Uk politics

Tuesday

Mark Bathgate

Deconstructing David Blanchflower

From our UK edition

What with his new column in the New Statesman and his articles for other outlets, David Blanchflower – a former member of the MPC – really does seem to enjoy laying into the Tories.  Problem is, much of what he says fails to convince – so much so, in fact, that I thought I'd bash out a quick fisk of his Guardian article from last Friday.  Here's the full article with my comments in bold: We are in the midst of the worst recession most people alive have ever experienced, or will probably ever experience. It is already worse than the 1980s and it isn't over yet. The only comparison is to the 1930s (my parents, now in their 80s, can remember how bad it was).

Andrew Lilico

Ongoing deflation

From our UK edition

This morning the inflation figures were released for September.  They show that the economy is in ongoing deflation, as it has been since March 2009, with the annual change in the Retail Prices Index (RPI) standing at -1.4 percent.  At the same time, the policy index used by the Bank of England to determine its interest rate and quantitative easing policies – the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) – saw its annual rate of inflation fall to 1.1 percent from 1.6 percent. Some press commentary suggests that the fall in CPI inflation to 1.1 percent suggests there is now a threat of outright deflation next year.  This is wrong.  The country is already in deflation.  The CPI is not a measure of the cost of living in the UK.

David Blackburn

Widdecombe defies Cameron over the Legg letters

From our UK edition

The Tory leadership’s line on Sir Thomas Legg’s expense repayment demands is clear. Mr Cameron told GMTV: “Repay or you cannot stand as Conservative MP”.   The public’s justified outrage at expenses is such that party leaders must take a stand and discipline MPs, deemed to have transgressed rules or to have exploited the second home allowance. But, as I wrote yesterday, the Legg Commission exceeded its remit, acting as judge rather than auditor. As such, MPs are right to resist Sir Thomas’ demands: Parliament urgently needs reform, but there is a clear problem that reform will be inaugurated by a commission that ignored its terms of reference. This is an unpopular viewpoint, deeply unpopular.

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Brown told to repay £12,415.10 of expenses

From our UK edition

Here's the statement from the office of the PM, courtesy of Sky's Cheryl Smith: Mr Brown received a letter from Sir Thomas Legg this afternoon. Sir Thomas Legg has issued his provisional conclusions to MPs, asking for further information where necessary before concluding in December. Mr Brown has always supported this process and will cooperate fully and make the necessary repayment. Mr Brown's expenses have always been cleared by the House Authorities as entirely consistent with the rules. He has not claimed the maximum level of expenses. The Review says its findings "carry no implication about the conduct or motives of the MPs concerned".

Peter Hoskin

The costs that come before savings

From our UK edition

It's a simple fact of politics that many measures which would save money in the medium-to-long term incur costs in the short term.  Normally, this point is brought up in relation to public service reform - e.g. Gove's Swedish Schools agenda.  But today's FT highlights a similar effect in relation to public sector redundancies. The important fact is that "civil servants aged under 50 can receive up to three years’ pay if made compulsorily redundant, and those who joined before 1987 more than six years’ pay".  This means that there are actually massive upfront cash costs to cutting jobs across the public sector, whatever the potential savings further down the line. To their credit, the government are currently trying to cap these redundancy payments.

James Forsyth

Repairing the broken society

From our UK edition

One line from the Sunday papers is still haunting me today. In the Mail on Sunday, Phillip Blond wrote that, “one million children have alcohol-addicted parents”. Think about that for a minute. What hope can these children have growing up in these kind of households? How can we as a society ensure that these children have a decent chance in life despite such a challenging start? There are no easy answers to these questions. Considering the state’s appalling record with children in care, taking these children away from their parents is not the answer. But then what is? It seems that the only answer is to deal with the problem at source, to ensure that there are fewer alcoholic adults and that people take the responsibility of being a parent more seriously.

Peter Hoskin

Is this the death of another anti-Brown plot?

From our UK edition

An eagle-eyed spot by Hopi Sen, who has posted on Barry Sheerman's comments in the Huddersfield Examiner today.  If you remember, Sheerman was mooted as a key component in an anti-Brown plot, whereby he'd stand as chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party on a Get Gordon Out platform. Votes for Sheerman, it was thought, would be votes against Brown - and increase the pressure on the PM to stand down.  But in the Huddersfield Examiner, Sheerman suggests that, while he will stand for the PLP position, he won't do so as part of a coup: "...Mr Sheerman denied this was part of a move to topple Gordon Brown. He said “If colleagues ask me to stand I will consider it.

Peter Hoskin

Selling assets at rock bottom prices – sound familiar?

From our UK edition

So what to make of Gordon Brown's plan to sell off an expected £16bn-worth of assets?  Like Charlie Elphicke over at CentreRight, I have my qualms. As he puts it, Brown has form when it comes to selling national assets at rock-bottom prices. And, in the immediate aftermath of the credit crunch and a recession, the prices he gets for our stake in Urenco, say, or the Dartford crossing, are likely to be rock bottom.   Besides, there's an unmistakeable whiff of political opportunism about this plan. You can imagine the posturing now: "We're selling off assets we can spare to protect jobs and frontline services, unlike those dastardly Tories..." yada, yada, yada.

Peter Hoskin

Smith to apologise to Commons

From our UK edition

Sky report that the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee have judged that Jacqui Smith was "clearly" wrong to claim that her sister's home was her main residence.  Smith has been ordered to apologise to the Commons, which she's expected to do later today.  No further action will be taken. Throw in the news about Damian Green's "not proportionate" arrest, and the hubbub over Sir Thomas Legg's letters, and you feel that today will do little to restore the public's faith in the political class...

Fraser Nelson

The politics of growth

From our UK edition

One strange side-effect of the car crash that was the Liberal Democrat conference is that no one dares say the word “cuts” anymore. Since Nick Clegg promised “savage cuts” – alarming his base in the process – we’re back to the normal euphemism of “efficiencies”. This, like so much in life, will have Gordon Brown hopping mad. He didn’t want to say “cuts” in the first place, and the whole farrago will prove (in his head) that he should stop taking advice from people outside his coterie.   The next stage in the debate is to focus on growth. As James revealed in his political column for the current edition of the magazine, the Tory plan to do this is an aggressive cut in corporation tax.

David Blackburn

The Commons closes ranks

From our UK edition

They are all in it together. This morning’s papers lead with the story that Members’ Estimate Committee will challenge Sir Thomas Legg’s demands that MPs repay excessive expense claims, on the grounds that Sir Thomas’ has applied retrospective rules on maintenance grants. Many MPs will take legal action to avoid repayment. The pro-transparency MP John Mann told the Guardian: “The Legg team have clearly got problems, because [MPs] don't have the receipts for a lot of this stuff. Clearly, if someone has managed to get [a claim] signed off by the fees office then they have a case when asked to repay. "There could be as many as 200 MPs who refuse to pay anything.

Sunday

David Blackburn

Davis for Home Secretary?

From our UK edition

The Express’ William Hickey column reports that David Davis, not Chris Grayling, will serve as Home Secretary should the Tories win the election. Here’s what Hickey heard: ‘I’m now told there have been mounting whispers among MPs that Grayling could lose out to David Davis for the Home Secretary’s job should the Tories win the general election. Only this week Davis, who stood down from the shadow post last year in order to champion civil liberties at a by-election, signalled he was ready to return to frontbench politics if offered a “proper job”.

Peter Hoskin

They’ll have to start thinking about expenses again

From our UK edition

So expenses are back - and in a fairly big way.  Not that they ever really went away, of course.  But you'd be forgiven for thinking that the parties had pretty much forgotten about them during conference season, so little was said about the issue.  But today it's back on the front pages and, you suspect, back to the top of MPs' priority lists.   According to the Sunday Telegraph, "more than half" of the Commons will be either told to repay dubious claims, or provide extra information about those claims, during the next part of Sir Thomas Legg's investigation into expenses this week.  Gordon Brown is said to be among the former group.

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

Brown’s double hit

From our UK edition

What is the true price of Gordon Brown’s economic incompetence and inept bank regulation? The soaring national debt is one. And if you own a mortgage, you’ll find that you’re paying another. The gulf between the Bank of England base rate and the average mortgage rate is now at a huge high – as banks rip off their customers, trying to fill the hole in their balance sheets. This is an under-discussed topic. The “action we have taken” (a phrase Brown uses to try to lay claim to the Bank of England’s base rate reduction) would have a far greater effect on the economy if the UK banking system was not (still) so badly broken. The below graph, from Citi, shows spreads (ie, gap between base rate and retail rate) on key UK mortgages from 1995.

David Blackburn

A shaming episode

From our UK edition

The Culture Secretary would be advised to keep his fingers to himself. Following Wednesday’s Twitter gaffe, he let fly on Twitter once again. His target was David Cameron’s demolition of the state. All Bradshaw hit was Cameron’s dead son Ivan. He tweeted: ‘the camerons got good nhs care thanks to Labour’s investment and reform. Is this the ‘big government’ the derides.’ (sic) Bradshaw then issued a clarification, not an apology, on Twitter: ‘it wasn’t meant to be offensive. Point is they will the ends but not the means. Need positive government to deliver these things.

Friday

Daniel Korski

What would the Tories take back from Europe?

From our UK edition

Assuming that the Lisbon Treaty is ratified, that the Conservative Party wins the next election and that Angela Merkel and Nicola Sarkozy want Britain to remain in the European Union, what “sovereignty package” will EU leaders come up with for Prime Minister Cameron, so that the Tory leadership can placate its eurosceptic base? The deal cannot be cosmetic, but make it too tough and other EU leaders will not want to compromise.

David Blackburn

The Tories’ post-conference bounce

From our UK edition

Breaking news on Politics Home: the Tories have a 17 point lead in the polls following their party conference and Cameron's speech. The Conservatives stand at 44%, Labour at 27% and the Liberal Democrats at 17%. That would suggest a job well done by Cameron and Tories in Manchester, and that Cameron's speech resonated with the public, because this is a sharp bounce from polls at the beginning of the week, which had the Tories placed between 37% and 40%. Obviously, these bounces don't last: consider that Labour is dropping back after its 5-point conference climb last week. But this bodes well for the Tories' momentum as the election draws near.

David Blackburn

One last chance on Lisbon?

From our UK edition

The Independent reports that the Czech Republic’s Euroscpetic President, Vaclav Klaus, is seeking to opt-out of the Lisbon Treaty’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. His argument is that Charter, which would come into force as soon as the Lisbon treaty was ratified, will lessen national sovereignty over social policy. During negotiations at the time of the treaty’s inception, the UK and Poland obtained a “protocol” measure to ensure that the Charter didn’t create new rights – effectively the last gasp opt-out the Czech seek now. Klaus describes his request as a “footnote”; it’s anything but. EU diplomats make it clear that negotiations would have to open.

David Blackburn

That Wellington became Prime Minister is irrelevant to the Dannatt case

From our UK edition

General Dannatt denies that he’s been in cahoots with the Tories. He gave a lecture last night and said: “[David Cameron] put it to me that he was concerned that his defence team - at a time when defence was really important, and Afghanistan was really critical - lacked expert understanding. "And would I be prepared to advise his team, and, if the Conservatives win the election, would I be prepared to take a peerage and maybe join his ministerial team… it was a recent decision and indicates that there was no long-term plot." Only a bolus of ministers, who believed they could smear a General who was renowned for his frugality over expenses, could be preposterous enough to suggest that Dannatt was a Tory mole all along.