Uk politics

Sunday

David Blackburn

The importance of being earnest | 4 December 2011

From our UK edition

The absence of growth and the importance of credibility are recurring themes in this morning’s papers. John Lord Hutton has told the BBC that revised growth figures make pension reform even more urgent, and he added that the deal that was put before trade unions was ‘perfectly credible’. Meanwhile, David Cameron has insisted that ministers increase their pension contributions by an average of 4.2 per cent (more than the 3.2 average across the public sector) to show that ‘we are all in this together’. Pensions also feature in an Independent on Sunday interview with Tim Farron, the Lib Dem President.

Saturday

James Forsyth

The significance of the Iron Lady

From our UK edition

Charles Moore’s essay on the Iron Lady in today’s Telegraph is required reading. Here’s how he starts: ‘The best way to understand why a feature film about Margaret Thatcher might work is to imagine trying to make one about other 20th-century British prime ministers. How about Safety First (Stanley Baldwin), A Period of Silence (Clement Attlee), Crisis? What Crisis? (James Callaghan) or In No Small Measure (John Major)? It doesn’t do, does it? Even Tony Blair, already the subject of several films, invites a satire treatment, not a life story. There is a case, perhaps, for David Lloyd George. There is the towering subject of Winston Churchill. And then there is Margaret Thatcher. Of course she should have a biopic.

David Blackburn

The Gospel according to Delors

From our UK edition

An old enemy of England nestles in the pages of today’s Daily Telegraph. Charles Moore travelled to Paris to meet Jacques Delors, the architect of the euro and advocate of Europe’s ‘social dimension’. Moore found defiance where one might have expected humility, perhaps even repentance. Delors insists that the fault was in the execution not the design of the euro.

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Balls’ blindness

From our UK edition

This week has marked something of a watershed in the British economic debate. The story of the strike on Wednesday was not one of paralysis, but of resilience. There was an 85 per cent turnout in NHS staff; Cumbria council kept every office open as so few staff went on strike; Aussies landing at Heathrow cleared passport control in record time, due to the large number of volunteers who were qualified with two days' notice. As I say in my Daily Telegraph column today, the union leaders went rather quiet afterwards: they misjudged the mood of the country. As has Ed Balls.

David Blackburn

A tale of two cities | 2 December 2011

From our UK edition

Nicolas Sarkozy is grudgingly admired by French socialists as a political fighter, capable of thriving even in the most desperate situation. David Cameron is coming to understand what they mean. It is the best of times and the worst of times between Paris and London. Two months ago, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy assumed the victor’s garlands in Benghazi; today, they met at odds, if not yet in animosity, over the contested logic of ever closer union in Europe. Sarkozy appears to have got his wish: the 17 countries of the Eurozone will deepen their economic and political relations in an attempt to save the single currency — and with it, he hopes, France’s economic and political strength on the international stage.

Jonathan Jones

How happy is Britain? 7.4

From our UK edition

Remember General Well-Being – David Cameron's attempt to come up with a new set of statistics to encapsulate all the things that GDP doesn't? Well one aspect of it, the Office for National Statistics says, is 'subjective well-being'. That is, how do people rate their own well-being? It's not all there is to well-being, we're told – health, personal relationships, job satisfaction and economic security will need to be added to the mix too – but it is an important part. And so, the ONS has set about measuring it. Over the last few months, they've begun asking the public four questions: Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?

Thursday

David Blackburn

Woolf tucks into perfidious Albion

From our UK edition

Yesterday night's news that a senior FCO official lobbied Oxford University on behalf of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi adds more ordure to the already fetid story of Britain’s role in Colonel Gaddafi’s rehabilitation. The Woolf Inquiry into Saif’s dealings with British universities and businesses found that, 'It was made clear [to Oxford] … that the FCO would appreciate help in this case since Libya was opening up to the West again.'  Oxford resisted; but this episode has hardly covered Britain’s elites in glory: the civil service, BAE and august universities are all criticised in Woolf's report.

Jonathan Jones

What did the public make of the Autumn Statement?

From our UK edition

The lack of growth in the economy has taken its toll on the government – and George Osborne – according to YouGov's post-Autumn Staement poll. After the Budget in March, 34 per cent said the Chancellor was doing a good job – now it's just 24 per cent. And the percentage saying he's doing a bad job has risen from from 40 to 49. Here's how the public's view of the economic performance of the coalition as a whole has declined since Osborne's first Budget: Despite this, Labour have failed to seize the initiative. Osborne still leads Ed Balls on the question of who'd make the better Chancellor, 30-24. Indeed, that just 61 per cent of Labour supporters pick Balls should be of deep concern to the Labour leadship.

James Forsyth

Osborne’s Autumn Statement was about creating more Tories

From our UK edition

In this week's Spectator – which hits newsstands today – James Forsyth reveals the political calculations behind the Chancellor's announcements on Tuesday. Here, for CoffeeHousers, is a taster of James' column: The government wants to be seen as on the side of necessary but fair reform; facing down opponents who believe in ‘something for nothing economics’. Public sector unions, with their desire to protect pensions that are far more generous than those on offer in the private sector, are ideal opponents in the eyes of coalition strategists. On Tuesday, George Osborne chose to raise the stakes in this battle.

Wednesday

Will Straw

Another voice: Why the strike is right

From our UK edition

If I were a teacher, I’d be on strike today. Public sector workers are being asked — in what is now a well-rehearsed soundbite — to work longer, receive less, and pay more. In these austere times, with deficit reduction a necessity,  two of those three aims might be reasonable. But doing all three at once, and conflating the package with the spurious notion that public sector pensions are ‘unsustainable’, justifies the direct action being taken today.   The rise in contribution rates — in effect a three per cent tax rise — will be especially hard to bear for those on modest salaries who are already facing a prolonged pay freeze. A nurse, for example, can expect to pay an extra £1,000 per year.

Johnnie Kerr

In the middle of the march

From our UK edition

Walking through Parliament Square this afternoon, you’d be forgiven for wondering whether some kind of bomb threat had been made on Westminster Palace. The fleets of police vans and hoards of fluorescent-jacketed officers seemed absurdly disproportionate to the motley pickets of public sector strikers gathered serenely outside parliament’s gates. ‘Actually, I shouldn’t be working today,’ one officer told me, chuckling. ‘It’s my day off. That’s ironic, isn’t it?’ As Pete remarked this morning, there wasn’t a huge amount to see along the Westminster picket lines, apart from the policemen.

Matthew Sinclair

The unions’ pension myths

From our UK edition

This morning I debated the President of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers live on Sky News.  It was incredible how few answers she had when confronted with the facts about the strike. According to research at the Office for National Statistics, public sector workers are paid 7.8 per cent more than those in the private sector after controlling for things like age and qualifications. And they get far more generous pensions, worth about a quarter of their pay (see here, p35), on top of that — with most of the cost paid for by taxpayers. But they striking and opposing quite modest reforms, creating yet more disruption for the families who pick up the bill for their pay and pensions.

Lloyd Evans

Rowdy and raucous — but that’s how we like it

From our UK edition

It was vicious. It was frenetic. It was full of rage and class-hatred. It was great political sport. If you like a serious punch-up, the Commons at mid-day was the place to be. The viewing figures at home were boosted by the many millions of strikers who couldn’t quite make their local anti-cuts demo and were sitting out the revolution with a nice cup of tea and PMQs on the Parliament channel.  Ed Miliband started by claiming that the PM had been seen in private rubbing his hands, like Moriarty, and boasting that ‘the unions have walked into my trap’. Cameron, although not denying this, slammed the Labour leader for supporting a strike which had been called in the middle of the negotiations.

Jonathan Jones

Will the strikes exacerbate Cameron’s women problem?

From our UK edition

We've already heard a lot about Dave's problem with female voters. Melanie McDonagh wrote our cover piece on it in June, and in September there was that memo detailing Number 10's efforts to respond. But, judging by the polls, we may well be hearing even more about it after today's strikes. It seems that, while the government has men broadly on its side in the battle against the unions, women are far less supportive. 51 per cent of men told ComRes that public sector workers are wrong to strike today, but only 42 per cent of women agreed: TNS BMRB asked people whether they thought that the government was right to press ahead with the reforms, or that public sector workers were right to strike against them.

James Forsyth

Dave and Ed strike each other

From our UK edition

It was a real blood and thunder PMQs today. This was the politics of the viscera; whose side are you on stuff.   Ed Miliband chose to start on the strikes. David Cameron ripped into him from the off, calling him ‘irresponsible, left-wing and weak.’ Miliband came back with an attack about how he wasn’t going to demonise dinner ladies who earn less in a year than George Osborne’s annual skiing holiday costs, though he flubbed the line slightly.   The Tory benches were in full cry, and throughout the session Cameron kept coming back for another swing at Miliband and the union link.

Peter Hoskin

Picketing Parliament

From our UK edition

By way of Spectating, I thought I'd take a quick stroll along Westminster's picket lines. And, to be honest, there isn't a huge amount to see, as yet. The groups of around five or six industrial actioneers outside some departments trump the small pile of placards outside the Treasury. There are about thirty to forty people picketing Parliament itself. The photo I shot hastily on my iPhone, above, should give you the sense of it. The striking workers I spoke with, however, were bullish about people turning up later in the day, especially with the march that's happening this afternoon — as well as for the strike's general progress in the rest of London and beyond. An organiser for Met staff reckoned on about 70 per cent turnout from his cohort.

Peter Hoskin

A day of disruption

From our UK edition

Another testing day for the government, as we shift from the autumn statement to a national strike. It will certainly be more noticeable than the industrial action in June. Some 2 million public sector workers will be involved. According to the schools minister Nick Gibb, around 75 per cent of state schools will be closed. And on top of that, airport queues will lengthen; non-emergency operations will be cancelled; and today's parliamentary proceedings will go untranscribed. The government's attitude towards the unions — or, rather, union bosses — appears to have been hardening. The brothers will not have liked yesterday's forecast that 710,000 jobs will be shed from the public sector by 2017. And they will not have liked George Osborne's rhetoric either.

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Osborne plays a tough hand well

From our UK edition

Today was always going to be a difficult day for the Chancellor. The figures from the OBR were always going to dominate the headlines and the restrictions of coalition meant that there couldn’t be as much as the Tories would have liked on the supply side. It was striking that the loudest Tory cheer of Osborne’s statement came when he reiterated his opposition to an EU-imposed financial transactions tax. But the silver lining for Osborne and co is that Labour still lack economic credibility. It is hard for Labour to savage Osborne for borrowing more than he said he would — which he is to the tune of £158 billion — and then say that they would borrow even more than that.

Robert Halfon-Mp

Fuelling the recovery

From our UK edition

Today, the government has listened. In his Autumn Statement, George Osborne scrapped the fuel tax bombshell that was scheduled for January 2012.    As regular Coffee House readers will know, more than 100 MPs supported my cross-party campaign for cheaper petrol. At its height, it saw an e-petition attract more than 124,000 names — triggering a full MPs’ debate in Parliament. It has been a very long campaign, working with many organisations, from FairFuelUK and the RAC, to the independent forecourt industry, The Spectator and the Sun, to thousands of members of the public who wrote to me in support.

Fraser Nelson

Osborne has made the right choice — but it’s not without its costs

From our UK edition

Today, George Osborne had a choice. Growth prospects have evaporated, and tax revenues along with it. Should he reopen the 2010 Spending Review and cut the spending totals? Or stick with those totals, and finance this with extra debt? He chose the latter. And I think, on balance, he was right to do so. Credibility is the most valuable currency in this eurozone crisis, and Osborne said it was a fixed five-year plan. He chose more debt over less certainty, and it looks today like the markets believe he chose correctly.  But all this comes at a cost. The government will now run deficits higher than those which Labour proposed. Certainly, had Labour been confronted by evaporating growth it may have had to choose even lower spending or even higher borrowing.