Uk politics

The toughening-up effort continued with David Cameron's press conference just now. There he was, at the prime ministerial lectern, not just announcing a stricter sentencing system than Ken Clarke broached a few weeks ago, but explaining why the government's change of mind was actually "a sign of strength". Out are the 50 per cent sentence reductions for those who plead guilty early. In is a commtiment to jail those caught using a knife threateningly, as well as a bundle of tougher measures all round. "Being strong is about being prepared to admit that you didn't get everything right the first time around," said Mr Cameron, again and again.

The government’s u-turn on sentencing reveals something quite important about the Lib Dems' approach to coalition. Despite having backed Ken Clarke in private, they have stayed as far away as possible from the issue in public.   The Liberal Democrats were determined not to put themselves on the wrong side of the public on this issue, to end up copping the blame for ‘soft sentencing’. As one senior Liberal Democrat said to me recently, "we’re determined not to walk into any bear pits. If there is a big flashing neon sign above something saying ‘Tory trap’, we’ve got to be disciplined enough not to fall into it.

Toughness, or at least the appearance of it, is clearly the theme of the week on Downing Street. After the vacillations over NHS reform, David Cameron seems to be going out of his way to sound that little bit more hard. There's the headline on the front of today's Times, for instance: "Cameron to Europe: not one penny more." And there was the PM's claim, yesterday, that a Tory majority government would be "tougher" on immigration and welfare. Even the recent hyperactivity of Michael Gove is, I'm sure, all part of the plan, given that schools reform is broadly one of the areas where the government will (probably) never apologise, never surrender. But the new hardline isn't just a straight one, oh no.

Michael Gove is giving a big speech tomorrow on free schools amid evidence that the policy is beginning to gather momentum. The papers report today that there have been 281 applications to set up free schools in the round that closed this month alone (sentence updated).   One of the best known of these planned free schools is the one being set up Tony Blair’s former strategist Peter Hyman. Ever since The Spectator revealed back in May that Hyman was planning to take advantage of the Tories’ reforms to start his own school, there’s been considerable interest in what Hyman is up to. In today’s Sunday Times he eloquently defends his project, arguing that free schools are just the logical continuation of Blair’s education reforms.

Quite some claim from Ed Balls, writing in the Sunday Mirror today. "Let's be clear what George Osborne's game is," he blusters, "he's trying to pick a fight about pensions, provoke strikes and persuade the public to blame the stalling economy on the unions." And it is a charge that Andy Burnham repeated on Dermot Murnaghan's Sky show earlier. I was on live-tweeting duty, and lost count of how many times the shadow education secretary used phrases such as "provocation," "confrontation," "playing politics," and "back to the 1980s." This, clearly, is an attack that Labour are determined to push as relentlessly as possible. George Osborne is politicking, they are saying, at the nation's expense. It is, at the very least, an intriguing gambit on Labour's part.

It’s Fathers’ Day today — and David Cameron is marking it with an extraordinary attack on those dads who are AWOL. It comes in one paragaph of an otherwise excellent and moving piece for the Sunday Telegraph (albeit one that downplays the role of the taxman), in which he says that men leaving their family is "beyond the pale"; that such fathers should feel the "full force" of society; and goes as far as comparing them to drunk drivers. This is a brave move — in the Sir Humphry sense of the word — for three reasons. 1. Britain has more absent fathers than any country in the EU. That’s numerically: as a proportion, only in Estonia do single mothers compose a larger chunk of the electorate. Perhaps Cameron is appealing to single mothers here.

After stating the obvious at PMQs this week — that the Falklands would remain sovereign British territory as long as they want to be — David Cameron has come under heavy fire from the Argentine President, Cristina Kirchner. As today's papers report, she yesterday described our PM as "arrogant," and said his comments were an "expression of mediocrity and almost of stupidity". But there is nothing new in the British position, which has always been that there can be no negotiations over sovereignty unless and until such a time as the Falkland Islanders so wish.

My gosh, Michael Gove is hyperactive at the moment. From his interview with James in the latest issue of the Spectator, to his recent announcements about failing primary schools and secondary school standards, this is a man who just cannot stop. So stop he doesn't. The Secretary of State for education is delivering yet another speech on Monday. And he has another interview (£), with Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson, in today's Times. The Times interview, if you can vault across the paywall, is a worthwhile read.