Uk politics

Monday

Fraser Nelson

The Lib Dems face the public

From our UK edition

The most brutal session the Lib Dems will see is the studio audience currently assembled by Victoria Derbyshire for her Five Live phone-in. It’s a rare event in conference time, where the general public are put into contact with the politicians. The result is normally a bit of a bear pit, and for that reason it’s become one of my favourite conference events - I’m in the audience, in the rather beautiful Liverpool Maritime Museum. And poor Danny Alexander is in the bearpit. “This is toughest job I’ve ever had,” he said at the offset. Erm, yes - the competition being his time as press officer of the Cairngorms National Park and a press officer for the ‘yes to the Euro’ campaign.

Peter Hoskin

Slapping down the pact

From our UK edition

Here's one of the most striking leitmotifs of the Lib Dem conference: how party figures are rushing to slap down talk of an electoral pact between themselves and the Tories. Vince Cable was at it yesterday, writing in the Independent on Sunday that: "Our parties remain totally independent and will compete in future national and local elections." And Nick Clegg is expected to repeat that message, with even less equivocation, in his speech today. To some extent, this isn't surprising. The Lib Dems could hardly go around beating the drum for a pact, some five years before polling day. But the 100 percent certainty of their denials still jars with the "no plans" ambiguity of No.10 on this issue.

David Blackburn

Clegg’s Liberal Moment

From our UK edition

Last year, Nick Clegg told the party faithful that Britain was about to embark on a ‘Liberal Moment’. He gave them some of that good old religion – civil liberties, the abolition of tuition fees, arresting tax evasion. A year on and it’s a case of plus ca change. The Lib Dem conference hums to the patter of tuition fees and tax evasion. Much is being made of the disquiet among the grass roots about spending cuts, but this was the party that opened last year’s conference with the promise of ‘savage cuts’ and Vince Cable produced a detailed dossier of savings. Spending cuts were inevitable then and are necessary now.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Live-blogging from the fringe: “Whose schools are they anyway?”

From our UK edition

So where will the tension be at the Lib Dem conference? Easy: the free schools agenda. Clegg backs it, and when David Laws took over the agenda he backed Gove's market-based reform. But the teaching unions are in a fight to the death against it. The Gove agenda would put power in the hands of parents, whereas it currently rests with unions and local authorities. The latter two have beaten everyone who has spoken about reform, from Callaghan to Thatcher to Blair. But Gove represents an existential threat. Luckily he is in coalition with the Lib Dem MPs, with whom both unions and local authorities have massive influence. The NUT and NASUWT have huge stalls here, and plenty staff to canvass Lib Dem members.

Peter Hoskin

The Lib Dems’ Scottish question

From our UK edition

If you're looking for a spot of LibCon strife that might actually mean something, then how about Tavish Scott's interview in Scotland on Sunday? Judging by what he says about David Cameron, the leader of the Scottish Lib Dems clearly isn't one for coalition niceties: "I suspect that (David Cameron) doesn't even think about Scotland. It is not even remotely on his radar screen. He has a Scottish Secretary, and that's that." With the Scottish general elections drifting into view, there's little doubt that Scott is dissociating his Lib Dems from a Tory party that is unpopular and – as Alex has frequently noted – inept north of Carlisle. But the question for the Scottish Lib Dems is how far they want to take that process.

James Forsyth

Clegg gets through his Q&A untroubled

From our UK edition

There were no explosions during Nick Clegg’s Q&A with Lib Dem members. Some unease with the dynamics of the coalition was expressed: a questioner who asked why the Liberal Democrats were getting the blame for the cuts and the Tories the credit for policies Lib Dems had brought to the coalition got huge applause, but there was nothing approaching a revolt.   Clegg expressed a lot of dissatisfaction with both the Labour party and the media, he even name-checked Polly Toynbee at one point. He accused Labour of being in "a near state of apoplexy and hysteria" and indulging in "a betrayal myth". He claimed that when it came to the cuts, Labour would have done "the vast bulk of what we are going to have to do".

James Forsyth

Alexander’s arguments

From our UK edition

Danny Alexander’s announcement of a £900 million clampdown on tax avoidance, evasion and fraud is designed to reassure Lib Dems that the coalition’s policies are fair, that it isn’t balancing the budget on the backs of the poor. In a deliberate echo of George Osborne’s comments about welfare, Alexander said that the years when people could treat tax avoidance and evasion as a "lifestyle choice" were over. This Alexander announcement is a preview of what we’re going to see at this conference, a series of sweetners to show the party that the Liberal Democrats are influencing government policy.

Fraser Nelson

How I learned to stop worrying and rate Nick Clegg

From our UK edition

If Nick Clegg was a weak-willed, crowd-pleasing charlatan the the front page of yesterday's Independent would not have read “Clegg: there is no future for the Lib Dems as a left party”. Turning up to a Lib Dem conference and saying there's no point in being a party of lefty protesters is like William Shatner telling delegates at a Star Trek convention to "get a life". He wants them to be a mature party of reform – many of them prefer to throw stones. His stance at conference is certainly courageous. And it fits a theme. For weeks now, Clegg has been surprising those (myself included) who did not take him seriously, by emerging as one of the boldest and most articulate advocates of reform.

Peter Hoskin

The Lib Dems get their lines right

From our UK edition

So far, so effective from Nick Clegg and his coalition colleagues. They seem to have three key messages for the party faithful in Liverpool – i) c'mon, let's enjoy being in government, ii) we are achieving something in government, and iii) the cuts are necessary – and they're broadcasting them in bulk. Clegg himself is interviewed in the Observer this morning, stressing how the coalition has "helped release the inner Liberal in a fair number of Conservatives". There's a good serving of Danny Alexander, primed, as he is, to take on the trade union militants. And even Vince Cable is striding the parapets for the LibCon cause, with a piece in the Independent on Sunday defending the coalition's cuts and attacking Labour's "devotees of the Tree Theory of Money" (i.e.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Votes and jokes at the Lib Dem conference

From our UK edition

The pro AV rally at Lib Dem conference demonstrated the problem with the AV campaign: they don’t think it is the best system. Pam Giddy, chair of Yes! To Fairer Votes, described it as "a small but important upgrade to our electoral system"; hardly the most inspiring campaign slogan. The Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson declared that "in an ideal world … there’d be a majority for STV". Nick Clegg received a standing ovation and his speech went down well. He joked that one benefit of being in coalition with the Tories was "that he could no longer be accused of being the poshest man in the room" and that "Eric Pickles was the only Cabinet minister you can see on Google Earth." His serious message was that they were making the country "fairer, freer, greener.

David Blackburn

Alexander’s no apologist

From our UK edition

Nick Clegg opened last year’s Lib Dem conference with the promise of ‘savage cuts’. The party shuddered at the idea and they’re unnerved by the reality. Those savage cuts lour over what should have been a glorious conference for Clegg. Vince Cable stalks with insidious intent these days, so Clegg has called on Danny Alexander, of whom there is nothing of the Tory, to insulate him from internal criticism over economic policy. Alexander has given the Guardian a preview of his arguments. He’s unapologetic: the coalition has achieved more in 13 weeks than Labour managed in 13 years. A sovereign debt crisis has been averted by swift action, but there is no point in leaving a job half-done where economic stability is concerned.

David Blackburn

Ashton’s latest ruse

From our UK edition

I've obtained this list of Baroness Ashton's proposed recommendations for the next wave of EU diplomatic appointments. CoffeeHousers' will notice there are no Brits on it.

James Forsyth

The coalition must make its case

From our UK edition

The Lib Dems’ week in the sun has started and Nick Clegg has marked the occasion by giving a series of interviews. David has already noted the one in The Independent, but Clegg’s one with The Sun where he talks about playing tennis with Cameron at Chequers and assembling IKEA furniture together is perhaps more revealing of where his heart lies. But this coalition is going to be made or broken by whether it can persuade the public that dealing with the structural deficit and reforming the four great public services are the right things to do and that the coalition is doing them competently. As Charles Moore says in a magisterial column in the Telegraph today, the coalition needs to explain itself. Too often it is leaving a vacuum that its opponents are filling.

David Blackburn

Clegg: there is no future for the Lib Dems on the left

From our UK edition

Nick Clegg has opened the political season with a very singular statement: ‘There is no future for us as left-wing rivals to Labour. Clegg urges his internal critics to be patient: the future could be yellow if the coalition is maintained. It’s a gamble. Immediately, Clegg has alienated those who abandoned Labour for the Lib Dems and his explicit disavowal of ‘left-wing’ politics will have the social democratic wing of his party reaching for their hat and coats. But, Clegg has planted his colours on politics’ crowded centre ground, recasting his party’s identity as an economically liberal and socially liberal centrist movement.

Friday

Freddy Gray

The Pope: moderation is Britain’s national instinct

From our UK edition

Another good speech from Pope Benedict XVI, grand in historical sweep and intellectual clarity. His softly spoken, yet heavily-accented, English demands some mental concentration. And it was funny watching some of the tired looking politicians squinting as they tried to figure out what on earth the Pontiff was saying.   But if his voice was tricky to hear, his message was reasonably clear. He was effusive in his praise for this country’s parliamentary history, for common law, and for British democracy. At the same time, he did not shrink from suggesting that modern Britain is at risk of detaching itself from the Christian philosophical tradition that underpins everything that he believes is good about our free society.

Peter Hoskin

Balls, McBride and off-the-record briefings

From our UK edition

John Rentoul has already pulled the best passage from this preview of a forthcoming radio series on Gordon Brown. But I reckon that the testimony of Spencer Livermore, the former strategy chief in No.10, deserves a spot in the Westminster scrapbook: "Mr Livermore, who was Downing Street's director of political strategy, regrets not warning about the downside of scrapping the election when Team Brown got cold feet as polling in marginal seats suggested only a slim Labour majority. 'I don't think it's possible. Does anyone?' the Prime Minister told his inner circle at the crucial meeting. The mood was 'very, very sombre', according to Mr Livermore.

Peter Hoskin

From the archives: John Paul II’s visit to Britain

From our UK edition

No need to explain why we've disinterred this piece by Peter Ackroyd, on the last papal visit to Britain, from the Spectator archives. And, to the left, the cover image by Garland from that week's issue. As news emerges that five people have been arrested in connection with a terror plot against Benedict XVI, a reminder that papal visits are always replete with global-political significance: The Pope and his princeling, by Peter Ackroyd, The Spectator, 5 June 1982 The pilgrims arrived in Canterbury, carrying their fold-up chairs in plastic Sainsbury bags; strange rumours on the train from London: 'You can't get into town without a permit. They say they've stopped all the cars for three miles … They've taken the door off the cathedral'.

David Blackburn

Andrew Mitchell: the answer to global terrorism

From our UK edition

Al Shabaab and al Qeada are brothers in arms – Somalia is a hothouse for terror. Jonathan Evans, director general of MI5, has openly expressed his view that it is ‘just a matter of time’ until Somalia and the Yemen export terrorism to Britain’s streets. That striking statement contains one oversight: they do already. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber, was trained in the Yemen and two of the 7/7 bombers were Somali. How to eradicate this threat? The legacies of Iraq and financial retrenchment have made armed intervention an absolute last resort. Counter-terrorism is essential, but well targeted aid is the easiest remedy for chaos. In a speech yesterday, Andrew Mitchell described why aid should be directed to benighted regions.

Peter Hoskin

Cable: interim immigration cap is “very damaging to the UK economy”

From our UK edition

After stumbling in his crusade for a graduate contribution, Vince Cable seemed to go a bit quiet. But this morning he's roared back into the newspapers with another attack on coalition policy. The target of his anger is, once again, the immigration cap – but he's being far less equivocal about it this time around. The way in which the cap is being implemented this year, he tells the FT, is "very damaging to the UK economy." To force the point home, he says he has a  "file full" of companies who are suffering because of it. And, for good measure, the word "damaging" gets deployed once or twice more.