Kiran Stacey Will the Lib Dems back an EU referendum?

January 24, 2013 11:46 am by Kiran Stacey

Nick Clegg. Getty Images

The Tories are having great fun mocking Nick Clegg’s opposition to an EU referendum, pointing out that the Lib Dems went into the last election promising a referendum of their own. The Lib Dems in turn, point out that the wording of their manifesto actually mirrors what the coalition has put into law, namely that there should be:

an in/out referendum the next time a British government signs up for fundamental change in the relationship between the UK and the EU

But the Lib Dems made a huge issue of it, even walking out of the Commons in 2008 when speaker Michael Martin refused to let the party bring an amendment calling for a referendum. As the guardian’s Nick Watt points out, Nick Clegg said at the time: Read more

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Posted in Europe, Lib Dems, Nick Clegg |

Jim Pickard Vince Cable resists public inquiry into the blacklisting scandal

January 23, 2013 6:50 pm by Jim Pickard

The blacklisting story, which emerged into the public eye in a slow trickle, is starting to turn into a torrent, with coverage in the last 24 hours on the Today programme, Channel 4 and The Times.

And this afternoon there was a decent turnout in the Commons as MPs debated the issue – and whether there is cause for a public investigation.

We wrote back in October that the UK building industry could face compensation claims running to hundreds of millions after a legal battle was launched by workers who say they were in effect barred from construction sites by a blacklist. Read more

Posted in UK politics |

Kiran Stacey Cameron unites his party on Europe

January 23, 2013 12:48 pm by Kiran Stacey

Two big questions remained after David Cameron’s landmark speech on Britain’s role in Europe this morning: would it do enough to please his eurosceptic backbenchers, and how would Ed Miliband respond?

We got the answer to both at PMQs. We know now that for the moment, Cameron has got his party off his back, and that Labour are not about to promise a referendum of their own.

The atmosphere in the Commons was electric as the leaders took their places. The Tory benches were packed with grinning faces – this looked like being a good day for Cameron, and so it proved. He even got a cheer for starting his first answer by saying: Read more

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Posted in Coalition, Conservatives, David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Europe, Foreign policy, UK politics |

Jim Pickard Revealed: the Whitehall battle over office-to-flats conversions

January 23, 2013 11:41 am by Jim Pickard

New freedoms for developers to turn office blocks into flats will expire in two years under a compromise after a long-running battle by Vince Cable against the proposals.

I revealed yesterday that the government was set to make it easier for companies to convert offices into residential without seeking planning permission.

But it turns out that the business secretary has also carved out other exemptions to the rules – which are likely to be announced later this week- so that they will not apply to shops, hotels or industrial parks.

Meanwhile any council will be free to appeal against conversions where they are able to make an “exceptional case” that the change would be bad for employment in their area.

Mr Cable had fought the proposals on the basis that they could damage employment while Read more

Posted in UK politics |

Jim Pickard Ed Miliband defends his ‘no welfare cuts’ position

January 17, 2013 1:05 pm by Jim Pickard

One big question which hangs like a fog around Labour is what the party would do with the benefits bill if it was in power.

Ed Miliband’s argument is that if he was prime minister, the social security tab would not have risen so sharply in the past few years because there would be less unemployment. Clearly that is not a hypothesis that can be tested. Read more

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Posted in Labour, UK politics |

Kiran Stacey Dutch MPs distance themselves from Cameron

January 17, 2013 12:30 pm by Kiran Stacey

 

Frans Timmermans, Dutch foreign minister

Frans Timmermans, Dutch foreign minister

I’m not sure if anyone in Downing Street is fluent in Dutch, but if they are, they may want to watch the edition of Nieuwsuur (their equivalent of Newsnight) broadcast earlier this week.

Cameron is off to the Netherlands tomorrow to make his great make-or-break speech on Europe, where he’s expected to announce a renegotiation of powers followed by a referendum in the next parliament. He has chosen to do it there because he regards prime minister Mark Rutte as one of his great allies in the cause of reforming Brussels. Read more

Posted in Conservatives, David Cameron, Europe, UK politics |
From FT.com January 16, 2013

For Tony Blair, they were the “forces of conservatism”. For Margaret Thatcher they were an inefficient bureaucracy that needed to be scaled back. British civil servants have been described as the envy of the world but to many ministers they are little more than a block on their most coveted policy ambitions.

Yes, Prime Minister, the sitcom that personified the devious and obstructive mandarin in the character of Sir Humphrey Appleby, returned to British television this week after a 15-year gap. And, for many ministers, the world it depicts, in which officials prevent them from carrying out manifesto promises and protect the status quo at all costs, is as true today as it was in the sitcom’s 1980s heyday.

 Read more

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Posted in UK politics |

Kiran Stacey Paul Burstow in charge of approving his own bill

January 16, 2013 2:13 pm by Kiran Stacey

Is this a first? An email has just popped into a colleague’s inbox stating:

The Joint Committee on the draft Care and Support Bill, chaired by Paul Burstow MP, is conducting pre-legislative scrutiny into the draft Bill and the policies it seeks to implement. Read more

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Posted in Coalition, Lib Dems, UK politics |

Kiran Stacey PMQs: Cameron loses first battle in war over Europe

January 16, 2013 1:21 pm by Kiran Stacey

Douglas Alexander was touring television studios this morning explaining why he thought holding a referendum on Britain’s EU membership was a bad idea. After months of toying with the idea of copying the Tories in promising an in/out referendum in the next parliament, Labour seems to have finally decided that would be a bad idea.

This uncharacteristic decisiveness gave Ed Miliband a platform from which to attack David Cameron in today’s PMQs, and the Labour leader made the most of it. His first question was meant to embarrass the PM and amuse his own party, and it worked: Read more

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Posted in Conservatives, David Cameron, Ed Miliband, UK politics |

Kiran Stacey Voters normally say yes to Europe

January 15, 2013 1:19 pm by Kiran Stacey
David Cameron with Herman van Rompuy

David Cameron with Herman van Rompuy

As Britain trundles towards a possible referendum on EU membership, people are beginning to ask what kind of result it might throw up.

David Cameron is gambling that if he manages to renegotiate some powers away from Brussels, voters will prefer this new settlement to not being in the union at all. And if past experience is to be believed, he has reason to be optimistic: when asked to assent to a plan from Brussels, voters across Europe tend to answer yes.

The list below of all the European plebiscites that have taken place in the union’s history shows that voters have only said no to the EU nine times out of the 36 referendums that have been held. Read more

Posted in UK politics |

Elizabeth Rigby Tories vent at Cameron over gay marriage

January 11, 2013 4:37 pm by Elizabeth Rigby

Fraser Nelson writes an interesting column in the Telegraph today arguing that David Cameron has returned to Downing Street a changed man in 2013 with a renewed desire to make “Cameronism” mean something. But Nelson also notes that the Tory leader’s big vision all too often gets lost in policy u-turns and conflicting messages.

It is a trait that is increasingly vexing his backbenchers, fed up of defending contradictory messages emanating from the centre with their local associations. This week those rumblings rose to the surface when his parliamentary party used a meeting on the 2015 election strategy to let off steam about his very public backing of gay marriage. Read more

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Posted in Conservatives, David Cameron, UK politics |

Kiran Stacey MPs attack Heywood over plebgate

January 10, 2013 12:54 pm by Kiran Stacey
Sir Jeremy Heywood

Sir Jeremy Heywood

Sir Jeremy Heywood, the government’s chief civil servant, was up in front of MPs on the Public Administration Select Committee this morning, talking about the Andrew Mitchell “plebgate” affair.

Heywood had been asked by the prime minister to look into the email trail behind the accusations that Mitchell had called a police officer a “pleb” – in particular at the testimony from someone purporting to be a member of the public who had witnessed the incident.

When reviewing these emails, Heywood looked at the CCTV footage from nearby cameras. These seemed to suggest Mitchell had not got angry with the officer in question, although was inconclusive whether he said the word “pleb” (he has always maintained he did not). Read more

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Posted in UK politics |
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