Cicero's Songs

The UK opinion polls are volatile and extremely difficult to read. it has become a cliche that the next election is both uncertain and very open. The only certainty is that the chances of a hung Parliament seem very high. In fact in the face of such uncertainty I can claim no special knowledge ahead of the result. Yet I think that there are actually some significant shifts which are now on the political agenda. There is still a chance that at the last gasp either the Tories or more likely Labour can snatch a single party mandate under the current system. Nevertheless although Labour have an advantage in that it takes far fewer votes for them to win each seat, there remains the imponderable of what impact any SNP surge might have on their overall total. For what its worth, I think that, as in the referendum itself, and as so often before, the SNP confidence will prove highly misplaced, and what might be a quite promising result of -say- 15 seats will be deemed a relative failure and...

The political world rarely rewards actual achievement. Instead it tends to reward those who claim achievement, whether or not they have a right to that claim or not. Hard graft often seems to count for less than effective spin.  However it is worth noting that the Liberal Democrats in government have a very real heavy weight. A Cabinet Minister who has pushed through a radical agenda, despite major opposition from the Conservatives- especially the now former Cabinet Minister, Owen Patterson. A Cabinet Minister who has the respect of his international peers, and who has rightly persuaded some of our partners, such as Poland, to put the long term interests of the planet ahead of short run economic concerns. In the face of opposition that sometimes verges on the hysterical, Ed Davey has crafted a coherent, competent energy strategy and a credible and effective green strategy. He has not been afraid to make some enemies on the way, but at every point he has been the rational, intel...

It is quite hard to fathom the current maelstrom of gossip in and about the British Conservative Party hitting the headlines this weekend. The Prime Minister has crafted a reshuffle that rewarded several of the more patient of his party's right wingers, without destabilizing the coalition itself too much. Yet the response has been a plethora of alleged plots and supposed fury. Plans are said to be afoot to bring Boris Johnson back into the House of Commons in order to challenge his erstwhile Eton and Oxford chum. The mechanism apparently involves a third old Etonian- Zac Goldsmith- standing down so that Johnson can return to the green benches of the House of Commons. I think 98% of the population are probably asking "what madness is this?" If such a large number of Conservatives now genuinely believe that the most Euro-sceptic Prime Minister in British history has somehow morphed into a bleeding-heart, then they seriously misunderstand both the Prime Minister, but als...

David Cameron went to Brussels but his use of the veto, which could have been justified in certain circumstances was bad from the point of view of strategy and pretty appalling from the point of view of tactics. His position was so last minute that he had not briefed even a single potential ally. The result was that we had no allies. Sarkozy laid an ambush which the UK walked straight into. The result was a catastrophic defeat for British diplomacy, which puts at risk not only our wider diplomatic reach, but undermines respect in Washington and Beijing. Neither has the veto stopped anything the EU26 now wish to agree among themselves without reference to the UK, so the defeat is total. In the UK the Europhobes' references to the Second World War have come thicker and faster than ever. Complete withdrawal is now seen as possible, even likely. So what Nick Clegg has started to do today is sensible. He has understood the fury amongst the Liberal Democrats at a defeat which is ...

As a life-long Liberal I can not say that I share Tim Farron's professed need for therapy about the coalition. I am not a Conservative, I have never been a Conservative and I am not going to become a Conservative because of the coalition. Yet it is precisely because I am not a Conservative that I don't need therapy. For the first time in my life time, and indeed my parents lifetimes, Liberalism has a leading place in government. We have senior Liberal Democrat ministers who are leading the debate in this country, and more to the point are enacting Liberal policies .  Our ministers, with no little political courage, are enacting policies, such as the steady increase in the tax threshold to £10,000 which would not be enacted at all without our leadership. Sure government is not easy, and we have on occasion been outmanoeuvred - particularly in the early days, and notably on tuition fees, which cost us dearly. However, I see several announcements every week that show, while...

I often find that returning to the UK for a rare visit is a rather sobering experience. The difficulties the government faces seem exposed in sharp relief when you have been away for a while. This trip was a little different. Yes, it is all to obvious that the physical infrastructure needs investment: but despite potential future problems, Crossrail is being built- and the tunnel portal, close to Paddington station is well underway. Above the ground, Heathrow's new terminal is also now taking shape, and flying over London, the Olympic stadium gleams above the winding river Lea. The giant Shard office building too is nearing completion. The pace of development is visibly quicker than last year, so for the time being at least, London is moving forward. The sense of depression that seemed all pervasive in the summer is also a little lighter. For the first time in a while, I went to visit a friend who is a Member of Parliament. Indeed, he has become a Liberal Democrat minister in...

The latest government borrowing numbers for the UK are spectacularly bad. To increase borrowing by 25% compared to the same month last year ( excluding bank bailout costs) is a major failure for a government that must stand or fall by the way it tackles the deficit. Borrowing £10 billion in a month is not tackling the deficit, it is widening it. Meanwhile the Bank of England has failed, yet again, to address the acceleration in inflation. They continue to pretend that a 4.5% inflation rate can be ignored because it is only a function of "temporary conditions". This is false- there is now a clear structural problem and the failure of the MPC to recognize this, still less to tackle it, is continuing to penalize savers. It also distorts the housing market in a way that is set to exclude an ever growing proportion of people from ever owning their own property. The fact is that, far from encouraging an orderly reduction of debt, the continued artificially low interest rates perm...

Most political journalists in the UK are looking for a story of the break up of the Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition. Any spat between the two parties is examined to see if it poses a terminal challenge to the government itself. Of course there are disputes, but the surprising thing is that the disputes between the two parties remain less numerous and less rancorous than the disputes between members of the single-party Labour government. Indeed, because the two parties do not expect to agree on everything, so a certain amount of live-and-let-live is inevitable. However, there is an emerging threat to this generally courteous and professional relationship. It is not that there are fundamental disagreements over such issues as the NHS- although there are. Neither is it because of David Cameron's determined leadership of the No-to-AV campaign. It is not even because the Conservatives are focusing on a numbers game in immigration, although that is in the view of many Liberal De...

Politicalbetting.com this week pointed out that the succession of Ed Balls to the position of Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer marks the final triumph of the SpAd - the political special advisor. Now virtually all of the key positions on the front benches of both the Government and the Opposition are filled with professional politicians- who know no other life outside of politics. In fact the political clique is even narrower than you might think, since in order to obtain the unpaid jobs at the foot of the political ladder, there is a minimum degree of wealth required. It is not an accident then, that so many of the political leaders of Britain come from a privately educated background. The political class- in Peter Oborne's memorable phrase - is also a narrow social elite. "The Establishment", in the shape of the public schools, has recovered a level of control over politics that would have been regarded as unthinkable just a couple of decades ago. Not just in politi...

The general Election of 2010 gave no party what it wanted, All the parties lost, and that was clearly the message that the electorate deliberately sent to the political class. For the Liberal Democrats, the loss was doubly painful, since the party seemed to be at the point of making a breakthrough that could have changed British politics. In the end, the Liberal Democrats made no progress, despite the widely held view that the party and its leader, Nick Clegg, had fought the best campaign. Indeed several losses- and very near misses- were extremely painful. In that sense, the offer of a coalition that came from David Cameron was made to a party that was somewhat demoralised and very disappointed. Now the media, from Paxman down, can barely utter the word "Coalition" without a sneer. The naked hostility of the left that has been turned on the Liberal Democrats has been a shock. However, we are told, "welcome to politics as normal in the big league". Except it is n...

There has been a whole load of ill informed, wishful thinking in the British media of late. In the face of the (sadly all too common) post election fall in Lib Dem support in the opinion polls, the usual suspects on both right and left have been quick to forecast an early end to the coalition. Yet, despite having no leader, no policies and no principles, Labour continue to hold a respectable poll rating. The journalists who continue to hope for the fall of the coalition do not understand the fact that an early election would probably not lead to a strong majority for the Conservatives: it could even lead to a Labour recovery, which would exclude both coalition parties from power. The coalition may not be a love match, but it is a marriage of convenience, and one where mutual respect has emerged on both sides. Simon Hughes criticism of the idea of ending life tenure for council tenants is not the first breath of a coalition-ending storm, it is perfectly legitimate to voice an opinion on...

It does not take any particular genius to notice that the Conservatives are a fairly disparate and occasionally divided party. The battles of the "Nasty Party" ( tm . our new Home Secretary), were mostly with each other, not with the other parties, which is why their electoral record became so poor. The Cameroons were, and are, a minority that is forced to do deals within a shifting pattern of allegiances. Nothing too unusual there: most parties are the same in that sense. What made the Conservatives divisions so painful was the incredible vehemence with which different sides held their views. Instead of the rather senior common room atmosphere of party debates amongst the Liberal Democrats, the Tories like to conduct their debates like a fight in the playground: no quarter is given. Any change in approach is examined for signs of weakness- and compromise by one's own side is regarded as the blackest betrayal. The Conservative debate on Europe, for example, degenerated i...

What kind of a prat calls his own brother "a huge talent"? Probably the same kind of guy whose every single social grace is undermined by that most poisonous of things: ambition. David Miliband and his brother Edward are now apparently locked in a struggle for the soul of the "Labour movement". Identikit blandness that bares a strange likeness to those other Labour political siblings: Douglas and Wendy Alexander. It is not a struggle based on vision, or principles, or ideology: it is simple, naked political ambition. Yet onto this tabula rasa we are invited to project our deepest wishes for the future of the Labour Party, and by implication the future of the Left in Britain. I am not sure that the left has actually got a future. Yes I know, many of the most obdurate Socialists will laugh, they believe, as did David Cameron, that the mistakes of their political enemies will ultimately deliver them power upon the next swing of the political pendulum. Yet, as Mr. Ca...

An economically liberal friend of mine whose politics nevertheless tend to haver between the Conservatives and the SNP contacts me from an overseas trip. He says that he fears that the coalition will simply continue the economic policies of Gordon Brown. Although I point out that those policies can not be sustained anyway, he remains nervous. In fact I have little doubt that the budget now announced for June 22 will show some very nasty red ink indeed. The question will be how to create a policy response that walks the line between fiscal responsibility and economic recovery. Most importantly of all, there is the question of the essential investment in public infrastructure such as Crossrail and HS-2. Are these projects to be delayed or even sacrificed because we still do not have a coherent approach to social welfare? The fiscal drag created by Gordon Brown- i.e.the administration cost of collecting taxation on the one hand, and paying out benefits such as child credits on the othe...

The Rt Hon. The Lord Tebbit of Chingford C.H., a.k.a. the Chingford Strangler, or the "semi house-trained polecat" of Michael Foot's imagination, has been- I think it fair to say- slow to warm to the virtues of coalition. Nevertheless, even he is now prepared to reconsider some of his previous views. He is for the moment amongst the majority in the Conservatives who are, if only pragmatically, prepared to support the idea. There are, however, still a fair number of Conservatives who are- shall we say- ambivalent. I would be lying if I said that it was all was sweetness and light amongst the Liberal Democrats. There are a number of people who could not support the Conservatives for any reason or at any price: several of them have left the party. There are a number of people who did not understand that the Liberal Democrats meant what they said about how the virtues of coalition and partnership in government could make a transformation to our political system. Equally, a...

It has been an interesting few days since Mr. Cameron made his first offer of a coalition to the Liberal Democrats. Now the coalition agreement is published and it is a thoughtful and quite well crafted document . Many will be unhappy that the Liberal Democrats have gone into coalition with the Conservatives, but to my mind there was neither the numbers nor the will for Labour to even come to the table. In the end we will have to place a degree of trust in Mr. Cameron's word: but it is trust which rests on the knowledge that any betrayal of the agreement would be seen as such and either side may be punished if they fail to follow through on their commitments. The agreement includes a commitment to a fixed Parliament: so the next general election date should be already set for the first Thursday of May 2015: personally I would prefer an October electoral timetable, but May it will now have to be. It includes provisions for a referendum on AV for the House of Commons and to address ...

The 2010 general election has certainly had its twists and turns, culminating in a cliffhanger result. Now, however, it is clear what the shape of the new government will be: a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. It is not going to be an easy ride. However, the impact of Liberal Democrat voices around the cabinet table could well be profound. In any event, the very nature of a coalition will mean a more open kind of politics. There is also the matter of electoral reform: a referendum has been conceded by the Conservatives as part of the government programme. There is now an agreed programme on education - where in truth the parties' policies were not that different. It is the economy that is now the most important focus, and with Vince Cable taking a senior role, we can at least hope for some coherence and forward thinking here. The two exhausted negotiating teams should be congratulated on coming out with a detailed programme. Nick Clegg should be congratulated on sticking f...