Uk politics

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Cameron tries to turn Miliband’s microscope off

From our UK edition

Having been stumped by Miliband’s focus on detail in the past two PMQs, Cameron came prepared today. He was determined to highlight the fact that the Labour leader wasn’t asking about the big picture. So after Miliband had asked a series of questions about the nuts and bolts of NHS reforms, Cameron used his final answer to launch into Miliband. ‘He can’t ask about strikes because he is in the pockets of the union’, he started. He rattled off a series of other great issues of the day on which Miliband was silent, building up towards his conclusion with the line‘ he has to talk about the micro because he can’t talk about the macro.’ Then, the Speaker cut the Prime Minister off.

Peter Hoskin

Gove gets mathematical

From our UK edition

Go go Gove, still trying to pack in the initiatives before summer recess. The focus today is on maths and the sciences, where the Education Secretary feels our students are falling behind. In a speech earlier, he set out a number of measures to help ameliorate the situation, including adding his name to City AM's appeal for bankers to donate to the Further Maths Support Programme charity. But, really, it was his more general remarks that caught the ear. He emphasised, for instance, the growing gap between us and the Asian nations: "At school, British 15-year-olds’ maths skills are now more than two whole academic years behind 15-year-olds in China.

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Lagarde’s appointment is a win for Osborne

From our UK edition

The appointment of Christine Lagarde as head of the IMF is a diplomatic victory for George Osborne. The Chancellor was one of her earliest supporters, was the first to nominate her and hit the phones hard on her behalf. She will be a useful ally for Osborne in this position especially given how choppy the global economic waters remain. But the UK government also used the IMF nomination process to do some diplomatic horse-trading. The government made it clear that UK support for Lagarde was contingent on Paris agreeing that Britain should have to play no part in the coming bailout of Greece. There will be those who argue that it is not ideal to have the head of the IMF come from a euro-zone country.

David Blackburn

Miliband keen to relieve the squeezed middle from Thursday’s strikes

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband is learning. He has written a blog on Thursday’s strikes and it is plain that he has learnt from the errors he made during the March against the Cuts by associating himself with militancy. First, he places himself firmly on the side of parents who will be inconvenienced by Thursday’s strikes: “The Labour Party I lead will always be the party of the parent trying to get their children to school, the mother and father who know the value of a day’s education.” Miliband gives the unions and their members pretty short-shrift to be honest. He writes: “I understand why teachers are so angry with the government.

James Forsyth

The government’s soft touch on the unions may need to tighten

From our UK edition

The government is determined not to seem like the aggressor in the coming dispute with the unions. It wants to stress that it is being reasonable and David Cameron’s speech today to the Local Government Association will be a classic example of this strategy. At the same time, it is trying to put in place contingency plans so the country can carry on regardless of industrial action. Those close to the coalition’s negotiating team point to how a well developed plan to use the army in place of striking prison officers deterred the Prison Officers Association from taking industrial action over the ‘privatisation’ of a prison.

Monday

James Forsyth

Strike Thursday nears

From our UK edition

After the failure of today’s meeting between union leaders and Francis Maude and Danny Alexander, Thursday’s strike now seems certain to go ahead. It’ll be the biggest test so far of the coalition’s ability to withstand industrial action. The coalition has constantly emphasised that it has contingency plans in place to deal with strikes. This Thursday will show us how good these plans are. Certainly, the more schools that are kept open, the less powerful the bargaining position of the unions will be. I understand that David Cameron will use his speech to the Local Government Association tomorrow to emphasise that the deal that the government is proposing on public sector pensions is reasonable and fair.

Daniel Korski

Looking behind the negative aid polls

From our UK edition

There are, as the old adage goes, "lies, damned lies and statistics". I'm beginning to think the same about polls. Take the polls that Britons are not as keen on overseas aid as the Prime Minister. Some of the headlines attached to them are prone to exaggeration. For example, on the back of the poll, the Mail claimed that "one in four people say they will no longer give money to charities such as Oxfam and Save the Children." People may say that but they don't seem to mean it. For it turns out that the British public has actually increased its giving to Save the Children by nearly 10 per cent in the last year. And earlier this year, the public gave over £100 million to the Comic Relief Red Nose Day appeal – the largest sum raised to date.

James Forsyth

Britain’s future economic challenge

From our UK edition

Wen Jibao’s performance at today’s press conference was typically diplomatic. He declined to say that the UK was going too far in Libya and was emollient on the question of human rights. But his honeyed words can’t obscure the true nature of the Chinese regime. But Wen Jibao’s presence here was also a reminder that the economic competition Britain is going to face in the future is going to come increasingly from the east. If Britain is going to thrive in this world, then it is going to have to produce a huge amount of intellectual property. It is in this context, that Michael Gove’s educational reforms should be seen.

David Blackburn

Gove turns on the education establishment

From our UK edition

Michael Gove is tenacious. With strikes set to close one in four schools on Thursday, Gove has launched a direct assault on the left-wing teaching unions. In a consultation published today, Gove has announced that exceptional graduates in maths and science will be paid bursaries of up to £20,000 to undertake teaching training. He also indicates that responsibility for teacher training will shift from universities to schools; teachers will predominantly learn on the job, as they do under the successful Teach First scheme. Also, ministers will attempt to close failing training courses, which they see as the cause of extraordinary levels of wastage.

David Blackburn

Whitehall’s monolith faces reform

From our UK edition

The Ministry of Defence is one of Whitehall’s largest and most dysfunctional departments; and it has long resisted effective reform. However, the parlous public finances dictate that reform take place. 8 per cent Budget cuts have to be delivered, while attempting to bring a £36bn black hole under control. Strategic retrenchment aside, efficiency is Liam Fox’s most potent weapon. To that end, Lord Levene has conducted an examination into departmental structures. Levene reports that the MoD’s maze of committees and sub-committees should be ripped-up to improve decision making and save money (and perhaps one of the ministry's five ministers of state). 'Sound financial management,' he says 'must be at the heart of what the MoD does.

Sunday

David Blackburn

Badgering Spelman

From our UK edition

The stars must be crossed for Caroline Spelman. First came the forests, then the bin collection fiasco, then the circus animals and now the FT’s Jim Pickard has news that the Cabinet will meet in mid-July to discuss whether to start a badger cull in the south-west. Badgers are one of those perennial issues of contention. As Pickard says: ‘It’s one of those classic issues where both sides have a highly convincing argument. The farmers (who have, I’m told, offered to underwrite the killing) believe that badgers have caused bovine TB among cattle herds and are pushing hard for the cull. But the animal welfare people want vaccination instead.

David Blackburn

Clarke’s bill still not tough enough for the Right

From our UK edition

David Cameron made a great show on Tuesday of pledging to be tough on crime. He bowdlerised the most contentious and liberal elements of Ken Clarke’s proposals and vowed that "the right thing to do is to reform prison and make it work better, not cut sentences."  He insisted that his change of heart was a sign of strength, but even the least cynical observer could detect a sop to the mutinous Tory right. Well, it seems that the withdrawal has not gone far enough. The Sunday Times reports (£) that several backbenchers object to the redrafted Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, on grounds that manifesto pledges have been broken. For example, bail while awaiting trial or sentence will count towards the total jail term for the first time.

Daniel Korski

In the firing line | 26 June 2011

From our UK edition

Talk about an own goal. Whatever Air Chief Marshall Sir Simon Bryant thought he was achieving when he told MPs that the RAF were "running hot" because of the Libya intervention, the result has been to fuel the debate about the appropriate role of military officers in the public debate – and, in the latest instalment of the debate, if the current military leadership is actually up to the job. It is an important question – nothing should be taboo in a democracy and since Britain has none of the parliamentary oversight that the US congress has over military leaders, this debate is an important form of scrutiny. In my experience in Basra and Kabul, many of our military leaders must take part of the blame for Britain’s failure.

David Blackburn

How will the government respond to Thursday’s strikes?

From our UK edition

Activity in Whitehall becomes more fevered as the day itself approaches. Michael Gove wants to see off the NUT with as little bloodshed as possible, honouring David Cameron’s decree that ministers tread softly. To that end, he has already written to headmasters urging them to keep calm and carry on. And this morning, news emerges that Gove is asking parents and retired teachers who have passed CRB checks to fill in on Thursday to ensure that children have a constructive day at school. The Department of Education has not yet approached former members of the flagship Teach First scheme to return to school for a day; it’s probably too late to do so on this occasion, but doubtless there will be others.

Saturday

David Blackburn

Immigration is so much more than an electoral issue

From our UK edition

Further to Daniel’s piece about declining immigration in Europe, it is worth highlighting this passage from Iain Martin’s column in the Mail: ‘But once in Downing Street, Cameron was confronted by research from his personal pollster, Andrew Cooper, which confirmed the true extent of public concern about high levels of immigration. Ironically, Cooper was one of the very modernisers in the Tory Party who did not want Cameron to be tainted — as he saw it — by being seen as tough on immigration in the run-up to the election. But now he has changed his tune — and taken the Prime Minister along with him.

Daniel Korski

How many refugees are actually coming to Europe?

From our UK edition

A human wave of refugees is supposedly setting off for Europe from North Africa. But what are the real figures? The first thing to note that refugees from North Africa come at a time when there has been a sharp decrease in the number of asylum applicants in the 27 EU member-states. Eurostat says that in 1992 there were 670,000 applications in the EU-15 and in 2001 there were 424,500 applications in the expanded EU-27. But according to the UN, the 27 EU member-states registered only 247,300 asylum claims in 2009 and 235,900 in 2010, a 5 per cent annual decrease.

James Forsyth

A reshuffle of the whips office?

From our UK edition

It is tempting to treat the whole circus animal affair in the Commons this week as just a big joke, the Palace of Westminster turned into the Palace of Varieties. Certainly, the sight of MPs vigorously arguing about the fate of four circus geese had a certain black comedy to it. But there might be at least one serious consequence of the vote, a reshuffle of the whips office. In Tory circles, there is a lot of chatter about a damning assessment of the state of the whips’ office penned by former Tory MP Paul Goodman for the Conservative Intelligence website, an offshoot of ConservativeHome. In it, Goodman writes about the future of the current number three in the whips’ office, Michael Fabricant.

David Blackburn

Miliband: We can’t go on like this

From our UK edition

It’s odd how political leaders often address their parties in the clichéd terms of soap operas’ most tortured romances. Ed Miliband pre-trailed speech to the Labour’s National Policy Forum in Wrexham is replete with protestations of having grown apart and the need to listen and be more open with each other. “We cannot continue as we are,” he implores. But there is some substance to Miliband’s rhetoric of reconnection. He has already announced his intention to appoint his own shadow cabinet, which caused some consternation among Labour’s more reactionary elements.

Fraser Nelson

Tax versus philanthropy 

From our UK edition

I was on the panel of Any Questions last night in Saltaire, the most beautiful town I’ve seen outside of the Highlands. Jonathan Dimbleby always warms everyone up with a test question, which lets the panelists make their mistakes early. The first question was this: the town of Saltaire was founded by a philanthropist, Sir Titus Salt. What can be done to make today’s rich pay their fair share? Lucky for me that it was not recorded, because I went on for ages. Sir Titus was living in an era before the welfare state, where welfare was provided voluntarily, by people in the community. Had he been alive today, the government would be confiscating 52 per cent of what he earned – thanks to George Osborne’s recently increased tax.

Friday

Dominique Lazanski

How to regulate the Internet?

From our UK edition

This week, the Open Rights Group launched a campaign against the proposed website blocking scheme between copyright holders and Internet Service Providers.  The campaign was launched on the back of a leaked document suggesting that a voluntary code for industry website blocking be introduced. The document was presented to Ed Vaizey, the relevant minister. Vaizey meets regularly with internet stakeholders to debate digital issues, including net neutrality, parental controls, and, of course, web blocking. These meetings are a vast improvement over the last government, which made technology policy decisions behind closed doors without much – if any – input from outsiders.