Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Saturday

David Blackburn

Cameron’s morals

By his own admission, to today’s Mail, David Cameron is not afraid of unpopularity. On hearing this, a few quizzical grins may break across his critics’ faces, but, undeniably, the government’s fate was cast this week: either its fiscal plan will work or it won’t. Cameron is unperturbed because he is sure that he is right – not only in his political and economic judgement, but also in terms of morality. It is ‘right’ that everyone contributes, ‘right’ that the affluent forgo some state-awarded privileges, ‘right’ that those who have scrounged are made to toil, ‘right’ that those who were subsumed by welfare dependency are freed, ‘right’ that Britain honour its pledge

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Politics: After the cuts, a growth strategy – this is an electoral as well as economic plan

On Monday night, all new Conservative MPs were summoned to a meeting with the chief whip in Portcullis House. On Monday night, all new Conservative MPs were summoned to a meeting with the chief whip in Portcullis House. The chief, a former miner who couldn’t be more different from the gilded youth of David Cameron’s A list, impressed on them the line for the week: the Conservatives do not want to be making these cuts — they are a matter of regrettable necessity. This reminder was largely unnecessary. The new MPs know the script. It is not the whole truth, though. Talk to almost any Conservative MP and they’ll tell

The Spectator

The point of Osborne’s scalpel

To govern is to choose. For nine years, Gordon Brown delayed choosing between higher taxes or lower spending, which is why the last time he balanced the government’s books was 2001–02. Since then, we have been building up to the spending cuts announced this week. No matter who won the election, there would have been cuts. Labour’s figures suggested they intended to cut departmental budgets by only marginally less than George Osborne has done. There is no great ideological divide between the parties on the total amount of cuts, so let us dispense with any pretence to the contrary. The Chancellor deserves credit on several fronts. He has stuck to

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Who’s the daddy?

It’s a wise child, they say, that knows its own father. Nowadays, however, wisdom is hardly required; DNA tests can do the job with scientific certainty. For the entire course of human history, men have nursed profound, troubling doubts about the fundamental question of whether or not they were fathers to their own children; women, by contrast, usually enjoyed a reasonable level of certainty about the matter. Now, a cotton-wool swab with a bit of saliva, plus a small fee, less than £200, can settle the matter. At a stroke, the one thing that women had going for them has been taken away, the one respect in which they had

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Toddlers know what ‘fair’ means. Do politicians?

Two words have been everywhere touted during this political season: ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’. Two words have been everywhere touted during this political season: ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’. By the time you read this, after Wednesday’s comprehensive spending review, occurrences of the first will have reached epidemic proportions. Let us examine both. Among Western nations an understanding has dawned that our long-established global economic preponderance is floundering; so we can afford less of the luxury of concern for the weakest in society, a drag on economic competitiveness. From the French revolution’s trio of goals, égalité is being quietly dropped. The left will not wholly forsake what has become for them an almost

Friday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Sticking up for free schools

I’m on the train back from doing Radio Four’s Any Questions – broadcast live from Derby, repeated at 1.10pm tomorrow – where I had a bust-up with Christine Blower of the NUT. CoffeeHousers may recall she was the star of a cover story we ran a few weeks back, about the campaign of bullying and intimidation levelled against headteachers who are trying to seek Academy status. She raised that article during recording, and things kinda kicked off. I told her she should be ashamed of the way her union thugs try to intimidate young teachers who seek to break away from local authority control and reach independence. She denied writing

David Blackburn

The Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets

Andrew Gilligan explains why Lutfur Rahman’s victory in Tower Hamlets is a potentially alarming development. Obviously, this is a humiliation for Ed Miliband. The victory of a de-selected Labour councillor is bad enough, but what does he say about Ken Livingstone’s involvement in Rahman’s campaign? Widening those imploring eyes, offering an apologetic shrug and saying “Ken will be Ken” probably won’t cut the mustard this time. Perversely, Livingstone might benefit from Rahman’s victory, as it has allowed him to resuscitate his ‘Red Ken the insurgent’ pose – and you can’t get much more cynically subversive than this latest stunt. Questions will and should be asked of his close association with

Patrick Nolan

Now is the time for reform

Throughout the country debates on the spending review have begun in earnest. Some of the most important questions in these debates will centre around the economics of consolidation, as I discussed on a recent radio show containing Professor Joseph Stiglitz. I also set out to discuss these issues at the launch of the Orwell Prize. In my remarks I focussed on the general case for eliminating the structural deficit within a Parliamentary term and less on the specifics of the approach that the Coalition has taken to achieving this goal (which I have outlined some thoughts on here). I made five key points.   First, consolidation is not based on

James Forsyth James Forsyth

George Osborne is making the going

There are several interesting columns on George Osborne in the papers today. In The Times, Tony Blair’s former speechwriter Phil Collins warns Labour to stop underestimating the Chancellor, who is defining the political battle on his terms at the moment. Peter Oborne, by contrast, is highly critical of Osborne in his Telegraph column, warning that Osborne’s partisan presentation of the cuts risks undermining support for the whole project. For once, I find myself disagreeing with Peter. I think Osborne is doing some of the political heavy-lifting that Cameron could not do without undermining his standing as a national leader; Osborne’s praise for the 2004 Republican campaign is instructive in trying

Peter Hoskin

Labour’s Kill Clegg strategy

One question swirling through the sea of British politics is this: how will Ed Miliband act towards the Lib Dems? The Labour leader certainly didn’t flinch from attacking the yellow brigade during the leadership contest, at one point calling them a “disgrace to the traditions of liberalism.” But surely he’ll have to soften that rhetoric in case the next election delivers another bout of frenzied coalition negotiations. Which is why Andy Burnham’s article in the Guardian today is worth noting down. In making his point – that the Lib Dems haven’t won the pupil premium they sought – he does all he can to force a wedge between Nick Clegg

David Blackburn

Labour loses the last semblance of its economic credibility

A quiet but important change to Britain’s political landscape took place in Brussels on Wednesday. The European Parliament passed a motion to increase the EU Budget by 5.9 percent, dashing, for the moment, government hopes that the EU might share in its citizens’ austerity. Labour’s MEPs were central to the motion’s success – 10 (one of whom glories in the name Michael Cashman) out of 13 voted against the Conservative-backed amendment to freeze the EU Budget.      As Alan Johnson took his feet and, like a gamey slim-line Falstaff, began to condemn public sector cuts, Labour MEPs saddled the over-stretched taxpayer with £900m in extra contributions – more than

Peter Hoskin

Clegg hits back at the IFS

It’s fast becoming a tradition: when the IFS calls the government’s work “regressive,” send for Nick Clegg to take the think tank on. He wrote an article for the FT debunking their analysis back in August. And, today, he does the same via an interview in the Guardian. It’s pretty forceful stuff from the Deputy PM, as this quote testifies: “I think you have to call a spade a spade. We just fundamentally disagree with the IFS. It goes back to a culture of how you measure fairness that took root under Gordon Brown’s time, where fairness was seen through one prism and one prism only which was the tax

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Osborne’s inoculation strategy has worked

Several of tomorrow’s newspapers lead on the IFS’ conclusion that those on the lowest income will suffer most from the cuts. This charge is problematic for the conclusion but far less problematic than it would have been if we hadn’t spent so much of the last few weeks discussing George Osborne’s decision to remove child benefit from families with a higher rate taxpayer in them. That change, however unpopular it may have been with normally Tory voters, inoculated the coalition against the charge that it was trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor. Osborne’s preparation of the ground has not, though, stopped the Lib Dems slipping

Peter Hoskin

IFS: The Spending Review was regressive – sorta

The second half of the IFS briefing was all about the distributional effect of the Spending Review. And you know what that means: decile charts – and lots and lots of them. As it happens, there were some areas of agreement between the IFS and the Treasury figures. Both, for instance, say that the welfare measures set out in yesterday’s Spending Review will affect the least well-off the most. But there was one main area of disagreement. The Treasury says that its combined tax and welfare measures up to 2012-13 will be broadly progressive. The IFS says that they will be regressive. This is exactly the same issue that cropped

David Blackburn

Nick Robinson earns his spurs

Nick Robinson has won blogger of the year at Editorial Intelligence’s Comment Awards. However, he deserves an award for this bit of heroism on College Green. Hat-tip: Will Heaven. UPDATE: Robinson has taken the time to pen an explanation for his sign rage, good on him. PS: Oh yes. To those of a sensitive disposition, please ignore the anti-war clips accompanying the footage.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

More to Osborne’s plan than gambling

Paul Mason’s review of the cuts for Newsnight last night (from 10:20 into the video here) was one of the most powerful critiques of Osborne from the left. His package majored on Osborne’s decision to cut a further £11 billion from welfare and pensions, to soften the departmental cuts. Adopting a rather funereal tone, Mason declared that, “if you are poor, your life is about to change”. He produced a decile graph, showing the poorest are hit second hardest. It foreshadowed this morning’s Guardian cover: “Axe falls on the poor”. Danny Alexander was fed to Paxo: “You said you would not balance your budget on the backs of the poor

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tory response to Osborne’s Spending Review

George Osborne was well received by the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers when he addressed them on the spending review earlier. There was much thumping of desks, the traditional sign of approval at meetings of the ‘22.   Talking to Tory MPs this afternoon, they are pretty happy with the package. They are glad that the money being taken out of the welfare budget means that the departmental cuts are less than expected. Overall, they think the package is politically sellable and has denied Labour that many targets.   One concern is about how local councils, including Conservative ones, might react to a 28 percent cut in their funding from

Ed Holmes

Osborne blunts the axe – slightly

As expected, the Chancellor announced reductions in public spending – though not quite as severe as indicated in the Emergency Budget last June.  Government expenditure will fall by 3.3 percent over four years rather than 3.6 percent as expected, leading George Osborne to state – correctly – that departmental budgets will be higher than those pencilled in by Labour – an outcome many may not regard as desirable.  In fact, Osborne will be spending 2 percent more in 2014/15 than Gordon Brown was in 2008/9. Departmental spending will fall 10 percent rather than 13 percent – largely paid for by more optimistic assumptions about savings on welfare and debt interest

Philip Booth

A long way to go

George Osborne has probably done enough to ensure that the public finances are back on track and that the national debt will not run out of control.   He has, however, taken only the first step on the road to reducing the size of the state. The government will spend the same proportion of national income in 2015 as it did in 2007. In other words, the size of the state will be no smaller when David Cameron goes to the country than when Gordon Brown left the Treasury.   Much more could have been done and low-hanging fruit has been left on the tree. Child benefit should have been

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Ten points about the Spending Review

In the end, George Osborne didn’t flinch. The Chancellor is a clever political operator – too clever, sometimes – but the result is a cuts package that has surprisingly broad popular support. And this has been achieved, in part, by including measures that strike the likes of me as economically unwise. So much of this budget was known in advance that we didn’t find out much new today. The below points are my thoughts not on the overall package – which I strongly support – but the pieces of it that we learned today: 1) Total state spending is falling by 3.3 percent in real terms over the next four