Politics

Nick Clegg has written a gloriously condescending letter to Aaron Porter, who hopes to recall Liberal Democrat MPs who vote in favour of tuition fees rises. Clegg emphasises that he was unable to deliver the tuition fee pledge in coalition, and therefore struck out to make university funding as fair as possible. After a wide consultation, it was found that the graduate contribution scheme is the fairest and most progressive outcome. He urges Porter to temper his language and not misrepresent the government’s position for political aims. ‘Grow up’ seems to be the unspoken request. ‘However,  I also believe that all of us involved in this debate have a greater

George Osborne’s autumn statement previewed what I suspect will be the coalition, or at least the Conservatives, re-election message. ‘This government has taken Britain out of the financial danger zone and set our economy on the path to recovery.’   Today’s OBR forecast was a boon for the Chancellor. It suggests that there won’t be a double-dip recession, as his critics suggested there would be. The improved economic numbers allowed him to come to the House and declare that the deficit reduction ‘plan is working’, and that already the coalition has saved the country £19 billion in debt interest. Alan Johnson was his usual self in response. He attacked the

The publication of a quarter of a million US diplomatic cables is going to blow the lid on a lot of the world’s diplomatic secrets. So we learn that the Saudis and other Sunni Arab states are urging the US to stop Shi’ite Iran’s nuclear programme by any means necessary. The New York Times’ points out that none of the cables are labeled ‘top secret’, so we are unlikely to find out the most sensitive secrets of American diplomacy. Instead, what we are getting is public confirmation of things we have long suspected. Emblematic of what are learning is confirmation that the Yemenis talked with the Americans about how to

Timothy Garton Ash asked an important question in the Guardian recenty – is Europe becoming more German? Or, to put it more accurately, does the EU have to become more German to survive? “If the eurozone falls apart, it will be because Germany did not do enough to save it. If the eurozone is saved, it will be thanks to Germany. This is the greatest challenge to German statecraft since the country was peacefully united 20 years ago.” “Yet here is another horn of Germany’s dilemma. For half a century, German politicians have repeated, like a mantra, Thomas Mann’s call for “a European Germany, not a German Europe”. It was in

The media pack is often blind to an impending political car-crash.  For instance, very few in Westminster, or the media, noticed the scrapping of the 10p tax band until the screech of twisting steel turned heads. The same is happening now in relation to living standards. The media and political establishment are yet to wake up to the fact that working families in Britain are about to become poorer (though hat-tip to Allister Heath for being quick off the mark on this front). The gathering wisdom is that, with the recession now behind us, household budgets will start to recover.  We have just published a new report – Squeezed Britain