Uk politics

Monday

Fraser Nelson

Is Cameron cowering in the face of Labour attacks?

From our UK edition

Say what you like about the Cameron project, but at least they are strongly committed to marriage. Aren’t they? Well, it seems, not now. I always suspected that the wonderful strength of Cameron’s rhetoric on marriage was not really matched by his policy – a rather paltry tax break. Now, it seems not even that is certain. "It's something within a parliament I would definitely hope to do," he said today. “We're not able to give people absolute certainty on everything.” Well not on everything – but what about on the few hard pledges that have actually been made? Or is Cameron really cowering in the face of Labour attacks that they would propose tax cuts for “the few” - a category which includes married couples?

James Forsyth

Why the Tories started with health

From our UK edition

The Tories today rolled out the first section of their manifesto this morning, the chapter on health. The reason the Tories started with their plans for the NHS, as they did when setting out their priorities for government last autumn, is quite simple: the leadership thinks that every time Cameron talks about health the party goes up in the polls. Certainly, one of the achievements of Cameron’s leadership has been to cancel out Labour’s traditional advantage on the question of who is most trusted on the NHS; Labour’s lead on this question has been a statistically insignificant one percent in the last two polls on the subject according to Anthony Wells of the indispensable UK Polling Report.

James Forsyth

The Tories accuse Labour of telling “lies”

From our UK edition

The Toryies are busy rebutting Labour’s claim that there is a £34bn black hole in their tax and spending plans. The most striking thing is how strong the language Conservative sources are using is, Labour's document was described to me as ‘a “dodgy dossier” full of lies’. It is quite remarkable that Labour has the gall to criticise the other side for unfunded spending pledges and the headline Tory objections are fair enough. The document says the Tories would let married couples transfer their tax allowances, when they haven’t committed to that. It also claims that the Tories are pledged to abolishing the 50p rate before the end of the parliament which the Tories are not.

David Blackburn

Two new Tory health policies

From our UK edition

Localism and results-based healthcare are central to the Tories’ NHS reform measures. They plan to arrest the widening gap between the life expectancy of rich and poor by introducing a Health Premium, a new policy, to direct funds to the poorest communities. The second new initiative is the creation of ‘maternity networks’, which will link hospitals, doctors, charities, volunteers and consultants, replacing top-down management with co-operation in a bid to widen expertis, improve services and lower costs. This reflects the belief that local solutions can have national benefits and concurs with the broader aspects of Tory policy regarding the state and welfare provision.

James Forsyth

The shape of things to come | 4 January 2010

From our UK edition

Today is a taste of how politics is going to be until the election: competing Labour and Tory events, claim and counter claim. Alistair Darling kicked off proceedings with an event setting out the supposed £34 billion black hole in the Tory’s plans for the public finances. This took some chutzpah considering how vague Labour’s own spending plans are, there are currently no departmental budgets, and how big the balck hole in Labour’s plans is, remember how Brown implied on Marr yesterday that tax rises on the rich, the National Insurance hike and lower than expected unemployment would be able to take most of the strain of halving the £178bn deficit. Judging from the questions at the Darling event, the press aren’t buying Labour’s line.

David Blackburn

Endangering impartiality

From our UK edition

Labour’s rapid rebuttal service will respond to the Tories’ policy blitz by questioning George Osborne’s spending pledges, of which more later. No objection can be raised against this action except that the government enlisted the Treasury to deliver very detailed costings under the Freedom of Information Act. The Times reports that the Tories are understandably livid: impartiality has been compromised. A spokesman said: “We are concerned at any collusion and abuse of the FOI system which has involved ministers requesting costings of what are complete misrepresentations of Conservative policies, which were subsequently released.

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

Tories struggling to find a line on tax

From our UK edition

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.

Fraser Nelson

Don’t take the voters for fools, Mr Cameron

From our UK edition

David Cameron can give rousing, mature, insightful speeches. Yesterday’s was not one of them. It used the word ‘hope’ 7 times and ‘change’ 27 times and that, I suspect, was its entire purpose - because there was precious little content in it otherwise. In the News of the World today, I describe the speech as vapid nonsense. Here’s ten extracts which show why. 1. “It’s because we are progressives that we will protect the NHS…We recognise its special place in our society so we will not cut the NHS; we will improve it for everyone.” Come again? Refusing to cut the NHS reflects its ‘special place’? Herewith the poisoned logic of Brown: that love means never having to say ‘cut’.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Tensions in the Cameron circle over election strategy

From our UK edition

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.

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s troubles are returning at just the right time for Cameron & Co.

From our UK edition

First she loved him.  Then she hated him.  Then she seemed lukewarm towards him.  And, today, she's gone back to hating him more than ever.  Yes, Polly Toynbee's latest column is another marker stone in her oscillating relationship with Gordon Brown, and it doesn't contain any minced words: "Cancel new year, put back the clocks and forget the fireworks. There is nothing to celebrate in the dismal year ahead. The Labour party is sledging down a black run, eyes tight shut, the only certainty the electoral wall at the bottom of the hill. In five months David Cameron will be prime minister and Gordon Brown will be toast. Remember him? The man who crashed his party. Remember them? The death-wish brigade that let him do it.

Friday

David Blackburn

By marginalising Mandelson, Labour has put itself in a half-Nelson

From our UK edition

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.

Peter Hoskin

Thinking the unthinkable

From our UK edition

Woah, hang on there. A Labour and Conservative coalition in the event of a hung Parliament? Crazy talk, surely? But that’s what Martin Kettle devotes his column to in today's Guardian. It’s only unthinkable, he writes, “until you start thinking about it.” Hm. So rather than dismissing the prospect out of hand, I thought I’d register one particular complaint against it. While many of Kettle’s arguments about the fracturing of the party system and the blurring lines between the main parties make sense, the idea that they might coalesce in the aftermath of this year’s election ignores one crucial factor: the Labour leadership.

Daniel Korski

Dealing with China in 2010

From our UK edition

The execution of Akmal Shaikh has brought China to our frontpages, and to the forefront of diplomatic thinking, as the New Year begins. The question is not just how to respond to this single and, in many regards, sad event – but how to deal with growing Chinese power more generally. How will we shape our relations with China for this decade and beyond? It would obviously be wrong to end all UK-China links over Akmal Shaikh’s execution. The Labour government's use of pique as a guiding principle of foreign policy had little effect on Russia and will not move China. Nor should anger over the excecution – however righteous or justified – occlude Britain's real interests in cordial Sino-Anglo relations.

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

The year in cuts

From our UK edition

As we’re still in that period of the year for looking back as well as forward, I thought I’d share with CoffeeHousers a political timeline I put together. It’s not everything which happened in the political year, mind – but rather the important events in the debate over spending cuts. This debate has, at very least, been in the background to almost every political discussion in 2009, and it will dominate the years ahead – so this kind of exercise probably has some posterity value. But, aside from that, you can also draw a couple of conclusions from the timeline (and I do so below).

David Blackburn

Ministers should always be ultimately accountable

From our UK edition

Bob Ainsworth’s response to the Nimrod inquiry features one extraordinary omission: ministers do not appear to be directly accountable in the event of another tragedy. The reforms establish the MAA, the military aviation authority, which is independent from the MoD, but will not have responsibility for releasing aircraft to service – assistant chiefs of staff have that responsibility - however there the buck apparently stops. Here is the relevant section in Hansard:   ‘The single service chiefs of staff must retain responsibility for determining that our aircraft can be safely released into service. The MAA will provide full assurance, but it will not carry out this release-to-service role directly.

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

What a difference two years makes

From our UK edition

“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.

Peter Hoskin

Brown kicks off 2010 with dividing lines aplenty

From our UK edition

Clear your diary, invite the relatives over, and huddle around a computer: Gordon Brown will be delivering his New Year’s message – via podcast, on the Downing St website – this evening. Just in case you’ve got other things to be doing, this article in the Telegraph gives you a good taste of what to expect. In summary: dividing lines and optimism. There’s plenty on how the Tories are planning for “a decade of austerity and unfairness” – in contrast to our glorious PM, who predicts falling unemployment, more new businesses and prosperity for all. Indeed, the snippets that the Telegraph carries indicate just how eager Brown is to deploy a green shoots strategy.

David Blackburn

For all his faults, Gradgrind was right

From our UK edition

The next time your four year old nephew smears chocolate over your trousers you are to congratulate him. According to government guidance, soon to be issued to nurseries by Dawn Primarolo, the glibly smirking illiterate would have been writing.  Yesterday’s Independent reported that in response to evidence that the gender gap between children under the age of five has widened in writing, problem-solving and personal development, the government believe that boys should work harder.  This seemingly impossible task will be eased by ‘making learning fun’: boys will be allowed to graffiti any given surface with chocolate and coloured sand.   What a way to begin the new decade: by creating a mass of juvenile Banksies.

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

It’s not just the bankers who will be hanged

From our UK edition

Oh, Darling, what hast thou done?  There are few more pertinent, or more damning, examples of what the government’s soak-the-rich policies could mean for the country than the news that JP Morgan is having second thoughts about developing a £1.5 billion European HQ in Canary Wharf.  Of course, the bank may still go ahead with it.  But just imagine if they don’t: the work lost for construction workers and a thousand other contractors; the tax revenues lost for the public finances.  The damage won’t just – or even mostly – be to the financial sector. Thing is, I imagine that Number Ten will be fairly happy with the story.  As the Ephraim Hardcastle column demonstrates today, Brown & Co.

Monday

David Blackburn

The many faces of Ed Balls

From our UK edition

In the spirit of goodwill, Ed Balls has called-off the class war. As ever with Balls that is but half the story. Class war has not so much ceased as been re-branded. A Brown aide, quoted in the Independent, says that Labour's strategy is concerned with "economic class, not social class". So there we are; the impoverished squirearchy can sleep sound tonight: the Labour party is only interested if you're nouveau riche - how gloriously snobby.  Whilst Balls' spite for those born nibbling a silver spoon has allegedly lessened, his leadership machinations continue apace.