Coalition

Monday

Peter Hoskin

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

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

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 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.

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

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

Peter Hoskin

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

Peter Hoskin

Cameron previews the austerity budget

Tick, tock, tick, tock: only three-and-a-bit days to go until George Osborne’s long-anticipated austerity Budget, and the coalition is gearing up its efforts to prepare us for the worst.  Exhibit A is David Cameron’s interview in the Times this morning, which contains few pleasantries and a whole heap of stern talk  – particularly for those in the public sector.  As the PM puts it: “There is no way of dealing with an 11 per cent budget deficit just by hitting either the rich of the welfare scrounger … there are three large items of spending that you can’t ignore and those are public sector pay, public sector pensions and benefits.”

Friday

David Blackburn

May calls for culture change towards LGB&T groups

Theresa May has called for ‘culture change’ in wider society to ease the equality and acceptance of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender minorities. Abstractions are the executive’s favoured metier these days. I’ve read and re-read May’s article in Pink News and nowhere does she define ‘culture change’. The end product of a culture change towards LGB&T groups might be envisaged, but how is it initiated? The government cannot answer that question, beyond suggesting that supporting pride marches is positive. True, but society is more than a pride march. It exists in the daily confusion caused by ill-defined laws, such as who B&B owners let into their homes/businesses. Or whether it

Peter Hoskin

The schools revolution is under way

There’s an historic tinge to proceedings this morning, as Michael Gove prepares to release an application form by which parents, charities and other groups can establish free schools.  In effect, this is zero hour for the policy that The Spectator described as “reason enough to vote Conservative” a couple of months ago. The coalition is hoping that the first of the new breed of schools will appear in September next year. Much of it will come down to take-up: how many schools are set up, and when. So it’s encouraging that people and organisations are already expressing heavy interest in the government’s plans.  As Michael Gove revealed in an excellent

Thursday

David Blackburn

Worrying developments

Paul Waugh has news that the Treasury asked a broadcaster to sign a written legal agreement that they would not ask any questions about the OBR’s announcement. Well, some of the figures embarrassed Osborne but surely it wasn’t that bad? As Paul notes, this may be a case of the Civil Service taking advantage of ministers’ inexperience but even so. Equally, the government has adopted the practice of its predecessor and issued statements to the press before stating them to the House. Carry on like this and we’ll join the axis of evil. New politics please. UPDATE: Turns out not to have been so worrying.

David Blackburn

The euro crisis is an opportunity for Cameron

Gerard Baker has written the cover piece for this week’s magazine and it’s a must read. In it, he explains why ‘closer fiscal union’, as Rompuy terms it, is not to Germany’s advantage: ‘Any attempted fiscal union might well yield to Germany the biggest single vote in how much to raise in taxes and how to spend it. But it could still be outvoted by an alliance of smaller countries. Such a set-up would become an institutionalised mechanism by which German taxes will be siphoned off permanently to weaker European states. The nightmare for Germans is that an unholy alliance of Spanish, Greeks, Italians and Portuguese will be able to

David Blackburn

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

Peter Hoskin

Cameron’s European balancing act

So David Cameron strides onto the European stage today, with his first EU summit since becoming Prime Minister. And early signs are that it’s going to be a peculiar day for him. As Ben Brogan writes in the Telegraph, Europe seems to be liking the (liberal-democratised) Tories more than they thought they would. Sarkozy is, apparently, “smitten” with our PM, while Angela Merkel “has come to admire his directness”. So after pitching himself against the Lisbon Treaty, and broadly selling himself as a eurosceptic over the past few years, Cameron now faces the prospect of cuddles over the coffee and croissants in Brussels. Like I say: peculiar. I suspect Cameron

Peter Hoskin

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

Tuesday

David Blackburn

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

David Blackburn

Sacking the nanny

Theresa May has halted the national database of adults who come into contact with children. The innocent and law abiding majority can now volunteer without having to complete an extensive anti-pervert course – a heavy-handed and expensive bureaucratic requirement, typical of New Labour’s ‘nannying’ days. May acknowledges that acquiring the ‘Not A Known Pervert Badge’ discouraged vital volunteer work, which could effect social dislocation. May pledges to remodel the scheme, which is presumably why the Independent Safeguarding Scheme remains in place. Writing for ConHome, Alex Deane calls for the abolition of this scheme. I’ll wait for May’s recommendations, but bald reform is needed to ensure children are safe and receive

Monday

James Forsyth

Trimble frozen out of government

The announcement that Lord Trimble will join the Israeli review into the flotilla incident is a reminder that he has no role in the current government. Trimble takes the Tory whip and given that the party is not overly supplied with Nobel Prize winners, it is a bit of a surprise that no role has been found for him. In opposition, the word was always that relations between him and the new leadership of the Ulster Unionists, the Tories’ electoral allies in Northern Ireland, were not great. But the UUP leader has resigned since the election. Now, it may well be that Trimble himself is the obstacle. Even his admirers

David Blackburn

Defence matters

Sir Jock Stirrup’s early departure was one of the worst kept secrets in Westminster. But the ‘resignation’ could have been better handled. The coalition has created a lame duck in Stirrup. And, rightly, Con Coughlin asks why Stirrup is overseeing the strategic defence review if he was sufficiently inept as CDS? It makes no sense, as removing Stirrup and Sir Bill Jeffrey (the MoD’s permanent secretary) is clearly about preparing the way for spending cuts and a new model of UK military intervention. Liam Fox gave a speech this morning promising a ‘clean break with the Cold War mindset’. He emphasised the importance of maintaining counter-insurgency spending and training; presumably,

David Blackburn

The debate opens as Darling is vindicated and condemned

As Fraser observed at the weekend, Alistair Darling has a point: it is not as bad as was feared. The new Office for Budget Responsibility agrees, reducing estimated public borrowing to £155bn 2010/11. Still, it’s hardly a picnic is it? And I wonder what response Darling will get if he presses Cameron and Osborne for an apology. His growth forecasts have been downgraded to 2.6 percent and the structural deficit is greater than he admitted to – Paul Mason reckons it’s about £5bn more than was forecast. Osborne’s hands are tied by these figures; his calculations will be based on them. There is, of course, the possibility that the OBR’s

David Blackburn

Waiting on the OBR

The Office for Budget Responsibility is expected to downgrade the previous government’s growth forecasts. Alistair Darling’s rosy prediction that the economy would grow by 3-3.5 percent in 2011 will be replaced by a conservative estimate of 2-2.5 percent, in line with other independent forecasters. Also, according to the Guardian, the OBR will ‘trim’ the Treasury’s breezy estimates of growth until 2014-15.   There is no guarantee that the OBR’s forecast will be flawless – and the Treasury Select Committee’s scrutiny will have to be exhaustive. But George Osborne is bound to the OBR’s figures, rather than the Treasury being bound to a political agenda. Balance and responsibility will be restored

Sunday

James Forsyth

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