Uk politics

The political theatre of David Cameron's trip to America will have Downing Street drooling. The PM is, today, not only going to become the first world leader to fly aboard Air Force One with Barack Obama, but then they're also going to take in a game of basketball together. It's a carefully calibrated blend of statesmanship and down-to-earth-ship that will suit both men. Obama, because it might appeal, in some way, to conservative voters ahead of this year's presidential election. Cameron, because, well… does Ed Miliband do this sort of thing? The theatre carries over into print too, with a joint article by Cameron and Obama in today's Washington Post.

When the Beecroft report’s recommendation of ‘Compensated No Fault Dismissal’ was first leaked back in October, Norman Lamb was one of the strongest Lib Dem voices to speak out against it, describing it as ‘madness’. Back then, he was Nick Clegg’s chief of staff. Now, thanks to Chris Huhne’s resignation and Ed Davey’s promotion, he’s in an even better position to prevent this ‘madness’: Employment Minister in the Department for Business. As James has said, the Lib Dem MPs are unanimous in their opposition to Beecroft’s proposals, and until recently it didn’t look like they would be translated into policy at all.

Lib Dem Spring conference is turning out as the leadership would have wished. The support of Shirley Williams for the Health Bill seems to have been enough to reassure delegates that they should back the bill in its amended form; they’ve already voted to debate the leadership friendly motion tomorrow morning not the ‘Drop the Bill’ one. In a question and answer session with activists just now, Clegg — to huge applause — urged the party to side with Shirley Williams not Andy Burnham. This appeal to Lib Dem tribalism seems to be winning the day on the health issue. Clegg, as he always does at conference, used the Q&A session to take a lot of shots at Labour.

Recent reports have suggested that David Cameron is interested in swapping Cathy Ashton’s job as the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy for another commission post. But sources close to Number 10 tell me this ain’t happening. Supposedly, Cameron was interested in swapping Ashton’s current role for the post of commissioner for the internal market, currently held by the Frenchman Michel Barnier. But, in reality, this was never on the cards for a whole host of reasons. Foremost of these was that Nicolas Sarkozy was never going to give up the French claim to this job just weeks away from a French presidential election.

At the end of last year, Ed Balls suggested that Labour would be ‘taking a tougher approach to conditionality [for benefit claimants]. If people can work, they should work.’ Now the party are starting to outline what that means. As the Independent puts it today, summarising a speech that Liam Byrne has given in Birmingham, ‘The unemployed would be guaranteed the offer of a job but could lose their benefits for six months if they turned it down, under a tough new policy on welfare planned by Labour.’ The paper characterises this as an attempt to ‘outflank the Tories on welfare,’ which is surely true. But the whole thing also reminds me of the Brown era.

Lib Dem spring conference is, perhaps, the most potent reminder of the cultural differences between the two coalition partners. In the Tory party pretty much the only thing that members get a real vote on is who the candidate in their constituency should be and who they want as party leader, even then that choice has been whittled down to two options by the MPs first. By contrast, the Lib Dems grassroots still get to determine the detail of party policy. The Health Bill’s problems really began at the last Lib Dem spring conference. It was a vote there that led to Nick Clegg seeking a whole host of changes which then led to the pause. As they say, the rest is history.   This Sunday’s vote on the Health Bill could be equally significant.