Uk politics

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Does Davis have a point about grammar schools?

David Davis has been relatively quiet for the past couple of months, perhaps nursing a hangover after this. But he's back making a seismic racket today, with an article on the coalition's social mobility report for PoliticsHome. He dwells on the education side of things, and his argument amounts to this: that the government's school reforms — from free schools to the pupil premium — will not do much to improve social mobility, and may actually make the situation worse. Michael Gove may be praised as "intelligent, dedicated and wholly admirable," but there is enough gelignite elsewhere in the piece to ruffle some coalition feathers.

David Blackburn

Monbiot’s mission

George Monbiot is undergoing an astounding and very public transformation. Last week he overcame the habit of a lifetime and fully endorsed nuclear power as a safe energy source. He went further this week, attacking the anti-nuclear movement for perpetuating lies and ignoring the consensus around scientific facts. He levels special criticism at the allegedly lax scholarship of Dr Helen Caldicott, a decorated primate of the anti-nuclear communion.  He also debunks the myths surrounding the disaster at Chernobyl and laments that campaigners have abused that tragedy by exaggerating its consequences. Monbiot’s tone is neither arch nor righteous. Rather, he’s disappointed and the piece has a dignified poignancy.

Peter Hoskin

Your five-point guide to the coalition’s social mobility report

The government's new report into social mobility is, it tells us, all about "opening doors" and "breaking barriers" — but it's probably taxing attention spans too. 89 pages of text and graphs, offset by the same pea soup shade of green that's used for all these coalition documents. To save you from wading through it all, here's our quick five-point summary: 1) The same story… Much of the report, as James suggested earlier, is familiar territory. After all, the coalition's two most developed policy areas — welfare and education — are precisely designed to improve opportunities for the least well-off; so here they are again, restated and slightly reframed.

Peter Hoskin

Miliband may be punished for his contempt for Clegg

Ed Miliband's hand of friendship has to be one of the shakiest body parts in British politics. Sometimes it's extended to the Lib Dems, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's extended to Nick Clegg, sometimes it's not. Sure, the Labour leader does appear to have finally settled on a position: that he will only shake the hands of a Cleggless Liberal party. But that has come after constant wavering on his part, and could well be subject to change. I mention this now because of a claim in Rachel Sylvester's column (£) today. I'm not sure whether it has been made before — but it neatly encapsulates how Miliband has lurched one way and then t'other, and deserves pasting into the scrapbook.

James Forsyth

Short term solutions to Britain’s long-term education problem

The most important planks of the coalition’s social mobility strategy are its education and welfare reforms. Raising the standards of state education in this country will give far more children a chance to get on in life. While reducing the number of children brought up in workless households will, hopefully, halt the development of a hereditary non-working, benefit-dependent class.   But these measures will take time to work. Which raises the question of what should be done in the meantime?   One thing would be allowing academics to use discretion in admissions. We don’t expect the England cricket selectors to pick the side based solely on county averages and we shouldn’t expect universities to select pupils purely on exam results.

Daniel Korski

Lords: government not championing European single market “strongly”

Tucked away in an old building, where few people knows of its existence, lives one of the most important parliamentary creatures - the House of Lords European Union Committee. Often ignored because it applies analysis to a debate where loudness is the main currency, it has produced a new report on the Single Market. The government would do well to read it. For pushing the Single Market should be what animates the Europe Directorate in the Foreign Office. The Single Market is the main reason for British membership of the EU and the committee implies that successive governments, including the Cameron administration, have dropped the ball in this area. As their report puts it, the UK should 'return to its position of strongly championing the Single Market.

Peter Hoskin

The health select committee delivers its verdict

Grenades are seldom expected – yet Andrew Lansley knew that one was going to fall into his lap this morning. The Health Select Committee has today released its much trumpeted report on the government's plans for NHS commissioning. In normal circumstances its dry take on an even drier subject would evade public notice. As it is, with the coalition rocking and reeling as they are, this is fissile stuff. It is yet another voice in the chorus of opposition to Lansley's reforms.

Monday

James Forsyth

Lansley faces the music alone

A weary-looking Andrew Lansley has just finished answering MPs’ questions following his statement announcing a delay to the coalition’s NHS reforms. The statement left us none the wiser as to what is up for review in the listening exercise the coalition is about to undertake. What it did demonstrate was both Lansley’s encyclopedic knowledge of the NHS: he seemed to know the GP who was leading the consortium in the area of every MP who questioned him: and his inability to clearly explain the purpose of his reforms. Indeed, if it had not been for a question from John Redwood the point that these reforms are meant to free up more money for patient care would have been lost.

David Blackburn

17,000 servicemen to go

The MoD has released its plan for redundancies. The numbers and plan were leaked at the weekend, but here are some details: 1) There will be 17,000 redundancies – 7,000 from the army and 5,000 each from navy and RAF. The first tranche will be notified by commanding officers in September 2011. 2) Some of the reductions are expected to be achieved through not filling vacancies and slowing recruitment, but it is estimated that 11,000 jobs will be lost by April 2015. 3) This is a compulsory programme, but the MoD hopes that the majority of losses can be met through volunteers. Volunteers will serve a 6-month notice period, non-volunteers will serve a 12-month notice period.

David Blackburn

Losing control | 4 April 2011

The future of the Health and Social Care Bill is a test of Craig Oliver. For months there has been a steady drip of quiet critiques of the bill; but some Liberal Democrat grandees have suddenly broken cover and burst into open dissent. David Owen and Shirley Williams have called for the bill's implementation to be slowed and for consultation to re-open. Both are especially concerned that private sector involvement will expose the NHS to competition law, which they believe would be detrimental to the NHS.

James Forsyth

Hardly a model of good government

What is going on with the government’s health reforms is highly unusual. Normally, once a bill has gone through second reading and committee stage in the Commons there are very few changes made to it. But the coalition is considering some fairly significant changes to the Health and Social Care Bill in a bid to make it more politically palatable. It is hardly a model of good government.   This state of affairs provides ample opportunity for Ed Miliband to land some blows on the coalition, as he did in this morning’s speech delivered — symbolically — at the RSA, the new home of Blair’s former policy chief Matthew Taylor. In a sign of where Labour intends to go on the issue, Miliband said that delay would not be enough.

David Blackburn

Rescuing Lansley’s reforms

The fate of Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms is attracting apocalyptic headlines. A report in the Times (£) declares that a ‘last-ditch’ salvage is underway; the FT carries an editorial in similar tone, and the Guardian devotes its front page to David Cameron’s attempt to save face. Over at Conservative Home, Jonathan Isaby relates how the strategy will unfold. The principles of the bill will remain intact, but it will be delayed using the ‘natural pause’ in parliamentary procedure. During this time, the details of the bill be scrutinised and the government will also use this time to reiterate its view that these reforms are necessary for the NHS to manage an ageing population and rising costs.

Sunday

David Blackburn

A month to go and still none the wiser

It’s supposed to be the day of rest, but there’s no rest for the wicked. The two sides of the alternative vote referendum have been exchanging blows all day. It seems the pro-AV camp have purged black poet Benjamin Zephaniah from some of their leaflets. Apparently, Zephaniah is all present and correct on leaflets sent to London addresses; but he has been apparently replaced by Tony Robinson in those sent to Sussex and Cornwall. The No campaign has described its opponents as “ashamed” of Mr Zephaniah’s colour, and the Yes campaign said the allegation was a “new low”. It’s six of one and half of dozen of the other, and we’re still no better informed about either system.

James Forsyth

The coalition is in a mess of its own making over the NHS

The NHS is, as Nigel Lawson once remarked, the new national religion of this country. This makes it difficult to discuss the subject in a rational matter and any attempt to reform it is likely to run into its own Pilgrimage of Grace as Andrew Lansley and the coalition are discovering. The government’s problem is that it can’t do a simple u-turn. As I say in the Mail on Sunday, Cameron can’t shelve this scheme without bringing his own judgement into question. Once Cameron and Clegg signed the introduction to the white paper setting out these reforms, they crossed the Rubicon. So instead the coalition is left trying to tinker and slow down the reforms to make them more politically palatable. But this brings with it its own risk.

David Blackburn

Northern Ireland unites, sort of

A man hunt is underway for the perpetrators of yesterday's murder in Omagh, and the administration at Stormont and the PSNI have presented a united front against antediluvian dissidence. Meanwhile, Martin McGuinness, the deputy first minister, is accused by groups associated with the DUP and the Traditional Unionist Voice of having attended an illegal march commemorating the IRA last October. Sectarianism is still rife.

David Blackburn

Trouble with the big society

A gaggle of academics have written to the Observer to condemn the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for accepting £100m from the government. The AHRC is conducting research into the big society, and the allegation is that the settlement was conditional, an allegation which is denied.  Doubtless the 69 signatories are dons of the tweedily conservative variety, but their objections perhaps explain why Cameron’s flagship policy is so mistrusted. They write: ‘When academic research is used to promote party political ideologies its quality and value decline. It also threatens democracy and the constitution. While academic work may be partly paid for out of public funds, this ought not to be the same thing as working for the government.

Saturday

Martyn Frampton

Desperate rearguard

The murder of a police officer in Northern Ireland once again proves that the threat from dissident republican terrorism remains only too real. This latest attack comes against a background of various attempted bombings and hoax alerts that have disrupted life in the province. Back in January, a sophisticated “double-tap” bomb attack on a police patrol in north Belfast was only narrowly averted. Since then a series of incidents have occurred in Derry, Belfast and Fermanagh. Going back further, the last two years (since the triple murder of March 2009) have seen the bombing of banks, courthouses, police stations and even MI5’s regional headquarters in Northern Ireland. Just over fourteen months ago, another young police constable in Co.

James Forsyth

Parliamentary privilege must be protected from over-mighty judges

Sometimes, one does really wonder about the British judiciary. Its decision to issue injunctions which bar people from talking to their MPs about an issue, as revealed in The Times this morning, displays a shocking contempt for parliament. It suggests that the court have learned little from the Trafigura case. The justification for these so-called ‘hyper injunctions’ is that if someone tells an MP about a case, it can then be raised in parliament and what the MP said reported under parliamentary privilege. But parliamentary privilege exists for a reason: MPs must be able to raise any issue they want in parliament. For judges to try and limit it goes against the spirit of our unwritten constitution.

David Blackburn

BREAKING: Car bomb explodes in Omagh, County Tyrone

Not clear as yet if there have been any casaulties. More to follow. Reports are sketchy, but it seems that the blast took place in a residential road, away from the crowded central shopping areas that were the scene of the bloody atrocity committed 13 years ago.  The bomb was planted underneath the car of a local Catholic PSNI officer .The officer is critically wounded.  This act is very likely to have been perpetrated by extreme Republican dissidents; and it follows a trend of Republican/gang violence against police in the province, a battle for which London and Stormont allocated more than £240 million last month. UPDATE: DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson reports that the officer has died.

Gordon Hector

Trouble over the NHS reforms – inevitable or not?

Was the stooshie over health reforms inevitable? From much of the coverage, you'd think it was always going to end in tears, as people line up to criticise Lansley and rumours about Number 10's search for a dignified exit strategy (£) swirl around the Westminster village. But it didn't have to be like this. For a start, the basic idea is one that should be easy to sell to the public. Matthew Parris has pointed out (£) that people intuitively look to their GP as the route into healthcare. It shouldn't be hard to convince the public they should lead commissioning. It's been difficult mainly because the health professionals aren't on-side. This could have been largely avoided.