Conservatives

Elizabeth Rigby Will Thatcher memories drive Tory voters to Ukip?

April 10, 2013 2:23 pm by Elizabeth Rigby
Nigel Farage signs a book of condolence for Margaret Thatcher

Nigel Farage signs a book of condolence for Margaret Thatcher

Tories will not be thinking much about next month’s local elections as they gather in parliament to partake in collective mourning over the death of Margaret Thatcher.

The danger for David Cameron is that the wave of nostalgia for her will only serve to divide his party even more, when he needs it the least. As Lynton Crosby remarks, divided parties don’t win elections. And the infighting within the Tories over the past year is doing little more than help push their supporters into the arms of Ukip.

Cameron’s initial fightback against the rise of Nigel Farage’s party came in January with the promise of a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. Read more

Tags: , ,
Posted in Conservatives, UK politics |

Margaret Thatcher dies, 87

April 8, 2013 1:46 pm by Lina Saigol
This is a Live Blog transcript. Read more

Lady Thatcher, Conservative prime minister from 1979 to 1990, has died following a stroke. She was Britain’s first and only female prime minister and her economic and political legacy has resounded across the world. FT reporters Lina Saigol and Hannah Kuchler follow the global reaction.

 

Posted in Conservatives, UK politics |

Kiran Stacey The English want benefit cuts, the Scottish less so

April 4, 2013 4:37 pm by Kiran Stacey

Job Centre

I was interested to read the piece by Alex Massie in this morning’s Scotsman, in which he argued:

Scots may take an even tougher line on welfare than voters elsewhere in the UK… Visit any working-class pub in Scotland and you will hear opinions that make IDS seem like Polly Toynbee.

If this is true, it makes the SNP position problematic. The party has consistently opposed the coalition’s welfare cuts, and when Johann Lamont, Labour’s Scottish leader, suggested axing certain universal benefits, such as free prescriptions, the SNP called it her “speech of madness”.

So what does the polling suggest? A fairly comprehensive look shows us two things: 1) Scottish voters are less hostile to the welfare system than elsewhere in the UK; but 2) they remain in favour of benefit cuts. Read more

Tags: , ,
Posted in Conservatives, Treasury, UK economy |

Kiran Stacey Tory MPs voice concerns over Leveson deal

March 18, 2013 5:22 pm by Kiran Stacey

David Cameron is currently leading a debate in the Commons over the deal struck late last night to regulate the press with a Royal Charter. That debate has so far been characterised by a great deal of backslapping by all three party leaders, to the extent that Nick Clegg joked:

If all three parties behave like this after the general election, they’ll have problems fitting us all into Downing Street.

He had a slightly tougher time however when trying to explain the measures to the parliamentary Tory party, which met before the debate started. Read more

Tags:
Posted in Conservatives, David Cameron, UK politics |

Kiran Stacey Just how unpopular is George Osborne?

March 14, 2013 4:27 pm by Kiran Stacey

George OsborneSome fascinating economic research by Ipsos Mori, published today, shows that George Osborne is the least popular chancellor in nearly a decade, with net approval ratings of -33. Nobody has had such bad ratings since Ken Clarke in the early 1990s.

At first sign this is unsurprising: this is the first recession we’ve had since the early 1990s (if you take 2008-now as one recession). But actually when you plot the popularity of chancellor’s against economic growth, the two are surprisingly unconnected.

Plotting chancellors’ approval ratings since 1976 tells us a few things: Read more

Tags: ,
Posted in Conservatives, Recession, UK economy, UK politics |

Kiran Stacey PMQs: Miliband had all the ingredients and made Cameron mincemeat

March 13, 2013 1:19 pm by Kiran Stacey

Sometimes when a leader of the opposition has a lot of different attacks to make on a prime minister at PMQs, they try to spread themselves too thinly and end up not hitting home with any of their pre-prepared lines.

Not so today. Ed Miliband was faced with a choice selection of easy pickings with which to attack the prime minister, and blended them together perfectly to leave David Cameron looking red-faced and ineffectual.

The Labour leader began with an uncharacteristically well-delivered joke about the apparent u-turn on minimum alcohol pricing: Read more

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

Kiran Stacey Tory MPs lash out at Welby

March 12, 2013 11:36 am by Kiran Stacey

Justin Welby outside the LordsThis morning we reported in the FT that bishops in the House of Lords are leading an attempt to exempt children from the below-inflation rise in benefits. This follows on from the comments of Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, over the weekend, who said:

By protecting children from the effects of this bill, they can help fulfil their commitment to end child poverty.

But just as interesting as the bishops’ response to government attempts to slash the welfare bill has been the reaction of Tory MPs to the archbishop’s comments. Read more

Tags: , ,
Posted in Conservatives, Treasury, UK politics |

Elizabeth Rigby Evidence for Theresa May’s leadership bid

March 11, 2013 5:03 pm by Elizabeth Rigby

Theresa MayTwitter was awash with “TM4PM” frenzy over the weekend after Theresa May delivered a speech to the ConservativeHome 2015 Victory conference that carried the undertones of a leadership bid.

The home secretary used the gathering of Conservative activists to sketch out her vision of Conservatism, just in case David Cameron’s one doesn’t wash with voters in 2015. She went far beyond her remit as she floated the idea of profit-making schools and a comprehensive industrial strategy.

Tim Montgomerie, ConHome’s founder and editor who has just been appointed the Times’s comment editor, was quick to calm the hype. He pointed out that May had agreed to speak at the event last November, quashing any talk of a post-Eastleigh leadership push. He also said May was loyal to Cameron and that her loyalty was one of her best qualities. Read more

Tags:
Posted in Conservatives, David Cameron, UK politics |

Kiran Stacey IDS concedes on ‘bedroom tax’

March 11, 2013 4:20 pm by Kiran Stacey

Labour continues to pile the pressure onto Iain Duncan Smith over reductions in housing benefit to those who have one or more spare bedrooms in their social housing. At DWP questions today, Labour MP after Labour MP stood up to ask a question about what they call the “bedroom tax” (Tories hate the label but their “spare room subsidy” label misses the point).

Amid the barrage of questions, it became clear that DWP is about to offer a concession. IDS told the Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland that guidance would be going out to councils tomorrow about what they can do for severely disabled children. Read more

Tags: ,
Posted in Coalition, Conservatives, Treasury, UK politics |

Nigel Farage’s secret supper with Murdoch

March 8, 2013 10:32 am by Hannah Kuchler

Ukip leader Nigel Farage has arrived. His invitation to dinner with Rupert Murdoch on Tuesday was almost as much of a sign of his growing political influence as the eurosceptic party’s strong showing in the Eastleigh by-election last week.

Farage has confirmed he did indeed dine with the media mogul at Murdoch’s London flat but has refused to give any clues about what was said. However, the Daily Telegraph writes he suggested he would form an electoral pact with the Conservatives if Cameron stepped down. Read more

Tags: , ,
Posted in Conservatives, David Cameron, Europe, Media, UK politics |

Elizabeth Rigby Puttnam could kill libel reform

March 6, 2013 6:49 pm by Elizabeth Rigby

A few weeks ago over a long lunch, a senior Tory warned that Cameron was going to end up cornered over press reform after Lord Puttnam rather unhelpfully decided to add Leveson-friendly amendments into the defamation bill.

The person said the amendment to introduce a cheap arbitration service between newspapers and the public meant that Leveson could end up being “put into law through the back door”. He added:

It is going to cause Cameron a huge problem when the bill comes back to the Commons.

 Read more

Tags: ,
Posted in Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, UK politics |

Kiran Stacey Stopping benefit tourism: what can be done? UPDATED

March 5, 2013 11:33 am by Kiran Stacey

I’ve updated this post at the bottom in light of this afternoon’s parliamentary debate on the issue.

As the Tories contemplate the fallout from coming third in the Eastleigh byelection, different ministers have been floating different ideas for recapturing the votes lost to Ukip. One such idea is banning newly-arrived migrants from accessing certain benefits and NHS services.

Polls suggest immigration is a major reason for voters choosing Ukip, and Conservatives worry that trend will only accelerate when limits on movement from Bulgaria and Romania to elsewhere in the EU are removed.

A cabinet sub-committee has been convened to look into the policy options, but in the face of EU rules forbidding discrimination between citizens of different European countries, is there anything they can do, or is this empty populist rhetoric? Read more

Tags: ,
Posted in Conservatives, David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Europe, UK economy, UK politics |
BackOlder entries
Newer entries