David cameron

How do politicians achieve that “unspun” look?  Why, by emulating the spin of a soft drinks company, of course.  This from Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian: ‘[The Labour campaign team have] taken a look at the branding of Innocent smoothies, hoping the authentic, unspun look might fit their own ‘unairbrushable’ product, G Brown. They were heartened by the reaction to the retouched Cameron poster, which suggests people are sick of the slick trickery associated with the age of Blair.’ In which case, here’s the Innocent website so you can get an insight into the Brown brand (although I doubt he’ll provide two of your five-a-day).  If Labour persist down this

Well, well another PMQs where Brown holds his own. He struggled for a long time after the election that never was, but in the past couple of months Brown has found some form. For the second week in a row, he had the best line: “He’s getting much redder than he is on his photograph”. Cameron did have one particularly effective moment when he asked Labour backbenchers whether they were putting Brown on their election literature. Only a handful did. In some ways this is all Westminster Village froth, few voters watch PMQs. But Cameron’s failure to win these clashes is bugging him. While Brown’s performances must be boosting his

There’s something quite refreshing about David Cameron’s plan to offer a tax break to married couples.  It says, simply: this is what I believe.  And it does so in spite of polling data and strategic arguments to the contrary.  This is one area where you certainly couldn’t accuse the Tory leader of caring too much about what other people think.  But refreshing or not, that doesn’t make it good policy.  Of course, there’s a tonne of empirical data which demonstrates the benefits of marriage.  That’s important and persuasive.  But, as I’ve written before, there are reasons to doubt the efficacy of a tax break in particular.  And I don’t think

So, at the end of a hyperactive week in politics, we’ve got a pair of interviews with Brown and Cameron.  The PM chats with the News of the World, while Cameron appeared on the Marr sofa earlier. One general similarity between the two interviews stands out: neither is particularly confrontational. Rather than chiding Labour after Alistair Darling’s admission yesterday, Cameron adopted a more conciliatory tone, saying things like: “If [the government] … set out reductions that we think make sense we won’t play politics with it, we’ll say yes.”  And, for his part, Brown only nods towards the “big choice” to be made at this year’s election, and doesn’t mention

Defence geeks are waiting to see how the Conservative Party intends to conduct a Security and Defence Review, if they are elected. By the time a new government comes to power, the Ministry of Defence will in all likelihood have produced a Green Paper, setting out initial thoughts on the future of the military, which is meant to lead on to a more substantive Strategic Defence Review.  But if the Tories want a process (and ultimately plans and ideas) that encompasses not only the MoD, but also the Foreign Office, DfiD, the security services and even parts of the Home Office, then a new kind of institutional vehicle will have

The atmosphere is flat in Westminster today. The plot finally fizzled out this morning but not before having highlighted how little support in the Cabinet Brown has. It was telling that it was Shaun Woodward, not anyone more high profile, who turned up on the Today Programme to defend the PM. Plots that wound but do not kill Brown are perfect for the Tories. They make the voters see Labour as divided and add to the mood that it is time for a change. This one also had the benefit of being ideally timed from a Tory perspective, obscuring a week which had seen Cameron make a rare blunder. YouGov’s