The renegotiation starts here: What William Hague is up to

By Tim Shipman

 

As I revealed in the paper, William Hague is making a speech today in Gerrmany that will begin the process of renegotiation with the European Union.

What makes it interesting is that the Foreign Secretary will not be listing specific powers that the UK wants to repatriate, but instead will offer a new vision of how the EU might work in future, a vision that finds a stronger role for national parliaments and attempts to plug the democratic deficit which has grown ever wider in the EU in recent years.

The different factions of Tory Eurosceptics, said to number eight, have spent a great deal of time drawing up lists of powers they want to reclaim from Brussels.

But when some of them have sought to make their views known to David Cameron, he has firmly stated his opposition to MPs presenting him with 'shopping lists'.

Mr Hague will demand a new ‘red card’ system so national Parliaments can block unwelcome EU laws. That will give greater powers to the House of Commons and other national assemblies and allow them to overrule legislation proposed by the European Commission if enough of those parliaments call for it to be thrown out.

The Foreign Secretary's case is that the European Parliament has ‘failed’ to introduce democratic accountability to the EU.

Little known and little used powers currently exist which allows Parliaments in member states to issue a ‘yellow card’ to the European Commission, which proposes all EU legislation.

But that device only forces the unelected Commission to think again about laws, it cannot block them altogether.

There are three significant points here:

1) Mr Hague doesn't think there is much point grabbing powers back that the Commission has already accumulated if there is no brake on them devising undesirable new laws in future. While Tory MPs busy themselves with their shopping lists, the Foreign Office is more interested in structures that make the EU more palatable to Britain.

2) It follows from this that Mr Hague wants to find a way of making the EU somewhere that British people want to be part of, where national MPs have more say in proceedings. He does not want to use the renegotiation as an excuse to get out of the EU. Not all of his colleagues, shall we say, are fully in agreement with this approach.

3) This approach has more chance of bearing fruit than a simple demand for repatriation of powers. The Foreign Office thinks the red card system will win support from other North European countries who also get annoyed at the creeping power grabs of the Commission. Just as Germany, Austria and the Dutch back Britain over Commission's prosecution of the UK over benefits rules, so too do some countries sympathise with greater say for national parliaments. It is possible that France would be more open to this approach too. French diplomatic sources told me recently that while they oppose attempts to tear up the rules that have already been written, they are more open to Britain opting out of future rule changes.

None of which means that Tory MPs will be satisfied with structural changes. They don't just want to prevent further EU power grabs, they want to unpick many of the old ones on working rights and home affairs coordination. Many want little more than a trading bloc.

But this is the first taste of how the Tory high command it is instructive.

Here's how a senior source explained his thinking to me:

‘He is going to make the case that the European Parliament is not the answer to the democratic deficit in the EU. In every treaty over the last 30 years the European Parliament has been given more powers and in every European election turnout has dropped.
‘The answer lies in national governments and national parliaments. We need to give them more powers to do things better.
‘The yellow card system allows parliaments to protest if they think a proposal by the Commission is something that should be dealt with by national governments instead. But the system doesn’t work well and we could do much more.
‘We need a better mechanism to get national parliaments working together. The EU system at the moment is great at centralising power and hopeless at decentralising. The Commission is great at sucking up powers and hopeless at giving them back.
‘Unless we get reforms like this we can’t have an EU that is acceptable to the British people. If you have a system you don't like it tends to produce outcomes that you will dislike. We need to change the system.’

Mats Persson of the Open Europe think tank added: ‘Allowing national parliaments to block unwanted EU laws would go a long way to bring back democratic accountability over EU decisions.

'However, whilst it’s encouraging that the UK government is looking at this, it must press ahead with this reform now to avoid the impression that it has no immediate strategy in Europe – a charge that’s becoming more frequent. There’s support for this reform in other parts of the EU.’
  
 

 

The Spending Review is already turning into the Hunger Games - It's every man (and woman) for themselves

By Tim Shipman

 

The coalition’s spending review is getting ugly – descending into what one special adviser has compared to the Hunger Games, a bitter fight to the death for ever dwindling resources.

At least five departments are now seeking to raid the budgets of their rivals.

We know that Defence Secretary Philip Hammond is keen to get his hands on NHS money and force the Department for Education to pay for the private schooling of service personnel.

Others at the top of government are keen to see the Department of Health funnel cash to Eric Pickles to help local councils pay for care – in the hope that that alleviates the high cost of overstretched hospital A&E units.

The Ministry of Justice, the Business Department and the Home Office all want to breach the NHS ring fence too.

Both the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office hope to seize funds from the department for International Development – plans Mr Cameron has previously endorsed.

‘It’s every man for himself now,’ said one ministerial aide. ‘It’s a battle to the death, like something from the Hunger Games.’

But the backlash is beginning.

I’m told David Cameron indirectly admonished Defence Secretary Philip Hammond for leaking details of his desires at a Tory political cabinet this morning. He called on ministers to ‘keep their thoughts to themselves’.

My snout says said: ‘He didn’t mention Phil by name but it was perfectly obvious to everyone who he had in mind.’

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is also refusing to accept any cuts to his budget and turning on the moral blackmail for Mr Cameron.

He will remind the Prime Minister that ringfencing the NHS budget was his personal pledge to voters and argue that great harm will come to the Tory brand if he backtracks.

‘We will be arguing for the retention of the ringfence,’ a DoH source said. ‘This was a pledge the Prime Minister made in opposition. It was a big call to make and it has proved to be right.

‘Demand is rising by 4 per cent a year in the NHS and having the budget means we can just about meet the requirements and plan ahead. There is a very strong case for maintaining the ringfence. It would undo much of the good work of the original pledge.’

The DoH, the one department that can literally offer up ‘bleeding stumps’ – the Whitehall term for unpalatable cuts designed to win an argument with the Treasury – will be doing no such thing when their spending review submission goes in at midnight. Their plans are based on a real terms rise in spending in 2015/16 as previously planned.

Mr Hunt seems to have an ally in Nick Clegg, who said today that the coalition is ‘sticking with the protected departments’.

The Department of Education is also resisting the raid on its funds by Mr Hammond. Education Secretary Michael Gove will argue that deep cuts to his budget will threaten the government’s pledge to provide free childcare to 40 per cent of 2 year olds – a key pledge of Mr Clegg - and also mean cuts to school sport, an issue likely to attract maximum public attention and whingeing Olympians.

One insider even said, facetiously, that if the Ministry of Defence wants money to send service children to private schools, Mr Gove should have some say over where they are stationed. ‘They don’t have to be posted to Germany,’ the source said. ‘Perhaps Michael should be consulted about their deployments.’

For their part, Foreign Office insiders say that unless they get their hands on further cuts will damage the British Council and lead to the closure of historic embassy buildings around the world.

These are only the opening moves in the poker game, but it’s already getting spicy.

 

Claims about Boris Johnson's demise are greatly exaggerated

By Tim Shipman

 

I seem to have been watching a different Boris Johnson interview from everybody else.

Yes, the BBC’s Eddie Mair asked some pretty tough questions of Boris Johnson on the Andrew Marr show yesterday and in one regard overstepped the mark. I cannot imagine a BBC interviewer asking a Labour politician whether he is ‘a nasty piece of work’.

But character counts in politics, particularly in this ever more presidential age. Boris has not often been put on the spot about issues surrounding his past behaviour in a television interview. If he wants to be Prime Minister – and the Mayor did nothing in his twisting and turning to disabuse us of that notion – voters have a right to know who he is.

There are legitimate questions about his serial womanising and whether he tells the truth. Not because I believe that sexual infidelity disqualifies someone from office but because voters have a right to know the sort of person they are selecting to lead them. In this regard there are many more lurid questions that Eddie Mair might have asked. If he hopes to lead the country, Boris is at some time likely to be asked them. That’s the baggage he comes with and he’ll need some answers, even if it’s simply that such issues are between him and his wife.

The Darius Guppy episode is a curious one, but easily dismissed since Boris did not supply Guppy with the journalist’s address and no one got hurt. So too the affair of the made up quote when the tyro hack worked for the Times.

Fans of Boris should recognise that it does their man no favours to seek to protect him from this line of questioning. If this is really the worst that an interviewer can throw at him, it hardly seems terminal since he has twice been elected in Labour-leaning London.

Nor is it a stone cold case of political bias. Don’t forget that the BBC once asked Charles Kennedy why he had bothered to get married and Gordon Brown whether he was taking anti-depressants.

But if I don’t share the view of many on the right that Eddie Mair is a disgrace, I also don’t share the view of the rest that this was a disaster for Boris.

When I watched Marr a day late this morning, I imagined that I would see him torn limb from political limb. It was not so. Yes, Boris blustered and dodged, but then Boris blusters and dodges for a living. That’s his thing.

In fact, in the face of what many believe to be tough or outrageous questioning, he kept a cool head. He didn’t avoid the questions or refuse to answer them. He remained genial, certainly more so than Nick Clegg does when asked questions he dislikes. He said there were details that were inaccurate. This morning Boris has said Eddie Mair did a ‘splendid job’ of grilling him. Shrewd move. No politician likes to face personal questions. But no politician who cannot handle them is fit to govern. Boris handled them fine.

Boris left his father Stanley to play bad cop. He has proclaimed Mair’s interview ‘the most disgusting piece of journalism I've listened to for a very long time’. Others have proclaimed this the death of Boris’s leadership hopes.

It was neither.

Tory MPs want revenge on the Lib Dems - Here's how they'll do it

By Tim Shipman

 

Tory MPs are seething about the Liberal Democrat ‘treachery’ over the boundary review which many believe was their single best hope of winning the next election.

Nick Clegg insists that he only did the dirty after Jess Norman led his rebels in opposition to the Deputy Prime Minister’s beloved House of Lords reforms. But Tory MPs are adamant that the only explicit deal when they were asked to approve the coalition was a simple swap: AV referendum for boundary changes. The two issues were bracketed not just in the same paragraph of the coalition agreement but the same sentence.

There is a lot of big talk from Tories about revenge on the ‘yellow peril’ as their coalition partners are unaffectionately known.

Eric Pickles has delightfully summed up the mood describing the coalition as an extended family that has spent too much time together. ‘You have been as nice as you can to your relatives, but by the time Boxing Day comes around you realise why you do not live together.’

Lib Dem baiting has long been a favourite sport of spirited types like Peter Bone, who rarely misses an opportunity to encourage them to cross the aisle.

But Tories say that the awkward squad’s ranks have been swelled dramatically since Monday’s vote by normally milder mannered sorts.

‘Those who thought their majorities were going to become a bit bigger are furious,’ says one MP. ‘People who expected to have a safe seat, or a slightly less marginal seat really want to get one back.’

But how?

It is not immediately obvious what revenge might mean.

Mr Clegg’s one remaining policy wish is to see the income tax personal allowance rise to £10,000. But killing that would involve shooting Nick Clegg dead by applying a gun to George Osborne’s head and firing the trigger. The Tories have already failed to do enough to convince voters that they too support tax cuts for the poor. Torpedoing the £10,000 target would simply reinforce the notion that the Conservatives are the party of the rich.

‘We’d be cutting off our nose to spite our face,’ says one whose goal is to ‘wreak a terrible vengeance upon them’.

Nor do most Tories think there’s much they can do to derail Lib Dem green policies – they’ve already done that.

‘We’ve shafted them on the Lords, we’ve knackered their green policy, we’ve turned them over on windfarms and royally f***ed them on green targets,’ says one MP. ‘Doing more in that regard would be like kicking a dog in the street that has already had its front paws broken.’

But those seeking a dish best served cold believe they have devised a means of making the Lib Dems suffer in the same way they will now suffer – at the next election.

Under plans being sent to Chairman Grant Shapps, Tory MPs want more Lib Dem seats to be added to the Tory hitlist of target seats.

This plan dubbed ‘the Ashcroft strategy’ after the peer who funded the Tories’ target seats initiative before, would see rich donors asked to cough up to fuel their personal animus against individual Lib Dems.

Mr Shapps has drawn up a list of 40 seats the Tories need to win a healthy majority – 20 of which are Lib Dem seats.

But a well-placed source said: ‘The talk now is that we increase that to 30 or 35. Make them pay. It’s pretty hard getting donors to cough up to run photocopiers at Millbank [Tory HQ] but they would be more than happy to fund a campaign to oust some more of these b******s.’

It's tin hat time.

Six lessons for David Cameron from the Adam Afriyie plot

By Tim Shipman

 

When news of the Adam Afriyie leadership bid broke on Sunday, the quick reaction of many MPs and journalists was to laugh it off out of hand.

Mr Afriyie is hardly a household name or a conspicuous force in Westminster.

Here, the loyalists pointed out, is a man of mixed race, who funded David Cameron's leadership bid, who nonetheless was stripped of his minor frontbench job by the man he had championed for leader, who has not been made even junior minister for paperclips since.

Just how useless is he, MPs of all stripes (and I mostly spoke to the disgruntled) asked, before answering their own question with phrases like 'thick as a brick' and 'can't string a sentence together in the Commons'.

Mr Afriyie has done none of the things that distinguishes MPs and develops a following among their peers. He has led no passionate personal crusades on issues of the day, staged no rebellions on points of principle and written no notable policy papers for think tanks.

I was even contacted yesterday by a former Tory adviser who said he once sent a policy paper to Mr Afriyie, who did not realise it was copied to several different people. Mr Afriyie then sent it on to others, including the Prime Minister, as if it were his own work. Imagine teh adviser's amusement and surprise when contacted by Number 10 and asked to comment on Mr Afriyie's pearls of wisdom.

Mr Afriyie's supporters include those who have never prospered under Cameron and had as their chief spokeswoman yesterday Nadine Dorries, who right now does not even enjoy the privileges of the Tory whip in the House of Commons.

On the face of it, this is a classic cry of rage from the dispossessed and the never promoted that even most rebels feel unable to support.

I was struck, working on Sunday, by the number of people ill disposed to the leadership who thought the antics of the so-called 'Windsor Set' ridiculous. Those who want Cameron out now (up to 17 are said to have sent letters demanding a vote of no confidence) don't see Mr Afriyie as the means to that end. Others were withering about the way this plot was exposed in the week Cameron had had one of his more successful moments of party management - the speech on Europe.

One MP who would shed no tears if Cameron fell under a bus said he could not support anyone who let details of the plot be released at such a time on the grounds of competence alone (and the simultaneous appearance of the Afriyie gang in three Sunday papers does suggest it was deliberately planted).

Another simply despaired that the Tories were back to destructive infighting. ‘Oh good, we’re back to being the stupid party,’ one MP told me.

Finally given the centrality of media management to modern politics, journalists seldom take seriously a politician who has never bothered to get to know them. Mr Afriyie, I am told, once refused a lunch invitation from the London Evening Standard on the grounds that it is not his local paper - even though it is read by a good number of his commuting constituents. Not the actions of a savvy MP with the future leadership of his party on his mind.

All of which means this plot is ridiculous, or as two different MPs put it 'deranged' and 'loopy', right?

Not quite.

For David Cameron and the senior members of the cabinet who the PM might want to succeed him, there are several unpalatable lessons that have emerged from the weekend's events.

 

1)      You're not very popular because your party management is poor

Mr Cameron’s is now widely and deeply unpopular with large sections of the Conservative Party. He has always regarded party management as a barely-necessary pain. If the backbenches are an 'ungovernable space', that is because Mr Cameron has not sought to govern them. While Tony Blair always defined himself in opposition to his party on purpose, there is a sense that Mr Cameron has too often been rude or evasive to his MPs by personality rather than design. Anger over gay marriage is known, but there is also growing concern about the state of the economy and George Osborne’s inability to convince voters that the Tories are doing enough to boost growth. Allies of Mr Afriyie point out that he is a self-made man, worth £100 million who understands business and how you create wealth and jobs.

 

2)      The plots are real and growing

Mr Afriyie’s foray into leadership activity is hardly isolated. Up to 17 MPs have supposedly put in letters to the 1922 Committee seeking a no confidence vote in Mr Cameron. Jesse Norman, who led the House of Lords rebellion and got branded ‘dishonourable’ by the PM for what many Tory MPs saw as a point of principle, is said to be ‘on manouevres’. Other grandees are a source of constant angst to No 10. Some Tories insist the Afriyie plot is just the tip of the iceberg, that more serious and better organised people are falling into line behind other potential leaders. A leadership challenge is still unlikely before 2015 but it is no longer unthinkable.

 

3)      Tory MPs don't want to be led by a group of aloof toffs any more than most voters

This is where the Afriyie phenomenon does look interesting. The MP for Windsor may not be Barack Obama, but he did grow up on a council estate in Peckham and has made good enough to own a £7.5m home in Westminster and a renovated monastery in his constituency. MPs who support him, and many who do not, say they crave a leader who can connect with ordinary folk.

I was contacted by a senior MP who I like and trust this morning who said the Lobby has missed the point of the Afriyie plot.  ‘The party desperately wants to be the party of the grafting working man and is very uncomfortable with Dave/George,’ he texted.

Whether a multi-millionaire like Mr Afriyie is really the corrective the Tories need is somewhat moot. Many MPs think Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne’s reluctance to talk aspiration and back the strivers because of their charmed upbringings until the PM’s conference speech last October has held the party back.

 

4)      MPs don't think the leadership understands their financial struggles

Linked to point 3 is the notion that the well-to-do leadership is seen as out of touch with the struggles of MPs. Few members of the public would have much sympathy with a political class that diddled its expenses and gets paid north of £65,000 a year. But many Tories took pay cuts to be MPs and have seen Mr Cameron freeze ministerial pay and kick out those who did not have the luxury of millions in inherited wealth.

Which is where Mr Afriyie comes in. An expenses ‘saint’ who has never claimed for a second home, he is also an apologist for MPs over expenses. Mr Afriyie it was who did a report into MPs grievances, Mr Afriyie it is who wants to scrap the expenses watchdog IPSA. This is not, shall we say, conspicuously unpopular with his fellow Tories.

 

5)      Young Tory MPs want to pick their own leader

A while back the conventional assumption was that the next Tory leadership election would be between George Osborne and Boris Johnson. The Chancellor has the best operation in the Commons (rather more effective than Cameron’s) at stroking MPs, bringing them into his orbit and ushering them into government at the next reshuffle. But Mr Osborne doesn’t look like a leader to many and Boris, beloved as he is, brings his own baggage. Theresa May has a growing following and many want Michael Gove to recant his emphatic denials that he won’t run. But several MPs have told me that what the Afriyie movement truly represents is a generational change, away from the old guard and the 2001 intake towards the 2010 intake. Mr Afriyie was elected in 2005 and has a headstart but figures like Jesse Norman and Liz Truss, elected in 2010, are coming up fast on the rails.

As one savvy MP put it: ‘This is about generational change. The 2005 and 2010 intake will pick their own leader. Too many cabinet ministers assume they will be next. They are so wrong. This plot really means Osborne is dead. I expect long attack pieces by Cameron’s client journalists. Is Afriyie going to follow through? I doubt it. Should he be ridiculed? No.’

 

6)      MPs don’t want the new leader to be tainted by coalition

Adam Afriyie was a stern opponent of David Cameron making his big bold offer to the Lib Dems. He believed that the Tories should have attempted to govern alone in 2010 and gone to the country again in October that year, where many MPs believe they would have secured a majority. Mr Cameron, they suggest, prefers working with the Lib Dems than alone. If the electoral arithmetic in 2015 matches that of 2010, a sizeable chunk of the Parliamentary Party does not want to go into coalition again.

Mr Afriyie’s supporters say the next leader should not be ‘a coalitionist’ who is ‘tainted’ by dealing with the Lib Dems. This is likely to be a factor in any leadership election if Mr Cameron stands down after a loss in 2015. It might also provoke a contest if Mr Cameron seeks to join forces with Nick Clegg again. All of which doesn’t mean Mr Afriyie will be the next Tory leader. But it might well be someone who shares his views.

David Cameron should take a leaf out of Karl Rove's playbook

By Tim Shipman

 

The Speech is over. The Omnishambles budget is nine months ago. The Autumn Statement has re-established something approaching an aura of competence around the government. The general election campaign is just two years away and Tory MPs are turning their attention to how they might win it.

Last year ministers and advisers were riddled with doom. A sense of drift gripped Downing Street. The government was widely seen as unable to tie its own shoelaces without tripping over.

Today MPs and ministers venture to suggest over the second or third glass of wine (dry January exists more in the breach than the observance in SW1) that they are cautiously optimistic.

The growing journalistic conventional wisdom (always something to be regarded with suspicion) is that David Cameron has as much chance of winning a majority at the next election as I have of becoming the next director general of the BBC (a proposition generously priced by Ladbrokes at 1,000-1).

But the Prime Minister believes the conventional wisdom is wrong. He has been persuaded by his new party chairman Grant Shapps that the benefits of incumbency greatly favour his chances in the 40 seats the Tories are targeting for 2015. (The evidence suggests that even MPs who fiddled their expenses beat the national swing last time). And many of his MPs quietly agree.

After Mr Cameron's party conference speech they feel more comfortable on the doorstep. They have a story to tell. They may not use the No 10 jargon of the ‘global race’ and the ‘aspiration nation’. But they feel that the appeal to striving voters who ‘want to get on’ has cut through. It brings together the three defining policy areas of the coalition – Michael Gove’s education revolution to embed standards in schools, Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare shake-up to make work pay and inject fairness into the benefits system and George Osborne’s call for control on state spending that has been incontinent for a decade.

The only problem is that they do not think the Prime Minister is doing enough to embed this narrative in the consciousness of the voters.

MPs and ministers were enthused by that speech and expected Mr Cameron to spend three years ramming that theme and its three strands down voters throats. It has not happened, partly thanks to events, partly because the PM has taken his foot off the gas.Certainly the coalition's botched New Year relaunch did nothing to embed these themes in the public consciousness.

The temptation for ministers is to blame the Downing Street communications team. No journalist is unaware of the issues here, but the faults in truth lie not with Mr Cameron's team but with the Prime Minister himself – his reluctance to be overtly political and his chronic inability to stick to a message.

Mr Cameron’s affection for Sir Jeremy Heywood and his mistrust of Tories from outside his inner circle of trust have meant the Prime Minister has only now been persuaded to put a political appointee in charge of his No 10 policy shop - a delay which has led to despair and anger in Tory ranks for two years. The man who ought to be running this outfit, Neil O'Brien, has gone to work for the Treasury because Patrick Rock (the genius who strolled up Downing Street the other day displaying private papers) issued Mr Cameron with a 'him or me' ultimatum. Mr Rock stays. Steve Hilton, I am told, is not returning – at least not yet.

But the biggest issue of the lot is narrative, the stories politicians tell about what they are doing and why they are doing it.

For years the Blair government told a masterful tale of what it was up to and why. Every policy announcement was understood as a pillar that held up the roof of a broader theme. Strategy and tactics served the same master. Events intervened but even then Mr Blair’s response to a crisis was explicable in terms of a philosophy and an approach to politics that was understood by press and public alike. The Tories know this. That’s why, in the face of widespread public opprobrium for Mr Blair, they still hail him as The Master (trademark Messrs G. Osborne and M. Gove).

Mr Cameron is a gifted politician – relaxed with who he is, fluent and, most of the time, a charming kind of chap, who dramatically outpolls his party. He has some clever people around him – though perhaps not enough who are prepared to tell him he is wrong. He has some good ideas. And, having been persuaded that even an Etonian must sell aspiration if he is to win, a message that can get him to victory. He is similarly well served by his speechwriters. Political appointee Clare Foges penned an eloquent and coherent summary of his philosophy for the party conference speech. She and civil servant Tim Cadell pulled together a million competing voices to make sense of Mr Cameron’s position on Europe.

The PM does not lack for words or ideas. But it is a perennial complaint that Mr Cameron has a stunning lack of message discipline for such an experienced politician. Where Labour stuck rigidly to a message in the early Blairite years, pounding the streets and the TV studios with a series of soundbites and ideas that were easy to grasp and remember, Mr Cameron prefers to busk it, frequently roaming off piste, apparently growing bored with his own message.

Journalists who watch him regularly in press conferences and on foreign trips – where his guard is particularly prone to drop – find that he gets carried away. Mr Cameron’s overconfidence lends itself to glib quotes and slips of the tongue, particularly when he is feeling like things are going well towards the end of an engagement.

Lynton Crosby, many MPs hope, is going to change all this, to impose order and discipline not just on the general election campaign team, but on the Prime Minister himself.

It is to another strategic guru that Mr Cameron needs to look, though. Karl Rove was the ‘brain’ who got George W. Bush elected twice against the odds. There were many reasons for this. But not the least of them was a rigid approach to message discipline from the candidate.

When I covered the US election of 2008 I heard repeatedly from American reporters who covered the Bush campaign of 2000 an anecdote that everyone in Downing Street should know by heart. When you get stuck on a plane with a candidate for months on end it is easy to get bored, hearing the same speeches and manufactured quips day in and day out. Halfway through that campaign the travelling press cornered Mr Rove and demanded a new stump speech. They begged for new jokes. They argued that new rhetoric was needed to create news lines, stories, coverage.

Mr Rove told them to sling their hooks. He said: ‘We change the stump speech the day every voter can recite it.’

It is only when politicians and the media are sucked dry with boredom and despair at the repetition of political language that it is beginning to cut through to the voters.

David Cameron has a decent message. Now he needs to stick to it. And keep telling it until our ears are bleeding.

David Cameron and Ed Miliband have both united their parties on Europe - for one of them this is a good thing

By Tim Shipman

 

After all the briefing and cancellations and pre-positioning, The Speech has been made.

David Cameron has used his friend Michael Bloomberg's London headquarters - and isn't it a bore that another Cameron crony is seen to benefit from an event like this? - to tell Britain and Europe that he wants a new deal from Brussels.

By calling for a new deal, an in-out referendum by 2017 and a pledge to fight for Britain's EU membership if he gets what he wants, Mr Cameron has effectively said to fellow EU leaders: 'I want to stay in but you guys have to help me. Throw me a bone or the nutters will drag us out.'

He has not explicitly threatened to leave - as many ministers, led by Michael Gove, have privately argued - in order to get his way. Repeatedly questioned about whether he would vote No if he cannot deliver a new relationship. Mr Cameron twice ducked the question. He is preparing for success, we were told.

Fair enough. Wielding too big a stick might indeed spook the markets, as Labour has warned. But it is clear to me at least that Mr Cameron intends to sell almost any deal he gets as a reason to remain. Eurosceptics who think otherwise, I believe, are deluding themselves.

This is, in some regards, a self-constructed position of weakness but it seems to me a reasonable one from which to persuade German Chancellor Angela Merkel to go along with the plans - and that is probably the primary determinant of whether they will succeed.

Nevertheless, by saying that he would campaign ‘heart and soul’ for a Yes vote only ‘if’ he gets a good deal, Mr Cameron has left the prospect of a Brexit open, and that is enough to satisfy the Eurosceptics.

Generally the reaction from Tories has been good. Daniel Hannan, intellectual godfather of the young Eurosceptic hardliners has pronounced it Cameron's 'best' speech. (He is wrong, that was the conference speech last year, but credit to speechwriter Clare Foges, who penned both). His key ally Douglas Carswell called it ‘historic’. Andrea Leadsom, leaderene of the loyalist Fresh Start group - the 'Gis a job, Dave' tendency - says it was 'very good'. Liam Fox is over the moon that Cameron called for an end to calls for 'ever closer union', the founding mantra of the EU, enshrined in the preamble to the Treaty of Rome. Dr Fox, I understand, played a key role behind the scenes in arguing for the inclusion of that element.

Mr Cameron will be able to live with the more sceptical response of Bill Cash, who said the PM will have a tough time getting what he wants. Scepticism is what Mr Cash does. Indeed if such things were not decided by EU bureaucrats, Bill would have sought out a Europe-wide patent on it.

So in an important regard, Mr Cameron has succeeded in uniting his party, and may attract some of the UKIP malcontents back on board, at least for the time being. In that regard, the speech appears successful.

But dealing with party management was only part of what this speech was about. As Mr Cameron explained, there is change afoot in Brussels and a stern public mood in Britain for a referendum.

Thanks to the positioning of the two other main party leaders, Mr Cameron can enter the next election promising to be the only potential prime minister offering the public a vote in the next Parliament. And he made clear that ‘any government’ he leads will hold a referendum. That means that a referendum is a red line in any future coalition agreement.

Nick Clegg's claims to be a pragmatist driven by evidence-based inquiry is blown out of the water by his near-religious belief in Europeanism - and given his family background that is understandable.

But if Nick Clegg is conditioned to be on the wrong side of history, Ed Miliband has chosen to be.

The Labour leader has been urged repeatedly by the wiser brains in his office, Jon Cruddas among them, to pre-empt the PM by offering a referendum first. He does not believe in leaving, we are told, so he felt it would have been too dangerous or unprincipled to offer an 'out' option.

One is tempted to say that opportunism has not proved an impediment to positioning in the Labour Party often of late. But this stance means Labour is on the wrong side of the public on the need for a vote. While Mr Cameron said he is planning for success in negotiations and a referendum, Mr Miliband's nervousness suggests he doesn't believe he could persuade the public to vote Yes. More seriously, his failure to grasp this issue reinforces the view of many in the Labour Party that Ed Miliband ducks the tough choices, that he wants to sit back and hope victory comes to him in 2015.

And Labour’s argument that even suggesting a referendum will destabilise the markets and damage the growth figures again puts them in the unenviable position of cheering on the collapse of the economy, something Ed Balls' policies already mean is necessary in Treasury matters - not a great position for an opposition party to find itself in.

Like Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband has also united his party. His position is regarded as untenable by prominent figures on left and right of the Labour party, Bennites and Blairites agree: he cannot enter the next election arguing against a referendum. Any policy that unites those redoubtable Twitter enemies Dan Hodges and Owen Jones is remarkable indeed. I have just run into a former Cabinet minister in the Commons corridors who rolled his eyes when asked about Miliband’s positioning. Frontbencher Caroline Flint has just used the delicious choice of words, 'Our position today is...' on the Daily Politics show.

Mr Cameron's approach is not without its problems.

The PM was decidedly vague about what powers he would actually like to repatriate. He has told us about the In and the Out, but not yet the Shake it All About. This will not satisfy his own party forever.

The noises from le continent are already laced with doom. 'Dangerous' said one French source. The Hollande government has got its own back on Cameron’s gleeful offer of a ‘red carpet’ for French entrepreneurs fleeing French income tax rates of 75 per cent. The French Foreign Minister is now offering the same treatment to businessmen fleeing the UK if Britain leaves the EU. He compares Britain to a sportsman joining a football club and then demanding to play rugby at half time. All good sport but with respect to France this was a speech addressed to Berlin not Paris.

Even Mr Cameron does not claim that Europe needs to like British demands for renegotiation. Indeed he acknowledges their irritation. But what he seeks is an acceptance that Europe is a smorgasbord of requirements not a one size fits all superstate, that Europe is immeasurably better off with a country of the economic strength and international clout of the UK in it and that our desire for a different sort of relationship is legitimate. He calculates that enough grown up leaders in Europe will, however reluctantly, give Britain a break – and he may well be right.

Mr Cameron will need to stick to his guns, stick the referendum pledge on the front of his manifesto and cross his fingers. He has been a captive of events abroad and in his own party for too long. This speech was an attempt to get ahead of them.

Ed Miliband, meanwhile is in denial about events. In denial about the turbulent events on the continent and the way they will force Britain to respond. In denial about the desire in the country to get its first say on the EU for 40 years. In denial that his preference for simply coasting to victory in 2015 without making tough decisions could doom him to failure.

For sure, David Cameron is in an awkward place, but perhaps the least awkward he could have contrived. Having been led by events, he has now decided to lead. Ed Miliband will surely have to follow.

David Cameron has put himself in a difficult position on Europe but Ed Miliband has put himself in an impossible one.

Cameron's EU humiliation: an ungovernable party leaves PM between a rock and hard place

by James Chapman

TECHNICALLY, last night’s humiliating defeat for the Government means nothing at all.

It is a non-binding, ‘take-note’ motion, meaning ministers can take note of it, and ignore it if they wish.

But in reality the rebellion by 53 Tory MPs has a number of highly significant consequences - and leaves David Cameron between a rock and a hard place.

Firstly, the Prime Minister’s authority has taken a deeply damaging blow. Despite his pleas that he is taking a tougher stance on the EU budget than any of his predecessors, he appears unable to persuade even his own party to support his negotiating position.

He now faces a nightmarish task at this month’s EU summit, having been urged by his Parliament to make a demand that is simply unachievable. A deal on a seven-year budget for the EU requires unanimous agreement, and not one other member state is proposing a real-terms cut.

Having threatened publicly to use Britain’s veto for a second time, Mr Cameron is under increasing pressure to do just that if he cannot secure what Parliament wants. But the Prime Minister knows that if he does block the deal, the EU’s rules mean that the current budget simply rolls on, plus inflation, meaning Britain will in any case end up paying more.

Secondly, ministers fear that slowly, but surely, the Conservative Party is starting to look ungovernable, at least in coalition. While they accept Mr Cameron’s management of his party has been patchy, they beliece voters will take a dim view of a party that appears increasingly divided. Much as Labour delighted in pointing out, last night’s vote had unhappy echoes of Sir John Major’s battles over Maastricht in the early 1990s. As Conservative MP Gavin Barwell is saying this morning, the prospect of leading a Tory government with a small majority must look less attractive than ever for Mr Cameron.

The result will, however, prompt fresh questions about the Prime Minister’s political operation, which has again been badly exposed. It is nothing short of a disaster for the new Chief Whip, Sir George Young, who was recalled to the Cabinet less than two weeks ago when Andrew Mitchell quit over his altercation with Downing Street police officers. Sir George, whose job is to ensure discipline among Tory MPs, now holds the unenviable record of having lost his first vote in Parliament more quickly than any of his predecessors.

Thirdly, there are implications for Labour, too. A small but increasingly vocal tendency led by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls is urging a more sceptical position on Europe. They will be emboldened. The party’s fanatically pro-EU Blairite wing, however, is privately horrified by Ed Miliband’s stance. Margaret Hodge, rejuvenated as chair of the public accounts committee, was apparently heard denouncing Labour's position in lurid terms last night. The opposition now faces two big questions: will it support a British veto next month, and how will it vote to bring down the EU budget if Mr Cameron returns with a freeze rather than a cut?

More broadly, Britain appears increasingly disconnected from other EU members. All other member states seem ready to accept at least a cash increase in the budget, even if others, including Holland and Cyprus, may support one that is below inflation.

The difficult truth for Mr Cameron is that increasing numbers of his backbenchers would be happy with nothing less than a 100 per cent cut in contributions to Brussels. And that could only come with Britain’s exit from the EU.

www.twitter.com/jameschappers

 

 

 

Theresa May's had the best fortnight of any minister in the coaliton - but could she really lead her party?

by James Chapman

‘She’s got no friends.’ ‘She doesn’t play the game.’ ‘What does she really believe in?’

Those are some of the (exclusively male) responses I’ve had today to the suggestion that Theresa May has quietly established herself as a leading candidate to succeed David Cameron, if things were to unravel for the Prime Minister sooner rather than later.

The Home Secretary is something of an enigma to many at Westminster. She is defiantly unclubbable, if quietly engaging company once you get to know her. Unlike other leadership hopefuls, she does not surround herself with acolytes. There is no ‘Team May’. She rarely strays from her brief, meaning her views on many of the big issues of the day are unknown.

Yet she has succeeded where many female politicians have failed. Only the fourth woman ever to occupy a great office of state, she makes the Home Office, a political graveyard for most of her Labour predecessors, look like a walk in the park. Unlike some of her male counterparts, she is steely and unflappable at the despatch box, appearing to rise to moments of crisis. Yvette Cooper, herself tipped as a future party leader only six months ago, is frankly floundering against Mrs May. She has yet to lay a glove on her.

The Home Secretary was one of very few ministers singled out for praise by David Cameron in his conference speech last week. ‘For years people asked why we couldn't get rid of those radical preachers who spout hatred about Britain while living off the taxpayer,’ the Prime Minister said. ‘Well, Theresa May - a great Home Secretary - has done it - and she's got Abu Hamza on that plane and out of our country to face justice.’ Since then, Mrs May has delighted Tory backbenches by indicating that she intends to opt out of 130 EU crime and justice powers. Today, she surprised even the most senior of her colleagues by blocking the extradition of Asperger’s sufferer Gary McKinnon, a decision we are told she took ‘alone, and at the dead of night’.

It all adds up to probably the best fortnight for any minister since the coalition was formed. Could she then lead her party one day? It’s largely forgotten that Mrs May flirted with a leadership campaign in 2005, but abandoned it after failing to garner sufficient Parliamentary support.

Don’t rule out another attempt. Sadly, Michael Gove is beginning to convince with his protestations that he simply does not want, ever, to be leader. Alan Johnson demonstrated that whatever a politician’s attributes, those who repeatedly suggest that they’d have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the top job rarely get there. George Osborne’s fate appears tied to that of Mr Cameron. Whether or not his private life could withstand the scrutiny of the Number Ten goldfish bowl, Boris Johnson pledged last week not to return to the Commons until after his second term as mayor ends in 2016. If Mr Cameron fails to win a majority in 2015, the Tory party may need a new leader before then. William Hague, the traditional ‘if Dave falls under a bus’ candidate, is unlikely to fancy a second stint as leader of the opposition in such circumstances.

Mrs May could count on the support this time on a good number of the new Tory women, who think Labour’s next leader is likely to be of the fairer sex and the future at Westminster is female. She is someone the Lib Dems could work with in a future coalition. One commentator hailed her this afternoon as Britain’s answer to Angela Merkel. I wonder, is Mrs May starting to wonder?

www.twitter.com/jameschappers

 

 

Is this the worst press release ever written?

By Tim Shipman

We Lobby hacks are by definition and design jacks of all trades, some of us master of none.

We all have our areas of interest and specialism where we can be expected to have followed the minutiae of events in a given field to some degree.

But most of us in most areas are reliant on receiving simple, clear information from government departments, special advisers, MPs and pressure groups.

Most regard it as a badge of pride that they can deliver coherent, clear facts that might be communicated by busy journalists to a public and readership that may not be as obsessed by their particular corner of the world as they are.

Which brings me to this.

I have just received what may be the worst and most incomprehensible press release I have ever been sent in 14 years of journalism.

Some in Whitehall will regard printing this self-regarding, self-obsessed gibberish in full as an act of war. But if it makes the Plain English campaign fire an exocet in the general direction of the Department for the Environment then all the better.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the worst press release of the day, perhaps any day.

It's all here. Failing to say what the story is. Failing to explain what the 'Aichi targets' are. Baffling acronyms ('COP11', anyone?). Jargon (all of it).

The only thing that can be firmy established from this press release is that Richard Benyon is delighted to be in Hyderabad.

Press officers be warned. Clean up your acts, or we will make a habit of this...

"Please find a Defra press notice below.

High Level Panel on Global Assessment of Resources for Biodiversity releases first findings

The joint UK and Indian sponsored independent panel of experts has concluded that a stronger policy framework which reflects the value of biodiversity in all decision making is vital to secure the Aichi targets.

The High Level Panel on the ‘Global Assessment of Resources for Implementing the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020’ released its first findings at ‘COP 11’ of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) today. The Panel, chaired by eminent Indian economist, Pavan Sukhdev, was established to help understand the global resource requirements for the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, including the Aichi targets.

The Panel’s assessment, which is the first of its kind, provides an insight into the resources needed to meet the 20 international "Aichi" biodiversity targets agreed at the last Conference of the Parties in Nagoya, Japan in 2010. The Panel’s findings are underpinned by detailed research looking at the actions needed to meet each specific target and the potential resources required.

Speaking in Hyderabad, UK Minister for the Natural Environment Richard Benyon, and Indian Minister for Environment and Forests Jayanthi Natarajan both warmly welcomed the work of the Panel.

Minister Jayanthi Natarajan, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Environment and Forests, Government of India and CBD CoP-11 President said:

"The decisions that CoP-11 takes in Hyderabad will lay the foundation for achieving the Aichi targets so as to ensure that by 2020 ecosystems are resilient and continue to provide essential services, thereby securing the planet’s variety of life, contributing to human well-being and poverty eradication, provided sustained and focused efforts are made by all stakeholders".

UK Environment Minister Mr Benyon said:

"I am delighted to be here in Hyderabad at this conference talking about biodiversity, which is a significant issue for the entire world.

"The Panel which the UK and India have established together has shown how important it is to mobilize resources of every kind – human, technical and financial, both public and private - in order to achieve the challenging targets we set ourselves at Nagoya.

"We are very grateful to the members of the Panel for their hard work in producing this report and are keen to examine how we can build on their findings".

Pavan Sukhdev in his presentation said:

"Whilst there are some big numbers in this report, our panel found that the greatest resource needs are around reducing the direct drivers of biodiversity, those which occur throughout our economies and societies, and those which – if addressed – will deliver benefits far beyond biodiversity, to human health, livelihoods, and sustainable development based on a healthier and more secure natural environment. In this context they should not be seen as a bill to the biodiversity community, but a call for action to develop our institutions and governance structures to ensure biodiversity is taken into account in decisions in all sectors of our society."

Notes to Editor:

1. The full report can be found at http://www.cbd.int/financial/hlp-gar/

2. Key findings from the interim report:

• Implementation and delivery of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets require the development of an appropriate and coherent political and institutional framework, and strong political will, particularly at national and regional levels.
• Investment in ‘natural capital’ will deliver significant co-benefits for sustainable development. Expenditure to meet the Aichi Biodiversity Targets should be recognised as part of wider investment needs for promoting sustainable development.
• Existing evidence suggests that benefits are likely to significantly outweigh costs. Without immediate action, the social and economic costs of biodiversity loss and the loss of ecosystem services will be felt at an accelerating rate in the future and will limit growth and stability. Investments made now will reduce resource requirements in the future.
• There are clear differences in the relative scale of investment required to deliver the various Targets. In addition, the investment needed to deliver a Target is not necessarily correlated to its importance. Some Targets which require relatively little investment are actually crucial in helping to deliver other Targets. Some may seem less resource-intensive, but could be more difficult to achieve, particularly if they require changes in institutions, policies, priorities, attitudes and behaviour. The scales of investment can be broadly summarised as:

1. Significant investment required: For those Targets specifically aimed at addressing the drivers of biodiversity loss and ecosystem restoration, the required total global investment over the period 2013 to 2020 is in the order of several hundreds of billions of (US) dollars. Targets in this group fall under Strategic Goals B and D (excluding Target 16).
2. Moderate investment required: Targets associated with required conservation work will require total global investment over the period 2013 to 2020 in the order of hundreds of billions of (US) dollars for Target 11 (i.e. establishing and maintaining protected areas) and in the order of tens of billions of (US) dollars for the other Targets of Strategic Goal C.
3. Low investment required: Targets related to improving and creating necessary enabling conditions are likely to be much less resource-intensive. For these Targets, the total global investment needs over the period 2013 to 2020 will more likely be in the order of billions of (US) dollars. These Targets mostly relate to Strategic Goals A and E, as well as Target 16.
4. Many factors affect the magnitude of the estimates of the total investment and ongoing expenditure needed to achieve each of the Targets. These include the scope of the actions and activities identified for each Target and the potential synergies among Targets as well as uncertainties arising from limitations in data and methodologies.

• There are many inter-linkages and co-dependencies to consider, both between the Targets themselves, and between the Targets and other national policy goals. The investment needs of one Target will often be influenced by the approach, resourcing and effectiveness of the delivery of others. Understanding these inter-linkages and co-dependencies across Targets and between Targets and policy goals for poverty alleviation, human health, agriculture, freshwater, desertification, fisheries, etc, is important in order to prioritise action and should be considered a crucial area for further work.
• Funding from a diverse range of international and national sources, and across different policy areas, is required to secure the full range of economic and social benefits to be gained from meeting the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Sources of financing will include a wide range of public funding and development of innovative measures and conservation incentives such as payments for ecosystem services (PES), conservation agreements, water fees, forest carbon offsets, and green fiscal policies, as well as private sector investment.
• Further research and analysis is vital to help further develop and refine these estimates."