Liberal democrats

You really couldn’t make this up: it wasn’t Michael Moore’s PPS who was on the World at One resigning but someone impersonating him. The actual PPS, Michael Crockart, is still trying to make up his mind. I suggest that he doesn’t try and call in to a radio show to announce his decision. (Who would have thought we have lived to see the day when Lib Dem PPSs have impersonators?)   One has to feel sorry for Radio 4 today. It had the whole Jeremy Hunt business this morning on the Today Programme and Start the Week, and now it’s other flagship news programme has been very publicly duped.  

The rapidly increasing likelihood that the Lib Dem payroll vote will vote to increase the amount that universities can charge in fees to £9,000 is a reminder of how different the next election is going to be. The Lib Dems will not be able to stuff their manifesto with eye-catching but unrealistic commitments designed to grab votes from this or that interest group. The experience of coalition means that their policy positions will receive far more scrutiny than usual and have to be defensible. Already, those around Clegg talk of a very different kind of Lib Dem manifesto at the next election. They drop heavy hints that the empty gestures—like

Who knows how, and whether, Vince Cable is going to vote in next Thursday’s tuition fee decider? Not even the man himself, it seems. A few days ago he suggested he might abstain for the sake of party unity. Yesterday, he told his local paper that “I have a duty as a minister to vote for my own policy – and that is what will happen.” And yet this morning’s Guardian has a “party source” saying, “a final decision has not been made. It is still possible Vince could abstain.” At least we haven’t heard that he might vote against the proposal – although, at this rate, I wouldn’t be

Phil Woolas has lost his appeal against the election court declaring his victory in Oldham East and Saddleworth. As I understand it, Woolas has not exhausted his legal options and could take the whole matter to judicial review. Word is that no decision will be made on a by-election until it is known whether or not Woolas will appeal.   Interestingly, Woolas was accompanied to court today by John Healey, the shadow Health minister. Healey is extremely popular with his Labour colleagues, he came second in the shadow Cabinet elections, and his decision to stand by Woolas today is a sign of where the emotional energy in the Parliamentary Labour

There have been a huge amount of police out in Westminster today. After being caught off-guard by the student demo a few weeks back, the cops are now leaving nothing to chance.   But if the police have now got their act together, the same cannot be said of the Liberal Democrats. They are currently considering whipping their MPs to abstain on tuition fees despite the fact that the government’s policy is one that has been crafted by a Lib Dem Secretary of State, Vince Cable, and a Tory Minister of State, David Willetts.   If the Lib Dems were to abstain, it would play to the worst stereotypes of

The FT’s Alex Barker has made an important discovery in the OBR’s report. The coalition’s immigration cap will make no impact on net migration. ‘The interim OBR’s June Budget estimates of trend growth estimates were based on an average net inward migration assumption of 140,000 per annum…. Since June, the Government has announced a limit of 21,700 for non-EU migrants coming into the UK under the skilled and highly skilled routes from April 2011, a reduction of 6,300 on 2009. At this stage, we judge that there is insufficient reason to change our average net migration assumption of 140,000 per year from 2010, which remains well below the net inflows

The NOtoAV campaign has unveiled its patrons. It’s an impressive list. Margaret Beckett is the President, supported by Blunkett, Falconer, Prescott, Reid and Emily Thornberry on one side and Ken Clarke, Micheal Gove, William Hague, Steve Norris and Baroness Warsi on the other. The squeeze is on. The YEStoAV campaign has Labour supporters, but they aren’t quite so august. Iain Martin reckons that the YES team are faced with a cross-party opposition that can get these diverse big beasts working together. Iain calls it a pincer movement on the Lib Dems. The strategy is to characterise electoral reform as aan exclusively sectional interest: Clegg’s fixation. With his singular brand of native wit, John

A cruel north wind heralds the Lib Dem’s discontent. In public, the party has withstood criticism of its apparent u-turn on student finance, helped in part by the more puerile elements of the student protest. Ministers, from both wings of the party, have stressed that coalition necessitates compromise: tuition fees had to rise; therefore, the Lib Dems’ task in government was to protect the poorest, which they seemingly have. Backbenchers hedged their bets, saying that they were scrutinising the legislation before deciding how to vote.     But consternation has reigned in private. This morning, weeks of whispered disgruntlement broke into open tension. Politics Home reports hat the Lib Dems met

In a must read post, Anthony Wells notes that there is a new variant of the Shy Tory and Bashful Blairite: the Coy Cleggite. Traditionally, ICM and Populus have allocated up to 50 percent of undecided respondents to the party they voted for at the last election. Wells writes: ‘Polls are now showing a large proportion of people who voted Lib Dem in 2010 saying they don’t know how they would vote in an election tomorrow, and ICM’s reallocation of don’t knows is now favouring them. In ICM’s last three polls the re-allocation of don’t knows has bumped up the level of Liberal Democrat support by 2 points – yesterday’s