David cameron

After the hubbub about Hewitt ‘n’ Hoon’s plot to unseat Gordon Brown, PMQs is perhaps a distant memory. It’s certainly made my review a little later than usual. But better late than never, as today’s clash was a bloody and intriguing contest with both party leaders on combative form. Cameron seemed unusually relaxed, glib and self-confident. Perhaps he’d been tipped off about the plot. Or perhaps he’d been thrilled by the sight of his beautifully groomed coiffure in the bathroom mirror this morning. If he spent as much time on his manifesto as he did on his hair there’d be no talk of a hung parliament. But this didn’t seem

East Surrey will be the first seat where Tory central office gets to impose a shortlist of three candidates on a local association. Peter Ainsworth, its MP, has today announced that he is stepping down and because he has waited until the New Year to make this announcement CCHQ’s emergency candidate selection rules now apply. The first thing to watch for is whether the Tories go for an all women shortlist. When Cameron said in October that the party would have some “all-women shortlists to help us boost the number of Conservative women MPs” there was a furious reaction from some sections of the grassroots. There was even talk of

During an election campaign, the press like to obsess about who won the day. Up until 3pm, the consensus was that the Tories had. The media was pointing out just how absurd it was for Labour to criticise another party for having black holes in its fiscal plans. But then came David Cameron’s marriage gaffe which has evened up the coverage on the evening news broadcasts with the Six o’clock news going particularly hard on the issue. Cameron’s credibility is central to the Tory campaign so anything that depletes that is bad news for them. But in the long term, I think the most significant development today is one that

After the platitudes in David Cameron’s speech yesterday, comes the bluntness of Ken Clarke in today’s Sunday Telegraph.  Interviewed by the paper, the shadow business secretary says that it would be a “folly” to rule out tax rises: “It is something that every Conservative tries to avoid but I didn’t avoid it when I was getting us out of recession before. Coming out of a recession when you have such a severe deficit you can’t rule out putting up taxes.” He’s right, of course.  The mammoth size of the deficit, and the lag before many spending reductions take effect, will mean that the Tories shouldn’t rule out tax rises.  More

There is a fascinating glimpse at the tensions inside the top echelons of the Conservative party in The Times today. Francis Elliott reports that Steve Hilton is trying to veto the appointment of James O’Shaugnessy, head of policy for the party, as head of the Downing Street policy unit should the Tories win the election. Francis writes that tensions between Hilton and O’Shaugnessy have been exacerbated by disputes about what should go in the initial slice of the Tory manifesto which will be published on Monday. O’Shaugnessy is one of politics’ nice guys. But he has been the focus of negative briefing in recent months. Back in early September, I

The latest Comres poll for the Independent indicates, as if we needed telling, that the Tories are yet to seal the deal. It’s far from panic stations – the lead remains at 9 points – but there are two figures that prove where the Tories are going wrong. The majority of respondents feel that a Conservative government would exclusively represent the interests of the rich, and the contention that the Tories represent an appealing alternative to Labour was rejected. If Cameron is merely a PR man I hope he’s cheap. Aside from Alex Salmond I can’t envisage anything worse than five more years of Gordon, and this suggests to me

So there we have it.  There will be televised election debates between the three main party leaders during the next election campaign, after all.  The first will be on ITV, then there’ll be one each on Sky and the BBC.  Talk about good TV for political anoraks. Like Tim Montgomerie and Mike Smithson, I suspect that Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg will be happiest with the news.  Both of them, particularly Brown, need potential game-changing events like this to make some progress in the polls.   As for Cameron, he’d probably be better off not giving his opponents a chance to make inroads into the Tories’ poll lead.  But he

David Cameron’s interview with Tim Shipman suggests that the Tory leader is about to undergo a course correction. The Tories have, rightly, begun to be frank with the public about the cuts that will need to be made and have, again rightly, refused to rule out a short-term rise in VAT. But the ‘we’re all in this together’ rhetoric has only been applied to the tough measures that are needed now not the prosperity that might follow in years to come. If Cameron is to start showing the public more of his vision of where he wants to take Britain then that is to be welcomed. But he also needs

I need a new radio for Christmas. Whilst listening to Dr. Sir Liam Donaldson tell the Today programme that parents should not offer their fifteen year old offspring alcohol, my pocket-radio had an altercation with a wall. The soon to be retiring chief medical officer said: “The more they get a taste for it, the more likely they are to be heavy drinking adults or binge drinkers later in childhood.” This latest soothsaying counts among Sir Liam’s other alcohol-related triumphs; he also gave us the inscrutable phenomenon of “passive drinking” – I don’t know about you but this guy makes me drink actively. Continental Europe has its fair share of