David cameron

If the next election is simply a referendum on the government’s performance, I doubt that the Tories will win. But if it is a choice about which party you want to govern Britain, then they are in with a chance. So, today we’ve seen a determined attempt to draw contrasts with Labour. Notice how quick David Cameron was to turn to the question of what Labour would do on Marr. The most detailed attempted takedown, though, came in William Hague’s speech. He ran through his holy trinity of coalition reforms—economic, education and welfare. Then, said: “they are all opposed by a Labour Party that in its addiction to borrowing, belief

Too often the debate about the future direction of the Tory party is polarised between those who want to ‘modernise’ and those who want to ‘go right’. But there’s another problem, these labels now obscure as much as they reveal. In the next few days in Birmingham, the Tories have two important tasks: to show that they understand the squeeze on people’s living standards and are doing something about it and that they have a proper growth strategy. Some Cameron aides have long argued that the Prime Minister with his personal wealth can’t talk about the cost of living. But as Mitt Romney, a far less able political communicator than

David Cameron has a tough task ahead of him for this week’s Conservative conference – a task that got a little harder when Ed Miliband surprised almost everyone by producing a cracking speech this week. The Prime Minister has a number of problems to tackle when he arrives in Birmingham. These include a rowdy party growing increasingly agitated about a number of issues including Europe, a chief whip sent in to control said rowdy party whose authority has been undermined before he has even started twisting arms, a chancellor struggling with his own authority on economic policy, and a Mayor determined to steal the show with his own conference speech

Mr Steerpike is now available weekly in the magazine. This one’s been getting them talking today: It’s a hat-trick! Word reaches me that Dave may be about to lose his third spin doctor in a row. First Andy Coulson left to spend more time with his Fingertip Guide to the Criminal Law. Then Steve Hilton legged it to California. Now Craig Oliver, Coulson’s replacement, is said to be heading for the chop. Mr Oliver, once a BBC news chief, enjoys the rare distinction of being completely unknown to the general public and his friends tell me he’s been doing a superb job as the PM’s communications tsar. But Andrew Mitchell

Ed Miliband’s ‘One Nation’ conference speech will have put the populist cat amongst Downing Street’s toffee-nosed pigeons. Now young Dave’s people will have to work out how to respond to this inspired piece of political cross-dressing, even if it is essentially diaphanous. One (alleged) Tory, though, is very happy with the direction in which the national debate seems to be travelling. Mr Steerpike found Phillip Blond, the ‘Red Tory’ and founder of the Respublica think-tank, cock-a-hoop after the speech: ‘Ed Miliband has thrown down a blue Labour challenge to the Conservatives. No. 10 needs a Red Tory response unless they want to see Ed’s One Nation politics win the next election.’ Despite

This conference season marks the half way point to the next election and we can see the political battle lines becoming clearer. The Tories, as their new poster campaign shows, intends to hammer Labour as the party that has learnt nothing from its mistakes. The argument of the coalition parties, which Nick Clegg previewed in Brighton, will be that the world has changed but Labour is stuck in the pre-crash era with its borrow and spend economics. Ed Miliband for his part wants to run as the man who is ‘on your side’. Today’s policy announcement taking aim at pension charges and the energy companies are designed to resonate with

Three months after it was sent, the Prime Minister has replied to a letter signed by over 100 backbench Conservative MPs calling for legislation in this parliament for an EU referendum in the next. John Baron, who co-ordinated the letter, is not releasing David Cameron’s response as the original message was private, too. But I’ve managed to get my hands on a copy from elsewhere, and here are some of the key points Cameron makes: ‘As we discussed, I do believe it would be wrong to rule out any type of referendum for the future. However, I am concerned that making a legal commitment now to hold a referendum in

Last night David Cameron became the first British Prime Minister to appear on the David Letterman chat show whilst in office. Unfortunately for the PM, the most noteworthy thing to come out of the interview was Cameron’s inability to answer two questions on basic British history. You can listen to the interview below: listen to ‘Cameron’s Letterman quiz, 26 Sep 12’ on Audioboo

I’ve avoided commenting on Andrew Mitchell’s problems with police officers and gates because, damn it, the whole affair has been saturated in so much stupidity that it scarcely seemed to warrant further examination. But James Kirkup has pushed me over the edge. He asks if David Cameron “trusts the word of the police who guard his house”. Break. Give. Me. A. Never fear, however, because the indomitable lobby is on the scent and determined to pursue the Prime Minister on this, even to the ends of the earth itself: Sadly, I can’t tell you the answer, because the PM’s not saying; ministers are also being told by No 10 not

Dave is chasing Boris across the Pond and onto the set of the Letterman Show, but Mr Steerpike understands that the prime minister is not the only British party leader heading stateside today. On the back of UKIP’s most successful ever party conference, Nigel Farage is on his way for a lap of honour around Wall Street for a series of meetings with expat hedgies, traders and fund managers. Sources close to our man in pinstripes tell me that his popularity over there is phenomenal and that he’s got a packed twenty-nine hours. To prove the point, Farage has been granted a rare meeting with the brains behind the market-moving ZeroHedge

The Lib Dem round of pre-conference interviews today shows where the party wants to look distinctive. It is tax ‘fairness’, greenery and social mobility on which it has decided to set its stall. One thing worth noting, though, is that Nick Clegg’s interview in The Independent does not rule out future welfare cuts. He tells Andy Grice that ‘We are not going to do an across-the-board, two-year freeze of all benefits during this parliament’. This leaves the Liberal Democrats plenty of room for manoeuvre ahead of the autumn statement on December 5th. I expect that we won’t hear too much bashing of his coalition partners from the deputy Prime Minister

Over the past two days, we’ve had polls from four different pollsters, and all of them show big leads for Labour. Yesterday, Populus gave Ed Miliband’s party a 15-point lead — the largest lead the pollster has ever shown for Labour. Today, Ipsos MORI shows Labour ahead by 11 points and TNS BMRB have them up by 12. The latest YouGov tracker gives Labour a nine-point lead, although averaging their polls over the last week makes it more like ten points. The precise margins may be different, but all of these results would — if replicated in a general election — result in a large Labour majority and hand Ed

There’s war in Whitehall. The Sunday Times devotes its p2 lead (£) to the fact that Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, is ‘sceptical’ of the Universal Credit, the key to Iain Duncan Smith’s revolutionary welfare reforms. The newspaper has gathered its intelligence by reading the leading article of this week’s Spectator, and repeats our point that civil servants will interpret Heywood’s reservations as a ‘go-slow order’. Here is what our leader column says: ‘Treasury officials have been against Duncan Smith from the start, due to the threat which Universal Credit posed to their beloved tax credits. Ambition in itself is looked down upon by ministers who deride ‘IDS’s grand projet’. Sir Jeremy

Mr Steerpike understands that only fourteen Tory MPs have written to Graham Brady, the chairman of the backbenchers 1922 committee, asking for a leadership contest to oust David Cameron. Although the names officially remain a secret, fourteen is the number that the PM’s enemies believe that they have secured so far. Our Prime Minister can breath a sigh of relief, for now. Thirty two more names are needed for any kind of trouble, as Matthew d’Ancona explained in yesterday’s Evening Standard: ‘Under the system introduced by William Hague in 1998, the incumbent leader faces a vote of no confidence triggered by letters from 15 per cent of the parliamentary party