Uk politics

Tuesday

James Forsyth

The money that didn’t swing the election

From our UK edition

Before the election, the Tories used to regularly, and with a certain justification, complain about how the vast majority of money that Peter Mandelson’s department was dishing out to businesses via the Strategic Investment Fund went to those based in Labour constituencies. Not a single Tory-held seat benefitted from this £601.5 million of spending. Indeed, 84 percent of the constituencies that benefitted from this money were Labour at the time. But new research on the election result shows that this money doesn’t seem to have made voters much more loyal to Labour. In the 25 seats that benefitted from the fund the swing against Labour was 12 percent. This is only marginally smaller than the 14 percent swing against Labour nationally.

Joanna Hughes

What were the CPS and the courts thinking? 

From our UK edition

A mother jailed for retracting allegations of rape by her husband, (allegations she now says were truthful) has been freed. A few days ago, appeal judges overturned the eight-month sentence of which she had served seventeen days, ordering her immediate release.  A triumph for common sense and compassion, but why was she jailed in the first place? Yes, the CPS thought she’d lied under oath and invented a rape claim - and that’s serious – but, as it turns out, her husband intimidated her into retracting the claim. In any event, an eight-month sentence is excessive.

David Blackburn

The government takes the fight to students

From our UK edition

The government’s response to the protest over tuition fee hikes has stiffened. Nick Clegg has written to Aaron Porter and David Cameron has penned an op-ed piece in the Standard today. They are united. The NUS should protest; debate is important. But that debate is moribund if the NUS deliberately misrepresent the government and mislead students. Cameron writes: ‘Of course these people have a right to protest. But I also believe they have a responsibility to know the full facts about what they're objecting to — and judging by the fury that's been unleashed, there are a lot of misconceptions flying around.’ It is vital that the Conservatives assist their embattled colleagues; the government must be unified.

Daniel Korski

Brit-free EU diplomacy takes shape

From our UK edition

After months of behind-the-scenes work, the shape of the European External Action Service - the EU’s diplomatic corps - is now coming into view. The Bruxelles2 blog has obtained a version of its structure with some of the key names penciled in. You can find it here.      The top three jobs in the EU’s diplomatic headquarters will go to a Frenchman, a Pole and a German. The only senior UK official, besides Catherine Ashton (and her personal aides) is long-serving diplomat and geo-strategist Robert Cooper. But his name, rather mysteriously, is followed by a question mark. Of the EU “ambassadors” that have been appointed until now, there is one one Brit, ex-Ambassador Ros Marsden, who is now the EU envoy in Sudan.

David Blackburn

Clegg fights back in tuition fees row

From our UK edition

Nick Clegg has written a gloriously condescending letter to Aaron Porter, who hopes to recall Liberal Democrat MPs who vote in favour of tuition fees rises. Clegg emphasises that he was unable to deliver the tuition fee pledge in coalition, and therefore struck out to make university funding as fair as possible. After a wide consultation, it was found that the graduate contribution scheme is the fairest and most progressive outcome. He urges Porter to temper his language and not misrepresent the government’s position for political aims. ‘Grow up’ seems to be the unspoken request.

Monday

Fraser Nelson

Tax cuts: a Swedish recession remedy

From our UK edition

I travelled in from frozen Stockholm this morning. My colleague Mary Wakefield set out from County Durham. No prizes for guessing whose journey took more time due to snow. When my £38 norewgian.com flight arrived at Gatwick, the captain said: “Sorry, we’re going to be delayed. They can’t seem to find people to open the gate, they say they are short staffed.” The Swedes on the flight burst out laughing: welcome to Britain. Mary’s £107 train was two hours late arriving to the station, and spent a further two hours stuck in the snow. That the Swedes do better at us in the snow is no great surprise, but it’s odd to see them do better at supply-side economics.

James Forsyth

Osborne airs the Tories’ election message

From our UK edition

George Osborne’s autumn statement previewed what I suspect will be the coalition, or at least the Conservatives, re-election message. ‘This government has taken Britain out of the financial danger zone and set our economy on the path to recovery.’   Today’s OBR forecast was a boon for the Chancellor. It suggests that there won’t be a double-dip recession, as his critics suggested there would be. The improved economic numbers allowed him to come to the House and declare that the deficit reduction ‘plan is working’, and that already the coalition has saved the country £19 billion in debt interest. Alan Johnson was his usual self in response.

David Blackburn

Osborne saves his glad tidings for another day

From our UK edition

Courtesy of Paul Waugh and the Standard, the OBR projects there to be a £6bn budget surplus by 2015-16. There was no fanfare to herald this in George Osborne’s statement, which was a litany of dirge-like thanksgiving for catastrophe averted. The Treasury is now describing the figure as being 'within the margin of error’, which is fluent Sir Humphrey-speak. The Standard’s discovery is another example of the government deliberately hiding good economic news - in what Fraser terms Osborne's Paul Daniels Act. Now why, I wonder, would a self-confessed tactical obsessive, who just happens to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer, be doing that?

David Blackburn

The coalition will not be able to reduce net migration <br />

From our UK edition

The FT’s Alex Barker has made an important discovery in the OBR’s report. The coalition’s immigration cap will make no impact on net migration. ‘The interim OBR’s June Budget estimates of trend growth estimates were based on an average net inward migration assumption of 140,000 per annum…. Since June, the Government has announced a limit of 21,700 for non-EU migrants coming into the UK under the skilled and highly skilled routes from April 2011, a reduction of 6,300 on 2009. At this stage, we judge that there is insufficient reason to change our average net migration assumption of 140,000 per year from 2010, which remains well below the net inflows of 198,000 seen in 2009.

David Blackburn

Setting the scene for Osborne’s speech

From our UK edition

George Osborne will make a brief statement to the house this afternoon, responding to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s revised growth forecasts. Reuters reports: ‘As expected, the Office for Budget Responsibility raised its 2010 growth forecast to 1.8 percent from its 1.2 percent June forecast to factor in a surprisingly strong performance in the middle of the year.’ The upgrade fuels Osborne’s positive narrative: the coalition pulled Britain from the abyss and international confidence in Britain's economy is growing. These forecasts vindicate the government’s ‘cut with care’ strategy. Concrete savings are now being made and they enable the Chancellor to announce that public sector net borrowing will fall.

James Forsyth

What’s with the Wiki-fuss?

From our UK edition

The whole Wikileaks scandal reminds me of a recent conversation I had, at his request, with a member of a foreign diplomatic service. The country he represented is a long-standing British ally and I saw no harm in talking to him as I didn’t say anything which I hadn’t said, or wouldn’t say, in print. Most of the chat was the usual stuff: what are Cameron’s prospects, what does he believe, will the Lib Dems last out five years, who are the real powers in Downing Street, what will happen to Andy Coulson, who are the new MPs worth watching etc. I suspect that what we discussed, along with many other conversations this man will have had, will have shaped the analysis he sent back.

Eamonn Butler

Going for broke

From our UK edition

It won’t be for a while yet, but the UK seems headed for another financial crisis. And this time, the government won’t be able to blame the banks. The blame will lie squarely on our own determination to vote ourselves generous healthcare, welfare and pension benefits in the hope that our children will calmly pick up the bill. This giant welfare-state Ponzi scheme is bound to collapse sometime – though you can be pretty sure that the politicians running it won’t end up in the slammer alongside Bernie Madoff. An ageing population means that all those benefits we vote ourselves today will be simply unaffordable tomorrow. You believe the national debt will top out at 100 percent of GDP?

Daniel Korski

Julian Assange: the new face of anti-Americanism

From our UK edition

Like everyone else, I have poured over the latest cache of Wikileaks - the publication of which I find irresponsible and destructive. There are several pieces of information now in the public domain that will cause the US diplomatic embarrassment or worse may even help the regimes in Tehran, Pyongyang and Moscow. Just ask yourself a few questions. Will the West be safer if the Saudi leader cannot trust that a conversation he has with a US envoy will remain secret? Will that help or hinder Iran's nuclear prpgramme? Will US-German links be improved by the knowledge that US diplomats are sceptical of Angela Merkel's policies? Will that aid G20 coordination or hamper it?

Sunday

Daniel Korski

Are they the children of the revolution?

From our UK edition

The student protests are an important short-term development, which will undoubtedly worry the coalition. But are they also, as the Met Commissioner noted, a harbinger of something else: namely, a return to a late 1960s, Continental-style protest, which will encourage other groups - from Tube drivers to Tamils - to use sit-ins, strikes and ultimately street-based violence as a political tool. The NUS rejects that their tactics are associated with violence, knowing it will turn the majority of English people against them. Blame is heaped on small groups of agitators. Anthony Barnett argues that unlike in the 1960s, "the relationship to violence is also much better, as shown by the spontaneous revulsion of the demonstrators against throwing the fire extinguisher at Millbank.

David Blackburn

Lansley’s NHS revolution

From our UK edition

Round n in the transparency revolution: Andrew Lansley has welcomed the publication of the latest Dr Foster hospital list, detailing post-operative failures in NHS care. The Observer reports: 1) Almost 10,000 patients suffered an accidental puncture or laceration. 2) More than 2,000 had post-operative intestinal bleeding. 3) More than 13,000 mothers suffered an obstetric tear while giving birth. 4) Some 30,500 patients developed a blood clot. 5) 1,300 patients contracted blood poisoning after surgery. Despite record investment and targets for standards, the NHS still suffers setbacks in the mundane that have severe consequences - according to the report, several hospitals have 'dangerously high death rates'.

Daniel Korski

A degree of truth

From our UK edition

Tuition fees work. By the standards that any progressive is supposed to hold dear - higher overall participation rates in universities and higher participation rates among low income groups – experience from other countries shows that fees work. As the think tank Centreforum showed four years ago in an in-depth study, fees have long been the norm in Australia, New Zealand and the United States and these countries have seen “their universities’ reputations grow and their higher education participation rates rise across the social spectrum.” Meanwhile, the UK has been sliding backwards. In 2000, the UK had the third-highest graduation rate among OECD countries, with 37 percent of young people getting a degree. The average was 28 percent.

David Blackburn

Some early statistical vindication for IDS

From our UK edition

The Observer has news that will warm the government’s hearts. Ernst and Young have conducted a report that suggests 100,000 public sector jobs will be saved thanks to the savings made by welfare reform. The report’s other finding, a crucial one, is that the Treasury will be raking in £11bn by 2014-15. So then, a statistical vindication for IDS’ reforms, the economic side of them at least. It also gives the government some defensive hardware ahead of tomorrow’s Chancellor’s autumn statement. Not that it really needs it. On the back of Britain’s strong economic performance in the third quarter, the Office for Budget Responsibility is expected to raise its 2010 growth forecast from 1.2 percent to 1.7 percent.

Saturday

James Forsyth

ANTI politics

From our UK edition

Tim Montgomerie has a thoughtful essay in the Daily Mail about the ANTIs, those who feel so let down by the political status quo that they have given up voting for any of the mainstream parties. These five million people, according to a recent set of research, feel angry at the political class, neglected financially, that their traditional values are being trampled on and worried about large-scale immigration. Obviously, politics can’t just be about these voters. But there’s clearly something substantially wrong when such a large chunk of the country feel so alienated from mainstream politics. One thing that worries me is that I don’t see many political figures who these voters would respect.

Daniel Korski

A more German Europe?

From our UK edition

Timothy Garton Ash asked an important question in the Guardian recenty - is Europe becoming more German? Or, to put it more accurately, does the EU have to become more German to survive? "If the eurozone falls apart, it will be because Germany did not do enough to save it. If the eurozone is saved, it will be thanks to Germany. This is the greatest challenge to German statecraft since the country was peacefully united 20 years ago." "Yet here is another horn of Germany's dilemma. For half a century, German politicians have repeated, like a mantra, Thomas Mann's call for "a European Germany, not a German Europe".

David Blackburn

Too clever by half, Miliband pitches for the squeezed middle with the vacuous promise of change

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband has made an inauspicious start to his second political relaunch of the week. The Sun has dubbed him Buzz Lightweight, after he adopted the Pixar-inspired catchphrase ‘Beyond New Labour’ to describe his vision for the party. Miliband’s media presence is already wooden; migrating to plastic is hardly a promotion. Miliband and his elders have arrived at Labour’s national policy forum. In so far as it’s possible to determine what he stands for, Miliband is not aiming for the middle ground of British politics, as David Cameron and Tony Blair did. But he is courting the ‘squeezed middle’ with the promise of change. So far, that promise is more vacuous than profound – the new boss looks like the old boss.