David cameron

The foreword to IPSA’s latest consultation document is certainly more conciliatory than combative. “The last eight months have been demanding, both for MPs and their staff, and for IPSA,” it starts – in subtle reference to the mutual frustrations that have overtaken the expenses operation to date – before asking whether the current system can be made more “fair and workable”. And that tone carries across into the main body of the text. Although IPSA insist that nothing has been decided yet, they do at least moot the possibility of raising certain allowances back up again. As James Kirkup writes on his Telegraph blog, this document is, in some respects,

Come back, you insufferable relatives, all is forgiven: the political class has devoted an afternoon to trading insults about who said what about VAT and when. However, there have been some intriguing exchanges amid the New Politics’ latest outing. First, Labour seems to be fighting the two coalition partners as a single entity in Oldham East. Cameron, Clegg and Simon Hughes have received equal measures of opprobrium this afternoon and all have been lumped together. This was always a danger, but, as Fraser noted, Clegg and Cameron invited the manoeuvre by uniting their parties’ central operations in the cause of government. If Cameron and Clegg don’t differentiate in the general,

To accompany Fraser’s suggestion that Cameron and Clegg are planning a merger, it is notable that the ubiquitous Nick Boles has renewed his calls for a formal pact. Previously, Boles averred that Liberal Democrat ministers should be protected in three-way or Conservative-Liberal marginals. This time round, his argument is more philosophical. He told Radio 4’s PM: ‘The Coalition has enabled the Conservative party to be more radical than it would have been able to had it formed a government on its own with a small majority… Jacob Rees Mogg who’s a fellow MP who’s certainly not a sort of liberal Tory like I am in the sort of modernizing sense. In five

When a Conservative leader wishes the LibDems well in a three-way marginal by-election, then what is going on? Andrew Gilligan’s piece today shows that the Conservative campaign there is muted, and my colleague Melissa Kite reported earlier that Cameron personally called off  the hunt supporters, Vote OK, who were planning to boost the Tory campaign. Little wonder that Conservative MPs are beginning to smell a rat. They are being told this is the cohabitation of rival parties; in the Daily Telegraph tomorrow, I ask if this is actually a merger.   From the start of this coalition, I’ve been struck by the differences between the coalition in Westminster, and that

If you want to know what British politics will sound like in 2011, then just read David Cameron’s and Ed Miliband’s New Year messages one after the other. They share a lot of the same words, but bounce along to different, if familiar, drumbeats. According to Cameron, next year will be “very difficult,” due to the effort of “putting our economy … on the right path”. According to Miliband, next year will be more difficult than it needs to be, due to “the decision taken to reduce the deficit at what I believe to be an irresponsible pace and scale.” In other words, cuts versus fewer cuts. Just like 2010 all

The Lib Dem manifesto committed the party to a fully elected House of Lords. The Tory manifesto talked about a ‘mainly-elected’ second chamber and in 2007 David Cameron voted for ‘the other place’ to be 80 percent elected (interestingly, George Osborne voted for a fully elected Lords). The coalition agreement committed the government to a ‘wholly or mainly elected upper chamber’. So it is hard to see how a Lords that retained a twenty percent appointed element could be portrayed as a major Lib Dem triumph as, according to today’s Guardian, the coalition wants. There has been talk in Westminster that Clegg’s consolation prize if the AV referendum is defeated

Remember this petition to have Gordon Brown resign as Prime Minister? It secured 72,222 signatures in the end: not quite enough to have it debated in Parliament under the coalition’s new plans, but enough to make you think. I mean, will we see parliamentary debates about whether Dave and Nick should step down at the public’s request? Not going to happen, I’d say. But these latest ideas for involving voters in the legislative process could certainly provoke one or two embarrassments for our political class. Take the obvious example of withdrawing from the EU: that petition could probably attract any number of votes, but is unlikely to be met positively

You know the drill by know: a Cameron and Clegg joint press-conference, so plenty of easy bonhomie and political japery. And today was no different. The Lib Dem leader set the tone with his opening gag, aimed at Vince Cable: “I haven’t seen as many journalists in one room since my constituency surgery.” After that, it was pretty much a gag a minute. Underneath all that, though, was some serious business. Cable came up (“very apologetic,” apparently), along with his claims about Winter Fuel Allowance (“not true”). But, as Iain Martin has noted, the most intriguing moment was when Cameron claimed only that he “expects” the Tories and Lib Dems

You can stuff your beer and sandwiches, Prime Minister – the unions want war. That’s the broad sentiment of Unite’s new leader, Len McCluskey, writing in the Guardian today. The union capo urges his brothers to rally behind the protesting students, and prepare to militate against the coalition. Or as he puts it, with nary a hint of self-awareness: “While it is easy to dismiss ‘general strike now’ rhetoric from the usual quarters, we have to be preparing for battle.” Which, reading on, seems pretty similar to, erm … general strike now. Putting aside the prospect of industrial unrest, this will be as nectar for the Tories. Not only is