Uk politics

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Who watches the watchmen? | 7 March 2011

There's a fuse-meet-flame quality to PoliticsHome's smart little scoop this morning. Our parliamentarians are already somewhat hacked off with IPSA, the body tasked with overseeing their expenses. So how will they react upon reading that IPSA spent £300,000 of taxpayers' cash on furbishing their London office? The watchdog's shopping list includes 25 cabinets (£2,295 each), 14 "relaxer loungers" (£465 each) and a table at £837. It sounds awfully like some of the MPs' claims that were so controversial in the first place. IPSA are defending the spending, citing "industry standards" and such. But, whatever, it just fuels the sense that they are an unduly expensive and convoluted answer to the question at hand.

Peter Hoskin

Khan comes to Ken Clarke’s support (kinda)

When it comes to the overall sway of British politics, Sadiq Khan's article for the Guardian is probably the most important of the day. We've heard Ed Miliband say before that, "when Ken Clarke says we need to look at short sentences in prison because of high re-offending rates, I'm not going to say he's soft on crime." But Khan's article, a summary of a speech he is giving later today, actually puts that sentiment into practice – and then some. His central argument is straight from the Hush Puppied One's playbook, particularly in its emphasis on the limitations of New Labour's policy: "Some claim crime fell because of the rise in the numbers imprisoned. But the relationship between crime rates and prison population is more complex than that.

Sunday

Daniel Korski

How to build democracies

Following the events in the Middle East, I have proposed a democracy review of UK bilateral relations and former Europe minister Denis MacShane has suggested that David Cameron set up a Foundation for Democracy Development in the Middle East and North Africa to "provide an all-party source of income, travel grants, and overseas seminars" It would make sense, I think, to do both in succession, starting with the review and then creating a new body that can undertake the work. However, instead of creating a UK-only organisation, the government should build on the links established with Turkey's government and set up a joint endeavour, chaired by William Hague and Ahmet Davatoglu, the Foreign Secretary's counterpart.

James Forsyth

Cameron hugs his party

David Cameron’s speech to the Conservative Spring Forum was one of the most Conservative speeches he has given in a long time. It was an address that was meant to reassure the party during what looks set to to be this government’s most difficult year. The Tory leader opened with a list of policy pledges delivered and they were all distinctively Conservative policies: making work pay, the EU referendum lock, teaching British history in schools, freezing council tax, capping immigration and doubling the operational allowance. There was further crowd pleasing material in a substantial section of the speech which attacked AV.

Fraser Nelson

Why Ed Miliband’s getting it right on the cost of living

George Osborne's budget, due in two weeks' time, will be billed as an agenda for growth. This is welcome, but a year late. The burning agenda now is the cost of living. It was our cover story for The Spectator last October: why fret about mild 1 percent-a-year cuts, we asked, when the real killer will be prices? Petrol at 130p a litre is only the most visible sign of this. Other horrors confront shoppers in the supermarket - salmon fillets up by a third, potatoes and butter by a quarter. When Alan Duncan speculated that petrol could hit 200p, he was on the right scent. While the BBC is talking about cuts and Osborne is talking about jobs, Ed Miliband is now talking about the cost of living - even helping to launch a Commission on the Cost of Living.

Saturday

Daniel Korski

A post-Tunisian Foreign Office

The Foreign Office has come in for a lot of criticism lately, following delays in getting Britons out Libya. Some argue that it is all William Hague's fault. Others that the department is unfit for purpose. Both of these views seem a bit unfair. The FCO managed to help Britons in Tunisia and Egypt, and only came up short when the company they had used failed to take off for Libya. True, there should have been a better contract in place – which would give the FCO alternatives – but that hardly translates into systemic failure. True, ministerial divisions between Jeremy Browne, in charge of consular affairs, and Alistair Burt, who runs Middle East policy, did not help. But that's probably inevitable.

James Forsyth

Osborne’s political economy

George Osborne’s speech to the Tory spring conference today showed the classic left-right way in which he wants to frame the political debate about the economy ahead of the Budget on the 23rd of March.  In a move straight out of the election-winning centre-right playbook of the 80s, he attacked Balls and Miliband as “Two left-wing politicians who don't understand anyone who wants to get up and get on, anyone who want a better life for their family, anyone who want to create wealth, and start a business, and create jobs, and leave something to their children.

Alex Morton

The politics of planning

The ruckus over sending a high-speed railway roaring through some of Southern England’s most prized back gardens might be dominating the headlines. But another, separate row over planning is brewing. Behind closed doors, ministers are straining to develop a coherent plan to build the new houses that Britain – especially the South East needs – in a way that is politically feasible. Whitehall is wrestling with how to reform a planning system that has led to more expensive housing and offices, developments that are often ugly and cramped, and soaring costs for everyone – the government included. Housing benefit costs more than the Home Office and Ministry of Justice combined. A shortage of supply has been a big factor driving house prices.

Friday

Daniel Korski

Harriet ‘shambolic’ Harman

I've spent ten minutes reading the same passage and still don't understand what it means. It comes from Harriet Harman, quoted in the Independent, criticising the government's Libya strategy: "The response to the terrible events in Libya has been a shambles. The key to their shambolic response lies in their ideology. If your perspective is that government is a bad thing and you want less of it, you're not going to be on the front foot when the power of government is exactly what is needed." Do you get it? Is the Labour MP saying that her party would have harnessed the power of the state, principally the military, and ordered the bombing of Libya?

Alison Munro

The economic case for HS2 explained

Matthew Sinclair’s piece on high-speed rail makes two main criticisms, both of which have already been addressed in the material published earlier this week for the consultation – but I would like to explain our approach again here.   First, Matthew criticises our forecasts. He would prefer us not to forecast demand beyond 2026, but HS2 would be a long term investment and would bring benefits for successive generations over many decades. It would be absurd to forecast only 10 years ahead. Therefore, we have taken a longer term but still realistic view. Demand for long distance rail travel more than doubled between 1994 and 2009 – an annual growth rate of around 5 percent. We have predicted a far slower growth rate than this: approximately 1.4 percent.

Peter Hoskin

Fuel for the fire

On any normal day, a missive from Tim Farron to George Osborne – urging him to axe the planned rise in fuel duty – would be striking enough. On a day when the Lib Dems finished sixth in a by-election, it has a whole lot more piquancy to it. I'm not saying that the Next Lib Dem Leader™ is trying to cause trouble, or even hastening to shore up support. He has, after all, been dutiful in defence of the coalition this morning, and he has been highlighting fuel costs for some time now. But Lib Dem backbenchers clearly have some demands for the government – and now's the time for this one. Farron's point is that the Treasury can use some of it's stronger-than-expected incomings to stave off the hike.

Mark Littlewood

Plurality or not?

With all the provisos attached to News Corp’s takeover of BSkyB, opposition to the deal has surely now been diluted. But there are, perhaps, two groups who can still legitimately complain about the outcome.   Firstly, those of us who believe that unrestricted freedom of speech is vital in the TV broadcasting arena. The Murdoch empire has had to surrender its news channel in order to, essentially, buy a profitable platform for broadcasting sport and movies. This is seriously disturbing for anyone who feels that the BBC’s output of ‘neutral news’ needs to be challenged. The only major independent broadcaster – ITV – gave up long ago with their own news channel. Only Murdoch ran an alternative news platform, and at a massive loss.

James Forsyth

A night that will not be quickly forgotten

Last night’s by-election result in Barnsley is embarrassing for both Clegg and Cameron. For Clegg, it is obviously humiliating to come sixth. Fourth would have been bad enough but sixth is an even worse result than the Lib Dems feared. The fact the Lib Dems also lost their deposit just adds insult to injury. The result will certainly make activists heading to Sheffield next week for their spring conference jumpy. I also suspect that we’ll see some enterprising newspaper doing a poll in Clegg’s Sheffield constituency before next weekend.  On the Conservative side, coming third behind UKIP is going to lend weight to those who argue that the party has conceded too much to its coalition partners.

Daniel Korski

New World temporarily postponed

We are meant to be living in a multi-polar world, one where US power is waning, and where countries reject the prying interference of the West. Except, erm, we aren't. Today's world looks exactly as it did yesterday. First, many of the 20th century issues people thought would disappear – dictators, repression and democracy – remain as prevalent now as then. The Iraq War has tempered people's appetite for humanitarian interventions without extinguishing it. The key difference seems to be that support is now minimal on the Left and still strong on the neo-con Right. Everyone is also still focused on what the US will or will not do, even in Britain.

Peter Hoskin

A grim morning for the coalition – as Lib Dems finish sixth in Barnsley

    You may notice that the Liberal Democrats don't feature in the first two graphs of the by-election result in Barnsley Central last night. Or, rather, they do – they're just subsumed under the 'Others' category, having finished in sixth place. Second in the general election, sixth last night. The 1,012 votes for the Lib Dems put them behind Labour, UKIP, the Tories, the BNP and an independent candidate called Tony Devoy. Their share of the vote has fallen by 13.1 points on last May's result. This was an unequivocal, almost ritualistic, beating. Blood everywhere. And the other half of the coalition hasn't escaped unbruised either. The Tories finished third in the general election, third now – so what's changed?

Thursday

James Forsyth

Clegg collides with Cameron over extremism

Nick Clegg’s speech in Luton today on extremism is a challenge to large parts of David Cameron’s remarks on the subject in Munich just last month. Indeed, even the venue of the speech can be seen as a rebuke to Cameron who was attacked for giving a speech on Islamic extremism on the same day that the English Defence League was marching in Luton. Cameron’s speech, which was one of the best of his premiership, argued that ‘the ideology of extremism is the problem’ and that terrorism’s ‘root lies in the existence of this extremist ideology’.

David Blackburn

A rotten basket of apples in Nottingham

The Nottingham Post has a great scoop about Labour-led Nottingham City Council’s abuse of taxpayer funds. The story can be distilled into one sentence: ‘City council leader Jon Collins has used a consultant paid £870-a-day by the taxpayer for advice on Labour's campaign in the run-up to the May election.’ Nottingham is one of England's most profligate and rapacious councils. Examples of its needless largesse include stripping conkers from trees and spending £185,000 on signs to improve local morale. One probable reason for the residents’ black mood is the steep rate of council tax. In 2010-11, occupants of band A properties paid £1041.39; whilst those in Wandsworth attracted a maximum of £470.44.

James Forsyth

Hunt’s rising star

The decision on News Corp's take-over of BSkyB has thrust Jeremy Hunt into the spotlight. The culture secretary is many Tories' bet to be the next leader of the party. Hunt is ambitious even by political standards: during the Brown bounce he canvassed opinion as to whether he should stand in the Tory leadership contest that would follow an election defeat, and has a John Major like ability to make factions in the party feel like he is one of them. Add to this, a good television manner and one can see why people think he'll go far. One of the odd things about politics is that there is no heir apparent to Cameron in the Tory party. Hague used to be considered the obvious emergency replacement. But that is no longer true.

Daniel Korski

Labour shuns aid choices

Government is about choices. In opposition you can like anything, support any measure, back any proposal. But when in office you either make choices or invite dismissal. So when International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell looked at Britain's development spending he was determined to make choices. Now that he has, some people don't like it. Not one bit. They like choices in general, much as they accept a theoretical form of cuts; but they recoil from real ones. Former Europe Minister Denis MacShane is one of the choice-avoiders. Writing in the New Statesman, he rails about cutting funds to the International Labour Organisation, seeing a Tory plot to undermine trade unionism.

Matthew Sinclair

The case for abandoning HS2 restated

The government release a claim that HS2 will bring 40,000 new jobs. They are so desperate to let the public know that figure they breach proper practice by briefing it ahead of the publication of the consultation document. When the consultation document comes out, I will look at whether creating that number of jobs is actually impressive, for an investment of £17 billion. The wider economy produces four times as many jobs per pound of capital, so it actually doesn't look very impressive at all. Professor David Begg, eminent representative of an endangered quango, is furious though. He attacks me for making an unfair comparison.