Farron, and four of Labour’s frontbench Justice spokespeople, including shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan.

Jonathan Jones

No ‘poll shock’, but some interesting findings nonetheless

From our UK edition

Despite the Times’s headline (‘Poll shock as new U-turn looms’), there’s nothing particularly surprising in the toplines of today’s Populus poll. It merely confirms the trends already exposed by other pollsters: a widening Labour lead (Populus has it at nine points, up from four last month) and increasing discontent with the coalition (Populus has the government’s net approval rating at minus 24, down from minus 3 in September). Beneath the toplines though, there are some interesting details.

Fraser Nelson

Anders Borg: Europe’s best finance minister

From our UK edition

In the current issue of The Spectator I interview Sweden’s Anders Borg, perhaps the most successful conservative finance minister in the world — both in his economic track record, and the accompanying electoral success. His response to the crash was a permanent tax cut to speed the recovery. At the time, everyone told him it was madness. But Borg is unusual amongst finance ministers, in that he is a trained economist. To him, madness lay in repeating the formula of the 1970s and expecting different results. Last year, Sweden celebrated the elimination of its deficit. It’s perhaps worth mentioning a few other points which I didn’t fit into the interview. 1. Revenge of the nerds.

Jonathan Jones

America’s version of the ‘tax the rich’ debate

From our UK edition

While the battle continues to rage over the government's plan to cap tax relief, on the other side of the Atlantic the US bill that inspired it has been killed. The ‘Paying a Fair Share Act 2012’ — more commonly known as the ‘Buffett Rule’ after billionaire Warren Buffett — failed to get the votes it needed to be debated in the Senate. It was backed by a majority of senators, with 51 voting ‘Yea’ to 45 ‘Nay’s, but fell short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster.

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Galloway swears in

From our UK edition

Here, via the New Statesman's George Eaton, is footage of George Galloway being sworn into Parliament today: And while we're on the subject of Galloway and swearing, here's one for CoffeeHousers to ponder. In his interview with the Big Issue today, the country's latest MP says: ‘Because I don't drink, I don't swear, I'm not crude, sometimes male company turns me off. And from an early age I was the person who drove everybody home and I always saved the prettiest girl to drop off last.’ Others have already touched on the not drinking thing. But not swearing? What about this report, from 2006, by the Spectator's own Hugo Rifkind: ‘Uproar in gowns, after a visit to the Oxford Union from George Galloway.

Peter Hoskin

Will Osborne stop at £10 billion?

From our UK edition

On one side of the Atlantic, there's Christine Lagarde begging for more cash for the IMF. On the other, there's George Osborne more or less willing to hand it over on behalf of British taxpayers. This is how it's been for months now. This is why it's no surprise to read in today's Telegraph that Osborne may be ‘close to agreeing’ an extra £10 billion for the fund. There are the usual caveats, of course: the Exchequer will only stump up if various other countries do likewise, and then the money has to go into one big pot for all the world, not into special mechanisms targetted at the eurozone. But none of that will assuage Tory eurosceptics, who are already the subject of a ‘Who's gonna join UKIP?’ parlour game in Westminster.

Sebastian Payne

Mayor for Muslims or the rich?

From our UK edition

Does Boris not care for poor Londoners? A new question in today's Evening Standard polling reveals that 40 per cent of voters believe that Boris is the candidate to aid rich Londoners. Ken has also carved his own niche, successfully winning over many Muslin voters — around 20 per cent state he is particularly keen to help them. Here are the full numbers: But such perceptions have made little difference to either candidate's chances. The headline voting figures remain steady at 53 per cent for Boris and 47 per cent for Ken, despite the above and also the recent tax saga.

James Forsyth

Another blow against the something for nothing culture

From our UK edition

In the aftermath of the riots, the idea of withholding child benefit from mothers whose kids played truant was floated by Number 10. The aim was to link child benefit payments to getting your child to attend schools. This was meant to be part of a broader effort to end the something for nothing culture. Now, 8 months on from the riots — and after months of coalition wrangling — we have some flesh on the bones of this idea. Charlie Taylor, the government’s impressive adviser on behaviour, has proposed (£) that fines for children being persistently truant should be deducted from child benefit payments. At the moment, head teachers can already fine parents for their children being truant.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

The trade mission delusion

From our UK edition

David Cameron has returned from what was a bit of a war-and-peace tour of East Asia. Taking arms dealers to Indonesia one day, posing with Aung San Suu Kyi the next. In today's Sunday Telegraph he writes an almost-defensive piece about it all: ‘With the eurozone producing sluggish growth, we simply can’t rely on trade with Europe to generate the jobs and growth we need. We need to look south and east and do a much better job of winning business in places such as China, India, the Gulf, Africa and South America. That’s why I have been leading trade missions to some of the fastest growing parts of the world, including last week’s visit to Japan and south-east Asia.