Uk politics

Monday

Ed Howker

A question for Chris Huhne

You know a political campaign has gone terribly wrong when a Cabinet Minister threatens defamation proceedings against the Prime Minister. And that is precisely what happened this weekend, when Energy Secretary Chris Huhne began snarling in the Sunday papers. Stating that the Tory claim that the AV electoral system would cost more was “demonstrably untrue,” Huhne said: “It is frankly worrying if you have colleagues, who you have respected and who you have worked well with, who are making claims which have no foundation in truth whatsoever. If they don't come clean on this I am sure the law courts will.

Peter Hoskin

Will Cameron help Clegg for the coalition’s sake?

Politics has never really settled down since last year's general election — but it still seems especially convulsive at the moment. Only a few weeks ago, Clegg was caught on camera joking about his and Cameron's similarities. Only a few days ago, he was standing up, vigorously, for the coalition. Yet, now, both his rhetoric — and that of his party — has been dipped in acid and wielded against the Tories. And while there is some speculation about how much of the hostility is staged, and about which ministers actually mean it, the basic fact remains: the coalition is no longer a happy band, but increasingly a collection of rivals.

Sunday

David Blackburn

A campaign in the heartlands

The AV referendum: it’s enough to make you long for the life to come. As James notes, this Easter Sunday has been shaken by the Lib Dems' righteous fury over the conduct of the campaign. Many will think this anger synthetic, but its virulence is striking nonetheless. Gone, it seems, is the bonhomie of earlier days, when ministers were surprised by how amenable they found each other. Perhaps they will now put aside childish things and trust in their better judgement. The AV furore is beginning to relegate the local elections, which might concern the government because these elections are paramount to its reform of local government.

Hamish Macdonell

Local hero fears complacency as Labour disintegrates

The SNP have this morning been put a whopping 13 points above Labour in the Scottish Parliament race: on 45 percent and 46 percent of the vote in two separate polls. Given that they went into this election campaign somewhere around 35 percent, this represents a huge leap giving them a near-impregnable lead in the Holyrood race. And that's what's worrying them in SNP headquarters. Salmond's strategists, packed into a third-floor office suite behind the Scottish Parliament fear that – in the words of one senior Nationalist – “we have gone too early”. That Labour may now plausibly play the underdog card, and SNP votes may be inclined to stay at home thinking that it's in the bag.

James Forsyth

The coalition is shaken to its foundations as the Liberal Democrats rage at Cameron, Osborne and the Conservative party

The Liberal Democrats are mad as hell at their coalition partners—and don’t seem to care who knows it. Their fury has been caused by what they see as the roughhouse tactics of the No campaign and the Tories’ complicity in them. Chris Huhne’s letter to George Osborne has been written to make clear just how betrayed the Liberal Democrats’ feel by the actions of their coalition partners. Huhne writes, “I explicitly warned you that the manner of the AV campaign would be as important as the result, in terms of the effect on the coalition.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Clegg bites back

Judging from the front page of tomorrow’s Independent on Sunday, the coalition’s relationship troubles are escalating. The paper’s front page blares, “Clegg rages against Cameron ‘lies’”. Even accounting for the license headline writers takes, this shows just how fraught things are inside the coalition at the moment. The Liberal Democrats feel that the Tories have let the No campaign go too far in its’ attack on Clegg and so feel they are no longer bound to be respectful about their coalition partners. Vince Cable’s message in today’s Guardian sums up the sense of many Lib Dems that they’d rather be in coalition with Labour than the Tories.

David Blackburn

Dave doesn’t agree with Nick and he’s “very relaxed” about it

A row over internships has upset this unfeasibly perfect spring day. The Prime Minister has given an interview to the Telegraph in which he contradicts Nick Clegg’s view that internships should be open to more than "the Old Boys". He says: “I’ve got my neighbour coming in for an internship. In the modern world, of course you’re always going to have internships and interns — people who come and help in your office who come through all sorts of contacts, friendly, political, whatever. I do that and I’ll go on doing that. I feel very relaxed about it.” There is a split, but I suspect it’s a calculated one.

Daniel Korski

Eyes turn to Syria

The situation in Syria seems to be on a knife's edge. Perhaps 80 protesters were killed by security forces during massive demonstrations yesterday. Checkpoints have gone up around all major cities, including Aleppo, Homs and Hama and of course Damascus. A friend who has been visiting the country this week says the situation is "pretty tense with police all around and no one, I mean almost no one on the streets. Taxis are not operating and there are no buses between cities." The road south from Damascus to Deraa is heavily guarded to prevent the protesters moving from one city to the next. The key problem for Bashri al-Assad's regime is that the protests have now spread to the middle classes and the government is constantly one step behind.

David Blackburn

The changing face of Andy Burnham

Here’s a thing. What’s happened to Andy Burnham? The affable scouser's leadership manifesto had an appealing tone: the red background enlivened by a blue streak on law and order, aspiration and tax reform. But Burnham lost the race and since then he has been matching Ed Balls for bellicosity, opposing each of Michael Gove’s education reforms out of an antediluvian tribal loyalty.  In recent weeks, Burnham has attacked cuts to the Educational Maintenance Allowance and the Building Schools for the Future fund. He’s at it again today. He will speak to the NASUWT teaching union later and he is expected to say: ‘This Tory-led Government’s education policy consists of broken promises, incompetence and wrong-headed reforms.

Friday

Peter Hoskin

Brown reinforces his presence on the world stage

I'm sorry to do this to you, CoffeeHousers, at the start of a bank holiday weekend — but I thought you might have a morbid sort of interest in Gordon Brown's latest role. Turns out that, as expected, our former PM is to join the World Economic Forum in an advisory capacity. He won't be paid for his work, although the Forum will cover his staffing costs. One of his spokespeople has told ITV's Alex Forrest that his task is to "stop the next financial crisis." Which is to say, he'll be saving the world. Again. If nothing else, it's yet another demonstration of Brown's peculiar resilience. Our former PM may be electoral anathema in these parts, but he clearly still holds some allure for the technocrats of Davos, Geneva and Bretton Woods.

Peter Hoskin

Miliband’s pre-election surgery

Miliband-o-rama on this Good Friday, with the Labour leader spread all across the papers. The Mirror reports that he is to have an operation to have his adenoids removed this summer, in a rather extreme bid to "improve his voice". The Guardian says that he's to deliver a speech next week — presumably with adenoids still intact — that will engage with the "Blue Labour" thinking of Maurice Glasman. And, if that's not enough, there's a curious interview with Miliband in the Sun. I say "curious," because there aren't too many interviews where a party leader goes through the (less than flattering) nicknames that have been bestowed upon him — and offers comments. On Wallace, from Wallace and Gromit, he says, "I don't see the resemblance, but it is not bad.

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Cameron and Clegg pay tribute to their elders

As you've no doubt deduced from the cover image on the left-hand side of this page, the latest Spectator is out today — and it's a soaraway double issue for Easter. By way of peddling it to CoffeeHousers (buy it here, etc.), I thought I'd mention one article among many. It's a celebratory list of some of the country's "most inspiring and influential over-80s," and it includes tributes to them from some rather notable under-80-year-olds. So we have Matt Ridley on David Attenborough, Alex Salmond on Sean Connery, Ian Rankin on P.D James, and plenty more besides. Anyway, there are two entries that CoffeeHousers might care to see in particular, so I've pasted them below: David Cameron on Margaret Thatcher, and Nick Clegg on Shirley Williams.

David Blackburn

Much ado about Brussels, bailouts and budgets

The news that the European Union has decreed that its Budget be increased by 4.9 percent in 2012 ties a knot in the stomach, as I ponder an Easter weekend spent in Margate rather than Majorca due to austerity. As Tim Montgomerie notes, the government is taking this opportunity to assert its euroscepticism. Stern communiqués are being worded; stark warnings are being issued. Behind the scenes, the government has joined with the Dutch, its closest ally on the Continent, to confront the avaricious Commission. Patrick Wintour reports that the French will also oppose the proposed Budget, and the Austrians, Danes, Swedes, Finns and Belgians are expected to lend their weight to the cause.

James Forsyth

A question of leadership

This morning’s speech on AV by Nick Clegg has prompted another round of Lib-Lab backbiting over whom is to blame for the troubles of the Yes campaign. In its leader column today, The Times (£) joins in on the Lib-Dem side, criticising Miliband for not having done more for AV. It even suggests that he’d be prepared to vote down a Yes vote in the Commons, something he specifically rules out in his interview with the paper today (£).   Unlike Clegg, Miliband can be relaxed about the result of the AV referendum. If AV is defeated, few in the Labour party will mind and the blame won’t attach to him. If the polls are right, David Cameron will be the only leader strengthened by the result of the referendum.

Peter Hoskin

Clegg reaffirms the coalition’s wedding vows

It's a funny thing, reading the speech on AV that Nick Clegg delivered to the IPPR this morning. It starts off as you might expect: putting some distance between his party and the Tories. Everything is Liberal-this and Liberal-that, while "conservatives" are cited as the opponents of change and choice. But then, from nowhere, comes one of the most brutal attacks on Labour that Clegg has delivered in some time. "For every £8 we are cutting they would cut £7," he quivers. "To deny that reality is to treat the British people like fools." The New Statesman's George Eaton has sifted through the numbers here, but the main point is simply the sheer force of Clegg's words.

Daniel Korski

The Libyan intervention needs to be stepped up

The government is rightly proud of the Libya intervention. Not only did it save thousands of lives in Benghazi but it was conducted in way that learnt the lessons of the past. The Foreign Secretary took pains to get a UN resolution, making the mission legal, and kept the shape-shifting Arab League committed throughout. But unless the government is now  willing to unlearn the lessons of the past, and act both more unilaterally and even illegally, its multilateral, UN-sanctioned action may have been for nothing. For Misrata is now getting the punishment that had been planned for Benghazi. The town is being destroyed in a seige that looks like the shelling of Sarajevo.

James Forsyth

Ed Miliband will hire tails for the Royal Wedding

If you’re fed up with stories about what politicians will wear to the Royal nuptials, look away now — for I can confirm that Ed Miliband will wear a morning suit on the 29th of April. Miliband takes the view that a Royal Wedding is no time for gesture politics.   A Labour spokesman told me this morning that, "This wedding should be all about William and Kate. This is their big day. It is now clear that the appropriate thing is to wear a morning suit and that is what Ed will do."   But Miliband doesn’t actually own a morning suit. He will now be heading down to Moss Bros to rent one.    I hear that we’ll find out that Nick Clegg is deciding what he’ll be wearing today.

Sam Bowman

The profit motive would boost Gove’s Free Schools agenda

The promise of Michael Gove’s Free Schools programme — as distinct from his Academies programme — is slow to materialise. What seemed like the government’s most radical and important reform has stalled as expected take-up has fallen far short of expectations. 350,000 new school places are required to meet increasing demand by 2015 — to address this, the Conservatives had set their sights on setting up 3,000 new Free Schools in nine years. But, so far, there have been just 323 applications, with only a handful due to open in September 2011, and the DfE capital budget is set to fall by 60 per cent to £3.4 billion by 2014-15. This constitutes a massive capital shortfall. A storm is gathering in education.

Wednesday

Jonathan Jones

Obama’s budget: faster, but not further, than Osborne’s

Barack Obama's budget plan has become a political debating point on this side of the Atlantic. Ed Balls set the ball a-rolling in an article for the Guardian this morning, which effectively claimed that the President isn't planning to cut the deficit as quickly as George Osborne is. "The truth is that it is Osborne himself who is isolated," is how he pugnaciously put it. But the Tories' Matthew Hancock has since responded — on Coffee House, as it happens — arguing that, actually, the Obama Plan is simpatico with what Osborne is doing. By way of hovering above the red-on-blue scrap, we thought we'd put together a comparison of Osborne's and Obama's budgets for the benefit of CoffeeHousers.

Daniel Korski

The systematised madness of AV

This morning on BBC Breakfast Nick Clegg made his key argument for AV: it will make politicians work harder for the vote, he said. The point is that politicians will have to court the votes not only of their natural supporters, but reach out to people who would not traditionally back them. This, however, is an argument for a poorer kind of politics. It will force politicians not to take principled positions but try to triangulate, Blair-style, in order to get as many different kind of factions to vote for them. What should I give the Lib Dem voters? How can I get the BNP voter’s second, or even third, preferences? These are the kind of questions MPs will ponder. Sure, to a degree that already happens — but AV will systematise the madness.