Vince: I could bring down the government

Vince Cable has privately threatened to “bring the Government down” if he is “pushed too far” during fractious discussions with his Conservative colleagues, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. The Business Secretary also claims that David Cameron will seek to scrap or reduce the winter fuel allowance paid to pensioners from next year. He believes that policies are being rushed through by the Conservatives and that ministers should be “putting a brake on” some proposals, which are in “danger of getting out of control”. Mr Cable says that, behind the scenes, the Tories and Liberal Democrats are fighting a “constant battle”, including over tax proposals. Likening the conflict to a war, he says he can always use the “nuclear option” of resignation. His departure from the Government would spell the end of the Coalition, he claims. – The Telegraph

What on earth did Vince Cable think he was doing being so frank with two people he had never met who turned up in his constituency? They were from the Daily Telegraph and now he’s all over its front page. Was there an element of showing off? Perhaps. But for him to have unburdened himself, as though he was on the psychiatrists couch, is a little odd. He understands that he is the glue in the coalition, rather than Nick Clegg. Cameron simply cannot afford to lose him. If Vince were to go then this government would struggle to survive. Cable isn’t threatening to walk right away, just making it clear that he has the power to disrupt and destroy the coalition if it comes to it. But beyond his potentially explosive “I’m so tough I could bring the government down” comments, Vince Cable’s answers contain some fascinating and revealing insights. – Wall Street Journal

Lyndon Johnson famously said of J Edgar Hoover that it was better to have him inside the tent p***ing out, than outside the tent p***ing in. I wonder if David Cameron still feels the same way about Vince Cable after his latest gaffe? Of the senior Lib Dems included in the Cabinet, Cable has proved to be the least impressive. He manages to combine a ludicrously inflated sense of his own political importance – “I can walk out of the government and bring the government down” – with a lack of core political skills. Listening to him drone on at Cabinet meetings must be nigh on unendurable. – The Telegraph

Cameron meets union leaders

Union leaders told the PM that ConDem cuts were “dangerous and divisive” during a mince pie summit at Downing Street yesterday. It was the first meeting for 25 years between a Tory government and leaders of Britain’s biggest unions. TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “We warned the Prime Minister that next year promises to be even bleaker for millions.” The unions also took David Cameron to task over Royal Mail privatisation and public second pensions. Mark Serwotka, from the Public and Commercial ­Services Union, said: “We’ll not be drawn into accepting cuts with the occasional promise of tea and a cosy chat in Downing Street.” Unite’s Len McCluskey, who missed the meeting due to the weather, threatened a “general strike” over cuts. But he was slapped down by Labour leader Ed Miliband for “overblown rhetoric”. – The Mirror
Threat of Tory rebellion over high speed rail

Ministers announced a series of changes yesterday to plans for a £12bn high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham in an effort to avert a Conservative rebellion against the scheme. The connection, to be built between 2016 and 2026, will cut the journey time between the two cities to less than 50 minutes. A second spur would eventually link Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds by the 2030s.The proposed scheme has provoked fury among Tory MPs with constituencies along the proposed route. Critics include Cheryl Gillan, the Welsh Secretary, and David Lidington, the Europe minister, as well as John Bercow, the Commons Speaker. Philip Hammond, the Transport Secretary, insisted there was no prospect of the plans being dropped. “It is my view that a high-speed rail network would deliver a transformational change to the way Britain works and competes in the 21st century,” he said. “It will allow the economies of the Midlands and the North to benefit much more directly from the economic engine of London.” – The Independent

School sports U-turn

Education Secretary Michael Gove will today confirm a £70m funding reprieve from cuts to School Sports Partnerships, saving the jobs of 2,000 school sports coordinators and support staff. The move follows a high profile campaign supported by Olympic athletes, sports personalities and Shadow Education Secretary, Andy Burnham. David Cameron stepped in after Conservative MPs warned cuts to sport would be detrimental to the Government’s image ahead of the 2012 Olympics. – PoliticsHome

Cameron & Osborne are wrong. The IFS is right

Cameron and Osborne have contemptuously dismissed the just-published predictions by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies. Based on complex modelling and government policies, the IFS forecasts that over the next four years both relative and absolute poverty will rise for children and work-age adults – between 800,000 to 900,000 are expected to be affected. A designer who makes stupidly expensive handbags, Anya Hindmarch, now a government business champion, said recently that she quite liked recessions – or “clean-up times. That is how this lot think. The Chancellor says airily that their cuts and “reforms” will have “… no measurable impact on child poverty over the next two years”. Believe that and you really believe in a white-haired, beardy bloke comes down chimneys bringing sackfuls of pressies. The real plan was revealed by insider MP Nicholas Boles this week. It is to create a “chaotic” environment where, presumably, the fittest make it. – Independent

Strike warning

The UK faces the prospect of widespread and co-ordinated industrial action in the new year, with the leader of the largest trade union today warning that it is “preparing for battle” with the government over its “unprecedented assault” on the welfare state. Len McCluskey, the newly elected leader of Unite, says union leaders will be holding a special meeting in January to discuss a “broad strike movement” to stop what he described as the coalition’s “explicitly ideological” programme of cuts. Writing in the Guardian, McCluskey praises the “magnificent student movement” that has seen tens of thousands of young people take to the streets to protest at the government’s plans for post-16 education, saying it has put trade unions“on the spot”. “Their mass protests against the tuition fees increase have refreshed the political parts a hundred debates, conferences and resolutions could not reach,” he said. – The Guardian

White out

Labour spokesmen, such as shadow chancellor Alan Johnson, have been accused of political opportunism because they are asking if the government is doing enough to deal with the snow. Johnson’s critics are missing the point — of course there is opportunism involved. The  Tories know this, and used to do the same themselves during snow, floods etc. There isn’t all that much fun to be had in opposition, but after 13 years of being the party that had to produce spokesmen to go on TV to look out of touch Labour is currently enjoying playing “I blame the government”. There aren’t all that many votes in it when something like the weather is involved (unless there is obvious incompetence, as there was with the SNP’s  transport minister who had to resign). But apply the right kind of pressure — as the street-wise Johnson is — and all kinds of temporary havoc can be created in a government. – Wall Street Journal (more…)

Cameron tells activists to hold back

The Prime Minister called off a planned campaigning push in the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election in order to boost Liberal Democrat chances, this newspaper can reveal. Mr Cameron secretly instructed activists not to undertake a major leafleting drive because of fears the party could do so badly in the by-election next month it could destabilise Mr Clegg. As support appears to drain away from the Lib Dems, two of the party’s prominent backers – Bella Freud, the fashion designer, and Kate Mosse, the author – told The Sunday Telegraph they were no longer supporting it. The embarrassment comes days after Colin Firth, the actor, announced that he was leaving the party. On Saturday a senior Liberal Democrat councillor put the coalition under fresh strain by calling two senior Tory ministers “Laurel and Hardy”. – The Telegraph

The big overnight Old & Sad story is a report from Melissa Kite in the Sunday Telegraph saying that David Cameron personally asked party activists in the seat not to campaign too hard in order to help his coalition partner, the Lib Dems. As can be seen from the general election above the constituency is very much a three-way marginal that was won by Phil Woolas on less than a third of votes cast only 103 ahead of Elwyn Wilkins – the man who was to take the former Labour immigration minister to court. But the Tories were not that far behind and must have been in with a fair chance had they mounted a robust campaign – a move that could have had big consequences for the coalition. Cameron has apparently decided that beating Labour is the key objective and his statements on Friday are just about as far as he can go in suggesting that his party’s supporters should vote tactically. – PoliticalBetting

No more “coalition”

Ed Miliband has banned the shadow cabinet from using the word “coalition” to describe the government because it sounds too moderate and reasonable, and fails to convey what he says is its true “ideological, rightwing agenda”. In a memo to his front-bench team, obtained by the Observer, the Labourleader’s director of policy, Greg Beales, says that from now on they must use the term “Conservative-led government” to describe the alliance of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. “This is not a partnership and it is not a centre-ground coalition,” the memo says. “To highlight this, we are changing how we talk about the government. It is wrong to talk about their policies as coalition policies when so many are right-wing Conservative ideas.” – The Observer

Lib Dems continue poll decline

LABOUR have kept their lead over the Tories as the Lib Dems slumped to a new low, our exclusive poll shows today. The ComRes/Sunday Mirror survey puts Labour down one point at 39 per cent, ahead of the Tories who are up one point at 37 per cent. Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems also dropped one point to just 11 per cent – their lowest rating since the start of the ComRes poll in 2004. The Lib Dems have now lost more than half of the people who voted for them in May. The findings follow a week of bad news for the Government, which saw the jobless total rise by 35,000 to 2.5m and the cost of basic goods soar in the shops by 4.7pc. But it got even worse for Mr Clegg. Almost half of those quizzed did not believe he was doing a good job as leader after he failed to unite Lib Dem MPs over tuition fees. Just over one in four supporters thought he was doing well. – The Mirror

David leaves the door open

Aside from his constituency work in South Shields and his desire to stay in touch with foreign policy, what will he do with his time? For the merest moment, he looks confused. “Once you take away good dad, good husband, good politician…” Well, what about books and films? What is he reading? “I’m reading an incredibly frightening murder mystery by someone called Longbow or Legbow.” Does he mean The Snowman by the Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø? “Yes! That’s it. And someone gave me Jonathan Franzen’s book, so that’s nice. We downloaded a film the other day. Now, what was it? ProbablyPeppa Pig or something. Ah. I know. It was an episode of Mad Men. Bit out of date. Sorry. But we’re catching up.” There is something slightly forlorn about this wild clutching at cultural straws. My strong feeling is that the drama that began last spring, when Ed Miliband so dramatically entered the race for the Labour leadership, is not over yet. There will be a second act. David, of course, won’t comment. But nor, in spite of my best efforts, can he be persuaded to rule himself out. “I don’t want to think about being an ex-something,” he says. “I’d much rather think about being a future something.” – The Observer