James Forsyth

Nick Clegg’s speech in Luton today on extremism is a challenge to large parts of David Cameron’s remarks on the subject in Munich just last month. Indeed, even the venue of the speech can be seen as a rebuke to Cameron who was attacked for giving a speech on Islamic extremism on the same day that the English Defence League was marching in Luton. Cameron’s speech, which was one of the best of his premiership, argued that ‘the ideology of extremism is the problem’ and that terrorism’s ‘root lies in the existence of this extremist ideology’.

Danny Finkelstein’s paean of praise (£) to Andrew Cooper, the PM’s new director of political strategy, contains several interesting lines.  Finkelstein says that his former flat mate’s biggest challenge is, ‘Devising a strategy for changes in the NHS so that a critical political battle isn’t lost disastrously’. This is yet another indication of how nervous Osborne and co are about Lansley’s reforms and reopening the NHS as a political issue. The second is him reporting that Cooper will tell ‘Cameron to be a national leader, rather than a party politician. Especially in the Commons.

Developments in Libya continue to dominate the news, and rightly so. The view from Whitehall is that this stands off will continue for some time. There is even talk that we might be heading to a situation where Gaddafi holds onto Tripoli for months while the rest of the country is liberated from his rule. The longer this instability continues in the Middle East, the higher the price of oil is going to go. This will have two immediate domestic political consequences. First, the price of petrol at the pump will increase—making fuel duty an even bigger political issue. Second, higher oil prices will depress economic growth. Word is that the Saudis are prepared to pump more to keep prices down if necessary.

The government’s game of catch-up on Libya continues apace. David Cameron came to the Commons to update the House on the current situation. His main message was now that we have the vast majority of our citizens out, we can have a policy. Indeed, the government is today openly admitting that it was hamstrung last week by the continuing presence of a large number of British nationals in Tripoli. Cameron told the House that ‘we do not in any way rule out the use of military assets’; a dramatic shift from the tone of his entourage on last week’s trip. At the moment, the main military option on the table seems to be a no-fly zone and Cameron said he had asked the MoD and the chief of the defence staff to examine how this could be done.

Have the Tories rediscovered the Right instincts? If power without responsibility has been the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages, then the lot of a government minister can seem like responsibility without power. In private moments, ministers complain that they are overwhelmed by paperwork and have to drive change through a recalcitrant Civil Service. Members of the coalition Cabinet are rapidly finding out that the answer to the question ‘who governs Britain?’ is not as simple as they’d hoped. Nothing new there. Relative impotence is the perennial complaint of new ministers. They quickly come to appreciate that Yes, Minister was as much fact as fiction.

The headlines about Nick Clegg forgetting that he was running the country and the botched evacuation of British nationals from Libya have combined to make the coalition look rather incompetent, the most dangerous thing for a government to appear as. Certainly, the effort to get British people out of Libya has been a national embarrassment. The whole evacuation debacle is, though, more a tale of bureaucratic incompetence than anything else; a painful reminder that the Civil Service machine, upon which the government relies, is in bad repair. I hear that William Hague has already carpeted senior officials in the department over the whole episode.

Over at Comment Central, Danny Finkelstein has written a post saying that it might not be in the best interests of the No campaign for Cameron to campaign heavily against AV. His argument is that the No campaign’s best hope is to run as a spiky, anti-establishment effort. I think this is true but that the No camp has rather forfeited this chance by appointing Margaret Beckett as its president and having a former Labour MP front its launch. If the No campaign is going to be use so many politicians as spokesmen for it, it might as well have one of the most able ones involved. Second, and most importantly, Cameron’s presence on the trail would highlight Nick Clegg’s absence.