Uk politics

Monday

James Forsyth

Did the next coalition talks just start?

The Tory talk of backing an increase (£) in the personal tax allowance to £12,500 serves several purposes. First, it makes it easier for the Tories to champion raising the rate to £10,000 and it gives them a tax cuts that’s aimed at low and middle income earners. But it also draws a neat dividing line with Labour, which is not keen on this policy, ahead of any future coalition negotiation. Indeed, I understand that thinkers close to Miliband have urged Nick Clegg to drop his attachment to raising the income tax threshold and instead think about using the money for a big universal childcare offer. Danny Alexander has already been out

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson: Visa plan is unclear

It is just two weeks since Boris Johnson came over all loyal at the Conservative party conference. The Mayor, it was reported, was putting his weight behind David Cameron because of the presence of Lynton Crosby and the apparent private offer of a safe seat. But it looks like he’s back to being troublesome by immediately questioning the government’s announcement that it will be relaxing visa rules for Chinese tourists. He told the World at One: ‘Well, we’ll have to see how this scheme actually works because the detail is a little bit unclear to us at the moment and I’m initially very, obviously very supportive and would hope that

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

No 10: PM has ‘sympathy’ with calls for partial lift of hunting ban

Number 10 didn’t make any effort to shoot the fox hunting story that’s doing the rounds at today’s lobby briefing. Responding to calls from a cross-party group of MPs for a partial lifting of the hunting ban to allow farmers to use a full pack of dogs to flush out foxes, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said this morning that ‘the Prime Minister has some sympathy with these concerns’ around ‘the impact is has on particular farming communities such as hill farmers’. He added that it was significant that these questions had been raised ‘by MPs from across the house’, saying: ‘Given the cross party nature of concerns that have

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The global race means swallowing pride every so often

George Osborne is in Beijing at the moment, drumming up support for Britain in the global race. Although that doesn’t quite work because Britain is obviously racing China in this global race, but all the same, he wants China to run alongside Britain cheering it, rather than sledging as it steams ahead. And to be able to do that, this country apparently needs to swallow some of its pride about the sort of country that China is. Osborne told Radio 4 this morning: ‘Well what we’ve said is the Prime Minister is not planning to meet the Dalai Lama but of course he did meet the Dalai Lama as previous

Sunday

James Forsyth

Prepare for the arrival of the super cops

Theresa May’s police reform agenda will take a big step forward tomorrow with the announcement that Police and Crime Commissioners will be able to appoint overseas officers as chief constables. As I say in the Mail on Sunday, this’ll mean that successful foreign police chiefs, such as Bill Bratton the former head of the New York and Los Angeles Police Departments, can come to Britain. If Police and Crime Commissioners take advantage of this change, the world’s most innovative police chiefs will put their skills to work in this country. This will drive up standards by bringing in the best practices from around the world. This is part of package

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The truth about Tristram Hunt’s ‘conversion’ on free schools

Much rejoicing in the ranks of education reformers today as just one sinner repents. Tristram Hunt has toldthe Mail On Sunday that Labour doesn’t think free schools are just for ‘yummy mummies’ and that now his party does support free schools, but under the ‘parent-led academies’ banner. This is supposed to be a Damascene moment for Hunt, but really he’s just explaining with greater clarity the stance his predecessor Stephen Twigg took in June. Here is the key line from the MoS: Will PLAs offer everything free schools have got? ‘Yes, but in an area of need, absolutely,’ Hunt enthuses. ‘The innovation, creativity, community engagement you see in the best

Saturday

Sebastian Payne

It’s perpetually grim up north — or is it?

Should the government simply give up on Middlesbrough, Burnley, Hartlepool and Hull? In a leader titled City slickers, The Economist argues that these towns are trapped in a spiral of decline and attempts to ‘save’ them are futile: ‘Middlesbrough, Burnley, Hartlepool, Hull and many others were in trouble even before the financial crisis. These days their unemployment rates are roughly double the national average, and talented young people are draining away (see article). Their high streets are thick with betting shops and payday lenders, if they are not empty.’ Their solution? Pay people to relocate to successful areas: ‘Governments should not try to rescue failing towns. Instead, they should support

Friday

Sebastian Payne

Len McCluskey: Miliband is brave and a genuine radical

Len McCluskey is doing Conservative HQ’s work for them. The emboldened Unite leader is welcoming the return of socialism under Red Ed. Last night at the annual Jimmy Reid lecture, McCluskey spoke passionately of Miliband’s bold new agenda: ‘Ed Miliband’s speech to the Labour conference was – some would say – the most genuinely radical we have heard from a Labour leader for nigh on 30 years.’ He also welcomed the end of New Labour’s ‘neo-liberal’ dogma (you know, the policies which resulted in three general election victories). In reference to Ed’s energy policy: ‘that is not just a break with the coalition’s policies, it also represents Labour turning its

Alex Massie Alex Massie

If Ed Miliband is to become Prime Minister he needs more than gimmicks

Ed Miliband, everyone seems to agree, has had a good few weeks, even months. Everyone agrees on this even though Labour’s position in the polls is not significantly better now than it was before the summer. The Labour leader, and again on this everyone seems to agree, has been setting the agenda. David Cameron has been forced to respond to whatever Miliband has been talking about. From Syria to the Daily Mail to the cost of living it’s been the leader of the opposition who has seized the initiative. As a result, Miliband looks stronger; Cameron somewhat diminished. That, at least, is the conventional wisdom and, as is so often

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Why won’t the SNP embrace the shale gas revolution?

One of the odder elements of the current energy debate at present is that the political party that spends the most time talking about energy – that’s the SNP by the way – is strangely reluctant to chase the opportunities afforded by the imminent shale gas revolution. It’s a subject I consider in a column for The Scotsman today: Scotland’s oil resources are a vital national asset. Everyone, I think, knows this. If there were no remaining oil reserves waiting to be exploited in the North Sea, the economic case for independence would be severely weakened. Oil is a cushion and a comfort blanket. But the Nationalist’s determination to make

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Royal Mail shares surge in early trading

Royal Mail shares are currently trading at 421p, 91p above its 330p opening price. This morning, the shares hit 456p before falling back slightly. This increase of more than a third in value and the fact that the share offer was so oversubscribed has led to lots of claims this morning that Royal Mail was undervalued. But it is worth remembering that when the government announced it was going to privatise Royal Mail, there was lots of chatter about how the government would struggle to get it away. It was argued that it was foolhardy to sell it into a strike by postal workers. On its current price, the Royal

Thursday

Steerpike

Ruff justice at the Westminster Dog of the Year competition

Off to the highlight of Mr Steerpike’s 2013, the Westminster Dog of the Year competition, where the pedigree chums of our elected representatives lined up to compete for a prestigious place on the podium. With Jake Berry’s standard poodle Lola taking a break from the competition after competing three years in a row, someone was needed to fill the role of Westminster Poodle – and Alan Duncan’s Noodle was more than willing to fill Lola’s pawprints.  Although strictly a Cockapoo, so only half poodle (very on-trend, don’t you know), Noodle had gone all-out with her campaigning, even going so far at to write her very own ‘Dogifesto’. She wasn’t alone

Steerpike Steerpike

New minister’s crackdown on beefy builders baring big bottoms

It’s been a busy first few days in the new job for Jane Ellison, who took over as Public Health Minister this week. She’s been dealing with big bottoms – those belonging to builders and hanging over trousers, no less. A cheeky press release from the Department of Health – which features a man with the title ‘Britain’s favourite builder’, Tommy Walsh – this afternoon announced ‘Britain’s beefy builders say bye bye to baring bottoms’, adding that ‘the image of the bottom baring, overweight builder is being replaced by workers who are hands-on well-oiled machines’. Once you get to the, er, bottom, of what on earth the department is talking

Sebastian Payne

Leveson: press regulation is ‘your problem, not mine’

Brian Leveson has no opinions on press regulation, apparently. It just took him three hours to repeat this to MPs, over and over again, peppering his increasingly exasperated answers with ‘with respect’, when he appeared before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee this morning. Leveson did his upmost to get through the whole session without tilting one way or another on his inquiry, report or recommendations. But there were a few hints of what he actually thinks. Firstly, Leveson is keen for some progress, particularly from the newspapers themselves. ‘I would be sorry if my recommendations were lost’, he said, adding: ‘I have said… in discussions I had with editors

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Gove sets early policy test for Tristram Hunt

The congratulations have been flowing in from across the Labour party for Tristram Hunt as the new Shadow Education Secretary. But there is no praise higher for the newly promoted MP than to get a detailed letter from Michael Gove testing his mettle just a few days into the job. Gove saw Stephen Twigg as someone he didn’t need to worry about a great deal, more of a distraction from his daily hobby of provoking the teaching unions than a mighty threat. But Hunt, while still possibly in danger of proving too Blairite for his party’s tastes, appears a mightier candidate. Education Questions in the Commons will certainly be an

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Theresa May’s Immigration Bill is another contemptible piece of legislation

Say this for the government, they are at least consistent. Their contemptible lobbying bill is now followed by their equally contemptible immigration bill. Sometimes you think that if it weren’t for Michael Gove and for the fact that David Cameron isn’t Ed Miliband there’d be few reasons to support this government at all. And this immigration bill really is contemptible. Politics is often a question of signalling and what this bill signals, alas, is that the government prefers the presumption of guilt to the presumption of innocence. It is a bill that turns ordinary Britons into snitches for central government. A bill that will make life more inconvenient for millions

James Forsyth James Forsyth

2010 intake of Tory MPs write to Adam Afriyie telling him to drop his amendment

More than 140 of the 147 Tory MPs elected in 2010 have written to Adam Afriyie telling him to drop his amendment to the EU referendum bill. Given that Afriyie has previously suggested he’ll drop his attempt to bring the referendum forward to 2014 there is no support for it, it now seems doomed. This loyalist flexing of political muscle by the 2010 Tory intake will cheer Downing Street. It shows that the parliamentary party does, for the moment at least, want to stay united on Europe. It also indicates that a certain discipline is returning to Tory ranks as the next election approaches. Even six months ago, an amendment

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 podcast: fat Britain, Westminster reshuffles and Obamacareless

Does Britain have an obesity problem? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Fraser Nelson discuses the bizarre steps taken by the NHS to deal with our growing weight problem. Do we have such a thing as a ‘fat gland’? Why is Britain’s changing size so rapidly? And according to Fraser, Nottingham is the ‘fattest’ part of our country and deep fried Mars bars really are a delicacy. James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman also discuss this week’s Westminster reshuffles, what they mean (if anything) for the man for the street and who’s up and who’s down in the the cabinet and shadow cabinet. What do the changes says about the

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Yes, of course the War on Drugs exists (but it shouldn’t)

There is something contemptible about Nick Clegg’s latest piece of handwringing. the Deputy Prime Minister – a position that, at least notionally, carries some clout – complains that he’d very much like to do something about Britain’s antiquated drug laws but, well, he can’t because it’s hard and, besides, the Tories are such rotters. Clegg could have made this a cause. He could have done something about this before now. He could, at the very least, have talked about the War on Drugs rather more than he has. He could even have noted, frequently, that David Cameron has changed his own tune on these matters, abandoning the sensible attitude he once had. He has, instead,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Greg Barker: BBC gives too much coverage to climate change sceptics

If you asked most people about the BBC, few people would describe it as a hotbed of scepticism about global warming. But the coverage that the BBC gives to those who have doubts about the orthodoxy on the subject is too much for Barker. He, as the Press Association reports, told the Science and Technology Committee, ‘In the case of the BBC they have a very clear statutory responsibility. It’s in the original charter to inform. I think we need the BBC to look very hard, particularly at whether or not they are getting the balance right. I don’t think they are.’ Barker did say, ‘I’m not trying to ban