The week in politics

Juliette Gerstein looks back at what has been driving the political agenda in the past week.

Political overview

Foreign policy issues have continued to dominate the agenda this week as the EU agreed a new set of sanctions on Russia, and the conflict in Gaza continued, whilst Westminster began to shut down for the summer.

Tax returned to the headlines, after Whitehall sources suggested that, despite the increase in GDP, the tax take was not high enough to see new tax cuts in the Autumn Statement. The Prime Minister indicated that, whilst he broadly supported an increase to the threshold for the top rate of income tax, he could not promise to implement this at the current time. Increases in the tax take from stamp duty and inheritance tax have led to calls for an increase in the thresholds for both taxes. The Shadow Chancellor gave a speech arguing that wages have fallen under this Government more sharply than at any time since 1880, but faced questions about Labour’s plans for a tax on estates to pay for social care, or an increase in national insurance to pay for the NHS. Tim Bale dismissed suggestions from Oliver Letwin that the Tories could introduce a flat tax, saying it was too risky and too unpopular, whilst Chris Mason at the BBC suggested both Labour’s NHS plans and Letwin’s flat tax comments were merely the ‘musings’ of senior politicians, rather than planned policies.

Labour research suggested that improved UKIP polling at the General Election could help Labour, rather than taking seats equally from the two largest parties, whilst a survey showed that almost one third of Tory voters would prefer a coalition with UKIP to one with the Lib Dems if there was another hung Parliament, and that Lib Dem voters favoured a second Tory coalition over one with Labour. A separate ComRes poll put Labour on course to win the election, but emphasised that Miliband is not popular with voters. Damian McBride published further extracts from his book, attacking Ed Miliband’s policies as a ‘steaming pile of fudge’ and suggested that he is an ‘isolated’ and ‘paranoid’ leader. Commentators welcomed the opportunity to provide advice to the Labour Leader, with Janan Ganesh warning Miliband against being seen as a revolutionary with big ideas, suggesting that this was not what voters want as recovery begins to take hold. Hugo Rifkind said that Miliband’s image was not the issue, but that it’s the ideas that voters don’t like. Frank Dobson, having announced his plans to leave Parliament, attacked Miliband’s inner circle, and said that Labour need to ‘boil things down to a few simple, short, sharp concepts.

David Cameron announced further restrictions on migrants receiving benefits in the UK, including access to child benefit halved from six to three months unless there is a realistic prospect of employment. However, Labour claimed that they had been calling for tighter controls for eighteen months and accused the Government of failing to take a firm stance, whilst Nigel Farage accused the PM of trying to play catch up with public opinion, warning that the Government was powerless to stop migration because of European law. Matthew Norman attacked Cameron’s stance as ‘ugly,’ and questioned whether Cameron himself really supported it. The Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham used a speech to argue that voters deserve a real debate on the future of the NHS, and criticised the ‘pace’ and ‘scale’ of privatisation, but John McTernan said that Labour is fighting the wrong battle on the NHS. The Prime Minister welcomed a major project which will map the genetic codes of cancer sufferers and people with rare diseases. The project intends to make chemotherapy redundant by exploring targeted and personalised treatments. Cameron claimed the announcement would see the UK ‘lead the world in genetic research’.

The Week in Politics

Juliette Gerstein looks back at the week, and considers today’s election results.

The week’s political news was dominated by forecasts about Thursday’s local and European elections, and the media is now concentrating on the latest results. You can find our analysis on the results here. Local results are being released throughout the day, but European results will not be published until Sunday evening. UKIP have done well so far, on course to win over 100 seats with the mainstream parties likely to be disappointed with the results. However, the results in London were different with UKIP looking likely to have got just 10% of the vote share in the capital. Nonetheless, the party has done well in both Labour and Tory strongholds in the rest of the country, and some commentators are describing this as a ‘shockwave’. However, Anthony Well says that the results are maybe not as good as UKIP expected, with fewer councillors than they may have hoped.

Graham Stringer has spoken out about Labour’s campaign, arguing that it had been ‘unforgivably unprofessional’ in the run up to the election. Douglas Alexander, who is leading Labour’s election campaign, has defended the campaign saying that he did not feel that it had been ‘lacklustre’. He also added that he felt the rise of UKIP favoured Labour in marginal seats. Meanwhile, the Times reported that a senior Labour figure has said that Miliband ‘looks weird, sounds weird, is weird’, as the Labour leader continues to fight image problems, and Labour List, Atul Hatwal says that the problem is not UKIP support, but a Labour collapse. George Eaton argues that Miliband has set out clear policies, but now needs to fix his brand.

The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, has dismissed suggestions from the right of the Party that the Tories should form a pact with UKIP, arguing instead that the question for the next election would be which party could best address the issues that UKIP raised. However, commentators note that the results risk threatening the recent calm in Tory Party divisions. The Lib Dem Leader, Nick Clegg, has said that he won’t step down, saying that the results were always going to be tough, and that there is general dissatisfaction with mainstream politics. The focus will quickly shift to next year’s General Election, and Phillip Collins has warned not to read too much into today’s results. Robin Lustig agrees that UKIP will not win any seats next year.

Elsewhere, minutes from the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee meeting in May suggest that they are considering an earlier than expected rise of interest rates as a result of continued positive economic figures and the surge in house prices. Lloyds announced a restriction in mortgage lending rules so that mortgages of over £500,000 can only be four times the borrower’s income, whilst Shelter warned that around 500,000 Britons face eviction, and 215,000 face repossession. The Home Secretary, Theresa May, gave a speech to the Police Federation’s annual conference that took a tough stance on reforms and finances, including a cut in Government funding; the Daily Mail described her speech as ‘war’ on the Federation. The Federation voted to accept the Government’s reforms. Sir Richard Lambert published further details of his new Banking Standards Review Council, which will seek to drive change in the industry. AstraZeneca’s shareholders have criticised the board for failing to fully examine Pfizer’s takeover bid – Nils Pratley asked what shareholders are really looking for.

The Government published the latest report from the Major Projects Authority, which reveals that the Universal Credit has had to undergo such a major design change, that it is now being judged as an entirely separate project. Some commentators suggested that the Government was trying to bury the news behind the election results. In other news, Boris Johnson argued that a ‘political fix’ will mean expansion at Gatwick airport, The Independent reported that a number of hospitals have had to ask for emergency government loans to pay for equipment and energy bills, and Labour said that any CMA market investigation of the energy industry should also look at the effectiveness of Ofgem.

 

The Week in Politics

Pfizer’s takeover bid for AstraZeneca has dominated media coverage this week as MPs questioned whether it would be in the public’s best interest and if it would harm the UK’s research and development base. There has been scrutiny of politicians’ behaviour towards, and relationships with, Pfizer.  AstraZeneca warned that engagement between Government Ministers and Pfizer could suggest that the Government supported the bid, and it was revealed that the lobbyist leading Pfizer’s campaign is a close friend of David Cameron’s. Business Secretary Vince Cable is considering subjecting the bid to a public interest test, following suggestions that Labour were going to force a vote on the issue next week. But it wasn’t just the left questioning the bid; in the Mail, Ruth Sutherland and Alex Brummer argued that we must protect AstraZeneca.

 

Party political tensions have surfaced this week as an Institute of Government report has suggested that, ahead of the General Election, there is confusion among civil servants regarding what is party policy and what is Coalition policy, as well as reports that policy is being made in secret. Nick Clegg wrote an article for the Guardian specifically rejecting suggested proposals from Chris Grayling regarding the toughening of sentences for knife crime, and Labour released a party political broadcast criticising Nick Clegg for failing to stand up to the Conservatives. The broadcast has been criticised for promoting a ‘class war’, ahead of Labour’s publication today of a poster which will claim that Nick Clegg and David Cameron are ‘two peas in a pod’. Despite this, recent polls have shown that the Conservatives and Labour are polling very closely, with only one point separating them. But there was renewed talk about the Conservatives’ ‘women problem’ following an article from Michael Gove’s wife, Sarah Vine, advising Cameron how to win over female voters. Cathy Newman suggested that, if Cameron was relying his colleagues’ wives, that is perhaps an indication of the depth of the issue.

David Cameron has suggested that he will not resign if Scotland votes for independence, despite suggestions from senior Conservatives that his position would be untenable and he would damage the Conservative party. Ed Miliband has faced his own leadership troubles as Labour candidates in the south have warned that his ‘Cost of Living’ crisis narrative does not necessarily work with southern voters, and suggested that his left wing agenda is losing them votes. Isabel Hardmann sought to drive the Tory campaign on, warning that another Coalition could mean years of inaction, but Rafael Behr cautioned David Cameron against ignoring inequality. In the Times, Phillip Collins argued that, despite the polls, Miliband still doesn’t look like a Prime Minister, and that remains Labour’s problem.

Elsewhere, a number of former Chancellors, as well as the OECD, criticised the Government’s Help to Buy scheme, while it was reported that the Better Care Fund had been abandoned. The latest GDP figures are expected to show a return to 2008 levels, and Visa Europe has said that consumer spending has increased by 3% compared to this time last year. Employment Minister Esther McVey MP announced that jobseekers could be prevented from receiving job seekers allowance if they refuse zero hours contracts, and there have been warnings that 2013’s immigration figures could show that EU immigration into the UK exceeded the total from the rest of the world. James Kirkup asked what this means for ‘Englishness’.

Need to know – the week ahead and the week just gone

The Intelex team look back at highlights from the weekend, and what’s coming up this week:

The interview this weekend: the Lib Dem former Foreign Office Minister, Jeremy Browne MP, gave an interview to The Times  criticising the Lib Dems for occupying a ‘political no man’s land’ and questioned the relevance of this position. He reveals that, ‘Every political party and every politician has to be able to answer the question, ‘If you didn’t exist why would it be necessary to invent you?’ I’m not sure it would be necessary to invent an ill-defined moderating centrist party that believed that its primary purpose was to dilute the policies of other political parties.’ Instead he proposed a ‘bold’ liberalism, which many would be forgiven for confusing with the politics of the Conservative Party, despite Browne’s claims to the contrary in his new book Race Plan. These include a large expansion of the free schools programme, with schools potentially run for profit; the possibility of further contributions, possibly via insurance, to the NHS; and strong support for HS2. Browne’s demotion last October came as somewhat of a surprise. Perhaps these comments reveal why Nick Clegg chose to demote Browne, perhaps they are a result of the demotion. Either way, Browne is likely to remain divisive within the Lib Dems but popular amongst the most right-leaning members.

The polls this weekend:  The Independent’s John Rentoulthis weekend wrote a blog post looking at prospects for the next election, drawing attention to what he has called, Labour’s ‘vanishing lead’. The post looks at attempts to quantify the average movement of opinion polls in the last year or so before British general elections. Rentoul notes that prolific blogger, Leo Barasi, has estimated that the rule for the polls a year before an election is halve the lead of front running party and then move the lead 3½ points in the governing party’s favour. This, he argues, will leave Conservatives will most votes and Labour with most seats. The blog also mentions calculations by Stephen Fisher of Trinity College, Oxford, who argues that on average in the pre-election period since 1950 there has been a swing of 4½ points back to the governing party. This theory would again mean that the Conservatives would remain the largest Party but wouldn’t have enough seats to hold a majority.

The story this weekend: Recently appointed Culture Secretary Sajid Javid MP, for all intents and purposes, has confused everyone. He’s confused the cultural sphere which he is supposed to represent, with  Times columnist Janice Turner tweeting Allastair McGowan’s reported comments at the Olivier awards ‘I haven’t seen any of the four nominated shows – which qualifies me to be the new Culture Minister’, and as Andrew Rawnsley argues for the Guardian, he has confused the political establishment. Rawnsley argues that neither the left nor the right know what to think of Javid, the son of a Pakistani immigrant made good. For the left, he is confusing – why would someone from such a working class background rise to be a prominent Conservative politician, a Thatcherite no less? For Conservatives on the right of their party, he awkwardly flies in the face of their current immigration rhetoric. Equally, his movement from the Treasury appears strange, having run the Asian trading division at Deutsche bank he was suited to the Treasury, and as Rawnsley points out his engagement with the arts has been…limited. But Javid embodies the social mobility agenda that both parties are trying to appear to be on top of; for the left their confusion may stem from fear that the right has just found, and promoted, the ultimate poster boy, while for the right the confusions prompts fears of tokenism – though as Rawnsley points out, it would be ‘grossly unjust’ to think of Javid as a token. In the wake of the Miller debacle where intense clarity of feeling on her transgression(s) led to a unified voice of condemnation, and was ultimately her downfall, perhaps a bit of confusion and wrong footing was overdue.

Tweets this weekend – A record nine MPs completed the London marathon yesterday, among them the Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, who finished last in the roster but tweeted a ‘marathon selfie’ with his Shadow Cabinet colleagues Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham after the race.  Balls, who raised £154,000 for two charities, Stammer Centre, and WhizzKids, attracted crowd support on Twitter, with the Shadow Home Secretary, his wife Yvette Cooper tweeting:’ Yaaay!! He beat the giant strawberry!!’  Several tweeters noted his comment to the New Statesman in January – ‘I’m the slowest MP by far, but I’ve been the best fundraiser’ – while Khan tweeted that the nine MPs were ‘led spiritually if not physically’ by Balls, but that former MP and commentator Matthew Parris’s marathon record remains unbeaten.  Support also came from Larry the Cat, who tweeted: ‘I spent the day supporting all of the London Marathon runners going past Downing Street. Even Ed Balls.’.

Need to know – the week ahead and the week just gone

The Intelex team look back at highlights from the weekend, and what’s coming up this week:

The story this weekend: Solving a problem like Maria Miller and her expenses continued to dominate the political debate over the weekend.  There was a steady flow of criticism directed at the Culture Secretary over her very brief apology for her miscalculated expenses, which has been widely deemed unsatisfactory, as well as reports that she attempted to limit the investigations of Kathryn Hudson, Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. The calls for her to resign or for the Prime Minister to sack her have not died down, and are unlikely to be eased by suggestions in today’s Telegraph that Miller ‘flipped’ her Wimbledon home, the property on which the scandal already hinges, because she knew she would face capital gains tax on it when she sold it if it was her second home. The report states that the home was sold in February for a profit of more than £1m.  Senior Tories including Grant Shapps and Iain Duncan Smith have rallied round Miller, with the latter telling the Andrew Marr show it was becoming a ‘witch hunt’ and suggesting some of the hostility to Miller came from her support for gay marriage and press regulation. Backbench Tory MPs and former Ministers have shown less loyalty, with Lord Tebbit blogging for the Telegraph that ‘the best way out of this is for Mrs Miller to resign’, the former Minister David Mellor suggesting Miller wouldn’t be missed if she was sacked, and the former Trade Minister Lord Digby Jones pointing out that her actions would have been a sackable offence in a business role.  The public is firmly in favour of her being sacked, with a Mail on Sunday poll showing 78% think she should be removed, while the Head of IPSA Sir Ian Kennedy told the Sunday Times that responsibility for MPs conduct to be taken out of their hands, because there should not be a situation whereby MPs are ‘marking their own homework’.  Adding to Cameron’s worries will be the fact that many are arguing that UKIP stand to gain from the scandal, with the Telegraph commenting in a Leader that Nigel Farage ‘must be praying that Mrs Miller remains in her present job for as long as is humanly possible’.

This week: Aside from the fortunes of the embattled Culture Secretary, the impact the coalition’s welfare reforms are likely to be a big story this week. The Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, will be speaking to the Business for Britain campaign group later today, following an interview on Marr yesterday. Matt Ridley has an interesting perspective in today’s Times, with an account of the impact the nudge-esque “claimant commitments” are having in encouraging claimants to seek work. Ridley also points out that the UK’s employment rate is highly encouraging and concludes, ‘There does seem to be something peculiarly job-ful about our current recovery and maybe it does reflect the welfare reforms.’

The interview: Caroline Flint MP appeared on the Sunday Politics Show,  and argued that Labour would not pursue a 35% strategy for the 2015 General Election, stating that Labour were ‘in it to win it’ and would not limit themselves to 35% of the vote. She said they wanted a comprehensive majority to win in order to govern the country under a Labour government, and also dismissed concerns that there were internal divisions over Labour’s manifesto strategy. However, in the event that Labour does not win an outright majority, Political Betting has suggested that the Conservatives could come out with the most votes in 2015, but Labour could have the most seats. This would leave the Liberal Democrats in an interesting position regarding who to support in a coalition. A coalition with the Conservative party looks in some ways more appealing, the Liberal Democrats have already gained compromises and concession from them, and ideologically the Conservatives would be in a stronger position with more votes and more public support. But with the Liberal Democrats notoriously able to overthrow ideals, perhaps they would plump for the easier option and just take the party with the most seats. Either way it’s a situation that would leave them with a more interesting decision than in 2010, and arguably leaves them more power, as while in 2010 the Conservatives had more votes and more seats so were the obvious coalition choice, this scenario would potentially leave both Labour and the Conservatives arguing that they’re the bigger party and fighting for Lib Dem support.

 

The Political Week

Juliette Gerstein looks back at the week in politics and the media.

Last week’s Budget has continued to attract media attention. Polls over the weekend put Labour just one point ahead of the Tories, although they appeared to regain some of their lead later in the week. Nonetheless, even a one point Labour lead still gives a small Labour majority. Support for Osborne also increased, whereas Miliband’s poor response continued to draw criticism, and a series of left-wing and Party figures spoke out to criticise his leadership and call for a change of direction. Jenni Russell in The Times (£) described a “disastrous absence of enthusiasm” for the Party’s policy making process, whilst Dan Hodges said that Miliband has no chance of winning, and should tack hard to the left to ‘lose big’ not small. The changes to pensions dominated coverage, but the welfare cap was also voted through Parliament after Labour decided to support the measure.

Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage held a live debate on the EU, which provided broadly good coverage for both Party leaders but polls suggested Farage won. Owen Jones argued this proves that UKIP continues to define the debate in the ‘Ukip-isation’ of politics. Richard Morris said that this demonstrates the importance of focusing on hearts, not minds. The Chancellor and the German Finance Minister wrote an article for the Financial Times emphasising that any reform to the EU must ensure fairness for those countries ‘inside the single market but outside the single currency’, and advocating a move towards a more ‘flexible and outward looking’ EU. Isabel Hardmann asked if this would be enough to convince Tory backbenchers. A poll for the Sun showed that Labour’s lead over UKIP for the EU elections has dropped to two points.