Uk politics

Monday

David Blackburn

Let’s hope the paternity revolution stalls

From our UK edition

Nick Clegg’s announcement on the extension of paternity leave has been drowned by the cacophony surrounding NHS reform. The government is keen to describe itself as family friendly – with the exception of Vulgaria in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, all government's do. Clegg hopes to bring flexibility to the workplace and relieve young mothers who would like to return to work. It’s an admirable aim, but there is only so far socially manipulative legislation can go before it becomes grossly counter-productive. David Frost, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce, has made a strong case against further law. “Last week we saw changes to the default retirement age, in April we've got changes to the right to request flexible working.

Eve Atkins

A radical step forward in the health of the nation

From our UK edition

The coalition is facing more protests today over its plans to abolish Primary Care Trusts. But PCTs are ripe for abolition. Their bureaucracy and management costs have ballooned in recent years and they have been wildly unpopular in some parts of the country for their role in pushing for hospital closures. They have failed to make the NHS more efficient and innovative and they have been responsible for many of the heart-wrenching cases of patients failing to get drugs for conditions like cancer.   In contrast, GPs are one of the most trusted groups in the NHS. Yes, there are examples of poor practice, but generally patients have high respect for their local doctor and the decisions they make.

David Blackburn

Dorrell: I have reservations about the Health Reforms

From our UK edition

Stephen Dorrell, the former Health Secretary and current Chairman of the Health Select Committee, and Chuka Umanna appeared on the Daily Politics to debate Lansley’s latest reforms. Judging by this interview, Dorrell’s reservations seem to be of the constitutional rather than institutional variety. And Umanna avoided the question about whether these reforms have their genesis in the Blair/Milburn era, which suggests that Ed Miliband will denounce yet more of Blair’s record in the quest to detoxify his party’s brand.

James Forsyth

Cameron’s rough ride on Today

From our UK edition

David Cameron’s interview on the Today Programme this morning was another reminder of what a hard year it is going to be for the government. The bulk of it was devoted to Cameron doing his best to defend and explain the government’s planned reforms to the NHS. Cameron, normally so assured in these interviews, seemed frustrated as John Humphrys kept pushing him on why he was doing it having condemned NHS reorganisations in the past.   Then, the interview moved on to bankers’ bonuses. As he did on Andrew Marr earlier in the month, Cameron implied that action was coming. But there were no specifics set out, and if action is coming it will contradict with the signals that the Treasury was sending out last week.

David Blackburn

Too far, too fast?

From our UK edition

It is hubristic of David Cameron to talk of his ‘legacy’ at this stage in his premiership, not least because he invites criticism that the government’s public service reforms are going too far, too fast. The leaders of six health unions have reacted to the imminent publication of the Health and Social Care Bill with a concerned letter to the Times (£); they argue that price competition is divisive and that the reforms promote cost above quality. Dissent has spread far beyond the usual union suspects.

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

Labour may be doing alright, but Miliband is still dodgy on the public finances

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband's leadership may be young, but his trickery on the public finances is already well worn. We got it all in his interview with Andrew Marr earlier – and then some. There was the claim that Labour "paid down the debt" (that I dealt with here). There was the claim that Labour's spending was responsible (my response here). And there was a straight-up lie about Miliband's forecast for a double-dip. So far, so Brown. What caught my ear, though, was this exchange: Andrew Marr: I mean Tony Blair said in his memoir that by 2005, he was worried that the party was spending too much. And Alistair Darling said actually it was about 2007, he was worried that the party had been spending too much - before the crash happened.

Gavin Kelly

Breaking the curious silence on upcoming tax changes

From our UK edition

This week, Nick Clegg added his name to the fast-growing list of politicians addressing the critical question of living standards. His phrase of choice was ‘alarm clock Britain’, in effect his version of Ed Miliband’s ‘squeezed middle’. It is, of course, a clunking label for what is a serious topic (hardly the first time a politician has achieved such a feat). But quibbles over terminology aside – and as Miliband’s article on Friday confirmed – these are the first serious shots in the political battle to frame the coalition’s crucial March Budget.

Fraser Nelson

How it’s going right for Ed Miliband

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband has had three launches in three months – but, much as I hate to admit it, things are getting better for him. His party are now consistently ahead in the polls, so in my News of the World column today I look at what’s going right. Here are my main points: 1) Cameron’s embrace has, alas, proved toxic for the Lib Dems. I have been impressed by Nick Clegg since he entered government. I’d like to see him rewarded for the tough decisions he took, and in more ways than being named ‘politician of the year’ by the Threadneedle/Spectator awards. But it just isn’t happening. The ‘merger’ model of coalition that they have chosen (as opposed to the Holyrood model used in Scotland in 1999-07) has robbed them of their identity.

Saturday

David Blackburn

Purple Pritchard

From our UK edition

It’s a far cry from the egregious Tory right of Sayeeda Warsi’s imagination. Mark Pritchard, Secretary of the 1922 Committee, has looked at the result of the Oldham and Saddleworth by-election and has concluded that the Tories and Liberals may have to reach an arrangement for future by-elections. He said: "I think this has wider questions for other by-elections that will invariably come along over the next few years, and that is whether we have an open discussion now over whether we have some sort of close co-operation with the Liberal Democrats in Westminster by-elections...a quid pro quo type of arrangement.

Matthew Hancock-Mp

Miliband in denial

From our UK edition

Did he get cold feet? Or was his new spin-team overenthusiastic in their pre-briefing? We were told we'd get an apology from Ed Miliband in today's speech, but instead he entrenched himself in his position that Labour did nothing wrong on the deficit. I'm surprised at this decision. Surely Ed Miliband understands, as his Shadow Chancellor understands, the central importance to an opposition party of economic credibility. That credibility will not return while Miliband bases his economic argument on a denial of the facts. First, and critically, he argues that Britain's deficit was not a problem going into the crisis. Not only is this disputed by an impressive array of domestic and international experts, from Tony Blair to the European Commission and Mervyn King.

David Blackburn

Ditching Clegg won’t help the Libs

From our UK edition

Despite the brave smiles, the senior Lib Dems are wearing long faces. Matthew Parris considers (£) the collapse of the Conservative vote in Oldham East and Saddleworth as a disaster for the Lib Dems, their own vote sustained by an influx of Tory voters. The Tories may not recover that support, but that does not ease the Liberal Democrats’ dilemma. Parris observes: ‘Privately Nick Clegg will have drawn from this the only sane conclusion, but it is one that I’ve found the Liberal Democrats strikingly reluctant to discuss. It is that in the seats where his party stands a chance next time, it must either re-engage the sympathies of its former supporters who are defecting to Labour, or it must throw itself upon the mercies of Tory sympathisers.

Friday

David Blackburn

Cameron hopes to lessen fuel woes

From our UK edition

Today saw the latest Cameron Direct event, and the Prime Minister defended his government’s position of bankers’ bonuses and Europe, and he devoted a section to profess the fortitude of the coalition itself. But Cameron realises that he needs to offer positive news, both to a country acclimatising to austerity and to a party that has broken out in a rash of ill-temper. Fuel duty was his chosen tonic. There were no commitments, but Cameron promised to review the level of duty or road tax as part of the March budget. This lends a little weight to the rumours that fuel duty and/or road taxes might be cut or a fuel duty stabiliser introduced to cheer anxious motorists and avert the threat of strikes.

Daniel Korski

Sherard v The Generals

From our UK edition

As wars begin to end, arguments about their conduct begin. Such is the case with the British campaign in Helmand. In a submission to the Foreign Affairs Committee, the former British ambassador in Kabul – and one of the best diplomats of his generation – Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles blasted the Army: "Almost by definition, good soldiers are irrepressibly enthusiastic, unquenchably optimistic, fiercely loyal to their service and to their own units within that service, and not especially imaginative." But his strongest criticism was reserved for the Army's strategy of seeing Helmand through the prism of the SDSR – looking to save brigades from being cut, not looking primarily to win the war.

Daniel Korski

Decentralisation key to Afghan pullout, says David Miliband

From our UK edition

It is fashionable to ridicule David Miliband's search for a post-political career. But in yesterday's Daily Telegraph the former Foreign Secretary showed that – for all his mistakes in office – his intellect, and judgement on a number of key issues, including how to bring the Afghanistan War to an end, was, and remains, razor-sharp: "Afghanistan's battles are not just between the Afghan and foreign forces and the Taliban insurgency, but between (and within) Afghanistan's often warring tribes. When Nato trains the Afghan National Army, it's good – but not if you are a Pashtun who sees the predominantly Tajik army as the enemy.

James Forsyth

Warsi’s ‘nasty party’ moment

From our UK edition

Sayeeda Warsi’s attack on the ‘right wing’ of the Conservative party has had a predictable impact. There is fury that the party chairman is attacking a section of the party, it is something that a considerable number of Tories will never forgive her for. It is also being pointed out that there were a lot of Tory MPs campaigning in Oldham on Saturday and they came disproportionately from the right of the party.  What to do about Warsi is quite a problem for the Tory high command. She does visibly show how the party has changed but she’s also not very competent. Cameron has already split her role, giving Cameron’s university friend Andrew Feldman a whole bunch of the financial and administrative responsibilities.

Peter Hoskin

Warsi takes on the Tory right

From our UK edition

After the result, the spin. We got the first drafts of each party's response to the Oldham by-election in the dark hours of this morning – but the picture is solidifying now that the sun has risen. What's clear is that both Labour and the Lib Dems are having an easier time putting on a united front than the Tories. The Labour response was typified by Yvette Cooper's appearance on the Today Programme earlier. She broadcast the message that her party would have broadcast whatever the result: that this is defining proof that the public doesn't back the coalition and its economic policy. And as for the Lib Dems, they're all chirping the same lyric of, "Oh, well, yes, we did alright, really, given the circumstances." But it's a little trickier for the Tories.

Peter Hoskin

Comfortable win for Labour in Oldham East & Saddleworth

From our UK edition

And all on a turnout of 48.1 percent. So far as the Lib Dems and Labour are concerned, these numbers probably met expectations. Overall support for Elwyn Watkins has held firm since the general election, but he was always going to struggle to get within 103 votes of Labour once again. While a 10-point victory for Debbie Abrahams is encouraging for Labour, without quite suggesting a tidal shift in the public mood. The 14 percent drop in the Tory vote is a little more striking, though – and it's telling that Andy Burnham dwelt on it in his response to the Beeb. For their part, the Tories are pointing to the natural squeeze on third parties in by-elections.

Thursday

James Forsyth

We await their lordships

From our UK edition

The May 5th date for the AV referendum is under threat because the bill paving the way for it might not get through the House of Lords in time. The problem is that the referendum bill is linked to the plan to equalise constituency sizes which Labour is steadfastly opposed to. So Labour lords are blocking its progress. One Lib Dem lord complains that the problem is ‘all these Scottish ex-Labour MPs who are behaving like they are still in the Commons.’ Labour is stressing that it would happily allow the bill to be split in two and then vote through the May 5th date.

Fraser Nelson

The death of the Lib Dems

From our UK edition

The latest issue of The Spectator is out today, and I thought CoffeeHousers might like to read the cover story by Nick Cohen. Its theme is brilliantly captured by Jonathan Cusick's cover image (left) of the yellow Lib Dem bird shot through its heart with a Tory arrow – but there's more to it than that. The era of spending cuts is returning us to two-party politics, says Nick, and the Lib Dems are being squeezed out of the equation. Here it is in full: Liberal England dies again, Nick Cohen In 1935, George Dangerfield published The Strange Death of Liberal England, one of those rare histories that survive long after the author’s death.

Ed Holmes

Protecting the silent majority – and the Royal Wedding

From our UK edition

David Cameron made significant waves yesterday both at Prime Minister’s Questions and in a Sun article about reforming Britain’s antiquated trade union laws.  He was responding to a favoured tactic of the new wave of militant trade unionists: threatening action at times that most inconvenience or imperil the safety of the general public.  We have seen this with the FBU’s dispute (over Bonfire Night), Unite with British Airways (over the Christmas period), and the RMT with London Underground (again, over Christmas).  Some union leaders now seem prepared to ruin what should be the two biggest highlights on our national calendar: the Royal Wedding in April and the Olympics in 2012.