Uk politics

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Will Darling’s politicking make the Tories weaken their IHT pledge?

From our UK edition

Ok, so the Age of Austerity means that promises made in sunnier times will need to be forestalled - or even cancelled altogether.  But it's still revealing that Labour are thinking about reversing their plan to raise the threshold at which inheritance tax is levied. After all, this is what Brown regards as The Great Dividing Line: the Tories implementing a tax cut for their "rich friends," on the one side, and Labour implementing policies "for the many," on the other.  Darling's decision to raise the IHT threshold to £350,000 for single people and £700,000 for married couples undermined that crude message.  Reversing the policy may, in Labour strategists' eyes, strengthen the dividing line.

David Blackburn

The return of the Mansion tax

From our UK edition

The Liberal Democrats unveil their tax plans later today, and Nick Clegg insists that his radical plan will “put fairness back into the tax system”. It is expected to be a left of centre plan: don’t expect to hear anything about “savage cuts”. The Mansion Tax is back, albeit in slightly more expensive clothes. The original proposal levied a 0.5% charge on properties valued at over £1million, which was a determined effort at suicide. Following criticism from senior MPs, staring nervously at their irate constituents, Clegg and Cable have raised the threshold to £2million and the levy to 1% - a humiliating retreat, revealing the dangers of making policy on the hoof.

Sunday

James Forsyth

A taxing issue for CCHQ

From our UK edition

That Zac Goldsmith has non-dom status is an embarrassment to the Tories. Given the anti-politics mood in the country, the whiff of hypocrisy is extremely dangerous to any political party and for the Tories anything that helps Labour’s effort to portray them as a party dominated by a wealthy clique is damaging. I suspect, though, that this story will only get bigger if it turns out that there are other Tory candidates who have non-dom status. Given the way candidate selection has been handled in recent years, there is no guarantee that CCHQ has established that all candidates are both resident in the UK for tax purposes and do not have non dom status.

David Blackburn

The political case for environmentalism weakens

From our UK edition

The Politics Show conducted a fascinating poll into the concerns of voters aged under 20. The Recession Generation are primarily concerned with, well, the recession. Economic recovery, public spending and tax came top of their list of priorities, closely followed by health and education. It’s clear that younger voters have exactly the same concerns as the wider population, and encouragingly for the Tories, those polled prefer David Cameron to Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg by a clear margin of 8 percentage points. The Liberal Democrats attracted only 18% of voters, indicating quite how damaging their tuition fee u-turn has been. Popular myth dictates that younger voters are consumed by tackling climate change.

Fraser Nelson

The Iraq inquiry we should be having

From our UK edition

Do we still have the will to win in Afghanistan? If so, the question the Iraq inquiry should be asking is not “how did we get into this war” - we have had a number of separate inquiries into that already – but “why were the military defeated on the ground in Basra?”. If the Chilcot Inquiry were to focus on that, it might actually serve a purpose: not just in unearthing new information (which it has signally failed to do so far) but drawing lessons that just might help the troops in Afghanistan. I make this point in my News of the World column today. I am in a tiny minority of people who a) supported the war in Iraq, and b) still admits it. People like me feel every bit as angry as the anti-war people about what happened next.

Saturday

David Blackburn

A nation of property owners

From our UK edition

An Abu Dhabian official has briefed Reuters that Abu Dhabi will rescue Dubai on a “case-by-case basis”. The official stated: “We will look at Dubai's commitments and approach them on a case-by-case basis. It does not mean that Abu Dhabi will underwrite all of their debts. “Some of Dubai's entities are commercial, semi-government ones. Abu Dhabi will pick and choose when and where to assist." This is potentially bad news for the UK taxpayer, who faces the prospect of provided further cover for British banks, who invested $50bn in the region at the height of the boom. The reason we're in the firing line?

David Blackburn

Outmanoeuvred Brown endangers recovery

From our UK edition

The Times’ Ian King writes that Dubai’s predicament presents an opportunity for the City to attract new business. There is no reason why, with attractive incentives, London shouldn’t capitalise on Sheik Mohammed’s momentary lapse of reason. However, the appointment of Michel Barnier, an evangelical protectionist who makes Joseph Chamberlain look like the father of Free Trade, as EU regulating supremo is a disaster for Britain. The appointment raises further questions about Gordon Brown’s acceptance of Baroness Ashton as the EU’s foreign minister. Michael Fallon is no doubt: “Brown has been completely outwitted. We now have none of the three key economic jobs in Brussels.

James Forsyth

What today’s polls tell us

From our UK edition

The national YouGov poll and the one of northern marginals out today give us a sense of the electoral lay of the land. The national poll result which has the Tories below 40 percent and failing to win an overall majority shows that the Tories remain quite a way from sealing the deal. However, the poll of northern marginals which has the Tories on 42 percent suggests that the Tory marginal seats strategy is working. Indeed, whenever you talk to Tory candidates in Labour held marginals you are struck by just how confident they are; something that is particularly striking given how jumpy candidates normally are. I suspect that the Tory strategic response to these disappointing national poll results will be three-fold.

Peter Hoskin

Lord Pearson makes his mark

From our UK edition

He's only been in the job a few hours, but the new leader of UKIP, Lord Pearson, has already dropped a fairly intriguing bombshell.  Interviewed in today's Times, he reveals that he proposed, some months ago, a deal with the Tories whereby UKIP would disband* if Cameron offered a referendum on a ratified Lisbon Treaty.  Apparently, the Tories didn't respond to the overture – which seems rather tactless, if nothing else. You can see why Pearson has made the revelation now.  This "greater good"-style posturing could incite a few Tory supporters, and perhaps even parliamentarians, who are concerned about their party's stance on Lisbon.  Who knows? – it may even drive some votes UKIP's way.

Friday

James Forsyth

If you want to restore Cabinet government, you have to reduce the size of the Cabinet

From our UK edition

In the politics column this week, I write about how the Tories plan to hand over many of the traditional policy making powers of the Cabinet to a seven man policy board. The Cameroons are going to do this partly because it is a model that has worked well for them in oppoistion and that they are comfortable with but also because the Cabinet is just too large for effective, detailed discussions about policy. The shadow Cabinet currently has 34 members in it. In government, this number will have to drop by at least ten. But still, a 24 person group is, probably, too large to foster constructive and detailed debate. However, if the Cabinet was smaller, then it would be easier to restore it to its traditional role without sacrificing effectiveness.

David Blackburn

The coming sandstorm

From our UK edition

The FT’s Alphaville blog has published a table detailing foreign banks’ exposure in the UAE. Look away now because it’s horrific. Of course not all of this lending was to Dubai, but those sort of funds are unlikely to be required by Abu Dhabi, with its gigantic oil profits and £900bn wealth fund. If Abu Dhabi doesn’t bail out its ailing partner, you can bet your bottom dollar who will.

Peter Hoskin

Has dead aid taken on a green hue?

From our UK edition

We've got £800 million to spare, haven't we?  Don't be so cynical – of course we do.  After all, it's the amount of UK cash that Gordon Brown is prepared to sign over to a new £10 billion climate change fund that he's proposing.  The idea is that the money can be used to encourage poorer countries to move towards greener economies.  Brilliant. More seriously, I'd have thought that the money would be better spent on developing those green technologies which could create jobs and clean up the environment, both home and away.  Especially as we don't have much money to spare, and this fund contains so much potential for waste.  After all, will it make any real difference when set against the richer countries who are the main emission offenders?

Daniel Korski

Tory government should be manoeuvrist government

From our UK edition

The greatest challenge facing a new government may be that Britain’s national security institutions are not fit for purpose. They were built for a different era and focused on a set of now obselete threats. Notwithstanding a few exceptions, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, the threats during the Cold War were slow-moving and predictable. Even in the immediate Cold War period, threats were nasty, but rarely novel.   Now, however, Britain faces all manner of fast-moving, asymmetric threats. Terrorists and insurgents can get inside our decision-making loop. In Helmand, the Taliban stage attacks around their media strategy, not the other way around as we do it. Countries like Russia and China can bring a range of assets to bear, many of which are not even governmental.

Peter Hoskin

The axeman cometh | 27 November 2009

From our UK edition

Philip Hammond, the man the Tories have tasked with overseeing spending cuts should they get into power next year, has just given a speech to Policy Exchange on reducing waste and improving efficiency. Much of it reheated existing arguments about, say, transparent public spending - which doesn't make those arguments any less valid.  But there are one or two other points worth mentioning here First, the very fact that Hammond was making this speech.  Introducing him, George Osborne complained that the Labour government has made Hammond's potential role - Chief Secretary to the Treasury - a non- job, and that the Tories would restore it to being "one of the most important jobs I'm government".

David Blackburn

Commissioner Boris

From our UK edition

The Evening Standard reports that Boris Johnson is set to become the Tories’ first elected police commissioner. Chris Grayling told the paper: "We envisage the Mayor of London being the elected police commissioner. This would strengthen the role of the Mayor. However, I'm absolutely clear that no reform we introduce will allow any elected politician to interfere in operational policing and we will make absolutely certain that the independence of operational policing is protected in law." Under Tory proposals the mayor will be responsible for hiring and firing chief constables, tailoring police objectives to local requirements and budgeting. Naturally, the contrarians are gathering.

David Blackburn

Dodgy doings in the desert

From our UK edition

Of all the lunacy engendered by this financial crisis, Dubai’s decision to call a six-month creditor standstill on its chief holding company is the most pronounced. Dubai’s successful but hideous entrepot model depends on the confidence capital markets, and as a rule markets don’t react to nasty shocks with a shake of the head and a song and dance routine. It’s as if plague has descended on every stock exchange in the world; investors are fleeing for safety. Overnight, shares in Asia collapsed between 3 and 5 percent, and the FTSE, Dax and Cac40 have opened around one percent down. Prepare for another black day. Will this blip develop into a crisis?

Thursday

Fraser Nelson

Turning Japanese

From our UK edition

Is the British economy turning Japanese? Since asking the question last year on Coffee House, the evidence has been piling up – and it makes for a cover story in this week's magazine (which I have written with Mark Bathgate). The similarities are as follows: 1. Japan’s bust followed years of debt-fuelled growth which vain politicians saw as prosperity. 2. When the bust came, Japan’s government kept on spending. They did so in the name of Keynsian stimulus, thinking this would in itself kick start a recovery. All it achieved was to sink Japan deeper into debt. 3. Crucially, Japan didn’t do full disclosure on the collapsed banks. To fix the banks was, they figured, painful root canal surgery that this recession-struck country could do without. 4.

James Forsyth

Nudging us to go green

From our UK edition

When the Tories first got interested in nudge theory in the summer of 2008 there was some sneering and questioning of what practical policy applications it had. But Grant Shapps' speech today on the Tories' Green Deal shows how nudging can be applied in government. Shapps proposes that consumers be reminded of the Green Deal offer - your house retrofitted to cut its energy usage at no immediate cost to you - every time they use the stores of one of the firms involved in the scheme. This should, in theory, boost take up of the scheme. The Green Deal, the brainchild of Greg Clark, is one of the Tories' neatest policies.

Peter Hoskin

What Gordon thinks of London 2012

From our UK edition

Another good quote for the Brown 'n' Blair scrapbook, courtesy of Ben Brogan's column in the Telegraph: "Only once in the 20th century has a government that won the games survived to deliver them. A change of administration in the run-up to the Olympics might be expected to herald political trouble. Thankfully, David Cameron does not share Gordon Brown's loathing of what he refers to as 'Tony's f------ Olympics'. He is committed to ensuring stability by protecting London 2012's status as the Switzerland of politics, immune from partisan attacks." Brogan's wider argument is worth noting: that the Cameroons think 2012 could be the tonic the country – and their potential mid-term government – needs.  Myself, I still think there's a strong case for an Austerity Olympics.

James Forsyth

The Red Tory

From our UK edition

Phillip Blond has been attracting a lot of publicity in the past few weeks and it was standing room only at the launch of his new think tank Res Publica. (I should say that I am on its advisory board). David Cameron gave the opening remarks, stressing the influence Blond's thinking has had on how the Tories think about poverty and public services, but he was also keen to point out that he doesn't agree with everything that Blond says. Ever since the trouble caused by last summer's Policy Exchange report advocating abandoning various northern cities, the Cameroons have been wary of getting too close to any think tank for fear of being tarred by association.