Uk politics

Thursday

Jonathan Jones

Deficit latest: Still £5 billion higher than last year

Today’s borrowing figures show that the government had a surplus of £11.4 billion in January. But before we get too excited, a bit of context is in order. There’s (almost) always a surplus in January, thanks mainly to self assessment and capital gains tax receipts. And today’s figure includes £3.8 billion transferred from the Bank of England’s Asset Purchase Facility to the Treasury. Stripping that out gives a £7.6 billion surplus — an improvement on the £6.4 billion surplus in January 2012, but not enough to make up for higher borrowing in the rest of the year. Total borrowing in the ten months of the year so far is £97.6

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Eastleigh shows how difficult the 2015 Tory/Lib Dem fight will be

The good news for Nick Clegg—and the bad news for David Cameron—is that the Liberal Democrats are racing certainties to hold Eastleigh in the by-election next Thursday. As I say in the magazine this week, the Liberal Democrats’ base in the constituency – they hold every ward in the seat – has given them an insuperable advantage. This victory means that Clegg will be spared the Spring conference crisis that would have followed a defeat there; for if the Lib Dems could lose Eastleigh where they are so well dug in, they could lose anywhere. Cameron, by contrast, will have to deal with an intensely restless party. The Tories’ failure

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Mitch’s pitch on Europe

Andrew Mitchell’s piece in the FT today marks his return to normal politics post-Plebgate. Up to now, Mitchell has confined his post-resignation comments either to his old stomping ground of development or to the sequence of events that led to his premature departure from government. By contrast, today’s piece sees Mitchell getting involved in a frontline political issue, Britain’s relationship with Europe. The article is full of suggestions, joint-sittings of the UK-Polish parliament and meetings of the UK-Dutch Cabinets. But Mitchell is clearly determined to work within the framework set out by Cameron’s Europe speech. No one could say that the articles rocks the boat. But what makes it significant

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Vicky Pryce jury discharged, retrial starts Monday

The jury in the trial of Vicky Pryce has been discharged having failed to reach a verdict. The decision comes after the jury informed the judge that they were highly unlikely to come to even a majority verdict. The retrial is scheduled to start on Monday. There are, obviously, limits to what can be said for legal reasons. We can, though, report that the jury asked the judge ten specific questions during their deliberations. It would be a surprise if the court decided to sentence Chris Huhne before a verdict had been reached in this case. This means that it is unlikely that Huhne will be sentenced before the Eastleigh

Jonathan Jones

Good news on employment, but don’t expect it to keep coming

Today’s jobs figures are pretty unambiguously good news. The number of people in work rose by 154,000 in the last three months of 2012 to a new record high of 29.73 million — surpassing pre-recession peak by 158,000. And unlike other recent rounds of employment growth, this wasn’t driven by a rise in part-time workers (their number actually fell by 43,000). But there are still a couple of reasons cause to greet this good news with caution. Rising employment at a time of economic stagnation has come at the expense of earnings. Adjusted for CPI inflation, average weekly earnings have fallen by 7 per cent in the last five years,

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Scottish Independence: Can’t We do Better Than This Dismal Campaign?

Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York state (and father of the present governor) is perhaps these days most famous for his quip that politicians campaign in poetry but govern in prose. Sometimes, anyway. Scotland’s independence referendum campaign, at present, doesn’t even rise to the level of William McGonagle’s execrable verse. Most of the prose is stale and hackneyed guff too. This is the subject of my Think Scotland column this week. An argument that should, in theory, be mildly exciting is instead – at least for now – failing to deliver: My sense is that many of the people paying most attention to this campaign are the people most

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour could use Budget legislation to force mansion tax vote

Labour’s current plan to embarrass the Lib Dems over its clothes-stealing mansion tax policy is an Opposition Day debate in the Commons. But, in a mark of how serious the party is to score a political point on this matter, I understand that it is also considering tabling an amendment involving a mansion tax to the Finance Bill after the Budget. Labour sources tell me that this threat will be enacted if the government doesn’t allocate time for an Opposition Day debate before the Budget. A source says: ‘We want to be clear that we are serious about this. This is a test for the Lib Dems to see if

Jonathan Jones

Disappointing 4G auction income is bad news for Osborne’s deficit plans

Oh dear. George Osborne’s claim in December’s Autumn Statement that ‘the deficit is coming down this year, and every year of this Parliament’ was already looking hubristic, even before today’s news that the 4G mobile spectrum auction raised just £2.3 billion, rather than the £3.5 billion that the Office for Budget Responsibility had forecast. As Fraser blogged in November, there were hopes that Britain would — like Ireland — raise even more than expected from the auction. At the Autumn Statement, the OBR predicted that borrowing (once you strip out the effects of various one-off accounting changes, such as the transfer of Royal Mail pensions) would fall ever-so-slightly this year, from

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dems get worked up about a vote that doesn’t matter

It seems I rather underestimated Labour when I said their forthcoming Opposition Day vote on the mansion tax would be boring and unlikely to attract any Lib Dem support. The Staggers reported last night that Labour sources were planning to make the vote as amenable as possible to the Lib Dems by dropping any awkward references to 10p tax rates or any other wheeze that the junior coalition partner disagrees with. Meanwhile Lib Dem sources are saying they are waiting to see the wording before ruling anything out. But the point that this is not a crunch vote that will interest the public still stands, so why are the Lib

Ryan Shorthouse

Why liberal conservatism isn’t dead

David Cameron led the Conservatives out of the political wilderness by pursuing the modernisation of the Tory brand, which had become associated with reactionary social attitudes and a dog eat dog economy. In today’s tricky economic climate, the Tories need to focus on challenging perceptions that they are the ‘party of the rich’, offering policies that ease the cost of living and improve public services for those on low- to middle-incomes. But this urgent task does not quell the need to continue the unfinished social modernisation of the Conservative Party, most often associated with Cameron’s early premiership: namely, modernising the party’s stance on gay rights, climate change, wellbeing, poverty and international

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Europe’s defence budgets may not be noble, but they are at least rational

Gideon Rachmann is unhappy that european defence budgets are still falling: Since 2008, in response to the economic downturn, most big European countries have cut defence spending by 10-15 per cent. The longer-term trends are even more striking. Britain’s Royal Air Force now has just a quarter of the number of combat aircraft it had in the 1970s. The Royal Navy has 19 destroyers and frigates, compared with 69 in 1977. The British army is scheduled to shrink to 82,000 soldiers, its smallest size since the Napoleonic wars. In 1990 Britain had 27 submarines (excluding those that carry ballistic missiles) and France had 17. The two countries now have seven and six respectively.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How will the Tories sell more welfare cuts?

David Cameron is making noises about further welfare cuts as he tours India, reports the FT’s Kiran Stacey. This isn’t surprising: the PM has got a gaggle of Cabinet ministers pecking at him and squawking about cutting DWP spending even more in order to protect policing and defence in the 2015/16 spending review, which will be settled in the next few months. But are we going to see the same pattern of decision-making and the same rhetoric on welfare spending as has emerged for previous budgets and autumn statements? This is how it has worked recently: Spending decisions approach. Nick Clegg (or an acolyte) says he’s blocked further cuts to

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Myth of the Immigrant Benefit-Moocher, Part Two

I am afraid, dear reader, that I have misled you. Yesterday’s post on immigrants and benefit-claimants contained an inaccuracy. I repeated a claim I’d seen in the Telegraph that there are almost 14,000 Polish-born people claiming unemployment benefit in Britain. This is not the case. The true picture of Polish benefit-dependency is very different. There are, in fact, fewer than 7,000 Poles claiming the Job Seekers’ Allowance. Indeed, there are fewer than 13,000 JSA claimants from the “Accession Eight” countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Slovenia). Whatever else these eastern europeans have been doing in Britain, they’ve not been mooching off the benefits system. And it

Sebastian Payne

The Tories take tips from Obama in Eastleigh

Eastleigh could be a turning point in by-election history. Not because the Tories are looking like they may well lose, as the Times (£) suggests this morning, but as the moment the party woke up to the possibilities of digital campaigning. Online election adverts in UK politics are nothing new – the 2012 London Mayor race saw both Ken and Boris plaster websites (including this one) with a variety of colourful attack messages. What is different in Eastleigh is the drive for data gathering. Take some of the adverts CCHQ are running on the websites of two local papers — the Southern Daily Echo and Hampshire Chronicle: The main purpose of these adverts is not to

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Maria Hutchings says what she thinks. But is she thinking what Eastleigh voters are thinking?

One of the key strands of the Conservative campaign in Eastleigh is trust: not just because campaigners can remind voters about Chris Huhne, but thanks to a contrast they can draw between Maria Hutchings and Lib Dem candidate Mike Thornton. The party’s latest poster underlines this: it accuses the Lib Dems of ‘facing both ways on development’ and contrasts quotes from Thornton on protecting green spaces and his voting record. The bottom of the poster says: ‘Maria Hutchings has consistently campaigned with local residents against these developments.’ I’ve already grumbled about how silly it is for the two Coalition parties to be scrapping not just over agreed Coalition policy but

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

On tax policy, to govern is to maintain the status quo

To govern is to choose, wise people like to say when talking about policies which annoy voters but which might make good sense. Today we have another example of what happens when governments don’t choose. The Public Accounts Committee has published another one of its fierce reports on tax, arguing that tax avoidance companies ‘run rings around HMRC’. There’s plenty of criticism in it for HMRC, with the committee finding that HMRC doesn’t know how much it spends tackling tax avoidance, or whether the work that it does do is effective. But the tax system itself, unsurprisingly, doesn’t get a good review either. The report says that Tax Trade Advisers,

Monday

Alex Massie

Lessons from Ronnie and Maggie

Ramesh Ponnuru has written a splendid op-ed for today’s New York Times. Splendid, not because it is new or especially original, but because, alas, it’s central message needs repeating until, eventually, even the more dunderheaded class of Republican Congressman hears the message. And it is a simple message. Namely, that asking ‘What would Ronald Reagan do?’ is almost about as useful as mining Martin van Buren, George II or Charlemagne for policy advice that will help solve today’s problems. I exaggerate of course, but only for effect. We are not now as we were then. Or, as Mr Ponnuru puts it: Republicans are very good at tending the fire of

Shiraz Maher

The threats to Sadiq Khan remind us of the dangers that many MPs face

Such is the audacity of extreme Islamists that we now have the remarkable situation where a Muslim member of parliament, Sadiq Khan, is being told by the police to review his security arrangements after having his life threatened. Khan provoked the rage of radicals earlier this month after voting in favour of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. On his website, Khan explained: I firmly believe in marriage. Marriage is an important statement of love and long term commitment, and has long been the main way that the state recognises and shows support for loving relationships.  I believe that couples who love each other and want to make that long-term

Andrew Hankinson

Newcastle Labour leader founds a big society

Labour’s Nick Forbes is a great pioneer of austerity. As leader of Newcastle City Council he bravely decided to shut half the city’s libraries, close two respite centres for disabled people and cut 100 per cent of funding to arts institutes. He said he had to do it, because the Government had reduced the council’s funding (though the city still gets more per household than most areas) and he needed to protect services for vulnerable people. Forbes wrote a letter to The Observer predicting ‘the break up of civil society’. Some of us wondered though – did he really need to cut 100 per cent of the arts funding and close

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Myth of the Immigrant Benefit-Scrounger

The Sunday Express is at it again. It is outraged that Britain’s prisons contain some inmates who were not born in this country. Of course, everyone is hopping aboard the immigrant-bashing bandwagon these days. Immigration, it sometimes seems, is something to be feared, not valued. I understand the political calculation behind all this. The restrictionists have carried the day and there are few votes in seeming “soft” on immigration these days. Which is a shame. But there you have it. Nevertheless, the immigration brouhaha increasingly bears more than a passing resemblance to a moral panic. As tends to be the case, such fears are not utterly groundless but they are