Uk politics

We all know that the state grew enormously under thirteen years of Labour government. The most obvious manifestation of this was public spending – an increase of 60 percent in real terms took Britain from having one of the lowest levels of government spending in the OECD in 2000 (36.6 percent of GDP) to having one of the highest in 2010 (52.5 percent of GDP). But while reducing spending is clearly the most pressing issue facing the coalition government, we should not overlook another area where the state has grown dramatically: regulation. The British Chambers of Commerce’s ‘Burdens Barometer’ estimates that net cost of major regulations passed since 1998 is £88.

The warnings from Auntie’s leading hacks have been heeded – the strike has been cancelled. There is no done deal and the government is still in the union’s crosshairs: the strike has been delayed to the 19th and 20th October, the day of the comprehensive spending review, pending further consultation. All this raises a few points. First, Ed Miliband scores by having urged the NUJ to drop its plans in favour of impartiality – very New Politics, now matter how opportunistic the initial impulse to further debase the moniker ‘Red Ed’. The BBC has, for the moment, denied its detractors a major publicity coup, not that I think that Jeremy Hunt and the Tories would be crass enough to claim that a strike was evidence of biased journalism.

Forget Ed Miliband’s promise of ‘optimism’ - a mantra that became so repetitive it had me reaching for the Scotch and revolver. Philip Collins has delivered a far more cutting verdict on David Cameron’s obsession with austerity. He writes (£): ‘Conservatives such David Cameron are not philosophers. The question to ask of Mr Cameron is not: what does he believe? It is: what problems does he inherit? Mr Cameron really does just want to fix the roof. The reason he wants to fix the roof is because it’s broken. The value he brings to this task is the insight that it is better to be dry than wet. He’s simple like that.

Amongst BBC political staff, there’s mounting concern about the plans for a strike during Tory conference. One of them said to me at Labour conference that they just didn’t know what to do, they had been put in an impossible position by the decision to call the strike on such politically important days. These journalists fear that striking during Tory conference would undermine the corporation’s reputation for impartiality. So, a whole host of them wrote to their union rep asking him to make representations on their behalf.

Exactly as the headline says, really. Interviewed by Mehdi Hasan in this week's New Statesman, Sayeeda Warsi claims that the Tories "lost" at least three seats in the election because of electoral fraud. The article observes: 'This is the first time a senior minister has made such a blunt and specific allegation about the impact of electoral fraud on the general election result. Can she reveal the names of those seats? 'I think it would be wrong to start identifying them,' she says, but adds: 'It is predominantly within the Asian community. I have to look back and say we didn’t do well in those communities, but was there something over and above that we could have done? Well, actually not, if there is going to be voter fraud.

After Fern Britton's triumph over Gordon Brown a couple of years ago, we should know that This Morning interviews can have a certain bite to them. But if you needed more convincing, then how about David Cameron's appearance on the show this morning? Lurking behind all the talk of baby Florence and the Obamas, was a sprightly discussion of both defence cuts and the new Labour leader. Cameron was combative on both. Most noteworthy were Cameron's attacks on Ed Miliband. I imagine they will set the template for how the anti-Ed operation is conducted in future. The main aim, it seemed, was to defuse Miliband's talk of an optimistic New Generation – a woefully specious phrase, to be sure, but one that some Tories fear might gain traction.