Uk politics

Monday

James Forsyth

Osborne’s big step

From our UK edition

As George Osborne was addressing Tory conference, Standard and Poor reaffirmed Britain’s triple A rating. For the Osborne team, it sent out the perfect message — their deficit strategy is keeping the nation creditworthy. It was their piece of conference theatre for this year. The Chancellor’s address was a sombre affair. But, in some ways, it was his most impressive conference performance. It was a classic Osborne blend of politics and economics, but distinguished by a clear and precise analysis of why the economy was not recovering. Osborne’s big policy announcement was that the Treasury was now exploring credit easing.

David Blackburn

Full text of Osborne’s conference speech

From our UK edition

Today, all around our country – indeed, all around the world – people are anxious, worried about their jobs, their families, how they’re going to pay the bills.   I come to you with words of resolve, determination, confidence and belief.   Belief that the British people will overcome this challenge as we have overcome so many before.   Together, we will ride out the storm.     I don’t want anyone to underestimate the gravity of the situation facing the world economy.   But I also don’t want anyone to think that the situation is hopeless; that there is nothing we can do.   Yes the difficulties are great.   But we should be careful not to talk ourselves into something worse.

David Blackburn

Osborne, the caring chancellor

From our UK edition

George Osborne is pursuing the Tesco strategy: every little helps. In his conference speech today, he will announce that he has found £805 million to freeze council tax next year, which will save taxpayers £72. Not a lot, you might think – and that’s Labour’s view – but the chancellor is adamant that he won’t “stand on the sidelines” while living standards contract. Substantial tax cuts have been ruled out by Osborne, but he is expected to make further announcements on benefits. Last week, it was rumoured that he would reverse changes to child benefit for a parent who earned around £42,000 per year.

Sunday

James Forsyth

Willetts tackles the three Ds

From our UK edition

How the Conservatives should respond to “disorder, debt, and distrust” is the theme of David Willetts’ speech to the Conservative Policy Forum. Willetts, one of the most cerebral Conservative ministers, argues that the riots, the deficit and the anti-politics mood have come together to create a triple-challenge for the party. But Willetts’ speech is also the Tory response to Ed Miliband’s charge that they are breaking the promise of Britain: the idea that each generation does better than the next. Willetts, who has written a book on the subject, accepts that fairness between the generations is the biggest challenge in politics right now.

James Forsyth

Hague does his leader’s bidding

From our UK edition

William Hague’s speech to conference today wasn’t the barn-burner of years past. It did include some jabs at Balls and Miliband. Hague joked that “their shadow Chancellor was Gordon Brown’s right hand man. And their leader was right hand man to the right hand man.”  But the overall tone was serious. Politically, two things struck me as significant about the speech. First, Hague showed how determined the Tories are to play the Cameron card. The speech ended with a long tribute to the Prime Minister which called him “the leader for a better future”. The Tories are convinced that of the three party leaders, Cameron is the only one who strikes the country as a plausible PM.

Fraser Nelson

Is the health budget falling or not?

From our UK edition

Before the election, the Conservatives promised they'd "protect" the NHS, which they defined as increasing its real-terms budget year-on-year. This is a rather dangerous promise because it makes ministers hostage to inflation. Now that inflation has surged, expectations have been revised upwards, and it looks like the NHS budget will suffer a real-terms cut. In its monthly update of City consensus forecasts, the Treasury has released new figures for inflation over the next five years.Apply the latest inflation figures to health spending in the last budget and it implies a £1bn shortfall . The graph below shows the change over five years: Back in March, the IFS said that the government was in danger of breaking that pledge.

Fraser Nelson

Any questions for IDS?

From our UK edition

At 6pm this evening, I'm interviewing Iain Duncan Smith at a Conservative Party conference fringe meeting. He is fighting a war on at least three fronts: the welfare-to-work programme, the creation of his Universal Credit (ie, rewriting the benefits system), and producing a government response to the riots and the conditions behind them. I may put questions to him from CoffeeHousers, so if you have any please leave them below. IDS is surprisingly candid for a Cabinet member, perhaps because he wants this to be his last job in government. He isn't watching his words, worried that he'll say something to damage his promotion chances.

James Forsyth

Cameron’s tricky interview

From our UK edition

In a surprisingly testy interview on the Andrew Marr show, David Cameron defended the government’s approach to Europe, the economy and planning. But before the interview really got going, Cameron had to reiterate his Sunday Times’ apology (£) to women for the patronising comments he has made in the Commons chamber. This is hardly an ideal start to conference for a party leader who is struggling to maintain female support. On the Eurozone, Cameron was blunt that its problems were a threat to “the British economy and the world economy”. He also risked a clash with Nicolas Sarkozy by demanding that “action needs to be taken in the coming weeks to strengthen Europe’s banks”.

David Blackburn

Hague: No deficit funded tax cuts

From our UK edition

William Hague’s just been on Dermot Murnaghan’s Sky show. They shot the breeze for a bit, gabbing about foreign affairs and the recent targeted assassinations on Taliban and al Qaeda leaders, then the conversation moved on to tax cuts as an economic stimulus. Hague laughed off the suggestion, saying that the US is in its current crisis because for years it has concentrated on offering tax cuts rather than controlling its deficits. Britain will not make that mistake, he said. ‘No deficit funded tax cuts’ was a line first pursued by David Cameron ten days ago in a speech to the Canadian parliament (although, as Fraser has noted, it has its roots in the 2005 leadership contest and Oliver Letwin’s opposition to “unfunded tax cuts”).

David Blackburn

Gabbing about growth

From our UK edition

Growth is the word on Tory lips at present. David Cameron responded to Andrew Tyrie’s criticism when he arrived in Manchester yesterday evening, saying that the government has “an incredibly active growth strategy”. And there has been some ‘action on growth’ in the last 24 hours. The right-to-buy is being resuscitated. And the coalition has announced that it will release thousands of acres of publicly owned land to build 100,000 houses and support 200,000 jobs by 2015. The plan will be paid for by selling houses later down the line; the government hopes that the taxpayer will make a profit under this scheme. This reform might stoke the already over-heated fire between the government and the National Trust over planning reforms.

Saturday

Jonathan Jones

Briefing: QE2

From our UK edition

Get ready for more Quantitative Easing. This week, Reuters found that economists think there's a 40 per cent chance the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will announce another round when they meet on Thursday. And even if they hold off now, it's unlikely to be for long. Weak growth and the worsening outlook for the economy seem to have changed minds. The Treasury has surveyed growth predictions from independent forecasters. Back in January, the average prediction was for 2 per cent growth in 2011. It has since fallen steadily to just 1.2 per cent. Similarly, expectations for 2012 have also been downgraded, from the 2.1 per cent growth expected in June to 1.8 per cent now.

Fraser Nelson

Osborne and tax cuts

From our UK edition

“Top Conservative despairs of Cameron growth plan,” says The Times’ front page today. While The Daily Telegraph’s reads: “No tax cuts before the next election, says Osborne”. The two stories are related. British economic growth is evaporating, and more than a few Tory MPs are worried that the Chancellor doesn’t have a coherent growth strategy and that he doesn’t seem to care. Osborne’s cheery interview with Robert Winnett and Ben Brogan will do nothing to allay such fears. He repeats his position on tax cuts: that, while desirable, they are likedessert once the nation has eaten its main course of cuts and tax rises. He appears to rule out using tax cuts as a tool to stimulate growth.

James Forsyth

Alan Duncan predicts partial Greek default

From our UK edition

On Any Questions, Alan Duncan—a minister of state at the Department to International Development and a longstanding ally of the Foreign Secretary William Hague—has just predicted a partial Greek default. He told the programme that ‘I guess what’s going to happen is there will be a partial default and some kind of agreement’. There have long been rumours in Westminster that the British government’s position was now to—in private—push for an orderly default. Indeed, George Osborne’s comment in his Telegraph interview today that the eurozone “need to end this endless speculation about Greece — they have got to come to a decision and stick to it” implied that.

David Blackburn

Tyrie’s blast spices up pre-conference

From our UK edition

Treasury Committee Chairman, Andrew Tyrie, has shaken the nascent Tory conference with a coruscating statement about the government’s growth plan and general legislative programme. He writes, in a detailed policy document for the Centre for Policy Studies that is political in its emphasis as much as it is economic: ‘There is much to do, and it is not just a question of gaps in policy. A coherent and credible plan for the long-term economic growth rate of the UK economy is needed.

David Blackburn

Lansley’s trials

From our UK edition

Andrew Lansley will arrive in Manchester having been chased up the M6 by a flurry of negative stories about his NHS reforms. The Guardian has gone to town on the news that the Lords Health Committee has expressed concern about Lansley’s plan. Their reservations stem from Shirley Williams’ concerns about the diminished role of the secretary of state; she worries that this will dilute accountability over the health service, which she views as unacceptable given the vast sums of money the secretary of state controls. The Lords will debate these matters later this month and amendments are expected to be tabled. Elsewhere, the British Medical Association has also fired another salvo at Lansley, calling for the Bill to be scrapped.

James Plunkett

A reform the Tories should shout about

From our UK edition

As of today, you can’t fire someone just for turning 65. The government has delivered its promise to scrap the Default Retirement Age (DRA), introduced by Labour in 2006 as a caveat to otherwise laudable equality legislation. This ends the practice of forced retirement regardless of someone’s ability to work. Killing it is one of the best things the coalition has done and the Tories should be making more of as they gather in Manchester. Of course, there will be some transition difficulties from scrapping (DRA), but they’re likely to be minor. Claims that older workers sticking around in their jobs will squeeze out the young are too simplistic – our jobs market isn’t ‘one in, one out’.

Friday

David Blackburn

Osborne mulling child benefit u-turn

From our UK edition

Eric Pickles makes no bones that his bin policy is aimed at Middle Britain, and the Tories may soon announce more measures to butter up that vital electoral constituency. The Times reports (£) that Cameron and Osborne are seriously considering a u-turn on their controversial cut to child benefits over families in which parent earns more than £42,475, which is due to be introduced in January 2013. George Osborne apparently never does anything unless it yields a political dividend and this is an intriguing development, if it materialises. It reiterates that the Tories know they have a woman problem; identified by Melanie McDonagh in a magazine cover piece earlier this summer.

Fraser Nelson

Ed Miliband, closet Glee fan?

From our UK edition

  What to make of Ed Miliband’s disclosure yesterday that Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ is his favourite song? Ben Brogan smells a rat: “If he's a Journey fan, then I'm a football expert”. But here’s the thing: you don’t have to be a Journey fan to like Don’t Stop Believin’. You just need to be a fan of Glee. For the uninitiated, Glee is an American musical TV series about (impossibly glamorous) nerds in an Ohio high school, who join an after-school music club and are intensely bullied by the cool, sporty kids in the school. But they stick to what they believe in, overcoming the bullies. Don’t Stop Believin’ (here) is the anthem of the series: the first and arguably best Glee cover song.

David Blackburn

Tories pray for no more from Europe

From our UK edition

Tory strategists had hoped to keep Europe off the agenda at this year's party conference, but they seem to have failed already. The European Commission's threat about welfare claims has forced IDS into action. Ben Brogan reports that the work and pensions secretary was nothing short of visceral in his contempt for the "land grab", which will apparently cost £2.5 billion a year. But, IDS's rage is quiet compared to John Redwood's, who asks "Why won't he [William Hague] get on with renegotiating the UK position [in Europe]?" Next is the EU's Agency Workers Directive, which comes into force tomorrow.

David Blackburn

Eric’ll fix it

From our UK edition

The papers report that Eric Pickles has beaten Caroline Spelman: bins will be collected on a weekly basis. Back in June, James reported how the DCLG and DEFRA were opposed to Pickles’ plan and that Spelman, who once advocated weekly collections in Opposition, had gone Whitehall native. It was a test, James said, of the government’s ability to master its civil servants. Pickles was very closely associated with the pledge and the impasse threatened to damage his burgeoning reputation in office. Now he is gloating in his hour of victory. “I may make passing reference to the scheme in my speech,” he told the Today programme in that garrulous manner of his.