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Posts Tagged ‘David Cameron’

Today, Ed Miliband was damaged by Cameron’s speech, but the pain is coming for the Tories

23/01/2013, 05:50:40 PM

by Atul Hatwal

Judgement is a precious commodity. If a politician is seen to have it, they receive the benefit of the doubt from the media and colleagues alike. Their moves are viewed as part of a grand strategy, their competence taken on trust.

When they are seen to lose it, everything is questioned, loose threads are pulled and more often than not, much unravels.

Today, both Ed Miliband and David Cameron demonstrated desperately bad judgement. Both will pay a price. The immediate damage is to the Labour leader’s position, but over the coming months Cameron will be the one who suffers most.

For Ed Miliband, it is now a matter of when not if. When will he do a U-turn and commit Labour to an in/out referendum? The three options he has available leave him little choice.

Inside the leader’s inner circle there might have been some that still believed Labour’s current position of neither backing nor ruling out an in/out referendum was sustainable, but reality will be dawning. Witness Miliband’s own reaction in the heat of PMQs today when he seemed to rule out a referendum, only for Douglas Alexander and John Denham to walk back the commitment within hours.

Having no line to take is no way to run a party. Labour politicians trying to defend this position will be mercilessly skewered.

Alternately, permanently ruling out a referendum, as Miliband looked to have done, has the merit of certainty, but brings the certainty of unpopularity. Refusing to let the public have a say on such a contentious issue hardly locates Labour on the side of the people.

Which leaves supporting an in/out referendum as the only viable option.

Back in October I argued for a Labour commitment to a referendum to make the political weather and cast Cameron as weak when he was forced follow suit. Now Miliband will follow Cameron and will be the one to look weak.

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A renegotiation and referendum for what – a “line to take?”

23/01/2013, 01:29:10 PM

by Kevin Meagher

So was it really worth the wait? There’s been less speculation about the second coming than there has about David Cameron’s Europe speech over the last month.

To be fair it was carefully crafted and fluently delivered. And half of it could have been said by any mainstream Labour or Lib Dem politician. Yes, the EU needs reform and must focus on competitiveness and address the democratic deficit. Amen to that. shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander was quick to point out as much on his tour around the broadcast studios this morning, calling, specifically for reform of the common agricultural policy and EU budget.

And three quarters of Cameron’s speech could have been delivered by Iain Duncan-Smith, Michael Howard or William Hague. There was not much new, with heavy emphasis on John Major’s call, two decades ago, for “variable geometry” in reshaping the EU. So a trip down memory lane and a restatement of that peculiarly Toryish view of Europe with the promise of a renegotiation and referendum bolted on?

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How serious are the threats to David Cameron?

22/01/2013, 03:25:24 PM

by Kevin Meagher

Last weekend, the Sunday Times ran a fairly extraordinary piece speculating that the pin-striped vultures of the Tory backbenches were eyeing up David Cameron’s carcass:

“For the first time, discussions about ousting Cameron before 2015 appear to be spreading beyond the so-called “usual suspects” – a hardcore of about 20 backbenchers who are hostile to his leadership.”

Europe and gay marriage are cited as concerns. There is also talk of a “rebel reserve” of “about 55” who would write to the backbench 1922 committee chairman, Graham Brady, demanding Cameron quits if the polls look so desperate that a change of leader becomes “urgent.”

Of course it’s not unusual for prime ministers to develop a cabal of detractors. On the way up, most senior politicians rub enough people up the wrong way to do that; but to learn that Cameron now has a nucleus of twenty hostiles against him, with dozens of “conditional enemies” is still significant.

Most obviously it seems Cameron simply isn’t conservative enough for many of his party’s faith and flag crowd. While Europe remains a celice truer Conservatives choose to punish themselves with, it is Cameron’s personal advocacy of gay marriage which is said to be the focal point for much of the current grumbling; percolating up from his party’s grassroots and through to his MPs. To them, he is a typical metro-liberal wet.

On the other hand though, Cameron is a son of privilege who doesn’t really gel with those earthier, cash-toting arriviste Tories either, the ones who had to buy their own furniture. Remember when Michael Howard said he was a grammar school boy who would take no lessons from public school-educated Tony Blair? It’s not a boast many on the Tory frontbench could make now. Nevertheless representing smart, hard-working people who have made their own money is an important part of the post-war Conservative identity.

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Sunday Review: the EU phantom menace

20/01/2013, 08:00:22 AM

by Anthony Painter

In the space of three years, the prime minister has moved Britain from the EU’s cautious awkward customer to the self-destructively preposterous. Let’s be clear, this has absolutely nothing to do with some irresistible popular clamour for a referendum on our membership of the EU. It is entirely self-inflicted. Realpolitik has been ditched in favour of pusillanimous capitulation. This whole thing is about the neuroses of the Conservative party. This is not leadership; it is fear – of a phantom menace.

In fact, there are three phantoms that appear in this whole sorry saga. The first is a speech – a phantom speech. It’s has been long in the gestation and from the unconfirmed sightings that have been reported, it is an utterly vacuous statement of the bleeding obvious about jobs, growth, competitiveness, and the democratic deficit .

So the EU has to change. We are very lucky to have this pointed out – who knew? Douglas Alexander had it absolutely right in his speech at Chatham House this week when he argued:

“So significant are the potential consequences of this speech that it is tempting, indeed reassuring, to presume a degree of strategic thought or high public purpose in its preparation. The truth, I fear, is both more prosaic and more worrying. This speech is about politics much more than it is about policy. And its origins lie in weakness, not in strength.”

The second phantom, is the monstrous ghoul that is the federal super-state waiting to sink its teeth into these poor defenceless northern European islanders. This is the one that has Tory eurosceptics waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Their problem though, if you look at the argument in its elements, is more with the “state” element than anything else. Tory eurosceptics believe the alternative to EU regulation is no regulation. On this, like so much else they are entirely wrong.

Regulation would in fact just carry over, as we would still need to access the European markets. To gain access to the EU on a free trade basis, anything we imported or produced for the domestic market would have to be EU regulation compliant. And why would business want two regulatory standards?

Even if we decided not to trade freely with the EU, then we would still need to ensure clean beaches, toys without toxic chemicals, workplace safety, fisheries that weren’t over fished, proper information for consumers, farming subsidies, and fresh water standards. A world without regulation of the eurosceptic’s dreams is an apparition. Even if it could be achieved it wouldn’t last the first scandal over food poisoning, cod shortages, lead poisoning, horsemeat in burgers, or horrific increase in deaths in the workplace.

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Let’s not risk coalition part II

10/01/2013, 03:33:05 PM

by Kevin Meagher

In 2015 I want to see a majority Labour government. I certainly don’t want to see a majority Conservative government. I can live with a Labour-Lib Dem government.

This, in essence, needs to be the calculation as Labour approaches the next general election. Opening up a dialogue with the Lib Dems around themes of mutual attraction is an act of utility; a contingency in the event of another inconclusive election result.

After all, a valedictory Tony Blair warned that the age of tribal politics is behind us with “rampant cross-dressing” increasingly the norm. There is plainly more that unites Labour and Lib Dems around issues like Europe and House of Lords reform than divides the two parties, so why not look for areas of overlap?

Especially when it has the potential to drive a wedge between the coalition partners. So an insurance policy for the future and a means of peeling the Lib Dems away from their cruel suitors in the bargain. What’s not to support here?

The alternative – sitting and waiting for the outcome of 2015 – risks repeating the mistake of 2010, as Labour’s team went naked into the chamber to negotiate with Clegg’s people, before a better-prepared Cameron swept in with his “big, open and comprehensive offer”. The rest is history.

Surely we aren’t going to risk a repeat?

Kevin Meagher is associate editor of Labour Uncut

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Ignore the headlines, Leveson will still pass…if Nick Clegg wants it to

30/11/2012, 07:00:59 AM

by Atul Hatwal

It’s quite simple really. The decision on whether Leveson is implemented is not exclusively in the gift of the prime minister. He does not, to quote today’s Telegraph headline, have a veto because the Tories do not command a majority in the House of Commons. Ed Miliband has committed to bringing forward a vote on the judge’s recommendations so it will be down to the 650 members of parliament to determine the future of press regulation.

Here’s how the arithmetic stacks up: the coalition normally has a working majority of 82. This is the number by which the 360 coalition MPs (303 Tory and 57 Liberal Democrat) exceed the combined strength of all the other parties – 278 MPs – less the speaker and his three deputies who don’t vote and the five Sinn Fein MPs who similarly don’t vote.

If the Lib Dems were whipped to support a vote on implementing Leveson (albeit an amended version to address Clegg’s misgivings on Ofcom’s role in verifying the new watchdog and on data protection), the working majority over the Tories would be 35 (303 Tories versus a new combined total of 335 of the rest).

There is the potential that one of the Lib Dems, John Hemming, will defy the whip, given he signed the anti-Leveson letter organised by Conor Burns and David Blunkett. Similarly there are a handful of anti-Leveson Labour MPs who may defy the whip, including Blunkett, Gisela Stuart, Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Gerald Kaufman and Eric Joyce (yes, I know Eric Joyce is nominally an independent).

Taking these dissenters and adding them to the Tory total gives a reduced pro-Leveson majority in the Commons of 18 (a combined total of 328 MPs versus 310 Tories and anti-Leveson defectors.)

As whips office veterans of the knife edge votes in the 1990s and late 1970s can attest, this is where it gets complicated. The remaining 23 votes are made up of a hotch potch of minor groups and parties.

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Pink Pussy anyone? In the mess of the drinks industry, minimum pricing is only one solution to part of the problem

29/11/2012, 10:25:17 AM

by Ian Stewart

So, a government that is headed by a man who made some of his fortune through selling “Pink Pussies” in Tiger Tiger bars (via his vital work as a director of Urbium plc bar company in the early 2000s) has woken up to the problem of excessive alcohol consumption.

Obviously not 25 Year Old Islay Malt, nor Chateau Petrus, no – nothing wrong could ever happen if you drink expensively, could it? It is those other drinks, the common drinks, which cause all the problems. After all, who ever heard of, say, well-heeled Oxford students running about causing perturbation & fear?

The drinks business that is the making, exporting and selling of alcohol in the UK is, profits-wise, doing pretty well during our austerity times. Yet, beneath the balance sheets of the likes of Diageo and SAB Miller and the ever-enthusiastic reviews of new bars and products in the press, there is a continuing crisis.

Ever since supermarkets were allowed to join the off-licence trade, bringing in a race to the bottom in price terms, there have been ever-increasing number of pub closures and ever harsher terms for leaseholders. The big pub companies have lead the way in vertical drinking establishments, telling us to “drink responsibly” whilst discounting shots and jugs of nasty cocktails to compete, driving out independents where they can.

Pub companies now mainly see their leased stock as a potential source of revenue – not from what they sell, but in what they could achieve on the property market. This has hit rural areas particularly hard. All the while, alcohol consumption has risen to almost pre-1914 levels, after a sustained fall overall until the 1970s.

With deregulation profits soared and drinking habits changed. Yes, we eat out more, and drink more wine now than ever before. But unlike our continental cousins we seem to drink that Aussie Shiraz like beer. So the problems of drinking too much too fast – public disorder, private agony, illness, misery and working days lost have increased.

Step forward Theresa May and her universal solution – minimum pricing. There is some evidence that this will help in some areas, but this is a measure designed to hit one section of society, the working class and unemployed. Yup, it’s the plebs and chavs again – as if the only problem with alcohol could be encapsulated in a single episode of Shameless. Of course, “reasonable”, “average” (that would be middle and upper class) drinkers will not be affected by this measure.

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Whisper it quietly, the government maybe about to back Leveson

23/11/2012, 10:32:09 AM

by Atul Hatwal

So now we know, it’s next week. Lord Leveson will finally publish his long delayed report on Thursday 29^th November, complete with recommendations on the future of press regulation.

For many months now, the conventional Westminster village wisdom has been clear: Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg will back the report while David Cameron will demur.

The prime minister will kick the report into the long grass and accept the public’s opprobrium because (a) backing the newspapers’ position will guarantee better coverage for his government as the next election approaches; and (b) most people already think the worst of him on this issue with few swing voters likely switch their allegiance on the basis of press regulation.

But, as Lord Leveson’s report goes to the printers, this wisdom is looks increasingly askew. It fundamentally misreads the credibility of the newspaper owners’ blandishments and threats – and the evidence suggests number ten knows this.

The owners might privately brief the government in warm terms about better coverage tomorrow if Leveson is blocked today, but word are cheap; would they really follow through?

There is a deep scepticism within number ten that the attack dogs of the Daily Mail, Telegraph and Sun will meekly roll over and give the government a pass for the next three years.

A story is a story and in the cutthroat competition of the newspaper market, few will refuse the opportunity to hurt the government if it drives sales. At the margins, perhaps some stories might be soft pedalled, but collectively supressing major news would be commercially counter-productive.

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Last week’s commons defeat will force the government to address its EU strategy void

06/11/2012, 07:00:19 AM

by Mark Stockwell

The Labour leadership has no doubt spent much of the past week slapping each other heartily on the back. Bliss is it to defeat the government on the floor of the house; to do so by outflanking them on the EU budget is very heaven.

They should enjoy this tactical victory while they can. They were aided by a lackadaisical Conservative whipping operation, and abetted by a worryingly large group of chronic malcontents on the Tory backbenches. Labour will have to work harder in the long term to persuade voters that Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander’s new-found Eurosceptic fervour would not evaporate the moment the ministerial Eurostar pulled out of St Pancras international.

Clearly, though, it is the government which faces the more pressing strategic issues.

David Cameron’s political instinct (not necessarily the same as his personal inclination) is to try as far as possible to avoid talking about Europe for fear of the “toxic” effect on the Conservative brand. This is understandable. Cameron and George Osborne cut their political teeth in the Maastricht era and that thoroughly miserable experience can’t have failed to be formative.

(I suspect this also partly explains why Labour’s own coterie of former special advisers had so little hesitation in siding with the Tory rebels. There is something of Pavlov’s dog in the way in which both sides have behaved.)

One of the benefits of coalition from Cameron’s point of view was, as Andrew Lilico has suggested at ConservativeHome, that this evasion could be sustained by a block of Lib Dem votes, acting as a counter-weight to backbench rebellions from the Tory right. Wednesday’s vote has shown that this cannot be relied on.

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Doing your homework in opposition is essential to being a competent government

24/10/2012, 03:58:55 PM

by Jonathan Todd

Whether at Eton or Haverstock a lack of homework catches up with pupils. This homework might involve putting flesh on the bones of One Nation Labour’s audacious land grab for the political space created by the withering of the Tory left. Or it might be more hands on: ensuring the cogs of government turn quickly enough for welfare and education reform to deliver the substance of national competitiveness.

David Cameron has often seemed curiously devoid of purpose as Prime Minister. His conference speech crafted one. His argument is that to compete in a world of rapidly rising powers all Britons who can work should work – hence, the need for welfare reform – and no Britons should have substandard skills – thus, the justification for schools reform.

His economic argument is no longer simply about the immediate need to reduce the deficit but one that binds in his key domestic reforms into a longer-term platform for economic renaissance. It would be short-sighted to deny the coherence of this argument.

But soon what Cameron says will matter less than what he has been able to do.

Will universal credit get Britain working or will it be a complete catastrophe? Will free schools make as big a difference to education standards as Michael Gove thinks they will?

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