By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter Last week I wrote about the sharp end of coalition: the concessions that could be made to the Lib Dems in return for certain Conservative policies. But there’s also the soft end: those areas where the two parties might, and should, happily cooperate with each other in future. And, for […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter I know I'm getting to this a bit late, but was last week's reshuffle a Coalition-friendly reshuffle of the sort I discussed recently? On paper, it doesn’t look like it. The Lib Dems will surely be pleased with some of their appointments: Norman Lamb’s move to Health, the return of David […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter The labour market statistics released today are much like last month’s (which I blogged about, at the time, here and here). There are important concerns — among them, the widening gap between earnings growth and inflation — but the overall story is rather encouraging. The number of people in employment […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter What could be the most significant political story of the day revolves, more or less, around the graph above. It shows our national debt as a share of GDP — and you'll notice how it tails off slightly towards the end of this Parliament. That is to comply with George […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter Oh dear, it’s that word again. The b-word: “bigot”. According to a press release sent out earlier, Nick Clegg was all set to use it during a reception to promote equal marriage, this evening: “The Deputy Prime Minister is expected to say: ‘Continued trouble in the economy gives the bigots […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter Treasury Questions, in the Commons this afternoon, has delivered three articles of news: i) George Osborne announced that the date of the next Autumn Statement will be 5 December, which actually puts it into winter. ii) The Treasury is reorganising its senior management to better reflect the ministry's dual responsibility […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter Yep, the TUC conference is in full effect. Alongside yesterday’s talk of a general strike, we now have the suggestion that pensioners should occupy council buildings in protest at cuts; a “manifesto” for teachers that instructs them to avoid “non-teaching duties” such as supervising children at lunchtime; and — unsurprising, […]
For the Green Party, last week must have felt like all the leaves falling off a tree at once. They don’t usually get much media coverage, those Greens; but here, thanks to the election of their new party leader Natalie Bennett, they faced a relative deluge. Ms Bennett’s own speech to her party conference came complete with television cameras and […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter If there was one line in Boris’s post-Olympics speech that summed up the whole it came after his gag about British athletes, sofas and sex. “I can get away with that,” he said by way of an aside — and that’s precisely the point. He can get away with it, […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter Another year, another TUC conference, another round of dire speculation about a general strike. You see, the unions are going to debate a motion put forward by the Prison Officers’ Association, calling for “co-ordinated action with far-reaching campaigns, including the consideration and practicalities of a general strike”. If it actually […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter The Games may be over, but one of the main political stories that emerged from them keeps on running. This morning, Boris Johnson has twice had to deny that he’s working to undermine David Cameron. Will he sidle into Zac Goldsmith’s seat of Richmond Park & North Kingston and have […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter Our Parliamentarians are back in town — and, boy, don’t we know it. There have been two rather cranky, yet noteworthy, Q&A sessions in the Commons today. The first featured Michael Gove, and can be watched in its entirety here. The Education Secretary repeated the main points from his Today […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter If Enid Blyton were writing the story of British politics this month, it might be called Five Go Hunting For Growth. After all, on 13th September, five plucky, relatively young members of the 2010 intake will be publishing a book stuffed full of prescriptions for our ailing economy and the […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter George Osborne’s appearance on the Andrew Marr show was very much like David Cameron’s article for the Mail on Sunday this morning. Like the Prime Minister, he emphasised many of the “big, radical decisions” that this Government has already taken, from schools reform to deficit reduction. And, also like the […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter What can I say? Perhaps I just see everything in five bullet points. There was my five-point guide to William Hague’s interview with the Evening Standard on Friday, and now there’s this, below, the five quick points that I’ve taken from David Cameron’s article for the Mail on Sunday today. […]