David cameron

David Cameron may well have privately resolved that there is no cause for him to step down if Scotland votes for independence in a few months’ time, as per James Chapman’s scoop today. But the problem is that it is not in the Prime Minister’s gift to make that decision. He may well say that he isn’t going to resign, but that would have no effect on the number of letters that would be sent to 1922 Committee chairman Graham Brady demanding a leadership contest. It’s not as though the Tory party will reel from the shock of Scotland leaving, then wait to see what the Prime Minister says and

One of the striking things about the next election is how what is going on at the macro level looks so different from what is happening at a micro level. On the macro front, things seem to be moving the Tories’ way. The economy is growing at a good clip and that is set to continue until polling day and David Cameron has a considerable advantage on the question of who would make the best Prime Minister. But to return to the micro, it is easier to see seats where Labour might gain from the Tories rather than the other way round. Ask even the most optimistic Tories what constituencies

In a better, more sensible, world David Cameron would make a virtue of the opportunity UKIP has given him. He would appreciate that defending his party’s record is actually an opportunity for a counter-attack. UKIP complain – loudly – that 4,000 people arrive in the United Kingdom from the EU each and every week. This, they suggest, is awful and Something Must Be Done to limit the number of people coming to the United Kingdom. The Conservative party appears, in its dark heart, to share this concern. It suspects the Kippers might have at least half a point. There’s something nauseous about all this immigration, isn’t there? No wonder the

How the Tory party will react if, as excepted, Ukip pushes the party into third place in the European elections is one of the most discussed topics in UK politics. But overlooked in all this is how Labour will react if Farage’s party beats them on May 22nd. If Ukip come top in the European Elections, as the polls indicate they have a very good chance of doing, Labour will be thrown into a panic. No opposition has ever triumphed at a general election having not won the previous European Elections. A failure in the European Elections would be a big blow to the idea that Ed Miliband is going

As the economy bounces back it keeps smacking Ed Miliband in the face. At PMQs today he tried to pose as the people’s champion fighting fat-cat capitalism. He started with Royal Mail, which is now worth a billion more than when it was floated. In hindsight, any privatisation can look like a Westminster mega-blunder or a Square Mile stitch-up. Miliband took the latter view. Referring to the clique of 16 ‘golden ticket’ investors, he asked why these lucky speculators had been allowed to flip their shares for an instant profit while the hard-working posties had been ordered to retain theirs for three years. Cameron spotted the trick. Posties got free

A smart move by Ed Miliband today to put pressure on David Cameron over the televised leaders’ debates next year. Every time the Prime Minister is asked about these debates, he makes supportive noises while muttering about the ‘right formula’, but doesn’t commit to anything. He has also said that he felt the debates ‘dominated’ the coverage of the 2010 election, which is as close as he’ll come to saying that Nick Clegg’s shiny new qualities at the time rather detracted from Cameron’s own appeal which his strategists had been setting so much store by. But as the Prime Minister hasn’t agreed to anything, Labour’s trying to get ahead of

How does a Prime Minister get a recalcitrant minister to agree to something? Well, if it’s not going to make any difference to whether some legislation passes and the minister isn’t directly responsible for the policy, then he can always let them avoid a vote, as he seems to be doing on HS2 today. But what if the minister is the one who needs to sign off on a policy change? I hear that David Cameron found himself in this situation late last year when trying to make some changes to the government’s counter-extremism strategy. Baroness Warsi (not his favourite minister) was refusing to accept the changes, which the Prime

First the godly, then the godless, then the godly again. The public debate about whether Britain is indeed a Christian country, which the Prime Minister kicked off with his article in the Church Times saying that Britain should be evangelical about its Christianity, took legs when fifty-odd self-important atheists took issue with his remarks in a letter in the Telegraph and now the debate has a new spin after a group of academic philosophers wrote to the same paper (lucky letters editor) to contradict the atheists. “In important ways Britain remains a Christian country, as the Prime Minister has rightly claimed”, they wrote. “The establishment of the Church of England enshrines

Who will go where in the forthcoming reshuffle? Guido suggests that Michael Gove could be in for a move to party chairman, given all his major reforms have either been implemented or blocked by the Lib Dems. Number 10 has certainly told Gove that he will be playing an increasing role in the general election campaign: I understand this was made clear to him in the winter of last year, which would explain why David Cameron was quite so cross about the Education Secretary’s comments to the FT about Etonians. Cameron recognises that Gove is a smooth media performer who doesn’t wilt under the heat of the studio lights, or