Uk politics

Sir Jock Stirrup’s early departure was one of the worst kept secrets in Westminster. But the ‘resignation’ could have been better handled. The coalition has created a lame duck in Stirrup. And, rightly, Con Coughlin asks why Stirrup is overseeing the strategic defence review if he was sufficiently inept as CDS? It makes no sense, as removing Stirrup and Sir Bill Jeffrey (the MoD’s permanent secretary) is clearly about preparing the way for spending cuts and a new model of UK military intervention. Liam Fox gave a speech this morning promising a ‘clean break with the Cold War mindset’. He emphasised the importance of maintaining counter-insurgency spending and training; presumably, that will come at the expense of conventional warfare.

I had expected Alistair Darling to have slumped off to spend more time with his memoirs after the election, but here he is, fists aloft, fighting the government. About the only member of the Labour front bench effectively doing so. He has a point. The economy is looking better than expected, not worse - as David Cameron has been pretending. Each new forecast for the deficit seems to give a less ghastly picture. British house prices are on the rebound. And when the Office of Budget Responsibility announces its forecasts on Monday, it is likely to give a better picture than that in Darling's budget. Already Darling is telling the Guardian that he wants "an apology" if this is so.

I thought that Ed Balls would be a natural for opposition politics. But I’ve been struck by the naivety of some of his recent interventions – notably the Duffy-wooing immigration proposal. As James has argued, Balls’ plan to limit freedom of movement within the EU ia classic opposition politics. They are eye-catching, populist and but completely unworkable in practice. But Balls isn’t really in opposition yet: the Labour party is caught in a kind of limbo whilst it determines its future, a future that Balls wants to control. Advocating the unimplementable looks conniving rather than statesmanlike, naïve rather than astute.

In this new world of Coalition politics, there is a difference between Conservative party policy and government policy. There are things that the Conservatives would like to do but can’t do because they didn’t win a majority. As Tim wrote this morning, this provides an opportunity for the Conservative parliamentary party to fill this gap. When the backbench policy committees of the 1922 are set up, they should start working on developing, detailed policy ideas rather than just critiques of Coalition policy. The Prime Minister should encourage this for three reasons. First, it would provide him with a series of possible options for the next manifesto.

As expected Simon Hughes, has won the race to be Lib Dem deputy leader, congratulations. Both candidates pledged to assert the party’s independence within the context of supporting the coalition. Hughes intends to appoint Lib Dem spokesmen for all government departments to improve accountability in parliament. A renowned left-winger, Hughes’s inclination must run contrary to the Conservative dominated coalition, and I wonder how he will take Patrick Wintour’s news that the coalition is beginning to act as one politically, mastering a strategy to deflect Labour’s political assaults.