David cameron

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Cameron’s new tactic to steal Corbyn’s mascot

Housing is Jeremy Corbyn’s second favourite subject (after drainage lids). Back in the 1970s the grateful proletariat hailed his long years of service as Commissar For Council Accommodation in the People’s Republic of Haringey. At his retirement, chanting school-girls tied garlands of lilies around his brows and presented him with a commemorative Rent Book in a frame. Marching bands played. Fireworks fizzed and thundered. Private landlords were burned in effigy. What Corbyn learned from his housing career was to grind his enemies into submission with tedious blasts of numbers. But Cameron likes a good statistic himself and when Corbyn accused the government of building one new council house for every

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Is Cameron considering holding the Trident vote in the Autumn?

One of the more intriguing exchanges at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was between Julian Lewis and David Cameron on Trident. The chairman of the Defence Select Committee asked the following: ‘The debate and vote on the Trident successor submarine should have been held in the last Parliament, but was blocked by the Liberal Democrats. Given the fun that the Prime Minister had a few moments ago at the Labour party’s expense over Trident’s successor, it must be tempting for him to put off the vote until Labour’s conference in October. However, may I urge him to do the statesmanlike thing and hold that vote as soon as possible because everyone

Marina Wheeler

Marina Wheeler: why David Cameron’s EU deal isn’t enough

This is an extract from the new issue of The Spectator, out tomorrow: Last week Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, tabled proposals which the government hopes will form the basis of the UK’s renegotiated relationship with the European Union. Politically, the proposals may be just the job: a new commitment to enhance competitiveness, proposals to limit benefits to migrants, recognition that member states’ different aspirations for further integration must be respected, and creation of a ‘red card’ mechanism to block EU legislation. Legally, however, they raise more questions than they answer. This ought to have been an opportunity to look at the Court of Justice of the European

Tuesday

Steerpike

The Tories’ ‘black-and-white’ ball, in pictures

Last night politicians and celebrities dined with the super-rich at the annual Tory Black and White ball. While press are banned from the event, Mr S managed to infiltrate the lavish do and bring readers a live-blog of the event. Alas the evening saw a downturn in David Cameron’s fortunes as his donors failed to dig as deep at the auction as in previous years. Despite this the guests appeared to have a good time. Charlie Mullins — the founder of Pimlico Plumbers — says Cameron used his speech to lead from the front on Europe before urging everyone to rally around Zac Goldsmith for London mayor; ‘urging everyone to get out there and

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

David Cameron’s mum isn’t the only Cameron to criticise Tory cuts

David Cameron’s mum has joined the battle against Conservative cuts, it has emerged this morning. Mary Cameron’s intervention after signing a petition to save childrens’ centres has been splashed over the front page of the Daily Mirror. The headline: ‘Cameron’s mum fights Tory cuts’ looks deeply embarrassing for her son. Is this a family rift? Is Mary Cameron trying to make life difficult for her son? The truth is less dramatic despite the excitement on Twitter, where the hashtag ‘David Cameron’s MUM’, has been trending all morning. After all, Mary Cameron is not the only member of the Cameron family to criticise her local council over axed services. David Cameron

Monday

Tom Goodenough

Today in audio: Liam Fox on Cameron’s ‘ridiculous, scaremongering tactics’

Liam Fox, speaking on the World at One, denounced No 10’s suggestions that leaving the EU would mean Britain could see a Sangatte-style ‘Jungle’ emerge in the UK. He said it was a ‘complete red herring’: https://soundcloud.com/spectator1828/liam-fox-on-migrant-camps David Cameron said his prison reform plans were a ‘bold and radical second term agenda’: But there was scepticism about whether it was too little, too late. Juliet Lyon from the Prison Reform Trust said it was ‘certainly true’ that the situation in prison had deteriorated rapidly under the PM’s watch: Grant Shapps spoke about being the fall guy over the Tory bullying scandal. Speaking on Daily Politics, Shapps said a blind eye was

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Are we really supposed to believe David Cameron cares about reforming prisons?

David Cameron has outlined his plans for prison reform today. But does he genuinely care about prisons or is he only concerned with shaping his own legacy? The Prime Minister labelled the number of prisoners reoffending as ‘scandalous’. He also pledged to protect the £130m prison education budget. His motives may seem worthy but it’s arguable he is merely paying lip service to an issue which has been bubbling along under his watch for years. That much appeared to be the view of the Prison Reform Trust’s Juliet Lyon. Speaking on Today, Lyon criticised the PM for turning late to the issue. She said: ‘It is certainly true (that things

Saturday

James Forsyth

Who will be out for Out?

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] The Leave campaigns continue to bicker with each other in increasingly absurd fashion, but it would be wrong to think that everything is going the In campaign’s way. Number 10, as I write in The Sun today, have been taken aback by the sheer scale of the hostility to the deal. There have been some very tense meetings in Downing Street this week. Cameron himself is, I understand, acutely aware of how volatile the situation is and how quickly the referendum could turn. But those around him are more confident. They believe that they are succeeding in denying the

Friday

Tom Goodenough

Today in audio: Julian Assange vs Philip Hammond

Haven’t had a chance to follow the day’s political events and interviews? Then don’t worry: here, The Spectator, brings you the best of today’s audio clips in one place for you to listen to. Philip Hammond hit out at the UN after a panel ruled that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was being ‘arbitrarily detained’ and should get compensation. The Foreign Secretary said Assange is a ‘fugitive’ and he called the UN verdict ‘flawed’: Julian Assange hit back at a press conference saying that Hammond’s comments were ‘ridiculous’. He also warned the UK there would be ‘consequences’ to ignoring the UN panel verdict: David Cameron has been on a charm offensive

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why Cameron needn’t worry about Leave’s nine-point lead – yet

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] Funnily enough, David Cameron’s EU deal hasn’t gone down all that well with voters. The Times this morning gives the ‘Out’ campaign a nine-point lead, up from four points last week. The YouGov poll puts Leave on 45 per cent, Remain on 36 per cent and 19 per cent on don’t know or won’t vote. This is an entirely predictable reaction to a deal that has genuinely astonished some MPs with its lack of anything that could come close to looking like a fundamental recasting of Britain’s relationship with Europe. The press has savaged it and while all hell

Thursday

Peter Jones

In defence of discrimination

David Cameron has accused universities of being xenophobic, racist and prejudiced against the poor. He is too much of a coward actually to say that, of course: instead, he said they ‘discriminated’. That is a weasel word these days, and it is worth tiptoeing gingerly on to Mrs Wordsworth’s territory to see what Cameron is missing. ‘Discriminate’ derives from the Latin discerno, ‘I separate or divide off spatially; I distinguish mentally or practically’. The noun discrimen could mean anything from ‘a parting in the hair’ and ‘a point in which things differ’ to ‘the act or power of distinguishing; a process for deciding a disputed question’. The educationist Quintilian saw

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 4 February 2016

In 2000, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, accused Magdalen College, Oxford, of class bias in failing to admit a student called Laura Spence, a pupil at a Tyneside comprehensive. This was grossly unfair — how could the Chancellor know the details of a particular case? It was also outrageous in principle: why should a politician tell a university whom to admit? This Sunday, David Cameron did much the same thing. In the middle of his EU negotiations, the migrant crisis and the other genuinely important things the Prime Minister must deal with, he found time to offer an article to the Sunday Times, headlined ‘Watch out, universities; I’m

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 4 February 2016

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, made a speech in Wiltshire about a letter from Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, on Britain’s demands for renegotiating terms of its membership of the European Union. Mr Cameron said: ‘What we’ve got is basically something I asked for.’ In the House of Commons, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition, said: ‘It’s rather strange that the Prime Minister is not here…’ instead of ‘…in Chippenham, paying homage to the town where I was born.’ Mr Tusk proposed that in-work benefits for migrants might be subject to an ‘emergency brake’. As for child benefit, this could still be sent home to children

The Spectator

Cameron’s “deal” has backfired – badly. So what will he do now?

Throughout his negotiations with the European Union, David Cameron was fatally undermined by his own lack of resolve. He was never going to recommend an ‘out’ vote in his referendum, as the other leaders knew. He promised a referendum three years ago, not from any great sense of conviction, but as a ploy to stop his party talking about Europe until after a general election which he half-expected to lose. Then, in May last year, he found himself with a majority — and in a position to renegotiate. But not in a position to win, and for a simple -reason: the other side always knew that he’d say yes, no

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Fighting over the crumbs

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] Listen [/audioplayer]Eurosceptics could hardly have asked for more favourable conditions for a referendum. After barely surviving a financial crisis, the European Union has been overwhelmed by an immigration crisis — one made much worse by its failure to control its own borders. The European Commission seems determined to make itself even more unpopular in Britain, and is considering whether VAT should be levied on food and children’s clothes. At a time of righteous anger at sweetheart tax deals for multinational corporations, the man who bears more responsibility for these than anyone else in Europe is its president, the former

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Why I now believe in positive discrimination

The Prime Minister no doubt knew he would be fanning the flames when he waded into the argument about the admission of black undergraduates to universities like Oxford and Cambridge. We should do him the courtesy of trusting he means it when he says he feels strongly about discrimination in the awarding of university places – and I think he does. In this week’s issue Toby Young marks David Cameron’s essay with tutorial authority, and finds his case wanting. Particularly valuable among Toby’s marginal notes is his point that you can’t accept applicants if they haven’t applied – and black and working-class students disproportionately don’t. But we enter a vicious

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Kamikaze Creasy

The referendum is slowly (very slowly) breaking up Cameron’s cabinet. It’s put him in a weird mood. Yesterday he was striding about in shirt-sleeves like a bogus realtor selling flats on the moon. At PMQs today he was calmer and prepared for some rough weather. It failed to materialise. Jez We Can (Do a U-turn on Europe) didn’t want to discuss the In-Out decision in case viewers spotted that his love of Brussels is a mere summer crush dating from his election as Labour boss. Previously he was a committed Europe-nobbler. With his mentor, Tony Benn, he used to trudge along to every anti-EU meeting available. Alas, no one noticed.

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Today in audio: Wednesday 3rd February

Haven’t had a chance to follow the day’s political events and interviews? Then don’t worry: here, The Spectator, brings you the best of today’s audio clips in one place for you to listen to. David Cameron did his best to try and talk up the draft EU package he negotiated with Donald Tusk as he gave a statement to the Commons: Jeremy Corbyn took him to task for not being in Parliament yesterday, sarcastically saying he hoped the PM had a ‘good time in Chippenham’ instead: John Mann gave the most stinging response to the EU draft document, asking the PM: ‘Is that it?’ David Cameron is likely to be

James Forsyth James Forsyth

EU statement: Eurosceptic Tories strikingly civil to Cameron

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] The great confrontation between David Cameron and Eurosceptic Tory backbenchers did not materialise today. Instead, the tone of the questions following the Prime Minister’s statement was strikingly civil. Edward Leigh thanked Cameron for the fact that there was going to be a referendum, Steve Baker paid tribute to his negotiating effort and Peter Bone tried to recruit him to the Out side. Jacob Rees-Mogg, though, was more critical. He complained that the ‘thin gruel had been watered down’ still further and warned Cameron he had a fortnight to save his reputation as a negotiator. Perhaps the most significant moment

Ed West Ed West

Would the migrant crisis have happened without the EU?

For those people already bored with the interminable European question, Radio 4 might get unbearable over the next few months. Yesterday morning the subject was being discussed, in the context of David Cameron’s ‘deal’, and someone from Brussels was explaining that ‘more Europe’ was needed to solve the migrant/refugee crisis. She never got to explain further what was meant by this, but isn’t it actually the case that the migrant crisis is related to the EU? For example, would Greece face a wave of 62,000 illegal migrants a month were it just an independent country that had its own borders and a government with responsibility towards its citizens? The inherent