Liberal democrats

Paul Waugh has the scoop that all eight Labour councils in London will freeze council tax from next April. The councils worked with Communities Secretary John Denham, who emphasised that 2010-2011’s increase in the central grant means that tax rises are unacceptable. As Waugh puts it, the “low-tax era seems finally to have begun”. This is very early to announce rate levels and represents a pre-election skirmish, suggesting that Labour will campaign on the issue of maintaining low council taxes nationwide. Labour face annihilation in the capital, so freezing unpopular rises whilst not embracing equally unpopular cuts is politically smart. Although it will be interesting to see if Tory councils

Nick Clegg started the Lib Dem conference with an interview calling for ‘savage cuts’ in public spending and ended it with a speech trying to position the Lib Dems as the main party of the left in Britain. That pretty much sums up the strategic incoherence of this conference which has left the Lib Dems worse off than they were before.   The Lib Dems have had an awful week for several reasons. First, they haven’t done the basics well—putting Clegg up against Obama was hardly clever programming and not informing every spokesperson of policy announcements before the media was told was bound to cause trouble. (How no one thought

After an awful conference so far, the last thing the Lib Dems needed was for another internal row to threaten to overshadow the leader’s speech. But that is what has happened. 18 of the 29 member Federal Policy Committee, which produces the Lib Dem manifesto, have written to The Guardian saying that they will include in it a commitment to scrap tuition fees regardless of what the leadership wants. This is not the only open defiance of Nick Clegg’s authority. Steve Webb, the party’s work and pensions spokesman, has moved on from slapping down Clegg over the possibility of means-testing child benefit to, as The Guardian reports it, ‘saying the

The new ICM poll for The Guardian shows the Tories in an extremely strong position heading into conference season. They are on 43 percent, 17 points ahead of Labour. The extent of Labour’s fall since the last election is illustrated by the fact that only 47 percent of those who voted for the party then intend to do so again. Indeed, even 40 percent of those who have remained loyal to Labour now expect a Tory victory at the next election. The poll also shows that Labour is not seen as credible on the state of the public finances by the electorate. Only 14 percent of voters believe that Labour is

A story that has escaped largely unnoticed this weekend is the creation of the Liberal Democrat party’s sinisterly named ‘anti-Tory attack unit’. Sam Coates has the details in the Times: ‘Nick Clegg has created an anti-Tory attack unit which will focus Liberal Democrat firepower on exposing George Osborne’s “complete inexperience”. In an interview with The Times, Chris Huhne said that specialist staff will be seconded to the new group, which he will chair and will include all the party’s most effective attack dogs, including Norman Baker, Norman Lamb and Lord Oakeshott. Mr Huhne, the party’s home affairs spokesman, will lead the party’s attack at their conference, which begins today in Bournemouth.

For all his celebrity, Vince Cable is not exactly an economic genius – as those who have read his book, The Storm,  will know all to well (Specator review here). But he is seldom tested on this point, as he encounters broadcasters whose line of questioning is normally “tell us, Sage of Twickenham, what is happening.” For those who don’t regard him as the new Oracle and have wanted  see him put through his paces, Andrew Neil – Cable’s former student – gives his old master a grilling on the BBC News Channel. In the interview, Cable gets steadily more irritated (and rumbled) and admits to having flip-flopped. The Cable phenomenon

So are Vince Cable’s public spending cuts his own, or are they Lib Dem policy?  In his Straight Talk interview with the Lib Dem treasury spokesman this weekend, Andrew Neil tries to get to the bottom of it all.  The result?  Well, according to Cable, Nick Clegg “approved” his pamphlet for the think tank Reform, and some of its contents could find their way into the party’s manifesto: “A lot of it is already Lib Dem policy, a lot of it already is, the rest of it will have to be considered and we’ll go into an election with a manifesto, we have a due process.  Maybe because of who