Uk politics

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Cameron battles it out

From our UK edition

David Cameron came out swinging today at PMQs. Knowing that Ed Miliband would try and exploit the Tory rebellion over Europe on Monday night, Cameron went for the Labour leader. He called him a "complete mug" and mocked him as being detached from reality. At the end of the exchange, Osborne gripped Cameron's shoulder in congratulation – a sign that the pair knew that they needed a strong performance today to calm their backbenches. The other notable aspect of PMQs was its emphasis on the new political battleground: women. The Labour MP Gloria Del Piero asked the PM why the government was more unpopular with women than men, which gave Cameron a chance to rattle off the government's female-friendly initiatives.

James Forsyth

Testing the Coalition’s commitment to growth

From our UK edition

The Beecroft report is an early test of the government’s willingness to put growth and jobs first. Replacing unfair dismissal with redundancy pay based on length on service would be a sensible step. The argument for it is two-fold. First, the more difficult it is to fire people, the more reluctant firms will be to hire people. Second, the current unfair dismissal culture not only makes firms reluctant to take people on but also swallows up a huge amount of time as firms try to jump through the legal hoops to avoid the threat of a legal challenge. Norman Lamb’s comments today that "to throw away employment protection for everyone would be madness" is being taken as ruling out Beecroft’s suggestion.

Peter Hoskin

Cable’s latest embarrassment

From our UK edition

"None of this will stop me talking out against tax avoidance." So says Vince Cable, rather hilariously, in response to being fined £500 for failing to pay £25,000 of VAT on his media work. You've got to hand it to the Business Secretary: it is an ingenious, if convoluted, way to top up the public finances. Although there are questions about whether other people would have got off quite so lightly.    You might say, as Vince's people are this morning, that this is the sort of mistake that can befall anyone — particularly someone so busy as a Cabinet minister. But this isn't just anyone. This is Vince Cable, who has staggered between embarrassment, inconsistency and insubordination ever since the coalition government was formed.

Tuesday

Jonathan Jones

Has the EU debacle hurt Cameron?

From our UK edition

Leaving aside Cameron's relationship with his own backbenchers for now, how has yesterday's vote affected the public's view of him? The first proper hint comes from today's YouGov poll (conducted on Sunday and yesterday), which asks respondents to rate the qualities of each of the party leaders. Among the public as a whole, there is no significant change in views of the Prime Minister since last month. But there is a change in what Conservatives think of him, and not in the direction Cameron would like. Now just 40 per cent of Tory voters think Cameron is honest, down from 53 per cent last a month ago. And a mere 19 per cent say he's "in touch with the concerns of ordinary people," down from 31 per cent.

Sam Gyimah-Mp

Why this is not the time for an EU referendum

From our UK edition

Having spent five hours in the debate last night, one thing was absolutely clear: we are all Eurosceptics now. So why did I choose to vote against the motion? It is because I believe that anger and frustration alone will not resolve our justifiable grievances towards the EU; we need a clear-eyed strategy to move forward.    We can all agree that Europe in its current form is not working for us. We have passed powers to Brussels at the cost of undermining the sovereignty of Parliament. Regulations that hinder our growth have not only been adopted but gold-plated, and with the Lisbon Treaty we are saddled with a constitution that no-one wanted and no-one voted for.

Ruth Porter

We need better schools, not more spending

From our UK edition

More money, better services? You might have thought that Gordon Brown had already tested that theory to destruction, but here it is again in the coverage of today's Institute for Fiscal Studies report on education and schools spending. The IFS highlights that education is facing the biggest cuts over a four year period since the 1950s. And the coalition's opponents are gleefully seizing on this as a problem in and of itself. But it isn't, really. As CoffeeHousers will know, education funding increased massively during the past decade. The IFS admit this themselves: “Over the decade between 1999–2000 and 2009–10, it grew by 5.1% per year in real terms, the fastest growth over any decade since the mid-1970s. As a result, it rose from 4.

James Forsyth

Cameron needs a new management style

From our UK edition

There seem to be three schools of thought among those close to the leadership about last night's rebellion. One even now maintains that the issue was handled as well as it could have been and blames the rebels for all the trouble. These people don't seem to realise that what they are saying is effectively that the Conservative parliamentary party is unmanageable. The second group says that the issue of Europe sends the Conservative party loopy. But they also concede that Number 10 got caught up in the madness too. The third lot are the ones who have grasped the significance of last night's events. Despite being loyalists, they are in no doubt about the need for Cameron to change his style of party management.

Peter Hoskin

The coalition bares its tensions over Europe

From our UK edition

Here's an irony: last night's EU fandango was the fifth largest vote in favour of the government this year. And yet there is little about the situation that is favourable to the government this morning, as the story moves on from Tory splits to coalition ones.  It started with Michael Gove's appearance on the Today Programme earlier. The Secretary of State for Education put in a much more conciliatory performance than William Hague managed yesterday; praising the "cordiality" of the Tory rebels, and reassuring them that the Tory leadership would like to see specific powers returned from Europe "in this Parliament".

Fraser Nelson

When will MPs wake up to Shale?

From our UK edition

It's just baffling. The House of Commons committee on energy has today published a report entitled “UK Energy Supply: Security or Independence?” with hardly a mention of the 200 trillion cubic feet of Shale gas recently found outside Blackpool. As Matt Ridley wrote recently in his definitive Spectator piece, these reserves – if exploited – are "enough to keep the entire British economy going for many decades. And it's just the first field to have been drilled." It may well be that just a fifth of this are exploitable, but there is no mention of this potentially game-changing discovery in the committee's report today.

Monday

James Forsyth

43 percent of Tory backbenchers vote for an EU referendum in defiance of David Cameron

From our UK edition

The scale of tonight’s rebellion is quite remarkable, 43 percent of Tory backbenchers have defied a three line whip—and we are only 18 months into the parliament. Indeed, if you factor in the abstentions more than half of Tory backbenchers rebelled. This should be a wake-up call to David Cameron. He needs to develop a proper policy for repatriating powers from Brussels, change his style of party management, and reform the Whips office.  This rebellion will encourage the hard-line Euro-sceptics to try again and again. They will reckon, rightly, that as the parliament goes on the number of potential rebels will grow.

James Forsyth

Europe Minister’s PPS quits over referendum vote

From our UK edition

Adam Holloway, PPS to the Europe Minister David Lidington, has just effectively quit his job by giving a speech setting out his intention to vote for the motion. That the Europe Minister’s PPS is walking over this issue is an embarrassment for the government and a sign of how strongly opinion on this issue is running. The most striking thing about William Hague’s speech was the near silence in which it was listened to on the Tory benches. When Hague mocked the motion, he didn’t draw laughs from even the most sycophantic backbenchers. Whatever happens tonight, this debate has widened divisions on the Tory side. There is a real danger that without urgent action, up to a third of the backbenches will become actively hostile to the Prime Minister.

John Rentoul

Another voice: Why Cameron had no choice but to fight

From our UK edition

Fraser performed a valuable service to the MPs currently debating a motion proposing a referendum on membership of the European Union by imagining what he thought David Cameron ought to have said: "Sure, guys, have your vote. It's a backbench motion, so the government won't take part and as you know I've booked a trip abroad next Thursday anyway so I won't be here. But I was serious when I said those petitions are a way to 'rebuild trust in politics'. If this reached the threshold I set — 100,000 votes — then I'm happy for this to be debated, with a free vote. If you ask me, it's an odd time to discuss a referendum. But hey, I run the government — not parliament. You guys work for your constituents, not for me. So go for it.

James Forsyth

Cameron’s warm up act

From our UK edition

David Cameron's statement on the European Council served as the warm up act for this afternoon's debate on the EU referendum motion. Cameron attempted to show his backbenchers that he is serious about bringing back powers from Brussels. He stressed that he had already prevented the transfer of further authority to the European Union without a referendum and that he "remained committed" to repatriating powers. In an attempt to flash a bit of leg to his own side, he said that when the debate about treaty change starts "every country can wield a veto until its needs are met." But Cameron remained vague about what powers he would like to see returned.

Fraser Nelson

Are Brits more likely to riot?

From our UK edition

One of the reasons I wanted an inquiry into the riots was to try to avoid headlines like today's. Information will out — what matters is how it's presented. The Daily Mail's front page today (followed up by its rivals) says that those imprisoned for the riots hail from 44 different countries. The most striking line comes from the story: "Prison statistics revealed that 14 per cent — about one in seven — of those jailed for burglary, robbery, theft, criminal damage and disorder during the riots were born abroad." So, 14 per cent of the imprisoned rioters were foreign-born. But given that 34 per cent of Londoners were born abroad, you could argue that — statistically — Brits were three times as likely to riot than immigrants.

James Forsyth

Whipping up a storm | 24 October 2011

From our UK edition

It looks like about a third of Tory backbenchers will rebel in tonight’s vote on an EU referendum. 18 months into government, this is a massive rebellion and one that should make the Prime Minister think again about his style of party management. Those in Number 10 who claim that many of the rebels will ‘never be happy’ are missing the point that, while there may be a hardcore of MPs keen to rebel, many more are reluctant rebels who feel they have been pushed into it by Cameron’s failure to engage with the party on the whole issue of Europe. One reluctant rebel said to me over the weekend: if you write anything about this please say that the whips office needs sorting out.

Fraser Nelson

Dave’s EU opportunity

From our UK edition

Lucky David Cameron. His chance to repatriate powers from the EU will come sooner than he thought. Now the latest EU summit is over, it looks as if there will indeed be change to the Lisbon Treaty — the very document that the Prime Minister and William Hague promised Britain a referendum on. Last night, Herman Van Rompuy said that EU leaders had promised to "explore the possibility of limited change" in the weekend talks. Germany since confirmed that provisions for "limited treaty change" were included in the conclusions. We all know what that means. Indeed, here are the Prime Minister’s words: "Treaty change can only happen if it is agreed by all the 27 member states of the European Union.

Peter Hoskin

Your scorecard for today’s EU referendum vote

From our UK edition

I hope you adjusted your calendars accordingly, CoffeeHousers. The parliamentary debate and vote on an EU referendum starts at 1600 today — and what morbid fun it promises to be too. Fresh from being bawled out by Nicolas Sarkozy at the weekend, David Cameron is returning to London to be bawled out by a significant proportion of his own party. And while the Tory leadership is certain to defeat David Nuttall's Eurosceptic motion, it will not avoid being wounded in the process. Most of the wounds have already been self-inflicted.

Sunday

Jonathan Jones

Gaddafi’s death boosts support for Libya intervention

From our UK edition

In August, I showed that the rebels' success in toppling Gaddafi's regime had boosted British support for the intervention in Libya – and David Cameron's handling of it. Unsurprisingly, this week's news appears to have done the same. Even though Gaddafi's death was not an explicit goal of the intervention, it seems to have been many people's definition of success. 62 per cent now say the military action is "going well", up sharply from 46 per cent last week: As a result, 45 per cent now support the decision to take military action, while only 31 per cent think it was wrong – the lowest opposition since the start of the conflict. And there can no be no doubt that Libya is seen as a personal success for David Cameron.

Fraser Nelson

Tory Wars, redux

From our UK edition

Even after reading Jonathan's post, I struggle to see the strategy in David Cameron's position with his party over Europe. The motion is non-binding, and Miliband has three-line-whipped his party to vote against so there was zero chance of the motion passing. It is the result of a petition to parliament, so you can't write this off as the idea of a few Tory MPs in the tearooms. Cameron should have said: "Sure, guys, have your vote. It's a backbench motion, so the government won't take part and as you know I've booked a trip abroad next Thursday anyway so I won't be here. But I was serious when I said those petitions are a way to "rebuild trust in politics".