Uk politics

East Surrey will be the first seat where Tory central office gets to impose a shortlist of three candidates on a local association. Peter Ainsworth, its MP, has today announced that he is stepping down and because he has waited until the New Year to make this announcement CCHQ’s emergency candidate selection rules now apply. The first thing to watch for is whether the Tories go for an all women shortlist. When Cameron said in October that the party would have some “all-women shortlists to help us boost the number of Conservative women MPs” there was a furious reaction from some sections of the grassroots. There was even talk of setting up a legal fighting fund to challenge the decision.

During an election campaign, the press like to obsess about who won the day. Up until 3pm, the consensus was that the Tories had. The media was pointing out just how absurd it was for Labour to criticise another party for having black holes in its fiscal plans. But then came David Cameron’s marriage gaffe which has evened up the coverage on the evening news broadcasts with the Six o’clock news going particularly hard on the issue. Cameron’s credibility is central to the Tory campaign so anything that depletes that is bad news for them. But in the long term, I think the most significant development today is one that is not getting much coverage on the TV news: Darling’s refusal to commit to not raising VAT.

After the platitudes in David Cameron's speech yesterday, comes the bluntness of Ken Clarke in today's Sunday Telegraph.  Interviewed by the paper, the shadow business secretary says that it would be a "folly" to rule out tax rises: "It is something that every Conservative tries to avoid but I didn't avoid it when I was getting us out of recession before. Coming out of a recession when you have such a severe deficit you can't rule out putting up taxes." He's right, of course.  The mammoth size of the deficit, and the lag before many spending reductions take effect, will mean that the Tories shouldn't rule out tax rises.  More than that, in fact: they'll certainly have to introduce them.  As we already know, plans are afoot to increase VAT to at least 20 percent.

There is a fascinating glimpse at the tensions inside the top echelons of the Conservative party in The Times today. Francis Elliott reports that Steve Hilton is trying to veto the appointment of James O’Shaugnessy, head of policy for the party, as head of the Downing Street policy unit should the Tories win the election. Francis writes that tensions between Hilton and O’Shaugnessy have been exacerbated by disputes about what should go in the initial slice of the Tory manifesto which will be published on Monday. O’Shaugnessy is one of politics' nice guys. But he has been the focus of negative briefing in recent months. Back in early September, I was told that Hilton was casting around for other candidates for the job in government.

The Dark Lord’s grip is weakening. Lord Mandelson’s waning status dominated headlines in the prelude to Christmas, and today the Telegraph reports that Harriet Harman, and not Mandelson, will lead Labour’s election battle. Mandelson’s marginalisation is understandable. He has been the government’s fire-fighter, deployed to defend the indefensible and bamboozle voters with a fantasia of figures and the demeanour of the Widow Twankee. As the narrative of recession cedes to that of recovery and the election nears, Labour requires a different style of communicator. Labour considers Harman to be that person, and hope that she will connect with women and middle England.

“Did he know who you were? I mean, not to be disrespectful, but he has been away for two and a half years...” So Five Live’s Phil Wiliams asked David Miliband who was talking about his conversation with Peter Moore who has just been released from Iraqi captivity. Brilliant image. The guy gets out of prison, then there’s a call from this nerdy Blairite bag carrier claiming to be foreign secretary. Yegawds, he’d say, what’s happened? Worse, Gordon Brown had become Prime Minister and irreparably trashed the British economy in the space of 24 months. Britain has now joined Zimbabwe in printing money to fund state spending. At the end of the interview, Williams asked Milliband if Moore was coming back to the UK immediately – it seems not.