By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter. Chris Huhne will be charged with perverting the course of justice. Every person is innocent until proven guilty but the CPS would not be pursuing this high profile case if there wasn't a high likelihood that Mr Huhne will end up in jail. it's a personal tragedy that flowed […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter. I read columnists like Fraser Nelson and Iain Martin for analysis of what the Conservative Party should be doing. Other columnists are more interesting for accurately describing and interpreting what the Conservative Party is doing. Four columnists provide, in my view, the closest understanding of what's happening inside the […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Thatcher's tax settlement… Margaret Thatcher inherited economic ruin and high taxes, and the two were intimately connected to each other. The top rate of income tax was 83% and the basic rate was 33%. She believed that such rates thwarted enterprise, slowed growth, depressed revenues as avoidance thrived, and […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. Next year will see no return to the romance of the rose garden politics of the Coalition partners' early cohabition. Which is just as well, since the illusion couldn't last. But the two parties won't go their separate ways, either. Nick Clegg would lose out in any early election. […]
By Joseph Willits Follow Joseph on Twitter At PMQs today, David Cameron was asked about the decision by all Liberal Democrat MPs to collectively defy a three-line whip, and abstain from voting on a motion defending Cameron's EU treay veto. Although Cameron didn't elaborate further on the Liberal Democrat position, he did express his gratitude to the […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter. Below is a selection of prominent Lib Dems' reactions to David Cameron's veto at the European summit this week. Sharon Bowles, the Lib Dem MEP who chairs the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, has made several strange remarks yesterday and today. In an interview yesterday, she said she wants […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter. The Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, Andrew Tyrie, appeared on Radio 4 today, discussing the possibility of the Bank of England receiving greater financial decision-making powers. Mr Tyrie advocated making Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England and Chairman of the Monetary Policy Committee, more accountable. Mr Tyrie […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Hat tip to Jessica Asato. 3pm: Mark Ferguson at LabourList agrees. 8.15pm: It seems that the Lib Dems are not the only guilty ones. See images below from Newton Abbot. Although I don't have photographs people have said some Conservatives also put their logo onto wreaths. Perhaps I'm being unnecessarily […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. New Governments often over-react to the errors of the one before. Tony Blair succeeded a faction-plagued Prime Minister who had originally presided over a "Cabinet of chums". Blair responded post-1997 by crafting a Presidential Premiership, giving political appointments such as Jonathan Powell and Alistair Campbell the authority to instruct […]
This is the transcript of questions put by BBC1's Jon Sopel to Chris Huhne on lunchtime's BBC Politics Show. The Climate Change Secretary admits secret briefing against the Home Secretary Theresa May. This, it appears, he has done without consequence. "JS: I’ve got to put to you Tweetgate now. You tweeted on Friday by mistake […]
By Matthew BarrettFollow Matthew on Twitter It's the conference season, and the annual gathering of Lib Dems gave senior Libs the opportunity to bash the Conservatives, bash the rich, bash government policies, and bash anything else likely to get a smile out of the downtrodden activists in attendance. We can review who has moved up […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter. After a week of Tory bashing from the Liberal Democrats' left wing, Nick Clegg – representing the Orange Book wing of his party – engaged in some Labour-bashing. Clegg attacked the two "always plotting" Eds, labelling them as the backroom boys… "Labour says: the Government is going too far, […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter. Chris Huhne will become the latest Liberal Democrat to attack the Conservatives today. In the last 48 hours Simon Hughes give an interview in which he said the Liberal Democrats had stopped the "ruthless" Tories doing extreme things. Tim Farron, the party's president, said the Tories had tainted his […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter There is no point in complaining about Vince Cable's annual left-leaning speech to the Liberal Democrat conference – the crude jokes about bankers, the re-plugging of his beloved mansions tax, the way in which support for deficit reduction is wrapped up in the garnish of social democracy, with Bevin, […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter Now I know that the party conference season has begun, and that one must therefore be even more suspicious of being spun than usual, but two stories in this morning's papers are a reminder that the great tax debate is very live. Vince Cable has given an interview to […]