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Some pretty disgraceful spinning is in evidence from Robert Peston on his BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16133286
Like most of the rest of the organisation, me does not even attempt to hide his dismay at Cameron's decision to put the country first. It also sounds as though he has been speaking with Vince Cable or at least his close aides when he reassures us that we can indeed breathe easy that the saviour of British business is not about to resign!
Why are we compelled to fund this organisation which no longer even pretends to be impartial?
The three things Cameron should do next on the EU
By Tim Montgomerie Follow Tim on Twitter Click on Carla Millar's drawing to enlarge Over the last 24 hours we have learnt that the Liberal Democrats are very angry. Friday's measured reactions to the EU 'veto' from Nick Clegg and Ming Campbell gave way to this morning's press briefings. On the...
Clegg is all over the place on Andrew Marr's show this morning, blaming at the same time France and Germany and the Conservative Party. For how long will this disloyalty from the swivel-eyed europhile Lib Dems be tolerated?
Clegg should be careful how far he pushes this, when an election would surely see his party annihilated.
Clegg blames Cameron's "diplomatic ineptitude" for outcome of EU talks while Ashdown attacks PM's "unwise lecturing" of €uro leaders
By Tim Montgomerie Follow Tim on Twitter Last night we learnt that the British people overwhelmingly back the Prime Minister on Europe. 62% said Mr Cameron was right to exercise his veto and only 19% said he was wrong. They are warming to the message that William Hague sets out in The Sunday T...
The BBC are spinning that last night was a success for Ed Miliband, totally ignoring the huge personal error of judgement that he made in backing the Yes to AV campaign. Quite extraordinary!
In praise of Matthew Elliott, campaign manager of No2AV
By Tim Montgomerie The big winner of this election cycle is David Cameron. Conservative HQ was expecting 500 losses in council elections but the party may have added 60 or so councillors to the blue column. The party has gained in Wales (although Nick Bourne, the party's Assembly leader, was s...
Sorry Ken, it's time for you to retire from front line politics (again).
Of course this could be put down to the fact that we are in a coalition but one rather suspects that this is what he truly believes in. Yes, we all need to make savings but surely the maintenance of law and order must be right up there with such priorities as education and the defence of the realm. Oh, hang on...
Ken Clarke abandons knife crime pledge
Tim Montgomerie This is a very disappointing report from the BBC's Nick Robinson. It focuses on the prison system's failure to rehabilitate offenders and, yes, it's a real failure. I support the Coalition's efforts to change this by paying prison governors according to their success at cutting r...
What I am disappointed at is not so much the actual settlement achieved as Cameron is obviously operating under difficult conditions (being in the coalition with the generally europhile Lib Dems) but the manner in which the press seemed to have been briefed before the summit. The Times for one appeared to be under the impression that Cameron was going to secure a budget freeze which never even seemed likely given the clamour by the EU's bureaucrats for more cash. It's all about expectation management and while he and indeed most Conservatives would have wanted a freeze, things have not turned out that way.
This will not be the first difficult encounter for Cameron with Europe and I expect him to learn from this and use this as an example of British pragmatism when it comes to defending our interests in the future. Let's just hope the Europeans don't now see him as a soft touch.
How the Right-wing press have reviewed David Cameron's performance at the European Council
By Jonathan Isaby Yesterday morning Tim concluded that David Cameron was not getting a good deal for Britain in Europe. So as the dust settles on David Cameron's first big test on the continent, how has Fleet Street - in particular the Right-wing press - written up his performance? The Telegr...
Which of course Labour and Tony Blair never had...
George Osborne confirms that Crossrail and aircraft carriers have survived cuts
By Tim Montgomerie Before heading off to Chequers to finalise the Comprehensive Spending Review with the Prime Minister, Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander - who he described as the "brilliant" Chief Secretary - George Osborne was on Andrew Marr's sofa this morning. The following points emerged: ...
Brilliant news isn't it? Let's not get carried away though, it's a good start but we are going to be very unpopular over the next few years as the pain of the cuts starts to set.
When it comes down to it though, while we mustn't let the electorate forget what this lot did last time they were in power, by the next election we are going to have to have achieved a lot of positives alongside the negativity and doom and gloom of the cuts.
The Big Society, while admirable in its objectives, needs much more fleshing out and sadly just hasn't captured the heart of the nation. We'll need a much more powerful and positive message by the next election or this lot will waltz straight back in just by virtue of not having been involved in the deficit reduction.
Results of the Shadow Cabinet elections
By Jonathan Isaby8.30pm update: Sky News reports the figures for the successful candidates as: Yvette Cooper - 232 John Healey - 192 Ed Balls - 179 Andy Burnham - 165 Angela Eagle - 165 Alan Johnson - 163 Douglas Alexander - 160 Jim Murphy - 160 Tessa Jowell - 152 Caroline Flint - 139 John Denh...
It's a question of priorities. The axe has to fall somewhere. Just listen to the IMF.
Personally, I'd say abolishing the aid grant to India, a country hosting a $3bn international sporting event and which runs its own space programme would be a good start.
Cutting the armed forces budget at this time would send completely the wrong message to our troops, our international allies and indeed our foes!
In strongly-worded letter to David Cameron, Liam Fox warns against "impossible" cuts to the armed forces
By Tim Montgomerie The Daily Telegraph splashes tomorrow with a letter from Defence Secretary Liam Fox to the Prime Minister about looming defence cuts. Although the letter was marked “for the Prime Minister’s eyes only” it has leaked. Dr Fox writes: “Frankly, this process is looking less and...
I can only hope that it wasn't Liam Fox who leaked this to the Telegraph as that is certainly not the best way to build support for the difficult decisions that will inevitably have to be made in the course of the next few months and as the cuts begin to take effect.
As it happens, I agree with him that it would be very harmful both politically and to the morale of the troops at a time when they are being more stretched than ever and when the public perception is that they are under resourced and overstretched. What I cannot support would be if there were to be any truth whatsoever in the notion that Liam Fox or any of his staff deliberately leaked this to the Telegraph.
In strongly-worded letter to David Cameron, Liam Fox warns against "impossible" cuts to the armed forces
By Tim Montgomerie The Daily Telegraph splashes tomorrow with a letter from Defence Secretary Liam Fox to the Prime Minister about looming defence cuts. Although the letter was marked “for the Prime Minister’s eyes only” it has leaked. Dr Fox writes: “Frankly, this process is looking less and...
If Cameron was serious about tackling immigration and unemployment he would not be backing this policy.
Cameron gives unequivocal backing to Turkish membership of EU
By Tim Montgomerie On his way to India, Cameron is spending 24 hours in Turkey (he is photographed with Prime Minister Erdoğan on arrival). According to the Financial Times the Prime Minister will give strong backing to Turkish membership of the EU: “When I think about what Turkey has done to...
I'm inclined to agree.What worries me even further is this idea of "flexible learning", making it possible to pick yourself up a degree from a university without ever having actually been to the place!
Willetts showed he was out of his depth with Grammargate and has done nothing to convince me that he actually "gets it" since then. I can't see what David Cameron sees in him to be perfectly honest.
Liberal Democrats may have to swallow higher tuition fees but only Tory MPs will have to vote for them
If Capital Gains Tax has been the earliest big test of the Right's loyalty to the Coalition, higher tuition fees might be the biggest pill (so far) that the left of the Liberal Democrats may be forced to swallow. Universities Minister David Willetts has not pre-judged the Review of Higher Edu...
I agree that it's good to see politicians seemingly putting aside differences in order to work together "in the national interest" but I can't honestly see it lasting. While the leaderships may be able to get on, the ideological differences between the rank and file of the two parties are simply too great for any kind of coalition/confidence and supply arrangement to last very long. The Liberals are adamant that PR must be introduced, while the Conservative consensus seems to be that Cameron must not give any ground on this whatsoever. Personally, I'd allow a Commons vote on whether to have a referendum and then campaign vigorously against it if it were to be passed by the Commons.
As long as the two parties can hold themselves together long enough to steer us out of the immediate financial crisis, that's all well and good but I can't see this "consensus politics" lasting much beyond that before the pet projects of the parties (for which most of us voted rather than some wishy washy hung Parliament) come to the fore once again.
We are currently witnessing the best advert against changing the electoral system
More than 80 hours after the polls closed last Thursday night and we still don't have a new government. And there was me thinking that saving General Election Night would mean we get a new Prime Minister by dawn on the Friday morning... Seriously though, the situation in which we find ourselves ...
It depends what you value the most. I personally believe that the constituency link is an extremely important facet of our system and one to be maintained. That is especially true if we are talking about introducing the power of recall for MPs. Under a fully proportional system to whom exactly are these MPs going to be responsible and how exactly are the electorate supposed to ensure that they are kicked out at the next general election?
People already complain of the political classes being too far removed from the lives of ordinary working people. One way to ensure that gap increases would be to make it unnecessary for them to meet people by getting rid of the constituency link!
We are currently witnessing the best advert against changing the electoral system
More than 80 hours after the polls closed last Thursday night and we still don't have a new government. And there was me thinking that saving General Election Night would mean we get a new Prime Minister by dawn on the Friday morning... Seriously though, the situation in which we find ourselves ...
If true, that confirms my thoughts that Alastair Darling is generally a decent man but dealt a very bad lot by Brown's fiscal incompetence.
This is nothing to do with us. We declined to join the Euro because we did not want to give up yet more of our sovereignty and to lose control of our own economy. As it is now clear that the Eurozone is a total failure, we must remain on the sidelines and let Eurozone countries pay the price.
We are about to underwrite future EU bailouts - and can do nothing to stop it
Over at the Daily Telegraph, a truly upsetting article: British taxpayers ordered to bail out euro. Finance ministers have been summonsed (for that's how it works) to Brussels today, to sign off on a "European stabilisation mechanism": British exposure to liabilities created by a bail-out und...
I can't believe that he actually means that. Michael Gove's plans for reforming the educational system are probably the most popular of the party's policies.
Michael Gove says he would give up his Cabinet seat to a Lib Dem to make a deal happen
That was indeed what Michael Gove said at the end of his interview with Andrew Marr this morning. The shadow schools secretary repeatedly refused to prejudice the negotiations with the Lib Dems by prescribing what Tory red lines would be on issues, not least the voting system - although he re...
I'm not sure what else people expected of Cameron. The reality is that we have made huge gains across the country and were coming from a very weak position. People are deluding themselves if they think that we should somehow have waltzed to a majority as the mathematics were always going to be against us.
As for any possible deal with the Lib Dems, I can't help but think that this is just the first round of a rather long game of negotiation. I would not be at all surprised if Cameron in the end was to form a minority government, having failed to get the Lib Dems on side. The inquiry that DC has offered into PR will not, I suspect, be enough to placate the Lib Dem grass roots and parliamentary party to which Nick Clegg is beholden. Clegg will then be backed into a corner and will have to make a very difficult decision as to whether he goes into a "losers' alliance" with Labour.
What is absolutely paramount is that the party holds its nerve. Yes, everyone's disappointed that we haven't won a majority but the reality is that whichever government comes out of this is unlikely to last very long. It's all to play for yet much of the party seems determined to go into self-destruct mode!
David Cameron makes a "comprehensive offer" to the Liberal Democrats
Due at 2.30pm. Highlights, not verbatim. David Cameron says the Tories won more votes than Labour at the last General Election when they won a majority. We can be proud of the result. We won more new seats than Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Despite the advance we have to accept that we have falle...
Clegg has just made a statement saying that he believes it's up to the Conservatives to try to form a government.
Labour has lost the authority to govern
There are three key points the morning after the night after election day - as we move towards the final counts. 1. Labour has lost the authority to govern - not just Brown, that is, but his Party as a whole. It's set to lose roughly 100 seats - and its vote share has slumped to its lowest l...
I've previously been very wary of any notion of devolution in England for fear of terminally destabilising the Union. However, the current situation is untenable and I think it is now time to seriously address the West Lothian question. Although still far from the favoured option, I can't help but think that last night's results makes an English Parliament more likely.
Special General Election survey
What do you think of the Tory campaign? Which members of the shadow cabinet performed best? Should David Cameron look to form a coalition or minority government? Please click here to have your say.
As a Labour supporter, I'm not sure you're in any position to be calling anyone a "selfish self-centred person more concerned with ensuring he is able to hold onto office" given the last three years we've endured under Brown!
David Cameron says a Tory Government would prevent parties from replacing a serving Prime Minister without a new general election
David Cameron has been out campaigning in Thurrock this morning - a constituency which, in his own words, the Tories were "not originally targeting, but are now" - in line with the story in The Times this morning suggesting the party is targeting Labour seats lower down the target list than p...
I certainly vote for the party that best represents me which is the Conservatives. On the other hand, the last 3 years have provided us with an incompetent "leader" foisted upon us by the Labour Party because he threw his toys out of his pram and wouldn't permit Blair to see out his "full third term" that the 2005 Labour Party Manifesto promised. Like it or not, British politics is becoming more and more presidential and the latest TV debates have placed an increasing amount of emphasis on the leaders of the parties and while certainly not desirable, more and more people are basing their decisions on what they think of the men at the top of the parties rather than their actual policies and the teams they have around them.
I fear this is just another step in the "presidentialisation" of British politics.
David Cameron says a Tory Government would prevent parties from replacing a serving Prime Minister without a new general election
David Cameron has been out campaigning in Thurrock this morning - a constituency which, in his own words, the Tories were "not originally targeting, but are now" - in line with the story in The Times this morning suggesting the party is targeting Labour seats lower down the target list than p...
Yes because leading on immigration worked out so well for us in 2005...
Eric Pickles: We are winning the banner and poster war
Eric Pickles' daily take on the election campaign. Well if the election were won on the number of banners, people, posters and pledges then I’d tempt fate by saying we’re well ahead of our opponents. As I continue my campaign tour of our target seats I find our candidates are buoyed by the gr...
Good evening Bad Al Campbell. Not sure which debate you were watching!
Cameron and Clegg tied in average of five post debate polls
Additionally, from ComRes: Which party leader do you think gave the most honest answers in the debate tonight? Clegg - 43% Cameron - 29% Brown - 23% Which party leader, if any, do you think performed better than expected? Brown - 47% Cameron - 27% Clegg - 21% Jonathan Isaby
What's the mood like in Lib Dum HQ?
Live blog of the Sky News leaders' debate
Jonathan Isaby, Paul Goodman and Tim Montgomerie will be live blogging the Sky News Leaders' Debate here at 8pm... 7.25pm David Cameron has just arrived at the venue in Bristol, accompanied by Samantha. Clegg is already there and Brown is yet to arrive. Tonight David Cameron will be stage lef...
I don't believe that either but it's somewhat disingenuous for Clegg not to be up front about a hung Parliament when his party's only hope of getting into government is by allying themselves with one or other of the two main parties.
Live blog of the Sky News leaders' debate
Jonathan Isaby, Paul Goodman and Tim Montgomerie will be live blogging the Sky News Leaders' Debate here at 8pm... 7.25pm David Cameron has just arrived at the venue in Bristol, accompanied by Samantha. Clegg is already there and Brown is yet to arrive. Tonight David Cameron will be stage lef...
Clegg hasn't been at all up front about what he would do in the event of a hung Parliament and for him to claim that he has is ludicrous!
Live blog of the Sky News leaders' debate
Jonathan Isaby, Paul Goodman and Tim Montgomerie will be live blogging the Sky News Leaders' Debate here at 8pm... 7.25pm David Cameron has just arrived at the venue in Bristol, accompanied by Samantha. Clegg is already there and Brown is yet to arrive. Tonight David Cameron will be stage lef...
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