Uk politics

Thursday

Jonathan Jones

Breaking down those record immigration figures

From our UK edition

New immigration stats out today show that 2010 set a new record for net migration into the UK. The figure hit 252,000 – a 27 per cent increase on 2009 and 7,000 higher than the previous record in 2004:   As this graph shows, the number of immigrants moving to the UK has actually been fairly constant – at around 580,000 – since 2004 (when the 'accession eight' countries in eastern Europe joined the EU). But the number of people leaving the country has dropped off significantly in the past couple of years – from 427,000 in 2008 to 339,000 last year, hence the increase in net migration. So, as Gillian Duffy might ask, where are they flocking from? Here's where the 591,000 people who migrated to the UK last year came from: And why do they come?

James Forsyth

Miliband’s opportunity in the economic debate

From our UK edition

Political debate is going to be dominated by the economy between now and the autumn statement. Ed Miliband is trying to use this moment to persuade the public that the Coalition's economic policies have failed. By contrast, the Tories want to highlight how much deeper trouble the country would be in if it did not have the confidence of the bond markets. The Tories hope that this 'stay close to nurse for fear of something worse' approach will eventually deliver an election victory for them in 2015, given how hard Labour is finding it to regain credibility on the economy. As Ben Brogan wrote the other day, this strategy worked for them in 1992 — the campaign on which both Cameron and Hilton cut their political teeth.

Jonathan Jones

From the archives: ‘Britain is no longer racist’

From our UK edition

In Brixton this morning, Nick Clegg delivered a speech on race equality. He said 'There is another front in the war on race inequality that is too often neglected: economic opportunity... It simply cannot be right that that we still live in a society where, if you are from an ethnic minority, you face unfair hurdles when you strive for success.' As a counterpoint to the Deputy Prime Minister's remarks, here is Samir Shah's Spectator cover piece from 2009: Race is not an issue in the UK anymore, Samir Shah, 7 October 2009 I first arrived in this country from Bombay in January 1960. Harold Macmillan had yet to make his Winds of Change blowing through Africa speech. Coronation Street hadn’t appeared on our television screens.

Jonathan Jones

Cameron: ‘We have to end the sicknote culture’

From our UK edition

The Prime Minister has backed the proposal for a new independent service to sign workers' long-term sicknotes, instead of GPs. The plan, which Pete wrote about at the weekend, is aimed at ensuring that people on sick pay or sickness-related benefits really are too ill to work. Cameron describes how it would work in today's Mail: 'The independent service would be free to all employers from four weeks of sickness absence, with the option for employers to pay for it earlier. It would provide an in-depth assessment of an individual's physical and mental function. So if they're unable to work, they’ll be helped – but if they are fit, they'll be identified and supported back into the workplace.

Wednesday

Daniel Korski

Paying for justice

From our UK edition

To British ministers, the role that the International Criminal Court played over Libya was key – it made clear that Colonel Gaddafi's actions were unacceptable and would be subject to international law. Tory MP Dominic Raab even wrote a piece in The Times about the need for Libyans to rely on the ICC in The Hague, rather than seek retribution and revenge against Gaddafi and his loyalists. And it wasn't only the British government. German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi should be tried by the ICC: 'Gaddafi should have a trial according to the law, something he never did with his opponents,' Merkel said when asked by the weekly Bild am Sonntag whether she was in favour of such a trial.

Lloyd Evans

Ed looks more dead than deadly

From our UK edition

If Roman Abramovich owned the Labour party, Ed Miliband would be toast by now. The floundering opposition leader gave the sort of inept, predictable and ill-organised performance at PMQs that would get a manager sacked in the Premiership. It scarcely helps that Mr Miliband seems to prepare for these sessions like a deluded psychic. He and his team of prophets at Labour HQ clearly believe they can foretell what the prime minster will say and how best to smash his answers to pieces. Referring to the rise in unemployment, Mr Miliband began by attacking the PM for scrapping the Future Jobs Fund in March. He boasted, rather weirdly, that ‘under Labour, youth unemployment never reached 1 million.

James Forsyth

In PMQs, a preview of next week’s battles

From our UK edition

Today's PMQs was a preview of the debate we'll be having after next week's autumn statement. Miliband, struggling with a bit of a cold, tried to pin the economy's problems on Cameron. The Prime Minister's retort was 'who would want to put the people responsible for the current mess back in charge'. It was a simple message and one that carried him through the session. The other feature of today's joust was also a preview of next week: a tussle over the strikes. Cameron said strikes were the 'height of irresponsibility'. He also made sympathetic noises when Tory MPs asked about imposing minimum thresholds for strike ballots.

Daniel Korski

Opening Europe

From our UK edition

It is an article of British faith that further liberalisation of Europe's market is a worthwhile goal. But few people realise the boost the UK economy would actually get from the finalisation of the EU's internal market – especially implementation of the Services Directive, creating an integrated market for energy, modernising public procurement rules and liberalising the digital market. Implementation of the Services Directive alone would add 1.5 per cent of GDP to the EU as a whole in the next nine years, according to European Commission calculations. As the UK has one of the strongest services sectors, this will have direct benefits here.

James Forsyth

Huhne’s partner involved in lobbying row

From our UK edition

Another lobbying scandal has hit the coalition. The Times is reporting that Carina Trimingham, Chris Huhne’s partner, boasted of having ‘excellent contacts… from Cabinet members to more junior ministers’ to a lobbying firm she was seeking work with. She also allegedly urged this firm to ‘make use of my skills and contacts.’ Trimingham has told the paper that she will not take on any role that involves energy and climate change so there will be no conflict of interest. She also points out that having worked in politics for more than a decade Huhne is not her only contact. A spokesman for the Energy and Climate Change Secretary says that Trimingham has offered assurances that she won’t work in any area under his department.

Tuesday

David Blackburn

The dangers of ever-closer union

From our UK edition

Yesterday, Fraser wrote that 'reporting of European issues tends to ignore public opinion'. Today, Philip Stephens has neatly illustrated Fraser's point in his Financial Times column. Musing on Britain's possible exit from the European Union, Stephens writes: 'I am not sure this is what the prime minister intends; nor, when it comes to it, that British voters will accept such an outcome.' Stephens' conjecture ignores the European Union's own polling, which, as Fraser says, shows most Britons to be hostile to the EU. That said, Stephens' article is substantial. He argues that 'fiscal union carries its own remorseless logic: the progressive exclusion of Britain from Europe’s economic decision-making'.

Campbell Robb

The government’s housing policies don’t match its strong rhetoric

From our UK edition

Yesterday's housing strategy offered a mortgage guarantee for first-time buyers of new properties, one of the few new announcements in a document largely consisting of re-hashed policy. At best, the mortgage guarantee helps to provide a boost to house builders and welcome relief for some credit-worthy borrowers who simply can't build up a sufficient deposit. At worst, it encourages risky lending, subsidises high house prices and raises unrealistic expectations for young families. Unaffordable, reckless lending (at least, up until the credit crunch and collapse of the sub-prime market) threatened the stability of the financial sector and caused misery to thousands of homeowners who later found themselves falling behind on payments and threatened with eviction.

Fraser Nelson

Osborne chooses more debt over more cuts

From our UK edition

Reading today's newspapers, it seems that the biggest decision of Osborne's mini-Budget has already been made. Evaporating growth means lower tax revenues, so the choice is between protecting his deficit reduction plan or keeping total spending cuts at less than 1 per cent a year. Increasing savings to, say, 1.3 per cent a year would mean he could easily meet his deficit targets. But it seems the decision has been taken to borrow even more. In his March budget, Osborne laid out plans to increase government debt by 51 per cent over the course of a parliament – lower than the 60 per cent that Labour had planned. It now looks as if Osborne will increase debt by even more than that 51 per cent.

James Forsyth

Party funding reforms won’t happen

From our UK edition

The recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life's review into party funding are not going to happen. Both the Labour and Tory members of the review have issued notes of dissent to it. Nick Clegg has, on behalf of the government, issued a statement gently rolling the report into the long grass. Interestingly, the Tory party - which was for a while attracted to additional state funding - has now ruled it out completely. Unlike Clegg's statement saying it shouldn't be done while economic times are so tough, the Tory rejection of it is not time limited. One other thing worth noting is that Labour, via Margaret Beckett's dissent, has not set itself against trade union members having to opt in to pay the political levy.

Monday

James Forsyth

There’s merit in the Coalition’s housing proposals

From our UK edition

The government's announcement on housing today is an attempt to square the circle. On the one hand, a return to excessive lending and sub-prime mortgages is clearly not a good thing. Critics say, with justification, look where government backed mortgages got America. But on the other, there are clearly problems when people who aren't fortunate enough to have parental help aren't getting on the housing ladder until well into their thirties. Conservatives who understand the importance of a property-owning democracy should be concerned about this. The Coalition's solution — and this is the most genuinely coalition piece of policy we've seen in months — is partial government indemnities for people taking out 95 per cent mortgages on new build properties.

Peter Hoskin

Talkin’ ’bout long-term stagnation

From our UK edition

Politics is often a messy squiggle, but this morning's Resolution Foundation event did much to reduce it to a binary choice. Do we follow the US into a decades-long stagnancy around low-to-middle-income earners? Or do we not? James Plunkett explained the basic dilemma on Coffee House earlier, but more was said by a group of panellists which included Jared Bernstein, Martin Wolf, Steve Machin and Lane Kenworthy. Here, for the saddest CoffeeHousers, are eight points that I've distilled from my notes. This is more reportage than opinion, but I thought you might care to applaud or eviscerate some of the arguments that were put forward: 1) The UK triumphant. Or not quite — but at least we've outpaced the US on most measures of income growth for low-to-middle earners.

Fraser Nelson

How ambitious is Cameron on Europe?

From our UK edition

Someone forgot to pack his handbag. We heard yesterday that David Cameron has agreed to let Merkel pursue full fiscal union – and in return she will... drum roll please... let him repatriate parts of the Working Time Directive. There's nothing official from Number 10, but the well-informed Ben Brogan suggests this morning that this could well be Britain's price for agreeing to Merkel's deal. If so, this would be an opportunity squandered on a massive – perhaps historic – scale. Let's recap. Cameron is in an incredibly powerful position: leading a government which is, in defiance of public opinion, giving £9 billion of overseas aid to EU member states each year.

Hamish Macdonell

The SNP hit the jackpot

From our UK edition

Some political leaders might be a bit hesitant when it comes to approaching lottery winners in the hope of securing some of their dosh for the party cause – but not Alex Salmond. Back in July this year, when it emerged that a couple in Ayrshire – Colin and Chris Weir – had scooped a record £161 million on the EuroMillions, Scotland's First Minister reacted with astonishing speed. Within days Mr Salmond had written a letter to the couple congratulating them on their success and adding: 'When I heard the fantastic news that a Scot had landed the EuroMillions jackpot, I did wonder if this was the same Colin Weir who helped produce SNP party political broadcasts for a young party publicity vice-convener all those years ago.

James Forsyth

The government’s airport conundrum

From our UK edition

There is a growing acceptance in government that the South East needs more airport capacity. But, as today's Times outlines, there's nowhere near agreement on how best to achieve this. The big problem with a new airport on the Kent coast or 'Boris Island' is that the Dutch would not be prepared to open up the necessary air space. They control most of the air above the North Sea under international treaty because of Schiphol airport. I understand that feelers put out to the Dutch on this matter have been rebuffed. Another option is Heathwick. The idea is that an extra runway is built at Gatwick and then the two airports are joined together by a high-speed rail line. Initial work suggests that journey time between the two airports would be just 15 minutes.

James Plunkett

Are we facing an American nightmare?

From our UK edition

With the Chancellor’s autumn statement due next Tuesday, we're all talking about growth. The ECB and Bank of England now say the UK economy is set to grow at less than half the rate the OBR forecast back in March. That makes it all but certain that George Osborne will announce dramatic downward revisions to UK forecasts when he stands up in parliament next week. But before all the fighting about Plan As and Bs reaches fever pitch, it’s worth asking what the next decade looked like under the previous, more optimistic growth projections. The answer isn’t pretty and it helps highlight one major question that’s rarely asked in our debate about GDP: what kind of growth are we after? The chart below neatly sums up the problem.

Sunday

James Forsyth

The vote in Spain

From our UK edition

The expected triumph of the centre-right Popular Party in today’s Spanish elections promises to have some interesting consequences for British politics. The PP have been in close touch with the Tories here and plan to introduce an emergency budget based on the Osborne model: a clear deficit reduction plan combined with an increase in the retirement age. They hope that this will reduce the ever-upwards pressure on Spanish bond yields. Certainly, if the PP approach does succeed in gaining Spain credibility with the bond markets, it will bolster the coalition’s arguments about the importance of sticking to Plan A.