Peter Hoskin

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

The end of a premiership?

From our UK edition

Will the elections on 4 June finish off Gordon Brown?  The theory that an embarrassing result for Labour - finishing behind the Lib Dems and/or UKIP - could trigger a leadership challenge gets frequent hearings in Westminster.  And now Guido blogs that plans are afoot, with David Miliband and Alan Johnson readying their "campaign teams". Of course, the usual caveats apply.  Will anyone be brave enough to knife Gordon?  Will any candidate be able to gain enough support across the party?  Even so, you still feel that Brown's nine lives are near expired.

Peter Hoskin

Clegg’s hundred day plan

From our UK edition

You've got to love Nick Clegg's declaration that "warm words, rhetoric and consideration are not enough," in an article for today's Guardian, and hot on the heels of some, er, "warm words" in the Independent yesterday.  Although, in seriousness, I imagine that one of Clegg's proposals will be fairly popular: no more holiday time for MPs until they've fixed the mess in Parliament.  The political class shouldn't despair, though: the Lib Dem leader is setting out an "action plan" to get it all sorted within a hundred days. I do sympathise with Clegg's claim that MPs should just "get on" with the cleaning job at hand.  After all, one of the more frustrating aspects of the expenses scandal is that the parties could have preempted it with simple, immediate action (e.g.

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Convincing?

From our UK edition

I missed Julie Kirkbride's extended interview with Sky this afternoon, but ConHome have covered all the main points.  Basically, she says she can justify all her expense claims and would like to remain an MP at the next election.  Here are Sky's highlights, so you can judge for yourself: P.S. While this has been going on, Labour's new "star chamber" has been grilling four of their receipt offenders.  The contrast with what has so far been the Tories' more public approach is striking.

Peter Hoskin

Balancing the budget

From our UK edition

Well worth reading Professor John Taylor's article for the FT today, in which he extrapolates from Standard and Poor's recent assessment of the UK's creditworthiness to deliver a warning about the rising national debt in America.  This passage jumped out at me: "While there is debate about whether a large deficit today provides economic stimulus, there is no economic theory or evidence that shows that deficits in five or 10 years will help to get us out of this recession. Such thinking is irresponsible. If you believe deficits are good in bad times, then the responsible policy is to try to balance the budget in good times. The CBO projects that the economy will be back to delivering on its potential growth by 2014.

Peter Hoskin

Has Cameron given Kirkbride the kiss of death?

From our UK edition

The pressure sure is mounting for Julie Kirkbride, the wife of the disgraced - and discarded - Tory MP Andrew MacKay.  A ConservativeHome poll this morning showed that 81 percent of the grassroots think she should step down as an MP.  While Guido's also on the case, asking: where's Julie? David Cameron was quizzed about Kirkbride on the lunchtime news earlier, where he said that "the best thing to do" is for her to meet with her constituents.  Hm.  If you remember, that didn't work out too well for her husband - who received an absolute kicking in a meeting with voters, before getting the boot from CCHQ only a matter of hours later.  Is Cameron gearing up to ditch Kirkbride too?

Peter Hoskin

Saving the world: part 73

From our UK edition

Is Brown trying to save the world again?  It's hard not to get that impression from reading his dreary article in the FT today.  Headlined "What Europe must do to build a recovery," it adopts the same lecturing tone, and the same misleading claims about the UK position, that Brown patented last autumn and carried forward into the G20 Summit: "...the next stage in the recovery from global recession must be a strengthened European growth strategy. The economic decline of our biggest export market is becoming today’s greatest anti-recession challenge. In its last forecast, the European Commission predicted a 4 per cent decline in output across the EU, with unemployment potentially rising by as much as 9.5m between 2008 and 2010.

Peter Hoskin

Talking reform

From our UK edition

An intriguing set-up in today's Indpendent, as all three of the main party leaders write articles on the need for political reform.  The result, though, is a little underwhelming.  Despite some differences in tone and emphasis - Brown bangs on about Bills and committees; Cameron talks about strengthening Parliament; and Clegg dwells on party funding - the three declarations are marked by their rheotical similarity to one another.  Take, for instance, one of the central points that each makes: Gordon Brown: "We will shortly publish proposals which reform the Commons and put more power where it belongs – in the people's hands. There is no option I will not consider if it redistributes power.

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Politicians must ensure that the public doesn’t get left behind

From our UK edition

Look, I know that the expenses mess needs sorting swiftly and decisively - I've been saying as much for the past few weeks.  But there's still a sense that things are now moving a little too quickly.  Under the correct interpretation that "this is about more than expenses," polticians have rushed from discussing second home allowances to setting out their plans for tweaking the electoral system.  Even today, there have been concurrent debates about whether there should be fixed-term parliaments and whether voters should be able to recall their political representatives.  All thought-provoking stuff, but it's getting hard to keep up. This isn't so much of a problem if it all leads to a more effective political system.  (Although, what's the chance of that?

Peter Hoskin

Your questions for Theresa May | 26 May 2009

From our UK edition

It has been a few days now since we asked CoffeeHousers to put forward their questions for Theresa May.  We've since picked out the best, which have now been put to the shadow work and pensions secretary.  She'll get back to us in the next few days. Anyway, here are the questions: John Moss "Is a time of financial crisis when many people are losing their jobs not the best time to push through radical reform of welfare to gain public trust in the system and get control of cost." Anton "Aren't tax credits for married couples simply forms of social engineering by social conservatives, trying to impose their own values on the rest of us?

Peter Hoskin

The next scandal waiting to happen?

From our UK edition

There's something perturbing about this story on party funding in the Times: "Hundreds of donations to political parties are to be kept secret under plans being slipped through the House of Lords. Labour and the Conservatives have been accused of collusion over plans to raise the threshold above which parties must report donations from £5,000 to £7,500. The move is opposed by heavyweight figures such as Lord Neill of Bladen, former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, who said that there was no real justification for the increase. The Electoral Commission has said: 'An increase of this level has the potential to reduce public confidence in the transparency and integrity of political funding.' ...

Monday

Peter Hoskin

The voters’ wrath

From our UK edition

Wow.  The Bracknell Forest Standard has released footage (see below) from Andrew MacKay's meeting with his constituents last week.  If you remember, the MP didn't allow TV cameras into the hall, and subsequently claimed that most of those present were on his side.  This footage gives the lie to that, as it shows them subjecting him to an absolute kicking.  Indeed, you wonder whether the disconnect between MacKay's version of events and reality was one of the reasons Cameron ditched him: As Tim Montgomerie says over at ConservativeHome, other receipt offenders should look on and tremble.

Peter Hoskin

Johnson makes his move

From our UK edition

So has Alan Johnson taken a first step towards the Labour leadership?  He's written a comment piece on electoral reform for today's Times - and the paper reports it on their frontpage with the headline "Johnson seizes intiative over Labour leadership."  It's hard to disagree.  While Johnson makes sure to mention Gordon Brown is his article ("Again the Prime Minister is leading..."), the measures he outlines are too strident, and the topic too important, for this to be anything other than an attempt to grab the limelight.  And while I'm not struck by Johnson's proposed solution - a tweaked version of proportional representation - there are certainly benefits to running on this kind of platform. The response from Downing Street will be interesting.

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

King rains on Brown’s parade

From our UK edition

An intriguing little story in the FT about the worsening relations between Gordon Brown and Mervyn King.  Apparently, our Dear Leader doesn't like the downbeat rhetoric that the Governor of the Bank of England is deploying: "There is growing irritation in Downing Street and the Treasury towards Mr King. The prime minister and Alistair Darling, chancellor, have been left fuming by the governor’s interventions, most notably after his downbeat assessment this month of the economic outlook, a viewpoint pounced on by the Conservatives.

Friday

Peter Hoskin

Where are the self-interested reformers?

From our UK edition

One of the continuing mysteries of this expenses scandal is why Labour backbenchers who haven't been implicated aren't speaking out for stronger action against those who have.  Sure, it would ruffle some feathers in their own party - but, as this week's Bagehot column suggests, they may not lose out by doing so: "Unfortunately, the politicians’ self-interest is unenlightened and myopic. With so little life left in the government, the cost to the careers of Labour mutineers would be nugatory; indeed, their stature might be enhanced if the plot came off. The confrontation between Mr Brown and the malcontents is less like a gunslingers’ deadly stand-off than the Monty Python sketch in which two men slap each other with fish.

Peter Hoskin

The Labour leadership candidates flash their reformist credentials

From our UK edition

We keep talking about which party leader is taking the lead on expenses but - from a Labour perspective - it might be more useful to look at which Cabinet ministers are doing all the running.  After all, with Brown on the ropes, his potential replacements might be looking to seize the mantle of de facto leader. That's why two passages from recent papers have caught my eye. This in today's Times: "Gordon Brown is being urged from within the Cabinet to lead a new public debate about state funding of the parties and reform of the electoral system, to intensify the clean-up of politics after the expenses scandal.

Peter Hoskin

Back to the planning stage

From our UK edition

Uh-oh.  It sounds like Gordon Brown is going to unleash a "national plan" on the country in the aftermath of the June elections.  Here are the details from today's Indy: "A 'national plan' for Britain will be unveiled by Gordon Brown as he tries to fight back after Labour's expected elections rout next month, The Independent has learnt. The Prime Minister wants the blueprint to be a route map for how the Government will lead the country out of recession and extend its public service reforms. It will cover the economy, industry, health, education and crime. ... The aim of the 'national plan' is to show that Labour has not run out of steam after 12 years in office and has a more detailed prospectus than the Tories.

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Keener to have an election, but less keen to vote

From our UK edition

Ok, so what to make of the latest Populus poll?  Here are the headline figures: Conservatives --- 39 percent (unchanged from a poll 10 days ago) Labour --- 27 percent (up 1) Lib Dems --- 17 percent (down 5) I imagine CCHQ will be slightly pleased and slightly concerned, but not by much either way.  The 12 point lead isn't to be sniffed at, and an unchanged position from 10 days ago is far from nightmarish.  But the Tories are below that magic 40 percent mark again, and they might have expected a little more buoyancy given Cameron's assured response to the expenses scandal.   But what about the Lib Dems, down 5 percent?  Poll king Anthony Wells sets out his theories here.  But I rather suspect we're seeing a bit of volatility.

Peter Hoskin

Ann Widdecombe to run for the Speakership

From our UK edition

There have been strong rumblings throughout the day, but now ConHome have confirmed it:  Ann Widdecombe will run for the Speakership.  The big problem, of course, is that she's standing down as an MP at the next election - so she'd only be an interim Speaker - and I'm not sure either the public or Parliament have the appetite for a temporary fix to the problem.  Still, her natural popularity should ensure she picks up some support among those who think its rightfully time for a Tory.

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s reshuffle headache

From our UK edition

Oh dear.  With each day that passes, it gets clearer that Brown's June reshuffle may cause him more trouble than it's worth.  For instance, this passage from today's Mail caught my eye: "A senior Labour figure said: 'You can't plan a reshuffle around those who have transgressed on their expenses because that would quickly involve a whole lot of people.' Mr Darling is also resisting any attempt to move him amid Whitehall talk that the PM would like to replace him with his most trusted ally Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary. Foreign Secretary David Miliband is fighting for his job behind the scenes in the face of a campaign by Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, who has long dreamed of taking his post.

Peter Hoskin

The Lumley effect

From our UK edition

So Joanna Lumley continues to cast a spell over British politics, as Gurkha veterans finally - and deservedly - get the right to settle in the UK.  Standing outside Number 10, she now has kinder things to say about Gordon Brown - calling him a "brave man who has made a brave decision".  But the warm words just serve to highlight the political stupidity and moral directionlessness of Brown in the first place.  How he could have done with them a few weeks ago, when Clegg and, to a lesser extent, Cameron were basking in the Lumley glow.  But, instead, the PM needed to be strongarmed into recognising Gurkha rights.  And I imagine that the public won't look too kindly on his role in this particular U-turn. But what, now, of Lumley herself?