Liberal democrats

Who is prepared to cut, and who isn’t?

One of the leitmotifs of this Parliament  – and something which, by many inside accounts, is helping the coalition immensely – is the willingness of the civil service to wield the axe within their own departments.  And now, courtesy of Reform and the Institute of Chartered Accountants, a new survey suggests that this mentality may stretch beyond Whitehall.  It quizzes public sector “finance decision makers,” and the headline finding is that: “82 per cent of respondents think further savings can be made within their organisation in the next year without affecting the current level of service they provide.” Far more intriguing, though, is the finding that 84 percent of them

Nick Clegg’s Big Week

With the cuts comes the candy: the sweet-tasting morsels which, it is hoped, will prevent tomorrow’s Budget from being too much of a collective downer for the nation.  We’re already hearing that a council tax freeze will be pencilled in for next year, and you can expect a few more treats besides. National insurance, for instance, is looking like an obvious candidate. From George Osborne’s perspective, these sunnier measures will serve a two-fold purpose.  Like I say, it will be hoped that they keep the public on board with the government’s project: stick with us, the message will run, and you’ll get more of this in future.  But they will

What will the Labour attack be in a year’s time?

It’s days like this when you realise just how stuck Labour are in a Brownite groove.  Everywhere you turn, there’s some leadership candidate or other attacking the government for choosing to cut public spending this year.  Ed Miliband claims that the Lib Dems have been “completely macho … completely cavalier” about cuts.  Andy Burnham says that this year could “damage us in the long run”.  And even those who aren’t chasing the leadership are getting in on the act: Alistair Darling writes that the coalition has “a fiscal policy that undermines fragile growth”. So we already know what Labour’s broad response to this week’s Budget will look like.  But it

John Hutton: a good man for the job

While we’re enjoying a burst of optimism about the coalition, it’s worth highlighting the news that John Hutton has been put in charge of a review into public sector pensions.  As I’ve said before, Hutton was one of the most quietly impressive figures of the New Labour era, and someone who impressed during his time at work and pensions. Even the Tories’ current welfare agenda owes a lot to Hutton: he commission the Freud Review which set the parameters for welfare reform in this country, and he fought on its behalf against a reluctant Gordon Brown. In a wonkish sort of way, it will be exciting to see what happens

Fraser Nelson

Osborne’s massive opportunity

I’m quite optimistic about George Osborne’s budget – in the same sense that one might have been optimistic when Churchill took over from Chamberlain. Not because the situation is good, or because you think the road ahead will be easy or enjoyable, but because the road no longer leads to disaster. Not that Osborne is a Churchill – even though he will have his own fair share of blood, sweat toil and tears for us on Tuesday. I’m pretty confident he’ll head in the right direction, and at the right speed. I discuss this in my News of the World column today, but will say a little more here: 1.

Assorted LibDem-ery

Alastair Campbell is right on two counts.  First, that this snippet from George Parker’s Budget preview is pretty fascinating: “Senior Lib Dems whisper that Vince Cable, the Lib Dem business secretary, never really believed his pre-election rhetoric that cuts should be delayed until 2011.” And, second, that the claim about Cable is downright unbelievable.  I mean, this is the man who attacked Tory spending plans at every opportunity he could, and more venomously than any of his colleagues.  The man, indeed, who pushed the line that “the economy will be plunged back into prolonged recession” as a result of early cuts.  And the man who, by many behind-the-scenes accounts, encouraged

The Budget: compromise and non-compromise

It’s hard to overestimate the significance of Tuesday’s Budget. George Osborne’s statement won’t just determine the course of our economy for the next few years, but also the political life of this government. Spending cuts and tax rises may not inevitably “fracture the coalition,” as Peter Oborne puts it in the Mail today. But they certainly have the potential to. Happily for the coalition, the current political mood is so geared towards fiscal restraint that there will be little immediate opposition to Osborne’s general plans.  That will come once the effects of spending cuts are felt in individual constituencies  – months, even years, down the line. But there are a

The coalition is edging the public spending debate

Danny Alexander acquitted himself effectively this morning. The restructuring of government spending has gone beyond bland clichés about ‘efficiencies’; with care, the government is dismantling Labour’s unfunded spending projects. £8.5bn in unfunded projects signed-off since 1 January 2010 are on a stay of execution until the autumn; £1bn of unfunded projects signed-off before 1 January 2010 are also on their way to the block. £2bn will be saved almost immediately with the cancellation of the 2 year jobseekers’ guarantee, the young person’s guarantee, CLG regional leader board, the local authority business growth incentive and the county sports partnerships. Controversially, the government has also cancelled the Sheffield Forgemasters’ fund and the

Osborne gets upfront about our debt burden

A couple of weeks on holiday, and there’s plenty to catch up on.  First, though, George Osborne’s speech to Mansion House yesterday evening.  In terms of substance, it was fairly radical stuff.  And it’s encouraging that so many of the Tories’ solid plans for reforming the financial regulatory system have survived the coalition process.  But, really, it was one simple, little sentence which jumped out at me.  This: “Debt [is] set to still rise even at the end of this five year Parliament.” “So what?” you may be thinking, “we knew that already.”  Ah, yes, but we’ve rarely heard a politician be quite so upfront about our debt position before

Of Pigs and Cucumbers

Pleased to be back in Blighty and pleased too to see that the Economist has launched Johnson, a blog about language and politics. From the most recent entry: Germany has a cranky coalition government and garrulous politicians, and so conditions are good for political insults. In one intramural fight a health ministry official from the liberal FDP likened the CSU—Bavarian conservatives—to a Wildsau, or wild pig, for its rough handling of the liberals’ health-reform ideas. But the better insult was the riposte by the CSU man, who called the liberals a Gurkentruppe, literally a troop of cucumbers. Anglophone journalists have been puzzling over how to turn this into recognisable English.

How Hughes will play the coalition

Simon Hughes is an experienced campaigner, whose reputation is deservedly blemished by a handful of duplicities – Peter Tatchell, denying a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and the like. Hughes has just appeared on the Daily Politics and, very subtly, split the Lib Dems from the Tories. It was very simple: the Tories are responsible for all that’s bad and the Liberal Democrats are benevolent. First, Hughes dissociated the Liberals from tax rises: “I hope that the chancellor’s hearing the voices that says VAT is not the right tax to change in the budget next week.” Those voices are, of course, his ‘colleagues in the Treasury’ – an enlightened check

Seeing it through

David Cameron’s address to the House contained no surprises. NATO and its allies are 6 months into a strategy to stabilise Afghanistan. All sides of the House were agreed that Britain should fulfil its commitments, but remain in Afghanistan not a day longer than necessary. That date is unknown. Like Blair and Brown before him, Cameron aspires to ‘improve Afghan security’. ‘Stability’ surely means the expulsion of al Qaeda from Afghanistan. How likely is that without the complete co-operation of the Taliban? (At what cost would that be secured?) And, as Julian Lewis MP pointed out, is al Qaeda more dangerous in Afghanistan than it is The Yemen, Somalia or

Hughes pushes Lib Dems into the mix on tuition fees

The first Sunday of the World Cup is predictably quiet on the political front. But Simon Hughes’ comments this morning about tuition fees are worth noting. Hughes said “So to me the big task is to make sure the moment that Lord Browne publishes his report in the Autumn the Liberal Democrat case is entered into the mix. That we talk to Vince Cable, who’s the minster and my very good friend and colleague, and David Willetts, and we make sure the government understands that there may well be ways of finding the money universities need, and they need it, without penalising students from disadvantaged background. I think that circle

Hain: the Liberals demanded that we cut now

Andrew Neil interviews Peter Hain for this week’s BBC Straight Talk. Mastering the obvious, Hain argues that Duffygate cost Labour dear: ‘PH:  The damaging incident of course was the Duffygate incident. AN:  In Rochdale, the old aged pensioner? PH:  In Rochdale, and that had a palpable effect.  I think we were just beginning to get a bit of traction – not necessarily to win but possibly to be the biggest party in the election – and that was a real hammer blow, and everybody knew it. AN:  You really think that affected the public’s perception of the then Prime Minister? PH:  I do, because I think people had started, not

Simon Hughes elected Lib Dem deputy leader

As expected Simon Hughes, has won the race to be Lib Dem deputy leader, congratulations. Both candidates pledged to assert the party’s independence within the context of supporting the coalition. Hughes intends to appoint Lib Dem spokesmen for all government departments to improve accountability in parliament. A renowned left-winger, Hughes’s inclination must run contrary to the Conservative dominated coalition, and I wonder how he will take Patrick Wintour’s news that the coalition is beginning to act as one politically, mastering a strategy to deflect Labour’s political assaults. Unquestionably, Hughes poses a potential threat to the coalition, but there is enough to suggest that even on the most divisive issues, such as

A day of elections at Westminster

By the end of the day, we will know the identity of the Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader and the chairmen of Select Committees as well as a sense of the shape of the Labour leadership contest. The races for the Select Committees are a mix of near certainties and unknown quantities. Keith Vaz is expected to return to the chair of the Home Affairs Committee. Michael Fallon is understood to have the backing of the members of the Treasury Select Committee, whilst his rival Andrew Tyrie is in with a shout of winning the cross party vote. The leadership races are clear cut. Simon Hughes’ team have briefed that their

Nats go nuclear on the Lib Dems

The Scottish and Welsh Nationalists have managed to prompt the first Commons vote where one of the governing parties has to vote against its own manifesto. They have put down an amendment calling for Trident to be included in the SDR, which will be voted on at 10pm tonight. The Lib Dem manifesto commits the party to ‘Saying no to the like for like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system, which could cost £100 billion. We will hold a full defence review to establish the best alternative for Britain’s future security.’ But the Coalition agreement states that the government will keep Britain’s nuclear deterent and says that the renewal

D-Day (plus one)

Cuts are here. The most important news of the weekend was the G20’s official backing for spending cuts. It was a significant volte face, and doubtless the sight of violent uprisings in Greece concentrated minds. Finally, George Osborne has been vindicated; but having convinced finance ministers, he must now carry the coalition and the country with him. The first thing to do is ignore Nick Clegg and his claim that cuts will not be savage. Cuts will re-configure government in Britain, the current invasive Leviathan will be dismantled; but the process will be painful in the short-term, it must be. Osborne has been influenced by the Canadian model, which turned

Cable, the free radical, dreams of a grand future

What is Vince Cable up to? He is on manoeuvres, keeps making attempted power grabs from George Osborne. Barely a week passes without him rattling the cage to which Cameron and Clegg have confined him  – that is, the unwieldy and yet fairly powerless Department for Business, Innovation & Skills. For all its bulk, the department doesn’t really do anything. It has the universities brief, which is important, but it is certainly not an economics department as Cable was pretending last week. “It is a bit like the German economics ministry and the finance ministry,” he claimed. “Two departments, working in parallel.” As if. Cable may like economics, but he

Red Vince sips clear blue water

Deprived of the comforts of third party opposition – the ability to say and do as he pleased – Vince Cable has had to put away childish things. Of necessity, the business and enterprise secretary cannot be a socialist. And Cable used yesterday’s speech at the Cass Business School to prove he’s no socialist.   He convinced. Cable will enact the coalition’s plans to reform regional development agencies, cut preferential micromanagement grants that supersede the judgement of markets, demolish stifling small business regulation, curtail short-term speculation on company takeovers to protect shareholders, cutting the deficit early and the part-privatisation of the Royal Mail. He also endorsed long-standing Tory policy of