Uk politics

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

The Harman bounce

From our UK edition

I kid, I kid – but it's still striking that Labour are pushing ahead in the polls as soon as Ed Miliband takes his paternity leave. According to today's YouGov poll, they are now 5 points ahead of the Tories: their biggest lead since 2007, and an escalation of the 2-point advantage they recorded in a couple of polls earlier this week. The question, of course, is whether this is a momentary blip, or representative of wider discontent over tuition fee rises and the like.

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 17 November 2010

From our UK edition

VERDICT: Harriet Harman's questions must have looked quite clever on paper: a heavy emphasis on police cuts, followed by a quick dose of indigation over the vanity photographers. But, in reality, they were breezily repelled by Cameron. All he had to do was cite the words of Alan Johnson and refer to a list of Labour's own dodgy hires. By the time Harman attacked the cost of elected police commissioners, leaving Cameron to stand up for greater local democracy and accountability, it was clear who had won this bout: the Prime Minister, by some distance. Although, as Andrew Neil and Tim Montgomerie have noted, the absence of any talk about an Irish bailout was unsettling, to say the least. 1233: Labour are persistently talking down the economy, claims Cameron.

Peter Hoskin

Sovereignty, and the loss of it

From our UK edition

The superb Slugger O'Toole blog highlights what is certainly the most resonant quote if the day: "When you borrow, you lose a little bit of your sovereignty, no matter who you borrow from." Those words were uttered by the Irish finance minister Brian Lenihan this morning, and they capture his country's grisly predicament perfectly. The Irish government has been fighting the European attempt to bail them out because they believe, quite understandably, that it would mean a final handover of control to Brussels and Berlin. But their loose economic policy – built on debt, and structured around a stubborn currency – has already seen them lose control to the point where the IMF is dispatching its observers to the scene.

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

The divide over the Guantanamo settlements

From our UK edition

After being pre-empted by the morning newspapers, Ken Clarke's statement this afternoon contained nothing that was unexpected. "We've paid the money so we can move on," he said. And he went on to emphasise that the Guantanamo payouts are not an admission of culpability, but rather all about sparing the public's money and the spooks' time. More striking were some of the responses from Clarke's coalition stablemates. Take Tom Brake, the Lib Dem MP for Carshalton and Wallington, who suggested that the government wouldn't have made the payments if the UK didn't have a case to answer.

Peter Hoskin

A good day to bury good news

From our UK edition

It's not just the embarrassing and the difficult that will be buried underneath the Wills 'n' Kate coverage tomorrow – some good news will be too. Among it is the coalition's plan to expand the provision of personal budgets. According to the Lib Dem health minister Paul Burstow, speaking today, some one million elderly people will be given control of their own personal care budgets, up from 250,000 now. As I've suggested before, this is a worthwhile idea. Personal budgets promise to be one of the most concrete elements of what the Tories used to call their Post-Bureaucratic Age agenda, but has now been stuck with the Big Society label.

Peter Hoskin

A royal wedding bounce?

From our UK edition

Slap all kinds of health warnings on this, but – in view of speculation that the Wills and Kate nuptials might work in the coalition's favour – I thought CoffeeHousers might like to see what happened to the the Tory government's poll rating in 1981, around when Prince Charles married Diana. So here's a graph I've put together from Ipsos MORI's figures. The dotted line represents the date of the wedding: PoliticsHome suggests that the "royal wedding worked wonders for Thatcher" – but, on the basis of the above, I'm not so sure. It's worth nothing, though, that the Tories surged ahead of Labour as soon as the Falklands War flared up in 1982. By June 1982, Thatcher's party were 27 points ahead of their rivals. P.S.

James Forsyth

Bonfire of the vanity photographers

From our UK edition

Today is a very good day to bury bad news. Prince William and Kate Midddleton’s engagement is going to dominate the news and the front pages for at least the next 24 hours. Almost any other story can be slipped out unnoticed in the current circumstances. So it was a convenient time for Downing Street to announce that the photographer and the videographer would be moved off the public payroll and back onto the Tory one. This means that their work will not be able to appear on any government websites. Downing Street’s correction is welcome. But in reality, the damage has already been done by this story. It will be like the car following the bike, a story constantly advanced by those sceptical of the PM.

Daniel Korski

A 2015 Afghan exit will be tricky

From our UK edition

William Hague told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that British combat troops will leave Afghanistan in 2015 - even if parts of the country remain violent. Speaking to a number of senior military officers and civilians who have recently returned from Kabul and Helmand, I have come away with the clear sense – whisper it – that the tactical tide is in fact turning against the Taliban insurgency but that a number of facts will complicate further progress. First, the next few months in Helmand may unfortunately be quite bloody.

Peter Hoskin

The curious case of the Guantanamo Bay pay-outs

From our UK edition

What to make of the out-of-court settlement that has been paid to around a dozen former detainees of Guantanamo Bay? According to unofficial reports, taxpayers might have to shoulder £10 million as a result. One of the men is thought to be receiving £1 million. The explanations seeping out of Westminster are understandable enough. Security chiefs, we're told, were keen to avoid a lengthy process – not just because it could mean more cost for the taxpayer, but because it would drag the practices of our intelligence services out into the public realm. David Cameron, speaking on the matter in July, highlighted that Mi5 and Mi6's time could be spent more usefully than sifting through documents in preparation for a court case.

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Cameron: it’s all about the economy

From our UK edition

A minor landmark for David Cameron tonight, as he delivers his first Mansion House speech as Prime Minister. Like occupants of No.10 before him, he will use the occasion to talk about foreign affairs – although the result may be rather more like the Chancellor's annual speech at the same venue. Judging by the extracts that have been released so far, Cameron's overall emphasis will be on the economy, and on Britain's fiscal standing. As he will say, "we need to sort out the economy if we are to carry weight in the world." Cameron develops this point by claiming that, "whenever I meet foreign leaders, they do not see a Britain shuffling apologetically off the world stage.

Peter Hoskin

General Well-Being is back

From our UK edition

Spectators might smile wryly at the news that the government is to devise a method for tracking the well-being of the nation. This idea of General Well-Being (GWB) was common currency in the early days of the Cameron project, when the Tory leader was going all out to "detoxify the brand". But it soon hit a downturn-sized snag. Any talk of happiness might have sounded a little complacent and New Age-y in the face of job losses and bank bailouts. And so the Tories backed away from GWB, and it was relegated to little more than branding for the coffee stalls at Tory conference. It was quite a surprise to see it mentioned in the party's manifesto in April, although they did keep it on the hush, hush at the time. Yet now it's back at full volume. And the question is – why?

Peter Hoskin

Ireland’s nightmare becomes Europe’s problem

From our UK edition

"We certainly haven't looked to Europe." That was the message spilling from the mouths of Irish Cabinet ministers last night – but, as Alex suggested in a superb post on the matter this morning, their utterances may come to naught. After all, Europe has certainly looked to Ireland – and it doesn't like what it sees. Already, Brussels' moneymen are urging a bailout on the country, and Ireland's moneymen are thought to be in "technical discussions" about how that might work. The upshot is that a financial intervention from Europe is now considerably more likely than not. And with that come European demands over how Ireland should manage its public finances – and raise its taxes. There are plenty of lessons for all sides in this.

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

Richards: we’re in it for the long haul

From our UK edition

General Sir David Richards does like thinking in decades, doesn't he? A year or so ago, he was warning us that "the whole process [in Afghanistan] might take as long as 30 to 40 years." Today, in interview with the Sunday Telegraph, he says that the wider battle against al-Qaeda could last around 30 years. In both cases, he deserves our attention. To hear the head of our military suggest that the West's current conflicts will stretch across generations is sobering, to say the least. More noteworthy, though, is Richards' claim that a "clear cut victory" over Islamist terror is "unnecessary and would never be achieved" – but that we can "contain it to the point that our lives and our children's lives are led securely.

James Forsyth

Laws and the coalition

From our UK edition

David Laws’ eagerly awaited account of the coalition negotiations contains some great lines. Peter Mandelson’s declaration on being told of the Lib Dem’s desire for a mansions that ‘surely the rich have suffered enough already’ is classic. While William Hague’s description of the Conservative party as an 'an absolute monarchy, moderated by regicide’ is a candidate for the dictionary of quotations. But politically the thing that struck me about it most was what it tells us about Ed Balls. Balls had worked with Gordon Brown for years and had been one of the most ardent Brownite. Yet it was Balls who effectively pulled the plug on the idea of a Lib Lab pact when Brown was still desperate to try and make it work.

Fraser Nelson

IDS shows how arguments are won

From our UK edition

For years, I have complained that the Conservatives have timidly stayed within Labour’s intellectual parameters, arguing that they need “permission” to make certain arguments and need to stay within the limits of what the public find acceptable. Such intellectual timidity confined them to opposition: they can never win, playing by Labour rules. Iain Duncan Smith is breaking free of this. It may be rash to predict it now, but I believe he is on the brink of a breakthrough in the way that welfare is regarded in Britain. This victory in a battle of ideas could be the greatest single blow against poverty in a generation. The extent of this was crystallised by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian yesterday.

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

Whatever happened to Labour’s economic message?

From our UK edition

For some weeks now, Labour have struggled to project a clear voice on the economy. You can see what they've been trying to do: pitch themselves as an alternative to immediate, deeper cuts, whilst also accepting the requirement to deal with the deficit. But, as I've said before, this all too often comes across as nervous equivocation; a kind of "on the one hand, on the other hand" stuttering that won't persuade many observers either way. You sense that Team Miliband have tried to correct this in recent weeks, with a few punchier performances, but, even then, mistakes and deceptions have greased into their offering. Anyway, I mention this because Alan Johnson's interview with the Times (£) today only adds to the confusion.

Peter Hoskin

The Gove reforms grow even more radical

From our UK edition

Local authorities are already doing their utmost to block the coalition's schools reforms, so just how will they respond to this story on the front of today's FT? It reveals how Michael Gove is planning to sideline local authorities from the funding of all state schools – not just free schools and academies. The idea is that state schools will get cash directly from the state, without any need for the council middlemen that currently control the system. Here's an FT graphic that captures the change: The money would be allocated to schools in proportion to the number of pupils they have, and headmasters would have much more freedom in how to spend it. This is the same simple but transformative dynamic that inspirits the rest of the Gove reforms.

Friday

James Forsyth

The pledge divide

From our UK edition

Over at the FT's Westminster blog, Alex Barker asks why it is that David Cameron's expensive personal pledge on pensioner benefits has survived the spending review while Nick Clegg's personal pledge to scrap tuition fees, which would have cost roughly the same amount, has been spectacularly ditched. As Alex argues, one reason is that Clegg himself was not particularly attached to his pledge on fees. Indeed, he had tried to change the policy several times in opposition. The other is that George Osborne, who is the Tories' chief election strategist as well as the Chancellor, is determined to protect the Cameron brand.

Mark Littlewood

Going beyond the IDS reforms

From our UK edition

Iain Duncan Smith deserves credit for fully understanding the nature and scale of the welfare problem. But that’s the easy bit. Finding a solution with the right balance of carrot and stick and making it somehow affordable in these austere times is the tougher part of the equation. And it’s not at all clear that the IDS proposals have either enough carrot or enough stick.   He has certainly gone some way to tackling the lunacy of huge withdrawal rates – if by entering the workforce your new post-tax pay packet is less than the benefits you stand to lose, then don’t be surprised when an entrepreneurial work ethic fails to emerge in some of the country’s poorest areas.

Peter Hoskin

Ten things you need to know about the welfare White Paper

From our UK edition

I've sifted through yesterday's welfare White Paper, and thought CoffeeHousers might appreciate a ten-point guide to its contents. This is by no means the entire picture – and some of it will be familiar from past Coffee House posts – but hopefully it should capture the broad sweep of IDS's reforms: 1) The problem. Fundamentally, the issue is that there are a lot of people stuck on out-of-work benefits: around 5 million at the last count. This means different things for different groups. For the Treasury and taxpayers it contributes towards an unwieldy working-age welfare budget that has increased by 45 percent, in real terms, over the past decade – to around £80 billion.