James Forsyth

Douglas Alexander may sometimes hide the meaning of what he says under a layer of jargon but he remains one of the more interesting political strategists on the Labour side. Alexander, a Brown long-marcher turned Blairite, saw before many of his colleagues the need for Labour to level with the public on cuts. He privately thought that Gordon Brown’s attempt to fight the last election on a reprise of the investment versus cuts strategy of ’01 and ’05 was a mistake. So, it is no surprise that Alexander, now shadow Foreign Secretary, is trying to use the opportunity created by Ed Balls’ acceptance of the need for a public sector pay freeze to try and move Labour into a better fiscal place.

Cartoonists like to portray Alex Salmond as a modern-day Braveheart preparing to charge the English enemy. But, in truth, Salmond’s strategy is far more subtle — and dangerous — than that.   The SNP leader’s piece in The Guardian today — a preview of the Hugo Young lecture he’s delivering tonight — downplays what a dramatic step independence would be. At times the article reads like an argument for ‘devo max’, not independence. He bemoans that devolution ‘left Scotland with fewer powers than the German Länder, most American states, parts of Spain or, within these islands, the Isle of Man’.   Salmond also wants to suggest that not that much would change after independence.

Rarely can a government have been so pleased to have been defeated. The Tories are, privately, delighted that the Lords have voted to water down the benefit cap, removing child benefit from it. The longer this attempt to cap benefit for non-working households at £26,000 stays in the news, the better it is for the government. It demonstrates to the electorate that they are trying to do something about the injustices of the something for nothing culture. The matter will now returns to the Commons where the coalition is confident it can be reversed. I understand that Nick Clegg remains solid on the issue, despite the fact that Ashdown and Shirley Williams led the Lib Dem rebellion in the Lords on this amendment.

Today’s polls make grim reading for Labour. Even three months ago senior Labour or Tory people wouldn’t have thought that the Tories would be five points ahead at this point in the cycle. Part of Labour’s problem is that its positions require too much explanation. As one Number 10 source jokes, ‘Ed Miliband can do a Rubik's cube in less time than it takes him to explain his position on the cuts.’ A prime example of these overly complicated policy positions is Labour’s approach to the benefit cap. The leadership says that it is in favour of a cap in principle but against this one in practice.

Boris Johnson was very well behaved this evening when he appeared before the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs. He stayed off the topics of Europe and tax and instead confined his remarks to London, saying that he wanted the capital to be an example of ‘cost-cutting, one nation Conservatism’. Those MPs inside the room say the performance was classic Boris, as one put it ‘he left no erogenous zone unstroked’.   Afterwards, Mark Reckless, a north Kent MP, asked the Mayor a sceptical question about his plan for a new airport in Kent. In the questions, I understand that Boris also took the chance to express his support for Rebecca Harris’s daylight saving times bill.   Interestingly, the turn-out for Boris was decent but not massive.

This morning’s Guardian scoop about Michael Gove’s suggestion that the nation should present the Queen with a new Royal yacht for the Jubilee is the talk of Westminster. But the full correspondence indicates that Gove was not proposing any taxpayer funding for a new Britannia.   Gove refers to ‘David Willetts’s excellent suggestion for a Royal Yacht’. This proposal was made in a letter from Willetts to the Prime Minister on the 5th September, which was copied to various colleagues. Willetts writes that Rear Admiral Bawtree sees The Future Ship Project for the 21st Century ‘as a potential replacement for the Royal Yacht Britannia’.