Uk politics

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Osborne faces the fire over fuel duty

Will fuel ever stop being a cause of political discontent? It was the fuel protests of 2000 that first tarnished Blair’s electoral allure, according to some of the advisors who were around him at the time. It was a question about petrol prices that provided Gordon Brown with one of the most awkward moments of his premiership. And it was the same issue that punctuated the build-up to George Osborne’s Budget and Autumn Statement last year, and now to next month’s Budget too. The Mail, the Sun, Tory backbenchers and others are once again lobbying the Chancellor to act. Of course, there are clear reasons why fuel is always such

Monday

James Forsyth

The private sector must be revived in Northern Ireland

One quirk of the welfare reform debate is that many of the reforms won’t automatically apply in one of the parts of the United Kingdom with the worst welfare problems: Ulster. As Owen Paterson, the Northern Ireland Secretary, points out in a speech tonight, ‘Northern Ireland has proportionately one third more households living on out of work benefits as the rest of the UK’. He also notes that 1 in 10 of the population there are on Disability Living Allowance, double the UK average. But the Work Programme doesn’t apply in Northern Ireland and any welfare reform there will have to be done by the Executive. Paterson is now campaigning

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Gove: ‘I’d never run for leader’

Michael Gove for leader? There have been several suggestions to this effect recently — not least from Toby Young in his debut column for the Sun on Sunday. But Tim Montgomerie today quotes one of Gove’s advisors on ConservativeHome, saying that the education secretary has ruled himself out on the grounds that he doesn’t have the character for the job. This certainly squares with what Gove told me in September 2008. The interview was published here, but I’ve looked up my notes and can reprint his answer in a little more detail.   I put to him a Westminster rumour that he promised Sarah Vine, his wife, that he’d never

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Clegg shifts into NHS attack mode

The letter from Nick Clegg and Shirley Williams to Lib Dem MPs and peers raises several interesting questions. The first of which is why did Clegg champion these health reforms back in the day? Four days after the first reading of the bill, the deputy Prime Minister had this exchange with Andrew Marr: Andrew Marr: ‘Huge change to the NHS just coming down the line. Was that in the Liberal Democrat manifesto?’ Nick Clegg: ‘Actually funnily enough it was. Indeed it was.’ Second, how does the Clegg-Williams claim that ‘This is not the Bill that we debated as a party last March’ fit with the Tory line that the amendments to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tories question Lib Dems’ commitment to post-election cuts

The mood of this morning’s ‘Growth Forum’ hosted by the Free Enterprise Group of Tory MPs and the Institute for Economic Affairs was summed up by Kwasi Kwarteng’s introductory remark that to meet the OBR’s ‘ambitious growth targets’, the coalition ‘can’t just bumble along’. The headline news coming out of the event is Andrew Tyrie, the influential chair of the Treasury Select Committee, calling for it to be made clear that the government’s ambition is to get state spending down to 40 per cent of GDP. David Ruffley also caused a stir by saying that BIS and, possibly, DCMS should be abolished. But, in the session that I attended, what

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

What’s going on over the Lords — and where to read about it

Finally, Lords reform becomes interesting: it could be the issue that splits the coalition. Lord Oakeshott’s admission of this yesterday has made the newspapers today — but it will come as no surprise to Spectator readers. James Forsyth drew out these battle lines for his cover story last week, and it’s worth reprising his arguments as the rest of the press has yet to catch up.   Self-preservation is a powerful force in politics. Even if the Lib Dem vote recovers, it’s likely to do so in different constituencies, meaning most Lib Dem MPs are likely to lose their seats. As Lembit Opik’s music career demonstrates, it’s tough to find

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Raise the tax threshhold and let youth prevail

Youth unemployment is approaching crisis levels in Britain. For almost two decades, Britain’s more flexible labour market had favourable effects on youth employment. But the re-regulation of the British economy has narrowed the difference between our jobs market, and that of the continent. Meanwhile the British poverty trap has been strengthened by a dysfunctional welfare state: British workers can in some circumstances keep as little as 5p in every extra pound they earn if they find work. Who would break their back for less than 50p an hour? We’re paying people not to bother, so little wonder that most of the employment rise — in the last government, and under

Peter Hoskin

Europe’s latest tonic could worsen Osborne’s political problems

Seems that the latest plan to fix the eurozone involves cooking up a pot of alphabet soup. Over in Mexico, G20 finance ministers are currently discussing whether to blend two existing eurozone bailout funds, the EFSF and the ESM, with some extra money from the IMF. They hope that this EFSF-ESM-IMF mix will add up to about £1.25 trillion of ready cash for failing eurozone economies. ‘Look at the size of our fund,’ they will then say, as they try to settle nerves across Europe and beyond. Details are lacking, but some things are already worth noting about this potential mega fund. First is that it seems to be coming

Saturday

James Forsyth

The two types of Tory modernisation — and which one’s on the rise

There have always been two types of Tory modernisers. Both wanted to talk about issues that the party had neglected — public services, the environment and the like. But the soft modernisers were more prepared to compromise ideologically, to go with the flow of the age. The hard modernisers’ interest, by contrast, was in applying Tory thinking to these areas. Michael Gove’s education reforms are, perhaps, the best example of hard modernisation in action. As Charles Moore puts it in the Telegraph today, ‘Mr Gove offers an attractive combination — complete loyalty to the Cameron modernisation, but a Thatcher-era conviction politics as well’. Encouragingly, the balance within the Tory party

Peter Hoskin

The ruckus over Lords reform

Both the Tory and Lib Dem manifestoes promised to reform the House of Lords, as did the Coalition Agreement, but the gulf in enthusiasm between the two parties is enormous. For many Lib Dems, this is of course — as Nick Clegg put it in December — ‘one boat that urgently needs rocking’. For many Tories, it is something to be ambivalent about, or to oppose. Which is why the politics around the ongoing Lords Reform Bill are likely to be so fraught. James has already written of how there are ‘more than 81 [Conservative] MPs prepared to vote against it.’ But today the Tory Cabinet Office minister Mark Harper

Peter Hoskin

Willetts tries to dampen the flames around Ebdon

Siphoning the contents of two brains through one mouth and on to a single page will generally produce eclectic results. And that’s certainly the case with David Willetts’ interview with the Times (£) this morning. The universities minister manages to range across subjects that include Robert Falcon Scott, climate change, the Falklands and universities access. He even reheats one of his old theories about Feminism and social mobility in a way that (coupled with the interview’s headline: ‘Moving on and up is very hard — and feminism is partly to blame’) makes it sound far more provocative than I think it’s meant to be, and much weaker for it. The

Friday

Jonathan Jones

Tim Farron wants competition dropped from the Health Bill

Will there be further changes to the Health and Social Care Bill? Liberal Democrat President Tim Farron certainly wants some, as he told ITV’s Party People last night: ‘If the new competition introduced through this Bill is removed, then I think it’s better on the books than it is off it… What I want is for the Lords to propose changes that will remove the new competition elements from the Bill and I would like the Government to give way on those things. It’s all to play for.’ Farron’s echoing the call made by fellow Lib Dem Shirley Williams last week and by a group of activists who have submitted

Jonathan Jones

Which tax cuts would be best for the economy?

With all these tax cut suggestions kicking about — and with the British economy desperately in need of some oomph — it’s worth asking: which would help growth the most? It’s not of course the only consideration, but it is clearly an important one as we struggle to find our way out of recession.   Fortunately, the OECD is on hand with two recent reports to help answer our question. The first, ‘Tax Reform and Economic Growth’, divides taxes into four broad categories and ranks them on how harmful they are to growth: This suggests that the Centre for Policy Studies is right — on growth grounds at least —

Jonathan Jones

Transcript: Grayling on work experience

On the Today Programme this morning, Employment Minister Chris Grayling defended the government’s Work Experience programme in light of the recent controversies around it. Here’s a full transcript of the interview: Evan Davis: Well how can work experience get such a bad name? A string of high profile companies have pulled out of one government scheme providing work experience for young people. The latest, retailer Poundland, has announced it is suspending its participation in the scheme although it’s not quite clear which scheme it is, because there are several government schemes for getting people, long-term unemployed or young, into work. Let’s see if we can clarify what is going on

Sebastian Payne

Bercow finally gives a fig

It looks like those £32,500-a-year figtrees won’t be staying in Portcullis House for long. While they may add a pleasant ambiance to the building, the huge rent bill has caused much annoyance, including for the Speaker of the Commons. In an interview with House Magazine, John Bercow says he was ‘horrified’ and adds: ‘If we are going to have trees, they absolutely shouldn’t be trees that cause us to fleece the taxpayer in this way, and that must change at the earliest opportunity.If there is a contract and it’s going to cost us more to get out of it immediately than not, then it may well have to wait… but should

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Gove knows the importance of adoption

The coalition’s work on adoption is one of its more impressive bits of public service reform. It starts from the right premise, that adoption is vastly preferable to children being in care. It then uses changes to the regulations, transparency and a plethora of providers to try and increase the number of adoptions. It is, for example, absurd that the current system has left to children being left in care because of worries that their ethnicity does not match that of their potential adopters. Or, that people are being denied the chance to adopt because they smoke. These reforms are being pushed hard by both Number 10 and the Department

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The dark side of the Big Society

The A4e scandal is getting worse. Emma Harrison has quit as David Cameron’s back-to-work tsar, the police are still investigating a case discovered last year and there’s a suggestion their investigation is widening. This is, for David Cameron, the dark side of the Big Society. In my Daily Telegraph column today, I explain why. ‘The Big Society’ is a silly name for a good idea: that lots of companies, charities, etc will help provide government services. They are given freedom to innovate, to create — and the freedom to get things badly wrong. This is the freedom which A4e seems to have availed itself of. It grew like crazy, perhaps

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

Detoxifying profit in education

Profit and education are still two words that should only be put together with caution. The coalition has long-accepted this is a toxic area, as typified by Nick Clegg in September when he proclaimed: ‘Yes to greater diversity; yes to more choice for parents. But no to running schools for a profit; not in our state-funded education sector.’ But as Fraser argued last year, we need profit-making schools to spread the benefits of Michael Gove’s reforms to the most deprived children. To straddle this divide, Policy Exchange has proposed a halfway solution today: social enterprise schools. Similar to a private company, the proposed model has full financial transparency and a duty to reinvest

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Grayling mounts a robust defence

The Work Experience scheme is a sensible policy innovation. Giving the unemployed structure to their days, the chance to earn some experience and learn some skills is surely preferable to doing nothing for them beyond bunging them some money every week. Indeed, I would say that it was by far the more compassionate policy. Chris Grayling’s robust response to Polly Toynbee’s criticisms is a welcome example of the coalition taking on its critics. Grayling, who had a torrid election campaign, has recovered his footing at DWP and the Work Programme he is running is potentially transformative. It is based on the idea that the companies and voluntary organisations involved are

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The tension’s rising inside the coalition

Talking to a Downing Street adviser earlier this week, I was struck when they observed that a ‘2014 election wouldn’t be too bad really. David would have done his best, Nick would have done his best. But they just couldn’t make it work anymore.’   The Tories have spent some time recently contemplating the possibility that the coalition might not run for the full length of the parliament. At a recent Chequers away day, the prospect of the Liberal Democrats walking out in 2014 was openly discussed.   That this possibility is even being talked about is revealing of the mood inside the coalition, which is the subject of my