Sky News reports: "Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has been to Downing Street for the unveiling of her portrait. Baroness Thatcher was invited to a private reception hosted by Gordon Brown, attended by Conservative leader David Cameron."
Tim Montgomerie
> The last time Mrs T was in Downing Street was during Brown's honeymoon and it caused a little more controversy.
It's amazing how much airtime and how many column inches one single opinion poll can generate - and I think the Ipsos-Mori poll published in yesterday's Observer certainly got more than its fair share.
That said, if the poll - which was the first in a long time to suggested that a hung Parliament is one the cards - had the effect of reminding Conservatives of the need not to be complacent, then that is all to the good: as I have argued before, any talk of a Tory landslide is not only premature but potentially counterproductive.
Nonetheless, the talk of a hung Parliament set the hare running again on what the Liberal Democrats would do in the event of them holding the balance of power. And here's what their party leader, Nick Clegg, told Andrew Marr yesterday:
"I start from a very simple first principle. It is not Gordon Brown or David Cameron or Nick Clegg who are kingmakers in British politics, it's the British people. The votes of the British people are what should determine what happens. Whichever party has the strongest mandate from the British people, it seems to me obvious in a democracy they have the first right to seek to try and govern, either on their own or with others."
The press are today divided as to exactly what this means. The Independent's political correspondent, Michael Savage, concludes:
"The Liberal Democrats would support whichever party wins the most seats if both the Tories and Labour fail to secure an overall majority after the next election."
But the Guardian's Allegra Stratton disagrees:
"Clegg's comments show he regards the number of votes won rather than the number of seats to be paramount."
There's clearly a moot point there, but leave that aside and let us suppose the Conservatives had more votes and more seats than Labour in a hung Parliament scenario (I add, of course, that I want to see a Conservative majority, but I am not being complacent, Tom Harris).
From what Clegg said yesterday, he is accepting that he would not be in a position to prop up a Labour administration that has just been given the boot. That said, I simply cannot see him being able - even if he wanted - to actively support a minority Conservative Government.
Some of the younger generation of LIb Dem MPs have genuine aspirations to get hold of red boxes - and some of those would not find themselves uncomfortable in a Cameron administration. However, in my experience, the bulk of the Lib Dem grassroots still hold the Conservatives in contempt and would not tolerate their party supporting a minority Tory administration (and I don't believe for a moment that Cameron would give them their demand of PR for Westminster elections in any case).
As such, I would challenge the received wisdom that a hung Parliament would be the making of the Lib Dems. Having failed to support a minority government, a new general election would surely be called sooner rather than later and the electorate would then have a starker choice than ever of whether they wanted the Conservatives or Labour to run the country. This would most likely see the Lib Dems' tally of seats reduced back to pre-1997 levels and their chance of breaking the mould smashed again.
Jonathan Isaby
It was released within minutes of Jedward being voted off X-factor.
The following London poster sites have been chosen:
I hope this isn't a sign of the campaign to come.
Tim Montgomerie
10.15pm: Cranmer's verdict: "Cranmer cannot recall the last time the Conservative Party had its act together so swiftly, with such deftness, panache, creativity, flair and intuition for the trivial obsessions and the shallow mood of the nation..."
Accusing Labour of failing to fix the roof while the sun was shining doesn't begin to get to the scale of what Brown has done to Britain. On CentreRight on Friday, Neil O'Brien of Policy Exchange reminded us of the scale of Britain's fiscal challenge. Here are just four of the chilling facts he presented:
It really is crazily irresponsible in this environment for politicians like Ed Balls to be campaigning for even more spending. The man really is unfit for office.
As I've noted elsewhere, I've been in the USA for a gathering of centre right politicians and think tanks. They were absolutely united in their belief that they were glad they didn't have Britain's fiscal problems. One member of Stephen Harper's government said that he wasn't sure that Britain could survive as a major power without a dramatic change of course. He also warned against one view within Team Cameron that Canada's approach to deficit reduction was a model; 'You do know a lot of our deficit was cured by transferring spending from Ottawa to the provinces, don't you?' I didn't.
Michael Portillo used an interview this weekend to say that spending cuts were too tricky. He clearly doesn't get the gravity of Britain's situation. On Thursday Benedict Brogan did get the measure of things:
"It is becoming increasingly apparent that nothing short of a national restoration project is needed, one that would rethink all our assumptions about how Britain works and our place in the world. The questions multiply by the day: If the City is no longer to be the engine of our growth, what replaces it? If the rise of new economic powers mean our capacity as a major player in defence and diplomacy is diminished, where do we stand? In a globalised world, why should we stay in the European Union? If individuals are empowered by the internet and the availability of information, how far back can the boundaries of the state be pushed? Can a broken Parliament be repaired in a 19th-century palace?"
On Marr this morning David Cameron indicated that an emergency budget would be held within fifty days of the Conservative Party being elected (should, I feel it necessary to add for Tom Harris MP's benefit, we get elected). It will be growth-orientated, Cameron said. It needs to be. Simply dividing up the existing cake won't solve things*.
Britain is already over-taxed and large tax rises will make our economy uncompetitive. Radical simplification of corporation tax is likely to feature in George Osborne's first budget but what other measures do we need? Answering that question must be the focus of the last few months we have before polling day.
Tim Montgomerie
* The Archbishop of Canterbury's intervention this week in arguing against economic growth really did make me temporarily embarrassed to be an Anglican. Let me quote Edward Heath (not something I often do) to Dr Williams: "The alternative to expansion is not, as some occasionally seem to suppose, an England of quiet market towns linked only by steam trains puffing slowly and peacefully through green meadows. The alternative is slums, dangerous roads, old factories, cramped schools, stunted lives.”
Last month's Ipsos-Mori poll saw a 7% jump in the Conservative rating and a 6% drop for the Lib Dems after their September poll showed a 13% Tory lead over the Lib Dems.
And this month's poll - to be published in tomorrow's Observer - sees more dramatic changes. The numbers are:
UK Polling Report's Swing Calculator computes these figures into a Hung Parliament where the Conservatives would be 38 seats short of an overall majority.
Jonathan Isaby
That is the headline story from a wide-ranging interview with the Shadow Defence Secretary in today's Daily Telegraph:
British forces will pull out of Germany for good, nearly 70 years after the Allied victory in World War Two, as part of a Tory defence "revolution" being drawn up by Dr Liam Fox. The Shadow Defence Secretary told The Daily Telegraph that ending Britain’s 25,000 strong military presence on the Rhine would be part of a fundamental reorganisation of Nato forces designed to free troops for military operations outside Europe.
The decision would close one of the unfinished chapters of the last war that saw the British military go from occupying force in the ruins of Nazi Germany in 1945 to guarantor of German security against the threat of Soviet invasion during the Cold War... Dr Fox’s decision to call time on Britain’s military links with Germany is a signal of his determination to force through a “wholesale recasting of our foreign and defence policy”.
Dr Fox also uses the interview to:
Read it all here.
Jonathan Isaby
In my post yesterday morning on the Right's reaction to the appointment of Herman Van Rompuy and Baroness Ashton to their new European Union jobs, I alluded to concerns among Tories in Brussels about the fact that it was likely that a Commissioner from France or Germany would be responsible for the internal market and financial services.
The French newspaper, Le Monde, has suggested that the appointment of Baroness Ashton was indeed only agreed by the French on condition that a French MEP, Michel Barnier, be appointed the Commissioner (and indeed a Vice President of the Commission) responsible for... the internal market and financial services.
As today's Independent reports, William Hague is demanding the Government explain what has been agreed behind closed doors:
"If Gordon Brown has done a deal that would mean a French commissioner being in charge of the economic issues that affect Britain the most then that could be a serious concern. Our French partners have a different view on market issues that touch on Britain's vital economic interests. I look forward to the Government taking this opportunity to be completely open about what has been agreed."
In a letter to the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, Mr Hague adds:
"The financial services sector is an area of extreme sensitivity for the British national interest. It is of crucial importance to the future of a pro-growth EU that there is no retreat from the principle of a free market within the EU."
Michael Fallon, the senior Conservative MP on the Treasury Select Commitee, echoed these concerns on Radio 4's The World Tonight yesterday evening (24 mins 30 second in, but only available on the BBC iPlayer for one week).
He said that the City would be "extremely alarmed" at the prospect of a "protectionist, anti-London and anti-market" Commissioner taking such a crucial portfolio and suggested that surrendering one of the big economic portfolios at the Commission (ie trade) for the position of High Representative on Foreign Affairs was detrimental to the UK's interests. He said that it was a case of "game, set and match to the French" in their desire to add to the regulatory burden on the City of London.
> Today's Times has a good account of the wheeling and dealing that went on over the allocation of jobs and suggests that a number of other British names were considered for the High Representative before Baroness Ashton, making here the fourth choice for the post.
Jonathan Isaby
Michael Portillo is usually to be found sitting alongside Andrew Neil on the This Week sofa, but this weekend the former Cabinet Minister-turned-broadcaster is interviewed by him for the BBC's HardStraight Talk programme.
He expresses surprise - "I'm absolutely astonished" - at how much policy detail has already been announced, by George Osborne in his conference speech, for example.
But drawing on his own experience, he goes on to say that he believes the reason why the party has not yet explained what cuts it would make is because there won't be any - and that instead taxes will have to be raised:
"I was with Margaret Thatcher when she came into Government in 1979, we faced a big public spending problem. It was terrible. It was a hard slog but she didn’t cut public spending. I was Chief Secretary between ’92 and ’94 – big public spending problem – I was trying to cut public spending; I did not succeed in cutting public spending. I don’t think the Tories will succeed in cutting public spending. Now this is what they won’t want to tell you. The reason they’re not telling you the cuts is that I think the cuts are almost impossible to make and what will happen, whoever wins the next election, is not so much that there’ll be public spending cuts, there will be restraint, but that there will be tax rises."
Now I'm no economist, but based on everything I've read and heard, the idea of trying to balance the books without finding the room for spending cuts seems utterly fanciful.
Jonathan Isaby
In what is a most rare occurrence, the Daily Mail and the Guardian agree on a headline to cover the story of the appointment of the EU's new President and High Representative - "The Great EU Stitch-Up".
So how have the appointments of Herman Van Rompuy and Baroness Ashton been received by the Right and the wider Eurosceptic Movement?
Last night I noted the reaction of Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague:
"We congratulate Herman van Rompuy and Cathy Ashton on their appointments. We wish them well. We will work with them in the British national interest. We did not agree with the Lisbon Treaty’s establishment of these posts but they are now a fact. We look to the President of the Council and the High Representative to ensure that the EU’s business as an association of nation states is conducted efficiently.
“So I am very pleased that those of us across Europe who said that the President should be a chairman, not a chief, have won the argument. Gordon Brown spent a great deal of energy and political capital trying to secure the presidency for Tony Blair. The summit’s result is a defeat for him. Now that Britain will no longer have an EU Commissioner with a major economic brief it will be vital that the British Government, whichever party is in power, engages closely with the EU Commission to ensure that it keeps to a pro-growth agenda.”
Timothy Kirkhope, Leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament, questioned Baroness Ashton's legitmacy, according to the BBC:
"We now have someone who has never faced the British electorate in a post created by a treaty that also never faced the British electorate."
And speaking to the Daily Express, he says:
“Most Belgian politicians seem to love high taxes even more than chocolate, beer and frites so it is no surprise Mr Van Rompuy wants new EU-wide taxes set by Brussels. If the EU were allowed to raise its own taxes it would be the master of the national governments, rather than servant. I want the EU to go cap in hand to national governments every few years for its money so individual member states can better control the process of funding.”
Conservative MP and Better Off Out supporter, Philip Davies, was singularly unimpressed at the appointment of Mr Van Rompuy:
The first principal Conservative line of attack on yesterday's Queen's Speech was about what was not in it rather than what was - in reference to the omission of the legislation as recommended by Sir Chistopher Kelly in his recent report on MPs' pay, allowances and expenses.
Today, the party is turning its attention to the Care Bill, which has been savaged by senior Labour peers in the Times splash this morning.
Lord Lipsey, a former member of the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care, gives this verdict:
“I’m not looking forward to the night of the next general election but, if the result goes as I expect, one of the consolations will be that one of the most irresponsible acts to be put forward by a prime minister in the recent history of this country will be swept away with his government."
Meanwhile, former health minister Lord Warner opines that “there has been no proper impact assessment, and no data to show how this would work”.
This morning, Andrew Lansley and Theresa May, shadow the Health and Work and Pensions briefs respectively, are to launch a campaign highlighting the threat to benefits for some of the most vulnerable in society posed by Labours plans, as the Daily Mail explains:
"The Conservatives will today pledge to maintain attendance allowance and disability living allowance for the over-65s - two payments said to be earmarked for the chop by Labour. The benefits, which are not means tested, are claimed by almost 2.5million people to help them lead independent lives.
"Labour says it needs to consider absorbing the payments into general social care funding schemes under its new so-called National Care Service. This will include an insurance scheme designed to prevent elderly people from having to sell their homes to pay for residential care. They say the axed benefits will be replaced by 'equivalent' benefits, but ministers have given no details or any guarantee the replacements will not be means tested.
"Some 1.6 million people claim attendance allowance, a weekly payment of £47.10 or £70.35 given to pensioners with disabilities to spend on whatever personal care they need. Another 800,000 over-65s are on disability living allowance. The average income of a pensioner is around £250 a week - meaning some may lose around a quarter of their income if the benefits are scrapped, according to the Tories. On average, they would lose £3,400 a year."
On this issue, David Cameron told Labour MPs in the the Commons yesterday that "if they thought that the abolition of the 10p tax was bad, they just need to wait for the small print of the Government’s new care service" and pledged to fight the scrapping of the benefits as outlined above "every step of the way".
Jonathan Isaby
Scroll down for later updates.
In his response to the Queen's Speech, David Cameron pointed out in the Commons that no measures recommended in the Kelly Report were mentioned in the Government's legislative programme. Here's what he said precisely:
"Then there is the biggest omission of all, and frankly it will infuriate the British people whom we are here to represent. The Prime Minister said—hon. Members will remember this—that the whole reason for delaying the election, the whole reason he could not go to the country in the summer, was that he wanted to clean up the mess of MPs’ expenses. Yet there is no mention of expenses or the Kelly report in the Queen’s Speech. To implement Kelly—to clean up expenses—11 separate measures still need to be passed into law. So where is the legislation? Where are the laws that we were promised? Why are they not in the Queen’s Speech?
"Let me make this offer to the Prime Minister: if he brings forward legislation to implement the rest of Kelly we will support it and help him to pass it through this House and the House of Lords. I will give way to the Prime Minister so that he can stand up and say that he will bring forward this legislation and together we can take it through Parliament. Will he do it? No. No one watching will understand why this vital work is not being done in this Parliament. Why do we not show them that we meant what we said? Instead of the measures in the Queen’s Speech—most of which will not become law by the next election—the expenses changes, the Kelly changes, could become law by the next election.
"Let me give the Prime Minister another chance, now that he has finished consulting the Leader of the House. Let him stand up now and tell us that together we can pass the laws to implement Kelly in full. He tells us that he is serious about cleaning up politics, but when it comes to the crunch—absolutely nothing."
The Conservatives have tonight issued a list of the 11 separate measures (see below) to which David Cameron referred. They include entrenching the independent determination of MPs' pay and pensions with the new regulatory and ending the right of MPs to also be a member of a devolved legislature. The Tories have also re-iterated their offer to support such legislation if the Government brings it forward after all.
Meanwhile, Sir Christopher Kelly himself has expressed disappointment at the Government's failure to act oin his recommendations - as they had promised they would - and issued the following statement:
"It is disappointing that today's Queens's Speech did not contain measures to address the changes we believe to be necessary affecting the remit, powers and independence of the new body being established to regulate expenses. There is no reason why the relatively straightforward legislation needed in this area should prevent the new regulatory body from getting other important changes underway."
9.30pm update:
Hee is the full list of required legislative measures identified by the Committee on Standards in Public, as published by the Conservatives this evening:
> 10.30pm update: ToryRadio has the full audio of the speech
NB: My brief summary of the Bills announced this morning is here and I have already noted here how empty the Labour benches are this afternoon.
Highlights, not verbatim:
David Cameron begins by paying tribute to the two Labour MPs who moved and seconded the loyal address, Frank Dobson and Emily Thornberry.
He also congratulates the new Labour MP for Glasgow North East, Willie Bain - who took his seat this afternoon - and reflects on the sacrifices made by the latest soldiers to be killed in Afghanistan. he says that immediate withdrawal from there would not be in our interests but says that we cannot go on as we are, taking ground, then relinquishing it to the Taleban. More of the same is just not tenable, he says. He wants to increase the rate at which we are training the Afghans and that a strong international figure is required to drive forward political progress.
He wants the Copenhagen summit to succeed.
He welcomes some of the sections of the Queen's Speech absed on Tory proposals. But where are the proposals on immigration? Where are the elected police chiefs? Why no mention of the NHS? It's clearly not Labour's priority.
Brown is proposing that virtue is good and then daring the Tories to vote against them.
Can we not just get on with the election?
Why no mention of the Kelly Report and MPs' expenses? Eleven measures need to be passed into law. Cameron promises support if Brown puts forward those laws - Brown refuses an opportunity to intervene to explain why they are not coming forward.
It's the shortest Queen's Speech since 1997 - they've run out time, ideas and courage.
We need political leadership on the economy - it's a "meaningless target" to legislate for cutting the deficit.
The Government is behaving like an irresponsible opposition - they have even boasted themselves it's all about embarrassing the Conservatives. It's time to judge the Government both on 12 years in power and Brown's two and a half years in power. So much of what he promised has failed to materialise.
He cites Lord (Digby) Jones the former minister recently attacking the Government when he said that the problem with socialism is that you run out spending other people's money sooner or later.
Cameron reminds us that Brown has delivered the longest boom and bust in history, having promised he would abolish it and that we are still in a recession when the rest of Europe in coming out of it. What was t tbe the PM's greatest strength has become his greatest weakness.
The FSA Bill is not good enough as it doesn't abolish tripartite regulation.
He claims the Government's care bill will end up abolishing certain allowances for the needy and that the Tories will oppose those changes.
Violent crime is up, truancy is up... Brown is frantically pulling levers and pushing buttons in an attempt to get one over on his opponents.
We need an immediate election and a real Queen's Speech. This was a Labour press release on Palace parchment... Stop wasting the country's time and just get on with calling the election.
Jonathan Isaby
That's according to tomorrow's interpretation in The Guardian of what the Tory leader in the Upper House, Lord Strathclyde, has told the paper.
Emphasising the House of Lords' key role in scrutininsing legislation, the Conservative peer is indicating that there is so little time left to give the line-by-line scrutiny which legislation requires that very few of the bills bering announced tomorrow will ever reach the statute book:
"We all know that this Queen's speech is all about better electioneering and politics rather than the better governance of the country... If these measures were so important they would have been in the legislative programme last year rather than being left to the last moment of the fifth term [I think he meant session - Ed]. That does not suggest they have the greatest priority or urgency."
"There are now only 33 legislative days left in the Lords between January and Easter. That does not give much time at all to carry out the Lords' proper duty to scrutinise legislation. Historically the Lords has taken its job of scrutinising legislation very seriously. We should not throw away that reputation or duty at the last moment."
Jonathan Isaby
Lady Thatcher does not write very often but she has written for The Sun this morning, marking the newspaper's 40th birthday:
"For forty years The Sun has informed and entertained the nation. Through your pages we have followed the history of our times - and on occasion watched you making that history...
Throughout those four decades of change there is one cause to which The Sun has remained steadfast: your unstinting support for the men and women who serve this country in our Armed Forces and for their families. From Northern Ireland to Iraq, from the Falklands to Afghanistan, The Sun has supported 'Our Boys' through thick and thin...
For our servicemen and women - far from home, in every dark and dangerous corner of the world - The Sun is a reminder that they are not alone. That the people of Britain are with them. And in every military base, from Basra to Helmand, The Sun brings a bit of home to our troops."
The Sun is not a perfect newspaper (as we saw again last week) but it and Murdoch have been good for British democracy overall. The Murdoch newspapers, notably The Sun, have challenged the dominance of the BBC. As well as supporting our armed forces the newspaper has championed Euroscepticism, freedom from trade union barons and has been a friend to Israel in a newspaper industry notable for its hostility to that embattled nation.
Happy 40th birthday to The Sun!
Tim Montgomerie
There are three essential routes out of poverty: a strong family, a good school and rewarding work.
Labour have undermined the incentive to achieve all three of them:
The Mayor of London is at his best in The Telegraph this morning, pouring scorn on Gordon Brown's "utterly tragic" 50p tax hike:
It's all political, the Mayor of London concludes, and amounts to a desperate attempt to prop up Labour's bloated state:
"This Government has spectacularly mismanaged the public finances. It has overseen an explosion in the wage bill of the state, to the point where the average public-sector worker now earns £74 more per week than a private-sector employee, as well as having much better pension and other entitlements."
The whole article is worth reading.
George Osborne and David Cameron are not prepared to make these arguments although I suspect they don't fundamentally dissent. This side of the election they are not going to let Labour paint them as the friends of the very rich and - on a related front - bankers. Those of us who believe in simpler, lower taxes will have to be patient. Lower and simpler corporate taxation is likely to be a major feature of George Osborne's first few budgets. Central to his vision of a hi-growth Britain is the creation of an environment that will make the UK an attractive headquarters for international business (see James Forsyth and Irwin Stelzer).
Boris meanwhile will continue to set his own political course. He'll fight the 50p tax band, for example, and he'll support a living wage for Londoners, an earned amnesty for migrants and whatever else he thinks is in the interest of the city he leads. He is fully aware that he comes up for election in the middle of what is likely to be the mid-term of a Tory government that will be taking very difficult decisions on public spending. I and CCHQ fully expect him to oppose some of those cuts. He'll campaign for London to get a fairer share of public spending - pointing out the huge subsidy to Scotland while some of the UK's very poorest communities are in London. Boris is a Tory through-and-through but expect him to style himself as even more of an independent once the General Election is over.
Tim Montgomerie
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