Uk politics

Friday

Melanie McDonagh

Abortion may be bad for a woman’s mental health. Discuss

Last November, Margaret Forrester, a mental health worker for the Central North West London Mental Health Trust in Camden was suspended for giving a colleague a charity booklet called “Forsaken – Women From Taunton Talk About Abortion” to a colleague -  they’d been discussing the information they offered to patients. It had the stories of five women who had experienced what the author describes as ‘post-abortion syndrome’, including depression, relationship issues, suicidal feelings and fertility problems. So, the downside of abortion, then. To begin with – no problem. Her colleague didn’t seem offended. But a few days later her manager told her she was being sent home on ‘special leave with full pay’.

Peter Hoskin

Clegg stands up for deficit reduction

Cleggologists will mark down the Deputy PM's speech today as a typical effort. There was basically nothing in it that was new – but Clegg still put it across with more punch, and more persuasively, than most of his colleagues could manage. All of the slogans and pre-announced policies added up to something that sounded, fleetingly, like a plan for growth. Although we'll still have to wait for Vince Cable's review to see the outlines of that plan shaded in. Clegg's main point was straightforward enough: that the government has to, and will, go beyond deficit reduction to stoke the embers of the British economy. He then ranged across everything from the national infrastructure to – a theme of this week – endowing the British workforce with skills.

Daniel Korski

General Hague, attack

William Hague must be feeling that the incoming rounds are coming closer and closer. The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph and now The Times (£) have each allowed their pages to be used as Forward Operating Bases from which to launch attacks against the coalition's foreign policy. Even in the coalition's own ranks, dissatisfied foot-soldiers (and a even a few senior officers) think that General Hague has lost his appetite for the fight. Tories talk about a man whose defeat in 2001left a permanent wound, and how the Christopher Myers fiasco left another gash. The government's equivocal response to events in Egypt has provoked fresh criticism, while the army of eurosceptics, once Hague's Praetorian Guard, no longer trust their commander.

James Forsyth

Levelling higher education’s playing field

Last summer I was showing some 17 year olds around the House of Commons. They were bright and engaged and all wanted to go to university. But as they told me what they were doing for A-Levels my heart sank. They were all doing subjects that were going to put them at a massive disadvantage in applying to a top-rank university. The most worrying thing was that they were completely unaware of this. So it is welcome news that the Russell Group, made up of the 20 best universities in the country, has now published a guide advising students on which A-Level subjects are held in the highest regard by universities. This is the kind of information that schools that regularly send children to top universities pass on almost automatically to their pupils.

Daniel Korski

Labour’s gravest military blunder

Labour is often seen as having presided over the erosion of the British military, squandering money on Cold War equipment and sending under-equipped soldiers to far-away battlefields. But away from the public's scrutiny an even greater lapse occurred - the nation's cyberdefences were left undermanned while the threat grew daily. As William Hague will tell the Munich Security Conference: "Along with its numerous benefits, cyberspace has created new means of repression, enabling undemocratic governments to violate the human rights of their citizens. It has opened up new channels for hostile governments to probe our defences and attempt to steal our confidential information or intellectual property. It has promoted fears of future ‘cyber war’.

Thursday

James Forsyth

What to do about IPSA?

I wish I could tell you that the main topic of conversation in Westminster today is Egypt and the future of the Middle East. But it isn’t. It is those Sally Bercow photos.  But if it wasn’t the picture of the Speaker’s wife naked but for a sheet that MPs were talking about it would be IPSA, the expenses body, following the publication of their claims for September and October. MPs detest IPSA. They believe, with good reason, it to be arrogant and inefficient. So strong is MPs’ opinion on this front, that David Cameron told Tory MPs late last year that if IPSA hadn’t sorted itself out by April, he’d sort it.

Peter Hoskin

A new golden rule

The last few days have given us enough evidence for a new economic rule: the better the news about the economy, the less we'll see of Ed Balls. As Tim Montgomerie notes over at ConservativeHome, the shadow chancellor was plastered right across the airwaves when last week's growth figures were announced. This week – when the economic omens have been more encouraging – not so much. On Tuesday, as Fraser blogged, we had a record rise in manufacturing activity. Yesterday, there were heartening figures for the construction sector. And, today, the services sector has followed suit, with its strongest showing for eight months. Here's the graph for all three: Sterling has soared on today's news.

Peter Hoskin

The Pope reopens the international aid debate

Spare a dime for a travelling Ponfiff? The Department for International Development can – and then some. According to their latest accounts, they funnelled £1.85 million of cash across to the Foreign Office to help pay for the Pope's visit to Britain last September. The money didn't specifically come out of their ring-fenced aid budget, but it would normally have gone towards DfID operations overseas. "Somewhat surprising," is how one member of the international development select committee has put it. Whatever your take on the Pope's visit, this is still a story which reopens the wider debate about development spending.

Daniel Korski

Coffee House interview: Julian Astle

Open any mass-circulation newspaper and you will find plenty of insider's information about the Tory party. But precious little is known about their coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats. After decades in the political wilderness, most editors reasoned that it wasn't really worth their while finding out what the party thought. After all, what difference did it make?   Well, times have changed. What the party thinks, what it does, and, crucially, what it won't do, really does matter. So to help us here at Coffee House, Julian Astle, a friend of the Lib Dem leadership and director of CentreForum, the liberal think tank, has agreed to answer a few questions.

David Blackburn

Council gorillas get on the buses

The cold war in Britain’s localities is warming up. Buried in the Telegraph and the Financial Times is the news that councils are cutting local bus services, and central government is being apportioned blame. An organisation called Better Transport has launched a campaign titled Save Our Buses. It claims that straitened councils have been forced to shed £34 million from the subsidised funding of local buses; 70 percent of routes have been affected so far.   This is a prime example of local government conniving to avoid responsibility for spending contractions. With adroit calculation, councils bastardise vital services to inconvenience those they represent.

Peter Hoskin

Introducing Britain’s skills crisis

Did you know: Britain trails well behind other countries such as the US, Germany and Poland when it comes to educating its workforce? Did you know: the number of young people not in employment, education or training has risen by around 40 per cent over the last decade? Did you know ... oh, you get the idea. All the statistics, and more, are in the booklet on Britain's Skills Crisis that is included in this week's Spectator. For CoffeeHousers who don't buy the magazine (although you should, etc – purchasing options here), you can read the supplement for free via this snazzy, page-turning whatsit. We'll also put one or two of its articles up on Coffee House in due course.

Wednesday

David Blackburn

Councils are still living it up

Councils are in the dog house again, following the publication of a report claiming that £7bn is wasted through ineffective land and building use. Chairman of the report, Matthew Hancock MP, and Vice-Chairman of the Local Government Association Richard Kemp debated the issue on Today and they revealed why the revolution in local government has stalled. Kemp made the most substantial point: recalcitrance and rivalry in Whitehall impairs reform of the localities. For instance, councils cannot unite libraries, Job Centre Plus and the One Stop shops into one building because the DWP has not yet begun its reform of Job Centre Plus.

James Forsyth

Coulson’s replacement

Downing Street have announced that the BBC’s Craig Oliver will be Andy Coulson’s replacement. Oliver, who has been editor of both the Six and Ten o’clock news, will bring a broadcasting perspective to Downing Street. Former BBC colleagues stress that he knows how to tell a story in pictures and, in contrast, to Coulson is unlikely to ever become the story. Oliver, who is in his 40s, was never obviously political. He won’t provide the kind of counterweight to Steve Hilton that Andy Coulson did. But he will run an efficient ship. Some people are saying that the appointment shows that newspapers are less powerful politically than they used to be. There is some truth to this.

Lloyd Evans

As the oldest parliament yawned, the oldest civilisation erupted

One yawn every minute. That’s how PMQs felt today. Foreign affairs dominated the session as Ed Miliband and the Prime Minister exchanged lofty words about the Cairo demonstrations and the spread of democracy around the world. Doubtless they felt they struck a suitably elevated tone but to the viewers they came across as a pair of prep school smart-alecs trying to sound like great statesmen disposing of liberated peoples after the fall of empires. Egypt and Afghanistan were both treated to a torrent of high-minded vacuities. David Cameron found the demonstrations ‘incredibly moving.’ Ed Miliband was impressed by the sight of ‘hundreds of thousands of people facing overwhelming odds to ask for their democratic rights.

Peter Hoskin

Ten things you need to know about the IFS Green Budget

An exciting day for policy freaks and numbers geeks: the Institute for Fiscal Studies has released its latest Green Budget, an annual survey of the state of the public finances. But if you can't face wading through the complete 329-page document, here's our quick ten-point summary of its main conclusions: 1) IFS forecasts "slightly lower" growth than the OBR. As this comparison shows: 2) But they're more optimistic about borrowing. According to the IFS, borrowing won't be as high as the government expects. The differences between their forecasts and the OBR's are only minimal, but they're there all the same: 3) The tax and spend forecast.

James Forsyth

Consensus reigns over PMQs

A very different PMQs this week: six questions on foreign affairs and almost total consensus between Cameron and Miliband. Miliband’s office had given No 10 advance warning of the topics they wanted to raise and the two agreed on pretty much everything. Miliband argued that ‘the best route to stability is through democracy.’ Cameron agreed but stressed that democracy means more than just elections. You get the picture. At the risk of disagreeing with Pete, I must say that the exchanges were a reminder of just how dull PMQs would be if it was not confrontational.

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 2 February 2011

VERDICT: What a refreshing change that was. After several weeks of Punch 'n' Judy rivalry, the two party leaders finally put down their batons and stumbled upon a new way to do it. Much of the credit must go to Ed Miliband, for asking pacific questions about Egypt and Afghanistan in the first place. But credit, also, to Cameron, for answering them in a straightforward and statesmanlike manner. The rest of the House, for its part, was stunned into silence by this peculiar scene. Some of the blood rushed back into proceedings with the backbench questions, and as Cameron directed attacks at Ed Balls, but this must still go down as the most decourous PMQs in recent memory. Less spice, more meat – not a bad trade-off in this case.  1231: And that's it.

Matthew Hancock-Mp

IFS say Labour’s policy would mean higher interest rates

From the start of the financial crisis, the Conservatives have argued that when a country¹s finances are in a mess, the best way to manage demand is through monetary activism and fiscal responsibility. Going into this crisis, Britain¹s finances were indeed in a mess. We had the biggest structural deficit among major developed economies (according to the IMF, OECD, oh, and Alistair Darling). To claim there was no structural deficit is to oppose the truth. The principles of monetary activism and fiscal responsibility underpin the approach to the recovery too. By dealing with the fiscal mess, we can keep interest rates lower for longer, and avoid the sorts of financial meltdown seen in Ireland and elsewhere.

Tuesday

David Blackburn

When will mass protest come to Libya?

As several seemingly permanent Middle Eastern autocracies tremble, Colonel Gadaffi’s Libya rolls on. So far, there have been reports of minor protests in the localities about housing shortages, nothing more. With unemployment standing at 30 percent, the Libyan people are just as impoverished as those in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt. Gadaffi’s dictatorship is scarcely benevolent, and, as for liberalisation, Libya remains one of the few completely dry countries on Earth. The secret of Gadaffi’s success then would appear to be expressing aggressive anti-American sentiment, whilst suppressing Islamism and democratic opposition at home. And all the while he entices rich Western powers (Britain) with the allure of Libya’s virginal natural resources.

Fraser Nelson

Treading the road to recovery

It will have been a quiet morning in the Balls household. Fresh economic indicators suggest that the British economy is not in some cuts-induced recession but, instead, doing rather nicely, thank-you. As I said last week, economic health is assessed by all manner of indices – and the ONS (which is forever having to tear up its GDP forecasts) might just have boobed last week with its preliminary Q4 GDP figures. Today we have the Manufacturing PMI surging to heights not even reached in the early 1990s:   Now, this might be a flash in the pan, you say. But then consider corporate liquidity – that is, how much debt Britain’s companies have lurking on their balance sheets. The figures out today are not too bad either.