Uk politics

David Cameron has just made a quite spectacular mistake. Talking to Sky News he said: 'I think it's important in life to speak as it is, and the fact is that we are a very effective partner of the US, but we are the junior partner'. 'We were the junior partner in 1940 when we were fighting the Nazis.' The obvious problem with Cameron’s remarks is that, as any fule kno, the Americans did not enter the war until after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The error is even odder given Cameron’s penchant for war movies, he’s watched Where Eagles Dare 17 times apparently. This howler from Cameron following Clegg’s Iraq gaffe at PMQs, means that this has not been a good day for the Coalition.

A little odd, and certainly inconvenient, that al-Megrahi still lives and breathes. Then again, Scotland's a notoriously unhealthy place and a bit of desert air probably did him some good. Ensconced in Washington, David Cameron will have taken some flak for the Lockerbie bomber’s compassionate release, for which he has the perfect riposte: terrible business, but nothing to do with me. His second line of defence is constitutionally watertight: the decision was Holyrood’s alone. The Lockerbie Papers suggest that al-Megrahi’s inclusion in a Prisoner Transfer Agreement was a precondition of any deal between the UK and Libyan governments, as Saif al-Islam Gadaffi maintains.

Most of Tim Yeo’s proselytising on climate change must be resisted. He calls for a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions in the short-term, which would paralyse Britain’s already geriatric economic competitiveness. He also endorses a policy that would push consumer energy prices to punitive levels in the hope that their behaviour is moderated. And he is adamant that David Cameron’s Husky photo-op was the last word in political positioning. But, his central point, one shared with John Redwood and Peter Lilley, is unanswerable: ‘Working towards a low carbon economy is not a “luxury”; it is essential to our future prosperity.

There has been a criticism of how the Coalition is trying to push through its Academies bill before Parliament rises for the summer. Ed Balls, in his typical understated fashion, has compared it to how anti-terrorism legislation is rammed through and the Tory Chairman of the Education Select Committee, Graham Stuart has said that the Bill should have more time. But there’s a simple reason why the Bill has to get through before parliament goes down for the summer, the school year starts in September. If the legislation was not to pass before the summer recess, many of its effects would be effectively delayed by a year. The Tories have long made clear what will be in this bill, it was set out in their manifesto.