Uk politics

Ed Miliband tries to reassure voters on Labour’s immigration policy, without mentioning the EU

Today is, according to the party’s own institutional memory, the first time Labour has talked about immigration in a party political broadcast. As I blogged yesterday, the party struggles to raise its voice when this policy area is debated in parliament because of the mistakes ministers made on migration when in government. Ed Miliband knows this, and so tonight television audiences across England will be treated to this party political broadcast: The first thing that’s clear, aside from the emotional backing music that would be more at home on an animal rescue programme, is that this isn’t about announcing big new policies. Miliband announced all of these ideas on English

Lib Dems avoid conference grief on NHS

Norman Lamb’s announcement today that the government will re-write regulations on competition in the NHS seals up one source of grief for the Lib Dems ahead of their spring conference this weekend. Activists had been threatening an awkward showdown with the leadership on the section 75 regulations, and instead ministers (its notable that Lib Dem Lamb was sent out to bat for the government today rather than a Conservative) can go to their party and argue that they are keeping check on the Conservatives when it comes to the NHS. But this has a flipside, which is that the row over secret courts will gain more momentum now activists’ minds

Isabel Hardman

‘Tell the European Commission to sod off!’: MPs press government on migrants

‘Oooh, your statement was so much more partisan than mine!’ Iain Duncan Smith almost said to Stephen Timms this afternoon as the pair sparred over Bulgarian and Romanian migrants. The Work and Pensions Secretary was answering an urgent question from Labour’s Frank Field on the government’s readiness for the end of transitional controls. The debate veered towards the two men accusing the other of making party political points on this issue, but it also offered those in the House of Commons a number of useful opportunities. The first was an opportunity for the Secretary of State to indulge in just a little bit of Labour-bashing. He pointed out that the

Alex Massie

Revolting, Panic-Stricken Tories are doing Ed Miliband’s job for him

Panic, once let loose, is hard to corral. And there seems to be plenty of panic on the Tory benches at Westminster. The Eastleigh by-election result, the stagnant economy and the rising sense that the Prime Minister has somehow lost his way all contribute to this. Each fresh setback – or perceived setback – now has an impact disproportionate to the actual size or importance of the problem. These things are no longer measured on a linear scale. Read, for instance, Ben Brogan’s analysis in today’s Telegraph and you will perceive an under-current of deep panic presently afflicting the Tory tribe in London. Similarly, when Paul Goodman is writing –

The truth about Ukip supporters

Who are all these folk jumping on Nigel Farage’s bandwagon? Ukip — which received just 3 per cent of the vote in 2010 — is now averaging about 11 per cent in the polls. Its rise has fuelled all sorts of speculation about where its supporters are coming from and why they’re turning to the party. Today, YouGov have thrown a bit of data into that speculation. They’ve combined the results of all their February polls, which sampled 28,944 people including 2,788 who said they’d vote Ukip. The results are a mixture of the expected and the surprising. First, the expected: most of them voted Tory in 2010 — 60

Isabel Hardman

Iain Duncan Smith backs the National Union of Ministers

It is significant that Iain Duncan Smith wouldn’t resist further cuts to the welfare budget in the 2015/16 spending review. This makes him one of the supporters of the National Union of Ministers movement. The Times reports that he has prepared a package of additional cuts, although I understand this doesn’t involve new ideas such as a freeze on welfare payments, but ideas trailed extensively pre-Autumn Statement such as the removal of housing benefit for the under-25s, and a limit on child benefit to two children for new families. The question is more whether the Liberal Democrats would look at these cuts again, when they made their opposition very clear

Isabel Hardman

Secret courts bill: the rebels

The government won all four votes on the report stage of the Justice and Security Bill last night, but there was still a crop of Coalition rebels when each division was called, and a number of abstentions from both parties too. The issue has excited the group of Tory MPs you see listed below, but for the Lib Dems it is an altogether more pressing matter because they will face their party’s activists this weekend at the Lib Dem spring conference in Brighton. As I reported last week, activists have prepared an emergency motion on the matter, and if selected, it will be debated before the very final stage of

Budget 2013: whatever happened to the recovery?

The 2013 budget promises to be a milestone for David Cameron’s government. George Osborne is under pressure to avoid the ‘omnishambles budget’ of last year. As well as satisfying his increasingly-militant ministers, angry backbenchers and coalition partners, the window for making a real difference in time for the next election is closing. Any seismic shifts planned by Osborne and Cameron will have to be made soon. Coffee House will be providing extensive coverage throughout the day but we’re delighted to offer something special. On the evening of 20 March, the Spectator will be hosting a special event in central London with Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth. Chaired by Andrew Neil,

What Works: The government’s NICE new idea

This afternoon, Danny Alexander and Oliver Letwin launched something so sensible it’s astonishing governments haven’t been doing it before. They’re actually going to use evidence to determine which policies work. The idea is that a number of different centres in a new ‘What Works’ network will examine how effective policies really are, identifying which represent value for money and which don’t. That begs the question of what on earth is happening at the moment when it comes to scrutinising policy. There is plenty of high-quality evidence swirling around that rarely even gets a mention when a policy is up for debate. But when politicians do mention it, they often cherry-pick

Isabel Hardman

Tory MPs lobby David Cameron on the ‘bedroom tax’

Liam Byrne launched Labour’s campaign on the ‘bedroom tax’ today, while Helen Goodman, who was the Labour minister responsible for the party’s own attempt at cutting the housing benefit bill when in government, raised the cut at Education Questions today. Tory MPs groaned a little. Michael Gove pounded the despatch box, and shouted ‘this is not a tax!’ and Labour MPs groaned back. But behind the scenes, I understand that far from groaning, Conservative MPs have been lobbying the Prime Minister on this particular cut, which comes into effect on 1 April. At a Downing Street lunch for a number of Conservative MPs recently, David Cameron received a bit of

James Forsyth

Why did no Tory attack Vince Cable for his opposition to the NHS budget ring fence?

This weekend David Cameron argued that the Tories are the ‘only party simultaneously committed to proper investment in the NHS and bringing down immigration’. This makes it all the odder that the Tories didn’t seize on Vince Cable’s comments on the Sunday Politics yesterday. The Business Secretary declared: ‘I’ve always been very critical of ring fencing but the policy under this government I accepted as part of the coalition arrangements.’ In other words, if Cable—the senior Liberal Democrat economic spokesman—had his way, the health budget would not be ring-fenced. But this comment seems to have gone unnoticed by the Tories; there was no press release from a Tory MP highlighting it.

Steerpike

Paperless spin

With no man left behind the times, the Work and Pensions Select Committee are moving to ‘paperless working’. The pen-pushers are instructing members to get in touch with Parliament’s IT department for a free iPad — on the taxpayer, naturally. In theory, money will be saved on printing costs, though conscious of those members of the committee not quite prepared for modernity ‘alternative arrangements can be made if you do not wish to move to paperless working’, an email tells Committee members. The alternative presumably being printing stuff out, as per usual, thus rendering the whole operation nothing more than a nice spin job. Mr Steerpike’s eyes and ears say

Are campaigners using the criminal justice system to pursue their political agendas?

Late last year a Judge in Oxford Magistrates’ court questioned the RSPCA for running up a legal bill of a third of a million pounds on a low-level case when the defendant’s costs were £35,000. This prompted me to ask some questions about private prosecutions and the RSPCA’s prolific use of them through the formal route of parliamentary questions and a debate in Westminster Hall. It has become worryingly clear that no-one, including the Government, has any idea what is going on. Private prosecutions might be funded privately (although even this comes with caveats), but they take place in the criminal courts so surely the Government would know how many

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron’s lurch to the backbenches

So the Conservative party’s refusal to lurch to the right has, in the past few days, resulted in stories about the European Court of Human Rights, EU referendum legislation, limiting access to benefits for migrants, and NHS tourism. All of these issues preoccupy the right wing of the Conservative party. David Cameron yesterday said the Tories would remain in the Common ground (and Fraser wondered whether the PM had realised that he wasn’t taking his own advice on this), but these briefings suggest Cameron is trying to find common ground with his own MPs as much as with the public. If these policies aren’t about a lurch to the right,

Alex Massie

What is the point of the modern Conservative party?

Who are the Conservatives? No, really, who are they and what do they stand for? Once upon a time – as James Kirkup points out in a typically astute post – we had a pretty decent idea about David Cameron. He was young. Polished. Presentable.  Dutiful. Unthreatening. Fiscally-conservative-but-socially-liberal. Modern (whatever, as Prince Charles might say, that means). Above all, he was neither Michael Howard nor Gordon Brown. Ah well. That was all a long time ago. Let sunshine win the day is the soundtrack to another era. Such are the trials of government. Time – and power – tarnish everything. What does David Cameron believe in now? He remains more popular

David Cameron vs the Middle Ground of politics

The Prime Minister’s article in today’s Sunday Telegraph is, like all of his major speeches, an uplifting read. It references Sir Keith Joseph, a giant of Conservative thought. Three years ago, I had the honour of delivering the Centre for Policy Studies annual Keith Joseph lecture, as did Cameron three years before that. Here is what Cameron has to say about Sir Keith in his piece today: ‘But the battle for Britain’s future will not be won in lurching to the Right, nor by some cynical attempt to calculate the middle distance between your political opponents and then planting yourself somewhere between them. That is lowest common denominator politics –

The mighty Metis machine that could save Cameron’s bacon in 2015

What does David Cameron need to do to win the next general election? Following on from Eastleigh, several of the suggestions in today’s papers involve a significant personnel or policy shift, something Cameron is likely to ignore. Buried in the Sunday Times, an alternative is revealed (£) with the Metis project. Headed up by four of Westminster’s sharpest minds, Metis is destined to become the largest and most sophisticated voter database ever built in the UK. The power of a 20 million strong list of voters has the potential to revolutionise campaigning: ‘It will enable political parties to run highly targeted campaigns, focusing on individual voters whose support is vital

Isabel Hardman

How to be an anti-politics party in government: make the public sector accountable

One of the lessons from last week’s Eastleigh by-election – and indeed the Italian elections – is that voters don’t like politicians at the moment. It’s easy for those like Nigel Farage to mop up this anti-politics sentiment in the same way as Nick Clegg could say before the 2010 election ‘the more they attack each other, the more they sound the same’. But how does the Conservative party try to appeal to those voters fed up with the Establishment of which it is so clearly a part? David Cameron can hardly start attacking himself, after all. There is one thing that the Tories could do – and which their