Uk politics

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

There could be a pay freeze, after all

Over at the FT's Westminster blog, Jim Pickard picks up on an important comment from Stephen Timms, the Treasury minister, speaking at a committee meeting this morning.  Timms suggests that Treasury hasn't ruled out a public sector pay freeze, as recommended by the Audit Commission's Steve Bundred.  Here are the minister's words:   “It’s certain the case that our pay policy needs to reflect the wider economic circumstances ... we will be deciding on pay policy over the next few weeks, the policy has got to be fair to people who work in the public sector just as we have to be fair to everybody else. The suggestion by Steve Bundred has made is certainly one we will reflect on but the details on that will be made over the next few weeks.

Lloyd Evans

Cutting through the jargon

There was a wonderful outbreak of wit and erudition at Parliament this morning. The sketch-writers Simon Hoggart and Matthew Parris appeared before the Public Administration Select Committee to discuss the perils of political jargon. Simon Hoggart kicked off by imagining Churchill’s war-time speeches re-written by a local government wonk. ‘We will fight on the beaches’ turned into ‘an ongoing programme of hostile engagement in littoral sectors.’ The committee chairman, Tony Wright, wondered if his anxiety about jargon was misplaced. ‘Does this drivel matter or does it just irritate us?’ Matthew Parris pointed out that jargon is attractive because it confers an aura of learning and makes idiot politicians sound like world experts.

Peter Hoskin

A headache for Cameron and Coulson

So David Cameron has said that Andy Coulson's job isn't endangered by the News of the World wire-tapping allegations in this morning's Guardian, and you can see where the Tory leader is coming from.  After all, there are very few - if any - new revelations about Coulson in the Guardian piece.  We already knew that the Tory communications chief resigned the editorship of the NotW after a phone-hacking scandal involving the royal editor Clive Goodman.  And we already knew that he claimed no knowledge of the hacking but, as editor, he took responsibility for it.  No evidence has yet emerged that Coulson was more implicated than he's letting on.

Wednesday

Anjli-Shah

The consequences of Johnson’s cowardice

There was great excitement here in Old Queen Street when Lord Carlile, the Government’s own adviser on anti-terror law, announced that Alan Johnson can and should help poor Gary McKinnon. McKinnon is the computer nerd who hacked into the Pentagon looking for evidence of UFOs, but who is soon to be extradited and tried as a terrorist in America. Lord Carlile – not usually a dovish man – thinks a great injustice is being done (Mckinnon might get 70 years in a ‘supermax’ prison) and has said that the Home Secretary should prevent it. So we called the Home Office to find out when Alan Johnson was planning to act. “The Home Secretary can do nothing. This is a matter for the judicial review,” said his spokesman. So why does Lord Carlile think he can?

Andrew Lilico and Helen Thomas

Rules versus discretion

Today's White Paper on financial regulation avoids introducing some unnecessary regulatory changes at the expense of failing to introduce some necessary ones.  In particular, it fails to recognise the abject failure of Gordon Brown's "tripartite" framework, in which prudential supervision of the banks was taken from the Bank of England and given to the FSA. Prudential supervision is the proper task of the central bank, for only if it has oversight of banks can the central bank decide whether they should receive last resort lending when they need it.  Without prudential oversight, the Northern Rock debacle is the likely result, and the fact that we are still debating this the best part of two years into the credit crunch is a sorry indictment of UK policymaking in this period.

Fraser Nelson

Harman’s debt calculator is broken

I know Harriet Harman is not supposed to be taken seriously, so I’m prepared to believe that she just struggles with numbers and didn’t knowingly mislead MPs today. But it’s worth correcting the record on one crucial point. “We have paid down debt,” she says. Actually, if you take the last Budget into account – it ranges to 2013/14 – decisions taken by her government will have increased national debt by more than every government since the Norman Conquest. Put together. If this is her definition of paying down debt, I’d hate to see her overdraft. Don’t they teach them anything in St Paul’s?

James Forsyth

The benefit of the Lords

I disagree with Helena Kennedy on a whole host of issues, but her speech last night in the Lords debate on assisted suicide was fantastic. Here’s the opening section of it: “Although I am a great believer in individual liberty and in the autonomy of the individual, I also believe strongly in the symbolic nature of law. The laws of a nation say a great deal about who we are and what we value. One of the ways in which cultural shifts take place in a society is by changing law. Many of us who have argued that changes in attitude follow changes in law did so particularly around issues of discrimination. We made arguments for changes in the law on racism and other discrimination such as gender, sexuality and disability.

Lloyd Evans

The Hattie show

I’d be tempted to call it listless. But everyone was reading from lists. At today’s rather sleepy PMQs I counted six MPs who recorded their sympathy for those affected by the recent tragedies in Afghanistan and Camberwell. The Speaker needs to act or these sessions will turn into Prime Minister’s Condolences. Gordon Brown’s in Italy, saving the world, so Harriet Harman took his place and gave her much-loved impersonation of a rather tetchy duchess supervising the kitchen while Cook recovers from hives. William Hague, unsurprisingly, took her to task on the government’s investment plans and invited her to ‘translate into plain English’ the Prime Minister’s claim that spending in 2013 would rise by ‘zero percent’.

James Forsyth

The Tories must be prepared to launch a reverse march through the institutions

Sir Hugh Orde, the new president of ACPO, has predictably come out against elected police chiefs. Andrew Sparrow  has the key extract from his speech: “If people seriously think some form of elected individual is better placed to oversee policing than the current structure, then I am very interested in the detail of how that is going to work – and happy to have that debate. Every professional bone in my body tells me it is a bad idea that could drive a coach and horses through the current model of accountability and add nothing but confusion.

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 8 July 2009

Brown's away at the G8, so it's a Harman-Hague-Cable match at PMQs today. Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200. 1202: Here we go.  Harman leads with condolences for the servicemen killed in Afghanistan over the past week.  She adds condolences to those killed in the fire in Camberwell.  The first question comes from Malcolm Wicks: would Harman agree that "we need to develop a robust social policy" which deals with the costs of an ageing population.  Harman: "We'll bring forward a Green Paper which makes sure there is choice in the provision of services ... and affordability." 1205: Stephen Dorrell stick to the same issue, asking why the Government hasn't achieved much on "long-term care.

Sam Brown

Could you stick with Gordon for 3 more years?

Brace yourselves.  According to some great research by David Herdson at Political Betting, Gordon Brown could refrain from holding a general election until 2013.  The loopholes by which he could manage it are a bit arcane and convoluted – so I’d suggest you read Herdson’s post in full – but this snippet gives the idea: “The only statutory requirement to move writs for a general election is under the Meeting of Parliament Act 1694, which allows no less than three years between the dissolution and the writs being issued. In other words, technically, the election doesn’t have to be held until June 2013.

Peter Hoskin

When the cat’s away…

Hm.  Seems like Alan Johnson has chosen the day that Gordon's away in Italy to write another comment piece on voting reform.  Like his article for the Times a few months ago, it pushes the AV+ version of proportional representation.  And, like his Times article, it goes out of its way to mention Brown ("I work for a leader who accepts the need for ... renewal"), but it still comes across as an attempt to grab the leadership limelight.  After all, why should the Home Secretary be reiterating points he's made before about voing reform?  Why isn't he leaving this attention-grabbing stuff for his leader who "accepts the need for renewal"?  And why now?

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

A welcome rejection of assisted suicide

I'm delighted that Lord Falconer has just failed in his attempt to legalise assisted suicide for people sending friends and relatives to Swiss death clinics. This is a topic which I suspect even CoffeeHousers will be evenly divided on, but to me the whole idea is just wrong - and it goes straight to the heart of how we, as a society, regard the disabled and the elderly. For those who haven't been following the debate, Falconer used the Coroners and Justice Bill to propose a new law to make it legal to help one's friends and relatives be killed in the Swiss death clinics. He proposed that any two doctors can be "of the opinion in good faith" that someone is terminally ill, yet mentally coherent enough to make the decision to go to Switzerland for the lethal injection.

Daniel Korski

Defence review: your say

So, a Defence Review has been set in motion even though the Government has for a long time said they would hold off from ordering such a study. But with the operational pressure growing, the financial situation dire, and clamour from the likes of George Robertson and Paddy Ashdown for a security rethink, the Government has been left with little choice. Kick-starting the review process also has the advantage of robbing Liam Fox, should he become Defence Secretary, of a "Bank of England moment" - i.e. a quick, early governmental decision that delivers some new momentum for Team Cameron. And Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth needed to do something to stem the growing scepticism with which his appointment has been met.

Peter Hoskin

Nick Clegg: out of love with the Tories?

The thing that jumps out from Nick Clegg's speech on families today is how aggressively - if, ultimately, unconvincingly - it sets about attacking the Tories.  Yes, he also criticises Labour - but the attack on the Tories comes first and is more bitter in tone.  Here's a snippet: "David Cameron’s social policy is focused almost obsessively on marriage, cajoling people to conform to a single view of what a happy couple should look like. The Conservatives want marriage incentives in the tax system. And they may adopt Iain Duncan Smith’s proposals to put in place more legal roadblocks to divorce. This is both bizarre and patronising.

Peter Hoskin

To freeze or not to freeze?

The question of whether or not to freeze public sector pay has had a fair bit of airtime over the past few days.  In his interview at the weekend, Alistair Darling seemed to take a hard-line on the issue - and most outlets wrote it up as him not ruling out a freeze.  But, via today's Times, "sources close to [Darling]" say that he won't re-open wage deals to introduce a freeze.  While, for his part, David Cameron is also claiming that a Tory government wouldn't order a freeze of public sector pay.  The politics of the situation is plain: neither side wants to seem especially tough on public sector pay ahead of the "nice cuts vs nasty cuts" battle which lies ahead.

Peter Hoskin

A rebellion stirs

So, what does today hold in store for Gordon Brown?  Howabout another 10p tax rebellion marshalled, as always, by Frank Field?  A bunch of around 30 Labour rebels have prepared an amendment to the Finance Bill, by which the last Budget couldn't pass into law until everyone who lost out from the 10p tax fiasco has been fully compensated.  It should be debated today, and the rebels have the support of both the Tories and the Lib Dems.  In response, Labour whips have cancelled all foreign trips by ministers and MPs, and are feverishly trying to rally the troops.   If the rebellion succeeds, then it will be hugely embarrassing for Brown - his beleagured premiership could well do without another Commons defeat.

Monday

Fraser Nelson

Why the Tories’ Californian strategy should be taken seriously

A few months ago, I wrote a story about the “California Tories” and the extent to which Silicon Valley has affected the thinking of the people who will be running our country this time next year. I was teased about it later: what a pile of junk it all is, said a few right-thinking friends; why devote so many words to such a fluffy idea? My response: because the Tories take it so seriously, and because there might just be something in it. In my piece, I dropped in the fact that the Tories were thinking about swapping the NHS supercomputer idea for the free-to-use Google Health – and Sam Coates from the Times has much more on this today.

Dale Bassett

Fresh thinking can free government from quango control

In a speech to Reform this afternoon, David Cameron argued that the growth of the so-called quango state represents “a serious accountability problem with our political system”. Quangos – the non-Whitehall but taxpayer-funded bodies responsible for much day-to-day government – are unaccountable, expensive and do not deliver what they promise. Last year, their funding increased at a faster rate than the rest of government, and they now cost at least £35 billion a year to run. Of course the state of the public finances makes it imperative that the expense of quangos is tackled. But this is about more than just money. It is about how we should be governed.