Uk politics

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Cameron’s tangled web

From our UK edition

How do you get from David Cameron to Simon Cowell in two, easy steps? Answer: Andy Coulson. The former News of the World editor is, of course, Cameron's director of communications – but he also happens to be on friendly terms with the X-Factor impresario. We set out this, and all the other tangled relationships around the Prime Minister, in a spider graph for this week's magazine. From Nick Clegg to the designer Anya Hindmarch, from Steve Hilton to Baroness Ashton: it's not a map of the government, but rather of the people both in and around No.10 who form what we call the New Establishment. To see them in their entirety, all CoffeeHousers need do is click on the image above, or download a pdf .

James Forsyth

A solution to the immigration cap puzzle

From our UK edition

The coalition’s immigration cap is, as several Conservative Cabinet ministers have pointed out privately, flawed. It threatens to cap the kind of immigration that bothers almost nobody, high skilled foreign workers coming to this country to do a specific job. As Ken Clarke has told colleagues, the problem is that Labour — albeit right at the end of their time in office — stopped non-EU low-skilled immigration. So all there was left to cap was high-skilled immigration.   But there is a potential solution that would enable the cap — a Conservative manifesto promise — to remain in place, but also deal with Vince Cable and businesses’ objections http://www.thisislondon.co.

Fraser Nelson

Hunt the heretic

From our UK edition

Eureka, the science magazine from The Times, is in many ways a brilliant accomplishment. Advertising is following readers in an online migration - but James Harding, the editor, personally persuaded advertisers that a new magazine, in a newspaper, devoted to science would work. And here it is: giving the New Scientist a run for its money every month. That's why it's such a shame that today's magazine opens on an anti-scientific piece denouncing those who disagree with the climate consensus. My former colleague Ben Webster, now the paper's environment correspondent, is an energetic and original journalist - so it's depressing to see his skills deployed in a game of hunt-the-heretic.

Peter Hoskin

Waiting for the shadow cabinet

From our UK edition

You can say what you like about Labour's penchant for internal elections, but at least it makes for good, political entertainment. Tonight, the results of the shadow cabinet elections will be released, and we'll discover which of the 49 nominees made it into the final 19. Then it will fall to Ed Miliband to force some very square pegs into the round holes on his party's front bench. Good luck with that, Mr Miliband. According to most observers, Yvette Copper is favourite to come top – a forecast supported by a readers' poll published on Left Foot Forward today. In the same poll, Ed Balls finished second. It rather encapsulates the toughest choice facing Ed Miliband: who to pick as shadow chancellor?

Peter Hoskin

Delaying the cuts

From our UK edition

Put aside all the post-match analysis of David Cameron's speech: the most intriguing story in the papers this morning is this one in the FT. It claims that the Treasury is working on plans to "reprofile" the spending cuts, which basically means "delay" them. The idea would be to push the bulk of the cuts back to the end of this Parliament. And the underlying concern is, apparently, that early cuts could trigger various financial penalties, such as those for breaking contracts. The paper even suggests that ministers are worried that, "deep deficit reduction in 2011-12 could undermine the fragile recovery." The Treasury have firmly denied the story, and I'd certainly be surprised if we saw significant delays in the cuts.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Cameron would be advised to talk about people power

From our UK edition

David Cameron was speaking in odd circumstances today. He was talking to a party that was back in power after more than a decade in opposition. But unlike Tony Blair in 1997 he couldn’t devote his speech to a celebration of that both because his party did not win a majority and because of the situation the country is in. To compound this, Cameron was speaking a fortnight before the spending review; further tying his hands in terms of what he could say.   Politically, the principal argument that Cameron wanted to make was about fairness. He was trying to move fairness from being purely about redistribution to one about reciprocity, about people deserving the help that they are given.

David Blackburn

What to make of Cameron’s rejection of laissez faire?

From our UK edition

Pressure brings out the best in David Cameron and right now he’s coasting. He gave, as Pete and Fraser have said, a subdued speech. The content was there but his delivery was calm, except on two occasions when he spoke rather than read the autocue. He attempted to sell the Big Society (third time and no luckier). Then he said, with conviction, ‘I don’t believe in laissez faire.’ Those six words are pure Tory Reform Group, pure Iain Macleod, pure One Nation. He evoked that traditional form of Torysim with a firm description of how his government seeks to empower people as responsible groups not just free individuals.

Fraser Nelson

Cameron resuscitates the Big Society

From our UK edition

This was the perhaps the lowest-octane speech David Cameron has ever given to the Tory conference. He didn't need to give the speech of his life, for once - so he didn't. He dutifully ran through all the various points of government policies, but there were too many of what Art Laffer calls MEGO figures (my eyes glaze over). It's odd, because Cameron can speak so well when he needs to. Compared to the speeches we heard yesterday - from Gove and IDS - it was oddly uninspiring. He spoke about his government's "beating, radical heart" with no real enthusiasm - as if he received the speech only recently, and didn’t rehearse too much. It was too long, was repetitious in places.

Peter Hoskin

Cameron’s peculiar speech

From our UK edition

Ok, so that was a peculiar kind of speech from David Cameron – neither wholly successful, nor wholly unsuccessful. In terms of its general tone, it was much as we expected: a dose of bitter realism about the public finances, lacquered over with heavy optimism about what the country can be. But its content was more surprising, brave even. For this was the moment when the Big Society returned with a vengeance. In truth, we haven't heard much in recent months about the idea that framed the Tories' election campaign. Coalition seemed to have displaced it from the Cameroonian lexicon, if not their thinking. But it made an early appearance in one of the most unconventional sections of Cameron's speech.

Peter Hoskin

David Cameron speech live blog

From our UK edition

1537, PH: And Cameron ends on that note, calling on the public to get involved in fixing society: "So come on: let's pull together. Let's come together. Let's work, together, in the national interest." Standing ovation. More reaction on Coffee House shortly. 1537, PH: This is good, liberal-conservative stuff from Cameron. He says that the government recognises that it is there to push power to the people. "I know the British people: they are not passengers, they are drivers." 1535, PH: Strong line: "Mine is not just a vision of a more powerful country, it is of more powerful people." 1536, PH: The Big Society returns, with a lenghty section on volunteering and social action. Cameron calls this a "call to arms".

James Forsyth

The government’s strategy has kept the child benefit story running

From our UK edition

We have heard much since the coalition was formed about how Cabinet government has been restored. The child benefit flap reveals how limited this restoration is. There was no Cabinet approval of the decision and, as Andrew Grice confirms this morning, Iain Duncan-Smith was unaware of the change until the morning of the announcement. The other thing that strikes me, as someone who supports the idea and thinks it is potentially good politics, is the very odd approach to spinning this story.

Fraser Nelson

Britain’s welfare families

From our UK edition

We have a new facts and figures column in the magazine, Barometer, and I thought CoffeeHousers might like a preview of one of the data series we have dug up for tomorrow’s edition. George Osborne has this week pledged that, from 2013, no family on benefits should receive more than the average family does through work. But how many will it affect? Those living in expensive areas, for example, but also those with large families. CoffeeHousers may remember Karen Matthews, who lived on benefits with seven children. She was demonised, understandably, but I was left thinking: we paid her to do that. The more kids she has, the more money she received – so shouldn’t the system take some of the blame?

David Blackburn

A hard-headed case of <em>déjà vu</em>

From our UK edition

It was as if we’d been transported back a week – here was William Hague talking about ‘hard-headed foreign policy’, the very phrase that David Miliband had used before he swanned-off into the wilderness in a floral shirt. The details of the two speeches had much in common – an emphasis on free trade, a promise to garner new strategic and economic partnerships in South America and the Near East, balance in the Israeli and Palestinian dispute, global solutions to climate change and a promise to export human rights. Hague differed in not mentioning liberal interventionism and laying historical and partisan claim to free trade, arguing that the European Commission’s protectionist bent was ‘backward-looking and doomed to fail’.

David Blackburn

Fox to the rescue

From our UK edition

The best form of defence is attack. Liam Fox distracted conference from the various rows that have afflcited it by castigating Labour’s abysmal record on defence. He was helped enormously by the terrorist outrage in Sanaa, the Yemen – a cowardly atrocity that reinforces his observation that ‘the country's finances are wrecked and the world is more dangerous than at any other time in recent memory.’ He recited the refrain that cuts are regrettable but necessary, before adding that, thanks to Labour, Britain has to fight on with less.

Peter Hoskin

Cameron stumbles onto the stage

From our UK edition

Who'd have guessed that David Cameron would go into his conference speech on the backfoot? This was supposed to be a moment tinged, if anything, with jubilation: the first Tory PM for thirteen years addressing a party that seems to have fallen in love with him. But instead we've got the child benefit row, and with it apologies, rebuttals and hasty repositioning. It is to Cameron's credit that he can breath the two words that evade other, more culpable politicians: "I'm sorry". But on the eve of his big speech? Far from ideal. This exercise in damage limitation may have slightly eased Cameron's situation today – but it has put him in a more difficult long-term position.

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Scottish Tories won’t oppose AV

From our UK edition

Annabel Goldie, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, made an odd admission at a fringe event last night. Asked how she would campaign against AV next May, she disclosed that there wouldn’t be a concerted campaign because ‘people have already made-up their minds’. I’m told that David Mundell, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, sat in impassive agreement while the audience raised its collective eyebrow. Conservatism hasn’t scaled Hadrian’s Wall for twenty years. Representation is thin because residual loathing for Thatcher and Major runs deep. Loud partisanship against AV may incite the hostile populace to vote for it out of spite. Discretion looks the better part of valour.

Peter Hoskin

IDS sets out his vision for combating poverty

From our UK edition

There was a quiet momentousness about Iain Duncan Smith's speech in Birmingham today – even before he started speaking. When IDS resigned the Tory leadership in 2003, he could barely have imagined that he would one day address his party as a leading member of the government. Even a few weeks ago, he couldn't have been sure that the coalition would implement the policy agenda that he developed during his time at the Centre for Social Justice. Yet here IDS was, receiving a standing ovation for his efforts. What a difference seven years make. And then to the speech itself. Much of it reverberated to the same reforming drumbeat that we've heard throughout this Tory conference.

Peter Hoskin

Boris well ahead in the first Mayoral poll

From our UK edition

The first Boris vs Ken poll of the season carries an obvious health warning: there are other candidates to come, not to mention another one-and-half years of the current mayoral term. Yet Tories might still be pleased that their man is 9 points ahead of his predecessor and main rival at this stage. And that's even with Labour beating out the Tories, in the same poll, when it comes to London's general election voting intentions. Andrew Gilligan puts two and two together to create a striking parallel: Boris is more popular than the Tory party in London, whereas Ken is less popular than Labour. Stir in the fact that Livingstone is polling lower than he did in the 2008 election, and his enforced spell on the sidelines has clearly done little to bolster his reputation.

Peter Hoskin

Cameron says “yes” to the Trident upgrade – but questions remain

From our UK edition

Courtesy of Ben Brogan, one of the most noteworthy passages from David Cameron's appearance on Today this morning: 'Jim Naughtie: Is the Trident upgrade untouchable? David Cameron: We do need an independent nuclear deterrent… JN: Is that a yes? DC: Yes. Basically I was going to give you a longer and fuller answer but the short answer is yes… To me and the Coalition government, yes, Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent is being replaced.' It is certainly the most assertive that Cameron has been on the subject since the advent of the coalition, but a couple of questions remain that prevent it from being utterly unequivocal. First, what timeframe is the PM operating along?

David Blackburn

Gove re-emphasises his reform agenda

From our UK edition

Michael Gove means business. His case is simple: standards have fallen; it is time to be radical. Under Labour, Britain fell from 4th to 14th for science, from 7th to 17th for literacy and from 8th to 24th for mathematics. With a fervour that was nothing short of zealous, Gove promised that the ‘injustice will end’. His ministerial career has had a difficult start - his message often lost under Ed Balls' righteous indignation. Having faltered, he is beginning to re-direct his rhetorical emphasis to more fertile ground. Where once he wanted to empower parents, he now wants to empower teachers - no doubt to attract recalcitrant teaching unions to his cause. Gove re-introduced his New Deal for Teachers.