David cameron

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Cameron to make EU referendum pledge before Christmas

Sometime in the next nine weeks David Cameron will announce that if re-elected, he would seek to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership and then put the results to the public. I understand that the current plan is to have a referendum offering a choice between the new terms and out. Cameron believes that with time, he can secure far more satisfactory terms of membership for Britain. He also reasons that this announcement — the formalisation of the new terms, fresh consent that he talked about again at PMQs — will reassure his own eurosceptics. Conservative strategists also hope that this should stem the tide in support for UKIP

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Angela Merkel’s nerves about Britain’s future in the EU

The Prime Minister and Angela Merkel spoke last night on the phone to discuss the European Council meeting later this week. Downing Street said the pair ‘agreed that further work is needed before agreement can be reached’ on banking union, which is a coded acknowledgement that David Cameron is concerned the current proposals are not in Britain’s interest and do not currently protect the single market and that he will push for greater compromise when leaders meet. This is all part of the Prime Minister’s big Europe week. He has a Cabinet meeting this morning, and as its members are increasingly piling pressure on Cameron for a referendum on Britain’s

Monday

Jonathan Jones

Polls suggest Boris as leader could be worth an extra 50 Tory MPs

In their first poll conducted fully after all the party conferences, YouGov once again tested what difference replacing David Cameron with Boris Johnson would have on the Conservatives’ poll rating. As in their previous two attempts in September, YouGov’s numbers show Boris narrowing the gap to Labour by seven points: with Cameron as leader, the Tories trail by nine (33-42); with Boris, they’re just two behind (38-40). Interestingly, Boris doesn’t do any better among 2010 Tory voters than Dave — both retain 65 per cent of them. What the Mayor of London does is attract more 2010 Labour voters (6 per cent of them, to Cameron’s 3) and Lib Dem

Steerpike Steerpike

Arnie’s advice for Dave

Only the Governator could bring the political and film crowds together. Arnold Schwarzenegger was in town last night to promote his new film, The Last Stand. He packed Sketch in Mayfair with an audience that contained everyone from business minister Matthew Hancock to Mamma Mia star Dominic Cooper. Even the immaculately dressed Chris Eubank was in attendance. Arnie gave a brilliant impersonation of himself, saying that he was a ‘big believer in marketing…it’s the only way people will know about your mooovie’. He had the crowd in rapture when he reminded it that he had not drawn a salary during his time in politics. Apparently, it was ‘petty cash compared to moooovies’. The film is out in January. And yes, he said it: he ‘will be back’ to promote it then. I

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

David Cameron’s big European week

David Cameron’s plan for this autumn was to largely avoid the topic of Europe at his party’s conference, then to focus on the issue later in the year. It’s only a few days since the Tories gathered in Birmingham, and the Prime Minister is already facing a big week on Europe. Home Secretary Theresa May will kick things off by announcing today that she wants Britain to opt out of more than 130 European Union measures on law and order, including the European Arrest Warrant. The opt-out itself, which the Home Secretary is expected to say Britain is ‘minded’ to do, is not the tricky bit: it’s which measures to

Friday

Fraser Nelson

David Cameron is the leader battling inequality

The great paradox of British politics is that the left moan about inequality, but it’s the right who will remedy it. Ed Miliband is proposing the restoration of the old order, where the poor get the worst schools and the rich get the best (and the opportunities that flow from it). Labour plans to tax the rich more, and give money to the poor as if by way of compensation. The Tories want to revolutionise the system, so the poor have the same choice of schools that today only the rich can afford. Labour wants to make sure the unemployed are well looked-after. The Tories want to make sure the

Jonathan Jones

David Cameron reverses Ed Miliband’s conference bounce

Just as Ed Miliband seemed to get a poll bounce from his conference speech last week, so David Cameron seems to have got one from his on Wednesday. On YouGov’s question of who would make the best Prime Minister, Cameron has extended his lead to 14 points. That more than reverses the bump Miliband got on that question from his conference (he had closed the gap from 12 points before the conferences to just four last week). In fact, it’s the best result for Cameron on that crucial question since the Budget in March. On voting intention, the Tories’ conference does seem to have helped them close the gap to

David Blackburn

The gate beckons for Andrew Mitchell

The papers are unanimous: Andrew Mitchell is a dead man walking, and like most pantomime ghouls he’s become a laughing stock. Fraser’s Telegraph column tells of MPs and cabinet colleagues ridiculing the chief whip. The joke deepens because Mitchell, perhaps due to his insistence that he did not use the word ‘pleb’, apparently does not recognise the gravity of those offences to which he has confessed. He is the still the merry cyclist, by all accounts. As Fraser points out, the joke becomes more serious at this stage because it shrouds the Tories’ attempt to tackle inequality with welfare and education reform. In that sense, Mitchell is an impediment to David Cameron’s desire to ‘spread’

Thursday

Paul Abbott

The great shroud of the sea rolled on – reading Moby-Dick

mobydickbigread.com is a website. It adapts Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick into an online audiobook. The content is rich: what tech executives might call “trendily interactive”, in that there are Facebook groups, hipster cultural events, academic podcasts, and so on. The Guardian is heavily involved. David Cameron, Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry and Simon Callow have all “jumped aboard”. There will be a “Whale-Fest” in Brighton. This kind of thing doesn’t have to be your cup of tea, to admit at least that the effort is genuine. It is a fanzine for Ahab-enthusiasts, self-described as ‘an online version of Melville’s magisterial tome’. From my desk in SW9, I feel a sort of

Sunder Katwala

How should we mark the Great War’s centenary?

It seems strange now to recall that, it was not so many years ago, around the time of the millennium, that some in Whitehall were talking about how to scale down Remembrance Sunday. One theory was that marking the centenaries of the start and end of the Great War could also mark an appropriate moment to bring the solemn Cenotaph ceremonials to a gentle end. The assumption was that Remembrance would gradually lose its resonance and relevance once the generations who fought the Great War had all passed on. Such thinking did also reflect the mistaken New Labour view of the Dome era: that Britain would be able to face

David Blackburn

We need to talk about democracy

I’ve been away from party politics for a few weeks and have watched the conferences as an interested reader rather than an active participant, so it is interesting (for me at least) to consider their aftermath this morning. It seems undeniable that, from the perspective of having gone about one’s normal working life for three weeks, the conference halls seemed very distant, almost as if they existed in a different sphere of reality. This is not to say that they are unimportant or even that the politicians found in them are out of touch, necessarily; but it is to say that there is more to our national political life than

James Forsyth James Forsyth

David Cameron and the long election campaign

Number 10 will be pleased with the press coverage this morning of David Cameron’s conference speech. It has received a good write-up in nearly every centre-right newspaper. Cameron will today return to normal Number 10 work, addressing how to commemorate the centenary of World War One. Over the next few months, it’ll be intriguing to see how he strikes the balance between his party duties and his Prime Ministerial ones. Since the reshuffle in September, Cameron has been more political and his conference speech brought together his governing strategy and political strategy. This conference speech has, in many ways, fired the gun on a two and a half year election

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22: Conservative conference special

Earlier today, I spoke to some politicians and commentators for their take on David Cameron’s speech. Now it’s Coffee House’s turn. The Spectator team have gathered in Birmingham this afternoon for a special podcast to discuss both the Prime Minister’s speech and the Conservative conference overall: The View from 22 – 10 October 2012. Length 15:48 Download audio file (MP3) Subscribe with iTunes Subscribe with RSS Listen now:

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Conservative conference: Cameron writes the Liberal Democrats out of his speech

The only mention that the Liberal Democrats received in David Cameron’s speech was a reference to the fact that they, unlike the Tories, had not been committed to real-terms increases in the NHS budget. Combine this with the fact that the speech saw Cameron pit the Tory view of the world against Labour’s and one could see an attempt to write the Liberal Democrats out of the script. The absence of the Liberal Democrats from the speech was, I’m informed, quite deliberate. Cameron’s implicit message was that the really big things the coalition is doing — education and welfare reform and the structural changes to the economy — are Conservative

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Conservative conference: Clear blue water

The next election is going to be a clash of ideological visions. There is now clear blue water between the Tories and Labour. Last week, Miliband set out his view of ‘one nation’. Its power came from its authenticity but it was also a distinctly left-wing vision of the world. Today, Cameron responded with one of the most Tory speeches I’ve ever heard him make. Too often, Cameron has tried to portray himself simply as a competent steward of national affairs, shying away from ideological definition. But this speech was different. It had a central argument, about the need for Britain to become more competitive. His answer was right-wing: boost

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Conservative conference: How David Cameron fought back against Ed Miliband

As the audience filed out of the Manchester Central conference hall after Ed Miliband’s speech last week, the question repeated over and over again was ‘well, what’s David Cameron going to do now?’ Though the Prime Minister’s aides were dismissive of suggestions that he should try to beat Miliband by memorising his speech and walking around the stage while delivering it (Paul Waugh notes in his email memo this morning that one spinner said ‘He’s Prime Minister, he doesn’t have days and days to practice and memorise a speech – like you do in Opposition’), the PM was clearly rattled enough to produce a speech which contained large sections of

Alex Massie Alex Massie

British politics returns to normal: Blue vs Red with Yellow on the touchline – Spectator Blogs

British politics is returning to normal. The two-party system is back. That, it seems to me, is the chief conclusion to be drawn from this year’s conference season*. The opposition have been supplanted by Labour and we’re back to the familiar sight of watching the Conservatives and Labour knock lumps out of one another. It is not just that the Lib Dem conference seems to have taken place months ago (though it’s partly that) but that the guest list for the next general election has been agreed and Nick Clegg’s party isn’t on it. The Liberal Democrats? Who they? For a long time now, the government has been weakened by the

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22: reaction to David Cameron’s speech

David Cameron appears to have done a successful job of reinvigorating his party and bringing it together once more. The Spectator team in Birmingham are gathering for a View from 22 podcast later today but for now, we’ve spoken to politicians and media commentators to gauge their view on the Prime Minister’s speech today: Chris Grayling MP — Justice Secretary listen to ‘Chris Grayling on David Cameron’s speech’ on Audioboo Mark Reckless MP  listen to ‘Mark Reckless on David Cameron’s speech’ on Audioboo Philip Blond – Director of ResPublica listen to ‘Philip Blond on David Cameron’s speech’ on Audioboo Peter Oborne – Telegraph columnist listen to ‘Peter Oborne on David Cameron’s

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Conservative conference: David Cameron gives a clear explanation for the first time of what the government is doing

The Cameroons are leaving Birmingham with a spring in their step. David Cameron’s conference speech was the best he has delivered in years. He finally got off the mat and took on Labour’s argument about 50p and him being out of touch. His willingness to engage Ed Miliuband on his claim that he is writing cheques to millionaires was a refreshing sign of confidence in the power of Tory arguments about the relationship between the state and the individual. Crucially, Cameron — for the first time — gave a really clear explanation of what his government is doing. He linked together education reform, welfare reform and his economic measures as

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Conservative conference: David Cameron’s rally-style speech

This was one of David Cameron’s optimism speeches, a recession-era variant of his ‘let sunshine win the day’. It was pretty short of announcements, which is understandable given the lack of any good news. Instead he focused on essential optimism of the Conservative message: that this is a party which places faith in people, not in governments. And he wanted to spell out what that means, confronting Labour’s criticism of his party (and himself) head-on. His speech was full of praise for ‘buccaneering’ Britain, a nation whose ability to take on the world was reflected in the Olympic medals table. That there is no problem we can’t solve, if we